End of 2025 Update and Community Survey! (+ Final Shipping Update)
Hey y'all! Nora here!
You can expect this to be the last update on Despair Dilemma until we have another project ready for crowdfunding, and we wanted to take this chance to give an overall update on the year! We have a more detailed EoY wrap up in our discord server going over everything if you want more details - but we decided to keep this one brief!
Despair Dilemma is Shipped Out!!
Firstly, we wanted to let you know that Despair Dilemma is entirely shipped out and we've gotten confirmation that at least some number of books have successfully crossed the border into the USA despite the issues we were having earlier. We have discovered a slight issue with some backers receiving their second tracking codes, so if you haven't received one please feel free to get in touch with me so I can send it your way.
There have also been some delays due to the holiday season, so we're sorry if you don't get your copy until the new year.
With that said, we can finally wrap a bow on this project, at least for now!!
What's Coming Next?
People keeping an eye on the projects we've been playtesting will already know about Mugen Taikai, a drafting autobattler card game we've designed to replicate the experience of a shonen battle tournament and TCG draft in less then an hour! We're happy to announce that the game has been signed on by Level 99 Games, the team behind Millennium Blades and BattleCON. They'll be finishing the development, while we work on other projects! If you've played their games in the past, you'll know this is something to be excited about.
Speaking of, we've been hired on by their team to develop a TTRPG set in their World of Indines universe. This is incredibly exciting for us as huge fans of the setting. Most of the work for this game has already been done, but we'll be finalizing and refining things in the background over the next year or so. I hope you'll be there to see how things turn out!
We cant share many more details on either project for now, but keep an eye out for further updates in 2026!
We Want to Hear From You
Other then those projects, we have a lot of ideas for things we want to work on. Last year, to help us make decisions, we did a consumer survey to find out what people in our audience would be most interested in us doing.
These were never a promise of course, and we don't believe in working on something we're not passionate about (I don't think you can make something good in the way we do if you're not). But they did help us a lot in making decisions and understanding how feasible certain projects might be.
So for 2026, especially since our audience has grown so much since that point, we wanted to set up another one:https://forms.gle/sRADTBSWPqYwkPDG8
All of the questions are optional, so don't feel too stressed about answering everything. That said, we want to hear from you! If you have any questions, we have a "Survey Discussion" channel open in our community discord.
I'm happy to announce, that after some frustration with US shipping, we've none the less successfully gotten all orders ready! They're currently sitting in front of our apartment ready for the postage team to come and pick them up on Monday morning! Here's a photo from my sister, who just received her copy last week!
We may be tactically smoke testing a small number of these first just to make absolutely sure that there are no issues crossing the border this time, but for the time being - everything is done! We will have everything shipped out easily before the end of the year, and while it may take some time to get to your location depending on the circumstances, you should already have your tracking number!
If you have any errors, damages, or other issues, please refer to our guide from Update #5 on what to do. We do ask that if you haven't received your tracking code to please give your email a double check before getting in touch with us, just for the sake of saving us time. We do understand that there's likely to be some number of errors given we're a small team and new to this scale of shipping, so we've prepared ahead with enough resources to get you anything you missed out on.
What's Next?
For the most part, this is the signal that the campaign is finally at its final stage of fulfillment. Many of you may have seen the somewhat viral video from Saeiouth pitching our previous Perfect Draw!, and admittedly this has kept us fairly busy for the last few days alongside getting shipping done. Myself and Iris will be taking a well needed break over the holiday season, but you should probably expect at least one more update around the end of the year confirming that things have gone well.
With that said, at the end of fulfillment for our last project, we also did a Consumer Survey that helped us figure out what to work on next. This was a chance for backers and fans of our projects to share their insights into what projects we've been working on behind the scenes that they'd be interested in. Of course, we believe keenly that good games are made by people who are passionate about their subject-matter, so we aren't going to do just about anything. But we have a lot of ideas and betas brewing so it's helpful to do things like this every once in a while to guide us. Most likely you can expect this in the next update we mentioned earlier.
