Welcome to the Gay Sauna the Board Game pre-order store!
After an exciting and successful Kickstarter, we know there are even more folks out there who want to get their hands on the game.
All orders through this store will be fulfilled alongside Kickstarter pledges and include all Stretch Goals!
NOTE: Shipping costs will not be charged during pre-order, but will be charged later closer to fulfillment.
Check out https://kickstarter.gaysaunatheboardgame.com for more info about the game and campaign.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Goodbye 2022!
over 1 year ago
– Sun, Jan 01, 2023 at 03:48:42 PM
For the most part I've enjoyed 2022 - bringing Gay Sauna the Board Game leaps and bounds further has brought me so much joy and it's been incredible to get the positive response from the community we have had!
Not everything was rosy though, we lost someone very dear to us this year and nothing positive will ever fill the void they left.
I've also spent the most part of December out of action with flu anda chest infection. It's been so tough to be forced to stop - I'm used to keeping myself busy most of the time, but when something is stopping you breathing you're kinda not left with a choice but to respect it and just stop.
Progress Update
Thankfully progress on the game hasn't stopped - Jose has been incredibly busy and productive, not only finishing up all our incredible visitors but also adding final touches to our icons and card layouts.
Say hi to our Kickstarter Backer Competition Winners: Drake, Greg & Lilly!
That being said, we are running a bit behind schedule. I don't yet foresee a real delay in the final fulfillment of the games, but I'm definitely behind preparing the Reviewer and Print & Play versions. I don't yet have an updated ETA on these, but we'll get them sorted as soon as possible.
Our shiny new Kink icons!
Pledge Manager
We've also extended the Pledge Manager for another 10 days while we wrap up some of the administrative things in the background. So in case you've not completed your address details yet, or would like to add anything to your order, you've got until January 10th before this is locked down!
During the campaign we've had quite some attention from retailers and publishers who are interested in working together. This was incredibly flattering and super interesting for us to investigate. However after many many many discussions, we've come to the decision that we won't be making any Retail or Publisher deals in the coming period for Gay Sauna the Board Game.
For the retail side, we're just not yet at the kind of scale where we can split our inventory and our margins aren't yet high enough for us to give retailers the kind of discounts they've come to expect from publishers.
On the publisher side - we're busy now building our publishing company (ReRoll Works) and are already in discussions for future LGBTQIA+ games under this umbrella. The big draw for publishers was speeding up language availability, as we know there's demand for the game outside of English. While this is still very much on our minds, again we come down to scale and feel we need to focus first on ensuring we have big enough success with our initial edition before venturing into other markets.
For the wider world this has a couple of consequences; firstly the game will only be available in English for the time-being. We have a threshold for new languages so as soon as we reach this scale we'll be pushing hard to get translations and printing done to meet the demand. In the meantime we hope to be working with our community to help provide an external translation PDF to assist players.
Secondly, this means the game will only be available for sale through our website and in-person events. We'll be keeping a close eye on key markets for us, and should there be a good opportunity we will be exploring it, but this allows us to keep things simple.
Please let me know in case you've got any questions or feedback on this. These things have come from lots of discussion and consideration but for sure it's possible there are aspects we've not yet considered.
Until next time!
We're excited to be welcoming in 2023 and looking forward to everything it brings with it!
Wishing you a wonderful celebration this evening and all the best for the new year to you all!
Sorry for the late check-in
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Dec 19, 2022 at 03:34:23 AM
Hey folks, I'm sorry we missed an update last week, and also for the short update this week.
I was hit with this new flu going around, and unfortunately it descended into my lungs and I've been suffering from a severe chest infection this past week.
Luckily, Jose has been making great progress on the visual side - we've got all 24 visitor illustrations completed and moving on to wrap up other key visuals for the game.
Additionally we signed this week with AGR Priority, a Spanish manufacturer who will produce the game for us! It's all way more exciting than my struggling lungs can cope with right now :D
I'll be back next week, hopefully all better and on my feet again, but certainly with some more artwork to share and an update on timelines.
Weekly check-in
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Dec 05, 2022 at 03:54:05 AM
Hello everyone
Not much to report this week from this side - we've got a nicely growing group of folks in Discord, although I've not had quite as much time this past week to work on the game as I'd hoped, it looks like we'll have a great feedback loop for the final assets.
My delays mean our reviewer copies are likely to be delayed a little further still - I don't expect to be able to place the order much before Christmas. This doesn't affect the complete timeline though - so no need to worry, the complete games will still arrive as planned.
