The First Transport is Away...and Next Transports Being Prepped
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 09:15:03 AM
The First Shipment
I have dispatched something like 85 packages into the mail. These are books that fulfill a very specific set of skills, so to speak.
- Domestic Only
- Books Only
- Order does not include Vampire Hunter Belladonna
The first eight packages are actually out for delivery today. So we should start hearing from backers who got books.
Gathering Inventory
The reason I couldn't fulfill more is I actually ran out of Vampire Hunter Belladonna here at my house. I had a bunch more in storage in Tennessee, and asked for eight boxes of new inventory to be sent to my house. They should arrive today.
I also had to place an order for the 14 copies of In the Labyrinth in hardcover from SJGames. I did that and those books should be at my house tomorrow.
That means that on Monday if not before, I should put all of the rest of the "books only" domestic orders into the mail.
Manufacturing Initiated
I'd already reported that the first card deck, the reprint of the Five Perilous Journeys 63-card deck, was underway. This is a test deck out of which we'll do the required testing and also flex the muscles of the manufacturing process. Simple deck, banded together, though with one fix: the orientation of the "up" side of each card has been corrected to match the original Decks of Destiny style. At least I hope so.
In other news, I finally have made some good progress with my vendor in China. The sheets are compiled with proper markings, spooled out, and in their hands. They have confirmed the files are good for printing. I have placed an order, and now they have some back-end stuff to do in order to get them grouped into sets, a proof generated (I hope), and manufacturing begun.
If these go smoothly, they're supposed to be HERE at my house by the end of the month. I had to drop some extra cash on air-mail shipping, but worth it.
The cards are maybe half-done. I have the CC1 through CC4 card decks in a preliminary spool-out, and some trusted hands are helping me check them to make sure that the automated process I used to make the cards was fully effective. Or rather, since I know it wasn't fully effective, I need to check the cards to ensure info transfer. I also need to create a "top card" that has the title and proper markings so that it can pass the testing. Those four decks should be submitted to the printer today if all goes well.
Then to assemble the information from the More Perilous Journeys books into a usable format, and that will be the challenging bit. Extracting that data to the cards will either go well, in which case I'll be ready to go, or poorly, in which case it'll take longer.
The good news is that the card manufacturer is updating their 5x7" box to be 1.5" tall, which means I can provide a box for those who got all of the CC cards (four decks in one box) and all who got the MPJ sets (again, four decks in a box). I don't yet have the die-line template for that, but my goal is to have the cards ready to go as soon as I do, then get an art design on the box and get them into manufacturing.
International Orders
There are only 27 international orders with physical goods. Of those, 12 are books-only. I'll queue up 35 sets of the CC books and get them started. They never take that long to print or deliver, and I can process the books-only groups as soon as they come in.
We're already arranging for the dozen or so packages for those who want cards and counters and such, though that's a bit of "wait and see" in terms of ensuring all testing is complete, declarations of conformity produced, and I have everything. So these may give the appearance of lingering a bit, but I assure you they'll be initiated as soon as it's sensible to do so.
Locking Addresses tomorrow! (Also progress and FnordCon 3)
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 09:42:25 PM
On Friday, April 9, 2021 at 5pm Central time, I will be locking addresses on Backerkit.
What does this mean for you?
Completed Survey; PDF Only (275 people): Y'all are done. Thanks!
Uncompleted Survey; PDF-only (6 people): Most of y'all probably fall into the "I don't want anything else and I don't want to mess with Backerkit" stage. I'm going to manually click the "understood" button and process the $0 balance to allow you to collect your PDFs. For you, the campaign will be over.
Uncompleted Survey with Physical Goods (1 person): Please fill out your Backerkit survey.
Domestic, Completed Survey; Books Only (99people): I'm expecting the books on my doorstep next week. I'll fulfill your orders the weekend after they hit my doorstep.
International, Completed Survey; Books Only (12 people): Most of you ordered the CC books only; one person ordered some prior books. I will place the order for the dozen books today, and it should arrive quickly. I certainly have a single copy each of More Perilous Journeys in the UK. That won't be a problem either. I suspect your stuff will be on its way to you in about two weeks.
For everyone else, this means you're getting physical goods including cards and/or counters. Or have ordered the TFT Starter Kit. I'll also be ordering THOSE physical books today so I can pack 'em up. But that means your orders are waiting on the cards and counters to be manufacturerd.
Counters: The counters are hopefully all going to be into production in the next few days. Once we start that process I'll also peel off samples for testing for CE Mark and other safety standards. The testing labs and manufacturing folks in China have been off until today, I'm told, for a Chinese national holiday. So hopefully re-engaging soon.
Cards: I have already placed an order for 50 decks of cards for the Five Perilous Journeys reprints. These should throw off sufficient extras to send to NJ for the same CE Mark testing the counters get. I am spending a lot of time today generating more decks. The CC decks themselves should be "easy," while the MPJ deck(s) are harder due to formatting. I think I've got it, though. Still: I hope to have these ready to spool out ASAP. Maybe by tomorrow if I'm fortunate. When they're ready and the initial run is done, I'll process the next nine decks of cards, including packaging. Those should have a relatively fast turn-around as well.
Boxes: I received word that my boxes (well...YOUR boxes) shall arrive at my home this weekend. So that settles that too.
That's where we are. My goal is to have roughly 70% of everybody completely fulfilled by the end of April, and will be working diligently to follow up with the "stuff" packages and dozen or so international/stuff packages as soon as possible.
FnordCon 3
Steve Jackson Games' FnordCon 3 virtual convention is kicking off Saturday April 10. That's "Panel" day. "Game Day" is April 11. I will mostly be hanging out and around on Saturday, with a GURPS and TFT panel hosted at 3:30pm, along with Steve Jackson. I will also be in my Dealer's Room area, a dedicated channel on the Discord, so if you want to chat live, drop by!
Powered by GURPS
For those interested, I am working very hard with my author, Kevin Smyth, to bring low-point, fast character generation to the Dungeon Fantasy RPG.
Things are still in flux: Kevin and I are making important structural and presentation improvements every day. But those subscribed to my Patreon are getting updates, providing feedback, and (most importantly) testing the heck out of it. Already we've made good tweaks to modules and presentation, while still keeping the core, two-fold mission of the book:
- Enable lower-point play for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, focused on the Nordlond Setting [1], from 50-200 points
- Get from concept to the table fast, especially if you've never played GURPS-based games before. We're talking 3-10 minutes from idea to playing at the table here. Like "TFT fast."
I'm hoping to kick something off in the next few weeks...but as with the Character Collections campaign...there are many calculations in the temple to be done beforehand.[2] But I expect to do a lot of prep this weekend.
The same artist who did the covers for More Perilous Journeys, Ksenia Kozhevnikova, is doing a cover for Delvers to Grow. The mockup some of you have seen is not available for use (oops; there was a labeling thing that threw me), so Kevin's book gets a super-spiffy cover.
Here are some screenshots from the working draft.
[1] Is it Nordlond-only? Absolutely not. But the book and examples are written for grab-and-go utility with my previously published materials. The cross-over utility for not-Vikings is really high, though, because within the Nordlond setting, it's already been established we have totally-not-Mongolia, totally-not-England, totally-not-Kamakura-era-Japan, and totally-not-Macedonian-Greece.
[2] Gratuitous Sun Tzu reference.
