Steampunk Goggles Playing Cards (KS)

[steampunk]

Cool, thanks sprouts. I checked out your site again - nice cards. Are the 4 colors just for the jokers, or for the full deck?
I signed up to be notified when your Kickstarter launches. My 2 cents is not to launch on the 20th. I was going to wait until Monday, January 6th to launch my campaign (after New Year's) but they approved it fast so I decided to take a shot at getting some Christmas traffic. People will be on vacation and my guess is there will be a lull in traffic during that period.

Colors - good point on Solitaire. The challenge with my deck is I have two audiences (well, 3 or more actually). But essentially, a "mainstream" audience and a "steampunk" audience. One person from the Steampunk audience suggested a number of things that would make it more related to the genre. Specifically, he said that there are some 19th century games that require things like 4 colors, and Knaves / Valets instead of Jacks, and a whist box (I had to look that one up).

Would having different shades work for solitaire? For example, on your site you have 2 shades of red for the Jokers. How would you feel about say, the two shades you have for red on your site for hearts & diamonds, then brown & black for clubs & spades? Would they pair a bit better?

For add-on cards, USPCC has a 56 card limit, which I've basically used up. But if I went for Knaves/Valets as an add-on, it would appeal to that audience better. I saw on your deck you said you were doing 64 cards. How did you swing the extra 8 cards? I asked USPCC about doing a run of 4ish additional cards but the only way to do that is to print a full run of 2,500 LE + 2,500 SE. I'm looking at Liberty & some other brands, but I don't know that they could match the deck cut/stock closely enough to make it make sense.

[steampunk]

FYI I checked the thread on your deck, sprouts. I see you had some challenges finding the extra 8 cards on your 64 - what was the final verdict? For mine, I would do an add-on deck to keep the branded bicycle box for the main 52. But I can't figure out how to get extra cards that match 100%. I feel like finding the stock would be pretty easy, but the cut could be just ever so slightly off from another supplier.

[Don Boyer]

Steampunk:

I still prefer the two colors in two shades concept I pitched to you.  But if you insist on making two colors, the most common color pattern I've seen is black spades, red hearts, green clubs and blue diamonds.  If you either made the green very dark or swapped it for brown, then made the red and blue very light or bright, that might make for a useful deck in games that call for only two colors of cards - the blacks are the dark-colored cards and the reds are the light-colored cards.

I do have a good idea in mind for making all camps at least partly happy - get in touch with me!

The two most common magician's gaff cards are blank-faced cards and double-backed cards.  It can also be fun to make a double backer with two different backs - for example, one from a Bicycle Rider Back and the other from your deck.  There's a few very cool tricks you can accomplish with that.

As far as bonuses for the deck to offer as stretch goals, upgrading the stock from Bicycle to Bee Casino is a popular choice with many.  Also, matte finish boxes are very fashionable right about now and would probably be more in keeping with what a steampunk/Victorian deck would be kept in.  They look gorgeous when you add gold or silver foil accents - look at the Monarchs deck from Theory11 for a few great examples of this.

As far as Sprout's Texas Playing Cards, it looks like he's sticking with USPC but having two separate print runs made, one for the first 56 cards, the other for the remainder.  He'll have a third party create tuck boxes large enough to accommodate the full deck.  It's going to make the project cost a small fortune, if you ask me.  I suggested to him to simply make his cards in the style of USPC standard and with a common USPC back like the Bicycle Rider Back, then have USPC make small decks for his extra cards - I've seen them create decks for children's games like Old Maid and Go Fish which contained far less than 52 cards.  It would make the project more cost-efficient and insure that people were comfortable with them because they'd look a lot like their everyday playing cards - in fact, most of the deck would be just that.  But he insists on having his custom design all over the place.  He's been batting this idea around for who knows how many months now and we're wondering if it will ever leave the "vaporware" stage of development... 