We are getting close to complete for the pledge manager, so if you've not get finalised your address details, please do so ASAP. You can get a new link to your survey here: https://saunagame.backerkit.com/ and please reach out in case of any problems!
Take care everyone, and wrap up warm if it's winter where you are! It's getting really cold here in Amsterdam...hmmm...maybe it's time for another trip to the sauna ;)
ACTION NEEDED: Pledge Manager info required (oh Discord Server anyone?)
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 06:14:40 AM
ACTION NEEDED!
If you haven't completed the backer survey yet, please can you do this as soon as possible? We're still missing about 90 of you and these numbers will still make a big difference on our fulfillment plans.
Things are still busy here at SaunaGame HQ! We've had some great team sessions to discuss all the awesome content we're stuffing into the box and we're getting more and more excited as time goes on to get the game out and onto everyone's tables!
Finalising design & copy
We're wrapping up the last few of our visitors, so before long we'll have the complete set of 24! Here's another cheeky fella while you wait for them all
Feedback Discord Server!
Throughout this journey we've been dependent on the continuous feedback we've had from playtesting and the wider community. As we reach the final stages we want to ensure we continue this and so we've decided to create a Gay Sauna the Board Game Discord server - initially to get feedback and have discussions on the final copy and content of the game.
If you're interested in joining and helping us out, send me a message here on Kickstarter!
New prototypes (for reviewers & demos)
Nothing to announce here, although getting feedback through Discord would help get the content in a good shape earlier :)
The rest of the timeline still looks pretty much the same:
December
Rules revisions
File preparations
Pledge manager & Preorder stores close
Manufacturing order
Print & Play v1 (initial publication) - potentially delayed by a few weeks
January
Print & Play v2 (tidied up for easier printing)
March/April
Receive physical copies from manufacturers
May
Fulfillment
Well, that's it from us. We hope you all have a fabulous weekend! xXx
Updates and Artwork!
over 1 year ago
– Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 04:09:38 AM
Happy Friday everyone!
We hope you all had a great week and have exciting things planned for the weekend. A cosy evening playing board game? Or maybe a fun night out at the Gay Sauna? Whatever you're up to, we hope you all enjoy yourselves!
We're back with our weekly update, and figured we'd walk you through the timeline of where we are at the moment:
November
Backer Surveys & Pledge Manager
More than 75% of you have already confirmed your pledges in the pledge manager - thank you! If you've not done this yet, please do - it doesn't take very long and it will remain editable for some time in case you change your mind or addresses.
In case some of you were hoping to pick up an extra copy in the pledge manager and didn't find it in the add-ons, we had a configuration issue so this wasn't available for the first few days. It's been fixed so it should be available by editing your add-ons in the pledge manager.
Finalising design
I've got to give a huge shout out to Jose who has been incredibly busy cooking up some delicious visitors for us to drool over! Thank you for all your hard work, I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.
We've still got a lot more graphic design to finalise, and I expect this work to continue into December as we review each component also with the latest game content and copy in mind.
Finalising copy
I had a lot of fun last weekend digging out all the old narrative text from all our previous versions to set the flavour tone and story in the game. Still in review with the team, but happy to share a handful of names for the Event Card deck:
Tiny Condom?
It's called Foreplay!
Fashionable Flip-Flops
Red Raw
We'll let you think about these for a while, and come back soon with a bit more context and let's see if we're thinking along the same lines ;)
New prototypes (for reviewers & demos)
It's likely to be early December before we can finalise the new prototypes to send out to reviewers, but it will mean these copies are much closer to the final print version, so I think it's worth the wait.
As for the rest, most things are still on track; however it is looking likely that the Print & Play v1 might not be finalised before the end of December, as we're cutting it fine on getting all the assets together. I'll do my best to see if we can release a beta version earlier on - I'll keep you all posted in the next couple of weeks as it should become clear what's possible and by when.
December
Rules revisions
File preparations
Pledge manager & Preorder stores close
Manufacturing order
Print & Play v1 (initial publication) - potentially delayed by a few weeks
January
Print & Play v2 (tidied up for easier printing)
March/April
Receive physical copies from manufacturers
May
Fulfillment
Thank you all so much for your support, we're so thrilled that the project got so much support and to be able to continue with all the confidence in the world. It's all down to you all, so again: Thank you!
We'll be back next week with some more updates and artwork for you.
