HEAVY PLAY // EquipMAG System & CURV Sleeves

Shipping Out!
9 months ago – Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 11:25:12 AM

Yesterday, we were finally able to receive and unload all the inventory at our warehouse. What you see in this pic is roughly 1/3 of the stock... we built a ton of products and now they're ready to ship!

Boxes with your backer rewards and pre-orders are getting packed out and shipped today!

The heavyplay.com website store is also now live. Please help get the word out. And don't worry, your orders are all getting processed before any new orders come into the system.

Thanks again for all the support. Can't wait to hear what you think of everything!

Almost There!
10 months ago – Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 04:43:04 PM

Shipping Soon

Our container ship is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Oakland next Monday, July 3. We're lining everything up at our 3PL warehouse in San Jose to receive the container on Wednesday, July 5. Hoping we can receive, inspect, and break down everything so we can start kitting out your orders before the end of the week. 

It looks like all the orders cleanly migrated through Kickstarter>BackerKit>Shopify>Logiwa (our 3PL's platform). There's still a handful of backers that had chargeback issues when it came to shipping charges, but I'll keep working with you to resolve any hiccups. I'm not 100% sure what you'll all see when it comes to printed invoices out of Shopify, but I wanted to flag something I at least see on my side to prevent any confusion. Shopify just knows the MSRP of items and not the discounted price from Kickstarter/BackerKit, thus some orders are marked "Partially Paid". Shopify also doesn't really understand the shipping cost and VAT applied in BackerKit, thus some "Paid" transactions may also show a "balance" or overpay. In both cases, you have nothing to worry about. From a fulfillment standpoint, all of these orders are good and will be shipped. (Note that for a few orders, I manually converted the "Partially Paid" to "Paid" but it was going to cause more accounting headaches, so I stopped after a few). If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out.

The Kickstarter and BackerKit Preorder orders are all queued up in the system ahead of our retailer/distributor orders so your stuff will get packed and shipped first. Thank you to everyone who has supported this campaign and helped to launch us off the ground. At launch, we've been picked up by Alliance and Southern Hobby for US distribution. Together they represent the vast majority of LGS's in the US, so hopefully you see us popping up in your LGS soon. Again, thank you Kickstarter backers for supporting us and getting us on their radars. 

Products

I was able to air freight a handful of each final production unit to me in advance of the container ship arriving. Just wanted to share some pics and point out one thing to look out for.

The RFG Deckbox MAX has a protective film on top of the showcase window. Please remove this before use. Note that the supplier used a mix of blue and clear protective films during the production run. For the blue, it's pretty obvious to remove it. For the clear, it may look dinged up, but that's just the film, which you can remove. For future runs, they've promised to only use blue film to prevent any confusion. (The protective film on the inside of the window has already been removed in production.)

Now onto the fun stuff...

GTM Magazine

Hopefully you've seen our ads in GTM (Game Trade Magazine) in the June & July issues. For the August issue, we'll also have an article and giveaway prize. Look out for the next issue when it drops.

The Dive Down

I wanted to say thank you to Shane, Stan, and Dave from The Dive Down. Many months ago, they reached out to me after seeing the Kickstarter and gave me the opportunity to talk about the products on their podcast. We definitely wouldn't be where we are today without their support and TDD Nation.  Starting in July, we'll be running ads on The Dive Down Podcast. If you aren't already a listener, please check it out and use the promo code you hear in the episodes!

MagicCon Las Vegas

Happy to share that we've secured a booth at MagicCon Las Vegas (Sep 22-24). Hopefully some of you can make it to the event and we can meet in person! Still working on locking in some other shows/tournaments through the end of the year. I'll share more once those others get fully set.

June Update
11 months ago – Fri, Jun 02, 2023 at 01:38:52 PM

Hi Everybody!

Just wanted to check in and let you know how things are going. At the 11th hour our old freight carrier pulled out (they were restructuring their business), but we've locked in a new freight partner which will bring our shipping container to the US. Everything is looking good with an ETA of June 28 for arrival at the Port of Oakland. Over the next few weeks, we'll be doing the final prep at our 3PL so we can your orders packed out as soon as possible. We're hoping we can get some orders out on Monday, July 3rd. They'll be out on July 4th for the holiday, and then we'll pack & ship the remainders on the 5th and through that week.

I've gone ahead and integrated BackerKit (and Kickstarter) into our Shopify store to utilize its backend. Here's what's going to happen over the next few days:

• BackerKit Pre-Order Store will stop taking orders. (No need to be alarmed with it disappearing. This is just to have a clean transition into the Shopify store.)
• Cards will be charged. This will cover your shipping costs, any add-on's, or BackerKit orders.
• Kickstarter/BackerKit orders will get imported into Shopify. This way our 3PL can see the individual orders more clearly and do their final prep. (Not sure if you'll get notified of this step automatically or not.)
• Pre-Orders on Shopify native (heavyplay.com) will open up.

Over the next month, do not hesitate to message me about changes of addresses. I can always go in and manually change things in the system.

You'll receive shipping information once your kit goes out about a month from now on July 3, 5-7. Thank you everyone for the support and patience.

P.S. I forgot to correct an earlier statement from an update about 2 months ago about the ETB Playmat. At the 11.5th hour we were able to get the EVA foam all the way up to the edge with the help of another factory that specializes just in lamination. Just didn't want anyone to be surprised when you get the final product and it contradicted my previous statement. Don't worry, you are getting the final/best version of the product.

Randy

GTM 280 Ad
11 months ago – Fri, May 12, 2023 at 11:13:19 AM

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to share some pics of the latest issue of GTM so you can see the ad in print.

Also sharing some production shots as the last final components get assembled and everything gets packed into cartons and onto pallets. We're aiming to get out on the next container ship on 5/20 (crossing my fingers)!

March of the (Manufacturing) Machine!
12 months ago – Thu, May 04, 2023 at 03:35:51 PM

As we're getting close to shipping, I thought I'd share some manufacturing photos/videos with you all. At this point, all the components are molded, but there is some assembly left to do. We have a few packaging pieces still coming in, but we should get everything packed out on 5/11 (cross our fingers) and put on a container ship.

All of our injection molded components are demolded with robotic arms vs. being hand-pulled off the tools. It's safer for the press operators, plus it reduces variability between parts.

Here's some detail shots of components being produced. We also have fixtures built for each product so we can ensure magnets are properly aligned during assembly.

For the people who geek out on "how it's made"... here's a quick video of our magnet gluing process. Our gluing machines are programmed to apply the exact same amount of glue, in the exact same location for every part. It's super precise so we can ensure quality. It takes a bit more time (and money), but it's worth it.

Thanks for the patience everyone. We're getting close! I'll send another update when everything is finally out of the factory and I have a more accurate ship date for you all.

P.S. One correction from my previous update a few weeks ago on the ETB Playmat. At the 11th hour we were able to find a different foam/fabric bonding supplier that could hit our original design and testing requirements. We were able to maintain the design as intended with the EVA foam reaching all the way to the edge, while still passing all our heat/humidity tests. Big props to my factory for playing to their outs and top decking the answer. Cheers.