Hello there everyone.

It's been a year since we received delivery of INEVITABLE, and during that year we've been busy prepping a new game.  Entitled CLOWNPOCALYPSE, it pits humans against an army of malign clowns who have ravaged the world.

Designed by INEVITABLE design team members Jeremy Bushnell and Crystal Olesh, it contains a lot of the black humor that made INEVITABLE a fun project.  But it's a more streamlined and elegant game: easier to learn and quicker to play, without sacrificing strategic richness.

As supporters of INEVITABLE, we thought you might be interested in hearing about CLOWNPOCALYPSE, and we hoped you'd consider lending it your support.  $25 gets you a full copy of the game, and if you're on a budget you can get a PDF version for as low as $9.  After only three days of fundraising we're already 29% funded, which is exciting.

Take a look! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dystopianholdings/clownpocalypse-a-horror-card-game-with-a-sense-of

Thanks! 

Jeremy B

OK everybody!

We shipped our first batch to supporters on Saturday but have more to go. The game contains a healthy amount of components that are either hand-assembled (22 pins) or hand-collated (the Groups and the money) and it takes a while to get them together. We'll keep building them as fast as we can, and your patience during this stage is appreciated.

If you supported us with a pledge of $45 or more, you should also have received a download link to the "Standard Edition PDFs"-- a complete set of the game in PDF form for your personal use. If you can't wait for your physical set, and you're busily assembling the PDFs right now in anticipation of your first game, you might want to check out the Quick Start video we uploaded to YouTube, which explains the basic rules and the details of setting up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

If you're just trying to get your friends excited about playing, we recommend the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

Best!
Jeremy (and Jonathan)

Oh wow.

The FedEx truck arrived today and dropped off 1,800 lbs worth of unassembled "Inevitable" components. Want to see what a pile of 500 games looks like? Want to see unboxing photos of the glorious components? Check out (and share) our Flickr set on the topic: http://bit.ly/9BjWpW

We've arranged for a HIVELIKE WORK PARTY to take place this Friday, and we intend to begin shipping out copies on Saturday.

Thank you all once again. This is literally like a dream come true.

SQUEE

Jeremy (and Jon)

Those of you who have "liked" us on Facebook may have seen this last week, but....

...after many small delays...

...the proofs have finally been finalized!

Our printers expect to ship the game to us on the 15th. If all goes well we'll be assembling and shipping copies soon! Cross your fingers!

Best,
Jeremy (and Jon)

Good news! We've been approving proofs like mad this week and the game will likely be in production by Friday.

While we're waiting, we wanted to draw your attention to another project that our Lead Designer, Jeremy, is involved with-- and which has a special connection to "Inevitable." It's a new "indie charity" called the Endowment for Unexceptional Humans.

The premise is unusual, yet simple-- they believe that all humans have the potential for excellence, and they wish to provide rewards to people who have a plan for success, but who may not have an existing track record of achievements and accomplishments. (There are plenty of scholarships and grants designed to reward exceptional people, so why not a grant program for "the rest of us?")

In fact, Inevitable benefited from a technology grant from the Endowment last fall, when our production computer began to break down. We didn't have money in our (incredibly tight) budget for a new computer, but we approached the Endowment and they provided for us.

Their mission fits with our company approach to creative, collaborative funding, and Jeremy was excited to do more with them. As a result, he now volunteers as a member of their board and is helping them with their own fundraising efforts. They're a scrappy team of less than a half-dozen people, and are trying (at present) to raise money without going to big corporate sponsors.

You can learn more by checking out their site: http://www.unexceptionalhuman.org

or visit their Kickstarter campaign: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/194153050/the-endowment-for-unexceptional-humans

Some of you have already contributed, and for this I thank you. And if you can't support the project financially, please consider just sharing the link (the short version is: http://kck.st/cjvhTs).

Thanks so much!

Jeremy (and Jon)

As some of you may have noticed, we've fallen behind on the timetable we proposed back in June. Today-- September 22, last day of summer --was our proposed ship date, and here we are, in the non-ideal present, with the game held up at the printer.

We've been putting pressure on them, trying to ensure that things get back into motion, and this week we've finally begun to review and sign off on proofs. Hopefully the actual production phase will go more quickly. At HQ we're busy readying the staging for our first big shipment, so they can go out to y'all just as soon as we get them.

In short, we apologize for the delay. More news as soon as we have it. We really want you to be able to play, and soon.

Best!
Jeremy (and Jon)

Hello everyone!

Jeremy and I have been very busy: sending files to the printer, getting quotes, sending corrected files to the printer, getting new quotes, etc... We're very, very close to actually going to press. It's tremendously exciting!

We're eagerly awaiting the day the games arrive and we get to ship them to our $75+ backers, and I'm sure you're looking forward to it too. To give you yet another teaser of what Inevitable is all about, we've created a new promotional video. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

The rise of HappyCom-9 can not be stopped. It is, after all, Inevitable.

Well, we worked really hard through most of late July and finally, on August 5, 2010, we closed production on all pre-press files and sent them off to the printer. (Only five days behind schedule according to the Timetable of Mass Awesomeness!)

This is really good news, and a completion of a huge phase of the project.

Remember you can always keep up with what's newest at Facebook, including seeing a screenshot of the pre-press board:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Inevitable/192682438697...

We're still moving towards a proposed ship date in September, but if we get done sooner we'll let you know!

Best!
Jeremy

Our first printing-- a limited edition of 100 games --is already largely claimed, many by Kickstarter donors like yourselves. If you donated $75 or more, a copy of the first printing is reserved for you and will be winging its way to your human-storage container the second we complete our run through the Timeline of Mass Awesomeness.

