Upgrading your gaming experience with Quality, Affordable, Portable Game Toppers with Thematic Game Mats & Accessories.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Dice Tower Con and New component Update News!
almost 5 years ago
– Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 10:26:57 PM
Greetings Game Topper Nation!!
I am on a plane writing this update on my way to Dice Tower Con! It’s a very quick 2 day trip with lots of meetings, some marketing and hopefully a couple games being played. I’ll be checking in, but Josiah will be helping answer questions quickly too. You can always email us at [email protected] or [email protected].
My heart is so full, all I can say is thank you! We are quickly heading to $300,000 and beyond!! Such a great start!
I am thrilled that so many stretch goals including our New Viking Mat, & New Scythe Inspired Resource mats are unlocked. They are spectacular! ...and those new mat storage bags rock!
Now it is time for me to reveal more. By this weekend you will see a larger group of items for us to unlock. They are extremely exiting items and package upgrades. I’m always wanting to add more value to those packages as our backers from campaign 1 can attest.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Q & A video we tease some of these new accessories and show how cool they are. The new collapsible cup holders and Dice Tower components are just off the hook better!
Our funding goal is met and we have already jumped in and started preparing for the production of our mats, our first aluminum order is placed, molds have been ordered and in process for the new collapsible cup holders and associated accessories, as well as packaging solutions. We are dialing in storage bag sizes for the Toppers and rail/leaf bags as well. Having been down this path before we had some processes already proven which allowed me to move forward, others we are getting a jump on now so we can deliver well! I am very busy and working hard for you.
The Goods:
I am so excited to show you a few pictures of the new HDPE double tray with added component wells, single HDPE XL tray with added component well, and the new and improved light weight collapsible cup holders. Plus new acrylic covers. You can place them side by side (as they are the same length now) to make an extended surface to place a notebook, dm vault, or miniature armies.
The big improvements here are ...
1. The new collapsible cup holders are heavy duty, dishwasher safe, food grade material that provides much greater flexibility of use and storage.
2. They accommodate cans of pop and other beverages, larger mugs with handles, large water bottles, they collapse easily, but not so easy that they cannot hold quite a bit of weight for component storage use while uncollapsed.
3. Because of this design, they will easily fit inside the pouches of the storage bag. (That was always a problem with the other clunky aluminum cup holders.)
4. The acrylic cover provides a great inside cover for flat bottom items like larger cups/water bottles, but also make a great dice tray.
5. The upper cover provides a great writing surface and is washable. While the 1st gen cork ones were cool, they can get stained, worn and not as durable.
6. Plus, they are all made in the USA.
This new solution just seams to be such an amazingly better solution! I want to make it our standard solution like I did with the HDPE components. I’m even designing a mini storage bag idea to carry them so they can be portable bit trays. My biggest challenge is my cost is going up, but because they are so much better, I will find a way to make these accessible as the standard solution without it breaking the bank.
Ben from Daedalus Productions has invested an incredible amount of time developing this solution.
The mold is being made now and if all goes well, I’ll have actual samples of finished product in a couple of weeks to do an even better job showing you than our silicone prototype sample. My supply chain on this should improve significantly as we can injection mold 10,000 of these in a week. So we are way ahead.
I always say, “if it is not good enough for Burky’s home, it’s not good enough for yours.” I want this stuff myself and I want it to last.
In closing,
I’d like to share a little dream of mine.
We have a “hope” goal of hitting $750,000. Hope is not a business plan, as my friend Scott Gaeta from Renegade Games studios has stated. So rest assured, if we do not hit that goal, all is well. We will do everything we say as this has been planned well and our stretch goals will be placed at a levels I am comfortable with in our business plan.
The reason I state our “hope” goal is ...this is where our company can add more staff to help grow the brand and take some of the burden off myself and my son. I have worked 65 - 80 hours a week for the last 2 years to make this dream of upgrading everyone’s gaming experience a reality. I’m thrilled and energized, but I have more ideas.
One of them is to help more publishers and retailers (see Queens Gambit Pledge level) upgrade their demo spaces. I want to develop a team with my passion to accomplish this. It all takes a lot of resources.
I also know that Game Toppers is not about me. I have known that from the start. I am like most of you, I want to make a reasonable income and take care of my family, but I’m actually pretty simple and pretty content not needing excessive income. I hope that Game Toppers is able to do greater good in our hobby and helping others in greater ways. We have done that. I don’t brag about these things, but they are in my heart. Your kickstarter support helps Game Toppers achieve these goals.
You might say well that great, but why does that concern me. Fair question, hitting this “hope goal” not only helps us add staff, but from products standpoint will allow us to produce more molds for cool accessories (big expense) and product skus to offer. The more cash flow I have, the more I will be able to offer, and the more volume we do the better our prices will be as we move forward. Can we say Lux extension leafs and XL mats? I knew ya could.
So much for my attempt at being concise. I have so much gratitude in my heart and have so much I want to share with you.
If you would be so kind as to help signal boost our campaign it would be very helpful and much appreciated!
Always my best.
Burky
"Live" Game Toppers 2.0 - Q & A - today 12 noon Central Time
almost 5 years ago
– Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 01:58:41 PM
Greetings Game Topper Nation!!!
We have scheduled our first Live Game Topper 2.0 Live Q & A today 12 noon Central Standard Time. Join Josiah and I for live questions. Product sneak peaks and information. Kickstarter no longer hosts these shows so we use YouTube live. This will be recorded and stay on the Campaign page for a bit.
