ForumBoardGames.ro

Hi folks,

we have now received the funds, and in order to expedite the backer survey, we have hired some outside help. We would like to leave nothing to luck, and so we are conducting "dummy" surveys now in order to test the system.

The reason for this is that we would like to integrate the survey with our upcoming website, and allow you to have a profile that you can use to manage your shipping address, and get more extras if you like.

For the curious, the final amount we received is $ 29190.91 - the first time we have seen 5 digits (well, 5+2) in a bank account.

In the meantime, we are waiting for the final production samples for the steel gears from the metalworking facility, and we will post pictures when we receive them.

The game's manufacturing schedule has been worked out, the quote is now finalized, and the factory is just going to be waiting for the final art files. We are on time, and we are considering printing earlier than expected, to again leave nothing to luck. It might cost us a little more in storage, but will give us a lot of peace of mind.

Finally, we have arranged for a storage facility in Essen, so we expect to have the games arrive there before we even do. It's better for the games to wait for us, rather than that we wait for the games.

All this extra storage does mean extra costs, but the shipping costs from the factory to Essen turned out to be less than what we expected, and so we will use those savings to buy extra peace of mind. Even though we are producing the games in Europe, and do not have to wait for any containers from China, we want to make sure that everything is waiting for us in Essen when we get there.

Speaking of Essen, if any German-speaking Pistonheads have some time to volunteer at our booth, especially on the Saturday of the fair, we would love the help, and could work out a few freebies (beer? t-shirts? games? Nutella waffles?) for those that put in some hours. Jukka has booked his flights, and will be with us at the booth throughout the fair.

So thanks for being patient. Feel free to message us with any questions (we have kept to a 12-hour maximum response time), and we will be happy to answer them.

That's basically it for now, so sit tight, it's coming. We are also quite eager to open our first box of Gear & Piston, and to start delivering all those extras as well.

Some of you may know of our other venture, http://boardgametravel.com - as all of you get a 10% discount to our trips as part of the Gear & Piston basic backer reward. We previously posted about another Kickstarter campaign that Richard "Rahdo" Ham started, but sadly Kickstarter suspended it. KS realized their mistake and admitted it to Richard, but it was too late to reinstate it.

Well, it seems that he just won't give up: http://igg.me/at/rahdoCardboardSun/.

Talk to you soon!

Yes! Finally! The survey is out. By this time or sometime soon, you will be receiving an email from our survey provider, PollDaddy.

It was sent to the email address you provided through Kickstarter. If you've missed it, it is stuck in your junk mail, or you don't feel like checking your inbox, here is a link to it:

http://tringua.polldaddy.com/s/gear-pis ... ker-survey

The reasons why we are using that website rather Kickstarter's native interface are many, yet not so obvious to someone not familiar with the campaign process.

Even though we were also not familiar with it, it took a short time to realize that KS does not do surveys well. It took longer to find a way to do it right. We asked for help, talking to Jamey Stegmaier of the hugely successful Euphoria campaign, and looking at a number of plugins, websites and applications.

In the end, because we had so many pledge levels (a mistake), it was very clear that we would have to recreate dozens of questions and multiple choice options for each of the 16 levels, resulting in even further delays. So, we decide to use a purpose-built solution.

As we get responses, we will be able to immediately fulfill the Spielbox extra, and as soon as we have a good batch of data, we will import it to our internal order management system at http://ludicreations.com

Following that, you will be able to keep your address information updated, and we will have an easier time printing shipping labels when the time comes.

The survey also contains some questions about how and why you supported Gear & Piston. They are not obligatory, but we would love to know why you did what you did, and got us into all this fine damn mess!

In all seriousness, if you have any questions, please feel free to message us here, or post a comment to this update. Yes, some of them will have been answered before in the general comments, other update comments or even in the campaign page FAQ, but feel free to ask, it's our job to answer.

Here's the link to the survey again:

http://tringua.polldaddy.com/s/gear-pis ... ker-survey

Thank you once more for your patience!

LudiCreations