Raid - A Viking Card Game

Come See Raid at Gen Con!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 01, 2022 at 01:14:42 AM

Hello, Viking Warriors!

Halfdan pushed aside the thick wool flap and stepped from his tent. His nostrils immediately filled with the scent of smoke and a savory waft of last night’s stew, but his eyes turned to the steepest point nearby instead of the cooking cauldron. Good. He could see Trygve faithfully at his post, scanning the surrounding hills, coast, and water beyond for danger.

It had rained in the night, but obviously not enough to make the morning’s fires a problem. Halfdan flexed his fingers over the nearest flames and grunted, half in pleasure at the warmth searing away the chill from his extremities and half in admiration at Frode, who had thought to cover the wood yesterday evening to protect it from the elements.

Everywhere his gaze landed, Halfdan could see signs of the party functioning as it was supposed to: gearing up to find provisions, inspecting and maintaining the weapons, repairing what needed repair … all was good. Satisfied, he finally allowed himself to settle in for dagmar to break his fast. Grabbing a dark loaf, he ripped off a large hunk and dipped it into the bowl. Venison. Venison and apples. Today would be a good day.

* * *

We have no factory closures to report. No production tweaks. No adjustments. No delays.

In fact, if you were to ask us to succinctly sum up how Raid is going, we’d have to say, “Nicely.”

We’re still on the track we reported in our March update, with games arriving to backers by the end of the year. In other words, nothing’s changed for us—aside from getting ever closer to fulfilling rewards for you, our amazing backers!

If something’s changed for you, however, since you first backed the game (namely your delivery address), be sure to access your account in BackerKit and make sure the most updated information is what’s on file there. If something’s not correct for you these days, now is the time to fix it! We’re currently working with Quartermaster Logistics to prepare for fulfillment, and we will be locking addresses down in August.

This is happening, warriors!

And speaking of August, we hope at least some of you will be able to attend Gen Con in Indianapolis Aug. 4 through 7. There, you will be able to find sample copies of the finished, mass production version of the game, so you’ll be able to see and feel the cards for yourself. You can even smell them, too, if that’s your thing!

Either way, you would be among the first to encounter a physical copy of the game as it will appear in the wild. That's almost as good as bagging a huge buck for tonight's stew ... 

Until then!

— Ryan & the Modern Games team

We Have Seen the Pre-Production Copy, and It Is Glorious
almost 2 years ago – Thu, May 19, 2022 at 05:51:06 PM

Hello, Viking Warriors!

We’re dispensing with the florid Nordic intro this week, because we can’t wait to share the news: At the tail end of April, we got word that the Pre-Production Copy (PPC) of Raid was on its way to us from our manufacturer, Panda. Less than a week later—on May 5—it was in our hands! After a meeting and review with our game designer, Brennen Peters, we've decided that we’re ready to move forward with production.

We’re most happy to report that awesomeness abounds.

• The cards feel pleasantly weighty in your hands—very thick and sturdy. We’re super glad we went with ivorycore as the default standard for every version of the game. You’ll be glad as well, once you shuffle a few of them around.

• The three boxes—Raid itself, the Raid Kickstarter Exclusive, and the Asgard expansion—stand apart as distinct designs, yet they all work together. Sort of like how a skald, berserker, and valkyrie are each unique, but can join together and complement each other in a warrior party. A beautifully bloody warrior party.

If we were to get a bit nitpicky (spoiler alert: we certainly were), we would say that there’s a wee bit of an alignment issue on the boxes, but that’s going to get sorted out as the mass-produced versions are made by machine for everyday use instead of by hand for pre-production-review purposes.

• The rules … look great! If you’ve been following the Raid updates for virtually any length of time, you’ll know that the rulebook gave us some grief. We’re putting it to bed—and happy to be doing so.

• Finally, we can sum up the look of the Signature Tarot card with the team’s gold foil signatures in a single word: Gorgeous!

On May 11, we went over some final details with Panda, and that brings us to today. Remember the quality control flowchart from late last year? After months spent churning around step 2 (design verification), we’ve now kicked through step 3 and are heading into step 4: mass production.

Next comes creation of the Mass Production Copy (MPC), review and approval of that, inspection and final quality control check in the assembly process, and ultimately shipping!

We had originally estimated that reception and the subsequent approval of the physical proofs would happen between April 15 and 20, so we’re just a few weeks off. Otherwise, we’re still looking to be on track for production wrapping in late August, finished and assembled games being ready to ship in mid-September (COVID and Odin willing), arrival to our distributor in October, and delivery to backers from there.

As always, we will keep you posted on developments as they happen or we get news. It’s the Viking way …

Until then!

— Ryan & the Modern Games team

Digital Proofs Are Done!
about 2 years ago – Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 09:01:39 PM

Hello, Viking Warriors!

The wind hadn’t been favorable for some time. In fact, it felt like the wind had died long ago, and the only thing left in this water-covered world was rowing. Rowing. Rowing. Thanks to the oars, the longship wasn’t dead in the water, but Bjørn was growing tired of the rhythmic back and forth that made his muscles burn all day and ache all night. And he wasn’t the only one. There was muttering among the crew. Muttering and dark looks. They would do what they had to do to keep moving forward, but unless Njord sent a breeze soon, something was going to …

And then he felt it.

