Hey everyone, Jason here! Just a quick update to let you know I have submitted surveys/preorders to BackerKit for final approval. They say they need 2 business days to get back to me, but they're usually pretty responsive, and so if they get back to me with approval tomorrow, I'll go ahead and launch them. They may want to wait until Monday since we have to do the smoke test first, and they like to be available to respond quickly to any problems we encounter during the smoke test. In any case, I'll send a quick follow-up update as soon as the smoke test is active (the smoke test is 5% of the surveys—enough to see if there are any weird issues). After the smoke test is passed (usually 24 hours after sending it), I'll send surveys to everyone and then open the preorder store, at which point I'll do a third, more comprehensive update with revised timelines.

I know I've been a little quiet lately, and I apologize for that. But everything is back on track (it was never off track, I'm just a perfectionist, and a little gun shy because of this incredibly complex and perilous business environment we're all in right now). We're still working on the last two books, and so I've taken the extra time to really get the logistics part of this right. I've managed to get preorders and shipping down to very reasonable levels—I think folks will be happy with where we've landed on things, price-wise. I wish all I had to do was write the games, but unfortunately, we're a tiny operation, and so I have to do the business management, too. 

Ok, like I said, I'll let you know as soon as the smoke test goes out! 

As always, thanks for your suppot!

Jason 

Hello! The PDF of The Between core book is now available in the backer folder (linked in the backer-only portion of this post)! Now that the PDF is ready, we're ready to launch the preorders and pledge manager. I decided to hold off so that folks preordering would be able to get one of the book PDFs right away. Preorders and pledge manager should launch next week; I'll post another update when that happens so you can go pay your shipping and/or preorder. We have a couple of really neat add-ons for this campaign, which I'll also talk about more in that post.

If you are planning to preorder and want to get hold of the core book PDF before preorders go live, just DM me on Discord and I'll send it to you.

One thing you'll notice on the book PDF is that it's considerably larger than what we originally promised. That's because we decided to scale the book up to 11x7, as opposed to the original 8x5 we had planned (it's the same size as the Trophy books, which means about halfway between digest size and trad game books like D&D). Even at that bigger size, the book is still 260+ pages! It's a big boy! Shadow Society and Suns will also be in that format. I've included a picture showing the book as we originally planned it atop the Trophy books to show you the size difference.

Shadow Society is up next! Should be ready to go by the end of October! 

This update is for backers only, as it contains a folder with PDFs. 

Hey folks! Just a quick update that we're getting close to having the pledge manager and preorder store ready. I'm still getting it together, and then once it's done, I'll send it over to BackerKit for approval. Once they approve it, we'll do a smoketest on the pledge manager (where it gets sent out to 5% of backers in order to catch any issues before getting sent out to all backers). I'll update again once the smoketest goes out, probably some time next week. 

Thanks!
Jason 

Hi, everyone. Jason here.

As always, I want to kick off by inviting you to join us on The Gauntlet Discord server.

Before I dive into project updates, I want to shine a spotlight on the amazing work being done by Amanda and team over at Sprigs & Kindling. Sprigs & Kindling is a free Carved from Brindlewood fanzine that comes out every few months. There are now three volumes available and each is 100% FREE. Go download them!


Also, Sprigs & Kindling is going to be holding an online writing retreat in August! Here are the details: 
This free online writing retreat will take place August 11 to August 17, and is currently in planning stages. It will take place on Discord, and is open to people interested in Carved from Brindlewood game writing and design. Current sessions/workshops planned include: 

 If you are interested in participating please fill out this form! If you have any questions, please contact Amanda/iamatrex on discord or email sprigsandkindling at gmail!

I'm sorry to be crude, but the situation with the trade war is total dog shit. To be clear, I'm not speaking on the politics of the matter; there's nothing to be done about the politics at this point—it's the reality we have to deal with. And that reality, as it currently stands, is a 55% tariff on goods from China. Before Trump was sworn in, the thinking was that we'd be dealing with a 20% tariff on Chinese goods. That itself was a bad scenario, but I was prepared to make a lot of personal sacrifices so it wouldn't affect our projects (who needs dental care anyway, amirite?). A 55% tariff is... truly awful.