But we wanted to give you a heads-up that we still have some unclaimed copies of our very first run-- around ten --and just today we made this tiny batch of remaining copies available to folks who place pre-orders.

Thanks to your generosity we'll be printing a second batch, but not until the first printing is sealed and shipped. So if you know anyone who wants to get it early, send them this link:

http://inevitablethegame.com/content/inevitable-deluxe-version-pre-order

Following that link will also give you a sneak preview of the first draft of the box art...

Best!
Jeremy (and Jon)

There's been a lot of curiosity about when exactly the game will be done and ready to ship. With that in mind, Jon and I put our heads together and banged out this schedule. It is subject to change, but there's a fair amount of buffer time in there, and I think the odds are good that we'll stick to this schedule or something reasonably close to it. (Knock on wood.) If there are any big changes we'll announce them here and on the Facebook page.

RECENT EVENTS
May 28-30: "Final" round of playtesting, phase one: three days at Protospiel South. COMPLETE

June 1: Kickstarter Fundraising campaign ends. COMPLETE

June 4-11: "Final" round of playtesting, phase two: seven days with the Spring Forum for Alternative Community. COMPLETE

June 12-July 16: Integrating playtest data. A few assorted "cold" playtesting events. Continued solicitation of printers for price comparison purposes. COMPLETE

July 17-29: Visit to Chicago. Intensive meeting with CJO, the Chicago member of our Design Team, for final QA review of graphic elements. COMPLETE

Aug 1: To Print (may have different dates for different components) COMPLETE

Aug 2-30: Proofing / Corrections / Approval cycle (of initial elements from printer(s)) COMPLETED IN OCTOBER

FUTURE EVENTS
October 15?: Printing. IN PROGRESS

October 20?: Receipt (may have different dates for different components)

October: Collation and packing (of all elements into complete games and of games with other backer swag (T-shirts, etc))

October: INEVITABLE ships to Kickstarter backers first and then to folks who pre-ordered.

Thanks for reading!

Jeremy (and Jon)

Dear Friends,

Although we may not know each other personally, we have something special in common. We share a dream.

We share a dream of the future. Not a brighter future of hope and sunshine, but a distinctly different future. A future not much bleaker than our own.

A future where every citizen has the right to bear affordably priced weapons of mass destruction...

A future where the undead petition for the right to consume the tasty, tasty flesh of the living...

A future where a megalomaniacal supercomputer has the right to establish itself as Permanent Decider and shepherd its citizenry onward to glorious progress...

And through this shared dream, you've accomplished something amazing. You've raised $9,435! Now it's time to make our shared dream a reality.

It's time to unleash Inevitable upon the world.

2010 is when the dystopia arrives, and you're responsible for it. Be proud!

Thank you,

Jeremy and Jonathan

Hey all,

Sincere thanks to the "first wave" donors and the new faces that have arrived as result of our io9 coverage. Y'all have been amazing! At the time I'm writing this, we have $5,961 in donations – nearly double our initial $3,000 goal. That is... awesome!

It also puts us very, very close to a secret "stretch goal" that we figured out several weeks ago as we were crunching the math...

Our current plan has us ordering a some of the components as a package from one vendor (specifically, the box, cards, and board). As you know, our initial run of the Deluxe Set is 100 units, but we get a sweet per-unit price break if we order this package in a quantity of 500 or more. This will make it cheaper for us to produce the initial run of 100 sets, and will also leave us in a really good position to produce 400 more "second-run" Deluxe Sets if (when?) the first run sells out. (We even have a lead on free storage space to hold the surplus components in the interim.)

It makes good business sense, but it means that we're facing an initial printer bill of around $8,500. We have a few investors in line who are interested in helping us to make that goal, and we're each prepared to pitch in as much of our own money as is necessary. So, basically, you don't need to worry about whether the game will get made-- it will. (We're still on schedule for a summertime release.) But when we saw that our Kickstarter campaign had gotten to nearly $6,000 we began wondering whether one final push might take it all the way to $8,500, which would cover that initial printer bill in full.

If you already gave, we thank you, and we're not asking you to contribute more. We're already amazed and humbled by your generosity. But we'd love it if you'd simply spread the word. Let your friends know about Inevitable, and encourage them to get involved. (An easy link to share is this one: http://kck.st/cqqYv5) If we got only 33 more donors at the $75 level we'd be there. And then... then we'd start planning an awesome release party.

Our initial $3000 goal seemed hopeful, and we hit it in eight days. $6000 seemed wildly optimistic, and we're almost there now. $8,500 seems – well, frankly, it seems impossible. But we won't know unless we try. 23 days remain!

Sincerely,
Jonathan and Jeremy

PS: Tell us anything you might need to help spread the word. Want a snappy flyer that you can print out? Want a batch of free postcards sent to your house? Want a sneak-preview of the full rulebook? We can provide these things.

PPS: HappyCOM-9 adds "DENIZENS: MAXIMIZE YOUR COMPLIANCE BY SLAYING ALL WHO WOULD OBSTRUCT OUR GLORIOUS PROGRESS. "

The "I [Heart] Dystopias" T-shirts promised as a reward to our high-level backers are back from the printers! An image of the shirt can be seen down at the bottom of this update...

Anyone who pledged over $150 towards the project will get one of these for free, but if you chose to donate at a different level, you can still score one by visiting the Inevitable store. Here's a link for you:

http://inevitablethegame.com/content/i-heart-dystopias-t-shirt

Sales of these shirts will go towards paying our operational costs, so feel free to spread that link around to anyone who you think will appreciate the sentiment!

More soon,
Jeremy