READY FOR LAUNCH? COUNTDOWN STARTED…

READY FOR LAUNCH? COUNTDOWN STARTED…

The Enlightened

JUNE 4


EXPLORERS OF ICY LANDS! ❄️

(We’re sending out TWO updates today — one here on Kickstarter, and one for the Gamefound support campaign. While there’s some repeated info in each, there’s also specific info for each audience — so if you read the Gamefound one first, be sure to check out the 👉 below for original backers only). 

Game delivery info is available below, but we also wanted to remind you: 

This is our last chance to inform everyone about the “ICE Limited: This Way to the Future” campaign launching in just two days (June 6th at 6:00 PM UTC+2), which will last for only 8 days! 🚀

Please make sure you follow the campaign here

But let’s get the info you want to know first out of the way….

👉 SHIPPING UPDATE 📦

As mentioned in our previous updates, our support campaign mentioned above was created in order to help with the final shipping costs for ICE games — and we expect funds from Gamefound to reach us by the second half of June, where we will then immediately be able to greenlight the shipping of the games to all backers. We don’t expect the support campaign to delay things much, if at all in most cases — though some vessels containing games are taking a little longer to reach their hubs than others. 😓

United States 🇺🇸

The games headed to the United States have already reached their destination in Port of Tacoma! 🥳 Games will now be processed by fulfillment company Gamerati over the next couple of weeks. This could potentially mean some lucky U.S. backers could even receive games by the end of the month, but we expect most of them to arrive the first half of July as previously announced. 

Canada 🇨🇦

The same vessel that had the games going to the U.S. also had the games going to their neighbors up North. Pick n Pack will handle fulfillment with deliveries expected in July for most backers. 

Europe 🇪🇺

The games are still on the vessel and are not expected to arrive at their ultimate port in Antwerp until the 27th of this month, where they will then be sent to Meeple Logistics for early July fulfillment. This means backers in the EU should probably expect deliveries beginning in the latter half of July at this rate. You can track the vessel here: https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9773222. It’s not ideal, we know — and some of us in the This Way team will even get our games after some backers in other places. But we hope the extra couple of weeks will go by quickly. If you see others in the U.S. getting their games first, just know yours will be following shortly! 🙏🏻

UK 🇬🇧

We unfortunately did not get the latest info from our Logistics Manager in time before the weekend for the UK, and we won’t have any news until tomorrow (Monday) – but we wanted to get this Update out today. We are expecting the UK games to be around the same timeframe as EU, but we’ll make a comment tomorrow in this Update to confirm. 

Asia/Australia/Rest of World 🌍

Games are already at VFI and are awaiting fulfillment. Some of these may also reach some lucky backers in Asia by the end of the month, with the rest arriving in July or possibly August for some of the farther, harder-to-reach destinations. 

FINAL PRICES AND SOME SURPRISES FOR SUPPORT CAMPAIGN 🏷

We’re been incredibly busy getting the support campaign ready, and making sure everything is all in order. We already mentioned some more items we’ll be offering in our first Update on Gamefound, as well as in our This Way Campaign Schedule article on our website that was linked in our newsletter. But in case you missed out on both of those, we’ll repeat the relevant info here. 

The “This Way to the Future!” campaign will have the following items:

— ICE ARTBOOK (Digital) – 5€

— ICE POSTER SET (3) – 15€

— FOUNDERS POSTCARD SET (5) – 15€

— ICE COASTERS SET (7) – 15€

— FOUNDERS SUPPORT PLEDGE (a $17 USD discount on the upcoming campaign) – 15€

— ICE COMPANION SET (2 booster card packs + 1 Edifice tile) – 25€

— ICE ARTBOOK (Hardcover + Digital) – 35€

— ORIGINAL BACKERS HERO PLEDGE (🇺🇸 or 🇫🇷, see details below) – 75€ 

— ICE (Core box, EN 🇺🇸) + ICE COMPANION SET – 115€

— ICE (Core box, FR 🇫🇷) + ICE COMPANION SET – 115€

— ICE (Collector box, EN 🇺🇸) + ICE COMPANION SET – 150€

— ICE (Collector box, FR 🇫🇷) + ICE COMPANION SET – 150€

— NEWCOMERS HERO PLEDGE (🇺🇸 only, see details below) – 195€

👉  So what are these “Hero” pledges about? Well they’re a way to get a bundle of items at a discounted cost!

