Tuesday, November 5, 2013

A slight delay / card issue & resolution.

UPDATE FROM KICKSTARTER
I have a bit of light bad news new report, the first in the history of this campaign. I also have a solution for it, so please read on!


So the cards came in. They look amazing and I was playing around with them all last week with the kids in between packing and shipping. I brought them to show off at Metatopia and within 2 seconds Tim Rodriguez found a misprint on one of the cards. The Ace of Spades a/k/a the crowbar-cleaning aerobics instructor has a text layer showing at the bottom of the illustration. It's small, but distracting. It doesn't cover anything too important, but it's an imperfection in an otherwise perfect project.

Here's a glarey shot.


I went back and checked my files and it wasn't there. I printed test decks as I submitted them to US Playing Card Co. and it wasn't on those. It turns out it was a pre-press layer issue on their end. The only place I should have caught it was on my proof pdf, but it blends in with the sink enough that I must have overlooked it in one of my late night, blurry-eyed work sessions, alone after the kids fell asleep. I beat myself up over this a bit over the last few days. I'm employing a second set of eyes for all future projects.

It's small, but I was very devastated about it. How do you handle something like this? Even if I could get replacement cards, it's super expensive to mail out a single card to 660+ backers and potentially many more new customers. A printer error like that expensive enough to break a first timer like me. An extra one to two thousand dollars in postage and supplies would 100% eliminate the possibility of doing another project (which I want to do!)

I talked to some industry pros with experience on production wide errors, and I hope you'll be happy with the result. US Playing Card Co. are replacing the card. It'll take about two weeks to get here. They are also sending an extra card that Campbell wrapped up today. I'm going to pause the shipping so that everyone's deck is packaged with both the replacement card AND the new bonus card. I think I can have it done within a few days after the corrected cards arrive, since everything else is already packaged and ready to go. We will be at the tail end of our expected November delivery date, instead of the beginning that we were trucking towards.


Note to those who already received their packages (or receive them over the next few days): I will pay the shipping to get you the replacement and bonus cards. Expect them in a few weeks.

I hope this doesn't bum anyone out, and definitely not anywhere near as much as me. I was so upset through the weekend while I was waiting for US Playing Card Co. to open up on Monday morning. They were very receptive and helpful with getting this fixed, and I hope I can do the same for all of you.

Here's a look at the new card. This was one from way back before the project launched, and a potential backside for the deck.


I call it "Barebones", basically a blank canvas for creativity. There are no icons so that it could be used in any way that you imagine. It can be a wild card in games, a starting point in a story, or trigger some form of reset. I hope you all like it too and find some fun uses for it. 25 Word Story anyone? :)

Thanks again and sorry for this. If anyone has questions or issues or anything else, feel free to comment or direct message me.