What's that? An Update with some VIDEOS?!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 08:40:52 AM

Howdy y'all!

Whelp, after an extensive country-wide lockdown for over a year, followed by the sporadic open for a week/close for two weeks/repeat and finally a full blown herd immunity everybody's sick AND THEN the festival of the daggum bunny, it looks like we just might have scraped through the worst of it! 

I woke up to these videos from the factory and it would seem the machine has finally grinded back to life!

This first video is the final approval check for the new artwork on the game tiles for color matching.

Needless to say, I gave them the "close enough, all clear!"

The next one is what I'm most excited about...

MINIS!!!

Just look at all them Jenkins bros! Can you imagine an army of Cliftons barging into Sweetwater?! Hoodee!

Now that production is back on track, I'll be sharing any future videos of the production  as they come, so stay tuned!

High Noon Holiday Update
over 3 years ago – Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 05:49:33 PM

Ho ho howdy y’all!

‘Tis the season to let you all know just what the heck's been goin' on!

The last couple of months have been a wild ride over here, with the back-to-back holiday season but I’m happy to announce we officially began mass production of the expansions LAST MONTH! There’s no going back now!

As excited as we are about this next stage in development, it’s not without its hurdles. If you’ve been following the current global events, you’ll know that China has finally started allowing its citizens out into the streets to resume public life. The good part about this is that folks over there are finally able to get back to their daily routines as productive members of society. The bad part is a lot of them are now finally catching the ‘rona and it’s hitting them harder than ever. I’ve been told many of the workers in the factory are now out sick and - yet again - production has slowed to a crawl. The expansions are being made, however, so our thoughts and prayers go out to our workers for a quick recovery to full health.

I was able to get some pictures and video from their office of some of the samples that weren’t sent to us, for me to approve. So I’ll show you here!

This is the stack of updated Start Set tiles to match with the expansions. Not only is the artwork updated, but you can see from this picture that you'll even have all new obstacles to throw between you and your opponents! As I’ve mentioned in the past, these will be included in the Everything and the Stove pledge and also anyone who bought 2 or more expansion posses. So if you want these tiles for free, it’s not to late to add on some expansions!

Up next is the cone-of-fire for Father Franklin. You can hold this over the board to see who Father Franklin can target when he is deployed in his machine gun mode. I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, to be honest. Initial images the factory sent of possible solutions were all just skinny plastic shapes, like giant cookie cutters. But it seems they really understood what I was going for when I sent them pictures of my prototype, courtesy of the talented folks over at The Game Crafter. So those of you who have bought Father Franklin are going to be in for a real treat!

Last month, I went to work on another solution to an issue raised by our community and created cheat sheets to go with all expansions present and future. These will help to explain the new iconography found on the new tile artwork, as well as a player turn order sheet that also helps people understand how phases work. Here’s a sneak peek at what those will look like.

As I said in my prior update, we’re unfortunately not hitting our Christmas deadline as I had hoped. Regardless of which side of the isle you are on about the world-wide pandemic, what can’t be denied is the impact it had on manufacturing. Fortunately, we have good and dedicated people who are committed to seeing this game through and delivered to you, so rest assured we’re getting there.

The passion for High Noon goes beyond our in-house team. I’m constantly blown away by what some of you have put of yourselves into this game. One of our Discord members shared with me his custom 3D game tiles and I just had to share them with you all to see. Check these out!

Until my next update, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

October Update: Packaging Preview!!!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 02:18:55 PM

Howdy Pardners! It’s been a spell, but it’s finally time for our October update and boy do we have an update for you! Hoooo -dee!

The packaging samples finally arrived and they sure are purrrrrrrdy!

As expected, we caught some issues with some of the box artwork that needs to be fixed and QR codes that needed updating. We’ve already sent those back to the factory and that should complete the artwork side.

The inside trays are mostly good but need some tweaks. We’re working on them right now. But it looks like we should be going into mass production by the end of the month.

Realistically, this will put us beyond the Christmas deadline I had been trying to achieve. But I’m working on something for you all to have by then that will hopefully tide you over. But like any Christmas gift, it’s a surprise. So you’ll have to wait!

