Closing the Pledge Manager to Reward Changes
almost 7 years ago – Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 11:44:20 PM

Backers, the pace of new users closing their Rewards on Backer Kit has ebbed, so we are going to be closing the Pledge Manager. This means that you will not be able to add Add-ons to your Reward, or change your Reward from Adventurer to Champion. The changes to the Pledge Manager will be effective sometime tomorrow (Saturday) so please make any last minute changes today.

You will be able to continue to update your ship-to address until just before we ship.

If you have funds left on account and you miss the closing of the Pledge Manager please email [email protected] and we will try to help you. We cannot guarantee the availability of Add-ons or other changes after today.

-- The Thunderstone Quest Team

July Update - Pledge Manager Closing, More Pics, and Dice Tower Previews Thunderstone Quest!
almost 7 years ago – Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 12:49:51 AM

Backers it is time for our July Update!

Back at the beginning of May we told you that we would be closing the Pledge Manager in 8 weeks. That window has expired. We have kept the Pledge Manager open additional time due to the July 4th holiday and because there is still a reasonably high volume of Backers finalizing their pledges. But we do have to bring down the curtain on the Pledge Manager soon so we can finalize production numbers and begin to prepare the logistics pipeline to print, ship & deliver your Rewards. We may be ready to close the Pledge Manager on Friday the 22nd so please, please, please finalize your pledge before then if possible.

You will be able to change the delivery address for your Reward in the Pledge Manager until just before we ship. We will send out plenty of notifications about last-minute address change procedures when it's time.

If you still have a remaining balance on your account from funds pledged during the campaign that you wanted to use for Add-ons or other changes to your Reward and you don't finalize your order before the Pledge Manager is closed, please email [email protected] and we will do our best to help accommodate you. But the way to ensure that you get all the stuff you want is to finalize your order right now, then you'll have nothing to worry about.

The BackerKit system we are using will not charge your credit cards for any balance due (including the balance due for shipping) until we are close to the ship date UNLESS you are paying with PayPal, in which case it charges you immediately and we will hold the funds on account on your behalf. So if you are worried that you don't have the funds available right now to complete your order and you're paying with a credit or debit card and NOT PayPal you can go ahead and set your order up how you'd like and build your gold horde in anticipation of the future!

As always (and especially if you're reading this in the future and are experiencing issues with payment) please email [email protected] if you need help and we'll do our best to resolve the issue at hand!

What if you want to make a late pledge? You can, until we close the Pledge Manager, by clicking the "Make a Late Pledge" button on the campaign page. If you're using the Kickstarter app, which apparently does not display those buttons, the URL to the pre-order store (how you make a late pledge) is: 

https://thunderstone-quest.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

If you were a backer during the campaign you don't use the pre-order store, you access the Pledge Manager directly. You should have received emails from BackerKit with instructions (look in your spam folder if you can't find them). If not, the URL to access the Pledge Manager as a backer is:

https://thunderstone-quest.backerkit.com/

This afternoon marked a milestone - over 5,000 backers have finalized their Pledges! We only have about 500 more left. If you know someone who backed the campaign and hasn't finalized their pledge, tell them the Yellow Knight can't sleep well knowing that they might not get exactly the Reward they want.  The Yellow Knight needs his rest, so your help in getting those final 500 to finalize their pledges will be a huge help!

Ok, now that the administrative part of our message is done let's talk about the REALLY COOL STUFF!

REALLY COOL STUFF

This is a picture of pure joy. This is Erik Yaple, Dave Lepore and Kaz Nyborg-Andersen completing the final review of the final components of Thunderstone Quest. After this play session the green light was finally given to Mark Wootton as Production Lead to commence the turnover of the game to Production. And thus Bryan Reese who has been sweating the details on the card text and Matt Paquette who came to the plate and hit a grand slam home run on the graphic design can finally rest. And thus a major milestone was achieved!

That box in the background? That's not just something for playtest. That's the sample box for the Champion Reward, with cards sleeved and divided. It's enormous.

This is the full Champion Reward, with all base cards and 5 Quests. The unused sleeves on the left side are holding the space that the Epic Add-On cards will fill.

The box also contains room for the boards, the tokens, the dice, and the rules.  It's full. We'll need to come up with an additional storage box when we are ready to start releasing Quests beyond Quest 5 for future purchase!

