The Cake is Ready!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 02, 2020 at 05:26:13 PM

Dear Berrymandering pledgers, 

Thank you for your support on this project! By now each of you should have received your copy of the game. If your copy is missing please send me a PM so we can get that sorted out. 

A number of people asked us about the Play-a-State variant. We have started uploading States maps. You can find them under the Print-And-Play section of the website. As community members submit more maps we'll post them there.

We're incredibly grateful for all of your support. With your help we were able to get the first production run of Berrymandering completed. We invested some of our own money to order extra copies, and we've put them for sale on Amazon. So if any of you want another copy, you can order them there! 

Moving forward, we plan to continue to develop the game and distribute it to raise awareness of gerrymadnering. With the November 2020 elections coming up, this issue is more important than ever. Thanks for your support. We hope you enjoy playing the game and gain a better understanding of just how bad gerrymandering really is. 

Eliot and Justin

Games are on their way!
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 06:48:32 PM

We just shipped out games! Check your emails for a confirmation message and tracking information. Here's the view from the shipping floor.

This might not look like much but that's over 200 games that were packaged up and shipped out today!

Berrymandering at Virtual Gencon

There will be a Berrymandering demo at Virtual GenCon. If you want to learn how to play with us or if you know someone that would enjoy the game, signup for tickets!

Berrymandering on Tabletop Simulator

As we announced last updated, there is a Tabletop simulator version of Berrymandering. And we had some awesome support from TheDorito who put together scripts for the game to make it easier to play digitally! Now you can play with more than just the people you're quarantined with! Subscribe to the steam page and the next time you launch Tabletop Simulator the game will show up under your Workshop tab. (You will need to own a copy of Tabletop Simulator to play.)

The games have arrived!
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 09:03:18 AM

The games have arrived. All 2008 of them! That many games filled a whole palette. A huge thank you goes out to Adam Zimmerman for using his pickup to help us transport them home. Notice the masks? Good social distancing practices for us! 

Quality Check

Eliot is donating his living room for storage right now, and we're using that as our base to do a quality check. First we line them up in rows of 10, so that we can use a random number generator (dice!) to pick some samples to check for quality. 

So how do they look? Great! Of the 30 games we samples only one had an issue where it was missing a page in the manual. We sampled an additional 30 games and didn't find that problem again. Production problems, while rare, do happen and if you find that when your game arrives there is some issue please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible. The games are ready to send out to you, our amazing backers. We are updating the delivery data from the month of November to July. Additionally, all of the games that we checked, we signed. So if you're lucky, you'll get an autographed copy! 

Finalize your orders!

The next step is to finalize all of your orders. So go into the BackerKit site and fill out all the shipping details. You can also still order extra games if you want. We're going to lock the orders on June 22, 2020. After that you won't be able to make any changes to your order, and we'll charger your credit cards for any addons you've purchased. 

If you haven't filled out your backer survey yet, we'll be sending out a reminder email from BackerKit right away. If you have already filled out your survey, there is still time to make additions if you want. 

Remember that Berrymandering is designed to help make sure your vote counts!

The 2020 election season is just a few months away, and so we just wanted to remind everyone to make sure you vote. With the COVID-19 pandemic, voting might be a little more complicated for you. If your state allows it, consider applying for an absentee ballot. That's a good way to make sure you stay as safe as possible while making your voice heard. 

With all that's going on, Gerrymandering may not be front page news right now. That doesn't mean that its any less important of an issue though. Its important that every persons vote counts. When you play Berrymandering, you get a really strong sense of just how easily gerrymandering can make sure that it doesn't. So register to vote, and then make sure to do it! 

June 1st Update - Games have cleared US customs
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Jun 01, 2020 at 09:58:51 PM

A quick update on the status of our games:

• May 9th - Games unloaded from ONE COSMOS container ship in Tacoma, WA. 
• May 26th - Customs Cleared
• May 28th - Container loaded onto outbound rail
• Estimated arrival date our warehouse - June 10th
• Estimated quality check complete - June 13th
• 1-week notice sent out regarding Backerkit closing - June 13th
• Estimated BackerKit closes - June 20th

If there are further rail delays or a problem with the quality of the games in the shipment, these dates may be pushed out. Additionally, our warehouse receiving the shipment is operating under a reduced schedule due to the COVID19 restrictions in Ohio so it might take a few more days than expected to get access to the games after they have been delivered.

Other News: we're getting ready for Origins Online so we put together a digital version of Berrymandering which we will be demoing during the event. There will be over 6,000 events at Origins Online this year so come join us and play some games! You can now play Berrymandering on Tabletop simulator (this will require a copy of Tabletop simulator to play). We also still have the Print and Play version up on the website.

Reminder: Please make sure all your shipping information is complete so we don't end up shipping your games to the wrong address!

May Update - Our ship has sailed!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, May 01, 2020 at 09:26:15 PM

MagiCraft finished production in early April and the games are now traveling to us!

Thanks to our shipping partner Midwest Transatlantic Lines, our games were loaded onto the ONE COSMOS container ship which is currently sailing to Canada and then the US. You can track its progress here. 

Our games are scheduled to arrive in Cleveland, Ohio around the 21st of May at the earliest. Last time we shipped something by rail there was a two week delay so we'll see how that goes!

Once the games are here, we'll pick them up and do a quality check. Hopefully we'll have a video of this later in the month!

Now is a good time to finish your surveys if you haven't already done that!