Mistfall: Heart of the Mists

Reporting live from Shanghai (part 2)
almost 10 years ago – Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 09:20:59 PM

Ladies & Gentlemen,

It is time to report back to you from Shanghai and I will start with the main headline: everything is OK, I got to see the final products and they all look good. Now, this will be another rather long update, also filled with pictures, so brace yourselves ;)

Pre-meeting scare

I was telling you that Wednesday - which would be yesterday - I was supposed to meet Whatz Games and see the final sample and confirm shipping details. On Tuesday evening I received an update that our meeting will have to be postponed to Thursday - so today - because two product lines were incomplete. Given that my flight back to Europe is tomorrow early in the morning, I must admit that I panicked a little (but not too much) and then I had to find something to do the whole day yesterday.

Wandering around the city

Yesterday I decided to take a less touristy approach to visiting Shanghai. In my previous trip here I had already seen the major tourist attractions, thus my aim to try something different. So I chose a point on the map which I wanted to get close to and I decided to walk there following no other plan than to walk West of my hotel, to the best of my abilities and get to see the 'regular' Shanghai. I walked for almost 2 hours through some nice areas as well as some shady neighborhoods, I stayed safe - which was easy - and I observed as much as I could.

I ended up at a metro stop by chance and I took the chance to visit a French colonial part of Shanghai where I sat down with a cup of tea, replayed in mind mind what I had just seen. I realized that I enjoy Shanghai a lot, even though it is a city of big contrasts, it provides a sense of familiarity because parts of it remind me of home. Now... back to business...

Factory visit - see / feel / touch / approve the final game boxes

As I am writing these lines I am still at the factory and I have just finished approving all games which were part of this campaign. There isn't much to say other than great job and great quality! 

I went through every box and checked every punchboard, every rules booklet, every deck of cards to try to spot any mistakes of manufacturing and there were none. I would tell you more, but I will let images speak for themselves.

I will be returning home tomorrow and we will get back to you next week with more accurate news about fulfillment.

Have a great weekend,

Andrei

Reporting live from Shanghai (part 1)
almost 10 years ago – Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 07:15:23 PM

Ladies & Gentlemen,

As promised last week, two days ago I landed in Shanghai, China to meet with our manufacturer and make the final checks for Heart of the Mists and the rest of the games we are producing here. This is the first part of my story from Shanghai...

Arrival

The flights from Warsaw, Poland via Moscow and Hong Kong were long, yet uneventful, so after 25 hours of travel and almost no sleep I reached my hotel and got the well deserved rest on Sunday evening, in preparation for the meeting next morning. But not before I got to enjoy once again the short trip with the Shangahi MagLev train, the fastest means of mass transportation on land (you can see the videos at the end of this update).

Factory visit

Those of you who backed or at least followed In the Name of Odin project will find themselves in familiar territory. For everyone new, here it goes...

After a quick but tasty and nice looking breakfast followed by an hour long car trip through the busy streets and highways of Shanghai, I arrived together with Whatz Games boss at the factory which they are using to make all the printed elements of board games. 

Following the mandatory tour of the factory - it seems like no matter how often I go there I always get a tour - I got down to business, and the most important part of it was approving the color scheme for the reprint of Mistfall and the first print run of Heart of the Mists.

They are using the same 6-color printer that was used for making our previous games and the matter to decide on was which color adjustments to use for making the cards for Mistfall and Heart of the Mists. This would normally be a very quick and basic decision, but we had to color match the cards with the ones from the original print which was made in Poland.

Last week we checked the digital color proofs and the color matching was incredible. Wit the offset printing, the situation looked a little different. But let me walk you a little through what offset printing is... 

This technology allows for fast mass production of identical printed elements, using a giant printer which has separate printing plates for each color (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, also referred to as saturation, thus CMYK) and coating, in our case aqueous varnish and matte coating. The files we provide are digitally reworked in a format accepted by this printer, fed to it and the colors are fine tuned manually to match what the customer - in this case us - expects. Another thing you should know about offset printing is that usually the colors will look darker than the equivalent digital print and definitely darker than on your computer screen.

I was offered 7 different color samples, each based on a slightly different printer setting, and asked to choose the one which would best meet our quality expectations. This was the actual translation from Chinese :). I checked all of them and none matched perfectly the colors from Mistfall, although four of the samples came really close.

At the same time, for each printer setting, I got to match also the colors of hero charters and locations against the same first print of Mistfall, which made my decision so much more complicated. At the same time, debates were going behind me in Chinese and to this day I have no idea what they were talking about.

Now, I know that most of your concerns were related especially to color matching and this is why I am talking extensively about this topic and also why I spend most of my time on this small but crucial decision. The solution came from one of the experts who suggested to check the final four samples under natural light, as opposite to very powerful LED white light which they were using inside the factory room.

At the same time, I requested a few more samples with small tweaks to colors and they came out of the printer within seconds, adding to the complexity of this choice.

Long story short, after checking the colors under several types of light, with the help of several experts, I chose the color which came closest. As the printing machine is different and the actual paint comes from a different supplier and even the paper is not the very same, we needed to settle for very good matching, which is less than perfect, but more than we would have gotten should this trip not have taken place.