Here is a picture of the current Tokens:

We think they are too big. We're going to downsize them 20-30% and make them closer in size to the Yellow Meeple. From left to right - Meeple (~13mm tall), Thunderstone, Potion, Bread, Wound (and a card for comparison). These designs and colors are final but the sizes as noted will change.

But is it any good?

Last week John Zinser and Todd Rowland were at Dice Tower Con and one of the things they set out to do was play the game with Tom Vasel, who is a long time Thunderstone player and who is a very very tough critic. What did Tom think of Thunderstone Quest? (Spoiler Alert: PHENOMENAL!)

Thanks Tom for the amazing review. We can't wait for you and all the other backers to see the final released Rewards!

And thanks to everyone who backed the campaign. Without your support we could never, ever have made anything as ambitious and incredible as Thunderstone Quest.

We are posting regular art previews to our Thunderstone Facebook page, and that's a great place to interact with other Thunderstone players and provide feedback to the designers. We encourage everyone to join us there for even more Thunderstone content!

Next month we will likely have our first production updates as the project moves into the next major phase. We are also planning another in-depth card article which will focus on The Crypt, one of the Dungeon Tiles!

-- The Thunderstone Quest Team

New Card Reveal #1 Fire & Brimstone
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 11:31:42 PM

Over the next few weeks we are going to bring you some of our favourite cards during playtest and what we did with them. The first instillment is from Erik Yaple.

Fire and Brimstone

So, during one of our playtest sessions, I just was not feeling it and thought I would take it easy – but the forces that be, sometimes have other ideas. One of the characters, Brimstone, is one I had not personally playtested much, so I was requested to check on that hero in our next session. 

One of the Quest cards that I drew was The Dragon’s Hoard, so I thought I would retry a previously unsuccessful strategy and spend the majority of my time in the village buying high VP cards for my deck with little concern for the dungeon itself. 

Well, fate had other plans. On my first hand, I drew a perfect dungeon hand: all Adventurers and Daggers, which led to more Adventurers and some light from my Lanterns. I ran past the Wilderness straight to a level 2 monster and slayed it. 

Knowing my next hand would be a great village turn, I planned on leveling up and buying Lightstone Gems until they were gone. 

Which is exactly what I started doing when it came my turn, leveling into Brimstone. For the next few turns I revealed darn near perfect dungeon turns, then village turns. This killed my no-dungeon strategy pretty quickly. I soon acquired a few level 2 Brimstones, which, back then, had a very similar ability to the level 3 Brimstone. 

With all of the Lightstone Gems I was rocking, I was slaying monsters left and right, regardless of their drawbacks and abilities, just through sheer force. When you have multiple Brimstones they all benefit from your cards that produce light, and since I was the only one focusing on that character, it was easy for me to get double, triple, and quadruple duty out of my light cards.

Based on that day, we toned down the second level Brimstone – now he has sort of an ability that plays off of your other heroes that provide light – much less susceptible to abuse. That was a day when I tried to play passively, but the card gods drew me into the game, and I was forced to adapt to my shuffles and make the best of my situation. There are a lot of paths you can take in Thunderstone Quest, but there is a random factor that may make some of those paths more attractive despite that not being your original plan. 

That’s a sign of a good game. Adapt or perish!

And You Thought Figuring Out The Dungeon Was A Puzzle?
almost 7 years ago – Wed, May 24, 2017 at 11:37:55 PM

A couple of work-in-progress updates for you.

Firstly a quick pic from China, where our production manager is working with our production partners to figure out the best way to put together the Champion reward level box. Coming up with something that will store nearly 2,000 sleeved cards and all of the other components in a way that is easy to use, is a challenging puzzle to solve! As you can see from the picture this box is a monster. At the moment this is just a white sample, and not all of the pieces are there (missing various trays etc.). You can also see the smaller box for the Adventurer level pledge.

You will also recall that we sent out the awesome graphic for the board a couple of weeks ago. We are still working on the final board layout, but we thought we would give a sneak peek of the work in progress. Those of you who watched John and Mark play through the print and play set might recall that we said some of the abilities available to the players would be on the board, and this would be a little more expansive than what we were showing you in the learn to play and print and play that we sent out. 