We're already publicly playtesting some of the projects from the last survey in the Discord server if that interests you at all! We may actually have some exciting news regarding one of these projects and what we'll be dedicating a good portion of our dev time to soon. But I can't reveal anything for the time being.
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In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely holiday season! Best wishes, Nora Jean Haynes
Our work on shipping everything out is going well! Australian Backers have started receiving their packages, and global backers are starting to be shipped to their location.
With that said, we've hit a small snag with United States shipping. Due to an error with Zonos, a tool used by our postal service to pay the new tariffs to the USA, a majority of US orders have been returned to sender. This means delays to the shipments of packages to the states as we:
Wait for the packages to return
Submit refunding requests
Print new labels
And send everything back off
We'll also need to be 100% sure that the integration is set up properly this time before sending anything off.
What does this mean for you? Ideally not much. However, it does mean:
Your package will get shipped off later then we hoped
If you've been sent a tracking code, that it is no longer correct. You may receive an email letting you know the package has been returned to sender, but you'll need to wait for a new tracking code to know when your package will actually arrive.
Some of you will have already started getting tracking codes from us for your copy of Despair Dilemma! We wanted to wait and make sure things where going smoothly before making this update properly, but we've shipped out about 20% of orders!!
This should represent almost all Australian/New Zealand backers and a portion of US backers. We're hoping to get the rest of the 80% done over the next couple weeks, but resourcing this as two people in our living room can be inconsistent, so we're not going to make any promises. With that said, we'll do everything in our power to make sure that everything is shipped off before the end of 2025 at the least.
Please note that if you're in a more niche area without a lot of other backers or from somewhere with more complicated customs systems (such as the UK), we'll likely be completing your orders around the end of the process. Additionally, we processed our orders around the start of November, so if you added your address or finalized payment after that time, we'll be reprocessing those orders after the rest have been completed.
The actual time to get to your address will depend on your region, but you should get an estimate from AusPost when you receive your tracking number from them.
What to Do in the Case of Errors or Damages
Now, myself and Iris are doing this by hand ourselves, and while we're doing our best to keep everything tracked, double checked, and correct - it's likely that there will be some number of errors. That's even before we get into possible issues occurring during shipping or printing errors unique to your copy of the game.
We've made sure to order about 20% more of each of the book, playing card deck, and perspective markers then we needed to make sure that in the case of these sorts of errors we can provide you with a replacement.
If you receive your copy and:
Your package is missing one of your rewards
One or more items has been damaged during travel
One or more items have significant printing errors
then please get in touch with me at [email protected] with a photo and any relevant information about your order.
If you don't receive your copy for a significant time after receiving your tracking number, then we request that you please get in touch with the shipping company first to make sure this isn't an expected delay of some kind. Especially as we're hitting the holiday periods, there are likely to be some amount of back up that will cause delays. If they're not able to help, please feel free to get in touch with me afterwards.
Once we believe we've shipped out everything, we'll make an update to let you know. If you still haven't received a tracking number by that point, you should get in touch with me and I'll check what's happened or if you've slipped through the cracks. There should be a good number of extra copies in the worst case that we can use to resolve problems.
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Thank you for your time, Nora Jean Haynes
P.S. When you receive your copy, we'd love for you to share it with us on our Discord Server! Its always a joyful experience for us to see people with their copies in their hands after so much work getting it done! When you do! Let us know if you're okay with us sharing your photo in a future update like this also!
Yesterday morning, we finally received the pallets from the factory with all of the copies of Despair Dilemma!! We've opened a few copies on our end to make sure everything is up to the standards we expect - and as far as we can tell everything is perfect! The book feels great to read through and it's brilliant to finally have this in our hands.
Fans of our previous crowdfunding project Perfect Draw! will be happy to know that we've set things up so the spines of each book line up with each other. While the variance present in any book printing means that it's likely it won't line up *perfectly*, I can promise you that the shared spine designs look great next to each other on a shelf.
Next Steps
For us, the next step is just going to be getting the books shipped off to you all! The books came a bit earlier then we expected, so we're still locking everyone's addresses in the back end, but once that's done - we'll start our next few weekends of getting everything sorted properly into your orders and sending them off.
