Production complete + next steps + win a signed alpha deck + Gen Con
14 days ago
– Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 01:41:43 PM
Hello backers!
We're excited to share that we've passed another major milestone and we have a few big updates to share!
Here are the headlines, which we'll get into in more detail below:
- All production on Lore Master's Deck, expansions, and accessories is complete!
- Next our printer is packing everything for ocean freight.
- We're giving away a free signed alpha deck if you fill out our customer survey.
- We'll be at Gen Con and we hope you'll come visit our booth!
Also, in case you missed it, you can
catch the replay of our 100%-from-scratch improvised TTRPG session created live using only card prompts.
Let's get into the details!
All production is complete
That's right! We'll share the final production samples with you have a chance, but for now we're thrilled to announce that production is finally complete on everything: the deck, the expansions, the journal, the storage boxes, the sleeves, the playmats, and the pins.
Which brings us to…
The next step: preparing freight
The next phase of fulfillment is preparing for ocean freight, which involves a few steps:
- Packing decks into labelled shipping cartons.
- Bundling expansion sets and sleeve multipacks. Plus a new tactic we're trying: pre-bundling common pledge tier combinations during production to streamline fulfillment once freight arrives at our local hubs.
- Preparing pallets for sea shipping, including dividing product allocations to each hub.
- Finalizing freight quotes and arrangements.
- Sending freight to port to await pickup.
A lot of spreadsheets are involved to ensure all the numbers are correct for bundling, splitting freight, and cost analysis. So. Many. Spreadsheets.
Depending on the state of global freight, this process can take 4-8 weeks. After that, the next steps are waiting for the freight itself to be loaded onto a ship, traverse waters, arrive in port, clear customs, be transported to our hub, received and inventoried, sample-packed for approval, and finally be greenlit for fulfilment!
We'll keep you in the loop as we continue to pass milestones. The good news is that we are still on schedule for our original timeline!
Win a free signed alpha deck
We released a customer survey this week to learn more about how people use our decks (or plan to use our decks), and what people would like to see us develop next.
Come see us at Gen Con Aug 1-4
We'll be at Gen Con again this year. If any of you are coming, we hope you'll swing by booth block 1237 to meet the team!
Bonus update
As always, feel free to send us a DM, leave us a comment, or reach out through the
contact form (including your details) if you have any questions!
Digital print sample unboxing sneak peek + full livestream tomorrow
about 2 months ago
– Mon, Jun 03, 2024 at 07:07:39 AM
Progress update: digital print sample approved + livestreams May 18 & June 4
2 months ago
– Fri, May 17, 2024 at 01:41:13 PM
Hello Lore Master's Deck backers!
We wanted to give you a quick update on our progress as we continue to complete project milestones.
Since our last update, we received, reviewed, and approved the digital print samples from our printer. Our notes from the review are summarized below, but in case you want to get a look at the samples yourselves (including extras like the journal and Leviathan Boxes),
we'll be hosting an unboxing livestream at 3pm ET on June 4. Subscribe and click the "Notify Me" button on YouTube to make sure you don't miss it!
Okay, let's get into the print sample details!
Print Sample Review
If you're not familiar with print production, the digital print sample is a close estimation of what the final product will look like, but hand-made as a one-off using print-on-demand quality methods before we commit to the full quality mass production.
The digital sample helps us and our printer get aligned on the fine details before we commit to mass production methods. Once mass production starts using full-quality offset printers, it gets expensive (if not impossible) to fix mistakes or make adjustments. We like to make sure everything is just so before we get started, and that we're all on the same page about every detail from box dimensions down to print finish and paper weight.
The good news is that the digital samples looked fantastic! We had some minor notes, most of which were due to imperfections caused by using digital print methods that won't be relevant to final production (e.g., imperfections from hand-gluing a single demo box, using a different paper stock due to limitations of the digital printer).
We did make some minor changes that the print sample helped us catch:
- Upscaling the resolution of the textures we apply to our images, logos, and box borders
- Organization of components inside the box
- Upgrading the vegan leather cover material of the Lore Master's Journal and switching to a brighter, more-like-real-polished-leather color and finish
- Fine-tuning the color matching on the bridge expansion cards
- Fine-tuning the standardization of the drop shadow effect on our box logos
Our notes were so minor because otherwise, everything looked fantastic!
Here are a few photos of details we were checking during our review to tide you over until the
June 4 livestream.
Thanks so much, and as always, let us know in the comments if you have any questions or concerns!
The Story Engine Team
🌳 Let's Write Dystopias Rather Than Make Dystopias + ⚙️ Progress Update (Who doesn't like colour swatches?)
3 months ago
– Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 08:22:43 AM
Happy Earth Day Backers!
Most of us are no strangers to fiction that speaks of a planet run dry, drained by the avarice of its inhabitants. The story either follows the survivors learning to respect and rehabilitate the land, or a journey to find a new home with the lesson to not repeat their mistakes.
I often think about these stories, and how they apply more than ever to our own world. But more than me being a self professed tree-hugger, reducing our environmental footprint is also a core value at The Story Engine. This is why as part of our campaign stretch goals, we vowed to plant 3,000 trees!
Planting the next 1,000 trees
Thanks to you, today we plant another 1,000 trees with Eden Reforestation as part of our stretch goals, bringing our total to 2,000 🌳 of the 3,000 we've committed to planting!
Eden Reforestation is our charity of choice because of the specificity of their work, clear and transparent objectives, dedication to damage prevention, scientific research and commitment to community.
Read more about why we picked Eden Reforestation
here.
Of course, we all can also do our part to reduce our footprint. For one, I keep all my scrap paper (like when I print my eco-friendly PDF decks incorrectly 😝) and use them for doodling notes and ideating.
