EU/UK Backers - Follow up US Backers - New things
about 1 year ago – Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 11:55:52 AM

Hello EU/UK Backers

We wanted to follow up with everyone in the EU/UK about their Kick Rewards. Spiral Galaxy has sent us the final report from shipping, and all of you should have received you backer rewards at this point. If you have not received your backer rewards, or if you have any issues with your shipment please reach out to us at [email protected] and I will hunt down what is going on and make right the issue.

North America Backers

Well we should be all finished in Canada and the US already, but if for some reason you haven't received your backer rewards feel free to contact us at [email protected] (if you throw US or Canada in the subject line that would be helpful). 

New things to note

• If you haven't found us on Amazon yet what a better time than now! Also, If you have a chance to rate and review the products you do have that would really help us out.
• We have plans to make an announcement in February about an upcoming Kick! We will send notification out to our shop customers https://shop.tinkerhousegames.com and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter! So make sure to setup a shop account (free) or follow us on one of our social channels. Hint: I think you DMs are going to be excited! 

 Extra Rewards

Look who got to the end of this message!! We want to thank all of you again with a weekend only special. Now through Sunday night get 30% off all Sci-Fi Terrain on our shop. Click the link below or use the discount code Backer30 to get 30% off. We have the new Cargo Containers - Series 6 that was not yet available at the time of the kick. 

https://shop.tinkerhousegames.com/discount/Backer30

Thanks again for making TinkerTurf a part of your tabletop experience. We really appreciate you!!

Peppermint schnapps is the new Pumpkin Spice!! TinkerTurf Update
over 1 year ago – Wed, Dec 28, 2022 at 07:58:54 PM

As we say goodbye to 2022 we thought we’d say hello to our admirable backer community in the form of this update. We’ll be covering:

• The continued fulfillment saga of the Sci-Fi Terrain 2.1 Kickstarter (UK/EU edition)
• What's next
• Happy holiday wishes

UK/EU Fulfillment

Well here we are at the end of the year, and it's finally happening. We are finishing up fulfillment to the few remaining backers in the UK/EU. Those of you still missing your rewards in the UK/EU should start receiving tracking number emails from Spiral Galaxy. If you haven't received a notification by now please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] and I'll track it down. This has truly been a long and wonderfully strange journey. And with this Update we will be wrapping up the Kickstarter and moving on to the next chapter at TinkerHouse.

So what's next

We are still very much in recovery mode from the COVID-19 pandemic, as we mentioned in our previous update. For those not familiar you can read about that here. But this has not stopped us from working on some exciting new stuff that we hope to reveal to you all in the coming months.

We  have also received a new shipment of Cargo Containers, and those are now available on our shop. They include the new Series 6 Abandoned version shown below.  Check them out here.

For those that don't know, we are pleased to announce that we are now available for purchase on Amazon.com and really exciting Amazon.ca.  We keep more of the profit if you purchase from our shop directly but this option will provide free shipping to those items available for Prime members.

We plan to attend AdeptiCon – March 22nd – 26th, 2023 and this time around we plan to have product available to sell to attendees. How exciting is this!! If you plan on attending please come by the booth and see us. If not remember to check out our online shop during the show for discounts.

Happy Holiday

Thank you all for your continued support and we wish you all a happy and joyful holiday season! I think it's safe to say that we are due for some much needed rest over the next couple of weeks, having our hot chocolate liberally applied with peppermint schnapps.

TinkerTurf Pumpkin Spice Update
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 09:37:37 PM

As we say goodbye to summer we thought we’d say hello to our admirable backer community in the form of this update. We’ll be covering:

• TinkerHouse Games's experience at Gen Con
• The final chapter of the fulfillment saga of the Sci-Fi Terrain 2.1 Kickstarter
• And how you can help us bounce back from the pandemic

Gen Con 2022!

TinkerHouse Games exhibited at Gen Con for the first time ever, and holy smokes did it feel good to be amongst a large gathering of fellow nerds and tabletop enthusiasts. We set up a 10x20 booth in the entrepreneurial section of the hall, showcasing the recently-arrived retail stock of TinkerTurf 2.1. The response was… tremendous. Incredible. Inspiring, even. “It comes like this? Full color?” “Wow, I’m surprised it’s this strong!” “I just have to say, this solves every problem I have with terrain. Thank you.” It felt great to see people literally picking up what we’ve been putting down.

By the end of the final day, we had sold out of just about everything we brought to the show. What little we had left was snatched up by fellow exhibitors eagerly offering trades. After the trials and tribulations of the pandemic years it was both a vast relief and a huge confidence boost to hear so many people enthusiastically rave about the product. So: a huge thank you to everyone we met at Gen Con. We will return.

