Incoming Freight / Pirate-Sharks
over 6 years ago – Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 08:24:28 PM

Thieves!

Firstly, BackerKit survey lockdown went extremely smooth. Thank you all so much for banding with us to make it an easy process! If you have any questions or still need to make changes, please e-mail us at [email protected]

The Scoop

The freight has set sail! The games are finally on their way! This has been a long time coming, and knowing it is right around the corner has us ANXIOUS. 

Open Water

We have been waiting breathlessly to hear this news and finally they are out on the open sea. Now we only have to worry about pirates. And sharks. And, with our luck... pirate-sharks... See? Anxious. 

We expect the games to get to Blackbox's warehouses within the next 30 days. Once they are received they will start shipping out to you! 

Here is our updated timeline as of right now.

• BackerKit survey lockdown: August 1 √
• Product departure from China: August 14 √
• Product delivery to BlackBox: September 14-18
• BlackBox fulfillment: September 20-28

You can be assured to have Master Thief Early October. 

The timeline will continue to be more precise in the coming days/weeks. As this happens we'll bring that information to you. 

THANK YOU ALL.

Happy Heisting

Jacob & Jake

Shipment / Backer Kit Surveys
over 6 years ago – Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 08:35:21 PM

Evening, Thieves!

Quick update / reminder today.

Shipment

In the last update we relayed that the completed games should have left shore somewhere between July 14-17. However, it looks like the schedules didn't work out in our favor this time around. We've been assured that the shipments will go out this week, and we should know for certain by Wednesday.

This being said, the prospective timeline from the last update has been changed.

• Product departure from China: August 1 – 4
• BackerKit survey lockdown: August 1 
• Product delivery to BlackBox: Late August – Early September
• BlackBox fulfillment: Early – Mid September

Backer Kit Surveys

We were relieved to see a lot of you digging back into your surveys to make corrections. Like we said, we want to be sure no one is left behind or taken by surprise here. Our plan to lock down surveys on August 1 is still active.

There is still ONE more day to make changes to your shipping and billing info. For those who decided to add-on to their pledge, we want to repeat our message from the last update.

Edit>Copy
Edit>Paste

If you decided to add-on any additional items (poster, t-shirts, etc.) BackerKit has NOT charged your cards yet. We want to emphasize this, as some billing info may need to be changed in order to complete your requests.

Cards will be charged on the date of survey lockdown (August 1) 


Surveys will be locked and loaded at 11:59PM EST tomorrow.

Otherwise

We hope to come back to you this week with the news that the games are on the way to their respective warehouses. Any questions, please reach out to us at [email protected]. 

Happy Heisting,
J+J

Carry On / Important BackerKit Update
almost 7 years ago – Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:25:01 AM

Hello Thieves,

We are so excited that we have finally gotten to this part of the process. Things are running smoothly and we couldn't be happier with the product. After all this time, Master Thief is real, and it is beautiful. So here we are. 

Incoming Product

The games are packed up and ready to roll. We have confirmation that all Master Thief product will be leaving the harbor this week. That means after the intercontinental ocean journey they will be in BlackBox's capable hands within 30 days of departure. 

We have ticked all the boxes and are super happy to be working with BlackBox. They have positioned us in various warehouses around the world to better reach our backers, and be easily accessible to anyone looking to buy a copy in the future. As of right now, our rep at BlackBox seems confident the games will begin shipping out mid-late August.

BackerKit Lockdown

Now that the games are incoming, its time to revisit the BackerKit survey lockdowns. We have kept all surveys open, available for people to pre-order the game and make changes to billing and shipping info at will. 

We are planning on locking down all surveys on August 1st. If you need to update your shipping or billing info, you can recover your BackerKit survey here

After August 1st, you will not be able to make changes on your own.

***IMPORTANT***

If you decided to add-on any additional items (poster, t-shirts, etc.) BackerKit has NOT charged your cards yet. We want to emphasize this, as some billing info may need to be changed in order to complete your requests. 

Cards will be charged on the date of survey lockdown (August 1st) 


If you have any questions or concerns about billing, or you cannot access your BackerKit survey, please be sure to reach out to us via message/email ([email protected]) as soon as possible. We want to make sure no one is taken by surprise here, and given the amount of time that has passed since the survey’s initially went out, we advise everyone double check their responses regardless, just to be sure everything is correct. We understand things change, and there is a good window of time here to adjust your order.

