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Moon

Created by Dave Clarke - Sinister Fish Games

A pick & pass base building game for 1-5 players, from the designer & illustrator of Villagers and Streets.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Progress Report #7 // Ship, ship, hooray!
10 months ago – Fri, Jun 09, 2023 at 04:57:48 AM

Hey lunarians!

What a bonkers couple of weeks we've had. I am just about recovered from UK Games Expo, which is the biggest convention we attend each year. Our demo tables were solid all weekend, and Moon proved to be very popular! It's always so nice to be able to meet our backers, and I apologise if I was too busy to say hello to everyone who came by - Saturday in particular was off the hook! That's a good problem to have though, right?

Being in a massive hall with thousands of other gamers is always a welcome reminder of how diverse this hobby really is, and what a lovely bunch of people it attracts. That's not to say problems don't exist of course, and we should call out nonsense when we see it, but I came home from UKGE full of positive vibes and an ever firmer belief that games are for everyone!

Haakon and the Sinister Fish team celebrating the fact that they can soon sleep in their own beds again!
Creator and creations.

IMPORTANT!

Address changes

All pledges are now locked for self-service changes, but we can still do them manually. If you need to change your shipping address, please let us know immediately by emailing Kris on [email protected], including your old and new address in one message. No email ping-pong if at all possible please :D

Moving house?

If you're going to be moving house, we don't know exactly when your pledge will ship, nor can we delay it. So, please provide us with an alternate shipping address, such as a friend, family member, or your workplace.

Outstanding balance?

We have a number of backers from whom we've not yet been able to take payment for their pledge or shipping fees. If this is you, and you'd still like to receive your pledge, please contact [email protected] to arrange an alternative payment method.

Shipping News

Let's cut to it. All the boats are on the water. Here is the tracking information and estimated times of arrival for them:

🇬🇧 United Kingdom / GamesQuest

🇺🇸 United States / Greater Than Games

🇨🇦 Canada / Pick & Pack Logistics

🇦🇺 Australia / Aetherworks

Please bear in mind that these ETAs are just for when the ships are due in port. The goods still need to clear customs, travel by road or rail to the fulfilment hub, be checked in, and then go into a queue for packing & fulfilment! Some hubs may have a wait of several weeks after the ships dock, and we'll obviously share that information when we know it. But, it is my hope that fulfilment to all backers will have begun by the end of July. Let's see what happens...

The delivery for VFI Asia has already arrived at the hub, and we hope to start shipping pledges from there within a couple of weeks. This covers pledges for everywhere not listed above, including Asia, South America, India, and Africa. Please be aware that pledges outside of China can take several months to arrive.

In addition to the shipments above, we are also sending some additional items to the hubs outside Europe. These are generally items we had in our UK warehouse that were purchased as add-ons for destinations outside the UK. We hope this won't cause any delays to pledges containing add-ons, but it is possible. We'll keep you updated in any case.

So this is where we're at - so close to the end of our journey!

Progress, Visualised in 2D!

Moon Playmat?

Haakon and I have discussed the possibility of a Moon playmat, much like the one we did for Villagers, which organises the central play area. There are quite a few decks to keep track of in Moon, and their discard piles need to be kept separate and intact, so a neat setup is quite important. Players will also be interacting with the central display of Reputation cards throughout the game, so a mat will be helpful there too.

It's not 100% decided, and Haakon is still playing around with ideas for art & layout. But let us know in the comments if it's something you'd consider. I imagine the price would be roughly £15 / $20. If we go ahead, it would be done as a pre-order on our website. We'd take care of the shipping ourselves in the traditional manner, which is me, Carly, and various friends & family sticking labels on boxes in a farmer's barn. We kind of miss doing it that way!

The bit at the end.

