Defense Grid: The Board Game

PPC Received and Some changes needed
over 6 years ago – Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 08:50:53 PM

We got our PPC copy in last week and did a really in-depth review of it.

During the review, we identified a couple of issues that need to be fixed.  We are working with Panda on all of the following and are expecting a new PPC will be mailed out before Chinese New Year at the end of the week.  A 2nd revision of the PPC was expected in our recently updated timeline, so all good there.

Before I get into the corrections and changes we requested, I just have to say that the Foil Inlay AI cards are amazing!  It was something we were nervous about, but they turned out way better than we ever could have expected.  Unfortunately, they don't really show great in photos :(  So you will have to wait till you get the product to see.

So, what needed correction?

Missile Tower

The Missile Tower Miniature had a few issues.  It only had 1 Missile Pod instead of 2 and they were facing the wrong way.  Outside of the issue with design, having them face the wrong way had the unfortunate affect of blocking the token pillar.

They are working to fix this.

 Tesla Tower

Just a small issue here.  The Tower was placed too close to the pillar and as a result, the tokens wouldn't slide all the way down the pillar.  

This may require a tiny trim on the side of the tower base, but nothing too big.

 Status Tokens

The square status tokens that are being produced in a bunch of colors have a hole that is just slightly smaller than the rest.  As a result, they can get stuck on the pillar a bit.  The rest of the tokens were fine, so they are just going to enlarge the hole a tiny bit.

 Player Decks

This was a rather big mistake on my side.  I forgot to mark 9 cards for Taylor's default deck and mis-marked 5 other cards for the wrong decks.  We updated the art file for these and sent them over.

We also didn't sort the cards correctly, so Panda wouldn't be able to sort them into the decks for shipping how we wanted them.  This is also now fixed.

DieCut Sheets Combined

While playing around with the DieCut sheets, we noticed something.  We had enough white space on the map tiles diecut sheets to fit 4 Alien Tokens on each.  There are 15 sheets and 57 Alien Tokens, so, we could merge the 2 sheets.

We have now done this, updated all art files, and gave the new DieCut lines to Panda.

Mission Booklet Quality Upgrade

We received 2 versions of the Mission Booklet to check out.  

The first was the planned product that used 300gsm Cardstock (same as playing cards) for the outer pages and normal manual paper for the inner pages.

The second used the Cardstock for all pages.

After playing with them for a bit, we determined that the full Cardstock Mission booklet was a far and away superior experience.  It made it a lot easier to lay the pages flat and to wrap the map page around the back of the booklet to reduce table space requirements after setup if desired.

So, we have updated the spec to use the full Cardstock booklet instead for the production product.

Other Randomness

The box was missing the 3D Molded insert we designed, but this was expected.  We are hoping it will be in the next PPC.

We trimmed the 5mm width off the Mission Booklet so it will fit in the box properly.

Thanks for backing and supporting us!  It is so awesome to be able to finally hold a product we designed in our hands and we can't wait for all of you to be able to do the same.

If anyone is in the Seattle area and would like to check out any of the PPC components, let me know.  Happy to show them off in person.

Anthony Hanses & Rico Hall

Production and Miniatures Samples!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 08:55:48 PM

PPC is shipping to us early next week!  In the meantime, here are some pictures sent to us from Panda.

 The one issue discovered so far is that our mission booklet is 5mm too wide. I have to get them a new PDF for this, but it should not cause any delay.

In addition, they now have some samples done for the miniatures, including the tracking and core tokens.  We really love how these are turning out.

 Thanks

Anthony Hanses & Rico Hall

Panda Comment on Manufacturing Delay and Manufacturing Update
over 6 years ago – Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 12:44:01 AM

Sorry for the delay in sending another update :(

We have been hard at work with Panda trying to figure out where we stand with regards to shipping Defense Grid: The Board Game to all of our backers.  

To start, here is an official message from our manufacturer, Panda Manufacturing.

PANDA LETTER

Hi Defense Grid Backers. David from Panda Game Manufacturing here. 

We've been working with Anthony on Defense Grid since May of 2016 and it's been a great experience. We've all gotten really excited about the game and are honored to be manufacturing it for all of you.  

As you all know, Defense Grid is a massive game with many complex components. We're working on some of the best miniatures we've ever made. However, all of the detail and complexity of these components means it takes a long time to manufacture. Unfortunately we will need to push back the delivery timeline for Defense Grid. This is in no way Anthony's fault as everything he has communicated has come from us. We did a poor job of estimating just how long this project would take. We can't be sorry enough for that.  

We are all gamers at Panda and most of us are Kickstarter backers as well. We know what it's like to receive games that are late, but we also know what it's like to receive games that are not made well. We want to make sure that you're thrilled with the game you receive. We think the time it takes to deliver that will be worth it, and we appreciate your patience.  

