Ballistic’s Report for the Week Ending April 2

This week moved solidly from “Backerkit” phase of Character Collections to “production and manufacturing.” Lots of time with Serif Affinity Publisher working up the counter sheets, and collecting errata for the books before they go into manufacturing. Also spent most of Thursday on my Quarterly income statement.

• Backerkit “closed” (though pre-orders are still open), cards were charged, and said money went to the account
• Did the quarterly statement; the first few months I started ‘in the hole’ in that about $7,100 got spent fulfilling More Perilous Journeys; nonetheless even with well over $20,000 yet to spend completing Character Collections, GB is solidly profitable as of the end of Q1 considering forward-looking as well as rearward-looking expenses
• Behind the scenes work on Delvers to Grow picked up even more
• I contracted another project and provided many materials for that project
• Marketing activities to enhance GB’s visibility moved from “consideration” to “contracted” and are also underway

Oh! I’ll also be on the GURPS and The Fantasy Trip panel discussion next Saturday, April 10, at 3:30pm central at Steve Jackson Games’ FnordCon3 online convention!

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

• Membership status: 41 patrons and $270 per month
• Special Content: A full color, multipage map of the area of Nordlond called The Veiðilönd in proper Icelandic was created by Glynn Seal and delivered to Patrons. You’ll be seeing that map again.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Project where hardcopies and PDFs are going out, or scheduled to do so.

• Nine of the 14 sheets of counters are ready to go to the manufacturer.
• Errata for the Character Collections shall continue for a day or two more, then I’ll make the changes, spool out new PDFs, assemble print-ready PDFs, and start placing print orders. All of this is perhaps a single day’s work…probably Monday
• Once the books are ready, it’s time to spool out cards. The most time consuming will be the More Perilous Journeys cards. The Five Perilous Journeys cards need to be modified in format to include facing pages; this may or may not be tedious, but it certainly can be simple.
• In short: The books should be into manufacturing by Tuesday; the cards mid-week; the counters also next week, but those are a bit trickier because I have to coordinate with the EN71/CE Mark partner in Dongguan, China.

Crowdfunding

TFT Character Collection (Launched Friday Feb 19; Closed on Tuesday, March 9 at 9pm Central)

 

• We’re down to fewer than a dozen uncompleted surveys that matter, and only two of those are for physical goods. If I don’t get responses by the time I’m ready to upload new PDFs, I’ll mark these digital-only surveys complete (there’s no further charges on them) and then close those out.
• This was a heavy update week:
  • Update #34 announced PDF distribution for the CC and other books had been initiated
  • Update #35 was a progress report
  • Update #36 was a reminder that I’ll be updating the books with errata, and if there’s anything anyone finds, to submit it here

Product Announcements

• No new product this week.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

• The 125 boxes for counters for Character Collections are printing.
• Starting to work on the text and connective tissue for the Delvers to Grow project along with the author.
• Contracted new support for an adventure in The Hunted Lands
• I signed a contract as Douglas Cole for som

  

  ething.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• I wanted to move the counters to production faster than what happened, but turns out several key folks were on vacation and China was having a national holiday of some sort this week. So that was a week’s delay

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• The PDFs were delivered on March 27
• Delvers to Grow is going to be a very compact, useful supplement. This is excellent.
• The full-size Veiðilönd map went from “maybe do this” to “final copy in hand and paid for” in a matter of days. It’s a good-looking map that does a lot to explain some of the head-scratching parts of settlement location and geography. I can’t wait to start populating it with cool adventures and stuff.
• I did my quarterly report. Usually I only do this at the end of the year after much procrastination, but I’m doing it quarterly this year. GB is on a great trajectory. On a snapshot basis it looks ridiculous because I have all the revenue in hand for the CC project but the costs have yet to be paid in the main. Even so: still very healthy. More on this later.
• I looked forward at my crowdfunding schedule, which is pretty much Powered by GURPS through September or so, leaving time for one more small project that can fit in at the end of the year on Kickstarter…but that doesn’t preclude other campaigns on IndieGoGo or some flat-out “I’ve just released a product, go buy it” work.
• I contracted for some marketing help, and I’m seeing a lot of work
• I did some work to help speed up Gaming Ballistic’s main site…it is sometimes effective, sometimes not. I’ll keep working on it.