In the meantime, we've also got another incredible episode from Board Game Hackers. Check it out!

Be sure and like the video and give them a subscribe on their channel

Minis, Artwork and Packaging, Oh My!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Sep 04, 2022 at 01:47:16 PM

Howdy y'all!

As expansions production plods along, we've finally got some things to show and information to dish.

For starters, I want to quickly go back to the minis that came in a little over a month ago. While almost all of them were flawless, the Bandero Blondes came a bit blemished. Specifically, I noticed while painting them that the shotgun blondes looked like one of Henry's Wolfhounds took a bite out of their arm. 

While it may have made for a cool zombie rendition, I couldn't let that slide into mass production. I confirmed both minis shared the same flaw before going back to the factory. They took a deep-dive and found the issue. It's been resolved, as shown in their photo below.

While I was waiting on some proofs to come back from the factory on packaging, I went back to the drawing board on the Marketplace Expansions shelves. Their artwork did the job, but I was never fully satisfied with it going far enough. I'm big on story-telling and I wanted each shelf to tell a story about what it is and where it comes from and what one can find within them, even when the cards they hold are all gone.

Our resident artist Mikel has come such a long way from where we began and this became another opportunity to show off his unique skill to bring the High Noon world to life. This was also the very first time we worked together on "3-Dimensional" art pieces, which - as I've laid out in other updates - will become commonplace within the High Noon brand.

I'm really happy with the final result, which you can see Before and After here...

I'm now working on the packaging for this expansion, now that I have the final artwork of the assets to put on the back. Hoping to have that to the factory real soon.

And speaking of packaging, here's where I'm really excited! I just got this video from the factory last night and I couldn't wait to share it with you!

That's the samples for the packaging right there and they look sooooooo gooooooooood! I have instructed the factory to put minis and cards, etc. anywhere they'll be seen so it'll give the actual shelf presence. This will go a long way in promoting the game not just to the general public, but to retailers and distributors at trade shows where they can really see what this brand will look like with its own section of marketplace real-estate.

By the way, if you're a retailer or distributor and you like what you see and want to get in on the pre-orders before we hit the big red button, reach out to us and let's get a dialog going!

I'm really hoping this month is the month of samples, with the marketplace prototypes and these packages to show you guys more in depth so keep your fingers crossed and your prayers loud.

That's all for now folks.

'Til next time!

Back In The Saddle
over 3 years ago – Sat, Aug 06, 2022 at 09:31:52 PM

Howdy strangers!

I know it’s been a while since the last update. While I have been dropping updates in our Facebook group and Discord server, I haven’t made a dedicated post here in a few months. There’s a reason for that and I’m sharing it with you because – for better or worse – I am committed to this being the most transparent campaign on Kickstarter (I want that imaginary Nobel Prize, dagnabbit!). So this may make me and the campaign look bad, but it’s the truth:

For context, on the cancelled campaign, I wrote a pretty open-doors update toward the end, laying out why I created High Noon in the first place, what the inspiration was and more to the point, what I was going through in my personal life at the time.

Since then, things have been something of a rollercoaster. But for your sake, I’ll keep it brief. By the grace of God, I have been (at least to some degree) reunited with my son. We have been able to build an amazing relationship together and I have been blessed with the opportunity to create and share many special memories with him. Thankfully, I’m on the other side of that dark place that fueled the creation of this board game.

If you’re a father, you know these times don’t create themselves. We have to make that time for our children. We have to deliberately choose to carve out portions of our life, set things aside and reprioritize our list to put our children first. And truth be told, that’s precisely what I did here. After not having my son for 2 years, to then fighting with everything I had to get 2 weeks a month with him, I was granted the entire Summer vacation, and I deliberately spent the entire Summer with him. I worked from home, I kept him by my side, we played in the pool, I taught him to swim and to dive, I took him to Disney World for the first time and then to Universal Studios for the first time. We played games by day and watched movies by night and took every opportunity to make every memory we could. The last 3 months were entirely prioritized to him.

