Hello Friends,
Welcome to the July 2024 edition of our newsletter! We missed June due to this little thing called The Summer of Isaac. You may have heard of it ;). We are back now and in this edition of our monthly newsletter, we will go in-depth into each of our current (and future) releases and some exciting news regarding conventions!
Current Projects!
The Smurfs: Hidden Village Pre-order Launched!
In cooperation with the Kaedama Team, Maestro Media brings you a brand new board game! In this exciting cooperative game, you and your friends will become Smurfs and embark on a thrilling adventure. Gargamel, the evil sorcerer, has discovered the Smurfs’ secret village and they flee to the forest. It’s up to you to help rebuild the mushroom village from scratch! But watch out for Gargamel, the infamous Howlibird, and his sneaky cat Azrael, who will stop at nothing to uncover your new location. To succeed, you’ll need to work together as a team, collecting resources, building inventions, and locating missing Smurfs to help rebuild mushroom houses. The Smurfs look alike, but each has a unique set of skills that you must use strategically to outsmart Gargamel and his minions.
Pre-orders will ship in November 2024 and all pre-orders come with a free mini expansion pack!
The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Game Flash Sale
Who needs Prime Day anyway? Running through the end of day Monday July 22nd, you can buy your very own copy of The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls at 30% off!
The Summer of Isaac
Things have been more than a little busy for the Maestros this summer! Starting with the Edmund Booster Pack, Four Souls is getting 3 brand new booster packs this Summer, totaling nearly 50 new cards as well as a dozen new (and old) pieces of merch!
As with many of our launches, we have a pre-order period for our merch pieces and the boosters. The following schedule is our current estimated shipping dates for The Summer of Isaac items:
Alt Art Booster Pack: Final week of July
The Beast Shirt/Hoodie: Final week of July
The Basement Shirt/Hoodie: Final week of July
Trapdoor Water Bottle: August
Summer Pin Pack: End of August
Isaac and Guppy Plush Reprints: Early September
After kicking things off with various card reveals on Twitter, we also announced a giveaway art contest to help celebrate all of Edmund McMillen’s previous work! See some of our favorite entries (and winners of top-secret prizes) below:
The contests don’t stop there though! Through the entire month of July, you can earn yourself a free Alt Art Booster Pack by participating in our Alt Art Figure Contest over on Twitter! We have already given out plenty of prizes so far and some of our favorites are below!
Fulfillment Has Begun For DrLupo Presents: Streamer Standoff!
As of the 17th, All Streamer Standoff have shipped! It now joins Sugar Heist, Tapeworm, and Four Souls with permanent availability!
Sally Face: Strange Nightmares Delivery Update
We regrettably need to push the fulfillment timeline for Strange Nightmares back one final time to account for some final edits that are being made to the game to perfect it. While we could push print on the games as is, it would not align with our core value of producing nothing but the best for our fans. While this is understandably upsetting, this final pushback will allow us to make all of our necessary changes in time to get everyone an amazing game for the holidays! The updated timeline for Kickstarter Fulfillment is as follows:
- Manufacturing begins: Done!
- Manufacturing completes: Early September
- Games arrive: October 2024
- Shipping begins: November 2024
Following Kickstarter fulfillment, our pre-orders will begin to ship right away, with the goal to also get them all shipped before the holidays!
On a more positive note, below we have a wide variety of photos showing off all the progress we are making with the various bits of Sally Face merch including the white molds of the Sally Face Figures, the mockup of the new dice roller, and the art Steve Gabry created for the Vinyl Album Soundtrack! Enjoy :)
Hello Kitty: Day at the Park Delivery Update
Our Maestros behind the scenes took a bit longer to finalize everything for Hello Kitty: Day at the Park than originally anticipated. It was necessary to make sure the game was perfect for you all, but with perfection comes time. With time, comes a small delay in fulfillment of all things Hello Kitty: Day at the Park.
The new fulfillment timeline is as follows:
- Manufacturing begins: Done!
- Manufacturing completes: Mid-August
- Games arrive: October 2024
- Shipping begins: November 2024
As with Sally Face, all retail orders will ship after Kickstarter pledges are fulfilled, with the goal of getting everything shipped out before the holidays!
We also have an image of our team’s pre-production Hello Kitty Playmat! You can see it below. We are very proud of how it turned out and can’t wait to get our hands on more of them!
Future Projects!
Top Secret Launches
Throughout July, we are going to be launching multiple new games on Maestromedia.com. Keep an eye out each Monday this month 👀
Oni Press x Maestro Media
We are partnering with the award-winning comic and graphic novel publisher Oni Press to create 3 brand-new board games based on some of Oni’s most beloved comic books. We will bring The Sixth Gun, Dwellings, and Jill and the Killers to life, with the first of the trio of games slated for release in 2025! Stay tuned in future months for more updates regarding the collaboration!
2024 Conventions!
Astra
Maestro Media made a splash at the ASTRA Marketplace & Academy show in St. Louis, thanks to our awesome distribution partner, Flat River Group. They represented us at Booth #429, where they engaged with numerous attendees and retailers, sharing insights about our exciting product lineup. For more information or inquiries, retailers can reach out to the team at hobby@flatrivergroup.com.
SDCC
Comic-Con is Javon's favorite show of the year because of its historical significance in his career and the countless memories and friendships he's made over the years. Every year, he is excited about making new memories and seeing everyone at the show. If you want to connect, please send him a message—he would love to catch up with you.
Over the years, he’s had the pleasure of running countless panels and events at Comic-Con, but one of his all-time favorites has to be when they announced the Deadpool game at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con during his time at Marvel. It wasn’t just any announcement—Deadpool himself crashed the Marvel Games panel to deliver the news personally!
This year, he’s thrilled to announce that he'll be part of an incredible panel discussion at Comic-Con titled "The License Made Me Do It." Join him on Thursday from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM for an engaging discussion.
Saving the best for last! We are incredibly proud to announce that Maestro Media is sponsoring the CBLDF Party at SDCC, an event celebrating free speech and honoring the legacy of EC Comics. This year's party, on July 20th from 8 PM to midnight at the Westgate Hotel in downtown San Diego, promises to be an unforgettable night with special guests, exclusive merchandise, and live entertainment. Join us for a night of celebration, advocacy, and fun as they honor the past, present, and future of comic book artistry. Tickets are available for purchase through the CBLDF website—don't miss out on this incredible event!
Gencon
Maestro Media will be at Gen Con 2024! But you already know that, so now we get to tell you where we will be! You can find us demoing at Booth #1454 this year with 5 games and displaying even more! If you want to pick up a game after you try it out at the booth, you can purchase or pre-order copies at our partner FRG’s sales booth, Booth #1429.
For anyone who demos our games, we have some convention promo cards to hand out and games to give away don’t you worry😉
Essen
We are still working out the details regarding Essen but we will be there and are even hoping to bring some of our US-based Maestros with us to meet our international fans! We will get you more info when we have it!
More Conventions
We are actively looking into more conventions we can attend! While we don’t have more on this now, we will keep you all updated in future updates whenever we have more info!
That’s all for now! We will be back next month with another update! As always, please reach outhere if you have any questions and the team will get back to you ASAP! Looking forward to this time next month when everyone is receiving some of their pre-ordered merch and packs! We will take lots of pictures at Gen Con to share :)
~The Maestro Team
