Critical Kit

Hey lovely backers,

This update mainly relates to US backers, but please do read on if you are outside the US as it may be of interest.

I'm a bit later than I anticipated on this one. Seattle was wild and exhausting - I slept 15 hours through this weekend, something that I haven't done since I was... well, many years ago before there were mobile phones.

I wanted to make this update about Zeal, but I think there is a more pressing matter, especially for our US backers. The T word. (I'll do a brief production update at the end of this post).

I've followed the tariffs closely since that silly little board came out in front of that big white building in Washington DC. They are a prime example of how the longer timescales involved in big crowdfunding projects are succeptible to global conditions. Previously it was wars, now it still is wars plus ridiculous trade policies, both introduced by idiotic old men.

The current status is that sending the books does not (or should not) incur tariffs. Books are protected under the IEAA and can't be subjected to tariffs. We've had several thousand books enter the US without a single tariff added since the tariffs were introduced.

However, Wires in The Woods is a much more complex project and many backers have items that would be subject to tariffs at varying levels dependent on the type of goods and the country of origin (for us this is a mix of UK, Europe and China).

We want to get everyone their rewards without having unrealistic charges placed on them, so I've worked hard to come up with some solutions based on the following scenarios:

1. The appeals court has paused its ruling that the tariffs are illegal, allowing them to remain in place until 14 October.

In any case, this would be the earliest date we could begin fulfilment due to delays in production we have already experienced. This gives us an accidental luxury of seeing what happens then. If the tariffs are deemed illegal, theoretically it will be full steam ahead for fulfilment with no fear of ridiculous hidden costs.

2. The tariffs are deemed legal by the supreme court and remain in place.

Okay, this is the worst case scenario - effectively what we have right now. However, we have a solution. We would send everything into the states on a pallet and pay the tariffs from our side at cost. Then we would get our consolidators in the US to ship everything to you with zero extra charges.

Sounds ideal right, why don't we just do that?

Basically, this will cost us more for the initial shipping, tariffs and fees for packing and picking Stateside. It will also add time onto the whole process as we transport everyting en-masse to the States.
 
We can, of course, do this and we have it as a contingency to ensure you get your rewards. However, because of the higher costs involved, we need to ensure we have the cashflow to pay everyone in the chain. This will add at least two months on to the fulfilment. That sucks, but it also solves a problem.

I know you will have a lot of questions, so please do throw them in the comments below and I'll answer them to the best of my current knowledge.

As far as production goes, we are expecting the first items in this week (Buds comics) followed by patches, playing cards and many other auxillary items this month. I'll send photos as I have them.

I am hoping to have the book ready as a PDF for all backers in the first half of October and we will give you a couple of weeks to peruse it, play it, ask questions and spot any glaring errors (which should be minimal thanks to our fabulous proofreader).

I promise the next update will be Zeal at the end of this week!

Have a great remainder of the week.

Tim (and Simon)

Hello,

Firstly, thanks to those of you who remembered to nudge me. It's been a busy time, so I'm grateful for all of you acting as my crowdsourced personal assistant.

I've got loads of stuff to add to this update, probably too much to make it a nice weekend read, so I will cut it in two and do the second part next week (during the week). Again, please nudge by Thursday if I ain't posted anything.

So, first up are some new STLs. I have no idea how this 3D printing business works, but a good few of you asked about having unsupported STLs. I've enrolled the help of the original designer and got that sorted.

If you already downloaded them, you should have an email with a new link to download them. If not, grab them from here and use the checkout code from this update.

Right, other business...

I was hoping to give you a production update. So much so, I went into the office on my day off as I received the following message from Royal Mail...



Only to get an email today that looked like this.



So, I believe these are some elements of Simon's art. Specifically the Buds comic. The sucky news is that I will be on a plane to Seattle on Monday. I've prepped a business neighbour to receive them for me, but unfortunately I won't be around to show take any photos until the 4th of September.

Which brings me on to Seattle. I'm heading out to Pax West to show off the games and promote a horror/western game which we are launching on BackerKit in October created by a writer who I have mentored over the past 18 months. 

The mentorship program was a little experiment of mine and it has gone well. I've already signed up my second creator and I will likely be making it into a formal thing next year where I help two writers create their vision and get them published.

Anyway, back to Wires in The Woods. I promise I will do that Zeal overview update next week, so please nudge me by Thursday if you have heard nothing. I've wanted to show you all how Zeal works in the game for a while now; how it ties to your temperament and abilities. It's been a fun mechanic to work on and Simon put down his drawing tools and helped me develop it.

Once we have the game out, I'd love to do a video with Simon where we talk about design choices and how we worked together. This has been my first major collaboration and, whilst it has been very smooth, it has naturally taken a bit longer as we  have discussed all the different ideas we both had for the game and shaped them into the ruleset we currently have.

I also want to discuss the tariff situation in more depth. We've done our best to have the majority of production carried out in the UK or Europe, but some things have inevitable ended up being made in China. More on that in the next update.

Right, I have to prepare for Seattle. If you are at PaxWest, please stop by and say hi. I have a handful of copies of the Quick Start from Free RPG day, and I'd be more than happy to give you one.

Have a lovely weekend!

Tim

This content is for backers only.

Hey all,

They say a picture paints a thousand words - which means I don't need to say much on this update ;)

That said, I have now finalised all of the rules and added some general "get you in the vibe" text for the book. Next week I move on to finishing the prompts for all five settings which will take me a couple of weeks.

At that point I will hand over to Simon to begin integrating my words into the layout. Once that is done, we will send it to our wonderful proofreader, make her suggested changes, and then send you the PDFs before everything heads off to the printers.

The good news is that, from the outset, I had a solid plan of the overall structure of the book, which means Simon has been able to start work on layouts without waiting for all of my words to be in the right order - all of which greases the wheels a bit. I'm hoping we can get everything to the printers in August, but that may shift depending on how things progress. I'll keep you updated weekly (and sometimes more frequently) from this point on so you know where we are. Crowdfunding projects have a reputation for moving goalposts and there is nothing worse than radio silence. There will be none of that here.

Once again I managed to state I wasn't going to say much then proceeded to bombard you with words, so by way of an apology, here are some of the full page art pieces showing all of the foragers from the book!



Simon is creating some wonderfully inspirational pieces to help immerse you in the world of Wires in The Woods. Please bear with us while we prepare your vehicle to this peculiar but intriguing world. It will be worth the wait.

I'll be back next week with a summary of the rules and to discuss some of the choices we made as the game evolved.

Hasta la proxima!

Tim (and Simon)

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