Hey there,
Photo Tour is shipped.
The boxes are out, the tracking emails are (mostly) delivered, and fulfillment is finally behind us.
But if you’ve ever made a game—or backed one—you probably know the truth: the campaign doesn’t end when the funding goal is hit. That’s when the real work begins. And in this case, it took a full year.
That wasn’t the plan.
The campaign wrapped in late February 2024 — three days after my birthday (what a present!). The original schedule was tight but reasonable: about six months for production, including a bit of buffer. We had the core game finished. Most of the content was tested. It felt close.
But one delay led to another, and the months started to pile up.
The delay that started with a tray
Most of it came down to a single component: the tray.
I wanted the insert for Photo Tour to feel special. So I reached out to GameTrayz, because their work speaks for itself. We agreed on a timeline—two months to deliver the files. I was happy to wait.
Then two months passed. No files. No sketches. No real updates—just vague “next week” messages that kept slipping. I didn’t want to push too hard. I still believed it would happen. And I really wanted the best tray we could get.
But after five months of waiting and no real progress, I sent an email saying I’d need to cancel. That same week, the files arrived.
And I’ll be honest—the tray turned out beautifully. I’m glad we used it. But I still don’t know if it was worth the delay. These are the kinds of trade-offs that don’t feel clear in the moment. You just make the best call you can and hope it holds up later.
Freight math and long waits
In the meantime, the rest of the production moved ahead. We printed with Whatz Games, who were fantastic to work with. I’ve trusted them since I learned they made King of Tokyo, which was one of the first modern games I ever played with my family. They know what they’re doing, and the component quality came out exactly as I hoped.
We used Nextsmartship for fulfillment. They’re not a board game-specific service, but that turned out to be a strength—they were flexible, and I had a dedicated manager who helped adapt the process to fit our needs.
To save on costs, we chose sea freight and shared containers. That kept things reasonable financially, but it stretched the delivery timeline. By a lot. I started getting messages from backers—kind, patient, but understandably frustrated.
Shipping ended up costing nearly twice as much as production. And that’s with a lean, efficient setup. If you get that part wrong, it doesn’t just hurt your margins—it can derail the entire campaign. That’s something I think about a lot more now than I used to.
Then the emails start
And even once the games started arriving, the real work still wasn’t over.
Because once fulfillment begins, so does support.
You wake up to emails about tracking links, lost packages, dented corners, missing expansions. Some days it’s a trickle. Other days it’s ten back-to-back issues. You answer each one personally, and you try not to let it overwhelm the rest of your work. But it does.
That stretch—where your entire day is helping people get what they already paid for—is probably the most exhausting part of the process. It’s not glamorous. But it matters.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I realized I had underordered the Photo Projects expansion. Not by a lot. But enough to cause extra shipping, extra packaging, and a round of awkward emails I wish I didn’t have to send.
It wasn’t a huge failure. But it was unnecessary. And it reminded me how small errors stack up fast in physical production.
There were good moments too. We did full pre-production checks. I received over 15 kilograms of printed sheets in the mail—giant pages of components to review. Then came white sample boxes, packed with pieces, to confirm that everything actually fit inside. It’s a strange feeling, testing something you’ve spent so long designing. But when it works, it’s satisfying in a quiet, meaningful way.
The final result? I’m proud of it.
Photo Tour looks and feels exactly the way I hoped. The gameplay is strong. The production is clean. The box is something I’d be excited to open if I hadn’t made it myself.
Now we have to sell it
But the moment the campaign ended, we shifted into a different kind of challenge: selling the game.
We printed enough to cover all backer copies — plus 2,000 extra retail versions. That was always part of the plan. But now those games are sitting in China, ready to ship. And we need to figure out how to get them into the world. Quietly, that’s become its own project.
Right now, we’re focusing on Amazon. And that’s already come with surprises.
The games are still in China. We’re ready to ship them to the U.S., but Amazon won’t allow the listing to go live without the proper certification. We’d completed third-party safety testing, but it turned out we were missing the specific document Amazon requires.
We didn’t find that out until after waiting four weeks for approval—only to be rejected. Then we ran the tests again. Now we’re waiting once more.
Cash flow is stuck. And there’s not much we can do but wait.
In the meantime, we’re moving forward with the next projects. But I wanted to share this part of the story, too. Because I think it’s easy to look at a campaign that funded and assume everything went smoothly. But most of the real work happens in the months that follow.
And the people who stick with it—not just to make the campaign work, but to make the game right—that’s where this whole thing really comes alive.
Small feedback, big lift
One thing that’s helped during all of this: seeing the early feedback.
Photo Tour doesn’t have a lot of ratings yet — just over 70 on BGG — but the marks are really encouraging. Kind words, strong scores, thoughtful comments. It’s a small thing, but in the middle of a tough stretch, it reminded me why we made this game in the first place.
If you’ve played it and haven’t rated it yet, I’d love it if you did. Those early marks make a big difference — and they mean a lot more than you’d think.
🦊 Foxed Up #006 — Language-Independent
This week, Finn discovers the magic of a truly universal board game.
Grizz isn’t so sure.
Thanks again for being here.
More soon.
— Eugene
Founder, Timashov Publishing
timashov.games
