Prototyping and production updates!
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 06:41:09 PM
Dear fellow and friends,
here we are with a status update on the production process of Zero Gravity.
First of all: from now on, we will provide weekly updates, in order to give you a constant feedback on where we stand and what progresses we make week after week, moving toward the final steps of production and shipping.
As you may have noticed, we just locked BackerKit orders in order to provide to our manufacturing partner WinGo Games (China based) the exact quantities they have to produce, pack and ship all over the world.
We are happy to share a couple of facts: 42% of the backers order the ‘Complete Plastic Components’ add-on, which we worked on thoroughly before launching our campaign, and 38% ordered a copy of the ‘Cheerleaders’ add-on. Also, almost half of the backers secured a copy of the ‘Solo Mode’ rules compendium, very good!
We selected the manufacturing company after shortlisting and meeting 3 candidates in December/January, having a kick-off meeting with WinGo Games (the selected manufacturer) in Nurnberg Fair 2019, Germany.
The reason why we selected WinGo is that they have been extremely pro-active in working out our board-and-magnets requirements, providing immediate prototypes, samples and solutions to ensure that the product would be robust and long-lasting.
Despite the different time zone (we are based in Italy), we are having constant interaction with WinGo team, which provide early comments or questions on anything they feel that should be reviewed or optimized.
After checking, adjusting and finalizing the .STL files required to manufacture the miniatures, WinGo Games produced a first set of prototype minis that were then approved by our team and then moved to the molding phase (multiple copies of the miniatures are used to generate printing molds, which contain on average 6-8 miniatures each, based on the size and shape of the miniatures).
Molding phase requires 4-6 weeks and should be completed by the beginning of May.
In the meanwhile, our art director sent the artwork files to WinGo Games and we are waiting for their final check, after which they will start the mass production of rules, tokens, cards, box (cover and back) and all the other paper-based components. Also, the magnetic board will be printed and assembled in parallel.
As soon as the molding phase will be completed, the manufacturer will then start the miniatures production, which should take another month.
When all the miniatures and the card-based components will be ready, in a matter of days the games should be packaged and shipped, leaving China by the beginning of June and reaching Europe, US and rest of the world backers in the following 2-4 weeks.
If you believe that you may change your address around mid-June, please let us know by email – we will immediately update our database.
Thank you for your patience, we will be back in a week with updates!
Best
The District Games team
