First wave of rewards sent! What comes next?
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 03, 2023 at 03:53:19 PM

Hello everyone, and thank you for your patience! I am personally sorry for how long everything has taken, and especially for the long gap in communication, but we're finally getting that ball rolling! You should all have received a survey, most of you have already filled it out, thanks!

First up, let's talk good news!

The first wave of rewards has been sent out as of 10 minutes ago. You should receive an email from Dropbox at the email you provided, from that email you can download the zip file containing gridded maps, un-gridded maps, or both!

There have been a few changes since the prototypes. The shadows have been updated and made uniform across all maps, so you won't have sharp lines of shadow where one map ends. A 10 pixel black border has been added to every map. This makes it considerably easier to cut out the maps when printed, and increases visual clarity when stitching maps together for a VTT.

Lastly, we've decided to re-name the project into Goblin Woods and Fey Hollows, hence the name being "Goblin Woods" in the files.

Here's a rough example of some new maps in action!

Now, some less good news.

This update comes after much difficulty with our small studio. After months of false promises and delays from two members of our team, we've had to part ways with two of our longtime friends and D&D party members on rough terms.  Our team of 4 has ended up a team of 2.

Without getting into too much detail, our duo of cartographers had promised to finish the full set of core maps over Thanksgiving break. That didn't happen, they asked for a 2 week extension, we allowed it, still unfinished. They assured us it would be finished before Christmas Break, it still went undone.

There has to be a final straw, and this was it for us. After MUCH back and forth over the holiday culminating in legal threats, we've been given the login info for everything, and the hard drive containing all completed maps... which is sadly far fewer than we had been lead to believe were completed.

In total, only the original maps for the promotion of the kickstarter had been finished, and maybe 10 more. None of the stretch goals started. None of the custom maps started. Hopelessly behind.

So, we got to work! 

What comes next? 

After much work over winter break, we have completed the core 50 maps, and they have already been sent out! Please let us know what you think!

Please understand though, we have not completed the variations yet. We have been hard at work to get the core sets finished, and now that the holidays are over, we'll be jumping right back into it! In addition, we have begun rough-draft work on the unlocked stretch goals, which are coming along nicely. We have also contacted the backers with custom projects to begin discussing their ideas. 

So, what comes next? Our immediate next steps are to finish the maps from BackerKit and get those sent to everyone who purchased them as add-ons. Following that, we will finish up the core project and send out 100 more maps to everyone! Following THAT, we will go down the list of stretch goals in order of unlock, and send those as they are finished. 

All in all, we anticipate this taking about 2 months. We aim to have the core set and add-ons finished by the end of January, and the stretch goals done by the end of February. I hate to have such a long delay on the end of an already over-due project, but I'm not gonna sugar-coat this then go over time again. 

Happy New Year to everyone by the way! New year, new SKMO, and we're looking forward to revealing some big things once we get a little closer to finishing this project!

Signing off for now, the new and improved, SKMO.

Pledge manager closing in 48 hours!
over 1 year ago – Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 06:20:54 AM

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in communication, Covid has been going around, and so far 3 of us have caught it. Both members of our art team got hit the hardest, ending up bedridden for almost 2 weeks. 

Soo, we're running a little slower than I had hoped we would, but I still have some exciting updates for you all! This week we have been putting the finishing touches on the core set, and it will be ready to go out next week! 

The stretch goals are woefully behind schedule however. The plan was to get them finished as quickly as possible and add images to the pledge manager so you'd have more than blind faith to go off of, but due to illness we had to choose what to prioritize, and we wanted to get the core set done and sent out ASAP. 

Speaking of the pledge manager, it's closing in less than 2 days! Everything in there will be available later, but without the Kickstarter pricing, so act fast if you want to grab anything!

Thank all of you so much for your support, I can't wait to share what we've made with you all next week! 

Surveys have been sent!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 12:52:56 PM

Hello everyone! Surveys have officially been sent out! Please be on the lookout for them, be sure and check your spam folders as well!

If you can't find it, please reach out to us, and we'll get it sorted as quickly as we can.

BackerKit surveys are coming!
over 1 year ago – Sat, Sep 17, 2022 at 06:00:47 AM

Hello everyone! Sorry we're late, ran into some difficulties on backerkit, who we are using as a pledge manager. Good news is, we've got it all sorted out, and as of a few minutes ago, the survey has been submitted for review. They said the process can take up to 2 days, so keep an eye open this weekend! Or, if you want to get started now, Preorders are open! Check out the link next to the main project image!

Soon, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.

You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!

After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page once it is live. 

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact us once our page is live.

Celebrations! And what's next?
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 10:06:44 AM

Hi everybody! So, I swear I made a post shortly after the project ended, but I'm not seeing it now, so that's odd. Maybe I left the page before hitting publish? Ah well.

Congratulations on funding over 200% of the goal! We at SKMO studios are so excited about the last day push that unlocked so many wonderful stretch goals! Because now, everybody gets so much more stuff included in their pledge!

So, what happens now? Anyone familiar with Kickstarter has probably read this a time or two, but it takes about 2 weeks for Kickstarter to collect your pledges. This is so that anyone who has their payment not go through has some time to fix it, so if you haven't been charged yet, maybe look through your spam folders in your email.

We are currently setting up our pledge manager, we expect it to be ready by this weekend, so keep an eye open! We have a lot of awesome tiers and addons that we added on the last day, which was less than ideal for sure. This is our studio's first kickstarter launch, so bear with us as we stretch out a few growing pains haha.

Also coming to the pledge manager, some new addon map packs! Each pack will feature a selection of brand new maps designed to serve as narrative building blocks to build your forest around. Some will be focused on providing epic encounter maps, some will have puzzles, some will have structures... I can't wait to show you all!

We may have unlocked some great stretch goals, and even gotten to the "goblin" part of Groves of Goblins... & Fey Hollows. Yeah, we didn't quite make it that far... 

YET

Great news everyone, the money we raise on the Pledge Manager? It's going to count towards unlocking stretch goals! That's right, even more freebies to unlock! 

More details coming soon!

-SKMO