Ballistic's Report | Character Collections | Delvers to Grow | GURPS | RPG Systems | The Fantasy Trip
Ballistic’s Report: Week Ending April 16
Another heavy production week, though met with a surprising amount of friction. But also some good news.
- No movement on Backerkit since last week; same folks still pending.
- Restructured Delvers to Grow and subjected it to the first of several torture tests. Good results. I think we’re still 1-2 weeks from a complete manuscript, but I should have enough soon to prep the Kickstarter page.
- I shipped 85 packages for character collections, and am on the pathway to ship about 20 more today. That will be all of the “books only” domestic orders.
- I got the shipping bill for More Perilous Journeys. On the average, international shipping for books-only ran between $20-25 per package. Goodness gracious.
- Lots of work, much of it frustrating, on getting cards and counters ready for manufacturing and testing. The factory noticed a tweak that is needed to all 14 counter sheets, but after that is done they’ll go into printing. After THAT it should be only 2-3 weeks until they’re on my desk.
- FnordCon3 virtual convention ran last weekend. It went fairly well. There is a new TFT Line Editor, Peter von Kleinsmid. My part of the panel was OK; sales were OK.
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: 45 patrons and $297 per month. Good growth this week, and welcome on board to the new Patrons!
- Special Content: The preliminary layout document(s) for Delvers to Grow for feedback, torture testing, and comments. PDFs – very unique and not available for sale – of the Decks of Destiny cards for Character Collections for proofing.
- Note: The Patreon is going to get some work over the next few weeks. Goals that show what help me spend more time creating, and less time worrying about the basics. Maybe even some new content like interviews and videos. Look for that soon!
Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping
Project where hardcopies and PDFs are going out, or scheduled to do so.
- Counters were submitted, discussed, modified, discussed, and now need to be modify again because the manufacturer template did not have a 2mm safe zone included. So every counter has to be tweaked. Grrr.
- CC1-4 decks had prelim spooling, and I’ve gotten some feedback. Some of the key info did not get included on the cards, so I’ll fix that today and get them into manufacturing by Monday.
- MPJ decks are going to be a slog to get done. I expected that, but it’s still not awesome.
- I shipped 85 packages that are books-only for Character Collections. 42 have either been delivered or are out for delivery.
- The counter boxes are in my house. I stocked up on inventory for some of my prior works, some of which is needed to fill the CC packages. I ordered and received the TFT Legacy hardbacks, so I can ship those packages. Pretty much all the books-only are ready to be packed up, including two retail orders that are 50 books each!
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 #41 had pictures of the CC books arriving from Mixam
- Update #42 was a video of me showing and assembling the box to hold counters
- Update #43 discussed the shipping of the first books, ordering inventory, and status of domestic and international orders.
Product Announcements
A big list of stuff is moving to DriveThruRPG in PDF. The first three are up, with more on the way.
In Development
Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.
- Delvers to Grow has received a few torture tests and it is working well. We’re in the “slog zone” where the fun stuff is done, and the rest is just tedious. Lists of spells. Lists of equipment. Disadvantage packages.
- The working title of the adventure by Peter Dell’Orto and Marshall LaPira is Crypt of Krysuvik. We signed a contract, established a target deadline, and the rest.
- Contract for SJGames project signed. Outline got fleshed out a bit. Need to talk to someone about something so I can really understand how I’m going to blow out the outline into wordcount. I suspect this one gets over-written and then trimmed back.
Friction
Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.
- Still not having enough engagement and response on the counters from the company from China. They forgot to put their 2mm “safety zone” around the die-line and so I have to tweak out every counter.
- Some card packaging options I wanted to use fell through.
- I got the bill for shipping for More Perilous Journeys from the UK. Holy crap that was expensive. Just shipping was something like $20-25 average per package.
Fair Winds
Information about things that move GB forward.
- Great progress shipping books-only, and more later today.
- While cards and counters are still in work, we still seem to be on track to more or less get them all in house by the end of April or the first week in May.
- Delvers to Grow is really feeling fantastic; we have to get it done so that we’re launching the KS on time.
- I found an alternate packaging solution for the cards that more or less accomplishes what I want. No interference with schedule there
