Good day! We've got your regular shipping updates, as well as other important info this week, but first off, I just want to take a minute to apologize to you all. I know there has been some frustration with how little we interact with the community here on Backerkit. I thought we were doing good with the updates every other week, making sure people are informed of the goings-on, but if that is the only communication you get, that still is a little lacking, and I am sorry. Both I (Isaac) and the support staff should be more present in the comments, and so we're going to do better about that.

In discussing it with the team, we've decided one of the blockers for us is that updates are posted on Fridays. We move right into the weekend, where you're not going to see as much activity from us. So we've decided to switch up the update schedule and start posting our updates every other Tuesday. So this will be our last Friday update, and the next update will be posted Tuesday, May 21. This should give us time during the week to look at and respond to your questions in the comments in a more timely fashion.

And since we are talking about schedules, we have an official close off date for wave 3 of the pledge manager: Friday, May 24. Wave 3 consists of the new edition of Gloomhaven and all related products. Once we close off the pledge manager, we will open it a short time later for waves 4 and 5, and we will also open up pre-orders for Gloomhaven at full MSRP on our webstore. So you will get one more warning with the next update, and then we'll be charging cards.

And now, on to the shipping updates!

US Wave 1 & 2: COMPLETE! 

Canada Wave 1 & 2: COMPLETE! 

Asia: Shipments to regional hubs should be arriving soon. We've asked for a timeline update by region and should have a detailed breakdown next update.

AU/NZ Wave 1 & 2: COMPLETE! 

EU/Rest of World: In Progress! Shipping continues, and we’re expecting a couple more weeks to finish the rest of the pending orders.

UK: In progress! Shipping started last week and we’re seeing copies of B&B in the wild. We expect fulfillment to continue for a couple more weeks.

If you are in a region that has been marked complete but have not yet received your wave 1 or 2 items please contact [email protected] so we can check on the status of your order. If you’re in a region that’s still fulfilling, please stay tuned. Your order is coming soon!

First let's talk about the new edition of Gloomhaven! We got quite a reaction to the vermling art last time, and I just wanted to emphasize one more time that it was work-in-progress. And while we do appreciate all the feedback on it, which has helped improve further iterations of that piece, I think from now one we'll do our best to only share final art, as that seems to be what is largely expected. We continue to make big strides here in getting the rest of the art together and all the cards laid out.

Big strides also continue to be made with the RPG. Our goal is to start handing the chapters off for editing early next week. This will be a piecemeal process as we finalize different sections of the book, sending them into editing one at a time. We've also started to get beautiful map work in from Francesca showing larger portions of the world. Still work-in-progress, so I won't show them yet, but hopefully we can share them soon!

                         

So that's all the news we have this week. Just another reminder that the next update will go out Tuesday, May 21, and will be followed by the wave 3 pledge manager closing on the 24th. Have a good weekend, and I'll catch you then!

Good day! We're all staying busy over here at Cephalofair Games to keep all the projects from the Grand Festival moving forward. I've got shipping updates and other cool stuff for you, so let's get to it!

First off, a couple reminders from last time. The Buttons & Bugs replacement form is now live, so if you've had any issues with damaged or lost components from Buttons & Bugs, please use the form instead of emailing support, which should expedite the process. And also just another reminder that if you've contacted support about an issue, please be patient and don't email us repeatedly about the same issue. Doing so just slows the whole process down as this bumps your ticket back in the queue.

US: Wave 1 (Frosthaven) is complete! At this time, all packages have left Ware2Go and should be enroute to you. This includes the orders that were stuck in "label created" status. If you haven't received a tracking number yet for your Wave 1 items and you're in the US or MX, please contact [email protected]. Meanwhile, wave 2 (Buttons & Bugs) is 99% complete! All orders have been shipped with one exception: We received an update from UPS that the ~100 B&B packages shipped through Santa Rosa were all damaged at their hub, so we are reshipping these orders now, and you should receive a new email with tracking by early next week.

Canada: Fulfillment in process! We're at about 50% of orders shipped so far, with hundreds of orders going out each day. We're hoping to have all orders shipped out by our next update in two weeks.

