Kill the Unicorns - An Enchanted Card Game For Evil Geniuses

Information about Production & Shipping ETAs and the backers management
about 5 years ago – Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 01:50:25 AM

Hello everyone,

You will find on this update some more information about production, shipping ETAs and our current work to solve all the backers issues. 

• Production

Factories in China are all closed from February 2nd to 18th 2019 for Chinese New Year (CNY). This means the Kill the Unicorns production is currently paused and will be continued next Monday until it is completed.

We now received the final timeline for production after all the items have been confirmed by both Panda and Morning - especially those items we made the final decision on last month: 1st Player token, Kickstarter Exclusive Player Mats and the tray to hold everything nicely in the box. :)

Thus, we are happy to confirm all the games will be ready and assembled on May 6th 2019. 

Pigicorn Plushes are already finished and will be available in Panda Games warehouse to be shipped to the port in the same time than the games ! 

• Import and shipping

Kill the Unicorns games are about a year late according to the initial schedule and our main focus is now to deliver your pledges to you as soon as possible. 

This means the games will be loaded on boats to the different areas (Europe, Asia, Australia) by the week after they have been released from the Panda factory. 

Then we will have the freight average times: 

• To Europe (France) = 30 to 32 days
• To North America (Los Angeles, USA) = 18 to 20 days
• To Australia = 28 to 30 days

Pledges to the Asian area will be fulfilled directly from China. 

Other areas in the world will be delivered from France at a higher rate as you may have noticed on the shipping chart in the last update. 

When boats will arrive to destinations, the pallets will be shipped to the partnered warehouses who are in charge of the pledge fulfillment. Average time for that will be between 1 to 3 weeks for customs clearance and delivery to warehouse and another 2 weeks for the warehouses to prepare and start shipping at a rate of 500 orders /day /warehouse.

Warehouses will have to be briefed on pledges specificity in the meantime (base game / base game + Plush / 2 games / etc.) to avoid any shipping mistake that may cause a lot of after sales service! 

By doing some maths with the information above, you can expect your pledges to be delivered between early June and mid July 2019 depending on shipping zones. 

• Solving backers issues

According to these ETAs, every backer still can change the shipping address and contact information until March 31st. Then, all the address from the BackerKit survey will be locked. 

Please contact us in Private Message from Kickstarter or write us an email to [email protected] if you want your address to be checked or changed. You also have access directly to it from your BackerKit survey with the linked you received by email months ago. 

In addition to this backer assistance, we are currently keep working on the following: 

• Try to reach the 251 backers with incomplete survey: we do not have their shipping information and their pledge choice (Pink or Legendary box and French or English version). 

So, please pay attention to your email or make sure you answered your survey if you have any doubts about that. 

• We created a Kill the Unicorns PayPal account and sent invoices to over 400 backers who were unable to pay the shipping fees with the Stripe solution offered by BackerKit. 

So, please check your emails and your current balance on BackerKit if you have any doubts about that.

• We were unable to manage about 10 backers refund requests because Kickstarter is not allowing backers to be refunded on an other credit card that the one used to pledge the campaign. This is all solved now!

Because we have to dispatch final quantities and give accurate information to book the containers to be loaded on boats, refund requests won’t be accepted after February 28th 2019.

We are very happy to have amazing backers like yourselves and your support on this project is so important for us! We are more than confident that you will love the game and can’t wait to hear about your feedbacks in few months from now when everyone will have been delivered!!! :)

Next step will be to deal with the Panda factory to have pictures from the production that can be shared with you…! You will also be informed if there is any change or update on these official ETAs. 

Thanks again everyone! Talk to you soon. 

Valentin. 

PS: If a French version of this update is required, please feel free to ask and it will be displayed in the update comment section as we did with the last one.

Last items validation for launching and shipping information!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 01:31:15 AM

Hello everyone.

You have been waiting for an update for longer than we first expected because we wanted to have 100% accurate information to give you instead of giving a guess of what will happen in the next weeks. 

Great news is that we now are ready with every single items that will be included in the game. Thanks to Panda Games amazing team, we will be sure to have the best quality as possible for Kill the Unicorns and we all here are very excited to now finally move forward with putting your games into your hands! 

For more details about the last items that had to make decisions on: 

1. The mini-figure mould and final color have been confirmed and we have been able to get a glow on the dark effect anyway in addition to the nice mat pink chosen color! :)
2. The tray will be in plastic as mentioned in the previous update as it is the best way to fit both backers and timeline requirements. Thus, we confirmed the mini will be placed in a specific spot meaning this tray for KS versions will be unique. Because the player mats also have to be inserted in these KS boxes and nothing must move inside, the tray won’t be exactly aligned with the rest of the box. This small detail will be visible only when the box is open and probably most of you won't pay attention about this.

