Rulebook Update & Future Project!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 05:03:16 AM

Hey all - a more upbeat update this time!

Rulebook Update

In the last update, we communicated a couple of minor errors in the rulebook. Happily, we have been able to correct these. You can download and print these from either our website or from our Board Game Geek listing (once approved). 

UK Arrival

Today we have received the first pallet of Hit the Silk! Brexit threw a few challenges (and costs) at us, but we're pleased to have the game here. We'll be taking a number to the UK Games Expo, so if you wanted to collect it there, you're welcome to. Please DM me to arrange by the end of tomorrow (28/7/21). 

Run for your Life!

We've begun work on our next project. At this stage, we're tweaking the preview copies and generating some prelaunch interest. We won't be working much more on this until we've completed fulfilment of Hit the Silk! and we expect to launch this in the Autumn (Fall).  Follow our prelaunch here! 

Crash landed on a jungle island filled with mystery, peril and hidden treasure; tormented by natural disasters and hunted by DINOSAURS! Can you make it out in one piece?

Run for your Life! is an all-age adventure which uses tile placement and push-your-luck mechanics as you explore the jungle landscape to grab gems and make it back to your helipad before lava overruns the island. 

All the useful items you grab along the way start to weigh your backpack down, which then impacts your footspeed. I guess you don't need to move that fast. Unless you encounter a dinosaur, in which case Run for your Life!

Run for your Life! also has a few elements of sabotage and semi-cooperative play and an aspiration for a campaign mode called 'On Air'. You can stay tuned for details by signing up to get notified here. 

Thanks for your support again... I'll be in touch again once we've nailed those fulfilment dates. 

Best

Brendan

Fulfilment & Rules Update
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 04:25:24 AM

Hey everyone, 

Hope you had a great weekend. Today I've written a fairly long update on fulfilment, the rulebook and a hiccup with the box insert.

FULFILMENT

EUROPE

We're delighted that the game is beginning to land in mainland Europe and it's been lovely to see quite a few backers post their excitement about its arrival in the project comments. Once again, it's been amazing to have your support for this game. We hope you love playing it as much as we do. If you do, we'd love to hear your thoughts and please consider rating us on Board Game Geek 

I do hope none of you have been affected by the flooding in Northern Europe. Given the size of our campaign, it's statistically unlikely, but our thoughts are certainly with those affected. 

UK / ROW

Post-Brexit imports have been a learning curve for me. I've been the middle man in conversations between the warehouse, the shipper and the customs broker. I actually got the paperwork wrong first time around and found myself with a frightening VAT bill. That's now resolved. 

The current situation is that the stock is packed up in LudoPackt's warehouse in Germany. The shipper (Dachser) requires an Import Entry Number to send the stock. We're waiting for that number from our customs broker before it can be released. I'm really hoping it will be today, but I also hoped that on Thursday and Friday! Anyhow, not withstanding any other problems, Hit the Silk! should arrive in the UK fulfilment centres by the end of July. From there, I need to coordinate a schedule for despatch, but I imagine games will be with you in mid August. I'll confirm once I've spoken with them.

We're hoping also to have a single pallet of games available to join us at the UK Games Expo. If you're going to be there, I'll happily hold your copy for collection and return the UK part of the shipping cost to you. I'll confirm that is possible in a future update. 

For Rest of the World, your shipment will leave the UK in August. Delivery times will vary depending on where in the world you are.

NORTH AMERICA

We've arranged freight. Not all of the customs documents are complete, but we've made good headway and it's provisionally booked for a ship arriving in Orlando 22nd August. I'll pick up with QML about their fulfilment plan in due course. Shipping to the US wasn't straightforward for our last campaign, so please don't hold tightly to the estimated timings!

RULEBOOK

One of the distinguishing features of this campaign has been the speed at which we have managed to produce the game. We had quite a bit of time during Pandemic restrictions, which enabled us to develop and test the game well. 

There were a couple of disadvantages:

1) Whilst a lot of Hit the Silk! was played, it was limited to a few groups of people, so it's didn't get as many people looking at it.

2) A tight print deadline meant that we had to work at pace to produce the artwork.

As such, we've picked up on a couple of rulebook discrepancies. These came about during the proof-reading stage. Following some playtesting, we made the decision to adjust (on the altimete) the voting points and the points at which the poison and antidote no longer can take effect. 

When we were proof-reading the rules, we referred to the prototype altimeter (and not the final product, which was only available digitally). This is an annoying mistake, which I must own. 

The details of the discrepancies are listed below:

Rulebook Clarifications

Page 4: Objectives

In section 2, third paragraph, it refers to a 'last chance altitude to Hit the Silk!' - this should also state that this altitude is at 1,000 feet - the height of mandatory bailout, below which you cannot survive. 

Page 7: Poison

In this section, all references to poison at 7,000 ft should read 6,000 ft (as per the poison marker on the altimeter board)

In this section, all references to antidote at 5,000 ft should read 4,000 ft (as per the antidote marker on the altimeter board)

Page 8: Antidote

The clarification should read “You must take the antidote before the plane hits 4,000 ft”

Page 9: Altitude Drop

The list of altitudes should read “21,000 ft ~ 17,000 ft ~ 13,000 ft ~ 9,000 ft ~ 5,000 ft

Rulebook Update

We will ask our designer to amendments to the rulebook and make this available for download. I'm going to postpone this for a week or so, just in case anything else is uncovered as more people open up the game. 

