Hike! ❄️ Time to enter your address
6 months ago – Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 11:50:37 PM

 Hello everybody,

we are happy to report that the surveys are coming along very well, with more than 75% of them completed! 😊 Thank you to everybody who has completed their survey! 🙏

WE WILL START LOCKING ORDERS AND ADDRESSES ON THE COMPLETED SURVEYS IN THE NEXT DAYS, SO FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO MAKE ANY CHANGES - NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT. 

You will receive a notification about it via email. Once the orders are locked, we will charge the credit cards (we will post an update before we do), and when the funds are collected, we can start shipping out the games. We plan to send the first pledges out before the end of September, and then ship gradually over a few weeks. 📬

🔥 For anyone who still needs to complete their survey, we kindly ask you to complete it at your earliest convenience, as this will help us move along with the fulfilment. 

We are using Backerkit as our pledge manager, and the survey links have been sent to you via email. If you haven't received it, please contact us, and we will re-send it. The Kickstarter pledge items and add-ons are already entered in the system, and for anyone wishing to upgrade the pledge, you can select additional Hike! base game and Events and Traits Expansion copies.

Shipping will also be charged in the pledge manager, and you can choose between standard and express shipping. We are also providing 2 local pickup options, one in Hrastnik, Slovenia, and one in Essen, Germany, on Spiel 22. You can select the local pickup option on the page on which you enter your address, in the 'Country' box, where you select 'local pickup' option from the list of countries. It is somewhere at the top. It applies to both Hrastnik and Essen, and we will send a follow-up email about your preferred location when the fulfilment starts.

So that's all from our side for this update. Things are really busy here, and we're making the last preparations to make sure everything runs smoothly when the shipping starts. 😊

Have a great day and keep an eye out for the next update!

Your SnowBoardGames team

Hike! ❄️ IMPORTANT FULFILLMENT UPDATE
6 months ago – Thu, Sep 15, 2022 at 04:26:25 AM

Hello everybody,

today's update is probably the one you have been waiting for:

We are going to send out SURVEYS and open the POST-CAMPAIGN PLEDGE MANAGER in the NEXT DAYS.

You will receive an email notification, and we kindly ask you to complete the survey at your earliest convenience, as the sooner they are completed, the sooner we can start sending out the games.

🔝 You will be able to add additional Hike! base games and Events and Traits Expansion to your pledge, so if you want to upgrade your pledge, this is the time to do so.

📬 Shipping will be charged here too, based on your address and the total weight of the items. We will be shipping the games with Slovene National Post, which estimates that the delivery time will be 3-15 days, depending on how far you are from Slovenia, Europe.

We have done our best to lower the shipping costs as much as possible, and we will be doing the shipping ourselves, so we are happy to tell you that we have managed to stay within the estimated prices given during the Kickstarter campaign.

Moreover, we were able to lower the shipping costs for EU a bit. We have also decided to absorb some of the shipping cost for the Rest of Europe, Canada and Rest of the world - areas where backers may be charged additional fees by their customs - to hopefully offset the additional cost for you.

Depending on the survey status, we may start shipping the games in September. If you are not sure about your address in September and October, please contact us on info@snowboardgames.si and don't submit the survey.

📬✈️ We are providing an express shipping option with DHL, which you will be able to select in the survey. The DHL prices are a bit higher, but the delivery time is estimated to be 3-5 working days for everywhere in the world.

🤝 We have also decided to provide two free local pickup options:

The first one is in Hrastnik, Slovenia, and we will arrange the pickup individually.

The second one is Spiel 22 in Essen, Germany. (Thank you to everybody who compleated the survey in the previous update!) We will attend the Spiel where we will share a booth with some colleagues from Slovenia, and the pickup will be available every day during the fair. Hike! will also be on display there, and we warmly invite everybody to come check it out and say hi.

🎠 We have put Hike! on the Spiel'22 Preview list on BoardGameGeek and we plan to present the game at the fair. We would immensely appreciate your like here, to help Hike! get more attention. This would really help spread the word about the game and about SnowBoardGames! You have to be signed in to your BGG account and the like / thumbs up button is on the left, next to the cover photo. Thank you for helping us spread the word! 🙏

👉 We noticed that some backers that chose Husky Enthusiast pledge (which contains Hike! base game, Events and Traits Expansion and First player token) added the second Events and Traits add-on to their pledge, effectively ordering 1 Hike! base game, 2 Events and Traits Expansion and 1 First player token. We have contacted the backers and we got some replies that this was not intentional, so we manually removed the duplicate expansion, and you will be able to use the freed funds for shipping. If you are one of those backers and have questions, or you have an unintentional duplicate add-on that we haven't spotted, please contact us at info@snowboardgames.si.

So that's all about the technical stuff related to fulfilment. Now for some background info: we have received the Compass First Player Tokens and we love how they turned out. 😊

We have also received the cardboard packaging, waterproof bags for shipping overseas, and some other stuff we will need for fulfilment. We are waiting for paper bags with SnowBoardGames logo for local pickup - they will be arriving soon - and the Events and Traits Expansion, which are scheduled to arrive before the end of September.

