Bear Mountain Camping Adventure: A Race To The Top

July Update
4 months ago – Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 09:53:39 PM

Hello! Time for the July update!

I have an official, estimated completion date for all of the games and add-ons! The manufacturer we ended up working with for this game is LongPack (Everdell, Brass: Birmingham, Spirit Island, etc.), and they have let me know that everything will be ready between Sep 20-Sep 27, and ready to ship the following week. It's taking longer due to the wooden component production needed for this game.

Counting all of the games, along with all of the expansions, mini-expansions, and add-ons, there are over 28,000 units (each unit being a game, expansion, or add-on) being produced! And with the high quality of production that they've shown to us with the pre-production samples, we are very excited to be partnering with LongPack for this game and can't blame them for taking the time needed to make it right. We are as disappointed as you are with the delay, but overall, are thrilled to have an official end in sight. 

I saw this in a Facebook group and thought it was funny:

In other news, to keep us sane while we've been waiting on manufacturing for Bear Mountain Camping Adventure, we've been working on our next game!

Some of you may have seen our announcement on social media, but we wanted to share it here, as it relates to the theme of Bear Mountain.

It's called Camping Season, and it pairs perfectly with our beloved Bear Mountain Camping Adventure! While we wanted to create an amazing game about going camping with Bear Mountain, in Camping Season your focus will be to design, build, and manage your very own campground! We're super excited about how the art and gameplay have come together, and can't wait to share more info on it soon!

As always, let us know if anything comes up, and thanks again for your patience! We seriously can't wait for you all to play Bear Mountain, and can finally get excited about an end date on production!

Casey & Zoey

June Update
5 months ago – Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 01:21:45 PM

Hey there! Time for the June update!

Manufacturing is still underway and is going well. The only thing that's holding us up right now is the Premium Wooden Token Upgrade. There is currently a delay in wood production at the factory which is causing the production of that unit to be delayed. They have informed us that it'll take an additional month to get those pieces produced. I know that the majority of you who backed this game are very patient when it comes to waiting for your games, and we appreciate that, but even so, we want to apologize for the delay. Although there's nothing we can do about it, we want you to know that we feel bad about the additional time added. As we've said before, we're pretty uptight when it comes to keeping things on track, but unfortunately with a project like this, there are a few steps that are out of our hands. 

We wanted to wait to charge for shipping until we were close to finishing manufacturing, so we are looking now toward the end of July. We will be sure to send out a couple updates before we do, so it's not a surprise to anyone. 

If you need to update your address, you're still able to do so in your BackerKit survey. If you need to find your BackerKit survey, you can use this link: 

Now for some good news: we're really happy with the wood pieces we've received as samples. The printing looks great and the colors are fantastic! 

The German and Italian translations of the rules have been completed, and the French translation is almost done as well. We are going to work on getting those uploaded to our website very soon for those who are interested! We'll share a direct link once they're uploaded.

Thank you for all your support!

Casey & Zoey

May Update
6 months ago – Thu, May 30, 2024 at 07:26:35 PM

Hello!

While there isn't too much for us to update you on at the moment, I wanted to let you know that we're still excited about this game over here!

We're trying our best to wait patiently for manufacturing, however difficult it may be haha. In the meantime, we've heard from a couple of our professional translators, who have informed us that the rulebooks are getting close to being completed, which is fantastic! I'll be sure to send out an update once those are done, so you know right away.

As promised in the last update, here's a couple pictures of the Deluxe Edition box! It's kind of hard to see the spot UV and emboss, but I'll tell you what, it looks and feels amazing! The main logo is embossed on all 5 sides, as well as the deluxe edition button on the front.

We are looking to charge for shipping in mid-late June, and will let you know what that will look like as soon as we have the final numbers for everyone plugged into your BackerKit survey. At that time, we will be locking addresses, so if you need to update your address, you're still able to do so in your BackerKit survey. If you need to find your BackerKit survey, you can use this link:

As a reminder, if you used your Apple ID to log in to Kickstarter, the BackerKit surveys will not be able to send to your Apple ID. If you have another email address that you prefer to use and haven't already had us update this for you, please email us at [email protected].

As the weather's been warming up here, we've been riding our bikes a lot, but haven't had the chance to do any camping or travel yet. What about you? We'd love to hear about any trips you've taken recently, or how else you might be enjoying the outdoors this year!

As always, your support means the world to us, and we can't wait for you to get this game!

Casey & Zoey

Manufacturing & Fulfillment Update
7 months ago – Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 01:47:18 PM

Hey everyone! Update time! :)

The past few weeks have been extremely busy as we've been finalizing the last few, crucial details in our manufacturing/fulfillment plan! Manufacturing has begun on parts of the game, which is so exciting and at the same time, surreal! 

As we mentioned in a prior update, we've locked in our shipping and fulfillment partner for the US and Canada. Now, we've also finalized our shipping/fulfillment partners for the rest of the world! We've been gathering quotes and information for this step since August, and we are very pleased with the pricing, and more importantly, quality of all of our partners for this project! 

We are working super hard to keep the shipping cost as low as possible for you, without compromising quality. Over the past few weeks, we've been working with the manufacturer on getting the boxes for the expansions and mini-expansions as small as possible, to save as much as we can for you on shipping. And, for what it's worth, all the the packaging is still going to look fantastic! We also tweaked just a couple small things that we noticed on the pre-production copy to make sure the game is looking and playing its very best!

