Still moving along
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jun 25, 2022 at 10:05:06 PM

Hey Everyone,

Not much to report so this’ll be a quick one.  Last update we mentioned we were approving files.  That process is almost finished.  We thought we were going to be done this past week but it looks like it’ll be next week.  When its finished the full production run on all remaining components will begin.  That keeps us on the timetable we provided two updates ago.  As of this moment we are still expecting the games to be leaving the factory sometime mid to end of August.  We’ll do another update when full production starts.  

Thanks,

-The Brain Sandwich Team

Quick production update
almost 2 years ago – Thu, May 19, 2022 at 02:28:20 AM

Hello Everyone, 

Just a quick update today.  We have received the samples for the entire dice set, including the battle dice, the damage die, the hit point counters, the scatter die and the D6.  Everything looked great in person and we approved the samples so now all the dice are being run off.  Here are some pictures…

We are approving more components this month so we are still on the timeline we included in the last update.  We’ll check in with another update in a few weeks.  

Thanks,

-The Brain Sandwich Team

An update and an apology
about 2 years ago – Thu, May 05, 2022 at 12:03:40 PM

Hello Everyone!  We know its been a while since our last update, too long, and we wanted to address that concern head on in today’s update.  We also wanted to talk about the revised time line so let’s jump right in.

Communication

Many of you have reached out to us recently in frustration requesting an update on the progress of the project.  We’ve had a few things we’ve been dealing with behind the scenes both professionally and personally and that’s led us to delays between updates.  That said, there’s no excuse for the delays and we are sorry. We have a few components shipping to us this week and we were going to wait until those came so we can include pictures but we needed to address the elephant in the room first.  We know you want to hear more from us.  We need to do better and we will.  

I’m sure some of you are starting to wonder if you are ever going to get this game.  YES.  Every single backer will recieve the copy they pledged.  There is no question of whether this campaign will fulfill, only when it will.  Secondly, we are expecting components this week from the manufacture and a lot more to follow in the coming weeks.  We will do an update every time we get something.  We want to see the bits as much as you and we’re going to make sure that we’re flowing updates in a timely fashion from here on out.  

New Timeline

The big question for all of us is WHEN will Fray be shipping.  We’ve talked a lot about the challenges we’ve faced in the previous updates so we won’t rehash those issues here.  Instead we’ve taken a look at where we are at and put together a new timeline based on that information.  

May - We are approving all the non-miniature components.  Dice, cards, punchouts, game board, etc.  From where we are today it looks like we’ll have everything approved by early June.

June - All of the non-miniature components will go into mass prodution.  This should take about 6 weeks in total.

August - The games will be complete and ready to ship.  Fulfilment should start shortly thereafter but we’ll cover fulfilment in a future update.

That’s all for today.  Thanks for your continued patience and look out for another update in about a week’s time with some pictures of dice :)

- The Brain Sandwich Team

Full steam ahead
about 2 years ago – Fri, Mar 04, 2022 at 12:48:12 PM

Greetings from the Every-verse!  It’s update time and this is a light update so lets jump right in!

Not all that much new is happening but we’ve seen several comments for an update so we thought we’d cover everything we can.  We were try to tow the line between regular updates and inbox spam and I guess this time we took a little too long getting an update out.  Apologies to all of you who were waiting to hear more and thank you for reaching out to us.  

Since the last update our factory was on a few week hiatus for Chinese New Year.  We spoke to them last week and they are back at work.  They are working on printing out the box materials and we have been in regular contact with them regarding printing status.  Everything is finally moving along smoothly so we are now entering the home stretch.  

If you’ve backed a board game on kickstarter before you probably noticed that the games are manufactured after a proof is sent to the creator for approval, then all the copies are run off at one time.  For various reasons the way Fray is being manufactured is a bit different.  The printing molds for the 25 models in the full set (core, reinforcements and KS exclusives) were finished first and already run off.  That’s right, all sets of the models have now been printed!  They are just waiting for all the cardboard components to catch up. 

We’ve talked in previous updates about some of the reasons the project has fallen behind our initial timetable.  We’ve had a lot of to contend with (power rationing at the factory, covid-related supply issues, to name a few) but part of the reason the plastic minis were produced first and separately from the rest of game was, to be completely honest, because we kept getting certain files rejected from the factory for small changes.  

