Fulfillment Update. Please Read.
over 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 02:31:37 AM

Hey everyone! I have some good news, some not so great news, and a huge favor to ask. 

Fulfillment Update:

As of today, all orders of the Two Player Box set (as well as enhanced Box sets, extra tokens, extra pocket rulebooks, full sized rulebooks, PDF rulebooks, fiction anthology, STL files for vehicles, terrain, dice, grit poker chips, and measuring tapes) have been sent out! If you don't get yours within about a week, please reach out and I'll track it down for you. 

Please do us a huge favor and post on social medias (if you don't mind). That will get our face and game out there and help us spread the game as far and wide as possible. 

Fulfillment Snag:

As we packed up the games, we were noticing some models that were not up to our standards. We thought we got them all last time, but we missed about 185 of one model. It just isn't fit. A minority for sure, but it is significant. We are sending these back to the manufacturer, but have not heard back from them yet. Our hope is to get these replaced before GenCon, and if so, there is no significant problem. If we don't, that will lead to a bit of a problem for us. See the favor below.

 A Favor to Consider:

As a company, from the get-go, we've been as honest as possible about what's been happening on our journey as well as trying to give you the most complete picture of where we stand and why we're doing what we're doing, etc. Here's the big problem for us. If we don't get these 185 minis replaced before GenCon, we will have to make a choice. Either fulfill to our international backers (and even still not quite have enough) and have nothing to sell at GenCon, or sell what we can at GenCon (we can make about 80 boxes at the moment), but break our promise not to sell anything before we fulfill it to our backers.

If we don't sell any at GenCon, we are gonna be in a pretty deep financial hole. The cons are where we were planning on turning a profit, so if we don't, things get icky for us.  For international backers, it may mean an additional month of waiting, but for Fragging Unicorns, it may mean we can't move the company forward meaningfully. 

So my favor is, please let us know what your thoughts are here. We are trying our best to be flexible and honoring to everyone, but the pandemic, the higher prices of everything, the slowness of supply chains, and the continual unknowns of lock downs, shifting sands of freight shipping, metal and plastics availability, etc all have been beating us to the ground as we try to get up and started. |

But if we don't have your support, we have nothing anyway. So we'd rather lose money than our integrity or your support. But we figured, you are good hearted and reasonable folks, so we thought we'd ask. 

Thank you so much for your support, so much of it, and over such a long time. There are amazing things coming if we can just get past the next few hurdles. I'll be revealing some amazing stuff in the next few updates (not just related to the Gangs Kickstarter, but other projects and Gangs' future as well). 

Stay safe and comfortable (cool or warm as the case may be)!

 - Opti

Fulfillment has begun!
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 04:49:20 PM

Great news! I've waited just a few days longer to post this in order to make sure everything was smooth, but now I can share the good news. The first 24 packages of the Gangs of the Undercity 2 Player Box Set have been sent out!

There is a bottleneck as to how fast we can get them out, and basically that bottleneck is me. Since our team is spread out all over the world, I'm doing the packing and shipping solo. I expect I can assemble and ship out approximately 20-40 each day. Regarding international (non-US) backers, that is another issue.  For those, I'll have to assemble them all, then ship them to our international fulfillment partners, who will send them out to you. And I'll be frank, international shipping has been... unpredictable these last 12 months. But I will absolutely be coming back with updates along the way. 

Here's what the production looks like on my end. Prepare to be whelmed!

I have a little bit more to talk about, but I think I'll wait and make another update soon!

Thanks for all your support, unicornos!

 - Opti

Next Wave of Minis & Convention Tournaments
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 04:49:04 PM

Hey folks! 

I know we just had an update yesterday, but I have more news and I promised to share news as it happens!

Conventions

First, we are doing a number of events at a few conventions this year. 

• We'll be at ReaperCon, September 2-5 in Denton, TX., just hanging out, trying to sell books and any leftover Box Sets, and doing demos of Gangs. No tournament or events.
• At GenCon, September 16-19, in Indianapolis, IN, we will have a booth (either with the Indy Game Development Network (IGDN) or Rem Alternis) selling games and books, and doing demos of Gangs. This will be the site of our annual Grand Tournament. Prize support AND narrative (read: affecting the lore of the world) prizes will be awarded! Here is the link to the event! https://www.gencon.com/events/192287
• At Origins Game Fair, September 30-October 3, in Columbus, OH. We will be sharing a booth with Rem Alternis, selling games and books, and doing demos of Gangs. We'll also have a learn to play event, and another tournament. Pre-painted minis and premade gangs available for those who want to participate. Prize support AND narrative (read: affecting the lore of the world) prizes will be awarded! Also, we will bed doing an ONLINE TOURNAMENT for Origins Online, which will have the same prizes as the live events.

Next Wave of Minis

We've got some info on the next wave of minis coming after the Box Set ships. 

We can't say for sure when these will arrive to us or when they'll ship out, but there is progress being made. These are the metal casts, just to give us an idea of how things will look for the print run.  They aren't the final products. 

Here is Rocky, the dwarf gunner:

Naqar, elf breacher

Abimiras, human gunner

Yetin Kit (incomplete)

Breachfly Drone

Wardog Drone

Yolly, goblin brawler

And Triggerman, human gunner

There's more to come soon! I'll keep you all in the loop!

