Hi everyone!

Thanks for your patience with me here! I've been busy working on the lore zine and doing more manufacturing research. Phew! That said, you're much overdue for an update, so here we go! 

Tariff Update
tl;dr - don't worry, you'll get your game!
I've been keeping busy waiting for better international trade policy news, and it seems like we're in the middle of a 90-day reprieve of 30% tariffs.

This is still super uncertain, and even if I was ready to pull the trigger (see below), everyone else has been frantically trying to get overseas manufacturing done and from what I've heard, transportations costs are still super crazy.

So I'm weighing the costs of either producing in the US (where each game will cost as much as funds the campaign as raised), or trying to find a producer in another country whose tariffs aren't likely to jump up to some ridiculous cost.

Either way, I've got multiple contingency plans that means you'll be getting your game without any increase in cost to you. At least until tariffs get raised on every country, but we'll get to that when we come to it.

Surveys
So the good news is that I'm going to move forward with getting the surveys out to you as soon as possible. That said, since the game is still technically unfinished, as there's a lot of art assets to replace since I'm making so many folks into cultists, I'll leave the surveys unlocked (meaning you can change your info) until we get closer to ship out.

Become a Cultist Backers
I thought the best way of getting everyone's info who pledged to be part of the game would be by the pledge manager, but I think it makes sense to email folks individually, so if you pledged, look out for an email from me soon. It'll come from "[email protected]" so please make sure to keep an eye out for that.

TableTop Simulator (TTS)
So for PC, there exists a game on Steam called Tabletop Simulator (TTS). It's about $30, and it's what I've been using to do some playtesting before getting a one-off game printed. 

If you've got TTS already, or really, really want to play Cult Crafter as soon as possible and are willing to buy it, I can provide you with the temp cards (still layout tweaks that I'm working on as well as placeholder art for the cultists) and you can get playing. 

If this is of interest to you, email me (See above) and I'll send you the files you need to upload to TTS and get going! 

Okay, that's it for now! 

Thanks again for your patience!

Cheers,
Rick

Hello! 

So as you likely have heard from so many other crowdfunding campaigns (maybe even my other enamel pin campaign) - the tariffs on China are now 145%. Yeah, that's wild. 
 
Sooooo, what does this mean? I budged for tariffs of 30%, but basically doubling the cost of production and shipping has completely turned this project on it's head. And yes, for anyone asking - I did inquire about domestic production - and the quote was roughly 4x the other overseas manufacturers. 
 
I'm currently exploring options with the factory I was in talks with for production, and am now reaching out to see if there are other producers in other, less-tariffed countries. I'd like to say I've been working hard on the lore zine and production of all the other things, but trying to figure out how to actually make this game has been taking up all my time and energy. 

Thanks again for your patience, and I hope to have better news and more updates soon. 

Best regards,
Rick

Howdy everyone!

Whew! 

I'm writing this before running off to stream (you can find me on Twitch at: twitch.tv/skeethulhu if you wanna hang out and watch me paint), but I just wanted to thank y'all for making Cult Crafter a reality! 

So you might have heard that last night a bunch of tariffs got dropped here in the US..basically raising the price of production by 54%. Thankfully I already budged in a 30% tariff, and I'm super grateful that us going above and beyond the goal has covered the rest, so take heart that the game is going into production. 

I'm not super confident I'll be able to add the bells and whistles that I usually try to sneak into my campaigns, but we'll see what I can do. 

Also, we ended at over 100 backers, so that means y'all will get a queen-sized Void Queen sticker with your game. 

NEXT STEPS: Your cards will be charged soon if they haven't already, and I'll be getting the pathway for all the Become a Cultist backers to get me your photos/names. Expect surveys to go out in a few weeks, as that's the plan given BackerKit's recommendations. 

In the meantime, I'll be editing art and preparing design files to send to production. 

Stay tuned for more, but I just wanted to say thank you so much! 

Have a great week! Thanks again!
-Rick

Howdy everyone!

We're almost to the end of the campaign - we're about 6 backers away from unlocking the Void Queen sticker! So if you've been waiting to back, now's the time!

Also, thanks to everyone who voted in the last backer poll - I'll be updating the correct spelling of "Ascension" Day (and will be keeping the quotes, since no one is really ascending anywhere in that unfortunate situation).

I also went through The Game Crafter to get a fully designed version to take around to people. I'm pretty excited to be able to share with more folks something that looks like an actual card game. Witness the difference between what early playtesters saw, and what we've got to look at now:

The proofing deck is nice as it's highlighted a lot of things I want to tweak in the layout - things like text sizes, placements, color tweaks - by fixing them now, it'll make the final proofing stage with the actual manufacturer (which is a lot more expensive) much more efficient and faster. 

Anyway, here are some more hastily-taken photos of the proofing deck.

That said, thank you again for all the support so far! 

I'm still sort of in disbelief that we're making Cult Crafter a reality, and I literally could not have done it without each and everyone one of you. 

Thanks again, and I hope you're having a great week! Happy April! 

-Rick

Hello my lovely cult fam.

Just a friendly reminder that there are just about 24 hours left before the open enrollment period to the Order of the Dark Wheel closes up, so if you have friends or loved ones who haven't backed, now is the time to peer pressure them. And if you've been sitting on the fence about having your face, the face of a loved one (human or animal) illustrated into the game, this is your last chance to upgrade your pledge!

I also wanted to quickly just remind folks that this campaign is part of Pocketopia. It's 62 creators all making pocket-sized games. There a lot of other TTRPG folk out there, as well as other tabletop folk like myself - one of whom is my cross-collab partner, Mat Lorre of Terrorbox Co. 

ANYWAY, Mat has brought SHIFTED to Pocketopia, which is a social deduction game similar to Werewolf or Mafia with the weird space monster vibes of Among Us. 

I'm pretty stoked to be partnering with Mat, as we both run one-person shows  - he does all the art, game design, and also is screen printing the shirts he's making. Running these campaigns as a one-person show is definitely not for the faint of heart, so these types of collaborations are always super rad. 

Oh, and a friendly reminder - if you back BOTH of our games, you get a bonus variant art card from each of us! I illustrated a SHIFTED card, and Mat did a bang-up job doing alternative art for the First Bog Witch with some sweet dual-wielding serrated knives. 

Also, if you back 6+ Pocketopia campaigns, you also get a cool dice bag (plus all the cool games you back), which is a nice bonus. So if like shifty social deduction games like I do (I might get to do a Blood on the Clocktower game this Saturday after I go to my local protest!), then definitely consider checking out SHIFTED in these final hours. 

Thanks again, and I'm so excited to be bringing Cult Crafter to life with all of you. 
-Rick