An urban tile laying game for 1-5 players from the designer of Villagers.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Progress Report #9 - Shipping Price Increases
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 02:25:13 AM
Hey people!
Hope everything is going OK.
This is a good news / bad news type update. The good news is that manufacturing of Streets is just a few days from completion. The bad news is that we are having to increase shipping costs by £2 for all backers except those in Asia.
The reason for this is the massive increase in ocean freight prices - the cost to ship games from our factory in China to the local fulfilment centres in the UK, USA, France, Canada, and Norway before they're sent to you. Average container prices have risen very sharply since 2020, when we set our pricing. This is an issue affecting global trade, and is not something we can avoid.
The graph gives an indication of how much average prices have changed recently, although the prices shown are in some cases less than half of what we've actually been quoted.
Since we are already subsidising shipping to the tune of £3 / $4 for every backer, we can't absorb a price hike like this. Our budget allows around $1.00 per game for freight shipping, but the actual price has ended up being a great deal more. So, as reluctant as we are to pass this on to backers, it makes the most sense for the future of the business and we hope you understand our decision.
If you're interested to dig a little deeper, this video from Quackalope talks more about the issues facing board game publishers right now.
Pledge Manager
We will soon be locking addresses in the pledge manager and charging for shipping. We'll send another update just before we pull the trigger on that. If you need to change your shipping address, now is the time to do so. We are unable to update addresses after they've been locked and passed on to our fulfilment partners.
Sorry this hasn't been the most cheerful of updates! I'm happy to discuss things further in the comments so feel free to voice your concerns & questions.
Thanks once again for your support - we wouldn't be here without you.
Best wishes,
Dave
www.sinisterfish.com
Progress Report #8 - Stay on target!
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Jun 02, 2021 at 12:24:49 AM
Hi people,
Hope all is well with you! I have a very sparse update this time, which was to be expected.
The manufacturing process continues and I'm not aware of any further delays.
Just to remind you, we will be charging for shipping via the pledge manager shortly before shipping begins. The same goes for any additional items you might have added. We currently estimate this will happen in August.
So, Streets is as on-track as it was last month, which is better than another delay :D
Haakon and I have been largely occupied with other business, and we have a related announcement!
Villagers Expansion Launch Date
Since Streets is happening a little later than expected, we're squeezing our next campaign in before Streets ships. I'm very happy to tell you that the expansion for Villagers will hit Kickstarter on Tuesday 29th of June.
Progress Report #7 - The waiting for a game game.
almost 3 years ago
– Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 02:47:27 PM
Hello people!
I hope everyone is doing OK out there. I'm here again with a very quick Streets update, so let's do it!
Progress Update
As you may know, the game is being manufactured right now by our friends at Whatz Games in Shanghai. Assuming everything is OK with the final approval copies, our project coordinator has given us a manufacturing completion date of June 23rd. Unfortunately, this puts our schedule back a month, but we did expect delays in these very unusual times.
Once manufacturing is done, we have freight shipping to deal with - this is where the finished games are loaded into shipping containers & sent to six regional shipping hubs in the UK, France, Norway, China, USA and Canada before being sent out to backers. The ones for China will just go on a lorry, but you get the idea. Our freight shipping plan is complete and Whatz Games has been given detailed packing instructions for each shipment.
I’m told that space on container ships is still hard to come by due to the strain the pandemic has put on the shipping industry as a whole. However, we’re in good time to pre-book space, and we’re still two months away from our earliest shipping date, so it’s possible that the situation will ease a little in the meantime. We’ve done everything we can from our end, so we’re now at the mercy of external forces. All we can do is keep you informed, but we should be prepared for things to take longer than we want them to. It's a good job we're all mature adults who can wait patiently for our toys ;)
Here’s what the production schedule looks like now.
Pledge Manager
We locked pledges last month, which means that you can no longer make changes to the items you pledged for. It is still possible to log in to BackerKit and update your shipping address & contact details should you wish. We will lock shipping addresses and charge for shipping & any add-on items when the boats are underway, hopefully in July.
AwSHUX Livestreams
We took part in Shut Up & Sit Down’s “AwSHUX” online convention last weekend, and played a couple of games of Streets live on Twitch with various special guests. Here’s a 3 player game with myself, Haakon, and Nick Welford playing with the Business expansion. If you want to skip our inane pre-game waffle, the action starts around the 00:09:00 mark: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/999097609
We also showed off the upcoming Villagers: Shifting Seasons expansion in full for the first time, and you can watch Haakon & I face off against Suzanne Sheldon here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/999406409
We'll be taking Shifting Seasons to Kickstarter later this summer, and you can sign up for a launch alert here.
And that is all for now. We'll be back with another update around the end of May.
Progress Report #6 - A deadline & an expansion.
about 3 years ago
– Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 03:09:19 PM
Hello people!
It's time for another progress report! It's been a fairly quiet month on the Streets front, but very briefly, manufacturing is underway, and we are locking orders in BackerKit tomorrow (March 31st). You can read more below.
Villagers is Expanding!
But first, Haakon's first game, Villagers, is getting an expansion, named Shifting Seasons. Haakon is deep into creating artwork for it right now, but the expansion is in a fully playable state and is essentially finished rules-wise. We think it's going to be a great (and modestly priced) addition to the game.
Shifting Seasons includes new single player rules, and we've released them early for you to play around with if you have the base game. You can find the Monastery Solo Mode rules here.
Lots of new villagers are coming to visit...