AU/NZ: Fulfillment is nearing completion! Most, if not all, orders have shipped, but we're just waiting on a final update from the fulfillment center signaling that everything has gone out.

Asia: Hub shipments inbound! The regional shipments should be arriving to their respective hubs over the next couple weeks. Once they've arrived and have been processed for shipping orders, the orders should start going out. We've been told this should start in early May.

UK: The container has landed! The product arrived as scheduled and is enroute to Spiral Galaxy. They're expecting to have it arrive at the warehouse this coming Tuesday. Once they get everything unloaded, they'll be able to start fulfillment, so we might see orders shipping out by the end of next week!

EU/RoW: The Buttons & Bugs container has arrived! Fulfillment Europe has received the container of Buttons & Bugs, Forgotten Circles, play surface books and more. Now that this has arrived, we should start seeing lots more orders going out. We still expect this process to take several weeks, but we should have a lot more progress to report in the next update.

Chris Lewis and Sarah Dahlinger have been working hard to get us closer to 100% sculpted. Here are a few samples of summons from Gloomhaven and Frosthaven that Sarah has completed, including the Kivak, which she sculpted live a month back. I mean, look at that guy.

Here's where we're at with the miniatures. It's a long project, but it's coming along.

Arch has been dedicating all his time to getting the rest of the art and graphic design needed for the new edition of Gloomhaven up and running. We continue to bring new artists into the world of Gloomhaven to offer new perspectives on the rich and unique lives led by its people. This work-in-progress sketch by Laura Galli literally sheds some new light on vermling society and religion. We hope that this overall effort will help make our fantasy world feel more layered, lived-in, and real to those visiting it through Gloomhaven or the upcoming RPG!

The writing for the core book is all starting to come together as we finish drafts on all the rules and lore sections. Once that's done, we'll begin the editing process while we continue to run play tests looking for any other minor rules or ability tweaks we need to make. A lot of very creative people have put a lot of work into all this writing, and I think you'll be very pleased by all the cool bits of new lore you'll discover by reading the book!

                             

And that's all I've got to report this week. Once we've gotten a little further down field with art and graphic design on Gloomhaven, we should be able to update you on its full timeline, which should also inform when the next wave of the pledge manager is closing. So stay tuned for that, and I'll catch you next time!

Good day! I hope everyone is doing well this fine Friday! We're going to have a more standard update for you this week with your regularly scheduled shipping updates for waves 1 and 2, plus an RPG designer diary from Danielle!

A few things to note before we get into the specific updates:

Hey everyone! Chris here with another wave 1 and 2 fulfillment update.

US Wave 1 and 2: We’re at about 90% fulfillment in the US, both on Wave 1 out of KY and Wave 2 out of TN. However, we have discovered that there are two issues that our fulfillment partner is working to resolve now.

Wave 1 (Frosthaven): During the fulfillment upload process, a small amount of orders had labels created and tracking was sent to backers, but due to an error in their system, these orders were not filled. W2G has already fixed this issue, and most of these orders have already shipped. They expect the rest to ship out today and tomorrow. If you have a tracking number that still only shows a status of "label created" when you look it up, please watch for a new email with a different tracking number.

Wave 2 (Buttons & Bugs): We’ve been notified of an issue where a batch of about 100 orders shipping to the West Coast are currently being held up in a San Pablo UPS facility. We are working with our fulfillment partner and UPS to see what the delay is to either get these packages located and moving or send out replacements if these orders can’t be located. If this is the case, you’ll receive an email with a new tracking number.

Canada: Fulfillment has begun! Orders started shipping out Wednesday via Canpar and backers will receive emails with tracking as packages go out. Fulfillment expects roughly two weeks to fill all orders.

AU/NZ: Fulfillment is in process! We’ve already seen some people receiving their Frosthaven and B&B copies, with more to come as Aetherworks continues to send orders out. We expect to have most, if not all, orders filled by the next update.

Asia: Freight orders are shipping out this week from VFI to regional hubs! These shipments take several weeks, once shipments arrive they’ll be received in and processed for individual shipments to backers. 