So we're preparing for the fulfilment sprint, and we're really excited about this step! 😄 How about you?

Be in touch soon, so keep an eye out for the survey email! 🧐

Your SnowBoardGames team

Hike! ❄️ August update and preparing for fulfillment
7 months ago – Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 01:23:01 AM

Hello everybody,

let us start this update with some important news:

• We're on track for the October fulfilment.
• We plan to open the post-campaign pledge manager in mid-late September. 
• We are going to collect SHIPPING ADDRESSES and charge shipping through this manager in mid-late September too. You will receive an email notification when it's time to let us know your shipping address.

🎠 Essen Spiel 22 pickup?

There is a chance that Nika and Blaž will be at Essen Spiel 22, which will take place between October 6th - October 9th in Essen, Germany. And if the fulfilment is on the way by then, we could potentially offer you a pickup option there and save you the shipping costs.

We can't promise it yet (and we kind of wish Spiel was a bit later in October this year...), but it sounds like an interesting option to us, and we want to hear what you think.

So, would you be interested in Essen Spiel pickup? Let us know here.

Okay, so that was the important stuff that needed our attention first. Now let's look at what's been going on since our last update, as there's much to tell you! 😊

📦 The base games have arrived and they look fantastic

Receiving several tonnes of board games was definitely a first for us, and I must tell you that we were a bit nervous about the delivery itself, as a section of the road leading to our warehouse was partly under construction. But with some planning and a lot of positive attitude, the whole process went pretty smoothly. The pallets arrived in great condition, and we have opened a few random boxes to check the games, and they look amazing. We really love how they turned out, and we hope they will meet your expectations too. Here are some photos:

✈️ The compass first-player tokens are on their way from China

They are being shipped by airmail, and we are expecting to receive them next week.

🎨 The expansions are being manufactured

Since the last update, we have received the prototype of the expansion and confirmed it and the mass manufacturing is in the process. The expansions are scheduled to arrive by the end of September,  so fingers crossed all goes according to plans here too.

Overall, we were pretty happy with how the prototype looked, but we did find some minor things we thought could be improved, so we changed them before the mass production. I think we've confirmed for ourselves that no matter how many times you go over the print files, it's still very helpful to hold the physical components in your hands before you approve the mass production, so it really is worth investing some extra time and money into quality prototypes. And I think this probably holds true for many areas, not just board games. Here is a photo with the expansion componets:

📭 A lot of thought has gone into the shipping packaging

As we mentioned in the previous update, our focus is now on the fulfilment, and one of the important aspects of it is the packaging used for shipping the games. We want them to be robust, and provide protection to the games, but we also want to avoid unnecessary use of single-use plastic. One of the solutions that we like are cardboard packages like the one in the photo:

We know that a lot of bookstores use them, and we've seen them being praised in connection with board games on BoardGameGeek (but I can't find the video anymore...), so this is the option we are most likely going with for the shipping of single copies and Husky Enthusiast pledges. We found a local manufacturer that we like, and the packaging is scheduled to arrive in the beginning of September.

We are pretty confident that this packaging should work well for Europe, but we are considering adding another waterproof layer for overseas. The games do have a protective wrap on their own already, so we're not sure if it is really necessary. We are planning to consult a professional about this, but we're also interested if you maybe have some experience with this type of packaging. Have you had board games delivered to you in it? How did it go? Let us know in the comments, please. 👇

We've also ordered some paper bags with SnowBoardGames logo for the local pickup option, and we're planning to re-use some of the boxes that the manufacturer used to ship the games to us for sending out multiple copies. 

So we think we've got this aspect of the shipping covered, and we're now moving on to other things to make sure everything is ready for fulfilment when the expansions arrive.

We hope you are doing well, and wish you a great weekend! 😄

Your SnowBoardGames team

Hike! ❄️ July update with manufacturing info
8 months ago – Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 03:22:09 AM

Hello everybody,

how are you all doing? It's time for July monthly update! We think it's a pretty exciting one! 😄

🚚 We're expecting the delivery of Hike! base games next week

It's very exciting and a bit scary to know that a truck with several thousand Hike! board games will be on its way to us soon, but we are sooo looking forward to this! The space is ready and we have just received our very own hand pallet truck. These are the first of the components to be arriving, so they will have to sit in the warehouse for a while before we can start with the fulfilment, but it's great to have them coming anyway.

🧭 We have received and confirmed the mass production sample for the Compass first player token

We mentioned in June update that we are really happy with how the prototype of the token looks. And we are delighted to tell you that the mass production sample looks even better! It has a nice glossy finish, a much better resolution than the prototype, and the colours look absolutely stunning. We are including some photos though I am not sure you can really see the difference from the prototype with the resolution we can include in the newsletter.

We have confirmed it with the manufacturer and the mass production is expected to be completed in August.