Look forward to interacting with ya.
Wow! What an Incredible start! XL Leaf Accessory news and much more coming!!!!
almost 5 years ago
– Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 01:30:18 AM
Greetings new and former Game Topper Nation backers!!!
By the time I craft this email we will be over 300 percent funded!!!
You are the reason we are able to place these great gaming upgrades into the homes of people! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! (Do I use enough explanation marks?!
I'm just so dang happy and grateful!!! (Sorry for the length of this. I usually only do a couple a week.)
Announcement: We will be scheduling a Kickstarter Live Video Friday June 28th, 12 noon EST to answer questions and show off some cool stuff.
What a ride! I have worked 4 weeks without a day off coming back from the UK Games Expo and Origins a little over a week ago. ...and then finalizing this campaign! Yet, I am so energized! You cannot believe how pumped I am to bring these new and improved upgrades to you all!!!
I continue to hold to my commitment to reach out to every backer! I'm an ok communicator, but not a good writer, so bear with my colloquial nomenclature, and personal style. (I don't even know what that means)I love to share parts of my life and journey with my backers, because to me you are like family, and I value relationship more than the transaction.
While I may not personally be able to respond to every question (I did field 387 correspondences yesterday) my team is in place to make sure everyone is thoughtfully corresponded with. Kay and Josiah are great and well versed in our products and solutions. Josiah is now handling logistics with me and has been invaluable to making our solutions affordable and manageable. He is doing a great job! I couldn't be more proud of him! Please feel free to ask anything you may have questions about.
So... we are well on our way, and the funding goal is met, but there is much left to accomplish! We set the goal low knowing we where going to make more Game Toppers, in fact, we have already ordered the aluminum and it is in process. We still need your help in achieving high funding to offer more of what I have planned. If we do well, I'm going to be able to make more and more considerations to each backer and different packages to share the wealth so to speak, so please help us share this campaign with your friends and family.
I very much like to know something is proven before I ask for money. As many of you know, I pre-built 60 units before our last campaign at my own expense scraping up every nickle I had to make sure these toppers worked. Thankfully they did brilliantly! That is commitment to my word. Customer service is very important to me so I take that approach.
Game Toppers 2.0 most of our processes are vetted and even honed. You can see by the amount of new items we are offering, we we have significantly improved our footprint, but I have to tell you, I have only begun to tell you about the innovations we have planned.
Like the last campaign, my backers let me know what they where excited about and I was able to take the feedback to improve our offerings. Last campaign, I knew our Accessory rail was a great idea, but what I failed to think about was putting together a bundle for my backers. "Can we have a rail bundle, Burky?" I heard that and said, "yeah, duh." Why didn't I think of it? "Can we have a double rail bundle for both halves of our Game Topper, Burky?" Duh, again! It was amazing!!! Over 60 percent of you took advantage of this great innovation that provides you some amazing versatility.
We have unlocked it again, but stay tuned it may get even better!
Now I hear you again!!!The new innovative leaf system is getting a lot of folks fired up about all the possibilities. I'm excited too. I have to be very careful to not let that excitement cloud by business discernment. We have a lot of sizes. We have new and former backers. This can cause challenges in the amount of Leaf and mat SKU's I can afford to produce and carry over.
Currently the Leaves will be produced in the Standard Powder Coated finish in 36 inch width (Holmes Size), 38 inch width (Watson Size), and 48 inch width Mycroft size. This means we need to make some XL Mats. This is not hard to do with our proven supplier of our 3mm Premium stitched mats.
So what sizes and styles can I carry? I'm so glad you asked. To start, it is safe to say we will carry a 36 x 8 ft, a 38 x 84 inch, and a 48 x 8 ft in our 3mm Premium stitched Crimson Red. (There is a lot a talk about a Holmes Backer getting 24 inch leaf and needing a 3 ft x 5 ft mat. So depending on demand, probably an option.) Done!
Can I have it in Lux Natural Oak or Premium Walnut (or the old Waverly stained rail for 1.0 backers) and can I get a 84" and respective 8 ft mats in different styles? This is where it gets really tricky. Everything in manufacturing runs around efficiency, this means volume generally speaking. Low volume production generally equals higher prices.
If we reach certain goals by the end of this campaign, and I need to do some more math crunching, I will always side on making the best solution I possible can for each backer. That being said, it seems most likely, based on my discussion with my manufacture, if we reach some goals, we could make a quantity of Lux Natural Oak and Premium Walnut (and a small amount of Waverly as I have some left) Leaves.
What about the Mycroft in Lux or Premium? Making these units in the Lux and Premium is are very expensive due to 48 inch sticks of wood cost and waste due to warping. I'm not saying no, but we would need to hit 1,000,000 to do it. I actually think this is possible, and we are prepared with capacity to do twice that outcome.
"Burky, can we have a XL Leaf Bundle?" Duh, why didn't I think of that before! My crack team of graphic artists (which consist of me and my daughter Hannah- She is on "The Dragon" pledge banner) are hard at it and you should see some pretty cool stuff soon!!!! Done!
I have so much more I want to share with you, but due to this update being so long, I'll leave you with one little tease....We have some New Collapsible Cup Holders we have been working on with Ben from Daedalus. The mold is being made right now and the prototype is super cool! (Images coming.) This will provide multi functional use, component tray, accommodates cans, bottles, big water bottles, coffee mugs with handles, and is dishwasher safe, durable, lightweight and portable. (Please don't blast me with questions on these yet, I will release all the details soon)