Hi all,

We wanted to jump in here before May got away from us to update y'all on a few things since our last update.

Production
As last month's "Whoa whoa, slow down, partner!" post regarding tariffs, we have decided to move forward with production after all! Our original production partner on this game, Panda Game Manufacturing, will be getting the files this month, with the hope that we can fulfill backers and release into the retail wilds this fall. We did investigate other quotes from manufacturers in Europe and in the US (such as there are), but, even with the onerous Chinese tariffs in place at the moment, manufacturing with Panda remains the cheapest, best quality option for us.

In terms of how tariffs might affect US-based backers of Keep the Faith, we have not locked in any decisions about that yet. We are still actively exploring options for mitigating the effects of the tariffs on our US-based backers. We'll let you know as we get closer to collecting shipping in the pledge manager, but we don't expect it to affect shipping costs extensively.   

Pledge Manager and Surveys
Now that we are moving forward on manufacturing, it's time to get the pledge manager in order. You should see the Preorder Store in Backerkit open up next week. Surveys from Backerkit will be off to you by the end of May. And, once again, we'll be collecting shipping costs closer to fulfillment. We'll send out an update about each of these steps as they go live.

Game Manual Preprint
Here's a preprint draft version of the Keep the Faith game manual for you to check out: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gieFSPv8OwLxKH2HqJotRVV6FKGIOZAP/view?usp=sharing. 

Let us know if you see any problems accessing the file or if you see any typos/issues (always good to have extra eyes on things). There are a few things in this draft that are a little out of date. For instance, as we have been finalizing things, we decided to shift the first player token into a card, but we haven't made the change to reflect that in the game manual yet. We're also still mucking around with font sizes and placement in the example setup images. 

Spring's heating up here in the Northern Hemisphere. Stay cool, everyone!

Dear Backers, 

 

We had hoped this announcement would be something like, "yay we are in manufacturing!" But it isn't. In part, we had planned to submit the game for manufacturing last week, but illness among a number of our team members delayed our submission. This delay may have been a good thing. With the announcement of the new tariffs, we are delaying the submission of the files a little longer. Mainly, we are trying to determine the best way to get the game to you with the least financial impact on all of us. This may mean changing our manufacturer or making other adjustments to help reduce our internal costs (this won’t be a job; more questions of warehousing, shipping, and/or packaging of the game, to name a few examples). We may have to ask you all to help cover part or all of the tariff. Before we do that, we want to analyze our options as we know money is tight for many people. Regardless, we are excited to keep this project moving forward! We hope to have an update about our progress in the next few weeks. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding in these matters.  

 

Spread the word, Keep the Faith is coming,

 

Central Michigan University Press Team.