The Lost & Found Collection: Counterpart, Artefact & BoB

November 2024
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 29, 2024 at 12:54:06 AM

Hey folks! It's turned cold this month ❄️

November has been rough for me, personally, but we're muddling through. We're still ahead of schedule—work has been the one reliable source of progress and accomplishment this year!

Writing

Jason & I are working on Artefact first, and we're currently around halfway through writing the Keeper cards. We've then got Luke on standby to do a critical review of those cards, and Neil waiting to do a final proofread. It feels good to have sorted out the workflow, and it should mean we can move cards through the process in batches rather than doing all the editing at the end.

Art

Illustration work continues across Artefact & Counterpart (Bucket will begin in January). Conner has now completed final versions of all the Keeper illustrations, and wow—they are just so great. Here are a few I selected at random:

Surveys

I'm aiming to get your surveys sorted so I can launch them at the same time as my December update. It's a very boring (but necessary) process, and there's no real reason to get it sorted yet, but it has to be done sometime.

As with Koriko, I'll be using BackerKit's support for delayed shipping charges so you won't need to pay for shipping to complete your survey. That'll be charged later, when we have final pricing. As before, I'll be very proactive about communicating any changes to shipping estimates well ahead of time, if required.

~

Cheers for this month! J

October 2024
over 1 year ago – Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 02:56:54 AM

Hey everyone!

The leaves are falling, the clocks have changed, and the supermarket has sold out of soup and pies. It must be autumn!

I've been busy this month. Let's get into it.

Production 📈

I have a couple of updates on the game's production. 

A new writer has appeared!

First, I'm very happy to share that the project's success has meant that I can bring on my friend and fellow designer Jason Price onto the project, Jason is going to help me write the cards, and we're going to cross-review everything we write too.

We've already gone through most of each game's cards together, one-by-one, to arrive at a shared understanding of vibes and intention. It's been really fun, and rewarding, working with Jason to find areas of unwanted overlap ("these two cards feel a bit too similar") and gaps that it'd be good to fill ("we don't have much representation of the gig economy and mundane work at the moment"). We've also both come up with stuff that's kind of out there in a good way ("have we considered the possibility that you might be eaten by a giant space worm?").

Working with Jason is also going to give me more breathing room to get the project delivered on my desired schedule (which is ahead of the promised dates), and give me more space in case we hit any snags along the way. It's a win-win-win!

Schedule

I'd put together a schedule for the project delivery, but now I need to update that to reflect Jason's inputs. Once that's done, I plan to share it with you all so you can see how things are progressing. 

Currently we're looking very good!

Illustrations 🎨

Counterpart has seen the most illustration work this month, so I thought I'd share some progress with you all.

Card backs

We've done a bunch of iterations on the card backs for the three decks, and I'm really happy with the direction things are going. 

We've also been working together to figure out the colour palettes for each of the decks. I think it's cool, and also useful in play, for each set in the game to have a distinct, limited palette. 

This is my current favourite set! (The artwork for the blue and green cards is placeholder, copied over for the purposes of this colour test).

Finally, Liam has been busy working through the Operants as we refine the sketches and move towards full artwork. Here are some of my favourites so far!

Surveys 🧾

I haven't set up BackerKit surveys yet. It takes forever and I've had other priorities this month. I'll let you know when I do!

If you use a 'private relay' Apple email address with Kickstarter I'd recommend you change it to a normal one, otherwise the BackerKit survey will bounce. I can also fix this for you after the surveys go out, but it's easy to forget and then wonder where your rewards are!

––––

That's it for this month! See you all in November.

J

That's a wrap!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Oct 03, 2024 at 10:41:04 AM

Thanks so much everyone! I'm really looking forward to getting started on this project delivery—and it's great that we hit the £120k stretch goal today.

Plans are in motion, schedules are being made, artists are sharpening their pencils—we're getting on the way!

Tonight, though, I'm going to have a lie-down and let out a big exhale that will last about two weeks...

🔜 What's next?

The month after a campaign ends is usually fairly quiet, so I'll wait till the end of October for the first proper update.

You can expect information about backer surveys, a schedule, and some new illustrations (that have already started coming in!). Exciting stuff.

🗣️ Communication expectations

Our first (proper) stretch goal
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 03:29:44 AM

I get to live! Hooray. It's pretty great to feel secure for my next year or so doing this work full time—thank you all so much!

Getting over £100k was sort of essential, but now we can shift focus to things that are just for fun and/or nice to look at. Let's talk about our first stretch goal!

Stretch Goal #1: Spot UV

Yep, if we hit our first stretch goal I'll add glossy spot UV detailing to all three of the boxes. This is a shiny coat applied to parts of the design to create contrast in both texture and light—and generally make the illustrations and text pop. It's gonna look rad!

I'm setting the target for this one at £120,000. We've still got just over half our runtime remaining on this campaign, so I'm fairly confident we can hit it, but the faster we get there the more other cool stuff I can add before we're done! If you're able to share the project on socials, tell your game-loving friends about it, or just shout semi-related words about it from the rooftops, it would really be appreciated.

~

That's it for now. Thanks!

Jack

We're funded!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Sep 04, 2024 at 05:06:53 AM

Folks, I was so nervous about this project.

This is the first time I've brought a game to Kickstarter since going full-time on game design. There is so much more riding on it this time—if it failed, would I have to go back to my day job with my tail between my legs?

I have also never had a goal anywhere close to this scale before, and the sheer amount of artwork and production involved is huge, even before you multiply it all by three (!).

Even still. EVEN STILL! You smashed it in less than a day. Thank you all, truly, so much. I can keep doing this job that I love, and you can all help me bring some beautiful games into the world. Hooray!

I'm going to go for a walk in the woods today. It's the second day that the kids are back at school, and I've had a pretty stressful run-up to this launch getting everything ready alongside all the chaos and muddled routines that come with the summer holidays.

I do have stretch goals planned, but I will be waiting on them until/if we hit £100,000. I was so worried about this project that I didn't actually budget anything for me to pay myself during the production—it's just enough to cover all the editing, artwork and printing. So I suppose this first 'stretch goal' is simply Jack (+family) Get To Live For A Year. Let's, err, make it happen!

Thanks again everyone, you are so wonderful! 💕

Jack