Hey backers!

First of all, the good news is that the handover of games has started in Europe and Australia. Now, of course, do not flood us with letters that you have still not received them because it is only the first copies, but it is still a great achievement as we have struggled much to get to this point. And exactly a year ago, the campaign started, so there are many happenings behind us.

We’ve been thinking a lot about how we could easily explain to you all the problems that are constantly emerging for such a global scale kickstarter campaign, and which need to be addressed by our staff. It can leave a bad taste when in case of a slight delay we start to receive comments, which are questioning our commitment or the value of our work. Of course, most of you are absolutely understanding because you know that 90% of kickstarter projects have similar issues. You need your own production capacity and well oiled logistic paths to manage these risks. But the majority is not that lucky, we have to go along the difficult route and fight through these hardships. After the last such “experience” I thought we’d give you an opportunity to take a look behind the scenes, because reality is more convincing than to just talk about it. Of course, regarding the last year, we could tell incredible many similar stories if we wanted to, but we decided to show the brighter side of the birth of this game.

Let’s get started. Last Thursday’s email came, stating that shipment arrived in Budapest, stands under customs clearance. Hurray, time to prepare champagnes, organizing demo parties immediately. We are still filling out missing documents, submitting them and supplier promises delivery to the warehouse for next Tuesday. The weekend is past, Monday night we ask for confirmation, everything is okay, will the product arrive in time? No, customs are withholding it because the bill is not right. We’re engaging supplier in China right away, changing the bill, slip a day. It just turns out that there is no Bill of Lading for the shipment that we should have received from China originally and should proof the ownership. It’s a good question why this is the first time this came up for the deliverer?! Phonelines go hot, on Wednesday, we manage to sort this out with a telex relese between the manufacturer and the Chinese supplier. Meanwhile, the customs decree is being issued, only the payment should be made and the games can be released. It’s just not that simple: it is only guaranteed in some banks that the authority will credit the deposit within one day, our bank is not among them. There is only one day left ’till the opening party. Finally, we agree with the supplier that we will transfer the duty to them and they will forward it to the customs.

Thursday cames, it is the show’s day. They promised to ship the container to the warehouse till 8 AM , of course, the day before, it also came out that we have to unload it ourselves, because those who work in the warehouse are not in the mood to do it. Well, okay, we are waiting there in the morning mist and the shipment is nowhere of course. Our telephone inquiries reveal that, due to a fatal administrative mistake, the truck went to wrong address, hundreds of miles away. After several hours of tense and idle waiting, it turns out that they can ship the cargo early in the afternoon. Finally this was not cancelled by anyone, so after three hours of packing, we arrived with the fresh Hexpanse copies to the opening party, where our enthusiastic fans were already waiting for the game.

And we did not remain ashamed, we had a full house, the author, the illustrator and the publisher were telling a lot of stories about the birth of the Hexpanse universe. Join us on this great journey, as we told you only a the chronicle of a few days!

And finally, for those who have paid the contribution for the promotional card delivery, but have not yet received them, please kindly send us a PRIVATE message so we could remedy the problem.

We’ll be back soon with further news!