Finally, the Railroad Ink digital beta update!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Apr 16, 2021 at 05:01:39 PM

Dear Backers,

the time for the Railroad Ink digital closed beta is finally coming! All backers who purchased the Founders Edition add-on in our pledge manager will soon receive a beta access request form by email.

Note: Joining the beta now is not needed to receive the full game, all Founders Edition backers will receive a separate download key for the final version once it officially releases, in any case.

This form will also allow you to submit your name as you want it to appear in the Credits of the game, so please take a minute to fill it even if you don’t plan to join the beta version!

Even if all Founders Edition backers will receive their full Steam key when the game launches, please remember to also add the game to your wishlist on Steam (the pre-launch page is available right now)! This helps us give the game visibility on launch day, and possibly even get it featured! Your help will be greatly appreciated, it’s just a couple of clicks for you, but it could really make a difference 😊

So, let’s make a quick recap:

Where is the form to request access to the closed beta?

The backers who purchased the Founders Edition add-on will soon receive it at the same email they used on Kickstarter / Backerkit. Don’t forget to add the game to your Steam Wishlist too!

I don’t like bugs, do I need to join the beta to get the full game when it releases?

No, if you don’t want to try the game in advance you can skip the beta and just wait until the official release date, when we will send all backers who purchased the Founders Edition their Steam download key.

Can I join the beta for mobile platforms?

If you’d like to help testing the mobile version instead of the Steam one, answer the relevant questions in the submission form to express your availability. Feel free to request access to the beta for multiple devices, but please remember that access is guaranteed only to one of them, and it will be assigned based on availability (so if you really have a strong preference for one specific platform over the others, only submit availability for that one).

Will joining the beta for a non-Steam platform give me access to the final game on that platform instead of Steam, too?

No, even if you test the game on a non-Steam platform during the beta phase, you will receive the final version of the game for Steam through your Founders Edition purchase. You will of course be able to also purchase the game on any other available platform in the future, but that will require a separate purchase through the official store on that specific platform!

Why could I not pre-order the digital game on mobile through Kickstarter?

Because we are not allowed to sell or distribute mobile games outside of the authorised stores by the respective platform owners. Only Steam allows us to distribute digital keys through Kickstarter / Backerkit, this is why the add-on was only available for PC and Mac.

Until next time! Play Horrible, join the Guild (and the digital beta)!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

Yet another shipment update, livestreams, virtual gaming cons, and more!
about 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 01:55:29 AM

Dear backers,

the fulfillment is finally starting pretty much everywhere! Just as a reminder, it is a usually long process due to its very nature. A lot of checking, packing and double checking are involved, and we also need to factor in the amazing numbers the Railroad Ink Challenge campaign made.

If you didn’t receive your tracking email or notification, you don’t need to worry, even if you hear that other backers in your country already got theirs. It might just be a matter of days or a few weeks in the worst case scenario.

Just make sure to follow the updates on the campaign page and, as usual, feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions. Again, the fulfillment is a long process, do remember to be a little extra patient in this phase (especially with the difficult situation we’re all still living through).

FULFILLMENT UPDATE

Here’s an update on the shipment status for each lane:

-  EU Lane (Fulfillment Europe)
EU, UK, rest of Europe, Africa, South America, Rest of the World (our EU hub acts as a bit of a wild card!)

Our Hub got the container delivered and every item was accounted for. The EU is home to roughly half of our total backers, so believe us, it was no easy task to check all those cartons! We expect the fulfillment to start this week.

Again, a note on UK shipments: Fulfillment Europe assured us that no extra fees will be applied to the UK orders even if they ship out from Germany. They reported that other projects were regularly fulfilled by them in the UK without any trouble, but we’ll monitor the situation closely anyway.

- AU Lane (VR Distribution)
Australia, New Zealand
VR Distribution got the stock correctly and fulfillment officially finished last week! We hope to see some happy comments from our Australian and New Zealand backers soon enough.

- US Lane (Quartermaster Logistics)
United States, Canada, Puerto Rico
Our US hub got the container on April 7. While they’re checking and packing the stock, they already sent address confirmation emails and we expect fulfillment for US and CA to start... Today!

- Asian Lane (VFI Asia)
China mainland and the rest of the Asian countries
Being the closest to the factory, as usual VFI had a bit of a head start on fulfillment. They are proceeding with the China mainland shippings and they already shipped out the stock to the secondary Hubs for the Asian region last week. These secondary shipments can take a bit to arrive and be distributed, so please be patient on these. We are monitoring them closely and we hope they’ll reach all our Asian backers soon enough!

