Greetings to the Creek Elves,
I’m Mike, co-owner of Elf Creek and the Director of Operations. I would like to give you a quick update on the status of Elf Creek Games and improvements we're making.
First off, I wanted to thank each of you for helping build Elf Creek into what it is today. We could not have lived this dream without your support.
As many of you know, Elf Creek Games started when two friends dreamed of opening a board game publishing company. We went from doing this as a side hustle to now doing this full time with a team of 4 (as of Summer 2021), adding Monique and Patrick to round out our team. They handle Customer Experience and Retail Sales allowing Brent & I to focus on game development, project management & logistics.
With your help, Merchants of the Dark Road was a massive success. Unfortunately, that success coincided with the global freight crisis. We may have been able to work through our growing pains without the extra stress, but with world-wide logistics melting down, there was no way for us to keep you from feeling the impact. We're sorry this has happened & we hope to do better. Our team has received hundreds of emails tracking down things like misrouted packages and missing items. We will respond to them all.
I wanted to apologize to each of you for the issues that arose and wanted to thank you all for your patience during this tough fulfillment period. I know a few of you have voiced your concerns and we have taken them to heart and have decided to make changes moving forward.
First, we will improve transparency — every week we will share a blog with our amazing community, spotlighting content creators & featuring updates on shipping and fulfillment, not only for Merchants of the Dark Road but all our titles. We’ll begin this Friday, as part of the first week of the Paradox Initiative Kickstarter.
Atlantis Rising: Monstrosities KS was November 2020 and the project has fallen tragically behind. Our wonderful artist, Vincent Dutrait, began the artwork in November of 2020 and his original timeline was for completion in 6 months. The pandemic was something that no one could have planned around and it greatly affected Vincent, our team, and Atlantis Rising: Monstorisites. Vincent shared a few words on his timeline and what happened, which we shared in a Kickstarter update in October of 2021. But now, the art is complete and our goal is fulfillment in early Autumn 2022.
Today, we can further clarify that the factory has begun working on the Atlantis Rising: Monstrosities files, and our publishing partners will soon be hard at work on the French, German, and Italian versions.
Next, we are bringing in help to catch up on our email and KS message communications. Even after we get caught up, we’ll be expanding our team permanently. Look for more news there later. Additionally, during The Paradox Initiative KS, we’re augmenting our team even further so Monique and I will be able to focus on the backlog of communications.
Lastly, we are changing the way we are handling fulfillment & logistics! Starting with Paradox Initiative and moving forward, we will be fulfilling Canadian orders at the same time as US orders from Quartermaster Logistics. We are also working with Gamesquest in the UK to partner with them moving forward in both the UK and in the EU from their German fulfillment center. The last thing, which may be the most important, is that we are planning to hire someone whose focus is JUST logistics & fulfillment.
We look forward to this new chapter for Elf Creek Games and appreciate all of the love and support we have received for Honey Buzz, Atlantis Rising, Merchants of the Dark Road & Paradox Initiative.
Happy Gaming!
Mike, Brent, Monique & Patrick