Have cool ways of being more sustainable at your writing desk or tabletop gaming session? Drop them in the comments!
The perfect shade of purple
I am infamously known for being the kind of visual designer that will change a graphic by a micron of a shade, and screech "IT'S SO DIFFERENT" when asking for opinions.
Thankfully, our project manager on the production side shares the same eagle eyes to detail, helping us pick a higher quality, richer royal purple vegan leather for the
Lore Master's Journal after creating the first hard sample.
We also discovered that the magnet tab overlapped with the logo. Our PM came up with a solution by switching our closure to a snap, which does not require as much coverage while still keeping your pages nice and secure.
We're thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to holding the first samples in our hands! Once we have them, we will thoroughly review, send back notes, implement last changes and then it's off to the races!
As always, if there is something you'd like to us to cover in our updates, if you have a question, or if you just want to share your creations, you can leave a comment on our posts or shoot us an email at
[email protected]. We always look forward to hearing from you!
Til next time!
Outtakes expansion released + tell us about your book + final week of Pintopia
4 months ago
– Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 05:31:10 AM
Hello backers!
Here's a quick summary of what we cover in this update, with a fuller breakdown below.
- The PDF of Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion has been released, and our Community Manager Eric walks you through the development process.
- Production update: more photos of production samples!
- We want to hear about your book! Tell us about a book you've written with one of our decks and we'd love to share it in our list of books on World Book Day.
- Final week of BackerKit's Pintopia, where we're returning our collectible enamel pins to campaign prices and Peter is crowdfunding a collection of TTRPG-inspired pins!
Let's get into the details!
Releasing the Outtakes Expansions
Eric, our Community Manager, took point on editing the
Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion. It's his birthday today, and in the hobbit tradition of birthdays, he decided to give everyone else a gift: the print-and-play PDF! You can access them via
your Digital Downloads page.
Eric also wrote a development blog sharing the process!
I thought I’d take some time to explain the thought process and the design philosophy that I used to put this deck together!
Our first outtakes deck was released following the release of Deck of Worlds, and was known as the Oddballs & Outtakes expansion. We adapted the concept to suit Lore Master's Deck, but I still wanted the outtakes expansion to be a little, well, odd. Most of the material in it was written for Lore Master’s Deck or one of its expansions, and it didn’t get left out because it was bad. (If anything, these are some of our favorite prompts.) It got left out because it didn’t serve the design of the deck as a whole.
As Peter explained in previous updates, balance was paramount in the core deck. Every card has at least two link cues because we wanted to make sure people would have options when choosing the path to their next cluster. There needed to be a certain volume of Event cards that could lead to Creatures (and vice versa), and we had to make sure users would find enough Materials while exploring new Locations.
We relaxed those rules for the outtakes expansion. We still followed some self-imposed guidelines – for instance, cards have the same breakdown of Agendas, Backgrounds, Traits, etc. – but we weren’t as meticulous about the direction of the connections, and we prioritized impact over utility when selecting the cues themselves. We wanted cues that made us react. If a card only ends up with a single link cue (or if there are more cues leading to Figures than Events), then so be it. It’s worth it to have “be the very best” as a Figure’s Agenda or “the floor is literally or metaphorically lava” as a Trait for a Location.
Of course, we wanted evocative cards in the core deck, too. The problem is that the thing that makes a cue memorable is often the same thing that prevents us from including it. An Agenda like “collects teeth, skin, or hair” stands out because it describes something very specific. However, Lore Master’s Deck is supposed to encourage your creativity, and a cue with too much detail is more likely to limit your options. Cues that can be interpreted in more than one way usually get priority because they allow for different perspectives to come to the fore.
The outtakes expansion gives us more room for cues that are just for us. That makes it one of the most fun decks to work on, since we can do things we want to do instead of things we have to do. This deck has Deities because our writers gave us so much good material and it would have been a shame to leave it out. We cut down on the number of Modifiers because the Deities were more fun, and we hope that philosophy resonates throughout the deck!
We hope the Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion puts a smile on your face. This is the blooper reel at the end of our movie – takes that weren’t quite polished enough for the final cut that still have something compelling in them (or undeniable entertainment value). We had a blast putting Lore Master’s Deck together, and we’re excited to share some of our creative process with this last expansion!
The expansion PDF is free for every backer who pledged during the campaign – it’s our way of saying thanks for the support.
Production update
Our manufacturer has been sending us photos of the production samples as they are finished. We'll be receiving a shipment of physical samples to pore over, but for now, we thought we'd share a first look at some of the components and accessories.
We'll continue to share production updates as they happen!
We want to hear about your book!
This year's World Book Day happens on April 23. To celebrate, we're putting together a list of books that were written with one of our decks!
Did
The Story Engine help you unlock a key side-character? Did you use
Deck of Worlds to set the backdrop for an important scene? Have you created anything with the early PDFs of
Lore Master's Deck?
We'd love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments or reach out via the
contact form!
Final week of Pintopia
Pintopia is a big crowdfunding movement at BackerKit where designers launch enamel pin collections at the same time and support each other through cross-collaboration.
To celebrate, we've dropped the price of our collector enamel pins to their original campaign pricing.
Until April 18, you can get all of our pins for the same price that you could during our original campaign. Our Tell Your Story, Build Your World, and Weave Your Lore pins are back to $12 each (or $32 for the set), while The Story Engine Mini Logo Pin is back down to $8.
There's a special freebie mimic pin that all returning backers receive for free, including all backers from this campaign! You can see some of his designs below.
That's all for now!
As always, let us know if you have any questions in the comments!