Thanks for reading this far, seriously. You have fortitude, and I appreciate it so much that I'm going to tell you something cool! Over the UKGE weekend, Haakon and I signed the contract to publish his next game, which I have played and can safely say is quite brilliant. Much more than that, I can't tell you right now, other than to say we're aiming for a Kickstarter early in 2024. We'll probably mention it again between now & then ;)

I'll speak to you soon. Take care, and play games!

Dave

www.sinisterfish.com

Progress Report #6 // Samples & Shipping Fees
11 months ago – Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 06:16:54 AM

Hello lunarians!

You are reading another Moon update! There is almost no bad news in this one. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

IMPORTANT PLEDGE MANAGER STUFF

We will be charging for shipping a week from today, on Tuesday May 2nd. If you take a look at your BackerKit account for Moon, you should be able to see that shipping fees have been added and are outstanding.

If you already completed the survey in BackerKit and your payment method and shipping address are still valid, you don't need to do anything, payment will be taken automatically on May 2nd.

If you haven't completed the pledge manager yet, or if you need to update any of your info, then now is the time!

To check your account you will need your unique BackerKit URL. If you can't find yours, you can get it here: https://moon.backerkit.com

If you have any problems, please direct enquiries to Kris on [email protected] - we can't offer personalised support via Kickstarter comments.

PRE-ASSEMBLY SAMPLES!

OK, let's move on to the fun stuff: the pre-assembly samples have arrived, and nearly everything is perfect. I say "nearly" because there are some errors with sleeve quantities, but other than that, we are all good! 

Let's take a look at what we've won...

Ran out of lunar regolith so had to use a kitchen table instead.
Moon: Deluxe Edition, open to atmosphere!
Card decks, identical in Deluxe and Retail editions.
Resource punchboards from the Retail Edition.
An intrepid expedition of Deluxe Edition rovers making their way across the desolate surface of my kitchen counter.
Be the most popular kid in class with these Deluxe Edition heart tokens!
Keep those tokens neat with these Deluxe Edition storage pods. Radiation shielding not included.
A giant mess of water, energy, biomass, and metal - all you need to construct a moon base!
Valkyrie expansion! Cards so shiny. My eyes! (Non-shiny cards are included).
Valkyrie class shuttles on their way back to Earth.

On the strength of these samples, I've given the go-ahead for the factory to assemble both editions of Moon, and the Valkyrie expansion.

Unfortunately, about half of the card sleeve types have incorrect quantities, which is being fixed as I write. Our project manager at the factory thinks they should be finished with assembly by the middle of May, which includes a delay due to repacking the sleeves.

I am now preparing the final shipping plan so that boats can be booked, and I hope to have news on that in the next update.

VILLAGERS & STREETS BGA LAUNCH!

Bust out your calendar - we have a launch date for Villagers and Streets on Board Game Arena! Both games will launch officially on May 8th. Following the links above will take you to the Beta versions which are both complete and playable - the main difference is that after launch there should be a lot more people playing, so real-time games should be easier to find.

Streets will be completely free to play, since its development was funded by everyone who purchased the Streets BGA Promo Tile. Villagers will be a Premium game, which means you'll need a paid BGA membership to start a game, but you can still join a game with a free BGA account, which is pretty cool!

WIZARDS & CO.

Preparations continue for our next Kickstarter campaign, Wizards & Co., which we officially announced a few weeks ago. You can find out more about this game of competitive dungeon raiding on Board Game Geek, and sign up for a Kickstarter launch alert here!

Wizards & Co. will be available to play on our stand, along with Moon of course, at UK Games Expo from June 2nd - 4th.

THE BIT AT THE END!

Thanks for getting this far, you have my sympathies.

Until next time, take care, and play games!

Dave Clarke

www.sinisterfish.com

Progress Report #5 // Almost There...
about 1 year ago – Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 07:07:51 AM

Greetings, lunarians!

Lots to get through today, so I will try to be as brief as I can. I feel like I always say I'll be quick, and then drone on for ages. Just imagine if I wasn't trying to be brief! Anyway, if you can make it to the end (it's a mostly very boring update), there's a special treat waiting! Maybe something about the next game from Sinister Fish...

