Surveys have been sent, Late Pledges are now available!
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Jun 07, 2020 at 04:25:23 PM

Greetings Architechs!

Surveys

The smoke test went pretty well, we had no technical issues reported to us and apart from some confusion about how AddOns work, everything went perfect. Therefore we sent out the surveys today! Lots of you have already responded to the surveys. 

If you link didn't work or you did not receive an Email, you can recover your survey here: BackerKit Survey recovery

The surveys will stay open for at least 2 weeks, so you have no rush with them.

Late Pledges

For everyone who has missed the Kickstarter, we have prepared Late Pledge Stores for you to get in on the fun!

You can use the BackerKit Preorder Store or the MyMiniFactory Late Pledge Manager, your choice. Note that the MMF Late Pledge Manager is entirely in $ therefore the different prices. Also be aware that we have Merchandise which is only available in the BackerKit Preorder Store.

Beta Printing

With that stuff out of the way, we can now focus on beta printing. If you have applied for a spot, it is possible that we will contact you within the next couple of days. We will start of with just a handful of people and slowly expand over the coming weeks so be on the lookout for a message from us!

We are super excited to get this rolling, the coding side of the Townbuilder is nearing "completion", with me already tackling the Signbuilder. The models are also coming back soon, as our big rework to streamline everything for the future is coming to an end. Soon the real development pipeline will begin and I hope that I will be able to give you guys frequent updates on new features and models!

Cheers,

Christopher and the Townsmith Team

Smoke Test now, Late Pledges and Surveys soon!
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 04:37:22 PM

Hey Architechs,

I am very happy to announce that we can (finally) begin with sending the surveys!

We will first perform a so-called smoke test, which means that we will send out surveys to only 5% of our backers, to make sure that everything in the surveys is running smoothly. Once that is completed we will move on to the actual pledges and we will open up out Late Pledge stores!

So to help us to get everything set up quickly, please check your inboxes for the BackerKit Email in case you are part of the smoke test. Make sure to also check your promotions and spam folder.

IF YOU DID NOT RECEIVE AN EMAIL TODAY, DO NOT WORRY!

I will make another update post once all surveys should be sent out, then we can talk about missing surveys, for now, please be aware that only 5% of Backers receive one for testing purposes.

And secondly, I am very happy to announce that yet another artist joins our team! Alexandru, Rosumparat (which means Red Emporer), Popa joins as our new Concept Artist!

He will start off with creating concept art for all our Community Voted Sets, starting with the castle set. You can check out some of his work on his artstation, though it is far from everything he has produced.

If you have any questions, as always feel free to ask!

Cheers,

Christopher and the ever-growing Townsmith Team

Last Collab revealed, FM2 Giveaway winner and test printing!
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 26, 2020 at 11:20:03 PM

Hey Architechs,

it has been a couple of days since the Kickstarter closed and our daily updates stopped. It was a very exciting time for us and I hope for all of you as well.

But with the Kickstarter ending, the real challenge begins. The last weeks were filled planning, job interviews, and a large rework of the Townbuilder which saves us soooo much work in the future. We now have to fulfill loads of stretch goals and build a real functioning team and company on the way.

But step by step we will climb and eventually best that mountain. Launching with all basic functionality and the basic sets perfected in late June still seems to be realistic and we might be able to throw the first premium feature on top as well, but no promises yet :P

Test Printing

Just minutes before me writing this, we had the first successful run of the Assembler, spewing out a functional print-ready building, split into parts, and equipped with OpenLOCK slots to connect them together. With the Assembler being up and running again, and the Townbuilder also being reworked and clean, we are getting really close to starting the beta printing phase.

If you are interested in test printing for us, please send us an application using the Google Form we prepared. We will choose a small number of testers first and then a larger number later on once we are sure every pipeline is up and running smoothly.

Fog Monster Giveaway Winner

We are a couple of days late on the announcement of the winner, but frankly, there was just too much todo. Now we had the time to get all participant's names into the bowl and draw from it.

And the winner is... CrowOfGames from our Discord Server!

Congratulations to you, we will reach out to you via Discord and get everything set up so you can get your Fog Monster 2!

And to everyone who didn't win, don't worry we plan on doing contests and giveaways quite frequently after the Townbuilder launched :)

Legendary Dragons 3D collab

And lastly, let's talk about the pledge surveys and our last collab.

I am very happy to announce that we are collaborating with the Legendary Dragons 3D Kickstarter and the team, Lair, that created it! Lair brought the Legendary Dragons from Jetpack7 to life in 3D and they are soon launching their late pledges. Check out their incredibly detailed dragon sculpts on their Kickstarter Campaign Page.

