We’re so excited for this one… it has been heavily playtested and the feedback has been fantastic. So, a few weeks ago, we signed off the artwork and all aspects of Murder On The Moon with our manufacturer, and we recently got our hands on two printed samples of the game. It looks amazing!
Now that we have the sample in our hands, and have checked it over to make sure it meets our quality standards, full production is underway… There’s no stopping the launch now!
Something sinister is going down at the Museum of Legends and Mythology. The case is on!
We’re pleased to say that Episode One of The Cursed Exhibition has been shipped. We’re so excited for you all to start unpicking the mystery surrounding the death of Claudia Cobb!
Claudia Cobb needs you!
Backers in EU countries should expect their packages to take longer than usual to arrive as we are shipping them to our third party distributer who will then ship them to our customers – this is so we can deliver them to you without you having to pay costly import tax and handling fees.
Dan had a great time meeting the team behind the Puzzling Company podcast. Thank you so much for playing our games!
Jared and Zach, the team behind Puzzling Company got their hands on The Disappearance of Claire Makova: Episode One . Here is what they said…
“I think it is one of the most inviting narratives of a first episode we’ve played in a while,” said Zach. Wow, thank you! If you haven’t played our games yet, you’ll be interested to know that we designed our first episode to be an introduction to the series.
It’s a fine balance between making sure the episodes are self-contained as a fun experience, and also making sure there is enough of a cliff-hanger to lure you into the escalating story. The drama quickly ramps up! But if you just want to try the first episode, that’s fine too.
One of our unique things is that we try and keep you fully immersed in the world we’ve created. So we make sure the puzzles make sense for a real Detective. “It all felt very appropriate,” said Jared. “It stayed within the narrative.”
Jared likes that we even “framed the hint system as a Detective who is more experienced, who is willing to offer some guidance.” So if you are new to these sorts of puzzle experiences, you’ll be in safe hands with our expert detective, Lucid Montgomery guiding the way.
Here at The Detective Society, we’re very proud of the tens of thousands of detectives that solve our cases. But even the best detective can learn new skills, so I’m going to examine my favourite police show – the always super realistic (ahem) BBC series Line of Duty – to see what skills we can learn from the gang at AC-12.
Examine the Evidence Carefully
If AC-12 are going to interview a suspect then you know they are going to have a folder filled with evidence to back them up. Our detectives are no different – we provide you with all the evidence, but you need to go through it carefully: checking the details in the documents, examining suspects’ personal effects and trawling websites associated with the case.
Think Laterally
Ted Hastings didn’t float up the Lagan in a bubble, and neither did you. Just like Kate and Steve, you’re going to need to piece together bits of evidence in order to work out what is going on – maybe you need to use a suspect’s phone records to work out which burner phones they were in contact with, or break into their online banking to piece together their movements.
Things Can Change Quickly So Be Prepared
As Steve Arnott well knows, one moment you can be going for a lovely drive in a van, the next you can be pinned down by gunfire – so you always need to be prepared for the next twist or turn. When it comes to solving one of our cases, give yourself space so you can lay all the evidence out in front of you and make sure you have a phone to hand in case you need to text or email some suspects.
Follow the Letter of the Law
As Ted Hastings says everything has to be done by the book, otherwise you might find yourself looking like a bent copper (although this is some advice that Ted needs to tell himself). We advise our detectives to make sure they follow the instructions they are given, otherwise who knows what they’ll get themselves caught up in.
Don’t Trust Anyone
If we’ve learnt one thing from Line of Duty, it’s that you can never tell who is a bent copper – every officer might have links to organised crime, so you can’t trust any of them. When it comes to investigating those people involved with cases, detectives should always be aware that someone might be lying.
I think these are the main things budding detectives can learn from Line of Duty, but if you think there are other things that I’ve missed be sure to let us know on social media and if you now feel ready to take on a case of your own then be sure to check out our store.
As you will have seen from our many updates, emails, website notices and posts on social media, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to unravel the problem of the extra fees being seen by our EU Kickstarter backers. We’ve consulted many of our players publicly and privately and we’ve shared everyone’s frustration at the current state of affairs.
