Heading to Las Vegas for Production!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 10:13:40 PM

Final Layout

The final layout is finished. It's got some minor changes. We also re-arranged everything to cut and ship slightly better.

One of the considerations we dealt with is that we might have crammed a couple more tokens in, but the concern is if we crammed pieces everywhere we could, the overall pack can become unstable when peeling and package it for potential retail.

But I believe everything is just - better than our initial estimates anyway.

• All of the promised pieces
• more buff/reference tokens
• Extra large "Inspiration" tokens

^ If you notice any art glitches in the image above, like the Gust of Wind, it's just a visual bug in the .png export. The final copies shouldn't have any of that.

Production Time!

Tomorrow, August 27th, I'll be flying to Las Vegas for a few days to work directly with Philip on all the finishing touches. Dies are underway, and we'll be working together to begin production.

Over the next week, here's our Hitlist:

• Finish and export final print files.
• Create all metal rule and create physical dies
• Print (a bunch) of copies
• Die-cut (a bunch) of copies and verify the dies are lined up.

Realistic Expectations

I believe it's very likely (lets say 90%) we can finish all the files, and dies, this week. That will allow us to print, cut, and test.

Right now our printer has been recently fixed and is running smoothly. However, the 'full print run' of this campaign is almost 4000 sheets of plastic.

It's much less likely (lets say 10-20%) that we have a flawless print run and we get thousands of sheets in one go at the end of the week. That's just not realistic for printing with these machines. We'll likely get a decent haul of a few hundred sets, and then something will need doing - repairs, flush the ink, fixing the rule on the dies - or of course we'll run out of time.

But, a realistic expectation for this week will be to have some number of complete pages, correctly cut with their final layouts, photographs, etc.

And at the end of the week, we'll have another update with the status of production, and our plans for when we can continue the full batch.

More news soon

Backerkit is Live - Smoketest, then Full Release
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 02:03:33 AM

Backerkit is finished! As a new 'thing' they now require a Smoke Test.

That means 5% of you have just gotten your backerkit surveys. After a brief window of time, if we start seeing a bunch of complaints from you 5% we'll know that something is wrong, and we can fix it before bothering the rest of you.

So if you just got your survey, please check it out! If something is odd, complain loudly and immediately please =p

Assuming all is well, we'll release the other 95% of surveys late tonight or early tomorrow.

Backerkit Details - Launch soon.
almost 5 years ago – Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 02:13:12 AM

Backerkit Update

Backerkit is all set up, but it requires we wait a full 14 days from the end of the kickstarter, so that Credit Cards are fully finished processing. We'll be able to launch it in a few days.

Changing Pledge Level

Once in backer kit, you can update your Address, add additional items, etc.

Your main copy of 5E Generic Spell effects (or PF Spell Effects) is attached to your pledge itself. If you prefer to change your Pledge Level, click on the Text/Link labeled "switch your pledge level" and you'll be able to select a different pledge.

After that, everything else is managed inside your pledge survey. It should be pretty self explanatory.

1200 - that's a very nice number!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jul 02, 2019 at 01:14:08 AM

1200 backers is quite a lot =P We're very excited by the total success of this campaign. We've left SLC just yesterday, back in Las Vegas right now doing a final round of production, and then it's back on the road for 18 more hours to Fort Worth, TX.

We're gonna take a few days off, have a nice 4th of July, and then here's the next few steps for your understanding:

• 1. Backerkit will launch, and you'll be able to complete survey information, and add add-ons.
• 2. We'll collect final production counts.
• 3. We finish the dies and create the new art files. Make a final prototype/test run that looks just right.
• 4. We wait. Kickstarter says it may take ~3 weeks for the funding to clear. Then we cry a little because 9% is missing =P
• 5. We order an enormous batch of plastic!
• 6. We wait again. When plastic arrives, we print and print and print and print. There's a lot of you, so it'll probably take some time.
• 7+ We enact a delivery plan, which will depend on which of our printers are doing the printing (Las Vegas, or Fort Worth TX.) and you start getting boxes!

Woo Hoo!

Last Day! Die #1 prototype finished. PF Set in jeopardy.
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 10:24:39 AM

The campaign isn't finished yet, but we went ahead and spent an evening creating the most complicated of the 3 proposed dies, the one that nests the Circles and Squares inside each other to save space.

Check it out:

Since this die was the 'hard one' we went ahead and knocked it out as a proof of concept. Since this went so well, the other 2 dies will give us no trouble at all.

We will be re-arranging it a little, moving the rule around and re-working it, then we have to re-scale the art and fix the spell text, etc etc but in a nutshell everything is on track and should be smooth sailing.

Wow it feels good to say that about a campaign!

Pathfinder Set ~50 backers ATM

Well, I say everything is going smoothly, but we should mention the Pathfinder set is still in jeopardy. We mentioned when we announced adding it into the campaign we'd happily make it if there is enough support - but - that's contingent on enough backers wanting the pack to make it's creation realistic.

I believe the bare minimum is around 100 backers. Even at 'just 100' it is a questionable thing for us to be doing. We have 900+ people getting the main set, and a little over 50 getting the Pathfinder version.

Still, we won't automatically cancel it. Some backers may select PF in backer kit, others may join the backer kit as a post campaign pre-order, etc.

But please be realistic that if the numbers just aren't there, we may not produce these dies.

*What would happen to my order?*

We'll do whatever you want us to do with it. We can refund it, we can convert it to something else. We can produce the 3-page Pathfinder Generic Set of spells, but just not die-cut it (because there's no dies) and send it to you un-cut. You could wait and see if we can gather more support for it, so when the dies are made, they get cut.

There are many options, but they won't be our #1 priority because first we'll be focusing on fulfilling the main batch as quickly as possible.