Best regards, David - Project Manager - Panda Game Manufacturing - www.pandagm.com  

CURRENT ESTIMATE

Before I give the current estimate, I just want to point out that more details regarding the delay, as I know them, are listed below.  Feel free to ask me any and all questions.  I will be as transparent as I can.

Our current estimate is that Defense Grid: The Board Game will be loaded on freight ships for delivery to our 4 partner distribution facilities on May 28th, 2018.  This is a 3 month delay from our last estimate and 5 months from our original target.

Needless to say, this is not what I wanted to have happen for our first game.  In my previous career, I was the king of helping large organizations build schedules in the software industry that shipped on time, within budget, without crunch times or quality.  I have not delivered the same for my first physical board game project and that is not acceptable.

Going forward, Panda has committed to giving me more regular updates including occasional pictures and other goodies I can share with my backers to reassure everyone things are progressing more smoothly. 

Here is what the schedule looks like today.  

PPC (Also known as White Copy) will complete this coming Monday (January 29th, 2018) and will be shipping to my business for validation and signoff.  If there are any issues, we have time to do 1 or possibly 2 more runs before Chinese New Year (extended vacation for all Panda Manufacturing employees).

3D Printed Samples of all HP and Status tracking tokens are being made now.  These will be done next week and, if successful, they will start producing the molds.  Molds are estimated to be don by March 10th.

Tower Miniature Sample Molds and Alien Chipboard Stand Sample Molds are being made right now.  They are scheduled to be done by February 10th and samples will be shipped to me shortly thereafter.  If approved, it will take 35 days to to produce the production molds.  Once production molds are done, mass production is fast.

Biggest risk for further delays is any issues with the Tower Production molds.

Prepress: Finished

Preproduction: Now - February 10th (start of Chinese New Year)  

Mass Production: February 26th (end of Chinese New Year) - May 11th  

Final Assembly: May 14th - May 25th  

Shipping: May 28th (Shipping usually takes 4 - 6 weeks depending on where you ship to)

Arrival at Distribution: Mid-July

Delivery to Backers - Mid to Late July 2018

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

So, the biggest issue was the Tower Molds.  Our last delay was due to these and the current delay is also due to them.  

Forged by Geeks delivered all Tower Molds to Panda's Chinese office, and got receipt confirmation, back in May of 2017.  At the time, we believed Panda was starting work on the molds, this was an incorrect assumption.

In August 2017, we learned that Panda had not started the molds and that the complexity of the Aliens was likely to cause a major delay in starting them.  This was when we worked with Panda and determined that cutting the Alien Miniatures from the core game would cause a substantial time savings.  So we gave the go-ahead to cut them, redesigned the box and insert a bit, and shortly there after posted an update to backers explaining the situation.  Once again, we believed that Panda had now started producing the molds for the miniatures, this was an incorrect assumption.

In October 2017, I finished delivery of all digital materials to Panda and got confirmation that they had everything from me they needed to produce the game.

Throughout November and December, I worked with their pre-production team on validation of all digital print materials, made a few updates as requested, and generally tried to monitor progress.  Starting in early December, I started trying to get updates on the miniatures again.

During the first week of January, I was connected with a VP at Panda who helped identify some issues in the production pipeline for Defense Grid: The Board Game.  He took immediate action to resolve the issues, got the miniatures sample production and mold process started, and worked with the larger team to get me a more complete schedule and commitment.

Ultimately, it turned out that there was one silly little thing that we had not delivered to Panda (that we were not aware of before this time) that was required by their molds team to start sample production and eventually the production molds.  It was a simple spec sheet that contained 3 pictures of different angles on each miniature, and Pantone colors for each piece.  This was identified as the root issue in the first week of January and I had the final version delivered and verified on January 5th.  Since then, we have been working together to determine the new target shipping date.

Thank you for backing us and we hope this helps clarify things.  Let us know if you have any questions.

Anthony Hanses & Rico Hall

Digital Proofs Approved and Pictures of Them
over 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 11:33:11 PM

We had a couple small issues, mainly with the Foil side of the AI cards, but all the digital proofs are now done and approved.

For those interested, it turns out that Foil printing on cards can drift up to 1mm in all directions on top of the card art.  So I had to modify it a bit, make some lines wider, and remove some ink from the base print that might have looked weird if it showed up next to the foil lines.

I also have a couple of other things to show off for those interested.

Foil Inlay Box Wrap.

I mentioned in a previous update that we will have a box wrap with a new version of the Defense Grid: The Board Game logo designed for the foil inlay.  For the box wrap, it will be all black with this logo set to be on the top of the box.  All the yellow parts will actually be silver foil.

Player Cards

Next up, its hard to see, but this is just 1 of 5 sheets of printed cards for the game.  On the left side is the front of the cards and on the right is the back.  The magenta lines everywhere are the cut lines.

Alien Tokens

Finally, here is a picture of 1 of the 2 Alien Token proof sheets.  These are what we will be shipping with the base game in place of the miniatures.  As before, the magenta lines are the cut lines, but those can drift up to 3mm so all of the tokens have safe space on all sides in case the cut is really off (which we hope won't happen).  In addition, the bottom has extra space for inserting the token into the stand to move them around the board that will also hold their HP and other status tracking tokens.