UK: The shipment from China still looks on track to arrive at port as scheduled on Apr 15th, from there it’ll make the trip over to Spiral Galaxy for fulfillment!

EU/RoW: Fulfillment has begun! Frosthaven has begun to ship out to backers now. The shipping container with Buttons & Bugs and some add-ons was delayed at port but is on land and en route, scheduled to arrive to Fulfillment Europe early next week. Once this arrives and is unloaded, they’ll be able to start shipping a bunch more orders!

I know it isn't March anymore, but we've got one more sculpting stream for you! Chris Lewis, one of the main sculptors on this miniature project as well as Frosthaven, will be live sculpting one of the Gloomhaven bosses today from 2-4pm CST. Which starts right now! You can watch him do his thing at Twitch.tv/Cephalofair.

Greetings Mercenaries!

I have such updates to share with you. Last month we shared a design diary from the illustrious Nikki Valens, who gave some insight into their design process for Buttons & Bugs. I hope all of you who have it appreciate how difficult it is to miniaturize Gloomhaven, both in rules and in size.

But this month, we’re back to talking about the Gloomhaven RPG. A lot has happened since I last shared an update, so I’ll try to cover it all as well as share some design insights. I shared that I had first drafts in my hands in January, and over February and March, I looked them over and gave comments back to authors, who made edits and returned them. The setting material is probably at about 80% done at this point. Not because it isn’t all written, but because now I have to go through it all, put it into the correct chapter formats, and massage passages to all look like one cohesive whole. This is a part of the process that takes time, but is the make or break of a great game. I could hire all the best, most skilled authors in the world who could turn in shining prose and perfect sections, but without a development pass to make their individual parts feel like a cohesive whole, the game would fall short of good.

I had the privilege of going to the Cephalofair design retreat (Gloomcabin, if you will) in March. The point of this retreat is to put a finishing polish on the current Cephalofair WIPs, and the RPG got the spot of honor this year. I was blown away by the creative energy at the retreat, and the number of Gloomhaven scholars in the room was a little intimidating. Nevertheless, as we poked at it, we came to some solid conclusions on where we want the RPG to go, what experience we want players to have, and how to definitively make it stand on its own, separate but equal to the board game. These conclusions led to late nights in what we dubbed “the lab” as a small group of designers took class and ancestry cards and rewrote, tweaked, and overhauled them.

If you just had a visceral reaction to the words “rewrote” and “overhauled”, never fear. The way you play the game didn’t actually change all that much. We just realized that the choices people were making didn’t feel as meaningful or as tactical as they do in the board game, and everyone really appreciates that experience. So we came up with a way for the RPG to not just mirror the board game’s class cards, but to iterate on them in a way that makes sense for an RPG without losing the elements we love. The biggest change here is that in an RPG, narrative supersedes minutia. What I mean by that is we want people telling compelling stories about their mercenaries fighting enemies, not just taking a turn doing the most tactically advantageous action. We want people to envision the cool fiery blast their spellweaver just lobbed at a skeleton, and how that means now both the skeleton, and the floor around it are covered in flames. It’s all there, but we wanted to ensure that the mechanics weren’t just supporting important decision points, but also creating a narrative around those decision points that is exciting and makes you feel like you’re living in the world of Gloomhaven.
What does this mean for the process? Well, we spent some long evenings chatting about how to condense 30 cards into 18. Which is actually easier than it sounds, because we absolutely did it for all the classes that folks were playing that weekend in a single evening so that we could playtest the updates. The system is the same “pick a top and bottom action, go on your initiative, do all the things” but the choices are now a little different and narrower, and have a narrative to them that they’ve never had before. The book’s development is still moving at a good pace. I have already updated the rules chapter to reflect our changes, and we’re working on updating all the class and ancestry cards. The setting material is in good shape, and in the next month it should all come together and make its way to editing.

While this does push my original projected publish date back, it only does so by a couple of months. We’re still on track to get files finished before the end of the year. I have no control over how long printing and shipping takes, but if I were the wishing type, I would wish for a Christmas miracle.

