Your Springtime Update!
about 6 years ago – Fri, Mar 09, 2018 at 07:58:43 PM

Greetings People of the Woods!

We hope everything is going great wherever you are in the world and the sun is shining down on you as it is in Shanghai today   :)

Without further ado, let's get right into the update stuff.....

1. CREDITS 

Feast your eyes on the image below. What we have here is what the credit page in the illustrated book will look like. It's 99% done, just needs a little reformatting in some areas.
So if you have backed OOTW at a high enough level, or indeed our Patreon, your name should be on here.
Check it out   :)

 2. SLIPPAGE

We were recently asked in the comments "why is shipping taking so long?"

Well, in regards to slippages, the good news is that there is no 1 major disaster that has befallen us that has caused the ship date slipping.
It's simply the result of a bunch of little things adding up.
* No matter how much research you do, ship dates are still guestimates
* Factories and production partners also have other projects to deal with, so turn-around times can be longer than expected.
* Prototypes aren't always right on the first go and you need to do another attempt to make everything perfect
* Major holidays happen (I'm looking at you Chinese New Year) that cause everything to stop for a couple of weeks.
* People get ill which can cause delays.
* American randomly vanishes to sea like a naughty pirate! Arg!

Etc etc...

So yeah, we can't really point at one thing and say "Here is the culprit, this is why it's taking longer", but we hope all your minds are now at ease that there's nothing terrible happening behind the scenes and sometimes, things just take longer. 

As one backer said... "It wouldn't be a Kickstarter if there weren't delays"  ;)

3. WHERE WE'RE AT

We are now looking at around June for shipping (fingers crossed), but here's a breakdown of each individual part of the OOTW project just so you know how close to the finish line we are.

COLOURING BOOK.....
Completely done and finished.  Files are expected to be sent to our production partners within a day or two and then we just need to see the prototype that's produced before we give the thumbs up for mass production. However, since we've made many books before and we're kinda experienced at this part, we predict no hiccups.

ILLUSTRATED BOOK.....
This is 99.9% done and we also expect the final files to be sent off for prototype creation at the same time as the colouring book.
Again, we expect no problems to occur with this and we literally can't wait to get our hands on this thing when it's done   :)

GAME.....
As the first prototype of the box had issues with the card compartments and some of the folds, we asked for a 2nd prototype to be made to iron out the issues. Then Chinese New Year happened and everything stopped for 2 weeks.
I have however been in touch with our partners about this and am chasing it up fervently.  
However, the actual box template art is as good as finished, and all the instructions sheets in every language are fully complete too, as is the template for all the cards.  So once we're happy with the box prototype, we'll be able to pull the trigger on getting that produced too.

MATS AND SCARVES AND STRETCH GOAL CERTIFICATES.....
All done and manufactured.

ART PRINTS.....
These are easily made in a matter of 2 to 3 days when we're ready for everything to be shipped. So there's no need for us to have them done yet and just sat around waiting.

WOODEN BOX.....
The prototype we already received is good enough, however we need to get the 2nd prototype of the standard box just to be double extra sure that they both fit well together.
We predict no issues with this as the dimensions of the 2nd standard box prototype should not have changed.

There you go!
As you can see, we're sooooo close to the finish line on most of the stuff.
Just a little extra effort and we'll be there   :)

4. OTHER THINGS

As many of you know, we're not just working on OOTW.
We have other irons in the fire.

* We've added a new goal to our Patreon. EMBROIDERED PATCHES!!!
When we reach 1000 Patrons.  Everyone at the $5 level and above will get sent a set of 10 embroidered Alice themed patches (9 standard and 1 Patron exclusive).
Here's some examples of what the patches are likely to look like.....

*PIRATE JAM will be happening in under a month. So be sure to check out the website if you enjoy indie game development and ....ummm.... pirates, and jam?

*The MYSTERIOUS shop continues to be updated with new and groovy things (wallets, t-shirts, posters etc....) So maybe swing by and take a look?

*Work on Alice Asylum and the proposal is continuing. We predict we'll be sending the Power Point off to the relevant parties within the month.  And everyone here is immensely excited about that too !!
Want to help?   Check out this handy list of 4 things you can do to push Alice Asylum one step closer to reality.

Big Sunny Shanghai Hugs from American, Martin and Lulu

- Cheers

Happy Chinese New Year of the Dog
about 6 years ago – Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 11:51:39 PM

Dear Woodies

Everyone here at OOTW central would like to wish you all a very happy Chinese New Year  :)
Even Wolfie has dressed up to celebrate, as expertly rendered by our favourite chibi artist Jennifer D'Aww.

Even though we are slap bang in the middle of CNY (the time when literally millions and millions of people stop working and travel back to their hometowns), we still have little bits and bobs going on we can share with you.

Feast your eyes upon some initial layout pics for the illustrated book by Alex Crowley.

