Heyo!
We hope the past month has treated you excellently. If it hasn't, we hope you were able to, like, have snacks and go outside about it. Things have been deliciously busy on this end; lots of game development, and—most excitingly—the pledge manager is fully built and coming your way!
The pledge manager is opening! Please be sure to read the "Pledge Manager Details!" section of this update (below), and then keep an eye on your email inbox!
You will be receiving a pledge manager invite in the next several days. 🦋
Next Milestone: The pledge manager is opening....right now! Gamefound is doing their final inspections, a batch of test invites has been sent, and, once that all clears, the remaining invites will go out in batches in the days ahead!
Timeline wise, everything is on track! Development is going well, and we’re excited by the current momentum. We’ll keep you posted as things develop month-to-month!
The most important portion of this update is the pledge manager instructions! Before we get into all of that though, we can’t just not show at least some of the exciting stuff we’ve been working on gameplay-development wise!
And by "show," we basically mean tease. We don’t want to distract from the pledge manager details, so think of this as a quick little visual taste of updates to come! Let us know in the comments which of these things intrigue you most so we can take that into account when deciding what to deep dive on next month!
Yesssss! Quessssts! Lots of continued refinement on these! Visual design elements are developing to make everything as intuitive and gorgeous as possible (for example: the milestone-icon housing has been refined both here and on the milestone track so the association can be understood even by someone who doesn’t know how the game works)!
Lots more to talk about here in future updates.
Approach cards enable you to bring your own unique, well, approaches to the various challenges you face. The quests you choose to complete (and how you go about completing them) affect how your character develops and what types of approaches your character learns. Look for a much deeper dive on this in the months ahead; it's hard to overstate how friggin cool this element is.
The rulebooks for this game are ruling! (Ha! Please forgive this groany "wordplay".)
A lot of effort is being put into the rulebook system (its a whole thing, we'll show you soon). The goal is to make learning this game its own type of “Wow!” experience. We’re excited to get these into a shareable state.
“Resting” is so much more than just resetting all your stuff. SO MUCH more. In real life, resting is one of the best parts of being alive; it’s also going to be one of the best parts of Spirit Fire.
So much more is coming your way on all these things (and other stuff) in the months ahead. For this update though, let’s get back to the joy of building your pledge and imagining all these things in your oh-so-worthy hands!
Currently, the pledge manager is in the final stage of triple-checking with the Gamefound team, and a wave of invites has been sent out as a final stress test to make sure nothing weird happens when a bunch of people get in there at once. Once that all processes through, invites will start going out to the masses in batches. We don't have an exact expectation on how long these final few steps will take, so just sit back, relax, and be pleasantly pleased when your inbox dings!
Even if you've already received your invite as part of the final testing wave, please read this entire section of this update before proceeding to complete your pledge. Yes, even if you’re a grizzled crowdfunding OG—there are some unique things happening in this one.
Pledge Manager Basics
(OK, KS veterans, this is the one little piece you can skip)
A pledge manager is a sort of “final check out” for your Kickstarter pledge. It’s where you indicate what you want in your pledge, provide your address, and submit things to us as "finalized". The experience on your end looks a lot like an online store. There are many different “pledge management” platforms available. The one we’re using on this campaign is called Gamefound.
You will receive an email from Gamefound / Orange Nebula. In that email will be a link ("invite") to this campaign’s pledge manager on Gamefound. If you don’t already have a Gamefound account you will be prompted to make one. At that point, you will then be able to complete your pledge as though you were shopping at an online store with a giftcard pre-loaded!
Credits
You will receive “credits” in the pledge manager (“PM”) equal to your pledge total on Kickstarter (“KS”). You will use these credits to build your pledge in the PM. Important: there are no items automatically included in your order, you need to build your entire pledge in the PM. Any “pledge tier” or “add-ons” selected on KS were used to help calculate your pledge total, but that information does not translate to the PM. You can build your order however you’d like using those credits. You may also add to your pledge beyond your credits and make up the difference in final check out.
The “Story" (Campaign Page)
The pledge manager page looks a lot like the Kickstarter page. This is because the PM doubles as a storefront for people to make late pledges. As a KS backer, you can scroll past all the campaign graphics stuff.
If you ignore this advice and analyze the campaign on Gamefound, you’ll see that some changes have been made to the graphics to make them applicable to late pledgers. You can ignore these changes, they don't apply to you. Refer to the graphics on the KS page as necessary to refresh yourself on the campaign’s details.
Rewards
The Rewards section is where you pick the number of character boxes you would like in your pledge! Each player needs their own box in order to generate a character. If we could rename that section “Number of Players,” rather than “Rewards”, we would.
The rest of this campaign's content is featured in the Add-Ons section, including kits that will enable you to convert these character boxes to "all-ins," if that’s your desire.
FREE FOR SUPPORTING Kickstarter Extras: One of each of the free Kickstarter items is automatically included with each character box. So, however many character boxes your reward includes, that many copies of the “free for supporting” items will be included as well. Example: the Partner Pledge automatically includes two of each free item.
Color Kits: Each character box comes with one color kit of your choice, which provides cosmetic customization to various game elements. When you select your reward you will be able to select which color kit you’d like to receive.
If your reward contains multiple character boxes, there’s a bit of a trick that must be performed when picking color kits.
Let’s say you’re doing a partner pledge (2 character boxes)—
When you add this to your pledge, the pop up groups the character boxes in such a way that both will be receiving the same color kit. In order to select a different color for each, click the little “split” button next to the dropdown.
