Dare I say... Phase Shift has knocked it out of the park!
Folks, with this update I believe we've accomplished EVERYTHING we discussed over the past 4 weeks! The one last aspect we hadn't fully figured out was a packaging solution for the neoprene mats that would ALSO hold the base game box. In our last update we unlocked the bag for the neoprene mats, which nicely solves for the packaging side of things, but we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get the main game box in there too.
Well... after further discussion with our manufacturer and some creative thinking, we have now solved for a way to hold the base game box as well!:
Please keep in mind the image above is just a mockup and not to scale... but suffice to say, we will have a special pocket in the front of the bag that will hold the game box! And the bag will still be printed with the game logo for easy visibility wherever you decide to store it. We'll make sure the pocket is large enough so that the game box will fit snug, but not too tight, and of course the bag itself will be perfectly sized to hold all 5 neoprene mats.
I'm simply THRILLED we were able to come up with this, and at no extra cost to you!
With that, this is likely to be the last project update until the campaign closes. I'll actually be traveling for work just as the campaign ends, so I'll catch you all on the flipside when I return...
A very heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who helped get us here, and I can't wait to get this awesome little game to you later this year. THREE CHEERS!!!
Lots of exciting stuff to cover today, so let's get to it!
First and foremost, we're THRILLED to announce that we've unlocked two awesome upgrades, based on some of our earlier discussion and polling. Let's show you...
Bay cards: We previously discussed making bay cards available, both as a downloadable/printable image file and also as a $5 add-on. Well... how about FREE instead - does that work for you?! Yes! We will include 15 (enough for 3 per player) bay cards in the base game, and they will fit right inside the box for easy portability. The bay cards also provide the same convenient scoring areas that the neoprene mats offer, so you will now have the full experience inside a super tiny box!
The draft rulebook has already been updated to reflect this change, which you can find here:
Bag for mats: For those who love that super-deluxe neoprene mat experience, but also longed for a good way to store them, we've got great news for you too! We previously discussed possibilities of various forms of custom boxes that could hold both the mats and the original game box/components, but the logistics and costs there proved too much for this campaign. Instead, we're happy to include a printed draw-string bag that will fit all 5 neoprene mats, at no additional cost!
We are still working through the exact dimensions for the bag, and we're not ruling out the possibility that it would be able to fit both the mats and the game box (either inside the bag or via an added pouch), but I'm not sure yet if that's definitely going to be viable... so no promises, but that would be really cool if we can make it work!
Our robot renaming effort was super fun and engaging, and we're stoked with the final results! Here's an image that demonstrates all the names that you all suggested and/or voted on, each different from the set of names we started the campaign with:
I think "meteor" is my favorite of the bunch, but I seriously love all these... what's your favorite?! Comment below...
Here's the full table of all the final names:
Thank you all for your participation - we hope you will love seeing your naming ideas and preferences included in the final product!
What's next?
We're now heading into the final days of the campaign. If all goes well, we'll see an influx of new backers at the 48 hour mark (when all the people watching the campaign get their final notice).
NOW IS THE TIME to share the campaign page out to your social channels! Let your friends know why you're backing the project... let them know what aspect you're most excited about... let them know how cheap the game is here (just $15 on BackerKit only!)!! Board game groups on Facebook are especially helpful to post in!
Thanks so much for taking this journey with us, and we can't wait to show you the final production as soon as it's available. Cheers!!
SUPER good news for folks in the US! I've been working with our US warehouse (The Game Crafter) for over a week to get to better rates for US backers. The key to this was getting much more granular: First I obtained exact rates for each of the 50 states, as well as surrounding islands, for each of the 19 different weight ranges. Then I was able to create a master table containing about 1000 cells with all the rate numbers, and then calculated the necessary fees and such for each one from there. In order to get all those exact rates, The Game Crafter had to do some special coding on their platform, since this is not how their normal Print-On-Demand business works. Huge thanks to JT and his crew helping us out with this - I'm very grateful for our partnership!