Also, we're about 98% finished with the translating and typesetting for the instructions sheet that comes inside the box (if you asked for the foreign version).
See.....
And a big thanks to the 4 backers who have been helping out with this stuff, you know who you are   ;)

And of course, in other news, we're still ploughing ahead with the proposal to get Alice Asylum off the ground and given the green light.
If you haven't already, we'd very much appreciate you clicking HERE and seeing which of the 4 handily listed things you can do to help make that a reality! 

Big year of the dog hugs from American, Martin and especially Lulu   :)

- Cheers

To border, or not to border...
about 6 years ago – Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 12:59:21 AM

... that is the question !!

Dear Woodies.

Take a look at the images for the colouring book below.
Do you think having the images done up like cards with the names and borders is the way to go? FYI, all images have the same thorny border.
Or perhaps you just prefer the simplicity of a stand-alone image with no frills?

Shout out in the comments and let us know how you feel   :)

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- Cheers

Pickle Wolf Winners and a whole lot more !!
about 6 years ago – Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 12:01:46 AM

Dear Woodies

As we shiver under a blanket of snow here in Shanghai (quite the rare occasion), we're here to update you with what's happening in our neck of the woods.

Firstly, time to remind people again about the shipping date.
We already mentioned this twice, however there are still people who didn't see the updates and are asking us where their stuff is.
So, here's a cut/paste of a reply that American gave someone earlier today....

"in two of the recent project updates we mentioned updates to the shipping date. We're looking to submit all final artwork and designs to our manufacturing partner (AdMagic) by end of this month (January). From that point, we've been told to expect 30~90 days for manufacturing - depending on holidays, capacity, etc. Once we take delivery of the finished product at the fulfilment centre it'll be 30~40 days for delivery... So in a best-case scenario, you might expect final product delivered about 60 days from the start of February (AKA April). My guess would be we should set our expectations a little further out... To May or June? Let's see... Martin and I will keep you updated as progress is made."

--------------------

Now, let's have some winners from the Pickle Wolf colouring competition.
We actually got more entries in than I was expecting and there were a lot of really great ones in there.  So many great ones that I started to feel bad about some cool ones that didn't make the cut to win   :(
And I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone that took part and the multitude of very varied entries we got.

Also, we decided to not only give the 'Mother' Art Print to the winner, but we added 2 runner ups as well due to the quantity/quality of what we received.
They'll both get an Omega Necklace !!

3RD PLACE !!! ... Pickle Leia Wolf. (Omega Necklace)

2ND PLACE !!! ... Gross and nasty pickle. (Omega Necklace)

!!! FIRST PLACE !!! ... The stare.... the terrible stare..... (Mother Art Print)

Was unsure whether I should also print people's names, but the winners know who they are and I'll reply to their emails soon    :)

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We have now also received the first prototype of the standard box too.
However there's a couple of issues with it that we really want to iron out with the factory before we give them the thumbs up to lock in the dimensions and start printing.
But hey, why not take a look at the blank boxes now?    :)

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Our super illustrator, Alex C has also finalised the formatting of all the cards.
Placing the borders and images and text and icons together, ready to be sent off to the factory. So that's another tick next to something that's finished   :)
Feast your eyeballs over this little collection.
 

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And lastly, why not join us on tomorrow's live-stream where we talk about all things OOTW, Alice 3, Pirate Jam and more?
That's Jan 26th, 9:30am Shanghai time.
Hope to see you there in the live comments. The more the merrier.

Big wintery hugs from American, Martin and Lulu.

- Cheers

Some almost final imagery!
over 6 years ago – Mon, Jan 08, 2018 at 11:39:01 PM

Dear Woodland Dwellers

Here we are with a pretty fast update since the last one as we have some things to show off to you   :)
If you remember from the last update, everything is moving along swiftly (and there's also an art competition you should be taking part in)

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So, here's a taster of what's being done.
Remember, these images have been resized and blurred a little as we obviously can't be posting the full resolution copies of things online.

Here's a some cards (including new story icons), mocked up to show how they'll look.
Also please ignore the numbers on the left.  They're being removed.

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Not only are the card layouts being compiled, but we have a couple of images from the factory as to how the wooden box is going to look.
There's still some design and style choices to be made, but in terms of construction, this thing is looking pretty sweet.

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And lastly, but by no means least, here we have what the instructions sheet will look like once unfolded from it's A3 size.

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We hope you enjoyed that little round-up of everything that's been happening in the world of OOTW this week   :)

A couple of reminders of 'stuff'.

1) The backerkit shop is still open even though we did lockdown, so tell all your friends that they can still get OOTW items if they want.

2) We recently re-jiggled the pledge levels to be more bargainful on our Patreon page and added a new goal.
So why not head on over and see what's going on there?

3) We still need your support for the Alice 3 project. So please take a look at the 4 things you can do to help (2 of them are completely free).

4) Interested in Game-jams and Pirates?  Sounds like you might enjoy Pirate-Jam?

Big 0 degrees Celsius hugs from American, Martin and Lulu.

- Cheers