As you can see, there are four locations that you can visit in the village. You generally have three actions available to you - buy a card (either a hero or marketplace card), heal a wound, and level up a hero. But the four locations add (or subtract) from those basic options. In the Guilds’ Quarter you can level up an additional hero. If you place your Champion (your miniature) in the Bazaar you can buy one of the three Gear tokens available in addition to a card. The Temple is very similar to the old Prepare action in Thunderstone Advance, in that you can use it to set yourself up for future turns, but in this case you can also heal and additional wound - it comes with a cost though, you lose the ability to level a hero and cannot use card effects that might also let you go to the Dungeon. Finally there is the Shop of Arcane Wonders, where you can buy Treasure cards (at a price of course).

As you see the Village Board is labeled where all the different card types will be placed. We recognize though that some players prefer a more free-form game. Thus, the back of the Village Board will have these labels removed. Players may use either side as they choose.

Thanks for continuing to support Thunderstone Quest!

-- Mark Wootton, Project Lead

Pledge Manager Information!
almost 7 years ago – Wed, May 03, 2017 at 11:27:10 PM

Attention Backers!

We are almost ready to begin using the Pledge Manager for Thunderstone Quest!

We have selected BackerKit as our platform provider for Pledge Management. BackerKit has powered thousands of successful campaigns and they have by far the best suite of tools that we reviewed while selecting a platform.

You will be able to add additional Champion Rewards to your order, add and manage Add-Ons, and we've made our best-selling Card Crafting Game Mystic Vale available as an Add-On as well (we're testing the ability to offer other games in our catalog to Kickstarter backers)!

Late Pledges

We have received enormous interest in backing the campaign since it ended and we have decided to enable people to join the fun! Anyone who wants to make a late pledge will be able to do so through the BackerKit system, at this URL:

https://thunderstone-quest.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Late pledges will receive the same Rewards as those who backed during the campaign.

Shipping

We have also been working to select a fulfillment system and we have been able to use the shipping rates and information we've been provided to calculate shipping costs for the Rewards and Add-Ons. As we noted in the campaign we are going to be charging as close to actual shipping costs as we can for each order. AEG is not making any profit on shipping & handling.

The Champion Reward is enormous.

These are images of production samples for the components. (They are obviously not the actual components, tokens & dice are just placeholders, etc.) Premium Box not shown.

We are estimating the weight of the Champion reward at 15lbs.

We significantly overshot our original weight estimates because of the addition of the Grand Finale Quest so we're going to be at the high end of our estimated shipping costs (and over those estimates for some backers).

Backers in China (including Hong Kong), Australia, Canada, the UK, and the European Union (plus Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) plus the United States will have their rewards delivered from a depot in those regions. We will handle the customs and taxes to ship from our factory into those depots. Most backers in those regions will receive their shipments without additional taxes or fees as a result. If for some reason there is some assessment made at the point of delivery it will be beyond our control and you will be responsible for payment.  Shipping costs for the Champion Reward for these depots will be:

• US: $18
• Canada: $25
• Germany: $17
• EU+: $27
• UK: $28
• Australia: $24
• China: $22
• Rest of world: ~$53-63

Backers outside the regions directly served by a depot will be shipped from the closest available depot. Most shipments in Asia will originate in China. New Zealand will be shipped from Australia. Shipments in Central and South America will originate either from the US or from Germany depending on the best available rates. Shipments to the rest of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East will be shipped from Germany. Backers outside the regions directly serviced by the depots may incur taxes and customs fees on receipt and you'll be responsible for payment.

Shipping will be charged directly in the Pledge Manager.

Refund Policy

As noted in the campaign we offer a refund at any time for any reason. We will refund 92% of your pledge (the full amount less the Kickstarter fee and payment platform fee).

8 Week Time Window for Using the Pledge Manager

Once you receive your invitation to use the Pledge Manager you will have 8 weeks to log in, confirm your pledge, manage Add-ons, and pay for shipping.

After 8 weeks we may not be able to accommodate requests to make changes to your pledge and we will work with you as necessary to resolve any issues outstanding.

At the end of the 8 week window we will be finalizing our orders with our production facilities and we will not be able to make major changes to the number of units being produced without additional costs and delays. So please please please access the Pledge Manager within the next 8 weeks to ensure your order is updated and finalized!

Some backers will receive an invitation to the Pledge Manager in the next 48 hours. We're going to issue invitations to about 10% of the backers and allow them time to use the platform to detect any problems or issues that we need to correct before we invite the rest of the backers to the platform. Everyone should have a Pledge Manager invitation by the end of the weekend.

If you have any questions or comments please email [email protected] for fastest response! Messages left as comments on Kickstarter may not receive a response in a timely manner. 

-- The AEG Thunderstone Team