Edge of Darkness Expansion Emissaries of the Vale

February Update
about 2 years ago – Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 09:05:42 PM

As per my last update, not much is happening on the production side due to Lunar New Year, however there are a few things to share/talk about, so here we go!

1) All files are at the printer. They all got there before the start of Lunar New Year, so once the vacationing staff comes back, they will be in the queue to get worked on. 

2) I got to check out the box today, and I don't know what it is about Edge of Darkness art, but dang does it look great on a box! Here's a snip of what I got to see today (the pink lines don't get printed, they just mark where the image folds over from the top to the side. 

 3) Schedule is still reading green across the board. I'll know more next month after the factories fire back up again. I'm assuming they have LOTS of back-work to catch up on.

That's about it for this month. A slow month, but at least I didn't have to explain global supply-chain issues, so yea for that!

Two more things to mention while I have you...

First off, I wanted to let you know that AEG is looking to expand our leadership team with a Sales and Marketing leader. This is a high level position that will help guide AEG’s future. So if you happen to be an experienced sales and marketing executive type in the gaming industry or one that wants to make the jump to the gaming industry, click here to see what we are looking for.

Lastly, we just launched our Kickstarter for Rolling Heights - a great meeple-rolling city-builder by John D Clair with art by Kwanchai Moria. If you like any of those words (and as a backer of Edge of Darkness, I'm sure you like at least one of them...), check it out!

Luke

January Update
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:05:05 PM

Here is where things are as of today...

1) Graphic designer is finishing up the files now, and it's going smoothly.

2) Chinese New Year starts early this year and is basically the month of February. That means that we likely won't start the back and forth with the printer until March.

3) Things are still crazy with logistics right now, but some trends seem to be appearing. Sea freight is taking a few extra weeks for most of the world, with up to a month or more for the EU (port congestion is still a big issue there). 

4) We still have this project listed as "on schedule" on our big board which is really good news. That said, In this last year I have seen many of our products (Kickstarter and otherwise) crash their schedule due to logistics issues, so I'll keep an eye on it and let you know if anything goes nutty. 

The Feb update will hopefully be previews and such (no production will be happening due to #2 above). 

Thanks!

Luke

Back from PAX and Ready for a Edge of Darkness Update
over 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 08:54:13 PM

(End of the year here at AEG is a little nutty. We try to give our staff a healthy holiday to recuperate, and that often means crushing lots of work into the week before break - which technically started yesterday…. Any-who, I wrote this up earlier this week and never hit “send” like a bozo. So here’s your update!)

First off I want to apologize for being slow on these updates. Ryan and I were both tasked to run PAX Unplugged this year (along with the Big Game Night event) when Beth - our usual amazing show runner - couldn’t make it. That task sucked up a lot of time and with 4 Kickstarters to update, I definitely got behind schedule and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ll do my best today and tomorrow to go through all the comments as well.

Now for the reason you came here - What's up with Edge of Darkness?

Everything here is green across the board as far as on-time delivery. Our goal is to have all files to the printer when Chinese New Year ends (middle/late February), and we see no reason that shouldn’t happen as planned.

Potential date slips…

We have built our schedules based on historical shipping data, and as you know, shipping has gotten crazy. We have high hopes that by the time EoD is ready, shipping be more predictable if not fully back to normal. We have been getting lots of reports from our shipper about the increasing number of cancelled sailings. These are fully loaded ships that can’t leave one port because the landing port is too congested. That is the kind of news we’ve been lucky to avoid on our shipments so far, but that potential is there for sure.

The only other hiccup potential on our radar is the printer. Supply of raw materials and electricity has been an issue at some locations recently. If our printer gets slammed with work post CNY, then we might have some issues there.

That said, we are as confident as we can be this far out of a fully on-time delivery.

Now that PAX is over, the holiday season is upon us here at AEG. We are more or less closed down from the 18th of December until early 2022.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and get a chance to play some games with your friends and/or family.

Luke

Update Time!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 04:02:59 PM

I never know how often to update when we don’t have a whole lot of news, but it definitely feels like this update is overdue. So, what has been going on since the end of this campaign?

Well, AEG has been dealing with some pretty unique issues - things we’ve never encountered in our 25+ years of publishing games. Things like “factories not getting enough electricity to operate” and the like. None of those challenges have affected this campaign at all, but I bring it up because we are in some uncharted waters right now. 

The only snag we’re having to deal with on Edge of Darkness is that our preferred graphic designer is still working on another product. Preparing files for clear cards is a bit more complicated than regular paper printing, so we decided to wait instead of finding a new graphic designer (should only be a week or two). In the meantime, we have gone ahead and got all the art prepped, and got all the text through multiple rounds of editing as we wait. This snag has not affected the schedule at all, in fact our production department is guardedly optimistic that we will be able to beat the delivery date for this product.

As I get more info, I’ll fire off another update. For those who are interested, the next milestones are…

Graphic Designer on board

Graphic Design done

Internal file approvals

Digital proofing #1

Digital proofing #2 (if needed)

Printed proofs

Mass production

Logistics/shipping/etc...

1$ Pledge Manager, Cold Harbor, and GenCon
over 2 years ago – Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 09:14:26 PM

As I get ready to head off for GenCon, I wanted to fire off a quick reminder that the pledge manager is open for all backers now. You should have an email with the details (check the address you use for Kickstarter). 

Cold Harbor is just about sold out as well (I think we are at under 50 available copies at this point). If you backed at "all in" but haven't filled out the manager yet, we've reserved a copy for you, but if you backed at another level and want to add Cold Harbor I suggest you do so quickly. 

A few weeks after we get back from GenCon and dust off, I should start to have some trickles of pre-press news coming your way. 

For those who are new to AEG Kickstarters, this is what you should expect from us going forward. I'll do an update every month or so with what is going on in production. Early on, this will involve files getting sloshed around internally for approvals and last pieces of text/art getting placed (might have more previews here). Then the files go back and forth with the printer. Next, there tends to be a couple of months with nothing interesting to talk about as we schedule time on press and do early checks. Then we'll get into e-proofs and physical proofs, and once those get approved, things will start to move faster and I'll be able to share images of product on press, white box samples, and "first off the press" samples. Another 8-12 weeks of nothing to talk about follows that as the product physically gets shipped to where it needs to be (this stage has been really unpredictable lately, hopefully it'll be better relatively soon). Lastly we ship out product!

Thanks and if you happen to be going to GenCon, be sure to stop by the booth!