Chris Pitt's Announcement (+ VaultMaze info)

[prodigy]

New information from Chris. I am not fully sure if the early bird offer is for us here in the forum too or exclusive for Discord but I will post the information here anyway. We can at least use it as information that can be fun to read for all of us that are interested in the VaultMaze

Please find attached an open letter regarding VAULTMAZE as promised. Discussions on discord have allowed us to focus on refining our project and we are reviewing our pricing to ensure people understand the full project and cost levels. We are updating the website to simplify the messages and this will be available to you all on Friday. We will then focus on the delivery. Please communicate directly with myself if you have concerns and I will take the time to answer these directly. We appreciate the time you have all given us to change the proposal. Once you have all seen the updates on the website, both Jazmin and I will answer direct questions. All the best. Chris

And here is the attached "open letter":

OPEN LETTER – Ashton Pitt Ltd

Discord – 22-March-2023

Reference: VAULTMAZE EARLY BIRD

Dear Discord Members

As promised, both the team and I have reviewed the messages put up on the Discord Server under the Revomaze section and would like to thank those people who contributed a positive position to our new project.

I must first make it clear it is our intention to bring puzzles that have a positive impact on both quality and playability. While we are not going to please everyone, that small minority should not spoil the new adventure by posting derogatory posts without having the opportunity to talk from direct experience trying the puzzles. It is not our intention to persuade you to do something you do not like, but it's up to the majority to decide if this is for them. Once launched, we hope the experience grows and people can then enjoy the puzzle, while views shared on Discord will be listened to and acted on with mutual respect.

Having said that, some of the views already posted by members on Discord have been taken on board by us and on these points from the discussions we agree as follows:

1) FAQ. The team have worked on an FAQ to help answer the many questions raised on Discord. This will be accessed from the landing page of our new website vaultmaze.uk along with other description changes to simplify the read.

2) Duplicates. While being influenced by the Pokémon Trading Cards, it is now not our intention to supply duplicate rings causing you to trade.

3) There has never been a contract associated with the subscription element within our new website hosted by WIX, that you can freely cancel at any time without penalty. This is just a way to set up a set number of regular payments to complete the whole puzzle and supply the goods after each payment in the same month. This was to allow us the ability to work production using our Manufacture Orders.

4) We have now reduced the whole VAULTMAZE puzzle from Level 6 (91 Mazes) to Level 3 (19 Mazes). By doing this we have worked out that the RING PACK size goes from 30 to 15 RevoRings and the START/END PACK goes from 10 rings to 5 as well as the STAND PACK. This has made the whole VAULTMAZE puzzle go from 18 months to just 7 months (Jun-Jul-Aug-Sep-Oct-Nov and Dec).

5) We have made the first two RING PACKS that hold a total of 30 RevoRing, making 5 complete mazes. This is so people who wish to just try this out and wish to cancel still can make 5 complete mazes but need two subscription payments.

6) We are making a new MAZE CORE PACK that will have the Drawbar, Certificate Bar, Body and Nut for people who want just to put the maze core to use in one of their own sleeves.

7) The SAMPLE PACK is essential to VAULTMAZE as this will eventually be the reference maze. Having this pack is also the minimum to try out the concept, however, you do not get the same experience trying to find the mazes from multiple RevoRings for different mazes.

8) For those puzzlers who complete all the mazes, the task is to then solve the HEXDUKO from the RevoRings numbers. The instructions on how to do this will be sent to the user once they have all their rings.

9) Once the VAULTMAZE code has been solved and verified using the instructions in part 8, The next phase will be sent to the user along with the completed VAULTMAZE coin engraved with their solved place number plus instructions for the special feature needed to open the winner’s box.

10) From the success of this project, we have two options, add more levels to the existing puzzle or create a new larger puzzle after discussing it with our users.

We will soon be putting these changes on our website so you can book the Early Bird before the official launch date.

We understand that some of you were confused by the discount mentioned last week, which was discounted from purchasing the PACKS individually over the subscription option. By not having the individual PACK Prices when we first announced the subscriptions, you had no way of knowing that the subscription prices were already discounted. We apologise for this.

We are therefore currently updating the website and have it ready for this Friday 24-March- 2023. Next week we are going to start to have live discussions with the team including myself, so we will let you know about this in due course.

The 10% extra Early Bird will still apply till the end of the month and the people who have already paid will be contacted to see how this can be applied to the new puzzle level.