That’s not to say work hasn’t been getting done on the game. Every other week, we’ve had progress toward production and fulfillment. But it did mean I wasn’t taking a day to write an update here. That was a deliberate decision I made. That said, I should have given you guys a heads up about it. It didn’t cross my mind because I was posting updates in the Facebook Group and Discord (because it would just take seconds to do from my phone while I was with my son) , but I could have posted something here like “Hey guys, I’m not going to be around for a while because I have my son but things are still happening” and I do believe you all would have been fine with that. In hindsight, that would have been an easy thing to do and I should have done it and I didn’t, so I apologize for that. I promise to be better about things like that and to get back into the habit of regular updates here for you all.

Whew! OK, now that’s out of the way, on to the actual update!

Miniatures

We received the sample miniatures for approval with just enough time to paint them up for display at Southern Fried Gaming Expo, and they are absolutely gorgeous. None of the detail was lost on them in manufacturing. After painting them, even more of the detail came out and they’re just perfect. I call them “Atlas proof” because they can’t break! I’m no longer nervous about people picking them up and dropping them and watching them shatter into a thousand pieces, and neither will you be! I know it may seem like a simple thing, but after spending 3 years in a constant state of anxiety that a single split-second mistake would eradicate hours of detail painting, there’s no words to describe the feeling.  Even more, holding them in my hand, having them displayed on a table for people to see, these aren’t custom prints, these are factory produced miniatures, cements the realization that this is actually happening. High Noon expansions are actually happening.

Here are some side-by-side shots of my resin printed prototypes next to the Factory-produced PVC miniatures.

Game Tiles

You guys can all see the video the factory sent me of the game tiles in the last update. Needless to say, I was super excited to get them in my hands and show them all off to you. Unfortunately, when I received them, I found that the color of the tiles did not match what was shown on screen. I’m going to blame camera phones for that one. The coloring had a strong pink tint to everything and it was hard to see some of the borders around some objects and loot crate squares.

After some back-and-forth with the factory, they sent me two other versions of each tile, so I had 3 samples from them for all tiles. They really wanted to get it right. But again, they just couldn’t stick the landing.

So I bit the bullet and sent them my prototypes to color-match. That wasn’t cheap, but you can’t put a price on perfection.

Recently, they sent me a side-by-side of my samples with their color-matched tiles and I gotta say it’s definitely a marked improvement.

“Perfect is the enemy of good enough” - Somebody, probably

I’m happy with how these turned out. I hope you will be, too. I’m pushing them forward for production.

Packaging

With the cards, miniatures and game tiles completed, that has just left us with the packaging. I’ve submitted all of the updated artwork for every package but the Marketplace Expansion. I’m having Mikel do a complete overhaul on their design and I think you’re going to love their table presence. I’ll save that for another update when I get the prototypes in, probably next month some time.

The Marketplace Expansion packaging is the simplest of all of them, so I ordered samples of the rest without it. I just approved the sample cut files, so I should be receiving the samples in about 3 weeks.

Fulfillment

Things are moving pretty fast, now that the molds are done and the COVID scare seems to be lifting overseas. I set an objective of pre-Christmas fulfillment and I feel pretty confident we’ll hit that goal.

Conventions

One of the ways we could light a fire under the production and delivery is to generate more cashflow to cover current added and potentially more expenses from all of the industry changes. Right now, that’s all anticipated to come out-of-pocket but with more pre-orders, we can put that extra margin to work on getting everything over the finish line.

To achieve this, we’ve been attending various conventions around our area, while lining up future conventions around the country. Would be cool to get across the ocean to see some of you guys but I’m not sure that’s in the cards yet.

I’ve added a new page to the website where I’ll be putting all of our convention appearances at. You can see where we’re going and where we’ve been and check out media at those events as I can get to adding them.

These events have been a boon for High Noon in terms of awareness and have even generated a few sales to offset the cost of attendance, so we are excited to get our wagons rolling. So come out and play with us!

That’s it for this month’s update, y’all. Thank you again for your continued patience and support. I look forward to sharing exciting news more regularly with you all now that I’ve got time to myself again!

Giddy-up!