One of the things we found in some late stage playtesting is that people actually preferred these to the miniatures we had available.  Part of that is because we have the Movement, Core Capacity, and Armor values printed on all of them.

As always, thank you for backing and pre-ordering!  The BackerKit will close on December 3rd and most of our Backers will be charged then (unless you already paid through PayPal).

We still have about 100 backers who have not finalized their BackerKit yet.  If you are one of those and you miss the December 3rd cutoff, don't worry, the BackerKit will stay open for a while so that we can try to get everyone squared away.

Anthony Hanses and Rico Hall.

Manufacturing Update & Mea Culpa
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 11:50:14 PM

GOOD NEWS  

First the good news. PANDA has received every single file and item needed to produce Defense Grid: The Board Game, and barring any issues with actual manufacturing (which they inform me should be discovered in the next 3 to 5 business days), the production of the game is 100% out of my hands.  

I still have some work to do in the coming months, including the make your own missions, art book, and the 24 free missions, but the core game is 100% complete.

BAD NEWS  

Based on previous time estimates I received from PANDA, this means we will end up shipping right around the end of February. I should receive new estimates in the next couple of weeks. Once I have them, I intend to post them in full as an update.  

WHAT HAPPENED?  

Quite frankly, I had a LOT to learn. A lot more than I had anticipated.  

The game itself has been 100% complete and tested since June 5th, 2017. We literally have not done any work on the game outside of manufacturing pre-production since then. A lot of this work, I (Anthony) am only able to take care of due to my existing experience with Adobe products and services. As a result, Rico has moved onto working on our next two games and play testing a bunch of games related to one of our upcoming games.  

In the meantime, I have learned a lot. I am sure some other game designers that read the following will laugh, but I like to be honest and up front when possible. I come from a software background. In all my previous roles, anything I had to do art wise in any of these tools, I was just able to do using the tool defaults. This is not the case with physical products.  

Don’t laugh too hard here, but, a big issue I ran into was the color format and resolution. The defaults in everything that I built were 72ppi and RGB. For production board game assets to look the best (which all of you deserve) is 300ppi and CMYK. To make this conversion fast and easy wasn’t too bad, but some of our stuff ended up looking less than ideal through the fast conversion. As a result, I spent quite a bit of time reworking little bits here and there to tweak the colors, gradients, etc… for CMYK.  

The next thing is True Black and Bleed. Almost all of our Die Cut pieces were designed for bleed, but somewhere in my brain I missed the little detail that a 3mm bleed also meant that it would cut inside the edge as well, so I needed 3mm on the inside as well as on the outside. David, our amazing artist for the cards and map tiles, had done this for all the art he created, but my assembly of the final map tiles, the alien/tower chipboard cards, and the new Alien chipboard tokens all failed in this regard. I had to spend quite a bit of time reworking them to make everything fit and ensure that no text got cut off on any piece.  

Finally, we have the pieces with foil inlay. This wasn’t too bad and only took me about 1.5 weeks to complete end to end, but it was still some learning and delay. For the box wrap, we have a huge foil inlay of the Defense Grid: The Board Game logo. This also meant that technically I was modifying Hidden Path Entertainment’s IP. So, I created a solid example of what I thought would work and then they had one of their talented artists produce a new version that was amazing in just 2 days!  

Needless to say, this has all been a huge learning experience and I am sorry that my inexperience has caused our backers to have to wait longer to get the game. Honestly, if I had known in February 2017 everything I know now, the game likely would have been complete in October 2017 as originally planned.  

GOING FORWARD  

Well, mostly waiting and updates from PANDA through me.  

Quick reminder that the BackerKit locks down on December 1st. If you are a backer and somehow missed the reminders for that date, the BackerKit will stay afterwards for a while so you can still complete it. The only issue is that after a certain point, we will have to start locking down add-ons like the Alien Miniatures and Metal Towers to lock in their smaller production runs.  

We will still process any refund requests at least through February 1st, 2018.  At a certain point (hard for me to pinpoint right now), we will have to stop doing so because the orders will be going out, but we will try to keep this open for as long as possible.

Ohh, and as I have mentioned before, we are going to do our best to ensure that all backers receive their copies of Defense Grid: The Board Game before we deliver any extra copies for pre-orders received after the December 1st cut off. This means that we will even be paying a couple months storage at some distribution facilities if required to do so. This game wouldn’t have been possible without you and you deserve to get it first.  

Finally, if there are any applications you would like to see the custom mission toolset work with, please let me know in the comments below or email me at [email protected]. Right now, I am targeting Adobe Photoshop/InDesign, GiMP, and Paint.Net. We can’t guarantee it will work easily with everything, but we are trying our best.

Thanks again,

Anthony Hanses & Rico Hall