Thanks for your continued support!

 - Opti

Hope-Filled Update!
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 02, 2021 at 12:02:44 AM

Hey friends! 

You have no idea how much it means to us that you all have had such infinite patience. You fragging rock. We don't want to just keep apologizing for things out of our control, so we won't. But please know this has been incredibly frustrating, for you we know, and for us as well. So much planning has been just tossed out the window every few months due to labor shortages, prices of materials skyrocketing, conventions being moved or cancelled, shipping and manufacturing supply chains being backed up, etc. 

But all that to say, we finally have some hopeful news to share. I have been told our replacement models (for the three we had to send back) are shipping out on Tuesday. Now, I am not taking that as adamant truth, we've been down that road before, but I am hopeful. That will mean we can ship out the main game to everyone ASAP.

Yetin Kit

But also, here are some fun things to look forward to as well down the line. Here is the sprue for the Yetin Kit, which I think came out really cool! Please note these are just for the molds, and the finals will still be metals (unless the prices for resin magically become cheaper than metal. But who knows what devilry the world will bring next?). 

Conventions

• We will be attending ReaperCon, September 2-5 in Denton, TX. We'll just have a booth and be selling games and books, and doing demos of Gangs. No tournament or events there. 
• We will be at GenCon, September 16-19, in Indianapolis, IN. Here, we will have a booth with the Indy Game Development Network (IGDN), selling games and books, and doing demos of Gangs. We'll also have a learn to play event, and of course, our annual grand tournament. This year will be a little odd, since models haven't gone out yet, but we'll have pre-painted minis and premade gangs available for those who want to participate. Prize support AND narrative (read: affecting the lore of the world) prizes will be awarded!
• We will be at Origins Game Fair, September 30-October 3, in Columbus, OH. We will have our own booth, selling games and books, and doing demos of Gangs. We'll also have a learn to play event, and another tournament. Pre-painted minis and premade gangs available for those who want to participate. Prize support AND narrative (read: affecting the lore of the world) prizes will be awarded! Also, we will bed doing an ONLINE TOURNAMENT for Origins Online, which will have the same prizes as the live events. 

Subversion

We've hinted here and there about our upcoming RPG called Subversion, set in the same universe as Gangs of the Undercity. That is in concurrent production, so we'll keep on giving little exclusive glimpses about what we're doing in the meantime. 

In that light, here is the recently finished art for the powers that dominate Neo Babylon's worship, the Seven Gods Who Decree. Shamash, Ninurta, Ishtar, Marduk, Nabu, Nergal, and Sayin. 

That's it for this update, folks. I hope to have some more good news very soon. 

Thanks for your support!

 - Opti

Update on how things are going
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 06:05:41 PM

Hey folks,

It has been a while since the last update, but not because we've gone anywhere. Just because there has been nothing to report. Our minis manufacturer has had to make some sculpting changes to the replacement minis in order to make them print smooth and not put extra wear on the molds, so that is taking longer than expected. I'm ready to go as soon as we get the replacement minis. 

I'll be honest, if it takes much longer, we might be in a situation where we have some of the other minis (the ones NOT in the two-player starter box) ready to ship before the main game. If this happens, I'll send out what I can along with the two-player sets. I am told there is a good possibility we will have ALL the minis ready by October, but I am not willing to make any promises with that. 

I am being told from every step along our supply chain that Covid and the resulting issues which began last year, but are just catching up to us now, are making large changes in the industry and everyone is quite far behind. Prices of resin, equipment, metals, and shipping are all way up. What this means for us? Not sure yet. We are still on track to get everything out, though. Just waiting on manufacturer. 

In other news, we WILL be goign to GenCon, Origins, and Reapercon this year. At GenCon and Origins, we'll kick off our yearly grand tournament, which will see the lore changing in the Undercity based on the winners and choices made throughout the tournament. We're finishing up a test tournament to see how things will go, and we're getting excited! We'll also have a table at the Independent Game Developers Network booth as well, selling product and trying to get folks in to demo Gangs of the Undercity. 

That is all the Gangs of the Undercity news for now, but since we've not been able to move forward with Gangs, we've been putting our creative energy into Subversion, our upcoming RPG set in the same universe as Gangs. 

We are in round three of playtests and so far, so fun! We're ready to really crack down on our conflict resolution system and put it through its paces, and then we do more playtesting! But also, we've been prepping for promotion. Any sort of Kickstarter or launch of Subversion is still far away, and we promised ourselves we would not even think about it until all of Gangs has been fulfilled. But we are still planning! Here's some art that we've been squirreling away for when that day comes. (The following are works in progress, and may not final products)

These are Neo Babylon's main powers, the Seven Gods Who Decree: Shamash, Ninurta, Ishtar, Marduk, Nabu, Nergal, and Sayin. 

and here is one of our creatures from Opti's side project of creating a vintage-looking Beasts and Beings sort of monster manual thing for Subversion. 

So that's it for this update. More will come your way the very minute I learn anything! Thanks for hanging in there and for your amazing supportive patience!

 - Opti