WHAT ABOUT THOSE DICE TRAYS?

We noticed some backers were disappointed by the pictures of the dice trays that we showed in the last update, especially regarding their size. While we had concrete reasons to choose those sizing and specifics during the design and production phase, your satisfaction is paramount to us. We’ll never get tired to repeat that you’re the main reason for the Railroad Ink Challenge success, and we want you to get the best experience possible from this campaign, of course, even when it involves accessories. We are currently looking into several possible solutions to compensate all the backers who were disappointed by the dice trays and will consider it appropriate to ask for it. Please be patient while we work on it behind the scenes, you’ll get more information on this matter in future updates.

I GOT MY REWARD, WHAT NOW?

If you’ve got your rewards already but there’s any problem (missing items, damaged items, etc.), you can as usual write us an email at [email protected]. We’ll see how we can solve the situation as soon as possible.

Everything was OK with your reward? Well that’s great! If you share your excitement on social media, don’t forget to @tag/mention us in your pictures, videos and stories, we always love to see our products out in the wild and being played! You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter...

JOIN US PLAYING RAILROAD INK CHALLENGE LIVE! 

A very special Railroad Ink Challenge live stream is coming later today, April 14, at 17:00 CEST! Game designers Hjalmar and Lorenzo will play head to head with one of the brand new expansions. Be ready to enjoy this all-out battle, or even join the game and play with us remotely! Make sure to tune in, we’ll be live on Facebook, Youtube and Twitch, and if you do join the game, don't miss to share your final score in the comments!

Join us at AwSHUX next week!  

Come visit our (virtual) booth during AwSHUX (from April 23rd to April  25th) and you’ll be able to play with the guidance of our demo people... all for free! Our  booth/discord server will be open each day of the event from 18:00 to 00:00 CEST, you’ll find more information here: https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/awshuxspring/

TINY TURBO CARS LATE PLEDGE! 

Last but not least, the campaign for our newest game, Tiny Turbo Cars, is finished, but Late Pledges are still available! It is a frantic racing game for 2 to 4 players where you use sliding puzzles to program the movements of your remote controlled race car. The game is currently free to play on Tabletopia, so make sure to check it out!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

Small Shipping Update... and Railroad Ink Digital Beta coming soon!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Mar 26, 2021 at 02:53:32 AM

Dear Backers,

The sea travels of your rewards are coming to an end! Due to the current worldwide situation, it still is a bit hard to get clear dates or even rough estimates on the ultimate completion of the delivery process from our fulfillment partners, so take these dates with the usual grain of salt. We can at least reassure you that none of our ships is stuck in the Great Suez Canal Traffic Jam, luckily!

SHIPMENT UPDATE

Here’s an update on the shipment status for each lane:

-  EU Lane (Fulfillment Europe)
EU, UK, rest of Europe, Africa, South America, Rest of the World (our EU hub acts as a bit of a wild card!)

The ship reached the Hamburg port on March 21. Our stock is currently going through customs. While we cannot calculate an exact date (Custom clearance timings are greatly variable), we can expect that we’ll be able to start the EU fulfilment in the first weeks of April.

A note on UK shipments: Fulfilment Europe assured us no extra fees will be applied to the UK orders even if they ship out from Germany. They reported that other projects were regularly fulfilled by them in the UK without any trouble, but we’ll monitor the situation closely anyway.

- AU Lane (VR Distribution)
Australia, New Zealand
The ship is scheduled to arrive at the port in Adelaide around March 29. After that, our stock will be unloaded from the ship, go through customs, and finally get delivered to VR Distribution. It’s still hard to make predictions, but we should be able to start the fulfilment before the end of April.

- US Lane (Quartermaster Logistics)
United States, Canada, Puerto Rico
It looks like the US lane ship is going to arrive on March 28 at the port in Jacksonville. Our estimate is for the stock to be unloaded in the first week of April. As it is for the other lanes, the stock will have to go through customs and get delivered to QML before we’ll be able to start the fulfilment. They should ideally receive the cargo and start the shipments in April as well.

-  Asia Lane (VFI Asia)
China mainland and the rest of the Asian countries

The stock was correctly received from the VFI hub. The packing process for the China mainland orders has already started, and they’re currently shipping out the rest of the stock to the secondary Asian hubs. Again, we cannot make clear predictions but we’re pretty sure the overall fulfilment will start in April.