But first, please read this VERY IMPORTANT AND EXCITING INFORMATION!

Completion of Manufacturing

Our manufacturer tells me that they expect to have completed our order by the end of April. We will look to get everything moved to ocean freight as soon as possible after this. Pledges for Asia, the Middle East, and South America will be sent by VFI Asia, which doesn't require ocean freight, so those pledges will probably go out first.

Here's a picture from the factory showing the wooden tokens from the deluxe edition. Due to a miscommunication, the heart tokens are too thick and will actually be the same thickness as the resource tokens at the top of the image.

What is this? A moon rover for ants?

Paying for Shipping

We will lock the pledge manager and bill for shipping in early May. We'll set the exact date nearer the time, which we'll communicate via a project update. Backers will also receive an email from BackerKit 48 hours prior to being billed.

Shipping prices will be as follows:

For reference, an add-on game such as Villagers or Streets adds approximately 1kg.

Moon at UK Games Expo

This keeps happening to us. The largest and most important convention we attend (UKGE) always seems to fall right around fulfilment of a new release, Moon in this case. Given the timing, it seems very unlikely that we'll be able to get copies of Moon out to backers before UKGE. Our problem is that it's disgustingly expensive for us to do big events like this. Our bill for UKGE this year will be at least £8000, and we really need to make some of that back. The sad truth is that we'll sell vastly more copies of new games than old ones, and so having Moon on hand will be a huge bonus for us.

So I'm going to propose what I'd like to do, and I invite you to tell me on a scale of 1-10 how furious you are about it. An answer of 1 is something like "I am delighted. I might buy a second copy", and 10 is "How dare you. I want a refund".

The proposal:

  • We will have 200 copies of Moon (Retail Edition) air-freighted over from China so we can sell them at UKGE. We'll hold the Deluxe editions back for Kickstarter backers.
  • The game will be sold at the full retail price of £35.00. Kickstarter price was £30.00.
  • The Valkyrie Expansion will be sold for its full retail price of £12. Kickstarter price was £0.00.
  • We will try to schedule things better in future so this doesn't happen again.

Come at me in the comments please. You know, politely.

Villagers & Streets on BGA

Villagers and Streets are now available to play on Board Game Arena! Both games have entered Beta phase which means anyone can play them, but there might still be a few bugs to squash. That said, both implementations are working well, and I'm not as good at either of them as I thought I was.

You can find Villagers here, and Streets here. You'll need a premium BGA membership to start a game of Villagers, but you can play it on a free account as long as a premium member starts the game. Streets is completely free to play for everyone.

We have a growing community on Discord where you can look for people to play with, or if you're over 40, you can join our Facebook community page where we appreciate board games and share baseless conspiracy theories about fish people.

Next from Sinister Fish Games

Would it surprise you to know that we're doing another Kickstarter campaign this summer? Would it surprise you further to learn that it's not a Haakon Gaarder game?*

We haven't talked much about it anywhere yet, so let me gently tease you by saying that it's from a group of highly respected Italian designers, with artwork by one of the best in the business.

I helped design monsters for this game. Best. Job. Ever.

It is a game of competitive dungeon raiding for 2-4 players, using a shared action queue mechanism. It's not what you might expect from these particular designers, but it's very thinky, lots of fun, and it looks fabulous! I am also terrible at it.

We will have demo copies to play at UKGE, with a Kickstarter campaign launching soon after.

* Haakon is alive and well by the way! He is currently working on a new game for Sinister Fish which we hope to present to you in 2024.

Customer Support

If you need help with any aspect of your pledge, please email [email protected] and Kris will get back to you as soon as he can. We can't offer personalised support via Kickstarter comments, so please do email or use the contact page on our website.

Skip to the End

That's it for today. As always, I will monitor the comments so feel free to ask questions, and especially let me know how you feel about the Moon / UKGE thing.