Now you can select a different kit for each character box!
Voila! So custom.
All-In Kits
Typically, a game would have a simple “all-in” option in the Rewards section to make it nice and easy to just say “I’d like it all please.” Spirit Fire’s format makes that a bit tricky though, so here’s how it works:
After the Rewards section is a section titled All-In Kits.
Each all-in kit has content intended for one player. So, if your pledge has a single character box, and you just want to add all the gameplay extras, select one “All-In Gameplay-Only Kit”. But if you had twocharacter boxes and wanted both to have all the gameplay extras, you’d select two of the “All-In Gameplay-Only Kit”—one for each character box.
There are three “all-in” kits available:
ALL-IN EXTRAS KIT: contains all gameplay and cosmetic upgrades. It does NOT contain sleeves, nor does it contain any additional color kits beyond the one already included in your character box. Super clarity: this contains all the content from the Gameplay-Only kit, as well as additional cosmetic extras.
ALL-IN GAMEPLAY ONLY KIT: does not contain any cosmetic upgrades, nor sleeves. Just gameplay content.
ALL-IN SLEEVE KIT: contains sleeves and only sleeves; sleeves enough for everything released in this campaign. Because neither of the other all-in kits contain sleeves, if you wish to sleeve you should add this as well. For example, you may select the All-In Extras kit to get everything, and then add the All-In Sleeves kit in order to sleeve it all. The only thing you’d be missing at that point are extra color kits, which are available as individual add-ons. More on sleeves below.
A “True” All-In
If you really want absolutely everything the campaign has to offer, you want the following:
- Character box (from the Rewards section) x1
- All-In Extras Kit x1
- All-In Sleeve Kit x1
- Color Kit add-on x4 (1 each of the 4 colors not selected to come in your character box)
If you have additional players who also want absolutely everything, add the above items again for each additional player.
Sleeves
Your best bet for ordering sleeves is to consult the Card Sleeving Guide on the campaign page.
The short version is this: you have two decks, you can sleeve each deck in whatever style sleeve you want. There are also a bunch of non-deck cards that need clear sleeves.
The All-In Sleeve Kit: To make life easier(ish), the All-In Sleeve Kit automatically includes the correct number of sleeve packs to sleeve all the content. You just have to pick which styles you want. Here’s how it works.
Click “add to pledge” on the the All-In Sleeve Kit.
In the pop up window that follows, click “show items.” (This is very important)
You should then have two drop down fields to select which sleeves you want for each of your decks.
Clear sleeves are automatically selected as your third option.
If you do NOT click “show items,” you will only be presented one dropdown field, and whatever you pick will be applied to both decks.
Retailers
Please hang tight for now! We are making separate arrangements to handle retail pledges, you will receive an email in the weeks ahead.
Stretch Pay
We are using Gamefound’s Stretch Pay system. This is exactly what you assume: you select "stretch pay" when you finalize your pledge and you then pay for it in installments over the next few months. It’s pretty straightforward, and a fantastic offering by Gamefound that we’re very excited to make part of this campaign.
If you want more details, you can read here: Official Gamefound Info Page
Pledge Manager Timeline
The pledge manager will be open for several months. That being said, the faster you finalize your pledge the faster we have reliable data that we can use to plan and prepare for manufacturing and fulfillment. Our hope is that—especially with the addition of stretch pay—we will see MOST pledges finalized within days of this update. That would be immensely helpful to us as creators. That being said, finalize at a pace that's responsible for your situation. We'll post a loud update when the deadline for finalizing is approaching!
Assistance is Available!
If you need any help at all, don’t sleep on asking your fellow community members in the Orange Nebula discord. There are lots of fellow backers that are very willing to lend a hand.
If you’d like more formal assistance, please don’t hesitate to email groundcontrol@orangenebula.com and we’ll answer whatever questions you have! This is a big, complex campaign for a game with a fairly unique format—it’s perfectly natural to have questions! We’re here to help.
Gamefound Account Sync
If you have a Gamefound account that doesn’t use the same email address as the email you use on Kickstarter, please email us at groundcontrol@orangenebula.com. Let us know both email addresses so we can associate your KS credits with your Gamefound account.
The Fire Inside
AHH! Every month this thing feels more and more real! Thank you for all the excitement you continue to share with us—we're so grateful you're here, and that we get the opportunity to create this ambitious thing alongside you and the rest of this ridiculously special community.
As always, if you need us, we’re right here, plugging away in our pluggin’ type way! If you need to get in touch with us in any type of formal capacity, please email groundcontrol@orangenebula.com! Note that social media, Kickstarter DMs, and other things of that nature are pretty unreliable on our end, so if you need us, that email is the answer! Or, answers are in that email? We’re not entirely sure of the physics of it all, but we know it works.
If you want to hang out in more of a whimsical, unofficial, day-to-day kind of way, there are typically a few of us lingering in the Orange Nebula discord!
As always, our intention is to deliver a monthly check in here on Kickstarter! So we'll see you back here sometime in March! Any little details that find their way higgeldy piggeldy into other communication channels (like discord), as we hang out in our off hours, will also make their way here in the monthly updates. So if you watch just one space, make it this one! These updates will always be the official place for: The Official Information!
In the meantime, while you await your PM invite, swing back to the top of this update and let us know which of those development teases you're most interested in hearing more about! Why does that one intrigue the most?!
Keep being awesome, we're super into it.
O-Neb