SOME MORE SHINY PICTURES

Here's a few more pics of the samples we received at the office (but didn't showcase here yet)!

RAILROAD INK DIGITAL PREVIEW!

Straight from cyberspace, our amazing Digital Team sent us some nice behind the scenes on the digital version of Railroad Ink! Check out these screenshots:

As for features, at launch the digital edition will include two modes: Custom Games and Score Attack.

In Custom Games, you can configure your game and challenge friends from your friend list, who will be able to play with the exact same dice throw sequence, trying to achieve the highest score.

In Score Attack, instead, you will play with a random dice throw sequence and random objectives, and your score will be posted to global leader boards, available in “daily”, “weekly”, “monthly”, and “total” variants.

Each mode and sub-mode will have its own special achievements, which will turn into medals to personalise your player badge!

All the backers who also purchased the Founders Edition add-on will receive a link to join the backer-exclusive beta round in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

TINY TURBO CARS! 

Last but not least, the campaign for our newest game, Tiny Turbo Cars, is over, but Late Pledges are still available! Tiny Turbo Cars is a frantic racing game for 2 to 4 players where you use sliding puzzles to program the movements of your remote controlled race car. The game is currently free to play on Tabletopia, so make sure to check it out!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team

Shipping Updates - Ship Tracking Info and… Check your addresses! Last call!
about 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 27, 2021 at 11:10:37 PM

Dear backers,

The project is moving forward really fast, it feels like we talked with you just last week! We finally received the ship tracking information that you can use to follow them while they travel around the world!

Please take note that these free tracking services are not always super-updated, so be patient if the tracking looks a bit off for now. Due to the nature of their services and the current situation in sea traffic, it’s a bit complicated keeping track of everything.

One final reminder: ETD means Estimated Time of Departure, ETA stands for Estimated Time of Arrival. As usual, please take these estimated dates as... well, estimates. Marine transportation timing it’s subject to change due to many factors.

So, here is the tracking info:

EU Lane (served by Fulfillment Europe): EU, UK, rest of Europe, Africa, South America, Rest of the World (our EU hub acts as a bit of a wild card!)

VESSEL: TOLEDO TRIUMPH / 0537W

ETD: NINGBO - Feb 7 2021

ETA: HAMBURG - Mar 10 2021

US Lane (served Quartermaster Logistics): United States, Canada, Puerto Rico

VESSELS: HYUNDAI SMART / 029E - ONE HOUSTON 

ETD: NINGBO - FEB 13

ETA :BUSAN - FEB 15 (the Hyundai Smart stops here, then we'll sail with the ONE HOUSTON)

ETD BUSAN - FEB 21

ETA: JACKSONVILLE - MAR 16

AU Lane (served by VR Distribution): Australia, New Zealand

VESSEL: LOTUS A/0MD1HW1

ETD: NINGBO - Feb 7 2021

ETA: ADELAIDE - Mar 9 2021

Note that we used the ship up to Singapore, and we're still waiting confirmation for the final ship that'll... Ship to Adelaide port. We'll post the links in this Update comment section as soon as we know more.

As for the Asian lane, we’re still waiting for our Asian hub, VFI, to resume their service after the Chinese New Year holidays and retrieve the stock from the factory. Since it’ll be a relatively short trip on trucks, we don’t have specific information or dates at the moment, but we can safely assume that it’ll roughly be on par with the rest of the Lanes.

+++ IMPORTANT +++
  We’ll be locking down addresses on February 24, so make sure that your shipping address is up to date and that everything looks correct. You can edit your address and update it through your Pledge Manager: you’ll find the link in your survey confirmation email. If you've lost your survey and need to retrieve it, you can do so on our Backerkit home page at https://railroadink.backerkit.com/

Once shipping addresses have been locked, you won't be able to update them any more. Today, on February 22, you will receive an automatic "Final Notice" message from Backerkit. 48 hours after that, the addresses will be locked for good. After the lock, changing your shipping address will no longer be easy: if you have some doubt on your current address availability, do consider putting in another “safer” address (e.g., a relative’s house).

As usual, if you need any help on the matter don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]

Taking a dive into cyberspace, we finally have some news on the Digital version of Railroad Ink Challenge. The Alpha stage is completed, and our team started preparing for the Closed Beta, which will be available to all backers who purchased the Founders Edition add-on by the end of March... so stay tuned!

If you purchased the Railroad Ink Challenge Digital – Founders Edition add-on on Backerkit, you’ll get an email invitation to join the closed beta on Steam once itis released, and you’ll be able to test it out and help us iron out bugs and glitches before launch. After the beta test, when the game is complete, you’ll also receive a download key to redeem it on Steam (it will be compatible with Windows and Mac).