Until next time - take care, and play games!

Dave Clarke

www.sinisterfish.com

Progress Report #4 // Making the Game
about 1 year ago – Sat, Feb 04, 2023 at 02:34:22 AM

Hey lunarians,

I hope you're all having a great 2023 so far. We're getting nicely settled into our new home, and although my office room is still half-filled with boxes of games, I am managing to smash work goals in a calm and thoughtful manner. Counter to this, we acquired a puppy. He is a cheeky Italian Greyhound by the name of Watson, who has exhibited a worrying appetite for cardboard.

DON'T CHEW MY GAMES WATSON YOU GREY BERK!

Please accept my apologies for not updating sooner, I was stroking a dog too much. I'll waste no more time!

Production Schedule

Things have moved around a bit due to Haakon and I both getting sick at the beginning of December and not getting much done before the holidays started. So a few tasks have slithered down the schedule from the November / December bracket into January / February, but this shouldn't impact the final delivery estimate too much. The main takeaway is that we have completed all the print files for Moon and the Valkyrie expansion. All that remains to do is the packaging design for the card sleeves. We're waiting for the factory to to give us a template for the tuckbox so we can do the graphics for it, and I expect this to be complete next week.

Haakon's work on Moon is finished for now, and he is already tinkering away with ideas for his next game! He hasn't told me anything about it at this stage, so don't bother asking, just try to distract yourself with the final rulebook for Moon. 

Box template for the Valkyrie expansion.

Double Sided Tokens

We are going ahead with double sided resource and heart tokens, with different values on each side. This means we can increase the total value of resources & hearts without printing more tokens. We heard feedback from some backers who were worried about tokens being flipped over accidentally, so we looked at many games on BGG that also use double-value tokens. We didn't see anyone in the forums reporting problems with them - as long as players know not to mess with their tokens, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

US Shipping Cost

I was starting to get worried that our US fulfilment partner, Greater Than Games, had stopped replying to my emails. It turns out that since being acquired by Flat River Group, there had been some changes to internal email addresses at GTG, and I missed the memo. So we're back in touch with them now and I'm happy to report that our original estimate for US shipping fees holds true: US backers can expect to pay £12 to ship a Base or Super pledge, and £14 for a Full pledge. Add-on items will incur incremental fees.

We plan to charge for shipping just before manufacturing is complete. We don't know exactly when this will be - please see below.

Manufacturing Timeline

I am currently waiting for our manufacturer to confirm a 'cargo ready' date, which is when our finished & packaged order will be ready to load onto ships. I've requested that this be as soon as reasonably possible, of course, but I suspect I'm jostling for position with dozens of other publishers who want their games in time for the summer convention season as well, so it's probably sensible not to be too optimistic. We'll just have to wait & see, and of course I will keep you abreast of all the news!

Fish Shop

After a lot of wrangling, the Sinister Fish Games web store is finally back online. For the first time since we started, we're no longer doing our own mail for web sales. The change was necessary due to the space required to store our expanding line of games. It feels weird not to be doing the big weekly mail run any more, but I can't say I'll miss boxing up orders in a freezing cold garage with only spiders for company.*

Board Game Arena

The long saga of getting Streets and Villagers onto Board Game Arena is almost at an end. Streets is now in open Alpha and Villagers is not far behind. Other than a few bugs, both games are looking good and are a delight to play, and I am confident that we'll be able to release them both in the very near future.

I Said Good Day!

That is all for this update. It's over. Oh, apart from a fun story; you might have seen Stonemaier Games announce a new game called Expeditions, a sequel to their hit game Scythe. In its early stages of development, Moon was called Expeditions, and in an alternate timeline it still is, and a game called Scythe 2: Electric Boogaloo has just been announced!

Until next time, take care, and play games!

Dave Clarke

www.sinisterfish.com

* Sorry if we ever sent you a spider.