Any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team at
support@vaultmaze.co.uk

All the best

Chris

Chris Pitt
Managing Director (Inventor of REVOMAZE, VAULTMAZE and HEXDUKO)
Ashton Pitt Ltd

© Ashton Pitt Ltd 2008-2023 All Rights Reserved REVOMAZE® Registered Trademark VAULTMAZETM Trademark
R® Registered Trademark Logo
HEXDUKOTM Trademark

Just to et you know, the STARTER PACK is the same as the SAMPLE PACK depending on how you view it. Trying the SAMPLE PACK will let you know if this is for you. It is also the STARTER PACK you will need as the reference once you have all the RevoRings.

We have the pricing and will confirm everything on the website on Friday.

[prodigy]

Hi All, the website is now up vaultmaze.uk - we will monitor this and discuss it next week. Please note we will be in touch with the handful of people who purchased from the original site to adapt to the new scheme. Please email support@vaultmaze.co.uk with any concerns or errors. Many thanks for your patience. Chris

There are 19 mazes in Level 1. All 114 RevoRings have the M3 Dog Grub Screw and all the Start/End Rings have the M3.5 Grub Screw. The price for the spare is for extras if you lose one. Currently we have not yet Domain Foward the .COM or the .CO.UK. Hope this clears some of the points raised above. We are looking at Royal Mail Prices as well which has a better shipping rate for the lighter packages.

You need 6 packs of 3 and we will send the extra 1 out free. That makes up the 19.

No we would not send it by courier and will be adjusting it with Royal Mail. That goes for the screwdriver as well. We are getting to grip with WIX and adding all the postal bands. What we wanted to convey is we will do spares.

[prodigy]

Big news but probably what we expected

We are planning to bring the plastic mass produced version of Revomaze for the stores. Machining metal and the cost of the metal is not cheap but recognize the potential of the mass market if the price is right.

[prodigy]

Yep, had to redo all the foam etc. to let people know from the pictures what they are getting. When we get all the boxes, we will show better pictures etc. We will get next week we will do a lot more promotional work. Running with the level 3 makes the production easier.

They are all different on level 3. On level 6 it is 30 different (x3 of each) plus the starter.

The original plan was everyone had their own schedule. We are reviewing this on the level 3 version so that we would know what has been sent etc. Once we have an idea of the interest - we are adjusting to get to a fixed point of our production plan. Regarding the second point on your list, we had two individuals to design two of the 91 with one more user design via a competition. Having just 19, this might now be a plan for later if we expand it. Since reducing, I have had to redo the schedule to make this version successful. Hope this helps. We will keep listening to ensure the 1st June 2023 launch has been properly worked out. Many thanks all of you for your suggestions both on here and what has been privately messaged. Chris

Sorry, yes we can work that out from the ring numbers to get the start/end rings of specific mazes. But if you subscribe to REVOMAZER you will get them all and have made it the best price we could in the early bird. The Packs will be available once the Launch has happened.

Spoke to the team and we will offer 19 stand pack for the REVOMASER’s.

[prodigy]

Hi everyone I hope you are all having a good day! Due to the improvements on VAULTMAZE we undermined the time scale of the sale, we are extending the early bird offers to the 28th of April 2023 at 4:00 pm BST! We'd like to thank you all for your support and we will continue to keep doing our best to improve, your suggestions don't go unnoticed!

Best Masie

[prodigy]

Video (made with the prototype) from Masie:

Hi everyone! Check out the latest assembly video! https://www.tiktok.com/@vaultmaze/video ... 6802029850

[prodigy]

Hi All

Lots of speculation so I have a couple of things for you. Firstly, we are trying to make the information simpler but as you may be aware, the puzzle is complex. Here is one thing for you. I know some of you are thinking the maze put together will spoil the fun to solve as you would have seen it. The video Masie did shows as long as the rings are in order, you can easily put them together. Or someone else can for you. So identify the two rings that go together and put them into a HEXDUKO Tile (New name btw as people were confused with the individual boards and the whole board so we will call them tiles now) where you cannot see the maze at all. When showing people the maze in a cut sleeve, it was still hard to see as it curves away from you and can only really be seen in the flat-drawn form. As long as you don't draw it, it will be very hard to remember. Don't forget, how many can take a fresh maze and open it without falling and doing it again and again. So finding the 6 rings that fit is really hard.

Second - without the ring codes, you will find working out the code difficult. But Logical. To make it fair, we will release the reference position once all have the rings.

The Enigma machine was solved because they found a reference “Heil Hitler" in the communications that the code breakers homed into reducing the calculation time of the machine. My aim is to not make it that complex and you can all have fun deciphering it. You will find this just opens the door to another puzzle. We wanted this to be an entertaining experience and thank the people who have already signed up. We are also listening to see if we can make further improvements. More info will be added to the website this week as well as trying to make the message better for people to get what we are aiming for.