However and despite our very best efforts, the bad news here is there won’t be enough room to increase the tray for sleeved cards. 

Panda will give us soon an exact date when the games will be produced and assembled. In the meantime, we confirmed most of your addresses and sent this list to the logistics company who will handle the shipping worldwide. 

We waited as long as possible before charging your cards for shipping and this will be done in the next couple of days, thus we can confirm the prices we got and send the required deposit payment. This way, all the cardboard boxes will be ordered and the needed working force will be scheduled to ship all the games as fast as possible after the games are being imported. 

If you need to update your shipping address or haven’t completed your online survey on BackerKit, please try to connect to the BackerKit platform or send us a private message on Kickstarter to get your personal link. You can also email us at [email protected]

As reminder, you will find below the prices you will pay for shipping depending on your zone: 

For those who chose a pick-up point (see the map), shipping will be charged and then refunded for shipping when the games will be delivered to the pick-up points. This was the best way to do according to the BackerKit team to avoid the need to charge those who are changing their mind at the very last minute (or finally cannot be delivered in a listed pick-up point). 

As things are moving forward, next update will be send in few days, as soon as Panda are giving us the exact day when the games are ready to be imported. This update will contain the final timelines =this day given by Panda + import + shipping to the backers with a relative precision depending on shipping zones. The guess at this moment considering the Chinese New Year will be a production done by late April and final delivery to the backers by May/June as a maximum. 

To finish this half update, you will find below some kind words from Alain, Cyril and Loïc, the Kill the Unicorns game designers. 

Thanks again so much for your help and your support on this project. 

Can’t wait to come back to you very soon with these exact ETAs for shipping the games to all corners of the world !

Cheers, 

Valentin. 

Alain, Cyril and Loïc want to tell you: 

“Dearest backers,

Let us start off, since the timing seems to be about right, to wish you all the very best for this coming year.

We, as the creators of Kill The Unicorns wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that our commitment and love for KTU knows no limits, and that like you we are impatiently awaiting delivery of Kill The Unicorns.

The process of creating KTU has been a long and deliberate one because Morning wanted the best game possible to convey the weird and wacky universe they lovingly created over the years..  KTU is a passion project for Morning, and an amazing source of inspiration for us. A pox on those who would see a unicorn-mania quick kickstarter cash grab!

But like you, we really now would love to hold an actual, real, copy of the game in our hands, and not just a pretty prototype. Our only desire is for you to be able to play as soon as possible and to be able to share your KTU thoughts, comments and gameplay. 

The wait is excruciating long for us too, but we can do little, if nothing, about that. All we can say though is that there is a really good game (at least one we do really love) awaiting to be played and that we do believe the wait will be worth your while, and we thank you for believing in us and this project.”

New Miniature and Tray
over 5 years ago – Tue, Dec 04, 2018 at 01:22:00 AM

Hello everyone.

We will try to be quick and informative with this update, but first of all, we want to thanks the backers for sticking out with us even with the delays. After having announced the game wouldn’t be available for Christmas, some of you asked for refund, but we want to reassure you all, it won’t affect the game production and the quality of the final product.

We received a new sample of the first player miniature at the office, the quality of the plastic is much better, as well as the picture quality. I let you see for yourself :

The Unicorn is much more detailed and now up to our standards, plus we can proudly say “IT GLOWS IN THE DARK”.

Some of you raised the issue that you cannot play this game in the dark, therefore no point in a “glow in the dark” miniature, don’t worry we are clearly aware of that issue ^^ Through this KS Exclusive we wanted to create a cool and fun bonus that fit the spirit of the game and we know that unfortunately we cannot please all the backers in the process, but don’t worry for those who dislike this miniature a “First player Token” is already included in the punch-board of every game

The Pulp Tray insert was another issue and some of you raised relevant points, so in order to avoid any more delays we asked for Panda to work a more classic tray in plastic that fits in a nicer and more durable way into the box. We don’t receive it yet, but they already sent us a video showcasing the "Legendary Edition" tray they just manufactured :

Of course this is a first test and we still have to work on some details and it is probably going to change a lot in the next iteration, but it is pretty encouraging so far.

Concerning the delivery we are still aiming for a 2019 shipping as soon as possible, but we want to have a clear timeline on our hand before announcing anything specific and disappoint you, but be assured we are working on it and want to have the best quality as possible for Kill the Unicorns.

