Help us bring back Steve Jackson's first tabletop RPG.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
I am in Hong Kong now, preparing for drives into China to check on the final assembly of The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition. If all goes well over the next week, then the project will be approved for shipment to the United States and, as you know, onward to your gaming tables! This has been an incredible project to work on, and all of us at the office are proud of both the work invested in the game and that we're still on schedule. And thanks to your support, the game is significantly larger than we had first planned.
We start 2019 with a new Kickstarter campaign for The Fantasy Trip, bringing more adventures to you as well as a printed collection of the works. Our initial plan was to produce PDF adventures and release one each month up to March, but your feedback told us that what you really want is printed books and die-cut counters and megahexes. We're not ones to say "no" if we don't have to, so we adjusted our PDF plans . . . check out The Fantasy Trip Adventures campaign today and join in ASAP. Why? Because we have stretch goals to unlock!
These First 24 Stretch Goals are, for those of you who have been following the return of The Fantasy Trip, equal to 50% of the support that the Legacy Edition received in its first 24-hours on Kickstarter last summer. Can we unlock both stretch goals before the 24-hour deadline?
Thank you for your support of The Fantasy Trip last summer. Now, with your help, we'll bring new adventures to the table and continue the success of The Fantasy Trip into 2019.
- Phil Reed
Over the last few days, we've reviewed the assembly instructions for the I Want It All carton and everything at the factory is proceeding on schedule. Next week, David and I will visit the factory and take one last look at the project before everything is loaded onto the container and shipped to our primary fulfillment warehouse in Michigan. I'll be sure to snap some photos while we're there and update all of you on the project's status; with luck, I'll also be able to get some video of the project in assembly.
As we mentioned last week, we're bringing new TFT adventures to Kickstarter next week as well as a softcover collection of the five adventures (complete with die-cut counters and new megahexes). Over the holiday break, Rick Hershey has been preparing the cover art for the printed book, and while he isn't finished, the new cover is far enough along that we're happy to share a work-in-progress peek at the project. Great work, Rick! Can't wait to see this one completed and ready for print!
I hope everyone is getting a chance to play games and enjoy time with friends and family this week. Our office is officially closed, though that hasn't stopped several of us from continuing work on various projects (Steve has been focused on the final stages of Ogre Battlefields as well as some new TFT work, but we'll have to wait a bit longer to see what he's been working on).
We're unlikely to have any more news until next week, so please don't forget the TFT forums or the Facebook group if you're looking to chat about The Fantasy Trip with others as you wait for the latest info on the project.
- Phil Reed
Part of the process of producing and selling games into stores is the announcement of titles. Roughly four months before release, we send sell sheets to our distributor partners. What is a sell sheet? It's a one-sheet with the game's details, mostly focused on price, UPC, stock number, and measurements, but also providing some promotional information so that the distributors (and retailers) better understand the title.
As an example, here is the Legacy Edition sell sheet that we sent to distributors earlier this month. The Legacy Edition is set for an April release in stores.
With the holiday break next week, and the requirement that we announce our May releases the first week of January, the team has prepared the May sell sheets early so that we can hit the ground running in 2019. In May, you'll see Melee, Wizard, and Death Test in stores; we're intentionally spacing out the various TFT products on our schedule so that we don't put too much out at once.
In yesterday's Ogre Battlefields update, Steve teased something pretty big that will be officially revealed next month. In the update, Steve writes:
"We have reserved space for Saturday and Sunday, April 6 and 7, for a mini-convention here in Austin. One of the games we will be featuring, for sure, is Ogre. Those who were at the Ogre release party know what to expect: a laid-back event with plenty of opportunities to play and to meet the people who make your games. There will also be some peeks at upcoming projects and probably some new releases you can take home.
We'll announce here when we have a registration system set up; this is really an Early Leak. Things we don't know yet include how many spaces we'll have available (maybe as low as 200), whether we'll have a room block at a local hotel (discussions are underway), and what the weather will be like (might be wonderful, might not)."
In addition to Ogre events, we'll also have The Fantasy Trip on display and ready-to-play, complete with the 3D dungeon terrain that we've been using at conventions over the last few months. We include pre-registration info for the event in a future update; we hope that you can make it to Austin and join us in a weekend of gaming fun!
- Phil Reed
The completed pocket folders arrived and turned out so snazzy that I regret not ordering a few hundred extras to use for our retailer mailings in 2019. Note to self: Explore adding a few new pocket folders to a future Kickstarter campaign for The Fantasy Trip and then order more than we need. These would be great marketing folders!
Yesterday, Ben sent me and Steve the layout of the Companion softcover book. There's more work to do on the layout and art, but we now have enough of a rough in place that we can start the task of tweaking, adjusting, and improving the book. This will come in as a 64-page softcover book and, at this stage, I am unsure of whether or not we'll have the PDF for you in December or January. (We're running out of 2018 office days; today is our last official office day of the year.) If we do manage to send the Companion this month, it will be a draft PDF and not the final work.
So far, we have released two different PDF adventures for The Fantasy Trip at Warehouse 23, and a third is close to complete. Your feedback on these adventures has been valuable, and we're happy to report that we're listening your comments and taking action in 2019 to improve on our approach to TFT adventures.
On January 2, we will bring three PDF adventures to Kickstarter and ask for your support in completing these titles. Additionally, the project will offer a printed collection of all five adventures -- complete with die-cut counters and megahexes -- because so many of you have asked to get these works in print.
For those of you who have not yet picked up the first two adventures, both will be available as part of this new project.
For your friends who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, this new project will include the Legacy Edition box as an add-on. Additionally, we'll have a limited number of I Want It All boxes available (with the printed collection of adventures) as a special reward level.
This will be a short campaign, closing on January 11.
Thanks, everyone, for your continued support and for making The Fantasy Trip such an important part of our 2019 plans. We'll do our best to continue to earn your backing and to make the line as packed with fun as we can manage.
- Phil Reed