Your name on the Old Salt Box, Surveys, December Update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Dec 07, 2021 at 08:34:28 PM

Hello and Happy Holidays! This is an early update for the month but it's in part to give you a heads up about a message I'll be sending you tomorrow through Kickstarter. 

TL:DR of the update: Complete your survey. I’m adding backer names to the sides of the Old Salt box, I’ll send you a message tomorrow to get your name. Wrapping up file prep. Working with HubTrotter for NA orders.

Surveys!

A reminder that Old Salt Surveys have been sent off and are awaiting your response. We are nearly at 65% completion rate. And of course, if you have any questions regarding your survey send me a message at [email protected].

Your name on the Old Salt box!

While we were finalizing the Old Salt box we decided to change up the bottom box's sides to something other than the Old Salt logo. We thought it would be pretty awesome to have the sides of the bottom box have a list of all the Kickstarter backers (these are the sides that are covered by the top box).

Since not everyone has finished the backer survey, and some people spelled their names wrong on the Kickstarter pledge, I’ll be sending a message to you through Kickstarter TOMORROW (Dec 8th) to get your name (likely a 1 question SurveyMonkey link).

You have till December 14th to write the name you want to represent your pledge. If I do not hear from you, I will use your name as it came through on Kickstarter. If you do not wish to be on the box, respond with “N/A."

Gameland Update (Manufacturer)

The deposit has been sent and accepted (surprisingly enough this took like 6 trips to the bank to get that sorted). They’ve ordered the raw materials and the next step is sending over the files. Here is a list of all of the items we have yet to finalize:

- Naval Overhaul Kit box

- Old Salt box (backer names on the side)

- Rulebook (your classic double-triple check)

- Formations and Maneuvers booklet (compiling missions, campaign, alt modes together)

Shipping Update

We found a North American shipping company to work with for shipping Old Salt. We will be working with HubTrotter. I had an excellent chat with Craig and I am really excited to work with them on this project.

Happy Holidays everyone, I hope you have an excellent rest of your 2021. The next scheduled update will be next year (January 2022).

Tim

Surveys sent, general updates, happy holidays!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 10:32:16 AM

Surveys Sent!

You should have received an email yesterday morning about how “your response is needed.” To those who have already filled it out, you are the best and I’m proud of you for being on top of things.

If you did not get an email, first check to make sure you are using the email you used when you backed Old Salt on Kickstarter. Next, check your spam and search “Old Salt” or “Backerkit.” If still no, send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll see what we can do to find it!

“What’s the point of these surveys anyways?”

These surveys allow me to get the required information to send you your reward. Right now I know your country and email, but countries are pretty big so I need the address. Also, as much as I'd love to text all of you lovely backers "happy holidays" the phone number is not for me. Shipping companies require your phone number in case they have questions when attempting to deliver the reward. The survey also charges the shipping cost and the required taxes (no fun, I know…) but I can’t send you the game unless you pay for the cost of shipping.

“I’ll fill it out, but what if I don’t?”

If you do not fill out the survey, you’ll keep getting emails asking for you to respond/fill out the survey for the foreseeable future. Eventually, I’ll lock surveys and continue onto the fulfillment phase. Without your address (or payment for shipping), I will have no way of knowing where to send your copy of Old Salt. Shipping costs are absolutely wild right now and sending Old Salt in bulk is cheaper than individual units. With that in mind, if you do not fill out the survey, and eventually ask me for your copy next year, I will charge you the cost of shipping a single package. It will undoubtedly be more expensive than the shipping costs we are working with currently.

I’ve gotten some excellent questions regarding the Naval Overhaul Kit and the Base Game. Thank you to those who reached out for clarification, I’m sure others are wondering the same thing so I’ll clarify here. The Naval Overhaul Kit (NOK) is not a replacement for the base game. The NOK is an upgrade kit for select components in the base game (banners, tokens: currency, tradewinds, ocean, faction, etc) but does not replace all the components in the game.  Non-replaced components in the base game are as follows: Ship tokens, masts, board, rulebook, and the mission booklet are not replaced by the NOK. If you wish to play Old Salt with upgraded components, you will need to order Old Salt the base game, and the NOK.