After all this technical information, we hope you’d like to have a sneak peek at the final products: we received a lovely care package from the factory, and we hope you’ll enjoy the pics as much as we did!

P.S.

We are launching a new Kickstarter campaign soon! We’re leaving the calm landscapes of Railroad Ink, ready to venture into a brand new world of vehicular chaos, frantic puzzle solving, and… Tiny Turbo Cars! Be sure to check our preview page if you want to be notified when it launches, we’ll be honoured to have you at our side once again for a new crazy adventure!

Until next time!

Sincerely,
the Horrible team

Finally… The Shipping Update! Check your Addresses!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 12:49:09 AM

Dear backers,

We made it! After what felt like an eternity (for us too, believe it!) we finally got notice that the containers are correctly embarked! Your rewards are officially on their way to your homes! Soon we’ll also receive the complete ship tracking information that will allow you to follow them in their voyages toward each hub, so stay tuned for the next update!

The fulfilment process for our kickstarter is divided into “lanes”, one for each continent.
We worked closely with the factory to optimize the production, and with a huge effort from all involved parties, we managed to load all the goods destined to the European Lane, the Australian Lane, and the United States Lane on the corresponding ships before the Chinese New Year holidays!

Just for a quick reminder, here’s the Lane division:

• EU Lane (served by Fulfillment Europe): EU, UK, rest of Europe, Africa, South America, Rest of the World (our EU hub acts as a bit of a wild card!)
• AU Lane (served by VR Distribution): Australia, New Zealand
• US Lane (served Quartermaster Logistics): United States, Canada, Puerto Rico
   

The fourth lane, the “Asian Lane” (covers China and the rest of the Asian area), will be picked up by truck after the Chinese New Year break by our Asian hub, VFI. Once they check and separate it, they’ll either proceed to fulfill Chinese orders or send the stock to their secondary hubs to fulfill the other Asian regions.

Just as a quick note for our UK backers: we still have no news in regards of the Brexit situation, but it is our firm intention to let you receive your pledges with no additional costs. We are working with Fulfillment Europe on a few possible shipping solutions to achieve that, so don't worry.

It’s going to take roughly 6-8 weeks for the rewards of the US and EU lanes to get to our hubs, and we can expect a bit of delay once they (and AU lane) reach the ports due to the unavoidable congestion of ships linked to the difficult times of the ongoing pandemic. Please note that we expect the Asia Lane will roughly start to fulfill as usual a bit early than the rest but at this point the time tables are still not clear.

Producing and moving the stock was no easy task at all, believe us, especially with the numbers of the Railroad Ink Challenge campaign… just to give you some random but interesting numbers, we’re shipping out:

• Goods for a volume of 144 cubic meters among all the lanes.
•  More than 5000 individual Collector Pledge bundles in total.
•  15 tons of games/expansions/accessories… to the EU alone!
   

These are just a few examples of how big this campaign has become! While bringing this project to fruition was a real challenge (seen what we did there?), we are really proud of what this community helped us to create!

+++ IMPORTANT +++

While the cargo is sailing to its destinations, we’ll be monitoring the situation and preparing the last bits of information that we need to fulfill the project... your most up to date shipping addresses.

This is where you come in: we’ll be locking down addresses on February 24, so make sure that your shipping address is up to date and that everything looks correct. You can edit your address and update it through your Pledge Manager: you’ll find the link in your survey confirmation email. If you've lost your survey and need to retrieve it, you can do so on our Backerkit home page at https://railroadink.backerkit.com/

Once shipping addresses have been locked, you won't be able to update them any more (this is because we need to send them in advance to our fulfillment hubs, so that they can start preparing for the thousands of shipments that will be needed to deliver all of your rewards).

On February 22 you will receive an automatic "Final Notice" message from Backerkit. 48 hours after that, the addresses will be locked for good. After the lock, changing your shipping address will no longer be easy: if you have some doubt on your current address availability, do consider putting in another “safer” address (e.g., a relative’s house).

As usual, if you need any help on the matter don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]

Next week we’ll post another update to give you the ship tracking information, a reminder to check your shipping address, and we’ll also finally be able to give you more details about the upcoming closed beta of Railroad Ink Digital!

As for our tradition (we do have weird traditions here), here’s some pics of the cargo being loaded. An adventure starts!

Until next time!

Sincerely,

the Horrible team