Thanks guys! Chris

[prodigy]

I will stop post anything VaultMaze related here due to I today found out that a separate forum has been created for the VaultMaze.

https://www.vaultmaze.uk/sv/forum

[prodigy]

...and it didn't take a long time until I had to post again I can at least post some major news/updates!

Hey everyone !!

I hope you are well !!

As I’m sure you all know and are aware , we have been working super hard on VAULTMAZE these past few weeks to ensure it can give you the best and most rewarding experience possible !! During this time, a few changes have been made that we would like to update you about (please note these changes won’t affect the prices paid of any current purchased subscriptions). I have listed below for you the changes we have made:

1. The puzzler subscription has been removed - This simply just makes sense as it is clear after the current and up to date response this specific subscription isn’t as in demand as the others.
2. Simplifying the messaging - we completely realise that our messaging isn’t clear at the moment. This can make understanding VAULTMAZE severely difficult and so it has been a top priority of ours to ensure we get it right and fix this. The website has now been updated so please feel free to go check it out if you are still a little unsure.
3. Stand feature has been eliminated - previously in order to store your mazes on the large VAULTMAZE stand, you had to specifically have your rings on the base body, that then fit into the clear hex base, that then fit into the hex space in the VAULTMAZE stand. If after that you wanted to try out the maze in a sleeve, you had to disassemble it all and the re-attach it to a maze body where you can then put it into a sleeve. This was a lot of hassle so, for convenience reasons, you now only need the maze body. This can be used to display the mazes on the VAULTMAZE stand and then picked up and placed in a sleeve for you to try. IMPORTANT NOTE : This does affect the people with the Collectors and luxury Collectors subscription as you will no longer be receiving a 3 stand pack each month, you will receive a 3 maze core pack each month.
4. The starter pack has now been adjusted to allow you to make up a full maze core.
5. The subscriptions have been renamed - to make things easier to understand we have now renamed the subscriptions! We now have the “Standard Subscription” “Enhanced collector’s subscriptions” and “Luxury enhanced collector’s subscription” ! There is more information on this on the website, the only thing I will say is the people who were REVOMZERS before, will now become part of the “Standard” subscribers, the other two types of subscribers stay the same but just with enhanced in front.
6. HEXDUKO is now smaller - we have now made HEXDUKO smaller almost like a separate product. To explain a little further, before you had to disassemble the rings to put them on the HEXDUKO board now, you will be provided with wooden alternatives so you can keep your rings assembled and in a solvable state whilst also having the ability to solve HEXDUKO. You will receive HEXDUKO in the Enhanced collector’s subscriptions and Luxury enhanced collector’s subscription on the last month.
7. New assembly mechanism - due to the assembly video we posted previously, it brought to our attention that when assembling the rings, they are susceptible to slight movement in different directions when you tighten the grub screws. This causes misalignment between rings and not providing a smooth solve how we would hope. Chris came up with a solution to this and you will now be provided with pins to assembled the rings together. Further explanation of this will be released early next week however, for now I have attached photos so you can get an idea of how it works.
8. The 200 limit - for this project we have set ourselves a limit. To be clear this does not mean that VAULTMAZE is limited edition, or no more will ever be produced, it simply means we can only run 200 subscriptions at this time due to limitations such as only having one machine. We want to set ourselves a realistic target that we will be able to deliver on and meet and so unfortunately we have had to limit the number of subscriptions available at this time . Just as a little bit extra, this project requires us to manufacture 22,800 rings (6x19x200) and that is how many we believe we will be able to cope with manufacturing.

We really do sincerely appreciate all your feedback and we are doing our best to take it on board to make this product the best and most enjoyable as we can. We really can’t wait for you all to try it and hear your thoughts and opinions soon. Further explanation of all the above will be released next week however , we wanted to at least provide you with some explanation of the changes you will be able to see on the website and to the project!!
Thank you all so much for your support already and we can’t wait for you to come on the journey with us !!

Jaz and all of us at HQ

[prodigy]

Each ring is machined on its own not as a core and cut up (need EDM to do that.). Also, there are now 12 positions for each ring as there are 12 holes. I have discussed with a new engineer who could do smaller runs for us and we will be looking to schedule this. The maze in the picture shows how much more accurate the rings are compared with a dog grub screw. The machine works to 0.003mm with full carbide drills and diamond-coated milling cutters that last very well. We are building in checks and replacements as we go to keep the parts accurate. The machine is still at my house and can run lights off running for much longer than 40 hours. I am glad you all understand we are limiting the run to 200 to keep within production possibilities and not LIMITING it to 200 SETS like the Revomaze Black. REVOMAZE SLEEVE will be made earlier but I am not giving out exactly when as we have asked for some standard sleeves as well. Legacy will still be worked on behind the scenes. Cheers. Chris