With that being said, we don't yet have the finalized weights and dimensions for these components, although we do expect to have them within the next week or so. Once we have those numbers, we'll be able to let you know exactly how much the shipping will be (yay, fun I know) and we'll have an official date of when we will be locking addresses for shipping (which will be a couple weeks after the announcement). 

Okay, that's great...but what does it all mean? I just want to play the game!!

We feel you! And we promise that no one here is more anxious to get this game to your table than we are! :)

Expectations

• In our pursuit for the best shipping/fulfillment situation, and final tweaks to the presentation of the game, we expect the delivery to be 1-2 weeks delayed.
• As some of you may know, there is currently a crisis happening in the Red Sea that is causing cargo ships to avoid this area, re-routing around the southern tip of Africa. This has been going on since October 2023 and wasn't a factor that we took into account when planning our delivery date back in August. To be honest, we were rather hoping the situation would clear up before we had to ship, but it seems it's time to mention it, and we expect this to delay the final delivery date by about 2 weeks. 

Timeline

• Mass manufacturing complete by mid June (little bit of buffer time here). 
• Shipping to fulfillment centers complete by mid July. 
• Games delivered to you by late July. 

What's In It For You

• The shipping cost will be greatly reduced.
• With these final tweaks and improvements, the game will look, feel, and play better than ever, which is what you deserve for the extra month or so delay. 
• What's more, we are going to add emboss to the boxes of all the Deluxe Editions of the game! This was a stretch goal that didn't get unlocked, and will cost us a little more to produce, but you all have been so understanding and patient while we waited for the tray designs, etc. that we wanted to make it happen! 

It was very important to us that we delivered the games to you on time for our first project, which is why we had built in a couple extra months of buffer into our original timeline. Being the control freaks that we are, it's very disappointing when things outside of our control push our timeline back, but we are going to try to make the best of it!

Overall, great progress has been made over the past few weeks, and we are more excited than ever to have mass manufacturing underway! As always, if you have any questions or need anything, feel free to email me at [email protected], and thanks again for your amazing support! 

Casey & Zoey

Pre-Production Sample Unboxing!
8 months ago – Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 07:36:53 PM

Can you feel it in the air? The warmer weather is trying to make a stand against the winter cold here in the Midwest which means it's almost time to get back outside!!

And with that, let's get into another big update on Bear Mountain Camping Adventure!

Pre-Production Sample Unboxing!

Our first pre-production sample of the game was shown at GAMA earlier this month! Unfortunately, Zoey and I weren't able to attend, but we just received the sample in the mail today to take a look at it. You'll notice that some of the pieces are missing from the pictures below, and that's because we had the sample made specifically in time for GAMA. The manufacturer's factory for wooden/metal/plastic pieces had not yet re-opened from Chinese New Year in time to make some of the tokens for this sample, but we will get a chance to review those components thoroughly along with the expansion components very soon. There are a couple minor things that we need to adjust, as is common with the first production copy, but we wanted to show off everything that we could so we can all share the excitement! 

For those who are curious, the box size ended up being 12.5" x 12.5" x 3.5". We were happy to be able to keep it under 13" in length/width!

You'll notice a change from our last update with one of the tray designs from GameTrayz. Instead of a backpack design for the larger tray, we decided to go with a camper design for 2 reasons. Mainly, it fit much nicer into the box, which we were trying to conserve as much space on as possible (while still making sure there's ample room for all the expansions and card sleeves). We also like the idea of having both tent and camper trays to go with the overall theme of the game! They did not have time to color the trays, so they're black for this sample. The final tray colors will be a burnt orange for the tent trays, and a forest green for the camper tray.

The tent trays will be filled with the Activity Tokens, which are wooden components in the Deluxe Edition (shown) which is why they haven't come in yet. The camper tray has plenty of space for separating the tokens as you wish, as well as room for the expansions! We are so excited about how these turned out, and feel that they were definitely worth the wait. GameTrayz crushed it with the designs! Having everything separated nicely in a thematic way is going to elevate the gameplay in a big way!

We're also very pleased with how the box organizer looks/fits! Everything stays in place nicely!

Check out these TRIPLE-layered player boards, as promised 😊  There are just a couple tweaks that need to be made to these, but otherwise we're pretty pumped about them!

Front side, to be played with Bear Mountain Camping Adventure.

Back side, to be played with Legend of the Falls.

The linen finish looks/feels amazing on all the cards/boards!

A closer look at the trays and punchboard tokens:

First look (in the flesh) at the new art for the Legend of the Falls board since the re-work. We love how it matches the alternate side, but plays it's own way! The lighting wasn't really working with me so sorry about that haha. 

That wraps up the unboxing on the pre-production sample! We are extremely excited about how everything is coming together, and hope you are as well!

Timeline and Next Steps

I wanted to confirm that nothing has changed as far as timeline goes since the last update. We are still currently looking at an end of June/early July delivery date if all goes according to plan!

Our next steps for Bear Mountain Camping Adventure are to make the last few tweaks, review the components for the expansions/extras, and give the go ahead for mass production!

We'll be sure to let you know if anything comes up as we push towards mass production, but otherwise, thanks again for the support and talk to ya soon!

Casey & Zoey