I know this month’s diary is more of “how the sausage is made” and less of the “what the sausage tastes like”, but I personally feel like this is an important part of the design process that few people talk about. I’ve been making games for enough time now to know that literally no book goes from first to final unchanged every step of the way. I’ve had to rewrite entire chapters at the approval stage, rework swaths of text at the layout phase, and even once had to beg a printer to wait a day or two for me to resend a print file with an important paragraph added. That might sound messy and scary, and sometimes it is, but most of the time it’s just business as usual.

And that’s all I have for you this month. Until next time!

Previously, we said that the pledge manager for wave 3 will be open at least through March, which has now come and passed, so we should probably update you again on that! We still haven’t fully nailed down a timeline, so I wanted to let you know that the pledge manager will remain open through April, and we’ll update you again once we have a solid date in place. If you'd like your pledge to be processed now instead of waiting for it to close we can help with that, just let us know at [email protected].

Art and graphic design for the new edition of Gloomhaven continue to move along. We’ve been working hard to bring you an updated visual experience along with the revised game system. Here’s a sneak peek at one of the many new pieces of artwork you’ll discover in this new edition: an Inox Guard by Nicolas Jamme.



I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that some backers have experienced card warping in their copies of Buttons & Bugs, which is an unfortunate development we didn't see at any point in our proofing process, but would like to apologize for. We will be working with our manufacturer to address card warping, health dial colors, and a handful of other quality-of-life adjustments for the second printing, which will be sold in retail at a higher price than what was offered during the Backerkit campaign.

And I think that just about covers everything. Remember to check out Chris's stream if you're interested in the sculpting process. I hope you have a great weekend, and I'll catch you next time!

Good day! I am very excited today to bring you an update on miniatures! It has been a while since we had any new info on that front, and while the delivery date is still a ways off, we wanted to let you know that we've been constantly working away on it in the background.

First, however, let's get to an all-important update on where fulfillment is for waves 1 and 2:

US: Fulfillment in progress! About 60% of Wave 1 has shipped out, and we expect the remaining orders to ship out next week. Similarly, Wave 2 is about 50% shipped, and we expect to have this finished by the end of next week.

CA: Product has been received in port and is on the rail to fulfillment, scheduled to arrive on March 28! The fulfillment center is planning to start shipping April 1, and they expect it to be a quick process to get everything shipped.

AU/NZ: It look slightly longer than expected for product to arrive, but we've been told fulfillment is beginning today! Most orders are expected to be ship within the next couple weeks.

Asia: As noted last update, orders will be shipping to regional fulfillment hubs from VFI at the beginning of April. Once they arrive and are processed at the local hub, they will be shipped to backers.

UK: While prepping the extra shipment from the US, we received good news! The original shipment from China is scheduled to arrive April 15, which is earlier than expected and about the same time we had planned for the US replacement shipment to arrive. Once it gets to port, it will be moved to Spiral Galaxy, and shipping will commence.

EU/RoW: The add-on container is looking to arrive on Monday. It will take a few days to get unloaded and delivered to Fulfillment Europe. Once that happens fulfillment can begin.

First off, I need to tell you that Sarah Dahlinger, one of the sculptors on this project, just finished a live stream where they sculpting a Kivak (a large rocky-skinned beast of burden used by the Savvas) for us! This will be a bonus minature included in every full miniature pledge, and you can watch it be made here in this video.



In addition, Jamie Daggers will be doing a 2-part live stream on painting our Buttons & Bugs micro minis, March 27 and 28, 1-4pm Eastern, so check that out as well.



Okay, on to the miniatures:

Hello Mercenaries, Price here to give an update on the Miniatures portion of this project! With the majority of Frosthaven and Buttons & Bugs obligations behind us, and Gloomhaven (2E) making great strides towards its final production - we figured it’d be helpful to start providing updates on the MANY products wrapped under the “Miniatures” banner - and that starts today! 

Below is a new Cephalofair "Miniatures of Gloomhaven" Tracker that represents where each miniature project stands. Since Miniatures of Gloomhaven represents its own fulfillment wave, this will also track their progress through mass production, freight, and finally fulfillment to you! Generally, we’re at a good place with this project and excited to now have even more bandwidth to engage and push sculptures through production. 