Fulfillment update

The company that processes our fulfillment was purchased by another company, and that transaction (reasonably) caused some glitches in fulfillment. That said, we’re happy to report that fulfillment of the 2.1 Kickstarter is complete except for 10 backers who were the victims of a data integration error between Backerkit and our UK/Euro fulfillment partner. If you’re a backer and have not yet received your backer reward: please email [email protected] ASAP. If you HAVE received your reward, then we encourage you to show off your fabulous new table on the social media platform of your choice, using the hashtag #TinkerTurf

Pandemic bounceback

If you’ve been following along with these updates you’re well aware of how thoroughly the pandemic wrecked the business plan for Sci-Fi Release 2.1. Manufacturing delays, loss of revenue from show and retail closures, ocean freight charges from the manufacturer quoted at $6,500 that turned out to be $46,000, and shipping charges to backers estimated at $18,000 that turned out to be $36,000–these are the miserable highlights of a two-year supply chain disaster. You’ve stuck with us the whole way, which we deeply appreciate, and as mentioned above now that new stock has finally reached our warehouse the Dark Times seem like they might finally be ending.

That said: even the amazing success at Gen Con is tempered by the fact that freight, drayage, booth costs, travel, and hotel makes any show (at the scale of a 10x20 booth like ours) an essentially break-even endeavor. The value from exhibiting is in generating excitement, awareness, and goodwill in the hope of inspiring future sales from new customers and pickup from retailers and distributors. Shows–even successful shows like this Gen Con–don’t have a chance of filling the massive hole in the bank account created by the price increases we had to overcome to get 2.1 made and delivered.

So we’re humbly asking for your help. Via two ways!

Way number one: tell people about TinkerTurf. 

Friends. Opponents. And especially whomever’s in charge of purchasing at your Friendly Local Game Store. You can direct them to [email protected], and we’ll happily chat about getting retail products onto their shelves. We’re even starting up a cool retailer support program where we’ll send your FLGS free terrain for the store’s game tables. By telling folks about our fine selection of full-color, sturdy terrain you’ll help get the flywheel of commerce going, and thereby keep the lights on here at TinkerHouse HQ.

The second way is simple and direct: monetary contribution.

TinkerHouse Games is not a charity; there are plenty of worthy charities that could use philanthropic support and they should come first. But if you’re the sort of person who has the means for additional generosity, we sure could use it. Putting cards on the table: we are a bootstrap startup and everyone at TinkerHouse is an owner that has not taken a salary. Because of that we were ineligible for any of the government assistance during the pandemic. We leveraged personal assets and ate the additional freight and shipping costs because getting rewards to backers was the right thing to do. Only now that all rewards are delivered (or in the case of Europe and UK, are immediately imminent) do we feel we can ask for this sort of help.

We know demand exists. We know the product is sound. The costs and pricing are likewise sound, absent extraordinary global economic catastrophes. We want to be able to continue to expand the Sci-Fi line and finally do the expansion into Fantasy that everyone has been clamoring for. With your help, we’ll be able to recover from the pandemic and do so. You can pitch in at https://www.gofundme.com/f/TinkerHouse.

However you’re willing and able: thank you. Meeting backers masked-face-to-masked-face at Gen Con was a true delight and genuine inspiration. It’s a joy to make TinkerTurf for you, and we sincerely hope to continue to do so.

Onward!

EU/UK Fulfillment Update
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 20, 2022 at 12:55:10 PM

Hey all, I wanted to drop in and give a quick update on fulfillment in the EU and UK.

First of all, I'll apologize there hasn't been any update in the last couple weeks while this fulfillment wasn't starting on time.  It was a combination of the person that usually tracks and communicates about shipping being out having a child, and our fulfillment partner unexpectedly getting swamped with shipping issues related to UK Games Expo.  But that dropped ball comms-wise is on us, very sorry.

So, to the info we have:

We have officially been told by Spiral Galaxy that our fulfillment is delayed until mid to late June.  We don't have a concrete start time yet.  We are talking with them to figure out when we can say that's starting.  We will have another update when we get more information, or by 1 week from today (Thursday the 23rd) at the latest.

Again, apologies for the late communications here.

-ONWARD

Fulfillment starting in the UK/EU next week
almost 2 years ago – Wed, May 25, 2022 at 03:57:55 PM

The product has all been delivered to Spiral Galaxy and is being prepared for fulfillment to our EU/UK backers!!

Spiral Galaxy has informed us that they will be shipping out in the first week of June. So keep an eye out for an email from them asking for your address updates!! THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO MAKE AN ADDRESS UPDATE. We are saying this in all bold and capital letters because we want to ensure that you take note. Please take note! We are making an attempt to save you from having to pay additional postage.

ROADMAP UPDATE

Here is the latest roadmap.

• All artwork has been delivered to Panda Manufacturing - COMPLETE
• Blank punch-board samples received - COMPLETE 
• Blank punch-board samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE
• First color samples received - COMPLETE
• First color samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE  
• Mass Production start - COMPLETE
• Full retail sample received - COMPLETE
• Full retail sample reviewed and approved - COMPLETE
• Mass Production complete - COMPLETE
• Outbound freight to our fulfillment partners - COMPLETE
• Fulfillment shipping to you started - ASIA & OCEANIA COMPLETE, US COMPLETE, EU & UK IN PROGRESS
• Fulfillment shipping complete! - ASIA & OCEANIA COMPLETE, US COMPLETE, EU & UK EXPECTED JUNE

Almost there!

-ONWARD!!!