Illustrations, pre-production and Bazaar opening!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 08:01:19 PM

Dear Explorers,

We hope you are all doing well!

This update is packed with information about the progress on Darwin’s Journey, the opening date for our Thundergryph Bazaar (pledge manager), and a special announcement for a live stream!

Illustrations finalized

First let’s start by saying that we are done with all the additional illustrations for the game, for both Special Actions and Adventure cards of the Fireland expansion. Here you can see some of them.

Files and pre-production

It looks like Panda has finished the pre-production of all the wooden bits, including the player lenses and items unlocked during the campaign. They have communicated that all the items will be shipped to us later today, which means we will be able to share all the photos with you next week!

We have been working on several aspects of the game by organizing all the components in a way that will make sense for both the production and for when you will read the rules.

We have marked each tile and card in the game with a unique number and symbol if it belongs to any expansion (or mini-expansion).

We also have been working on the Fireland expansion rules which are ready for the layout creation and all the bits related to the player aid.

The player aid has now become a player aid small booklet and it will include all the icons of the common actions on the game for a quick glance on the back; and the explanation of the 26 Special Action tiles, the 19 Beagle Objectives, the 28 Crew cards, and all the information related to Animal Companions, Great Ships, Objectives and time penalty on the inside.

It will become a compendium of information that you can easily look at by cross-checking the number on the tile or the card you want to learn more about.

As soon as all these files will be ready, we will be sharing them with you for a final check.

Thundergryph Bazaar opens on April 22nd

The Thundergryph Bazaar, it's our way to call our pledge manager (powered by Backerkit). You will receive an invite on April 22nd with the access link. As we are getting closer to the launch, we will also share more news on what items you will be able to find. The Bazaar will be open for around 3 weeks, and after that, your credit cards will be charged.

As this has been our most successful campaign so far, we definitely need to be very careful with our organization and for that reason, we are not offering the ‘ship now’ options for the additional items.

In the Bazaar, you will be able to do the following:

1) Pay for the shipping cost of your pledge, if you haven’t already;

2) Upgrade your pledge or add any additional items from Darwin’s Journey campaign;

3) Access to a limited quantity of our past Deluxe editions;

4) Access to a selection of released retail titles, including the different promos for each game;

5) Select your preferred language of choice;

6) Choose your address for shipping, and update it anytime before fulfillment.

If you have any questions about this, be sure to use the comment section below to ask them!

Special live stream on April 9th

Join us live on Twitch on April 9th at 8:00PM CET 2:00 PM EDT to celebrate our 5th anniversary as a board game publisher!

We will be revealing and playing something new for Darwin’s Journey and we will give away several prizes, including a Silver Ticket to one lucky winner. The Silver ticket is a free all-access pass to all our releases for a year (shipping included!)

Be sure to follow us on Twitch to get notified when we go live, or make sure to mark it on your calendars, we would love to see you there!

Until next time, take care, stay safe and have fun!

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at Thundergryph Games

Darwin’s Journey playmat and tournament final!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Feb 26, 2021 at 12:58:35 AM

Dear explorers,

We hope you are all doing well!

Yesterday we met with Panda after their Chinese Holidays break and we are set to start pre-production on several components of the game.

We also met with Jonathan Cox to work on the rules for the expansion and discuss all your insights about the rulebook.

We will be working in the next 3 weeks to finish all the files required for each of the editions and we can’t wait to show you photos once we receive the samples.

We don’t have a final date yet for the Bazaar, but we are aiming for it to be by the end of March if all the pre-production of the add-ons arrive on time.

Darwin’s Journey playmat

For now, we would love to give you a peek at one of the items that you will be able to get in our Bazaar (pledge manager) once we are live: the Darwin’s Journey playmat! It will come in a robust illustrated tube. If you were a backer of the Matchbox Collection you can expect the same quality of the material. Playmats will be double-sided and exclusive to our Collector's edition backers.

We would require to print a minimum quantity of 1’000 with a special upgrade if we reach 3’000 copies sold. The price will be revealed once we launch the pledge manager, but as usual, we will be pricing it honestly.

Darwin’s Journey tournament final match!

We will be live on Twitch in a few minutes, 24th February at 8 PM CET - 2 PM PST to commentate on the final match of our tournament live, where four very experienced gamers will be competing through the Galapagos in a tense scenario.

Be sure to tune in to Twitch. We will be answering any questions live and doing giveaways of the Playmat and other add-ons!

Until next time, take care and have fun!

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at Thundergryph Games

📌 What’s next and answers to the frequently asked questions
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 09, 2021 at 11:34:04 PM

Dear explorers,

We hope this first post-campaign update finds you well! There are quite a few things to cover but first of all, let’s talk about one important feature before we proceed with the rest.

We totally understand that your time is valuable and we don’t expect you to read all of the updates that will come each month, but specifically, there are a few updates that if you take the time to read, would benefit the organization immensely. 

This has been our most successful campaign so far and managing 17.000 backers is not an easy task, therefore we are kindly asking for your help in this new challenge.

Important updates will be marked with 📌 in the title.

When an update is marked as important we strongly encourage you to read it and confirm you read it by “liking” the post at the end of the update.

By doing this, you will help us have a clear vision of how many readers went through the update, in order to plan ahead of time any unclear situation that may arise.