What’s happening?
In case you’ve not yet been a part of the conversation yet, here’s a round up of what’s happened so far and what we’ve learnt:
Since Brexit on the 1st January 2021, customers in the EU are being charged “import VAT” and “handling fees” to receive our games. In some cases, these fees are excessive in comparison to the price of our games.
The fees vary from EU country to country.
In January, we wrote to all EU Kickstarter Backers and gave everyone the chance to “delay” the shipment of their games, until we could find a way to reduce or eliminate these extra fees.
Was this foreseen?
We clearly state on Kickstarter and in our website terms that we do all we can to avoid extra customs fees for our customers, but that, ultimately, our customers are responsible for paying these fees should they arise. This has been the case for customers outside of the EU since we started our company.
We followed all the government guidelines in the lead up to Brexit, however as the deal with the EU wasn’t completed until four days before our exit, these guidelines were insufficient for companies like ours that sell directly to consumers in the EU, so we’ve decided to take action to remove the burden from our backers…
What is the plan?
Our customers – especially those that take a chance on backing us early – are part of the lifeblood of our business. We are, like you, passionate gamers. We started our business because we simply wanted to try and make cool games and share them with as many of you as possible. In this instance, we don’t want any of our players to have to shoulder an extra financial burden through no fault of their own, even if it means we have to make a loss.
So here’s the plan:
If you have NOT chosen to delay your games:
You will continue to receive your games each month, and the burden of customs & import fees will continue to be your responsibility as per our terms.
We’ll aim to send ALL your undelivered games in/around July 2021, in a single parcel.
We will work with a UK fulfillment provider to pay in advance, all delivery/customs duties, on your behalf. This means there should be no extra fees for you to receive our games. No action is required on your part.
We are doing this at a significant loss, and may have to change the way we run any future Kickstarters, but we want to make sure, in the first instance, that players get the games they pledged for without extra fees.
We hope this is good news to you all. We’re very excited for you to play Season Two, it’s a whirlwind adventure, full of many exciting twists and turns – we can’t wait to see what you think!
All copies of Episode Two have now been shipped and should be with you soon.
Also, those of you who have completed Episode One will have received an email yesterday containing the first piece of bonus content – which you all unlocked by completing one of our stretch goals. For those of you who have not yet completed Episode One, don’t worry, this content will be automatically sent to you a day or two after you finish it, and fear not if you accidentally delete the email – a link to it is included at the start of Episode Two. If you get stuck then help can be found at the bottom of the Episode One clues page.
We hope you enjoy solving both the bonus content and Episode Two.
We’re very pleased to say that shipping of the first episode is now complete. We can’t wait for you to begin exploring what’s happened to Timothy Lee!
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work with the rest of the season – Episode Two is about to enter testing and we’re getting ready to start designing Episode Three.
If you ever need to update your delivery address you can do so by emailing [email protected]
Thank you, as always, for your support. We hope you enjoy playing.
We’ve been hard at work over the past few months working on Season Two and we can’t wait to share it with you.
Episode One is currently in its final stage of testing and we’re very pleased with how it’s looking. A few components have already arrived and the rest are due to be delivered over the next 10 days, meaning we’re well on track to ship at the end of this month as planned.
If you backed Season Two on Kickstarter and you haven’t completed your backer survey yet, please do so to ensure you get your games on time. If you’re having any issues with filling out the backer survey, please email us at [email protected]
As the final episode of Season One begins to hit doormats, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your amazing support. Building, designing and shipping Season One has been a mammoth undertaking, but we’re so pleased to have been able to bring it to all of you.
But the journey isn’t over yet.
Thanks to your support, The Detective Society is a company with an exciting future.
We’re very busy with Season Two: The Sudden Silence of Timothy Lee, a brand new six episode season of mystery and puzzles. The first episode ships at the end of this month. If you want to play it, you can purchase it from our website here: https://shop.thedetectivesociety.com/
Once again we cannot express how grateful we are to each and every one of you. You have been brilliant detectives and the nicest community we could have ever wished for. We hope to see you at the Society again soon.