[BiggerDee]

Steampunk, you're doing well listening to suggestions. A lot of cretors want to produce THEIR deck without any changes, and ignore a lot of good suggestions. That's fine if they have the money to make it on their own but the simple fact that they are on KS means that need help. You will please a lot of folks by even just considering these suggestions and happy folks are more inclined to back the project. You are off to a good start!

[steampunk]

Don - good speaking with you last night even though I didn't get to sleep 
It was very helpful and you had some great ideas for the deck.

BiggerDee - thanks for the positive feedback! Yes, I want the community to get involved - I want this project to adapt organically based on advice from others and also what the project backers are looking for. I can't please everyone, but I think I can shape it into something wonderful with everyone's help.

[sprouts1115]

I'm glad you talked to Don.  What ever he says is good advice.  I've noticed on Kicktraq your starting to hit that plateau. After all the craziness, you're almost 50% funded so your probably going to make it.   http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/consorte/steampunk-goggles-playing-cards-deck-uspcc-bicycle/  I've taking a second look at your Kickstarter and you need to use this dead time wisely; Now is the time to clean it up and make some decisions.  If I'm Joe Schmo looking at your Kickstarter for the first time, it looks confusing and cluttered.  I might not be a backer. I would post the stretch goal in a nice ribbon and put the "add on list" in a nice image with columns.  Also your "Rewards with Gogges"  image probably needs to be fatter and more up top on your Kickstarter.  Make images of the goggles pop. Remember your trying to sell goggles.  Have you decided what your pips are going to be? I noticed 3 different images.  You could have a quick vote with the backers as an update. Backers love to be involved in decisions.  Lastly, on the back of your card you might want to take the text off.  If you want to keep it on that's ok, but you might want to consider making the top of text right side up.  It would look better when people have them in their hands. Just a thought.

"Specifically, he said that there are some 19th century games that require things like 4 colors, and Knaves / Valets instead of Jacks, and a whist box"
I think that guy is blowing smoke up your butt.  I think you should keep it simple and go with the colors you have.  You have Copper for Hearts and Diamonds and Steel for Spades and Clubs.  That is Steampunkish enough.  Knaves are what Jacks were before 1864 and Valets are what Jacks are currently in France.  Remember you can't please everyone.  What I'm trying to do is complex and to some people downright crazy.

I like image elements coming out of the borders with your cards.  If that means you have to redraw the QoC to make it consistent that might be best.  Go ahead and take that image off and make a decision.  With the other cards and goggles, I would try put at least 2 per line to conserve space. I don't think people like a long scrolling Kickstarter.  You should try to get the image of your tuck box out as soon as possible for both your SE and LE.  I would keep the SE box plain Jane and use the LE for your stretch goals.  Embossing tuck box, Bee stock, Foiling.  The more you make the LE deck special the more collectors will take notice.   Hope I didn't step on Don's toes.

I also noticed you have an aggressive PR campaign.  I starting to see you on boards I lurk...

[steampunk]

Hey Sprouts, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the plateau worries me for sure. That's part of the reason for the extra PR & advertising we're doing. We picked up some ads on Reddit & one of the game boards to see if they result in some movement. So far I got one backer through Reddit so we'll see. We also got a review on one of the bigger playing card sites and some press on NJ.com which has 2,000,000 uniques per month according to compete.com. Today we did a press release on PRWeb's full network and tomorrow we've got a social media campaign blasting stuff out. Hopefully it all jives together. If not, I still get some exposure for my other companies so it's all good.

We tried posting on boards but I gave up on that - other boards feel this stuff is spammy and I don't want to be in that category.

Regarding the design, I like the advice that both you & Don gave a lot. He also agrees about the smoke up the butt thing and used the same phrasing  so I think that's great to know. In our brainstorming, he did come up with a great idea that I think would appease the 4-color concept while keeping the actual colors used to two.

For the LE deck, it's too late to not offer it as a reward and only offer it as a stretch goal.

The goggles got very little pickup, I'm guessing it's just the audience, so I cut the total rewards available to free up more decks as add-ons, and made the goggles into an add-on.

The pips are on the cards but with the 4 color thing they would change sightly.