Thanks all of you for your patience and don’t hesitate to send us a private message or post a comment if you need more infos or if you have a specific issue.

The Morning Team

News from the manufacturing
over 5 years ago – Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 01:44:17 AM

Hi everyone,

We keep working on the project, it takes more time than expected, obviously, but we don’t give up and one of the team’s main goal is to deliver the Kill the Unicorns copies all over the world, as soon as possible. We know the current situation requires a lot of patience from you folks, we understand and we would like to thank all of you for that. We also know it’s not easy to wait for a game for months, especially those who ordered the game for birthdays or Christmas. So we would like to send you a big sorry for this delay which got longer and longer.

We have received the sample for the tray, it’s in dry press paper pulp, as we wanted to avoid as much as possible plastic in our game (we talked about it a few months ago). There is still remaining back and forth with Panda on this one as it shouldn't stick out and should follow the inclination of the bottom part of the box. In addition to that, the cards don't fit very well yet.

Here are some pictures:

As we told you before, the tray is the last element to be made as it requires all the other elements to be OK ahead. This pulp tray is a new thing for Panda, so being a new challenge, it takes more time to get right and our square box does not make things easy. 

Indeed, a few weeks ago we weren't even sure that all the material with all the stretch goals would fit in the box. We had to reduce the size of the mats to make them fit for instance, we received the new sample for this as well and it's much better now,

If we end up seeing that it's too big of a challenge to make a pulp tray, we will ask Panda to make what they know best, a plastic tray as we don't want to create some additional delay.

Finally, we have received pictures for the first copy of the mass production 1st player token, we are happy about it, it looks like a little unicorn candy :) see for yourselves:

There is still a bit of work to make sure it comes out 10 000 times right, but we are really close. Unfortunately, It will not be possible to deliver your copies in 2018. It was our biggest wish to make this happen by the end of the year but this project had met a lot of unexpected challenges. And to be realistic, we are too late to make this delivery happen. 

So the expected delivery time is postponed for beginning of 2019. And we will be able to give you a more accurate date when the entire production for all the game components will be launched, within the next few weeks. 

We imagine some of you will be upset or angry after this news, we understand it and know how you feel. Clearly, the Panda team is not to blame, it's an ambitious project with a lot of copies to be printed and despite our will to work as fast as possible, each step of the process, we are discovering new challenges, it takes time and preparation though we were not prepared enough and we didn't plan enough time.

If you have any question for us or any request, feel free to contact us in comments or private message. It’s easier to talk with you in private message if it’s to update your delivery details. We expect news on the production within the next two weeks, we will let you know with an update, as usual.

Thanks again for those who still support us, we cannot describe how grateful we are for it.

Cheers, 

 Tim.

Production is moving forward
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 01:42:40 AM

Hello everybody,

As we said few days ago, we are communicating as soon as we have accurate news to give you. We have done a lot of back and forth with Panda to make sure every file was alright these past few days, following the PPC, it’s something that can appear to be long but it’s mandatory to be sure everything is ok before launching mass production for such quantities. 

We are in contact everyday with Panda Games, here is the ETA: 

- The mold for the miniature is still in production for the new first player . 

- We will receive a sample for the tray within the next few days. We have encountered a lot of difficulties given that the player mat was not fitting inside the box, so we had to change the mat design and adapt the tray accordingly. 

- The print files (cards, player mat, boxes) are all approved and ready to go in production. This part will be done a bit later, to match the production end of the other elements.

With this current ETA, the delivery for the games is still planned for late December, we hope before Christmas and we’ll do everything in our power to make it possible, but it could also be after Christmas as the schedule is tight and even the slightest problem can shift the ETA. We plan to give you a more accurate date by end of October / beginning of November as we are seeing the Panda team in Essen Spiel.

Also, for those who asked, we will be at Essen at booth F131, hall 1 with pre-production copies, and a few samples of Pigicorn! We will not be able to give copies to you as the production is not over. But don’t hesitate to come by our booth, we will be happy to offer you a coffee or a beer! You will also be able to speak with the Morning team, say hello to Pigicorn, or even play the game there with other unicorn hunters.

                                         ****Pledge manager*****

We are going to send reminder emails today and Monday for backers who still need to complete their pledge manager. If you don’t do it before the end of October, we won't be able to guarantee you a shipping without extra fees.

If you would like to update your shipping address, please send us a private message only (no comments please), as we’ll send you a personal and unique link to access to your pledge manager.

Thanks again everybody for your patience and understanding. You guys are amazing, we are more than happy to have backers like you!

See you, 

 Tim.