🎨 We are happy with the design for the expansion cards, so we're moving to production

Now this one has caused us quite a few sleepless nights, but we're finally happy with the design of the Trait cards for the Hike! Events and Traits Expansion. We have decided to use a gentle background with different coloured scarf patterns and wooden icons for each individual trait.

The underlying story is as follows: the Hike! base game has a young musher, dressed in neutral gray, that is always depicted from behind, and that represents all of the players. You can see them on the Care cards and Mentor cards. This musher has a blue hat with a distinct pattern. So we thought we would give this musher a scarf with a matching pattern. Each scarf has its own unique colour, and hidden in its waves, a unique ability that the musher gets when they put it on. These abilities are represented by symbols with wooden texture, so you can either imagine they are real objects, like pendants, or they can simply be traits, without substance, depicted by wooden symbols that go nice with the warmth of the scarf. Below are some examples of the cards, and we would love to hear what you think about them!

 We are making some final spellchecks over the weekend, and we plan to send the files to the manufacturer next week to order a prototype. We feel pretty awesome to have compleated the last of the design tasks for Hike! so our focus can now shift towards fulfilment.

So that's it from our end. We hope that you are well and that you are as excited about this update as we are. Let's keep our fingers crossed everything goes smoothly with the delivery, and we hope to have some photos ready for the next update! 😊

We wish you a great weekend!

Your SnowBoardGames team

June update with compass prototype
9 months ago – Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 03:38:01 PM

Hello everybody,

how are you all doing? I just checked what we put in the May update, so we don't repeat ourselves, and I can hardly believe only a month has passed, so much has happened in the meantime!

🧭 Prototype of the compass first player token

Let me start with the most exciting news - we have received the prototype of the Compass Firts Player Token and we absolutely love it. We think the graphics turned out great. We had to make a slight change to the design to respect the safety margins - the 'SnowBoardGames Hike! Kickstarter adventure' was too close to the edge. We tried some options and decided that it was too long to be included somewhere else on the compass, so we shortened it to SnowBoardGames, and placed it discretely closer to the center. At one hand, we felt sad we had to make this change, but on the other hand we know that respecting the safety margins is of topmost priority, so we think it is a good compromise.

The size and the thickness of the token feel right and it fits nicely in the hand. The diameter of the token is 7 cm/ 2.7 inch and the thickness is 0.8 cm/0.3 inch. We are also happy with the choice for the base colour. Below are some photos of how it looks, and we warmly invite you to let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Now this was the first prototype, intended to make sure the design and the sizes are okay. And they are. So next, we will be getting the mass production sample, with the print quality equal to the print quality of the series. We are expecting it before the end of July, and if everything is looks good, we go to mass production. Exciting, right?

📦 Hike! base games production

The production of the Hike! base games is well on the way, and the manufacturer is expecting to have the games ready to ship in the middle of July. We are already starting to prepare the space on our end - the amount of games we will be receiving is much larger than what we anticipated pre-Kickstarter, and we want to make sure we are 100 % ready when the games arrive!

🎨 Expansion design dilemmas

We are still working on the files for the expansion. The expansion includes two types of cards, event cards which give you more options during the race, and trait cards, which give mushers assymetric abilities. The event cards are finalised and we are happy with how they look. With the Kickstarter going better than expected, we have upgraded their design a bit and our graphic designer has created special icons to tell you when in the race (start of the race, morning, day, evening or night) each card can be used, and an icon for the 'take that' cards. We think the event cards look streamlined, and match the style of the base game nicely. 

Below you can see some examples, including the back design with paw prints. We think this back design complements the cards well - it is simple and low-key enough that it is obvious that it is a back side, while the prints going in all directions tell the story of a chaos, of dogs running around all over the place, and things happening. Which is exactly what the event cards are about.

(Yes, there are some typos, and some of the spacings are off. When we were preparing the image, we accidentally used the old version of the cards. It's fixed in the current version... I apologise for the mistake.)

Now the trait cards seem to be a bit more challenging. They include a name, an icon that is connected to the name, and some text explaining the card. We have all of the icons designed, but we are still struggling with the overall designs of the cards. Blaž and I had some ideas going into the Kickstarter, and we've upgraded them a bit when a graphic designer joined the team after the campaign, but we are still not 100 % happy. We have tried different layouts, frames and colour schemes, and we feel we are getting closer, but we just aren't there yet, as we all feel something is still off.

Now given the fact that the other components are so far along, we kind of feel a bit of panick on the inside, and we want to just finalise the files already. But we are fighting this impulse as we don't want to make something we aren't happy with just so we check the box that it's done. After all, it is still June, and given the expansion will be printed in Europe, we still have time. And we also have some ideas what else to try. One of them is being illustrated as we speak, and we hope it proves to be the right one.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Conventions and connecting

Since the May update, we have attended the Na Meji Nevidnega convention in Ljubljana. It was a very pleasant event and we are so happy we have had the privilege to meet everybody, from backers to fellow designers and board game enthusiasts (Hi to all of you reading this email! 👋) We hope to be part of many similar events in the future and have the chance to meet more of you in person!

We wish you a great rest of the week!

Your SnowBoardGames team