The back of the card - great idea with flipping the top & bottom - makes perfect sense. Would you do a white border or a black border on the black backs?

I'll skip the add-on cards - like you said it's complicated. Don came up with an idea for that that could possibly work, but it's too much legwork with the time I have left and could delay getting the cards out, which I absolutely don't want to do (I read too many horror stories about creators not delivering and don't want to be in that pool).

I agree with cleaning up the page - it's busy and confusing. I think I got the story out enough and can cut the text substantially. If the updates didn't auto-email to people I'd put all the extra text into a post on there. I think some people would be interested.

Tuck box - yes I agree. What do you think of the LE back? I like the SE back much better personally. I'm thinking of getting a fresh design for the LE.

Bee stock & foil - it wouldn't work with my expenses. The margins are razor thin on this project and that would put me in the hole a few grand. I think USPCC said they couldn't do the foil in our last email but I'll check again incase I misread. They did say they'd do the metallic inks for a small increase per deck, which I can absorb, so I want to do the copper as a little goal for people to get the shares of the project page up to 500 from the 350ish it's at now. LE would be the first deck to get that and there's another goal for the SE to get it after.



I am embossing the LE deck for sure.

[John Spade]

The courts are okay, don't love the backs. But I LOVE the M.C. Escher-esque king of spades. It really reminds me of his "Drawing Hands" I think it's a really interesting idea.

Oh wow, didn't even notice that, thanks for pointing it out. It's a very cool detail. All the artwork is well done, but I do think that this theme has been used way too often. Nevertheless, I wish Dennis and the rest of the team the best of luck with this project!

[steampunk]

Thanks John!

By the way we got our dice prototypes as add-ons per request from some dice collectors, final versions will have slightly bigger lettering so they're a bit cleaner:

[GBAllison]

Early bird dice are up for a $1 pledge.  Only 8 left.

BTW, I'm curious about why this deck isn't racing off the shelves, so to speak.  Do you think there was too much attention on the goggles?  Or a bit too much confusion on the pledge levels?  Or is it something fundamental about the art?

Sure I get it that there have been a million steampunk decks already, but that doesn't seem like the showstopper.  We seem to be able to do zombies and more zombies.  Maybe the deck didn't get covered by a couple of the main bloggers?  Maybe not enough pictures of the cards themselves?  Just really curious.

[steampunk]

Thanks GB, I think all of these things are possible factors as to why we're at 56% and not 100%. Another huge factor is the holidays. I sent out an update to backers asking to share more on social media today - hopefully that will help. When we reveal the new LE backs I think we might get some more pickup too - they're looking pretty cool.

We're on Max Playing Cards and WOPC, and one of my backers is talking to Tuckbox. Could you recommend a few top blogs that I should be pitching?

[steampunk]

FYI we just posted a backers-only preview of our LE card backs. We'll be changing some of the coloring and other details but it's in project updates if anyone on this thread is a backer & wants to take a look. We'll probably release a more finalized version of the backs + tuck box to the public in the next day or two.

[Don Boyer]

We're on Max Playing Cards and WOPC, and one of my backers is talking to Tuckbox. Could you recommend a few top blogs that I should be pitching?

Try Savannah Gladue - she's got a very popular YouTube channel on the topic of modern custom decks.  You can find her easily enough on Facebook.

[steampunk]

Will do, thanks Don, I'll reach out to her! Ivan at Kardify just put up a nice interview today: http://www.kardify.com/2013/12/kickstarter-7-questions-with-dennis.html

You can see a few variations of the direction we're moving in with the LE card backs there.

[steampunk]

Thought I'd share some more of our artwork:

[Don Boyer]

Did you know that your King of Hearts bears a striking resemblance to David Blaine?  If the face was a little leaner, they could be identical twins.

[steampunk]

I should tell him that! This is Dan Garf, he's the backer who appears on the card. He picked up the King & Queen of Hearts for himself and his girlfriend, very romantic. So there's a lot riding on this!


We added the beard to make him look a little older...

wow you're kinda right...