Since our timeline for Streets has slipped a little (manufacturing began later than anticipated because our factory is at capacity) we are now looking at fitting the Shifting Seasons Kickstarter campaign in before we start fulfilment on Streets. Plans may change again of course, but I wanted to give you all a heads-up about that possibility.
Streets Production Update
As expected, very little has happened this month (apart from that bit of bother on the Suez canal). We've paid a deposit to our manufacturer and turned the "mass production" light to a glowing "in progress" yellow, as you can see here...
Now we'll sit & wait for the factory to work their magic. By the end of April we should have a more accurate estimate of when the completion date will be.
Pledge Manager: Orders Locking March 31st
We're locking orders in the pledge manager tomorrow, March 31st! If you want to add extra items or change your pledge level - PLEASE DO IT RIGHT NOW! After orders are locked, you will not be able to adjust your order, but you will be able to update your shipping address information.
We are not charging for shipping right now - that will happen when we lock addresses closer to fulfilment time.
How To Change Pledge Level
It's not immediately obvious, but you can change your pledge level by following your unique BackerKit link and clicking on the name of your current pledge at the top left of your screen, as illustrated here...
Then, click "Switch Pledge Levels" on the next page...
How to Access the Pledge Manager
If you haven't done so already, you must fill out your survey or we can't send your pledge. You need a unique link to access your pledge which we emailed to you via BackerKit.com.
As always, if you need our help please contact us via the website. We'll be back with another progress report in about a month, so until then please take care of yourselves and play lots of games!
Progress Report #5 - A delay and some trees.
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 12:17:52 AM
Hello people!
I hope you're all doing OK. We have some progress to report so let's hop to it!
Manufacturing Update
The production manager at our factory tells me they are at capacity right now, and this has delayed the start of our print run. I guess it's good to know that the pandemic doesn't seem to have impacted the demand for board games, and at this point I'll take any silver lining I can get!
As of an email received this morning (March 10th) our manufacturer is ready to start on our order "ASAP", and they estimate being finished by the end of May at the earliest, which pushes our fulfilment estimate to August. We don't know what the freight shipping situation will be like when our time comes to load our games into containers & send them to our fulfilment hubs, but it is out of our hands and we'll just have to roll with it. I would say that further delays are likely, but maybe things will have calmed down by then. We shall see.
So here's what the updated production schedule looks like...
Pledge Manager
We still have nearly 500 unanswered surveys in BackerKit. It's really important that we have shipping addresses from everyone! Backers who fill out their survey late risk incurring extra shipping fees. We are sending weekly reminder emails to the relevant backers, so if you don't remember filling in the survey and you aren't getting those emails, please check your spam folder. Failing that, please contact us.
We are going to lock orders at the end of March, which means you won't be able to adjust the items in your pledge. Address changes will still be possible until a couple of weeks prior to the start of fulfilment - whenever that is!
How to Play Video
Paul Grogan of the excellent Gaming Rules! channel on YouTube has completed his tutorial for Streets, and he's done a great job. The video will be released when fulfilment begins.
Trees!
We stated during the campaign that we were going to try and positively offset the carbon emissions from the manufacture and distribution of Streets by planting trees. The following is an account of our progress on this, taken from the updated environmental policy section of the About Us page on our website.
How do we calculate our emissions?
As a small business it’s hard for us to come up with an accurate estimate of our C02 emissions. You can’t just Google “what is the carbon footprint of manufacturing a board game” and get a simple answer, so all we have are educated guesses. However, because we’re aiming to be carbon positive rather than neutral, our estimate doesn’t need to be perfectly accurate – we just need to overcompensate by a decent amount.
Our games are mostly made of paper & cardboard. Speaking very broadly, we estimate that to manufacture 1kg of cardboard generates 0.33 kilograms of C02. This doesn’t take into account printing, non-cardboard components, or the running of factory machinery, but if we heavily overcompensate we think it’s safe to assume that everything is covered. One 40ft shipping container of board games (say 20 pallets at 500kg each) costs about 1 ton of C02 for its ocean journey from the factory to our distributor. Again, these are very rough figures, but they’re sufficient for our purpose.
From this, we can roughly calculate of how many tons of C02 we generate when we print a game. We recently placed an order for 25,000 copies of Streets and Villagers, weighing an average of 1kg each. From this we can estimate that the C02 cost to manufacture and transport these games will be about 15 tons.
How do we compensate for our emissions?
We’ve chosen to sequester our C02 by planting trees, in partnership with TreeSisters. An average tree absorbs 1 ton of C02 over the course of its life. So 15 trees would technically cover our 15 tons of C02, but they’d take 100 years to do so, assuming they all survived. Clearly we need to capture C02 faster than that, and since we want to do more than break even on our C02, we should plant many more than 15 trees.
This is where TreeSisters comes in. Not only are they an utterly brilliant and inspiring organisation, but they charge just £0.40 ($0.50) to plant a tree. At that price, we can clearly afford to multiply our tree planting by quite a bit. Multiplying by ten and planting 150 trees might cover us, and multiplying by a hundred for 1,500 trees surely would. However, we are a small company with low overheads, and we make enough profit on 25,000 games to go a bit overboard with this, so instead we’ll multiply our 15 ton C02 estimate by a thousand, plant 15,000 trees, and be fairly confident that we’re giving more than we took. Until a better solution comes to light, we’ll do the same for every item we manufacture from now on, based on the weight of goods produced.
And with that, we're done until next time. Not much will happen between now and the start of fulfilment, but we will update again in roughly a month and let you know where we're at.
If you need our assistance with anything in the meantime, the best option is to use the contact form on our website.