Suffice to say, we now have even more accurate numbers for all of the US, and in most states the result is that your final shipping is now a little bit cheaper. If you go back into your BackerKit survey you will see the new shipping amount already reflected.
NOTE: You do not need to do anything! No matter what, your new, correct shipping rate will be charged when we close the surveys and charge your cards in 9 days.
NOTE: This update only applies to backers in the United States. All other regions already had as granular rates as we could get in place.
This was a ton of work to do, but I'm thrilled that we could get the rates ratcheted down even more for you! Let me know any questions.
Help spread the love!
In the meantime, we will be showing Widget's Workship and fulfilling orders at GenCon - if you could give this entry on BGG a thumbs up, we'd SUPER appreciate it!
Thanks again for supporting us and backing Widget's Workshop!
As you know, we still need to charge for tax and shipping, and we need to know exactly where we need to ship your pledges. We’ll send out a BackerKit survey over the next couple days to collect this information and process final payments.
Answering your survey helps us get your rewards out to you faster. BackerKit helps us save lots of time by streamlining the survey process, automating data organization, and providing us with pledge management software to make it easy to process your pledge reward shipments.
Full transparency
As always, I will be up front and fully transparent with all campaign aspects that may draw surprise. A lot has been going on in the world recently, so I want to be clear on the following points:
US backers: A smaller amount of tariffs are still in place in the US for all goods imported in China (30% of the manufacturing costs). BackerKit will automatically determine and charge the exact right amount of tariffs, for just the new units coming from China (existing inventory already stored in our warehouses will not incur additional tariff fees). In the end, the tariffs should only amount to about $2 per standard order of Widget's Workshop, and you will see this charge itemized on your final payment screen. As we get closer to the time of shipping, if the tariff situation changes (for better or worse), we will update your orders accordingly.
Shipping fees: Shipping these days is expensive. The good news is that once you get past a certain weight threshold, adding additional items to your order will have negligible impact on shipping fees - so it's best to add any other products you may want to your orders now! Almost all titles in our catalog can be added as add-ons, and last year's new releases will be available for 50% off (North America and Europe only)!!
Pledge Manager process
Soon, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards. We plan to keep the pledge manager open for just about 2 weeks.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://widgets-workshop-drop-style-game.backerkit.com.
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact support at https://widgets-workshop-drop-style-game.backerkit.com/faq.
Headed to GenCon or Spiel Essen?
If you are attending GenCon in August or Spiel Essen in October and want to save on shipping, you may select LOCAL PICKUP in the Country drop-down in BackerKit. You will be charged just $5 for freight and shipping to the con itself, and then you can swing by our booth at the con to grab your pledge.
I am super proud to say that we have already sent on the digital files to our manufacturer, so now we move on to the next phase. This means we're actually a few days AHEAD of schedule, which is kinda unheard of!
Now, you may be wondering what Phase Shift's stance is on the tariff situation. I've hesitated to create a video, because things are changing almost daily, but I'll quickly summarize the points I would make in such a video now:
I believe the tariff situation will have been resolved by the time this game is ready to freight out of China. As we get closer, if this is not the case, then of course we'll work to adjust some aspects.
To the latter point in #1, we're purposely holding off on launching the pledge manager until the dust settles from the tariff situation. This will allow us to have as close to perfectly accurate shipping, tax, and tariff amounts properly accounted for.
None of this is stopping or even delaying us moving forward with this project! No matter what, we are entering into the manufacturing phase. If the worst case happens (if the 145% tariffs remain in place) by the time we're ready to start the freight process, then we'll likely hold back the US shipment in China a little longer, as many other publishers have indicated they are doing as well. I *may* decide instead to freight the US inventory to our Canada hub, so that when the tariffs are finally lifted I can quickly truck everything down to our Wisconsin warehouse, rather than wait in line for a container and boat. But again, this is all assuming the tariffs haven't been fully resolved by this point, which is a couple months from now.
That's about it for now - in short, things are proceeding SUPER smoothly, and I can't wait to start showing you the PPC and MPC samples once they arrive.
