Dwarf board game

Essen and Little Wooden Dwarfs
over 4 years ago – Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 02:05:58 AM

Hi there.

I want to start this update by thanking you if you are one of the people who stopped by to say ‘hello’ to us at Essen. I hope you enjoyed the rest of the Spiel - ours went really well, with feedback on Dwarf being particularly positive. It was especially gratifying for me to see several games where people really leaned into using the Special Actions, suggesting that the cost of using them is now right as a valid option to manage the game in your quest to be a dwarven hero. Of course, if you were at Essen then you know that was a couple of weeks ago now.

I’d meant to write this update sooner but, shortly after getting back to the UK, I learned that I was about to have surgery. Although I’d been waiting for this for around two years, I was only told on the Friday that I would be going into hospital on the Monday. I was then offline for two weeks. In the meantime, the rest of the team have been working really hard - which means I now have even more news to share with you than I’d planned. So, grab yourself a mug of thick, dark beer, tuck your beard into your belt and read on.

This last week, we received the white box version of Dwarf from our manufacturer. A white box version of the game is one which replicates all of the components with actual materials but without printing anything. This allows us to check that the manufacturer has some idea what they’re putting in each box and also that the components fit in our chosen box size. Good news - the answer is positive for both checks! Our white box sample also included our meeple samples - the first time we’ve got to see them.

One of the meeples was damaged - either during shipping or at the factory, suggesting a possible weakness. We’ve raised this concern with the manufacturer and they’ve assured us that this is an isolated incident. Some of you may remember that we were concerned about this after we got the initial designs and we had the meeples redesigned with chunkier picks that the manufacturer assured us were strong enough. As before, we have to trust their assurances and experience.

While we were busy checking over these components, the Spieleschimede campaign finished on Friday. Good news - it funded. If you helped spread word about the campaign, thankyou - we can now confirm that there will be a German version of Dwarf. Further to that, we can now announce that there will also be a Spanish version of Dwarf. As promised previously, you will be able to change your pledge to either language version of the game in Backerkit, shortly, if you wish. All three versions of the game will be produced in the same factory and will ship at the same time.

We’ve also been frantically proofreading the box, cards and rules for each version of the game in the past few days. We’ve received all of the remaining art from Lars since Essen and we’re preparing to send the files to the manufacturer in the early part of next week. We think we’ve now caught everything but, of course, we probably haven’t. This is something you can help us with - if you have time to read the rulebook in the next two days then please let us know if you spot any errors. You can download the latest versions here:

English Rulebook

German Rulebook

Spanish Rulebook

Bringing us back to where we started, if you saw us at Essen then you may have demo’d one or more of our other upcoming games. The next one in the pipeline is Gray Eminence, a game of politics and intrigue for 3-5 players which we will be crowdfunding in February.

Lee and the DDP team.

Finally, we have some news to share!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 01:26:18 AM

First off, the Spieleschmiede German crowdfunding campaign has now launched. If you have any German speaking friends then please let them know about this. As ever with crowdfunding, it’s you who make the big difference - so we’d really appreciate you mentioning this wherever you can. The campaign's already off to a good start and looks set to fund. For me, personally, it’s amazing to see Dwarf appear in different languages and, therefore, become available for more people around the world to play. A Spanish version is also in the works.

Secondly, Lars has finished the first sketches of the new art that you unlocked. It’s taken a little longer than predicted but we’re not too worried about that - Lars has been tied up with other projects recently but we know from experience that he’s very quick once he’s reached this stage. In fact, the image at the top of this update you’ll recognise as also being one of the sketches below. He’s that fast. Let us know what you think (note that the text is placeholder text for now - they’re not all ‘Alloy Steel’ cards!).

Unfortunately, this art is too late for our Essen Spiel demo copies but we will have copies of the game there to play, as well as our other games. If you’re going to Spiel and you’d like to come and say hello then please introduce yourself - we’d love to meet you! You’ll find us in Hall 2 on stand B101.

Two weeks later, Timo, Tinsku, the Dwarf demo set and all of our other games will also be at SPIELidee, in Rostock (8th-10th November), so if you’re going there and you miss us at Essen then you have a second chance! Out stand number there is 214.

Lee and the DDP team.