Note: The % listed under each icon in this graphic signals how many models have been APPROVED/COMPLETED at that applicable stage, not how many are currently IN that stage, which is more than listed. So expect much movement over the coming months as we finalize more revisions with our factory.

We’ve got many new models wrapping up this month, and with multiple April contracts, we’re looking to wrap up the majority of the outstanding work that needs to be done (most tied directly to new Gloomhaven artwork assignments needed for reference by our 3D artists.  

So let’s talk about what each step in this workflow means to help give better idea of what our team is doing at each step:

This is the first and most exciting step of each miniatures - working with our talented sculptors to create a first, and most ideal, draft of how we want each character to look, providing 2D game artwork, writing direction, and other artistic references. This typically involves approvals on a 1) first draft rough 2) posing draft 3) final detail draft. Once fully approved, the sculpt is handed off to our manufacturing for their digital review.

In this step, our manufacturing team reviews each miniature file (.STL) we’ve submitted and validates it’s physical ability to be professionally molded for mass production. This includes refinding hard edges or angles that will make mold release impossible or difficult, enhancing detail that may be too thin/small/flimsy, and advising us on other compromises that may need to be taking with the sculpt such as posture, posing, and further detail work. Our team receives comparisons of the originally submitted model, next to new revisions done by the factory’s internal artists.

During this step, the factory hand-produces polyurethane (PU) samples of each miniature to physically sample for us what the miniature will look like in physical manifestation. We receive photos, videos, and physical shipments of these hand-cast samples which are brittle and still absolutely work-in-progress. Any revisions we need to make at this stage can still be made digitally before we head into our next stage.

Once physical PU samples are approved, and all samples are approved for their given SKU, that SKU officially heads into mold making! This is perhaps one of the longest stages of the process. Here our factory casts and engraves large aluminum molds for mass production. These plastic injection molds divide each sculpt into two “halves” that hot molten plastic is injected in between before opening and releasing the final product. Your average, more basic model will ideally be cast in a single piece that requires very little if any further handlings. More complex models (Mercenaries, Lurkers, Demons, etc) often need to be cast as several individual parts that are then later manually glued together on the assembly line. This allows us to achieve more complex designs that aren’t possible to sculpt in a single piece, but also increases production time and cost - so this needs to be explored on a sculpt by sculpt basis. Any further mold changes that need to be made upon review of pre-production casts can be made directly to the aluminum molds, but in a limited fashion as metal can only be removed, no longer ADDED, to the mold, obviously. 

Finally, mass production begins and our shiny new aluminum molds and hot molten PVC plastics! SKU by SKU miniatures will be cast in bulk, manually finished where needed, checked for quality, sorted, and assembled into their final vac trays for each product before being loaded onto pallets and left to await pickup by our ocean freight partners! Excitement is palpable at this stage as we eagerly await to see the first completed units off the line and give them a full top-down inspection before giving the final GREEN LIGHT for mass production to begin in full. 

So that’s what to expect as we start sharing more progress updates and photos over the rest of the year. We’re really excited to see these big boxes of monsters, bosses, allies, and Mercenaries coming together and know they are going to be a fantastic upgrade for many Gloomhaven, Frosthaven, and Gloomhaven RPG campaigns for years to come! Stay tuned for more!

Cephalofair Games just concluded a company retreat where we play tested the RPG adventure included in the core rulebook (and worked on future projects). Everyone left really happy with were the RPG is at, and are very excited to finish up this project and get it out to you. I am really proud of all the work Danielle and everyone else has put into it, and you can hear more about some of the tweaks we made to the system in Danielle's designer diary next update!

Buttons & Bugs is here, and we have been so pleased with the reception! Check out this thoughtful review from the Cardboard Herald:

We are currently at PAX East! (Well, I am not, but some brave souls went directly from the company retreat to Boston to bring you demos of Buttons & Bugs, the RPG, and all that good stuff.) If you are at the show, come by booth 12115 to say hi!



And that's it! I hope you all are enjoying Buttons & Bugs, or if it hasn't arrived, I hope you enjoy it when it arrives soon! Catch you next time!

