TL;DR - All PDFs were delivered last fall. Physical rewards are now shipping. Any add-ons and titles other than Dank & Dark will ship after the books and bookmarks have left the building.
***
Welcome to the end of February. When I initially set a March 2026 delivery date for this project, I thought everything would be wrapped up long before then. I was terribly wrong.
Numerous issues have plagued this project, and it has become a source of severe and constant anxiety and stress. If there's one thing I've not yet mastered, it's fulfillment of physical rewards. Which is unfortunate, because I love to play with formats and experiment with new ideas, but that only works if I can find a way to smoothly (and quickly) fulfill projects.
It isn't that anyone did anything wrong with this project, but simply that everyone working on it is also juggling full-time jobs, lives, and the headaches that come with them in 2026. And there are a lot of headaches in 2026.
While I could use a fulfillment service, I'm desperately trying to avoid it because, to be completely blunt, it's too expensive for the scale at which I operate. I have no desire at all to deal with distribution sales – and I have no mechanism in place to handle post-project sales – so there are no economies of scale advantages to be had. If I want to keep the prices as low as possible (and I'm already worried with every single project that I am asking too much for my work), it means keeping the packing and shipping processes out of dedicated fulfillment services.
I should have posted this update earlier, but each time I started to draft something, I spiraled into a mental wreck that made it impossible to accomplish anything that day. (This post is basically the last work I'll finish today; I'm fried.)
Of course, none of this matters. If I'm going to keep creating things (which I want to do), I will either have to stop offering any physical items and focus solely on digital rewards, or get better at building big blocks of time into the schedule for fulfillment.
What's next? Shipments continue to hit the postal service. While I wish I could give a date by which this process will be completed, I can't. Please know that everything is moving and will be delivered as quickly as possible. If you were expecting more than just the Dank & Dark book and bookmarks, those other items will ship in the future.
Thank you not only for your support of the work, but also for your patience as we work through fulfillment. I have not earned and do not deserve your patience, but I am quite grateful for it. Thank you.
The surveys will close soon. At that time, PDFs will be distributed. If you want to be certain you get your PDFs in the first wave, please finalize your survey today. 92% of you have already completed your surveys, so most of you are all set. The rest of you who complete your surveys today will receive your rewards in the first wave. Any incomplete surveys after today will be handled at a later time.
The physical rewards will ship later, but we still don't have an exact date. Amy's going to do her best, and once she's started the process, we'll share an update and let you know that physical fulfillment has started.
Thank you, everyone, for your support and patience. We're a very small team, and some tasks require the help of others who have full-time jobs and lives that must come first. We're on track to beat the estimated delivery date (March 2026), but until the last package has shipped, anything can happen.
Great news, gang! The game has arrived! Amy sent me a few snapshots of three random books pulled from different cases so that we could get a look at how things turned out. Even better than I had hoped! The advance copies I received earlier this summer were awesome, but I'm always nervous until we receive the full shipment.
Even though the game has landed, we're not yet ready to start the fulfillment. It is going to take quite a bit of time (Amy's handling this on her own, and life comes first), but we do fully expect to be 100% done by the end of the year.
We're scheduled to close the survey next week and charge cards then, so there's still time for those of you who haven't already done so (90% of you, thanks!) to complete your survey.
Thanks for your support and patience, gang. We'll keep you updated as we move into the fulfillment stage of the campaign.
We've successfully completed the smoke test, so now all surveys are in the wild and ready for your response! This is where you'll pay for shipping, and you can select add-ons, including the Dank & Dark glass. (You can see a photo of the prototype in this update.)
On October 1st, we'll charge cards and start to lock everything down. The zine and board book are both on the water, and we think we'll be ready to ship your rewards in October/November. (Our estimated delivery was March 2026, so we're doing okay so far on that front.)
If you run into any issues, please don't hesitate to message us. Thank you for making this book a reality. I'm happy every time I pick up one of the samples and am looking forward to creating a Dank & Dark supplement in the same format.
And they look fantastic. I was proud of this game before, but now I'm very proud. Holding the finished work in my hands tells me one thing: I will have to make another board book one of these days! Maybe a companion for Dank & Dark. A book of short adventures might make a fun addition to the game.
For now, all we can do is wait. The pledge manager is almost ready (it is with BackerKit for their review), and the factory says we can expect the finished books in October. (They have to take a ride across the ocean before we can ship the books to you.) We'll let you know if that changes.
