Hello friends!
First off, I want to thank you all for helping us make this game a reality. Without you standing behind us and our game none of this ever happens. Thank you!
Final Fulfillment Updates
Folks in Australia and most of Asia should have either already received their copies or should be getting them in the next few days. 🙂
For US Backers, the warehouse has started unpacking the games from the pallets and are prepping them for shipping to your house. They will begin to ship out next week, and should arrive on your doorstep by the end of the month.
For EU Backers, GamesQuest has received your pallets of games and are prepping them for shipment to your house. Folks closer to the UK will get their games first and folks further way in central Europe will take a bit longer, but the games are on the way.
For Canadian Backers, Snakes & Lattes will be getting pallets of games in a couple weeks and they will ship out by the end of the month. You should get your games either during the last week of August or the first week of September.
I am monumentally proud of the fact, that as a new company we were able to hold onto our promise for final delivery. It shows us that the incredible amount of care and planning we put into this, and the partners we chose to work with were the right things to do. 🙂
Why Games Quest?
I understand there has been some hesitation and anxiety around our choice to use Games Quest to ship games in Europe. After a few of you reached out to us about problems they had with other campaigns we went into investigation mode, speaking with both Games Quest and Quartermaster Logistics directly. The story goes that Games Quest a couple years back, had a really rough year where they over-promised, over-committed, and then suddenly lost vital personnel who were managing this projects. This lead to Games Quest partnering with various folks on an “emergency contract” basis who did not put much care into how they handled shipping things to backers.
I discussed this situation with QML at length and they assured me, in working with Games Quest that Games Quest has put several measures in place to prevent anything like this happening again in the future. Here are a few of them:
- They hired not 1 replacement Project Manager, but 3 and put redundancies between them so projects are no compromised by someone getting sick, leaving the company, or otherwise being unavailable.
- Regular *weekly* check-ins between QML and Games Quest to ensure projects are delivered on-time and at a high quality.
- Ongoing training and a commitment to process improvement around training folks who are new how to properly pack out games and quality checks along the way to ensure standards are exceeded in every way.
- QML and Games Quest will be sending us “pack out” example pictures showing us exactly how they will be packaging the games so we (Parallel) can be confident that there is a very low-risk of damage during final shipment to backers.
- We also reached out to a few other creators who recently used Games Quest and they all had positive things to say about the quality of the shipments and customer support that Games Quest provided them.
So given the crystal clear transparent communication by QML, and Games Quest understanding their past failures, admitting to them, and instituting changes to prevent them from ever occurring again, paired with other recent creators and backers great experiences with them, we are confident in using them. I think everyone deserves a second chance, and I think Games Quest has gone above and beyond in proving their capabilities here.
We will post pictures of how they are packing games in a future update to help lessen anxiety around their handling of your games. 🙂
Gen Con 2019
Oh man! What an event! It seems like I blinked and it was over. Pure chaos, fun, excitement, anxiety and awesomeness all rolled into four days. 🙂 I loved every minute of it.
My partner Erin and I drove in Tuesday night with a U-Haul packed with stuff. We queued up for the docks at the back of the convention and unloaded our U-Haul into the booth, before dropping off the U-Haul 5 miles away and Ubering back to the hotel to unpack. We finished around 11 at night and went to sleep prepping for the next day.
On Wednesday, during setup we swung by BoardGameTables.com’s booth to pick up two Jasper tables we ordered for the show. We arrived back at our booth to coordinate setup with Patrick and John at Genius Games to figure out position of tables, banners, sales tables, etc. — Wait…. hold up. Did you say Genius Games? — Oh right. Yeah. I totally just did. 🙂 If you haven’t heard, Artana was bought by/merged with Genius Games at the show! Huge congratulations to everyone!
After setting everything up our team met in the Crown Plaza hotel for some training on how to teach and sell the game to folks where we had pizza, soda, and snacks and just had an awesome time getting to know each other. Finally, we went back to the hotel to prepare for the following day. I got to hang out in the JW Marriott lobby briefly with a few friends and fellow designers before calling it a night.
From that point on everything was just a blur. You know those movies where someone goes on an all night drinking / drug binge where there are time-skips everywhere. That was what Gen Con was like for me. Haha! I woke up Thursday morning headed to the booth, and then next thing I remember was having dinner Friday night with Erin at Fogo De Chao (an excellent Brazilian Steakhouse). After our lovely dinner I went on stream and hung out with Josh & Matt at Twist Gaming where we played through a full game. I had a blast.
Saturday through Sunday afternoon was also a blur. I got to meet so many awesome people, and see everyone reach so positively to City of the Big Shoulders along the way. I want to think everyone who stopped by to buy a copy, or just to check out the game and say hello. I love you all. 🙂
Next thing I knew we were tearing down the booth, and loading it back up in the U-Haul. Erin and I decided to stay for another day to relax. The plan of course, was to stay up late and play some games, but alas we passed out exhausted instead. :/ The next morning we hung out in the swanky JW Spa, met some new friends, and decompressed from everything before hoofing it back to Columbus.
By far, this is both one of the best Gen Con’s I’ve every experienced and also I think the fastest one. It was here and gone in a flash. 🙁 I could have used another week of it.
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Overall Gen Con 2019 was a monumental success for us. We brought 2 pallets of games, and sold through 2/3rds of our stock gaining us nearly $22,000 in revenue which thankfully will allow us to put on an awesome show at BGG Con, and give us some wiggle room to explore attending other shows. More importantly, we got the game into the hands of no-less than 40 different reviewers, made some deals with international partners, and landed on the BGG Hotness list. Had we not attended the show, City of the Big Shoulders could have easily been looked over. But now…. now we are going to fly.
Specifically I want to thank Nils Herzmann, Katrina Demeanour, Adrian Jones, Jonathan Sullivan, Izaac Gibson, Alexander Jaycox, Timothy R Warner, Shaina Pardue, Kenneth Phillips, and Heather Harkless for volunteering in our booth and helping us point on an amazing show. Dirk Knemeyer, John Coveyou, Marcus Muller, and Patrick Fitzgibbon for allowing us to share their space at the show.
So, where should we go next? Right now, we’re debating Geekway to the West, Dice Tower Con, and PAX Unplugged. 🙂 Of course, we will be at BGG Con and Buckeye Game Fest later in the year. 🙂
As always, thank you so much for supporting us along this journey. Because of you we get to live out a life-long fantasy in real time. We are so proud of what we created, and even prouder of the community we are building. I love you all!
Cheers,
Raymond
Parallel