File prep status - Our timeline has us sending the files to the manufacturer in December. Jennifer is hard at work getting everything finalized to stick to that timeline. It’s looking like we will have files finalized in the 2nd half of December, but we are confident we’ll be able to get files to the manufacturer this upcoming month. We just got drafts situated of the faction boxes. Here is a sneak peek at what we are leaning towards for each box. Would love to get your thoughts on any of these too. Shout out to Jennifer for completely exceeding my expectations on these faction boxes!

Still on the docket to finalize:

Old Salt game box   -   NOK box   -   Formations and Maneuvers booklet

Video game version of Old Salt - While still in beta, we have added Old Salt to the Google app store! There were a lot of bugs, specifically multiplayer bugs but this next update (this week) will fix those to allow for a fully functioning multiplayer game. Just in time for you to play with friends and family over the upcoming winter holiday season. AI (computer opponent) is being worked on and we are confident the AI will give you a run for your money. Robust tutorials are next in line. Shout out to Michael for all his hard work and getting this game ported to the video game world!

Pre-orders - The goal was to get this up and running in the middle of November. The delay has been a mix of technical difficulties and the need to find a fulfillment company for North America before opening up pre-orders (or surveys for that matter). The good news though is that Pre-orders will no longer be limited to North America (how neat is that?!). The pre-order store is open, it's just not up on the oldsaltboardgame.com website. If you have friends that are interested in checking out Old Salt point them to this link: https://old-salt.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Or the Kickstarter page that now has a link to the pre-order store: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/neverboardgames/old-salt

That's all I have for this update. As always, if you'd like to playtest a mission or test out the mobile app of Old Salt, head over to our discord (https://discord.gg/RdstE5e8) and reach out to either me (tim) or Michael (Kneeshaw Developments) and we'll get you set up. Happy Holidays and I hope you all have a great rest of your week! 

Tim

November Update
over 4 years ago – Mon, Nov 08, 2021 at 07:02:49 PM

Hello Admirals,

I have some pretty excellent news for you today regarding shipping costs. I am really glad I saved the pledge manager surveys for after the meeting with Ship Quest (fulfillment company). Our pledge manager is nearly ready (just a few more items to complete) so be on the lookout for Old Salt surveys coming soon.
 

TL:DR for the update: EU & UK will have original plan for shipping costs (VAT + Shipping). Still on track with the project timeline. Manufacturer deposit is in progress.

VAT compliant predicament:

Ship Quest notified me that they will actually be getting VAT registered and I am able to use their company to be VAT compliant. This means the two options I offered to UK and EU backers in the previous update are no longer necessary and we will be going with the original plan of charging VAT + Shipping cost that we all expected when the Kickstarter launched. Hooray for no DAP and everything that came with that situation.

EU shipping cost reduced:
The EU shipping cost that I estimated in the Kickstarter was incidentally based on a more expensive type of shipping method. Good news to EU backers, the new shipping cost reduces the shipping cost by 5-10 dollars.

Manufacturer:

Last week we paid the manufacturer the 30% deposit fee for Old Salt and the Naval Overhaul Kit. Then I received a message this morning from the project manager at Gameland that the bank made a slight error on the address and they cannot accept the funds until that is corrected. Last week I visited the bank 4 separate times regarding this deposit. I am thankful this is a simple fix, so only 1 more bank visit in order to get things moving forward again. Once they receive funds they can purchase the materials for Old Salt and Naval Overhaul Kit. Gameland will hold materials until we finish file prepping and have everything 100% ready to go.