BOX INSERT

One of our backers (Yousuf) noticed a little hiccup with the box - once you put the arrow onto the board, it will protrude and thus the box will not close fully. His handy tip: just cut or bend the box insert by 2 cm. and all will be fine.

Another solution is to lose the box insert altogether. 

If you are looking for a more precise solution, we are working on a custom insert (laser cut in poplar wood). This is progressing well (see pictures below) and we are looking at a flat pack version for cost effective postage. Early indications are that we could make this available for around £7 + P&P for UK backers. I will post again if/when we get to a point of being able to offer this. 

We did try to explore some cardboard insert alternatives with LudoFact, but we were quoted a very long lead time of 20 weeks (due to global timber supply shortages). 

Apologies that's a bit of a wordy update! 

I'll pin this post as the updates on rules will be useful to refer to. 

Thanks again for all your support!

Brendan & the team at Escape Plan.

PS - If you're interested in what we're up to after Hit the Silk! finished fulfilment, check out our instagram page: @escapeplanboardgames

Factory Sample!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 10:59:16 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Frank's Blood Pressure
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 03:38:02 PM

A Faulty Altimeter?

Frank's our guy at LudoFact. He's a good guy. Likes to check things over carefully. 

110/70.

Yesterday, he boarded the plane and inspected the rivets of the Altimeter for Hit The Silk. 

As he checked it over, the rivets looked somewhat... well, large.

115/75.

He requested a new panel for assembly. From the top, all good. 

110/70.

From the side however... Danger! Loose altimeter!

120/80.

Frank pulled the emergency cord. If there's a red telephone in LudoFact... then it's ringing at this point.  

125/85.

Then there's a frantic half an hour on board our plane. Frank and his crew perform a series of army rolls, a death defying wing-walk and there's even a short fight sequence with some of the crew handcuffed to the plane in case they try to sabotage the repair. Frank emerges through the dust and debris kicked up by the fight and garners everyone's attention: "It's simple, we need a 5.5mm rivet!" 

"It's not so simple, Frank," retorts a member of the team. "These are 7.5mm".

130/90.

Was it the supplier? A mislabelled box? An internal mistake? Sabotage? There's no time to answer these questions. Frank springs into action, somersaults into the cargo hold, and with the clock ticking, secures the last box of rivets and races to the cockpit. 

135/95.

"Try this!" he yells, flinging the box through the air, which is caught by a member of the crew. 

"We knew you could do it, Frank", she says, fitting the rivet perfectly. 

110/70.

"All in a days work," says Frank. "There's just one problem. The plane is still losing altitude..."

140/100...

Assembly Hint

Ok, I might have embellished the facts a little in my regaling of the story above, but it's good to see them picking up little things and making sure everything is as intended. 

What Frank actually asked me to write was: 

Please note (maybe write it on the Kickstarter page, too) that the thinner part of the rivet should be beneath the board, like I did in the second picture

Fulfilment Update

The mini planes, seaplanes and silver trains are all done and heading to our fulfilment centres in Norwich (UK) and Bayern (Germany) to be united with the game boxes and then distributed to Europe, then UK and then by freight to North America. Fulfilment instructions for Europe have been sent and we're waiting for assembly to finish, so we are very close now.

We're in the process of appointing a new customs broker for North American freight. There's a lot of uncertainty in the shipping world right now, so I'll endeavour to get trackable information for the ship and keep our friends across the Pond up to date with developments. 

Thanks again all

Brendan

June Update
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jun 13, 2021 at 12:07:22 PM

Hi all! 

Well, currently, we couldn't be happier. Everything is way ahead of schedule. So much so, that I've got a break in my work schedule now from this project, so we're starting to dream up more details of game number 3. We plan to announce that in July at the UK Games Expo. I can tell you at this stage, it's a tile-placement game and has some push your luck mechanics. There's some semi-coop elements and for once, it's not set in mid 20th century! There is a vehicle, but it's not the focus of the game. Anyway, back to Hit the Silk!

Production Update

In the last few weeks, we have:

• Lined up all our fulfilment partners, completed some of the product registration processes and obtained more recent freight quotes
• Placed orders for the minis (picture below) - they're about 50% complete I understand and soon they will ship out to Germany to join the bulk of the stock
• Sourced barcodes for each of the items
• Despatched all Stop the Train games for backers who opted for split shipping 
• The game has also obtained an FSC sticker. This means no forests came to harm as a result of it. You can read more here. We're really keen to do our bit on the eco front and it's great that LudoFact enable this for us. 

We're now waiting for the news from the factory for when the game is ready. Then I'll give you some firmer timings. 

Cursed Exhibition

Well, it's otherwise a minor update, so I thought I'd also let you know the last Kickstarter I backed (which was today). It's called The Cursed Exhibition - Immersive Mystery Games by The Detective Society and it's made (partly) by a friend of mine, Joe Mills (no relation... at least I hope). 

I've worked a little bit with the team and their games are really faithful to keeping you in the world and not breaking immersion or adding in abstract content. If you like real-life detective stuff, then check this out. There's only a short while left on Kickstarter for it, but they're also going to be at the UK Games Expo (as are we) so there's another chance to see what they do. 

Until next time! And I'm hoping the next update brings some more shots of the first sight of the game.

All the best,

Brendan & Escape Plan (you'll meet more of the team at UKGE if you are there!)