The problem with the trade war isn't just the increased cost of goods, which would be bad enough on its own, but also the effect it has on available shipping containers. We are a small publisher, and we depend on being able to have our products tucked into the corner of a shipping container that is already coming over to the United States. High tariffs mean even higher shipping costs, because trade is reduced and there are fewer shipping containers.

And I know this from personal experience! We had to ship Trophy RPG when the pandemic had massively disrupted supply chains. Because of those disruptions, our shipping costs tripled from what we originally estimated. It nearly ended us, but thankfully Brindlewood Bay was a big hit and gave us some breathing room.

There's also just a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what's going to happen. Some people think books aren't affected by the tariffs, but that has not been my experience. We recently shipped the Brindlewood Bay Cookbook and had to pay a bunch of extra import duties, despite the fact it was labeled as a book and not a game. Based on what I know right now, I estimate that a 55% tariff means our total costs to print and get space on a shipping container will be doubled from what you would expect in a normal environment. 

All of this is even further complicated by the fact that our business was counting on being able to do certain things not related to The Between, such as doing a new print run of Trophy RPG with cash on-hand. That's completely out the window now, and so there's a whole big revenue stream I can't count on anymore. Anticipating that, I've had to cut back on a lot of things in the community, meaning I've had to take on a lot more work than I had at the beginning of the year. 

Like I said, dog shit. 

As I mentioned in the last update, the lack of clarity on tariffs makes it impossible to plan when we can open the preorder store and BackerKit surveys. We have several unannounced add-ons we created for this project, and we have no idea how much we should be charging for them. 

That said, we're moving forward. Allegedly, we'll be getting more precise guidance on tariffs in early July. I'm not holding out much hope that this situation is going to go back to anything like it was in 2024, but who knows? In any case, we're sending surveys and launching the preorder store in late July. Assuming the tariffs don't go any higher, we should at least be able to break even on the project, and so we have some risk tolerance there. 

To be candid, knowing that The Between is likely going to just break even is demoralizing, especially since it's because of arbitrary and mercurial trade policies being forced on us. I've had to really dig deep to find my motivation here. Happily, I've managed to find it in two places: 1) the community surrounding this game and 2) focusing on the things I can control. People love this game and have been playing it for 4 years now. The community surrounding it is amazing and inspiring—affirmed by the support you've given here on BackerKit—and no matter how bad things get, that is something that gives me life and motivation. I sometimes think about the fact that my game has been played by thousands of people and it's just mind-blowing. We're going to get this done for ya'll, trade war be damned.

As for the things I can control, well, that's making sure we get the PDFs back on track and released. My revised estimate for the PDFs is late August for the core book and maaaaaybe Shadow Society. Suns of Another World is a bit tougher to predict. Three of the settings are done, but we're still waiting on Blood & Coal. Assuming I can get Blood & Coal on track, a September release for Suns feels do-able. 

I do want to share some fun stuff with you, though. Below is a folder of all the ready-for-layout drafts of the core book handouts. This includes playbooks, Threats, Mastermind Conspiracy, Mastermind Confrontation, Hargrave House Rooms, Residents, and Reference Sheet. I know some folks would like to start playing with the new rules, and these docs—combined with the old edition of the game—will allow you to do that. There's also a big homebrew community for The Between, and I know those folks want to know what the new rules and format are like so they can make their homebrews match up. This will also help with that. 

A few things about these drafts:

You can find the handout drafts here.

Honestly, even if we don't get the PDFs completely finished until September, there's a chance we can still ship books by late December/early January—we have a good working relationship with the printer at this point, and a Chinese agent who helps speed up a process that used to take many months. More likely, though, I'd plan for late February/ early March 2026.

I'd like to end the update by sharing some more of the fabulous art we've commissioned for the game...

As ever, thanks so much for your support!

-Jason