The Depths of Durangrar: A Dungeon Crawler...in the dark

January Update
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 01:09:31 AM

Hello!

The 3d printed parts I had sent to China finally have reached US again and USPS is working on shipping it back to me. Sadly, I did not anticipate the packages being stopped in customs and then taking so long to be returned to me. 

Prior packages had no issues going through customs before. Once I receive all the items, I’ll be going through them again to make sure nothing has been damaged in transport, then preparing shipment back to China. This time in smaller packages and using a courier service to ensure delivery. With Chinese New Year coming up, this means that they won’t get the packages until at earliest the middle of February which sets back production by a full month and a half. Wingo has halted production as they are waiting to receive these parts before beginning the next phase. This currently sets me back to production finishing at the end of March and delivery to begin in June.

In some good news, the maze generator is complete and working well. I’d like to give a shout out to my friend, Peter Yee, who spent his free time to make this maze generator and also troubleshoot and resolve the issue I had with getting the generator code to work properly on the website due to an issue with the wordpress template conflicting with the maze generator code. You can check it out at:

http://creativecovegames.com/index.php/maze-generator/

December Update
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Dec 28, 2018 at 01:39:58 AM

Hello!  

Production is proceeding as planned! The miniatures are more than halfway produced!

As for the parts I had sent to China earlier, unfortunately China’s customs would not clear them and they will be re-delivered back to me. Normally, packages should only take 2 to 3 weeks to get back to me by USPS but as I’m finding out from USPS, when China’s customs denies a package entry, they send it back but it stays in a kind of package limbo and there’s not any good way of telling when it will ship out or a way to push it to be returned faster. I will try and find out if there’s any other ways to contact them to ask for more details about the packages. As it is now however, if they do not go out 2 weeks after the New Year, it is possible it will delay shipping as these will be the last parts needed to add to the game before shipping.

I’m still working on getting the maze generator uploaded to the website. It seems like there’s an issue with perhaps how it’s laid out and given a busy season at work I haven’t been able to commit as much time troubleshooting as I’d like. Basically, the maze generator is working but not displaying as expected. Furthermore, the mouse cursor doesn’t line up with the tiles and will click the tile below the one displayed which suggests to me the website layout is not working well with the maze generator script and the script may need some tweaking. The images for the event tokens also are not displaying. I hope to have this issue resolved soon! 

  I wish you all a very joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year!

November Update: Production has started
about 6 years ago – Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 01:09:34 AM

I’m very excited to share that we’ve finally begun production of the Depths of Durangrar. We’re first starting with the injection molded miniatures as these have the longest lead time. Production will take an estimated total of 10 weeks to complete. Production had started last week so we are now about 9 weeks away from completion, estimating with completion the first week of February. It’ll take about 6 – 8 weeks to ship from China to the US and clear customs and so fulfillment will begin the beginning of April. 

We’ve tested the thermal paper heater and it’s worked out well. The board tile shown below is a prototype I sent for them for reference and the prepared paper is behind it and the color matches just about perfectly. 

So with all the components quality checked with the pre-production sample and the thermal paper heater tested with Wingo’s production line, the only risk I see as posing an issue in production is the package of 3D printed parts I sent two months ago to China which is still stuck in customs. I'm not too familiar with China's shipping customs seems because of the labeled value, it got flagged. The only ways to resolve this so far are either through a 3rd party service that works on exactly this which we are currently pursuing, or else the packages will be returned to me and will have to be resent which will take some time. It should be possible that even worst case scenario, the packages are sent back to me, there is still enough time to send them back in smaller packages with a lower declared value to pass customs express to stay on schedule.   

Lastly, the maze generator has been finished. I’ll be having it uploaded to the website soon for all to use once the game ships out. Here’s how it looks like now. It'll be as easy to use as clicking where you would like the tiles placed.