Most likely we'll be sending these off roughly by region - so for example, you should expect most books in the USA to be delivered with each other. If you had any issues with your survey, now's the time to make sure it's all resolved! We'll do our best to get the books to you so long as you get your survey done and card charged, but it's likely you'll face some amount of delays if things don't get resolved soon.
You can expect our next update post to come once we've sent out the first set of copies (probably to Australia first since that'll be the easiest for us).
-- Thank you all greatly and have a fantastic rest of the week! Nora Haynes
Error Fix: Digital Backers Asked for Shipping Payments
Hey All!
Just coming in with a quick hot fix update as we start locking down orders: A few backers reported that they where being asked to pay for shipping despite being a digital backer. This shouldnt be happening and we got in contact with Backerkit to see what was going on. It took us a bit of investigating, but we've found the problem.
Digital backers who also backed our collab partner IT LURKS INSIDE where incorrectly given a Perspective Marker. This incentive was supposed to only go to people who had backed both projects on a physical level - but an error resulted in digital backers getting it also. This effected about ~30 of our backer overall.
For now, we've removed the perspective marker from all digital only orders. However, we feel bad about taking it away from people who could still want it - so if you're one of those digital only backers and you still want the perspective marker, you can contact me at continuityOfficer@gmail(.)com! Let me know, and I can personally add it back to your order. Depending on your region, it's likely that I'll also be able to vastly decrease the shipping cost as our shipping calculations assumed the book or atleast playing card deck was the minimum someone would have in their order.
After a lot of hard work we're finally ready to release the final* version of Despair Dilemma on itch!! I'll go into the details on how you can download your copy in a bit - but before I do, I just wanted to say a heartfelt thanks to everyone here once again for all of the incredible support you've given us. There's still a bit to go with getting everything printed and sent out, but now we can say that most of the legwork is done!
Despair Dilemma Release Update
Most of the changes made to the book where focused on finalizing and cleaning up the book. Iris gave the whole thing a proper set of edits to make sure there were no errors, and we cleaned up the image quality to make sure everything looked good in the PDF. With that said, there are a couple new things of note:
L’ombra del Coniglio has been added as a new Death Game Sheet by Little Lab Design. This sheet focuses on making it difficult to find the culprit of wrongdoings by having every character turn into identical rabbits each night.
Because a few of our Friends of Usashi backers were unable to complete their surveys, we've added two new Characters at the end of the Special Victims List. We'll replace these when we get the chance if the backers complete their surveys - but for now feel free to use Double Summon and Usashi when rolling on the Special Victims List.
How to Download Your Copy of Despair Dilemma
We want to make sure you get your digital copy of Despair Dilemma no matter your experience and preferences, so we've set up three ways you can get access to your copy:
Use Our Backer Access Link: If you follow this link here ( https://noorasphere.itch.io/despair-dilemma/backer-access ), you'll be sent to a special Itch.io page where you can tie a copy of the game to your account and download it there. Please note that the email address associated with your itch account WILL need to match the email address associated with your backerkit account, including all character case. If your itch account doesn't match, be sure to add the matching address in the "Additional Emails" section of your settings.
Download it From BackerKit: You should receive an email sometime today with a direct download of the final copy of the book. This will be done in the same way as the prototype PDFs, so if you're uncomfortable setting up an Itch.io account, this is the best way for you to get your book.
Wait For Your Itch Access Email: Sometime in the next couple weeks you'll receive an email with a direct link to download Despair Dilemma from Itch.io itself. This takes some time as itch needs to confirm we aren't sending spam - but once you receive the email you'll be able to assign the book to any itch account and download it from there.
We do encourage you to use one of the methods that assign your game to an itch account, since that way you'll be able to download any future updates if we make them in the near or distant future.
If you have any other issues, please contact me at [email protected] or get in touch with BackerKit support. It's very possible that there are some technical issues, so please let us know if so.
Bleeding Heart Community Drive
Thanks to the efforts of everyone who supported us in the crowdfunding campaign and included it as add-ons in the pledge manager, I'm happy to say we earned an incredible 245 Community Copies of Despair Dilemma ready to be given to people in need!! There isn't much more to say other than that this is absolutely incredible, and we really hope people enjoy the game.