Backerkit Instructions and Production Update
over 4 years ago – Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 12:11:55 AM

Well, it took a little longer than we’d have liked but you will shortly receive your invitation to Backerkit. This is the system we’re using to help you manage your pledge for Dwarf and, as such, it’s important you understand how it works.

You will receive an email, from Backerkit, containing a web link. You should click on this link. Upon doing so, it will open a webpage in your browser, showing your email address and the level you pledged at. If you want to increase your pledge - for example from no copies of the game to a copy, you should do that here by clicking on the blue text (‘$2 - Little Helper’ in the image below). It’s important you do that at this stage because additional any copies of the game added later on in Backerkit will not have the same subsidised shipping rate.

If you do want to change your pledge level, after clicking on the blue text, you’ll be taken to a screen like the one below. Click on the blue text again - this time the ‘Switch Pledge Levels?’ text in the upper right corner to go to a screen where you can choose your new pledge level. After confirming that, you will be returned to the first screen again.

Once you’re happy with your pledge level, click the big green ‘Get Started! Button to go to the next screen. This will launch you into a short survey checking that you understand how shipping works. Click ‘Next’ to navigate between the questions once you have answered them.

The next screen you will see will give you the opportunity to order extra copies of Dwarf or copies of some of our other games, if you wish. Click ‘Next’ when you have chosen any items you wish to add to your order to reach the shipping screen. Check the information here carefully to make sure everything is as you expect it to be, then click the ‘Place My Order’ button to finish the process.

Don’t worry too much about your address at this point - you can edit your order at any time until it is locked for despatch. We won’t be locking the orders for quite some time yet and we’ll give you plenty of notice when we do. So moving house in the next couple of months is not a problem, so long as you remember to update your address before then.

Detailed instructions over with, I’m pleased to let you know that we have finalised our contract with the manufacturer and paid the first instalment. This means that everything remains on track.

Lee and the DDP Team.

The Missing Update
over 4 years ago – Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 02:37:55 AM

The update below was written and distributed in our team two weeks ago. It should have been posted here, too, but for some reason it wasn't. Thanks to Andre De Villiers and Elmo for pointing that out.

Some of the information has been superseded by the last update but, hopefully, seeing it now will help make more sense of that wherever I said 'in the last update'. That, of course, was this update, which you hadn't received!

******

First of all, I want to thank you for helping us fund.

Second, I want to apologise for not posting this update sooner. I got rather caught up with other things over the weekend - mostly good things, but it meant I was very short on time. On Sunday, for example, I actually participated in my first ever table-top miniatures tournament. It was just a small one and it was surprisingly friendly - as evidenced when one third of the competitors (including me!) were tied for the award of ‘best opponent' (which I think translates as ‘person that kept smiling and joking even while they were losing’).

So, what happens now? Although we may not have posted here over the weekend, we haven’t been idle. We started preparing the pledge manager in Backerkit before the campaign was over and we hope to have that available for you before the weekend of the 17th August.

We’ve also been communicating with Lars, to agree a realistic deadline with him for creating the new art you helped unlock. Once we have that pinned down we’ll be able to put a full production schedule in place. Importantly, this is not a game with a huge number of different components. Based on past experience, we therefore don’t expect many problems or delays in our schedule. Nevertheless, we’re building several buffers into the schedule and it’s on that basis that we provided the delivery estimate of May 2020 to you.

Now that the campaign’s over, obviously the frequency of updates will diminish (as, I guess, it already has!) but we will keep you informed at every step of our journey together and you should feel free to reach out and ask us anything, any time.

Lee and the DDP Team.

Schedule update
over 4 years ago – Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 01:45:16 PM

Hi everyone,

In our update last week, I promised to let you know about schedule updates once we'd heard an estimate of times from Lars, our artist.

It looks like we should get all of the new art you unlocked in September, which works well for us. It's also in September that we plan to open the Spieleschmiede campaign for the German edition of Dwarf. Like the Kickstarter campaign, this will have stretch goals. We're running it now because that way we can include any stretch goals it unlocks in both editions of the game.

We're on track to open the pledge manager in Backerkit in a couple of weeks and this will remain open until after the Spieleschmiede campaign finishes, giving you the option to order German copies, if you wish, if funding is successful.

Beyond that, we're looking at getting the game into production shortly after the Spieleschmiede campaign, which means we should be getting the first samples before the end of the year.

Lee and the DDP Team.