So what will this collab bring to you Architechs? Well some of you have jokingly asked if we would do modular dragon lairs, and... we are not doing that (yet). We wanted to get started with this collab fast, so we started brainstorming what cool thing we could provide you all for your keeps, taverns, and homesteads. So I suggested something along these lines: "What if after hunting down one of the evil dragons, the party could take a trophy from it? To show off their successful hunt in their guildhall or home keep. How about we mount the heads of the evil dragons onto our signs for the Signbuilder?" and Will from Lair was immediately on board for that! So that is what we do :D

These Dragon Head Hunting Trophies will be available as an AddOn. For only 6€ you will get access to a total of 15 dragon heads to display in your buildings.

The following dragons will be featured:

• Balaur 
• Balleg 
• Feth'Razaal (Fury in Dragon Form) 
• Ilizinnii 
• Immryg-Umryss 
• Kur 
• Salathiir 
• Xylaarion 
• Tyrnin 
• Xavour 
• Red Great Wyrm 
• Naghi 
• Vyraetra 
• Zuth 
• Drake of Displacement

For all of you that pledged at the Master level, these will be available in the Sign Builder, allowing you to swap out the sign style and add custom text to the trophy. You called your version of the Red Great Wyrm "Schlozonger", no problem! You want to put a Date there instead of a name, easy peasy.

For all of you that pledged Journeyman or Apprentice, the Dragon Heads will be available as complete signs which you can place on your building.

Just as a disclaimer, even if we offer signs as files that are printed separately from the building and attached post-print, these heads will almost certainly be impossible to print without supports.

And as always with our collabs, let us know if you like this and we will look into other cool stuff to collaborate on with Lair in the future!

And for the surveys, we have just finished setting everything up and will smoke test them soon, so expect the first surveys to be sent out this week, with the rest of them and the late pledges launching either this weekend or next week.

We will contact the Guild Heads and the Syndicate Leaders individually about their commissions.

We are super excited to get the Townbuilder launched and start working on all the cool stuff we have planned for the future!

Cheers, Christopher and the Townsmith Team.

The Campaign ends, the future begins!
almost 6 years ago – Sun, May 10, 2020 at 11:40:13 PM

Hey Architechs,

6026 Backers, 293.058€ raised, 29305 % funded, 0 seconds remaining.

This is what I see in the admin dashboard. This little line of characters means so incredibly much to us! We did it. We fucking did it, Architechs! All of you and we here at Townsmith helped become the Townbuilder a reality.

Well not quite. There is still soooooo much to do before we can happily sit back and enjoy the Townbuilder. And that is what I want to talk to you about today, what the plan for the future is.

Pledge Surveys and late Pledges

So the very next step is prepping the pledge surveys and getting all remaining collabs ready. One of them is already well on its way I may be able to reveal it early next week! 

We aim to send out the surveys in about three weeks, and with them also launch the late pledges. These will run until we launch the Townbuilder, more on that later.

Where will we find information and dates?

The best way to keep up to date with the development and ask us anything is Discord. We have a really cool community of Architechs growing there, join our Discord Server now!

When we have that all managed, we will send out the pledge surveys and open up the late pledges. If you are a Backer, you will receive the information on those automatically via mail. If you are not a backer, you can sign up to get notified here: Pledge News Sign up.

If you are a merchant and you want to get updates on the merchant licenses and the Patreon, you can sign up to receive updates on that here: Merchant News Sign up

Apart from that, we will, of course, post updates here on Kickstarter, but they will be rarer than during the campaign.

Beta test printing

We are pretty close to entering the beta printing phase. In terms of code, the Townbuilder is ready for it. In terms of models, there are still about a third of our models left to be reworked for the OpenLOCK and floor splitting capabilities. We expect the first beta printers to be allowed to start in about two weeks. If you want to help out with that, please check out the Beta Printer Application Form

When will the Townbuilder be available? 

We aim to launch the Townbuilder at the end of June/ start of July.

What will be included at launch?

We want to have all basic functionality done until then. This includes the Pegs and Magnets, the OpenLOCK rework with its floor splitting capabilities and also the Export Wizard. We might be able to get the first premium features done as well, the first one I have already begun the work on is the Signbuilder, but these are a maybe, not a yes.

In terms of models we will 100% finish the Basic Sets until then. We also aim to first get the premiums sets in before we work on the expansions to the basic sets that have been unlocked, like usable doors and LEDs. Basically basics first :)

When will what be added?

That is a good question. We are still gathering resources for the fulfillment, both in terms of partners (merch for example) and employees (full time artist position). It is near impossible to give you dates, but we can give you an order of things.

