Ballistic’s Report: Week Ending April 30

This week was finishing up production on Character Collections and blitzing the Kickstarter page for the next project…Delvers to Grow.

• All backers but two on Character Collections manually moved to “finished” or cancelled. Still two with credit balances that are headed for a cancel and refund if they don’t respond.
• Delvers to Grow is advancing from a manuscript perspective.
• The Delvers to Grow main cover is essentially complete.
• Still tracking down missing international packages from More Perilous Journeys; one Character Collections books-only package arrived a bit damaged.
• Most of the counters are on my dining room table; the rest should arrive soon. Then it’s some pre-work to pack them in boxes
• Both cards and counters are in the process of CE Mark testing in NJ and Dongguan, respectively. I’ve asked for a timing update.
• Card manufacturing is underway. All decks have been printed and coated (I think), now they have to be banded and packed into boxes. Then I can pick them up.
• I spent a lot of time this week getting the new Delvers to Grow Kickstarter page finished. But I did get it finished, approved, and the follow-the-campaign page link sent out.

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: 46 patrons and $305 per month. Welcome on board to the new Patrons!
• Special Content: Several drafts of cards for proofing. A torture test of the as-is manuscript of Delvers to Grow.
• Note: Still need to create Patreon goals.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

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

• Counters are arriving; I think three of something like nine boxes have yet to arrive at my house.
• All card decks are in manufacturing. I suspect they’ll be ready to be picked up next week.

Crowdfunding

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

• All PDF-only orders with no remaining credit marked as complete. All Follow-the-Campaign pledges cancelled. Two pending rewards, one digital, one physical, will be cancelled and refunded when I ship the final rewards.
• Update #33: Manufacturing progress update.

Delvers to Grow (Launches Friday May 7 at 10am Central Time)

• Lots of time spent on the KS page. Ironically, I could have launched today, which would have been on my internal schedule.
• Nonetheless, a week of delay won’t kill anyone, and gives the opportunity to highlight more things, drop in some layout or art, etc.
• The campaign launches Friday May 7 and runs until Tuesday, May 25 at 9pm Central. That’s about 18 days, including three weekends. Probably more than enough.
• Please follow the campaign to be notified when it launches!
• Kickstarter has opened up add-ons for this project, so:
  • If you don’t mind shopping at the end in Backerkit, that’s better for creators because you don’t get the Kickstarter fee taken out of it.
  • However, if you’ve a preference for fire-and-forget, you can choose extra books if you have some but not others during the KS with no problems there.
  • Depending on how we do, I’ve got a few other items in mind of a not-books nature…but those will appear in Backerkit, or not at all, depending on the velocity and success of the campaign. Stay tuned!

Product Announcements

No new uploads this week.

In Development

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

• More work on Delvers to Grow, including starting to work on the example characters
• Krysuvik made more headway; the team does most of their writing on weekends.
• I’m transitioning to a lot more work on the SJGames project as of today.

Friction

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

• Actually things went pretty well last week. Bit of a heart attack when only 3 boxes of counters arrived and I was expecting all of them. This was quickly resolved.
• I was hoping to have all the cards in hand this week, but that’s likely not to be. That means domestic packages will ship in early May, not by end of April. Alas.
• I’m frustrated that some of the international packages from More Perilous Journeys have disappeared into the aether. I’m gathering info about them, but these are going to be expensive to re-ship. Five packages are likely to cost me $100-125. Next time: all of them go tracked.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• The response to marketing efforts is going well. Substantial increase in those liking/following the GB facebook page (930 and counting, up 80 from last week even)
• The Delvers to Grow cover is more and more amazing
• I’ve already got over 135 folks following the campaign in the first day after it went up. That’s not bad. Hopefully we’ll collect even more.