What's Coming Next (Printing the Books)
Now that we've finished with the digital version of Despair Dilemma, the next step is to get printing started on both it and its add-ons. If you saw the last update, then you'll know that we've changed printing plans to keep costs down amid increased volatility and will be printing and shipping everything out locally from Australia. This will increase the time it takes to be delivered, but also make it possible for us to keep costs down for the majority of our backers.
As is, we're now able to open up Final Shipping Costs in the Pledge Manager. We won't be charging cards or finalizing addresses for some time still (around when we make the orders for the books), but you can go through and confirm your address and shipping whenever you like. You should receive an email about this from BackerKit some time in the next week with all of the details.
For us, the next step is ordering test copies of the physical book and add-ons from our manufacturers. Once we have those on hand, we'll give everything a final check and make sure there are no errors in the printing files that effect the final product. We don't yet know how long this will take - but we'll be sure to keep you all updated as everything happens.
If we make any changes to the book itself when we go through this update, we'll update the Itch version to match.
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Thank you all so much for your time and happy death gaming! Nora Jean Haynes
Now that cards have cleared, we're able to share with you the first version of the Prototype PDF!! You can download it now by going to the "Backer Exclusive Content" section under this update - if you're seeing this over email, then you'll need to click through to see that backer exclusive content.
What's In the Prototype PDF
We believe in getting our backers something that we know is interesting before doing the crowdfunding campaign. To ensure that, we make sure our projects are content complete and playable before planning funding. Here's a breakdown of how complete everything in the book is:
Core Gameplay (100% - COMPLETE)
Playtesting (80%)
Non-Essential Writing (60%)
Stretch Goals:
Modules:
Solo Rules (80%)
Special Character Arcs (20% - Not Included)
Death Game Sheet Collaborations:
Backers (80% - Not Included)
Rippile (70% - Not Included)
Tokimekiwaku (30% - Not Included)
Little Lab Design (20% - Not Included)
Viveros (50% - Not Included)
Jun Kakeru (5% - Not Included)
Typo/Grammar Fixes (30%)
Art Assets (20%)
Formatting and Design (40%)
Appendix / Rules Resources (10%)
Print Assets (15%)
Currently, the PDF is 102 pages (including the cover), but based on our current estimates, you should expect the final version to be between 134 and 152 pages depending on how much space rules resources take up.
What/When to Expect (in) the Next Update
We're currently planning to release an update to the prototype PDF every two weeks - give or take a couple days depending on the local situation and amount of work we've been able to do. This next update will be distributed through the Pledge Manager, and that means you'll need to complete your pledge manager to access the next update.
As for what you can expect to be included in the next update:
Updates to formatting and art assets.
Complete versions of both the Backer Death Game (The Purgatory Express) and Rippile's Death Game (Lockdown Livestream).
Updates to existing content based on further playtesting and feedback.
Additional rules resources and non-essential writing like the "Who is Usashi" section.
I've Noticed an Error / Want to Give Feedback
Brilliant! We're a small team and it's impossible for us to catch everything. Your feedback, whether it's about a gameplay issue, unclarified detail, or typo - is something we value deeply. If you want to give feedback, the best place to do so is through our Discord server. We'll be opening a "Feedback and Errors" channel in the coming days where you can submit issues so we can resolve them between updates.
A Note on Tariffs
As many of you are very aware, the US Government has recently instituted some very heavy tarrifs on shipments from out of the country. Compared to other companies in the field, we're in a rather lucky situation since we have plenty of time to adapt and plan to these changes. We're doing our best to find ways we can avoid the impact of these costs. However, this is a continually updating situation and it's difficult to know exactly what the future will look like. We'll keep in touch with you all and update you so we can figure out what's best. It may mean some additional shipping costs or delays on production depending on what we can sort out, but we want to make that as minimal as possible.