Progress Report #3 // Locking Pledges / Shipping Prices
over 1 year ago – Sat, Dec 03, 2022 at 12:29:02 AM

Hey lunarians!

I hope you're all doing well! It's a chilly November morning here in Lincolnshire, and I'm bringing you a cheerful and warming update regarding the locking of pledges, and some info on shipping prices.

TLDR:

  • Pledges will be locked and cards charged on December 3rd.
  • If you don't want to enter your payment details now, we won't insist on it.
  • Shipping prices have increased for some regions, but mostly not by much.
  • We will always love you.

Details to follow...

Moon Rules!

Here is the first draft of the final Moon rulebook, including the recently completed solo mode!

Base game rules

Valkyrie rules

We welcome any comments & corrections - the more eyes on it the better! You can comment directly on the documents in your browser, and you can highlight an area (e.g., a particular sentence or paragraph) using the icon on the right hand side of the comment box.

Very Important Pledge Manager Stuff!

We are pressing the button to lock down pledges in BackerKit today, so look out for an email from them. All backers who have added their payment details into the pledge manager by December 3rd will be charged for add-ons on that day. Any add-ons selected in Kickstarter have already been billed and you'll have nothing more to pay until we charge for shipping next year.

If you'd like to secure any additional items, you should add them in the pledge manager now as we will be finalising counts and making our mass production order in the next week or so. If you can't access the pledge manager, you can recover your invitation here. If you need any assistance, please email [email protected] - this is the only way we can help you.

Remember, we are not billing for shipping yet. We plan to do this next year, around the time freight shipping begins. We will give plenty of notice about this via project updates and an email from BackerKit. We understand that some backers would rather not give out their payment information months in advance, and there will be no penalty for not doing so. However, you will receive automated reminder emails from BackerKit if you have any outstanding balance, and we apologise if these are annoying.

Shipping Prices

We have had to increase our shipping price estimates for some regions. The increases are small in most cases, and are a result of pricing adjustments made by our fulfilment partners since the end of the campaign. We make no profit on shipping, so cost increases do have to be passed on to backers. Fortunately, the reverse is also true...

The price of freight shipping is steadily returning to pre-pandemic levels. This fixed cost is worked into the price of the game, and we estimated conservatively which means we have a little bit of room to subsidise everyone's final mile shipping. This has allowed us to cushion the blow a little bit, and reduce increases or even avoid them completely, as was the case for the UK & China.

As mentioned in a previous update, a new partnership with Aetherworks in Australia has enabled us to offer cheaper than originally advertised rates to backers in Australia and particularly New Zealand.

We requested an update on pricing from our partner in the USA over a week ago but haven't received a reply as yet. We'll report back on this in a future update, but it seems prudent to expect an incremental increase.

Below is the original shipping matrix, followed by an updated one which also gives estimates for add-on shipping. For reference, a copy of Streets or Villagers would add around 1kg each.

Original Shipping Estimate

Original shipping price estimates.

Updated Shipping Estimate

Updated shipping prices.

Please note that the updated prices are not yet final, and we reserve the right to make adjustments where necessary. Obviously, we would prefer to avoid this, but it is out of our hands.

Whatever happens, backers will have the opportunity to evaluate the final fees before being billed, and we will issue a refund to any backer who requests it.

And Finally...

I hope I remembered everything here - November has been a month of sickness and chaos in our house so I'm hoping December is a calmer one. If I forgot to address anything, please tell me in the comments.

In better news, and almost certainly inspired by the huge public enthusiasm for our little game about humans living on the moon, NASA has announced that it expects humans to live on the moon "in this decade", which is also when Moon will ship.

That last part was definitely a joke. We really do love you, and Moon will land in 2023.

And finally finally, our web store has been offline for a while due to our home and warehouse move, but I hope to have it back open really soon in time for some Christmas shopping, if you're that way inclined.

Take care, and play games!

Dave Clarke

www.sinisterfish.com