Good day! I am home sick, and much of the team is out at the GAMA trade show, but all of us are still working away to get all these fabulous Gloomhaven games to you!

One quick update about the second printing of Frosthaven before I jump into fulfillment progress. We discovered that the outer game box didn't get updated to say "Second Printing" by the barcode on the bottom. We just want to assure you that you are receiving the second printing, with all the inner components updated correctly, so this won't affect gameplay in any way. You can also confirm your second printing by the outer carton, where it will list # of 10,000.

US - Fulfillment begins! The second printing of Frosthaven and multiple add-ons started shipping this week. Forgotten Circles, Frosthaven Play Surface Books, and Buttons & Bugs are scheduled to arrive at the fulfillment center today and should start shipping out early next week. The entire fulfillment process will take a couple weeks, so don't fret if you don't get a notification immediately.

CA - Product has arrived! Our CA fulfillment partner has received the container of all wave 1 and 2 products and fulfillment should start next week once everything has been unloaded and sorted.

Asia - All product has arrived at VFI for fulfillment and been added to the queue. They expect to start shipping these orders to their regional fulfillment hubs late this month into early next month, from there it will take a few weeks to arrive. Once it arrives at the local hub they will contact backers with shipping information.

AU/NZ - Product has arrived! Similar to CA, once everything has been unloaded fulfillment can begin. We expect these orders to start shipping within the next week.

EU/RoW - Frosthaven second printing has arrived! Frosthaven Play Surface Books, Forgotten Circles and Buttons & Bugs still look to be arriving on time to the port in about 2 weeks.

UK - As we mentioned last time, our freight shipment to the UK got delayed, and we've been working with our partners in the US to figure out an alternative solution instead of delaying UK fulfillment into mid-late May. To that end, we've scheduled a freight order from the US to the UK of Frosthaven, Frosthaven Play Surface Books, Forgotten Circles, Buttons & Bugs and other wave 1 add-ons. This shipment should arrive in the UK in 4-5 weeks, allowing us to fulfill to backers about a month earlier in mid-late April. This is later than the original expected fulfillment at the end of March, but it should still be quite a bit faster than waiting for the shipment from China. More updates to come as we receive them.

Our main focus for today's update is Buttons & Bugs, as we have a couple exciting things for you. First of all, the digital tutorial we have been working with Dized on is now live, and you can check it out here. We're very proud of all the work that was put into this, and we hope that you find it useful for learning the game.

In addition, you should start seeing reviews and other content for Buttons & Bugs starting to drop next week ahead of or alongside shipping of copies to all the backers.

And finally, we have another designer diary, but this one is from Nikki Valens talking about what they have learned while co-designing Buttons & Bugs, why listening to players is crucial for creating great games, and how much they enjoy the process of taking games apart and rebuilding them:

People often ask me what kinds of games I like to play, and that makes sense. It's a common question in our industry. We make and play games nearly everyday, and a lot of designer got into this line of work because of their love of games. But it's always been a tough one for me to answer despite the fact that I've been making games for over 20 years.

And that's just it: I've been making games.

Games are an amazing medium for conveying story and experiences, for making players think and feel, and those things stick with you. They become a part of your identity. People like playing games. So it makes sense that they also want to hear about what games others like to play.

But I like making games. I like telling stories. I like building systems and mechanics. I like analyzing games. I like pushing them to their limits, taking them apart and seeing what makes them tick, pressing the wrong buttons intentionally to find out what happens.

I like a game that gives me something to tinker with. I don't mean a dexterity game with physical pieces nor an engine building game with lots of interlocking mechanics. I'm talking about removing myself from the game itself, opening up the shell, and watching the moving pieces inside. I like games that give my designer brain something to chew on.

Which is why I was really delighted by a fan-made Gloomhaven game called Gloomholdin' designed by Joe Klipfel. It was introduced to me as Gloomhaven you can hold in your hand, and at first it just seemed like a cute gimmick. But as I analyzed it, developed it, played it, I started to see something more. The pieces were so tightly packed, but the cogs turned all the same. It was a wristwatch to Gloomhaven's grandfather clock. The engineering and craftsmanship to make it function was very similar. But to take all that and shrink it down to fit in the palm of your hand? That's something special.