-- Thank you for your time and I hope you have a fantastic time playing Despair Dilemma!! Nora Jean Haynes
It's about halfway through the final day of the crowdfunding campaign, and things are going fantastically. We'll be able to get you the prototype PDFs soon, and then you'll be able to get started playing right away!! We're really excited to see what you all think. I won't actually be awake for the last few hours, but if you want to celebrate with us, Iris will be active on the Discord Server here.
You can expect the proper update celebrating the end tomorrow morning (Australian time). With that all said, we have one more exciting reveal before we go.
Unlocked: Death Game Sheet by Jun Kakeru
With a matter of hours left, we've reached the final stretch goal we had originally planned for the book! We'll be commissioning Jun Kakeru, developer of Yet Another Killing Game, to make a Death Game Sheet! If you've played their game, then you already know just how deeply they understand the genre.
We don't yet know what they have planned, but we can expect the same kind of genre savvy to make its impact on Despair Dilemma!! I hope you'll keep an eye out, we'll let you know more as soon as we have the information.
One Last Stretch Goal: The Monster's Rage as a Plot Book
When we unlocked the "Special Character Arcs" stretch goal, me and Iris started experimenting with some designs we'd wanted to work on. As we kept working on it, we realized that one of these designs - "The Monster" - would fit perfectly as its own Plot Book! Based on the kinds of Death Games you see most often in RPG Maker Horror Games, this plot book (currently named "The Monster's Rage") would put you in control of a rampaging monster on its way to kill as many people as possible.
Similar to The Detective's Trial and The Mastermind's Mask, this would be another Plot Book where you make a special character you have more control over, but this time you would be able to much more directly cause harm to everyone else (similar to The Massacre's Edge).
Given how little time we have left, reaching this goal is a little ambitious, but even if we fail it - we'll still be including our original plan of fulfilling this concept with a Character Arc. If you know anyone who could possibly be interested in Despair Dilemma - now's the best time to tell them!
-- Thank you all so much for your time and support! Nora Jean Haynes
You can expect this to be the last update on Despair Dilemma until we have another project ready for crowdfunding, and we wanted to take this chance to give an overall update on the year! We have a more detailed EoY wrap up in our discord server going over everything if you want more details - but we decided to keep this one brief!
Despair Dilemma is Shipped Out!!
Firstly, we wanted to let you know that Despair Dilemma is entirely shipped out and we've gotten confirmation that at least some number of books have successfully crossed the border into the USA despite the issues we were having earlier. We have discovered a slight issue with some backers receiving their second tracking codes, so if you haven't received one please feel free to get in touch with me so I can send it your way.
There have also been some delays due to the holiday season, so we're sorry if you don't get your copy until the new year.
With that said, we can finally wrap a bow on this project, at least for now!!
What's Coming Next?
People keeping an eye on the projects we've been playtesting will already know about Mugen Taikai, a drafting autobattler card game we've designed to replicate the experience of a shonen battle tournament and TCG draft in less then an hour! We're happy to announce that the game has been signed on by Level 99 Games, the team behind Millennium Blades and BattleCON. They'll be finishing the development, while we work on other projects! If you've played their games in the past, you'll know this is something to be excited about.
Speaking of, we've been hired on by their team to develop a TTRPG set in their World of Indines universe. This is incredibly exciting for us as huge fans of the setting. Most of the work for this game has already been done, but we'll be finalizing and refining things in the background over the next year or so. I hope you'll be there to see how things turn out!
We cant share many more details on either project for now, but keep an eye out for further updates in 2026!
We Want to Hear From You
Other then those projects, we have a lot of ideas for things we want to work on. Last year, to help us make decisions, we did a consumer survey to find out what people in our audience would be most interested in us doing.
These were never a promise of course, and we don't believe in working on something we're not passionate about (I don't think you can make something good in the way we do if you're not). But they did help us a lot in making decisions and understanding how feasible certain projects might be.
So for 2026, especially since our audience has grown so much since that point, we wanted to set up another one:https://forms.gle/sRADTBSWPqYwkPDG8
All of the questions are optional, so don't feel too stressed about answering everything. That said, we want to hear from you! If you have any questions, we have a "Survey Discussion" channel open in our community discord.