The Hero pledge for “Newcomers” contains a box of ICE, but we know backers here will be interested in the “Original Backers” Hero pledge, which will contain these fixed items:

— The ICE COMPANION SET (2 boosters backs of cards and a new Edifice tile). 

— The ICE ARTBOOK (hardcover + digital)

Plus, you will be able to choose:

— Any two of the four 15€ items marked in bold in the above list!

That means you’ll be saving anywhere from 15-20€ with this pledge – which is like getting one of your elected items for free!

In addition, the Original Backers Hero pledge will be limited to only 150 units — so be sure to act fast!

ICE COMPANION SET ADDITION ➕1️⃣

We are adding one more card to both of the booster card packs that are part of the new ICE Companion Set…. just because!! 

Now each booster will contain a new Logbook (event) card, that pertains to the contents of each booster set of cards, making for even more gameplay opportunities! You’re welcome! 😎

FOUNDERS SUPPORT PLEDGE ❄️

Just a quick note about this pledge (and add-on item). If you choose it as one of the elected items in a Hero pledge, or get it as a separate pledge or add-on for 15€, we will automatically apply a $17USD discount to your FOUNDERS pledge in that campaign’s pledge manager, if you decide to back that game. (Because we are switching from €euro to $dollar currency for the next campaign, we accounted for the exchange rate and rounded up in your favor). 

Ideally we would have had a LOT more info about the game available by now, but the necessity of doing this support campaign derailed our planning, as this became the focus of the last month. 

This of course means pushing that campaign back, and it is now launching on September 5th (mark your calendars)!

We realize that the lack of info (full components list, final gameplay, prices) might make the choice of offering this Support Pledge a bit odd, and we totally understand that. 

We also know that there’s quite a few of you who will want to back FOUNDERS no matter what! (Maybe the little bit of gameplay we mention has been enough to intrigue you, or you’ve played it already at a convention and loved it, or you’ll get anything legacy-related, or you’re simply in love with the art of Léonard Dupond!). This pledge is definitely for those of you! 

But we know there’s a lot of you who will absolutely need to know more about the game before supporting it, and that’s fine! We should have ALL the info you’ll need about FOUNDERS a good month before launch, which will be long before the closing of this campaign’s pledge manager. 

So IF you choose the FOUNDERS support item (whether as one of the elected items in a Hero pledge, or as an add-on), and you later decide the game’s not for you (though we really think it will be), you have a choice: If it was one of the Hero-elected items, you’ll be able to simply change to a different item. If you got it separately as an add-on, we can offer a full refund for a limited time before the FOUNDERS campaign ends, or a refund (minus Kickstarter fees) after it ends.

AN EVOLVING CAMPAIGN PAGE 📈

Just so you know, we are still racing to get all the elements together for the Support campaign page. It’s still missing some stuff (like a graphic for the Collector deluxe components, gameplay, etc), most of which will come tomorrow as we wait for our graphic artist to be available again. 

A Shipping table too — we know how important this information is for you all, but we still need to get some final last-minute details from our Logistics Manager before we can have that ready (and as you know, it’s VERY important for us to get this part right 😅). So we thank you for your patience, and we promise to have it up before launch. (And apologies in advance if it’s very last-minute!).

👉  By the way, even if you’re not interested in any of the new stuff in the support campaign, you may want to head over and take a look anyway! While we’ve shown lots of how the game has developed, evolved and changed since funding on Kickstarter in these Updates (and the final rulebook has been available for a year with all the finalized components), we know that there are still some backers who have only seen the game as presented on the Kickstarter page. Unfortunately there’s a lot of outdated stuff there that we can lo longer change since that page is locked.

We made lots of improvements in the months following the campaign getting funded, taking  away a few minor things that weren’t working well, while adding even more content in other places to make up for it. The end result has given us an even better game that we’re quite proud of, so be sure to take a look to see the final result before your game arrives. 😊

👉 GET READY FOR LAUNCH! 🚀

We can’t stress how important it is that the support campaign does well! We know it will fund with the sale of the limited ICE boxes alone (which will be enough to deliver you all your games – hurrah!), but over-funding will make us breath a bit better about our future.

It’s been a tough two years making this unique and precious game, but it’s all been worth it — even though the delays have hurt us. But our new Campaign Schedule has us hopeful again, and we can’t thank you all enough for whatever support you can give for the “This Way to the Future!” campaign. 🙏🏻

Thanks again, and see you all in 48 hours!!

— Team This Way!