What is the Bazaar (pledge manager) and how does it work:

We are slightly delaying the launch of the Thundergryph Bazaar to the end of March (instead of early in March) to give time to our manufacturer to work on the pre-production of some components and the add-ons for you to see before committing to buying them.

The pledge manager that we like to call the Bazaar is another platform (powered by Backerkit) that you will be able to access by receiving an invitation via email (your Kickstarter email), where you will be able to do the following:

1) Upgrade your pledge or add any additional items from the Darwin’s Journey campaign (if you pledged 1€, this is fundamental to access all of the rest of the features).

2) Pay for the shipping cost of your pledge, if you haven’t already.

3) Access to a limited quantity of our past Deluxe editions (we will confirm which games will be available when we are closer to the launch).

4) Access to a selection of released retail titles, including the different promos of each game.

5) Select your preferred language of choice for the game.

6) Choose your address for shipping, and update it anytime before fulfillment.

Aged wood finish effect will not be applied

Chinese New Year has started, so we won’t be receiving news about the pre-production until March.

We recently received the samples of the aged finish for the wood and as some of you suggested, it doesn’t give justice to the game components as these would have to be less detailed and the finish doesn’t come through as special.

Because of that reason, we are removing this aged effect from all the copies. We hope you will understand. We haven’t thought about any finish replacement to the aged wood effect but we will let you know if we find something interesting. We do not plan to add silkscreen to all pieces.

Post campaign frequently asked questions

🔎 Which past games will be available in the Bazaar when it launches?

We will confirm which games will be available when we are closer to launch.

🔎 When will the pledge manager be available?

Possibly at the end of March, but we will let you know with precision.

🔎 Are you planning on doing more live streams?

Yes, absolutely. We have plans on doing live streams of our other games too. The best way is to follow us on Twitch to get notified.

🔎 When can I select my language, when can I add more copies or add-ons?

You will be able to do this in our pledge manager (Thundergryph Bazaar) that should launch at the end of March.

🔎 Any updates on the rulebook? Any updates on the Tabletop Simulator version?

We are still working on these and we will keep you informed about it in a following update.

Our first stage ended on February 2nd. All the people qualified for the bracket stage will receive an email on February 11th (with the title: Darwin’s Journey Tournament: you are qualified).

The bracket will also be posted on our Discord channel where you can ask any questions you may have about the tournament.

Thank you very much for your support and be sure to like this update if you have read it.

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at Thundergryph Games

Thank you for this memorable journey!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 03:20:16 AM

Dear Explorers,

The end of this campaign was one of the most incredible moments for us as a boardgame publisher. With more than 16’000 of you, Darwin’s Journey is our most successful game and campaign to this date.

We really want to thank all of you for your incredible love for the game!

To all the press that helped us with their videos, all our testers, and extended family of retail partners and colleagues, this incredible outcome is also because of you all.

As a final thank you to end this campaign, we have a truly special companion that you will probably recognize. Thank you for keeping the excitement alive during this campaign!

What’s next?

We will update you at least once per month on the progress of the project, but during February 2021, we will start explaining how to use the Bazaar and complete your pledge,  letting you know which items will be available to purchase.

If you have any questions, just let us know by commenting on the project, or by using the KS message feature that will be available for the whole month of February, or even via our contact form.

We wish you all the best and we look forward to talking with you again soon!

Sincerely yours,
Everybody here at Thundergryph Games

LAST 24 hours - It is not over! Our end of campaign surprises
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 03:02:56 AM

Dear Explorers,

We cannot thank you enough for all the excitement that you have shown for this campaign. We love interacting with you in our comment section.

We have spent three weeks together, taking notes of all your observations and shaping this game along with you. We are reaching the end of this fantastic journey that we will keep close to our hearts.

Our end of the campaign gift

You have been asking for it and we want to reward your love and support by unlocking this companion card as our last gift for the campaign!

This very special Charles Darwin accomplice will also keep you company in your adventure to the Galapagos. The ability is still taking shape and we will reveal it soon.

Stretch Goals, now it’s time to wrap them up

You have unlocked both goals revealed yesterday in less than a day!

We have been enjoying the campaign experience immensely and many of these goals were created by you. We want to close the campaign with a couple of new surprises that you have been asking for and that we believe to be a good end to an awesome campaign!

The first being a collectible exclusive to this campaign. We will include a second HMS Beagle in all of our Collector’s pledges with a silkscreen print effect, as a token for you to remember that you were part of this Journey.

Finally, a goal dear both to you and to us. Veronica Emer from Meeple Music has been creating soundtracks for our games to accompany you while playing. Darwin’s Journey will be no exception and we are proud to present a soundtrack for this game too!

You can listen to previous soundtracks by visiting Meeple Music on Spotify or on her website.

We are just 500 followers away from unlocking the social goal that can be found at the end of our Kickstarter page! You can visit the following links to help us unlock it:Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Twitch

Small change to the live stream schedule

Tonight we will be live on the Mishi Geek twitch channel at 10:00 pm CET | 4:00 pm EST to play with the Fireland Expansion in Spanish.

Finally, our live stream for tomorrow, Jan 28th is having a slight change of schedule and we will start half an hour before the time announced previously. January 28th 6:30pm CET | 12:30pm EST

Tune in to our Twitch channel or visit the campaign page at the time of the streams. We will play the game, answer questions live and organize giveaways during the stream.

Thank you once again for your kind support and talk to you tomorrow at the end of the campaign!

Sincerely yours,

Everyone here at Thundergryph Games