Production Update #10: General Production and Rulebooks
over 6 years ago – Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 01:46:17 AM

Hello Everyone!

While production is still ongoing, we have news we would like to share!.

General Production

Production is still ongoing, everything is looking fine from our end and we should have everything printed to start packaging and sending it to all our warehouses for Delivery all over the world!. 

Deluxe Playmats

As you know from our previous Update we took a decision that while it was a hard one to make, we did it for the sake of a good quality product, if you missed it, you can read it by going here: https://tgry.ph/2fbkVhF

Nevertheless, we got word that we should be receiving them very soon, so as we expected they will make it in time for when the main factory starts packing everything up without delaying it even more.

Rulebooks

If you have been paying attention to all our updates, we practically rewrote the entire rulebook until we were happy with it, we even got help from some backers and even other game designers, but even when it took so long it was worth it.

But something we didn't publish in that update, and that we took a little more in finishing but has been ready for quite some time now, are the expansion rulebooks, including our beloved Fluffy and the Tiger and the Phoenix!

As always, thank you for all the support, we know that the wait has been a lengthy one but we do everything we do so that when you receive the game in your doorstep you say with a big smile, "It was totally worth it".

We will back soon with more news!

Sincerely,
Everyone here at ThunderGryph Games.

Production Update #9: Wooden coin, play mats and our new game!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 01:28:24 AM

Hello everyone!  

Two weeks have passed and it’s time to update you with all the recent news. As you all know, this has been one of the most intricate productions we have ever encountered, and we have been carefully planning and executing every part of several other productions as well so we mean it.  

Wooden Coin  

In one of our recent updates we decided to reward all of you with an additional component inside the game, the wooden flux coin.  

We received the sample some days ago, the next part of the process is to paint the sides of the wood in grey, but we hope you like this sneak peak!  

Deluxe play mat  

You have been around with us for a long time so you know how much we care about quality; we want you to be completely satisfied with our games and productions. Receiving a game we shaped together is a special moment and we want that to be perfect.  

During Tao Long’s deluxe edition production, we approved the play mat that you have seen in our photos and unboxing that is a little bit darker then the cardboard. Printing over neoprene is completely different that printing in cardboard. Part of the color gets absorbed during that process and it is very hard to accomplish the same finish and feeling.  

After much thought, and trust us, it was a very hard choice, we decided to reprint our whole print run for the play mats that is close to 9000 units.  

We reached out to the company that makes Magic the Gathering play mats and we sent a cardboard sample to them so they can match the color as close as possible. They know exactly what we need, and in the following days they will send us around 4 different samples we can choose from. We will ask for your opinion as soon as we receive them.  

Now, what to do with our other 9000 play mats? Dismantling them is almost as expensive as to make them plus it is not great for the environment so we decided to keep our original production.  
For that reason we will start selling our first print run to lower our sunk cost of the reprint. If you are interested into taking one of these to use, gift, hang or just to commemorate our mistake you can buy them for just 5€ that after taxes is near to our production cost.  

 

Thanks for all your insights and all your amazing support!  

Pot de Vin, our new game!  

 

Our next game is here! This one will go directly into distribution. We just launched our pre-order page and just for 14 days we are giving the collector’s metal coin for everybody that gets it before hit retail stores! On top of that since this is just a pre-order all the Stretch Goals (called deluxe upgrades in this case) are already unlocked!  

This game is the first in our Play&Go line that will always retail in the same box size and layout and that will retail for just 15€ We want to remind our loyal backers that if you pledged towards Tao Long and Dead Man’s Doubloons you will get Pot de Vin completely FREE just by backing our last Kickstarter of the year: Spirits of the Forest that we will be launching during October.  

 

You can read more about the game and see our how to play video in our Pre-order page!

That is all for now, production is still undergoing and we will update you with more news about it very soon, we are almost done! 

Thanks for your trust and incredible patience, we ensure it will be worth the wait! 

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at ThunderGryph Games

Production Update #7: Production copies, metal coins and a special gift.
over 6 years ago – Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 12:32:08 AM

Hello everyone, hope you are all having an awesome day!  