First you have to understand that models are almost entirely independent from features. Tom and I are the programmers, while Monika, Oliver and whoever will be the third artist are doing the models. There are small intersections because some models are required for certain features but the progress of these is mostly independent.

For features, we aim to clean up all basic functionality until the Beta Printing Phase launches. We will then tackle the premium features, starting with the Signbuilder and Render Studio. Next up will be the Project Previewer and then finally the Scatter Layer. During the development of those we will of course often revisit the basic functionality to fix bugs and make the user experience nicer.

For models, we will mostly follow the order in which they have been unlocked. This means that after launching with the basic sets, we will start modeling the premium sets. Once they are done we will start to tackle the stretch goals one by one. It might make sense to tackle all stretch goals that expand a set together with the main part of the set, so this order might not stay the way it is right now. This also means that we will tackle the scatter part of the Kickstarter really late into the fulfillment which makes sense since the Scatter layer will also be one of the last features to be added.

But cmon tell us when everything is done and when the Patreon launches for more sets!

We expect to be a lot faster done with the coding than the modeling. This means modeling will set the upper limit for the fulfillment time. For the modeling progress, we want to aim to complete 1 set in a month. Give us 2 months or so to get the pipeline going and from then on we want to stay within that limit. If we now use this calculation it tells us that with 2 premium sets and 5 stretch goal sets we will need a total of 9 months to fulfill them starting now.

This means we will hopefully finish the fulfillment of this Kickstarter early 2021, at least as far as modeling is concerned. This does not include the fact that our artist can work on multiple sets in parallel, each one at one.

We expect to be able to give you a much clearer and more accurate answer in two or three months from now, with actual dates and a roadmap for reference.

Patreon - for Merchants and Users

Shortly after the Townbuilder launches, we will also open up a Patreon. This Patreon's only real use will be to distribute the Merchant Licenses. We had more than 50 people messaging us about these licenses, a number of 3D print shop owners we did not expect.

For normal users, this Patreon will not bring any value whatsoever in the beginning. We will offer a tip jar there, in case anyone wants to throw some extra money our way, but until the Kickstarter is fulfilled we will not offer anything in return there.

Once the Kickstarter is fulfilled however, we will open up the Patreon to normal users. In there you will pay on a monthly subscription basis and we will create 1 new set every month. This set will of course be community voted. We will also expand some older sets each month and we will work out loyalty rewards. We really want to use the money raised in this Kickstarter to slowly transition to a sustainable monthly income for the Team and the Servers.

What will Townsmith do apart from the Townbuilder?

Jesus Christ, calm down inner me that is asking these questions. We just finished this Kickstarter, what do you want from me?

Well, as I said earlier we expect to finish the programming work of the Townbuilder much faster than the modeling work. And then, of course, Tom and I won't have a lot on our plates, apart from bug fixing from time to time. We do have plans for another product besides the Townbuilder, but we restrain ourselves from even talking about it with each other until the Townbuilder is actually done. But be sure that this was not the last time you heard from us and our custom software solutions for 3D printing in tabletop games. We also have some very cool ideas for the larger future of the Townbuilder, like the very strongly requested offline version (this is NOT a confirmation that we will do it, just that we will talk about it internally), allowing user submitted content, and allowing designers to sell models for it without having to work out collabs with each one of them. But let's first focus on getting this baby up and running and then we can work on these things!

Sorry for this super long text post, but for there is a lot of stuff to talk about and plan for this exciting future with all of you Architechs!

Christopher and the Townsmith Team.

250k crushed CVS V Poll is live!
almost 6 years ago – Sat, May 09, 2020 at 03:52:43 AM

Hey everyone,

since you crushed the 250k goal with almost 19 hours still to go, I though it was just fitting to use this hype train we are riding here to put up the next poll. Feudal Asia wins with a devastating lead over the now also available SciFi.

Both of these choices leave the poll and they are replaced by Ancient Med and Swamp. Check them out here:

STRETCH GOAL SET V POLL

For all new backers, just letting you know that there is a Beta Printing Application Form, if you want to help out with the test printing that will start soon for the basic sets.

Apart from that, I really don't know what to say. We just made a quarter million euros and we have built an amazing community with it. All of us together can shape the 3D printing market for tabletop the way we, and I am talking about the community, wants.

Let's crush the 300k goal next and get that 6th stretch goal set in here as well!

Cheers, 

Christopher and the Townsmith Team

PS: Social stretch goal is almost unlocked, so it will be at 100 for sure tomorrow. Keep sharing though, just to be sure :P