October Update
about 6 years ago – Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 01:23:45 AM

I’ve finally received the miniatures and they look very good. Below are pictures of each miniature. The only issue is it seems the bottom half of the scout miniature was not sent so I’m waiting for that to be sent again. The excavator and the scout both had to be split into two different halves in order to complete the mold. Unfortunately, these will need a little bit of glue to whole the two halves together.

With this, I’ve finally been able to finish the design of the base which are now in production. It had to be slightly revised just to better grab onto the base of the explorer miniatures. Now I’m very satisfied with the grip. I can easily lift the miniature with the light up base consistently so I don’t expect that anyone should need to fiddle with the connection in gameplay.  

I had a bit of a snag with the other 3D printed parts though in shipping. They’ve been stuck in customs for a while but I hope to have that cleared shortly. I had listed them as plastic samples but there was quite a bit so I guess Chinese customs had flagged them as suspicious but this should hopefully be resolved soon.  

Lastly, I feel that I’ve reached a good solution for the event tokens and the equipment tokens. I will be keeping the equipment tokens the smaller size such that they are easily distinguishable from the event tokens and I will be using the same event tokens I’ve received from The Game Crafter before. This will forgo the need for an additional sample to be produced and shipped to me so hopefully will shave off some time and we can begin with production!

September Update: Pre-production sample finally arrived
about 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 28, 2018 at 12:32:58 AM

It’s finally here! The pre-production sample! Overall, it looks pretty good. The box is very sturdy and has a glossier look that the prototype I had. The board tiles all fit together and most of the components work as expected. The only issue is that I haven’t received the injection molded parts yet as those have been taking a long time and I requested to receive the sample earlier so at least I have more time to review the components that have been completed in case there are any issues.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of the unboxing and a side by side comparison between the prototype and the pre-production sample.

 The maze came out well. The wall pegs fit easier into the die cut tiles as the die cutting process has rounded out the edges slightly making it easier to guide and fit the wall pegs in over the laser cut board tiles I used in prototyping. The top left four tiles are a different color because I used two different thermal paper samples to check the different adhesive properties and colors.

The walls came out well but the color is slightly different. The sample card is less glossy and emphasizes the greyish brown of the wall over the blue shadowing. From a gameplay perspective, it functions all the same and the lower gloss helps a bit for keeping things dark where they should be. 

I'm not sure what happened to this one. The token on the left is a sample I ordered from the gamecrafter and the one on the right came with the sample and we discussed a 20 mm diameter token but perhaps the die was set at 12 mm. The smaller token is actually easier to grab and makes more room in the maze but its smaller size makes it harder to read in the maze until you’re closer. I’m requesting the die be changed to match the size on the right. 

 Same thing happened with the end of turn events tokens where they came out slightly smaller than the prototype one. I’ll also be working on having these changed to the larger size to match the prototype. 

These two are practically identical and came out really well. 

The sample tokens are slightly bigger and a slightly different color but are similarly identifiable in the maze.

 The dice look pretty good but I’ll be increasing the size of the symbols on the sample dice so they’re more legible. 

 Similar to the walls, the player stats dial blue came out a different color which leads me to believe their printing process uses a different blue color than the prototype manufacturer. But otherwise, it’s clearly legible. Instead of a metal rivet, WIngo uses a plastic one to hold the dials in place. It feels lighter and rotates a lot smoother. 

If you have any concerns of questions, please comment below. I want this to be a great gaming experience for everyone and this one of the last steps before I approve for production to start. I'll be waiting for the injection molded parts to arrive and check but after that, everything should be set to begin production. Aside for the injection molded parts, all the other components have been sent to Wingo to await being assembled with the game except the 3D printed cover that connects the injection molded miniature to the light up base, and this is only so I can guarantee the fit of the miniature to the cover.

Thank you for your support! This has been a fantastic journey and an up and down roller coaster ride. It's so exciting to finally be reaching this point but it's not over yet. If you do have any concerns, please let me know; even if it means pushing production out a bit to make sure any quality issues are addressed. By now, this project is as much as yours as it is mine. Thank you!