So please double check your survey, lets make this a clean getaway together.

Recap

• Product departure from China - July 14–17 
• BackerKit survey lockdown - August 1 
• Product delivery to BlackBox - Mid August 
• BlackBox fulfillment - Mid–Late August 

We expect to have a more precise timeline in the next update. We have some other items to cross off our list now, and we'll keep you in the loop on this as well. Poster editions, swag production, new website... all coming soon. We will carry on, and there will be peace when we are done.

Until then...

Happy Heisting!
Jake & Jacob

Finally.
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 01:21:51 AM

Fellow thieves!

We haven’t had much to update lately. It had been a long, desolate stretch with no new information coming in. However, it has finally been an eventful week, and something worthy of an update has happened. So, with much relief: We have good news!

You read that right.

We finally have good news!

Surprise! We suddenly found ourselves with the final production samples. We have since then poured over every detail. Utilizing the proverbial fine toothed comb, a literal magnifying glass, we were not going to let anything slip past us. After waiting all this time, you'll understand that we are expecting perfection this time around...

And now, even better news!

Perfection.

What a relief it is. Everything looks awesome. Seriously. We are thrilled with this turnout. The quality is absolutely astounding, and the difference in product between the two plants is very noticeable. Take a look for yourselves.

Most importantly:
THE BLACKS MATCH
Now you can't cheat. Sorry. (Well, at least your cheating can't be our fault.)

The color and texture (especially with the Kickstarter exclusives) is exactly what we wanted, and exactly what everyone deserves to receive. Those playing mats are perfect. Better than perfect. They exceed our expectations. Everything has a consistent texture, color profile, and weight. Master Thief is superb. 

We have waited a long time, and the long wait has paid off. Thank you all for your patience. We can't stress this enough. We know this whole process has really pissed everyone off, obviously us included, you have to remember that. Its a huge relief to finally be here.

We've approved them. We get to move on! LEVEL UP!

Moving forward

All of this happening now means production has wrapped. We just need to get them shipped over. Things are going to start moving much quicker now. The plant requires about 2 weeks to assemble and prep the games for shipping. After this they will be sent to their respective warehouses provided by Blackbox. From there, they will be getting packed up and shipped to your doorstep.

As things progress here, we're going to have a slew of new info to bring to you. Real updates that actually, well, update you. 

In the coming weeks, look for:

• Warehouse shipping timeline
• BackerKit lockup (we'll make a big fuss about this again to give everyone ample time to update their shipping information if needed)
• Swag production (for those who backed at the Mastermind level or those who added on)
• Blackbox receiving product
• Blackbox shipping timeline
• Swag and poster shipping timeline
• ++ Anything else in between

We're so ready to rock this, we can't wait.
Let's dust all this mess off and get back to it. 

Happy Heisting, everyone.
Jake & Jacob

Production Redux
about 7 years ago – Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:39:37 PM

Hi there fellow thieves!

This will be a brief update. Since we have decided to move forward with the new plant we have transferred all files to them. This is like a giant reset button. Break glass in case of constant failure, as it were. So here we are. Back in the production phase. 

Scrap it

Everything previously produced with the old plant has been scrapped. Moving forward, the new plant will be handling all pieces and parts of Master Thief. The box, foil packets, rules, etc. This will ensure consistency with any future prints, and any further expansions we dream up.

Check it

We were extremely thorough and precise with our files to ensure that there will not be any mistakes. We took precautions to highlight any misprints or misunderstandings the previous plant had so that these could not happen again. The digital proofs we received back this week reflected that, and have since been approved. Now, they are working to provide us with samples, and we are waiting on them to provide a timeline for that. From our understanding, we're looking at 2 weeks or so before that comes in.

Tweak it

We did want to let you all in on a fun little adjustment we've made to the rules.The rules originally stated, “The player left of the dealer takes the first turn.” (Boring.) This has been newly improved to: “Any player may take the first turn, steal the opportunity.” (Excitement! Action! Cutthroatery!). The variation is so slight it didn’t even change the word count! However, we believe it gives it a fun, unique, aspect to a common part in any game. Enjoy making enemies!

Bop it?

So that’s it really. If you’ll remember from the first time around this is the waiting stage. Emails might be sent, phone calls made, but if everything actually goes smoothly we won’t hear from anyone until we receive the next copy.

Until the next time,

Happy Heisting.