[steampunk]

dude I just left you a very detailed reply to this and sent you a personal message as well. Here's a copy of it:

Creator Consorte Marketing 16 minutes ago
Hi Jose, if you read my past updates you'll see the history behind this. Originally international shipping rates were much higher, and then after quite a bit of number crunching, outreach & research I was referred to a 3rd party shipper who is cheaper than USPS. I was able to lower the rates for many rewards and in addition to posting the new rates in updates, I believe I sent personal messages to every single international backer who originally had a higher rate listed. When I lowered the rates, I marked the reward levels with the higher rates as "sold out" - that is the only thing you can do on Kickstarter once someone has backed a reward - you can't delete anything that has at least 1 backer to it. What does happen however is if someone drops out or changes their reward level on a "sold out" item, that item becomes available again. I periodically go through the rewards and mark the old ones as "sold out" when I can, but a lot of this is out of my control. To be clear, the rate for 1 deck internationally is $6, and for 2 decks it is $9. Please refer to update #3 for the first reduction http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/consorte/steampunk-goggles-playing-cards-deck-uspcc-bicycle/posts/695712 and then the paragraph under the heading "Did We Mention Lower International Shipping?" in update #7 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/consorte/steampunk-goggles-playing-cards-deck-uspcc-bicycle/posts/704195

Here's copies of excerpts from the updates I mentioned:

update #3 12/15/2013:

Reduced International Shipping on Larger Orders

We couldn't reduce shipping on everything, but we were able to lower the shipping charges substantially for international backers who ordered at least two decks. We've reduced shipping on rewards that contain goggles by about 50%.

update #7 12/24/2013:

Did We Mention Lower International Shipping?

International Backers: in case you haven't heard, our friends at Bent Castle Workshops hooked us up with a connection to cut our international rates, particularly for the one and two-deck rewards. If you pledged during the first week or so of this campaign, then take another look to be sure that you're in the best reward level. If you find that you saved some money, then please consider putting some of that towards cool add-ons like dice or another deck.

[vmagic]

Yes my apologies, I meant to delete that post.

[vmagic]

We're on Max Playing Cards and WOPC, and one of my backers is talking to Tuckbox. Could you recommend a few top blogs that I should be pitching?

Try Savannah Gladue - she's got a very popular YouTube channel on the topic of modern custom decks.  You can find her easily enough on Facebook.

What about me? I've got an equally popular Youtube channel and Facebook following?

[steampunk]

re: the post, No worries, thanks man, glad we talked this out :-)

Re youtube channel & facebook sure it would be great to work something out. Shoot me a PM on Kickstarter...

[Don Boyer]

What about me? I've got an equally popular Youtube channel and Facebook following?

...and a negative-twenty-six reputation rating... 

[vmagic]

What about me? I've got an equally popular Youtube channel and Facebook following?

...and a negative-twenty-six reputation rating... 

That is only on this forum and probably mainly from you. Oh yeah and this coming from a forum that created 18000 fake members!!! How accurate can the rating actually be if you have so many fake members. Why do we even need ratings in a forum? Haven't seen any other forums with freaking ratings! All I know is every single time I make a comment you are going against whatever I say no matter what it is!

[Rob Wright]

What about me? I've got an equally popular Youtube channel and Facebook following?

...and a negative-twenty-six reputation rating... 

That is only on this forum and probably mainly from you. Oh yeah and this coming from a forum that created 18000 fake members!!! How accurate can the rating actually be if you have so many fake members. Why do we even need ratings in a forum? Haven't seen any other forums with freaking ratings! All I know is every single time I make a comment you are going against whatever I say no matter what it is!

I doubt Don is the only one. I know there is at least 1 other. 

[vmagic]

Whatever, the ratings mean nothing to me considering there are 18000 supposed members on this forum, 90% or more of which are fake and created by Don and Alex, so how fair or accurate can the ratings actually be? Don't believe me, check out the UC, they have like 1000 members. Pretty weird that this place has to resort to creating members!