None of us are graphic designers and we had trouble fulfiling our manufacturer’s exacting guidelines regarding the print files for the box, board and other gaming components.  There has been something like 8 or 9 file versions rejected because of spacing, or scaling or some such issue.  It’s been a long back and forth to get the files just right.  We didn’t sweat it as much as we would have under normal conditions because as we’ve talked about in a previous update we really had to wait until shipping costs came down before we could begin fulfillment.  The pandemic blew our original budget out of the water. The good news is that at least on the manufacturing and logistics front things are finally returning to normal and there are no longer barriers in our way to overcome.   

As of now our files have been finally accepted.  It’s going to just be a straight sprint forward until all the units are finished.  We already approved the models but we should have the cardboard components to approve this month.  That puts us around end of April to begin fulfillment.  It’s unlikely it’ll be sooner than that but it’s now a lot less likely it’ll be longer too.  

When we get the box and component samples which should be within a few weeks we’ll do an update with pictures.  In the meantime, we’ll try to do better with updates and keep everyone informed on the next steps.

Thanks,

-The Brain Sandwich Team

Update #18 - Happy New Year!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 11:38:31 PM

Hello again to everyone out there in the Every-Verse.   I hope that everyone is managing to stay safe, and enjoying their holiday season.  It is time to check in with the good, the bad and all the rest.    Fray, like most Kickstarter projects has been a project that has incredible highs and some pretty low lows.  We were expecting to have been able to fulfill the project in October, and obviously that goal has been missed.   We thought we had lined everything up correctly, had a factory ready to go, a fulfillment partner ready to go and just needed to polish the rules and graphics files before firing away.   

Unfortunately, our fulfillment partner pulled out on us, leaving us to scramble to find a replacement, book ocean passage and handle some meaty logistics.  Our factory has been great, but has suffered some struggles of their own.  Prices have skyrocketed in both manufacturing and transportation.   Finally, the files gave us some headaches of their own to get just right.    

That is my doom and gloom description of what we have seen over the past months. 

Now for the good

We received word from Eastar that the models have been completed.  There are currently TONS of champions sitting around in the factory, waiting to get their fight on.  We are pretty excited by how they came out in the end and are eager to get them in their boxes, on the water and to your table.   This is by far the hardest component with the longest manufacturing lead time, so it is a huge victory. 

As we mentioned in the previous updates we had two big 'problems' on our hands.   1. That the costs of just about every piece of this project had gone up well beyond expectation and 2. We absolutely did not want to face trying to fulfill in the holiday season.  We had some experience from our other game last year that led to long lead times, lost packages and a just generally unpleasant experience for our customers and us.   

While the monetary problem has been a problem, it has allowed us to revisit the game obsessively to perfect files more and more.   To be very blunt, we had no choice but to wait to finish the project as we needed time to get the missing funding.  This, while frustrating in regards to our fulfillment timeline, has led us to a better and better game. 

At the moment I am currently doing final tweaks on the punchboard files.  Eastar and I have gone back and forth seemingly 50 times to try to get things just right.  It looks awesome.  

The timeline as it stands -

The most complicated components have been manufactured and are complete - the models, the dice are being done now and the cardboard components are next up.   The current tweaks that I am working on will be completed this weekend and sent over.   The factory will then send us one final set of proofs.  As soon as we say go, it can be done pretty quickly considering what is already complete.  We are expecting to have the proof of the punchboards approved and everything ready to fire in the next 3 weeks.   Unfortunately this means it is now impossible that we can get the containers on the water before Chinese New Year.   The plan is to have the factory finish running off these last components and assemble the game once they get back.  This means that the games can hit the water in late February/March, and actual fulfillment looks to begin in April. 

Believe me, we did not want to run 6 months behind on fulfillment.  We cannot express how much we have appreciate the support and genuine love we get from the community, the last thing that we wanted was to let our supporters down.   Your words have been encouraging and your patience is appreciated more than you can possibly imagine.   We love games, and we want to be able to keep making them for years to come.   We learned a lot of painful lessons in this campaign, some of which we could not have possibly seen coming.  

Future Updates

I have been too laxed on writing new updates because so much has been fluid for so long now.  I want to make a point to say that as this timeline progresses, I will be sending out updates every 3 weeks or so.  Hopefully they are all short and just say "we are exactly where we expected to be", but they will be coming.   

Thank you

Brian & The Brain Sandwich Games Team