So I poked and prodded and analyzed. I developed, I tinkered, I played. Not just a game, but played the way that I play. And honestly, it's the most fun I've had designing or developing a game in a long while. It was a brilliant challenge working out the bugs and rearranging its pieces to be a refined tiny cogwork system where no space is wasted. And I'm quite proud of what Joe and I were able to create. It packed a lot of very elegant design techniques into such a small package.

The thing is: That game we made isn't Buttons & Bugs. While I was playing my way and enjoying the heck out of it, our playtesters... well, they weren't. In fact, we only had a small handful of my most dedicated longtime playtesters who even played more than a single scenario. It didn't seem like anyone actually enjoyed playing it. And anytime we introduced someone new, it was clear that they were expecting "Gloomhaven but smaller."

That's a big difference between playing games and making games. While I'm designing, it's easy for me to forget that I play games very differently than most of you. I'm not so much playing a game as I am inspecting a game design. And that comes through in my work sometimes. I make something that's fun to analyze, fun to take apart and tinker with, fun to marvel at, but not fun to -play-.

What we had created was less a game, and more a model. Like building up a LEGO set not to play with it but to put it on display in the background of your video call.

I'm still very proud of what we created, of course. I still have that version of the game, and I think it would be really neat to finish it up and publish it. But as a designer, I knew that I had to do right by the players. We would need to pivot to meet not only expectations, but to create something people would enjoy playing as much as I enjoyed making it. And we pivoted hard.

We restarted design nearly from scratch. We started with the concept of miniaturized Gloomhaven, and we salvaged what pieces we could from our little wristwatch. Some of the most innovative pieces we got to keep: the double-sided ability cards and elements being available as long as they're visible. Other pieces needed to be reshaped to fit their new shell. Gone were the micro tactical puzzles that paid homage to a tactical giant, replaced with miniaturized movement grids and simplified monster and attack modifier mechanics.

After all was said and done, we had a slightly larger package than the one we started with. More of a pocket watch than a wristwatch, but still impressive considering we had created a functional copy of a grandfather clock that could still fit in the palm of your hand. But most importantly, would it be enjoyable to play?

Yeah! It was a complete turnaround in playtester engagement and enjoyment. Some of our testers started second and third runs through the campaign. One started playing with their two children and the kids loved it! As a designer, you can't ask for much more than that. I might personally enjoy the process of taking things apart and rebuilding them, but there's a different kind of joy and fondness I have for a game when I see others truly enjoying playing it.

What kinds of games do I like? I like a game that makes me want to take it apart and see how it works. I like a game that is designed just how I expected, and I like games that are designed in ways I'd never thought of. I like a game that makes my friends and all of you smile and want to play again. I love game design.

So next time you see me at a con or interview me for a podcast, instead of asking me "What kinds of games do you like playing?" ask me "Take apart any interesting games lately?" If you do, you might get a glimpse into the inner workings of my mind and what makes me tick.

                               

On the events side, today is International Womens Day! We are so grateful to all the women who have been a part of our success here at Cephalofair Games, both past and present employees, contractors, and collaborators. We thank you for your talents and contribution!

But this month we're also celebrating all things "Mini", where we will be featuring a big miniatures update next time and also sponsoring some live sculpting and painting streams that take our Gloomhaven minis to the next level. You can join Sarah Dahlinger on Twitch, March 22, 1-4pm Eastern, as they do creature sculpting to bring some of our Gloomhaven monsters to life. And Jamie Daggers will be doing a 2-part live stream on painting our Buttons & Bugs micro minis, March 27 and 28, 1-4pm Eastern. Chris Lewis, another major contributor to the miniatures project, with also be running a live sculpting session, and we'll have more info on when that is next time.

In other news, development continues to go well on the RPG. We're starting to get finals in from the writers, and we'll be heavily play testing the included adventure next week. We're on track to move into the editing phase by the end of the month, which puts us slightly behind from what was communicated last time, but still making great progress.

Art and graphic design continues on the new edition of Gloomhaven, though I don't have anything new to share with you there.

And that's it! I'll catch you next time with the big miniatures update!