Final Production Sample Received!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 10:03:23 PM

Hello everyone!

Great news to share this week: The first copy of Cold War off the presses has been received! This means we should have everyone's games on boats and on their way to you by the end of the year!

I've got quite a lot of photos below for you. My main aim is to show the colour matching and card-quality matching that has been done so that you can be confident your expansion will play nicely with the main game.

To the naked eye I could see NO differences in colours, thicknesses or sizes when comparing the expansion cards to the base game cards. After uploading the photos I took, it seems the camera's eye may be slightly better than mine as I can discern some slight difference sometimes, but after trying repeatedly to pick the expansion cards from shuffled decks of the base game's cards (and failing) I am pretty confident we got it almost spot on. 

It's next to impossible to match such things 100% as the expansion is being printed at a different factory than the base game (and five years later) on different machines and with a different paper supplier, etc., but GEE this is SO close and better than I ever expected!

What's next?

We will have one final attempt at matching the old cards even more perfectly, and then it's off to the assembly room and packing the games for shipments! We will update you once we have firm news on that front.

The photos...

Below are images of the cards that must be shuffled in to other decks to play. In each group of photos, you will see old and new cards lined up (the base game cards are on the left, expansion cards on the right - front and back), a new card within a deck of old cards (it is always the card slightly sticking up from the deck in the middle of the line of cards), and the cards all shuffled together in a deck to show the size and weight of the cards are similar. (Note I used a new copy of Energy Empire so your old cards may look messier than mine.)

Please note that there are lots more cards than this is the game, but these are the only types of cards that need matching to the base game cards (the rest are for new modules/variants).

Have a great week, will speak again soon.

- David

Grail Games

Production - Where are we now?
over 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 11:20:23 PM

Hi Cold War commandos!

Another short and sweet update from the Grail Games team on where we are at with fulfilling the Cold War Kickstarter!

The factory has let me know that by the end of November I will be sent the MPC (Mass Production Copy - basically the first fully-finished copy of the game).

One week after I send my final approval of the MPC, assembly of the games should be complete.

This means that Cold War could feasibly be out of the factory by mid-December!

And then we would be looking to have Cold War at your homes in January/February (depending on where you live).

That's really exciting!

There are two things that could affect this timeline in a noticeable way:

First, there could possibly be issues with the MPC that need some things reprinted. I'm hopeful there won't be, but colour-matching with the base game will be very difficult, so we will see. So far everything has looked correct!

Second, you may have heard there is a worldwide shipping container issue. We have had games ship on time this year and others not so much - it's really a luck of the draw sometimes when containers get to finally ship out of port. But fingers crossed we get Cold War moving ASAP :)

So...

Hopefully the next update will contain images of the final production copy!

In other news:

I announced yesterday (very softly on YouTube) that we are planning to release the fifth stand-alone game in the Manhattan Project series next year! This is a game signed by James Mathe that he never got to finish. And it could very well be may favourite of the series! Stay tuned for more info on that :)

All the best,

David

Grail Games

Short production update
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 02:43:43 AM

Hello Energy Emperors!

Just a super duper quick update to let everyone know that Cold War's print files are being prepped by the factory and we should be on the production queue very soon. There seem to be no issues with the files.

We will update everyone properly once there is more news. For now, we play the waiting game :)

Thanks, and to anyone visiting Essen Spiel this weekend, we hope you have a safe and fun time!

- David

Grail Games

On to the factory!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 03:01:31 AM

Hi backers and friends!!

You may have noticed some money leave your bank accounts over the last 48 hours from Surfin' Meeple (our international distribution partner). This was your card being charged for Cold War (I apologise but I thought payments were immediate, in fact, cards were only charged once we closed the pledge manager).

So I wanted to write a quick update to say, "Don't worry - that's' all legit" :D

Also, the print files are now at the factory! Their team will review them and create printing proofs for approval. If there are no issues, this should all happen very quickly (depending on the factory's workload). Then, we join the printing queue!! Once we do, I can give everyone an estimate of when printing will finish.

Many thanks! We're moving along now! Speak soon,

- David

Pledge manager closing soon!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 07:42:51 PM

Hi everyone!!

A super quick update to let you know that the BackerKit pledge manager for Cold War will be closing when I wake up (in Australia) this Monday - September 13th. This means for the majority of backers it will end in the very late night of Sunday, September 12th.

If anyone has had issues with finding their survey link in their emails etc., or any other problems, please let us know ASAP.

After the surveys close, we begin the process of getting the expansion printed!

Thank you!

- David

Grail Games

PS: We have a new game on Kickstarter right now with just a few days to go. It's called The Gardens and is designed by Matthew Dunstan and Brett Gilbert. You can visit the campaign by clicking here if you're interested!