Prepping Files:

Jennifer and I are still progressing through getting all of the components primed and ready for the manufacturer. We both had a couple of big life events happen late October and early November that took a bit of time to address. The project timeline plans for the files to be sent off to the manufacturer in December and we are still on track with that timeline. 

Naval Overhaul Kit:
*Does not impact backers* The price of the Naval Overhaul kit for Kickstarter backers is $50 and will be $50 in the pledge manager survey if a backer wanted to pick it up as an add-on. For preorders and onward the price will be $59. This doesn’t impact any backers unless they are debating on picking up the NOK in the future outside of the survey. I wanted to address this price increase sooner than later to avoid any confusion with preordering. This is not a money grab, this is a response to a global supply crisis.

Final Faction Checks:

There are a few faction abilities that I want to adjust before setting the six factions in stone. If you’d like to help out in the adjustments or play through any missions/alt modes, message me on our discord server: https://discord.gg/YvreeCBp

That is all for this month, if you have any questions about anything discussed here or in previous updates, feel free to email me at [email protected] or through Kickstarter. 

Cheers! 

Tim

October Update for Old Salt
over 4 years ago – Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 02:41:29 PM

Hello Admirals!

It’s been an incredible month so far and we are cruising through file preparations. Once files are prepped we'll be sending them off to the manufacturer. Below I have gone into some detail for different categories of the journey at hand. If you have any questions about any of the items below, reach out to me over email at [email protected] and I’ll be in touch!

TL:DR For This Update
The Pledge Manager will be up soon, the manufacturer is selected, and we are on track with the original project timeline.

Also, a quick shoutout to Matt Healey for making both the Old Salt and Naval Overhaul Kit box inserts. I am really excited about how they turned out and it has been a distinct pleasure working with Matt to get the inserts designed and put together. If you are making a board game and need a box insert, I definitely (strongly encourage) you to check out his page on bgg and reach out to him. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameinsertdesigner/135460/matt-healey

Naval Overhaul Kit Insert:

 Base Game Insert:
 

Funds
The funds rhave been deposited into the bank account, I’ve heard of some horror stories where it takes 3 months for a project creator to receive funds, thankful that wasn’t my situation.
Pledge Manager / Surveys
I had originally planned on getting surveys out this week but I am pushing them back. Besides add-ons and shipping addresses, shipping costs is an item I want to verify before sending out surveys. I have a meeting with ShipQuest early next week and will save the pledge manager for after that meeting in case new information comes to light.  
Manufacturing
I decided to run with Gameland for our manufacturer. They have a strong history of consistently making quality games at a great price and the communication with them has been phenomenal. This week I received some sample components from Gameland, and I am really excited to move forward. They will be manufacturing Old Salt and the Naval Overhaul Kit. Very, very exciting.
File Prep
Before sending the files off to the manufacturer, the files need to be perfect and error free. We are on schedule with the timeline to get the items below to 100% before the deadline to send off to the manufacturer.  
 Box - 60% (need to revise sides and bottom)
 Faction Missions - 90%
 Campaign - 70% (reworking some balancing and abilities)
 Alt Game Modes - 75% (revisiting party mode)
 Board - 100% (added island numbers for orientation references if playing remotely)
 Tokens (ship, faction, coin, tradewind, ocean, masts) - 90% (need to add bleed to some tokens)
 Banners - 80% (Elite Banners were reworked, almost completed)
 Rulebook - 90% (one or two more passes for good measure)
 Faction Cards - 50% (going to add a little cheat sheet for ship types on the back side of faction cards.
EU and UK fulfillment plan
While this is still quite a ways out, we ran into a bit of a predicament with our UK and EU backers. I’ve messaged each of them individually with the new plan and offered a couple of solutions they can opt into. 