More color checks followed and after more than 3 hours at the factory we went for a long awaited lunch/dinner. At the same time, the factory started printing at a rate of 13000 sheets per hour, which means by the time you read this update not only all components of Mistfall and Heart of the Mists are printed, but they have already been sent, received and most of the games are being glued, put together and assembled in boxes.

Lunch time and negotiations over the timeline

At a restaurant serving typical Shanghainese food, we took the time to chat and joke, but another serious discussion had to take place.

As previously agreed, I requested that all games be ready by next Monday, so we can be sure that all our backers who signed up for Essen delivery would get their rewards on time, at the fair.

I won't go through every single detail, but at the end we successfully made an agreement. All copies we plan to air ship to Europe (that is all rewards for Spiel and some retail copies to be sold at the fair to compensate for the insane cost of air shipping) will be ready on Friday and Picked up by FedEx on Monday which gurantees delivery by the first day of Spiel, while the rest of the games will be ready on Monday evening and thus can be shipped out the very next day. Based on this, actual fulfillment should happen in the second half of October or worst case first half of November, but this is subject to a different negotiation which I will tell you all about in another update.

What's next?

Tomorrow I will have another factory visit and get the chance to see final game boxes of each product part of this campaign, including the miniatures pack, Sand & Snow and Shadowscape. Then I will make sure that everything is labeled and packed properly... but let's not spoil the whole surprise.

Stay tuned for part 2 the day after tomorrow,

Andrei

PS: below the videos recorded from the MagLev train window, accelerating to above 300 kilometers per hour.

Color proofs. Production. China trip preview.
almost 10 years ago – Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 04:52:42 PM

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Last week we received the final color proofs from our Chinese manufacturer. Two heavy FedEx tubes together with a large case got to our office and we eagerly opened them to see with our own eyes how Heart of the Mists will looks like in reality.

These are digital prints, yet the colors are as close as possible to the final product which is made using offset printing (I will detail this in the next update). Since Heart of the Mists is not the first product in the Mistfall universe and it is also an expansion for Mistfall, we could offer our manufacturer an actual game box against which colors were checked beforehand.

Another thing which we could check is the imposition of die cuts on the paper. This is obviously a simulation and small (up to 2 mm) offsets can be introduced by the physical process of cutting, but our experience with the same manufacturer showed good signs in this matter (owners of In the Name of Odin can confirm).

Long story short, we checked every single component in terms of colors and positioning on the printing plates for Heart of the Mists, the new print of Mistfall, Shadowscape, Sand & Snow and the miniatures box.

We are happy to report that we found no mistakes and we gave the green light for mass production.

Speaking of mass production, this is going on as you read these lines and it should be ready on Sunday. Which brings us to the next part of this update.

Call us control freaks, but we like to know what is going on and we tend to be overprotective of the quality of NSKN Games products, especially since both us, and much larger publishers have experienced problems in the past, problems which were both expensive and difficult to resolve.

To stay ahead of everything, we planned to go again to Shanghai and check the quality of the components at the factory. We've done the same for In the Name of Odin and it totally paid off. The only difference is that for Heart of the Mists we will be on site for the assembly and packaging, since we've grown to trust our production partners on the manufacturing side.

So, early next week I will land in Shanghai and immediately get to the factory and supervise the assembly of every product related to this project. Later the same week I will be again on site for the assembly on pallets and shipping overseas.

So... enjoy your upcoming weekend and stay tuned for more news,

Andrei

Less than 24 hours remaining!
almost 10 years ago – Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 11:03:11 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen!

This is going to be a very short update especially for those of you who might have missed yesterday's announcement:

The Pledge Manager for Heart of the Mists will be closed tomorrow (which is Thursday) at 16:00 CET / 10:00 EST / 7:00 PST.

Changes to your pledges can still be made, and if you have lost your Backer Kit email, you can use the Preorders Open button above, or simply follow this link.

Please make sure that you provide us with your shipping address as well, as we need to collect your data before the Pledge Manager is closed. If you have any questions, be sure to send us a private message soon!

Thank you all and have a great day!

Błażej

It’s closing time!
almost 10 years ago – Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 11:26:37 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I promised you an update when the time to close the Pledge Manager would be almost upon us, and here I am, to issue this important reminder: it’s (almost) closing time. To be exact, we will be closing the Pledge Manager on Thursday September 1st, at 16:00 CET / 10:00 EST / 7:00 PST.

Because of that there are w few things we’d like to ask you to do:

Firstly, please make sure that we have your address data before the Pledge Manager is closed. We really, really need to know where to send all of your stuff in order to send it.

Secondly, make your choices now. After we close the Pledge Manager, we will be unable to add anything to your pledges. So, if you’re thinking about pulling the trigger on that sweet Sand & Snow expansion or on Shadowscape – now’s the time.

Speaking of Shadowscape: we will not be selling it in Essen, and it will not hit retail afterwards. If a copy is already added to your pledge – or if you’re going to add it now – you will still get the game (pickup or shipment), but otherwise, Shadowscape will be a product exclusive to backers of Heart of the Mists for at least the next six months.

As always, if you have questions and/or comments, we live for your feedback.

Have a great day!

Błażej

TL;DR? We will be closing the Pledge Manager on Thursday September 1st, at 16:00 CET.