It has been three weeks since our last update, apologizes about that! Production for Tao Long is still undergoing. We received the pre-production copies last week and we are very satisfied with the results. We are changing a couple of minor things and working on the colors for the play mat.

Here are all the recent news!   

Unboxing and GenCon

Here are some photos of both the retail and deluxe edition of the game. This production has been the most interesting so far. Working with wood is quite hard, it took around 14 iterations but the result is awesome!  

I also went to GenCon and brought a couple of pre-production copies. While we didn’t have a booth this year, it was incredible meeting some of you and be able to do an interview with Eric Martin about the game. The video is not up yet, but if you are curious you can watch the live stream recording on twitch https://www.twitch.tv/videos/168438144 (minute 04:16:30). 

During GenCon I managed to surprise Pedro and Dox with the pre-production copies the night before the con. Here is their reaction! 

Metal Coins

All of you will be getting a Metal Flux coin inside your game which is limited to the campaign. We are also adding a golden version of it inside all golden bundles.

Delivery date and compensation 

As a backer myself, waiting for a game more than expected sucks. I completely understand the frustration. We wanted to make sure we would be delivering something you would be proud of, that’s why we went back and forth with our manufacturer so many times. 

The game is done now, we are in mass production and it should take around 2 weeks more. After that, we will load the ships. Considering the normal timing for freight, we will be fulfilling all of you during October. 

To make the waiting more pleasant we are adding a surprise inside all the boxes that will be limited to all our Kickstarter backers only. More information in our next update!

Kickstarter is a lot of try and learn, and we really thank you for all the patience and support you have given us. We learned a lot from this production and will surely help to plan all our future projects accordingly. 

Keep in touch! 

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at ThunderGryph Games

Production Update #7: Delivery estimate, general production and addresses updates.
almost 7 years ago – Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 11:58:04 PM

Hello everyone,  

We hope you are all having an excellent week!

Production for Tao Long is still undergoing. Today we have received the e-proof for all the cardboard and paper components. We will extensively check those and if everything is in the right place, mass production will begin. That being said, you should be receiving the game in mid September. We know it would be a 6 weeks delay from our original date, but we want to make sure the game will be incredible.

 If you need to update your address and your pledge is locked in Backerkit, please send an email to [email protected] instead of KS Messages if you want to be sure that we don’t miss your message. There we will update it manually and verify that everything is OK.

We also received the cotton bags final design and the white samples for the different boxes. We can confirm that both cardboard and neoprene mat will fit in the box for those who wanted both.

If you have any question about the game or the production let us know in the comments. If you want to receive updates more often you might want to join our Ambassadors group on FB, or perhaps our Discord server.  

Thank you for all your amazing support!  

Sincerely yours,
Everyone here at ThunderGryph Games.

Production Update #6: Playmats, Red cloth and Rulebook translations
almost 7 years ago – Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 01:09:18 AM

Hope you are having a great week so far!

Production Update 

We have been working on the Deluxe Edition production and we should have the final manufactured copy soon to do an unboxing video. 

Speaking of which, the final wooden pieces have been cut and these are the results. Keep in mind that all these photos we are sharing were made from our manufacturer so the quality isn’t the best. We will make sure to take more photos as soon as we have these in our hands. 

More than one thousand of you also ordered the Red Cloth. It will sit beautifully under your board. As you know, backerkit is closed already but If you really want to order this to be shipped with your game contact us at [email protected] 

Finally, the player mats of the deluxe edition are done! The thickness is great and the surface feels excellent while playing with your wooden tiles. 

Rulebooks

We already received all the translations. If you are curious about them you can find all our localized rulebooks in this link: French, German, Italian, Spanish.

GenCon

Thanks for all the kind words towards our presence at GenCon. We already decided we won’t have a booth, but Gon is traveling to meet and greet our distributors and partners. 

If you want to book a meeting to pitch games or to talk about any business opportunity you can book a meeting here: https://thundergryph.setmore.com/

Gon will also carry the final version of all Tao Long editions at the fair. Feel free to stop him to play a game or two! 

Hold on a little bit more, the game is almost done! 

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at ThunderGryph Games