In order to be VAT compliant, registration and filing costs were going to be around $4,200 US dollars. Since I don't have that, we are going a different route for fulfillment in EU and UK. After seeking wisdom/consultation from Essentia (VAT registration company), I’ll be fulfilling rewards to EU and UK backers as DAP (duty at place) rather than DDP (delivery duty paid). I believe the solutions I’ve offered the EU and UK backers will help offset this change and any frustrations that come with that. If you have questions or concerns about this, definitely get in touch, I would love to talk through this with you.
Pre Orders
Pre Ordering should be live by the end of the month or by mid-November at the latest. My biggest focus is making sure we stick to the deadline for getting the files to the manufacturer. One important note, unless something drastically changes to make it more viable, I’ll be limiting Pre Orders to North America only.
Variant Missions
The Kickstarter unlocked 6 faction missions. These are completed other than making them look presentable in a booklet. Personally, I’m thrilled for you to play these and I think they will lend to some great inspiration when it comes to home brewing your own missions (if desired of course).
*Picture of engineer mission*

The 9 mission campaign is also completed, I am reworking some of the starting fleet amounts
 for a couple of missions but otherwise, it just needs to be added into the booklet.

The 3 Alternate game modes are written out, I have some concerns about the party mode being too “wordy” and am re-evaluating if it needs to be simplified or not. It uses player roles rather than faction abilities. But it does offer a significantly increased player count since individual turns are removed in favor of shifts (up to 4 players per team with max of 6 teams?) The other two game modes are 100 percent ready to go.
I believe that is everything for the month. If you have any questions or concerns, definitely reach out, and I’ll be in touch within 24 hours (unless something dire happens like the state loses power or something). 

Kickstarter Has Ended And We Have Funded!!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 08:58:43 AM

Old Salt has successfully funded on Kickstarter and I can’t thank you enough! 

It's wild to think about how far this game has come. Each prototype brought this game one step closer to Kickstarter and now we have successfully funded it. Thank you so much for believing in this swashbuckling game.  

"So! We funded a game on Kickstarter, that's awesome! Huzzah!!!...but where do we go from here?"
Over the next couple of weeks, Kickstarter will be charging the credit card you have set up with them and getting funds squared away. Be on the lookout for any Kickstarter emails just in case the credit card information needs to be updated.
After funds are secured, we’ll be using Backerkit as our pledge manager, it’ll be 3 to 4 weeks (at the earliest) till that opens up. I'm using a pledge manager to help keep track of shipping rewards, taxes and give backers the opportunity to update their shipping addresses just in case they move across the country.

On my end, I’ll be prepping files for the manufacturer, making the variant missions (campaign / faction missions / alt game modes) look pretty and as clear as possible. Jennifer (our incredible artist) and I will be doing a couple more pass-throughs on the rulebook to get it in tiptop shape and modifying components to increase clarity. Components such as masts and banners will be significantly brighter and we are adding little numbers by each island so variant missions can point to spots on the board quickly and clearly. Once files are prepped we'll send them off to the manufacturer and take the next step in the journey of making this board game come to life.
I'm not sure how many publishers say something similar to what I'm about to say, but I want you to know that I genuinely feel like I have had the greatest group of backers since the dawn of Kickstarter. There have been no arguments or demands to change the game to something else. Everyone has been so supportive of me and the game. It's been a truly wonderful experience. All of the comments have expressed genuine excitement for this game and I am so grateful to each of you for setting the tone of this journey. Since we have such a great relationship right off the bat, I want to do my best to keep it going and a great way to do that is to establish proper expectations for what is to come so I have included the estimated project timeline here for all to view.

This timeline is a healthy expectation that I am confident in. I will do my very best to try and beat this timeline without sacrificing quality or cutting corners but it’s best for us to plan on this timeline.

From here on out, if you have any questions or concerns feel free to reach out to me over email at [email protected]. Unless an email is blatantly spam, I aim to keep replies within 24 hours. 

You can expect an update on Kickstarter at least once a month. If I have nothing to update, it'll be short and sweet but I'll do my best to stick to that frequency. 

Cheers Admirals, it's been a pleasure and I sincerely look forward to the rest of this journey with you.

Tim