Pledge rewards include Official Catan Board Gaming Bags, artisan wood/leather Catan Collector's Boxes, & Seafarers of Catan Game Boards
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Holiday update
about 9 years ago
– Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 03:32:03 PM
Hi everyone,
We just shipped out the last shipments for Christmas earlier today, so I wanted to send out an update on the progress made thus far before I head out for the holidays.
The new Catan Bag sample is awesome, the requested changes were sewn spot on. Here are a few pictures of the changes.
The bag is 1" longer which makes the flap come up at a right angle and fit the boards perfectly.
The number token canister holster fits them all well now.
Here are a few images of the bag fully filled and ready for travel.
One other option for these pockets is to store each player's building cost card behind the velvet part bags.
The hex layouts are on the top row: Base 3-4, SF 3-4, T & B, E & P 3-4, E & P 5-6. Second row is Base 5-6, SF 5-6
It rolls together nicely once it's all filled up
The new carry handle is much more centered over the CG of the bag and more convenient to carry
Seafarers Mold
The Seafarers mold now works correctly, which is a huge relief. Here's a photo of the finish of some of the parts.
The production schedule for the Seafarers Boards will begin with fulfilling this Kickstarter first and then the second Kickstarter. Everyone gets back to the shop the first week in January, so we'll start back up around then.
Ultimate Boxes
Our manufacturer has made a bit of progress since our last update, but the rush of making bamboo boards for Christmas did put a dent in the speed. After the holidays he should be back up to normal speed on Kickstarter production. The lids are all lasered though, I like how they turned out.
As a small example of the details that go into making this box, above is a photo of the box right after it comes out of the press. The dovetails, look pretty good, I thought. However, our manufacturer fills and finish sands every box so that it looks like this:
There are also a few other details that are done to the track the lid slides through, which weren't on the prototype and the lid slide is super crispy now.
Whenever we make the new boxes for the Settlers Boxes, these will all have the new slick slides on them, so everyone will get the same goodness.
Work at this shop will also pick up in January.
Will update in the New Year. Hope everyone has a great holiday and time with their family.
Catan Bag Production Timeline and Seafarers Mold Update
about 9 years ago
– Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 10:36:36 PM
Hi everyone,
I just got word back from our Catan Bag supplier on their production timeline. November 30th is the cut-off date for us to place an order for delivery by Chinese New Year, and since we don't have the final sample from them yet, we won't be making that cut-off. Orders placed after that cut-off will be delivered by May 20th based on their current production. So either way we wouldn't have been able to make a Christmas delivery for any pledges that include a Catan Bag. That's kind of a bummer, but we knew we'd be very hard-pressed to make that happen.
We can't say if the Ultimate Boxes or the Seafarers Boards will be done in time for Christmas, but we're working as quickly as we're able to.
I got an email yesterday that the mold was complete and ready to go. I setup a freight shipment for it today, but after double checking the photos he sent I'm a little concerned about their detail work on the small tri-corner detail walls.
They took the texture way down, it matches all our other board parts now (at least from what I can tell from the photos), and claim to have removed all of the undercuts so we'll just have to run test parts once the mold gets here and see how it goes.
I had coffee last week with one of the local Kickstarter creators,. His first project the KeyZ is one of my favorite EDC products, and he's created another every-day carry gem called the PolyTool which complements it nicely.
Also, sidenote: Knockaround sunglasses are rad.
It's just the right blend of functionality and unobtrusiveness. The main use I've found for it since is to make my keys easier to pull out of my pocket.
I wear fairly fitted pants usually, so it's nice to just pull up on the PolyTool instead of awkwardly digging around in my pants pocket.
(Note: I have no financially affiliated role to the above Kickstarter nor to any Kickstarter I've ever shared. I have never received money for sharing Kickstarters I think are cool here. I share them because I think they're awesome, and that's it. If I don't think it's awesome, I don't share it.)
Catan Bag Sample! Ultimate Catan Box Production Update
about 9 years ago
– Fri, Nov 06, 2015 at 09:31:08 PM
Hi everyone,
The Catan Bag sample arrived, and it looks pretty sweet. I did a video of the unboxing below.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the sample. We'll be requesting another sample with a few minor dimensional edits, and then once we receive that and confirm everything fits exactly as planned, we'll work on the next step.
Here are a few photos of the bag.
The handle will be different than you see here, will be more flat and centered closer to the center of gravity of the bag.
We designed the part pockets to be big enough to also hold the Settlers parts in a velvet bag in the part cups, at our backers' request.
There are enough hex pockets to keep every scenario's hexes in their own pocket, as well as pockets for the resource card box, and three additional card slots.
The bag is 1" shorter than we requested, which isn't a big deal, we'll have them edit that. But I love how the brown piping trim turned out. Super crisp.
It looks so much better with brown mesh and elastic, instead of the black we originally had. SO much better.
Ultimate Box Production is continuing along. Here's a panorama of progress thus far. About 160 boxes framed, should have the 214 total done by next week, and then he'll begin on the internal components.
The mold polisher got back to me today, and mentioned that the Seafarers mold revisions should be completed by next Thursday.
All for now, cheers.
Production Update
over 9 years ago
– Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 07:11:30 PM
Hi everyone,
Stopped by our wooden manufacturer this morning, and he's been making good progress. Roughly half of the ripped stock shown in the last update has been built into boxes, and the other half should be done by next Tuesday. He'll also likely have begun machining more stock for the next run of 50 boxes.
I also just got a GoPro, so I thought it'd be fun to share some of today's workday. There's virtually nothing useful in the video, it was just for fun. Downside is afterward I charged it with my iPad charger, and apparently that's too much voltage, as it fried the GoPro. Their customer support is great, though, they're sending a new one tomorrow.
Catan Bag Update
over 9 years ago
– Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 11:20:02 PM
Hi everyone,
Received more photos of the completed sample bag this morning. Looks like there are a few small dimensional changes that will need to be made, but will have to wait until the sample gets here to measure and submit design edits.
We'll have to wait until the sample gets here, but it looks like we may have to shorten the upper flap by a smidge. I love how much darker the brown is for the accents.
As you can see it looks like it will overlap a bit more than I'd like. It may work out alright, though, we'll have to see how everything fits with all the games and boards in it.
One thing I noticed while using our prototype was that the corners tended to curl after heavy use. I rounded all corners, and requested dark brown accented piping around the perimeter to provide more structure.
I requested dark brown mesh and elastic all around for continuity, and love how much better it looks.
In honor of the Seafarers expansion, we added a nautical stripe lining to the instruction manual pocket. Also changed it to a brass snap closure instead of a cheesy velcro closure.
Added a brass zippered pocket on the back, which hopefully should also have the nautical stripe lining. This pocket was added because one of our fans on Reddit asked me to add in a pocket to store his flask in.
As soon as we knew we had a potential supplier that could deliver at the price we needed, my goal switched from survival/deliver something to focusing on upgrading and improving the bag so that the bag you receive is actually better than the bag you pledged for in the beginning. You've been extraordinarily patient with us, and I really wanted to surprise you guys with a bag that was better and more polished than what we started out with.
We'll have to wait until we get the sample to see if we're there yet, but so far I'm very optimistic.