Bjørn thought he was imagining it at first, the slight tickle of a breeze against his sunburnt cheek. Then he heard Arne ahead of him inhale sharply in surprise, saw Torston cautiously lift one large hand and splay his calloused fingers to feel the change in the air. Bjørn stood, and a gust toyed with the beads at the end of his braided beard before growing stronger and starting to swell the woolen sail above him. The longship leapt forward like a stallion, prompting cheers—and a few cries of surprise.

One by one they dropped their oars, closed their eyes, and filled their lungs with a scent sweeter than mead. They were moving forward.

* * *

This is just a quick update to say that last week, we finished the back-and-forth tweaking to the production files we had been reviewing from our manufacturer Panda, and all of the digital proofs for Raid are now approved!

That means that the Pre-Production Copy of the game is now in production, and we anticipate that an actual, physical version of Raid—cards and tuck boxes and all—will ship to us on April 22. Once it’s in our hands, we will review it. This is when we get to make sure that the details are correct. For example, we want to know that the colors we’ve only seen digitally thus far appear the way they should in real life.

Assuming everything looks and feels how it’s supposed to look and feel (Loki has to have exhausted his mischief-making at this point, right?), we’ll approve the Pre-Production Copy and advance to Mass Production. From there, it’s a hop, skip, jump, factory run, cargo ship ride, and whatever else it takes to bring the game to you.

As usual, we will keep you posted as we get concrete information.

Until then!

— Ryan & the Modern Games team

Raid Passed Pre-Press Inspections and We Have a Timeline!
about 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 08:36:46 AM

Hello, Viking Warriors!

I know we’re overdue for an update, but we wanted to be sure we had something concrete to say before we gave you another general “we’re still plugging along” message. (I call them “proof of life” posts, and I think they’re better than total silence, but your own longboat’s mileage may vary.)

Anyway, here’s the news. We’ll be honest: Putting Raid in your hands has taken longer than we’d like, but we now have the info we need to get some dates on the calendar. After multiple back-and-forth sessions with our manufacturer, Panda, we sent our final production files on Wednesday, March 16. Remember those fiddly little changes from the last production update? Yeah, there were more of those based on Panda’s ongoing review of the files. It all needed resolving before anyone could hit the big red button that gets the machines rolling.

Here's a more detailed summary of what has transpired since our last update.

In our last update we mentioned we had a meeting with the factory on February 7th to discuss the pre-press inspections they completed prior to their Chinese New Year holiday and some discrepancies between the production files and the contract. A number of things came out of that meeting.

1. The pre-press inspection that was performed prior to CNY was done against an old (the original) contract we signed back in December 2020, but there had been a contract update in April 2021. That explained some of the pre-press inspection issues.

2. Based on things that had changed since the second contract was signed in April 2021 and given the fact we found some minor issues with that April 2021 contract; namely, the rule books for both the base game and Asgard expansion are now longer than we originally expected as we rewrote the rules, there was a tuckbox missing for the Asgard expansion in the April 2021 contract, etc. This resulted in the need for a new contract.

3. Panda sent us the updated contract on February 23 and we signed it February 24.

4. Shortly after our call on February 7, Panda also let us know they thought we should go with a different game box type and they sent us a new template on February 23. The reason for the pre-press inspections is to identify potential issues prior to production—so, the process worked as intended. Unfortunately, the production designer we've used up to this point wasn't available to work on the three game box templates in order to transition from the old to new template and we had to find a new production designer. That took a couple weeks, but we got that done and made all the necessary changes to the production files.

5. We submitted updated production files (tweaks based on conversations during the pre-press inspection + the new game boxes).

Yesterday—Thursday, March 17—we got official word that all of the production files passed Panda’s pre-press inspection and were heading into proofing. Barring any new government-mandated Covid factory closures in China (they are currently shut down until Monday due to Covid lock down), digital proof approval will happen April 1.

Here's a preview of the final Raid Midgard (base game) production art. The green and red lines are related to production and won't be printed on the box. :) 

We also had to update the Asgard Tuckbox as it now contains 48 cards instead of the originally planned 44 cards. We added four Fate Cards to go along with the Fate Die.

The physical proofs are scheduled to arrive around April 15, with approval targeted by April 20.

Then mass production on the actual game starts. This production will wrap August 20, and then the finished and assembled games will be ready to ship September 10.

Raid will arrive at the distributor in mid-October (barring any ocean freight delays) and will start heading out to backers as soon as the games arrive in their respective regional distribution centers. We've already locked down shipping with Quartermaster Logistics (one of the best in the business).

Believe us, we would love, love, love for this to go faster. Since we don’t have a time machine, we would even be happy if this were the set-in-stone timeline. We’ve all been eagerly anticipating this progress update. We wish we could hire some portent-reader to rummage through some entrails or chart the ravens wheeling across the sky and give us some augery-based guarantee of no more delays. We may have even considered sacrificing a goat—at least in effigy. You know, just a straw one. But high-quality!

Anyway, taking all that into account, if the cogs turn as the cogs are supposed to, Raid will be in your hands by the start of winter. Yes, we can hear the groans. We can also hear the cheers. And some sighs. And maybe some singing? And we definitely hear that one guy snoring.

If I may add one last thing over all that noise: Please know that if we have the info, we give you the info. We’re a small team of people truly doing our best because we’re excited about games in general and this game in particular. And we hear you.

Thanks for your patience, your excitement, and your support of Raid. Valhalla awaits …

Until then!

— Ryan & the Modern Games team

Play Raid … NOW
over 2 years ago – Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 01:03:23 AM

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