TLDR: Complete your survey if you haven't, and late pledges end Jan 31st!
Hi, Downcrawl backers! A brief update about where things stand on the project right now.
The vast majority of you have completed your backer surveys (thank you!). I'll be sending a separate email to those who haven't yet, but if you know already you need to do this, please log in to BackerKit and get that survey done now. The survey is the only way I have to collect your mailing address and charge for shipping; without these two things taken care of, I cannot get your pledge rewards to you.
If you haven't pledged yet, late pledges will close on January 31st, so get your copy of Downcrawl nowwhile the getting's good! While the cards and rulebook will still be available after that date, this will be your final chance to get the deluxe editions of Downcrawl, with the cool bonus items only being produced in limited quantities for this campaign.
How is production coming? Well, I received these fine-looking proofs of the softcover and hardcover rulebook and they are 99% of the way there. This proof did lead to some tweaking to the inner margin size-- one of the things that's hardest to tell in advance is whether the text will look too close to the center spine, which varies based on particulars of the binding, page thickness, number of pages etc. Tweaking these necessitated some further layout adjustments, but nothing too major. While I was knee deep in InDesign again, I also did another editing pass and some other final adjustments, placed names that Patron backers provided, and took care of some other last minute details. I'll be putting in an order for one more (hopefully final) proof soon, but the book is nearly to the finish line.
A quick status of rundown of all the other items:
The Delver's Guide: Now that the book page numbers are locked, I'm porting over the final rule/table text and page numbers from my early draft, and expect to order a proof of this in the next couple days.
The Index Bookmark: completed this week (was also waiting on page lock and final numbering)
All the decks (Downcrawl Deck, Even Deeper, Encounter, 10 Bonus Cards): I've approved the final proof on all of these, so they're locked and ready to go! Technically, there are actually five decks: if you're getting both the Downcrawl and Even Deeper Decks, I've decided to ship them together in a custom tuckbox, which has also been proofed and is now ready too.*
Adventure Zine: done, proofed, ready to go
Volume/Folk templates: done, proofed, ready to go
Dice: being produced as we speak by the lovely folks at Dice Extractions!
Tack Coins: physical proof being produced as we speak by the lovely folks at The Monterey Company!
Dice + coin bags: ordered from supplier (these were pre-made items so no custom design work was necessary)
* Wonky reason there aren't tuck or deckboxes for standalone decks: it's mainly because of the slightly unusual form factor. The cards are tarot-sized, but there are less of them per deck than the average tarot deck size (80 cards). This meant all the available options from the card manufacturer were either too small to fit the cards or too tall to prevent them from flopping around during shipping or looking unsightly on the shelf. But two decks plus some instruction cards worked out to just around 80 cards, letting me to do a tuckbox for the special case of a two-deck combo-- and there is just enough wiggle room to get your ten bonus cards in there too, if you were an early bird or returning backer. Standalone decks will come banded in a plastic sleeve, FYI.
Assortment of proofs of various other items.
Everything is still on schedule, although production of the metal Tack coins is a little behind where I'd hoped they would be at this point, due to some necessary back and forth to make sure the design was exactly right-- but there was some buffer built in here, so we should be fine. Here's the current schedule:
Jan 31: Backer surveys locked (orders can no longer be changed after this date)
Feb 10: Credit cards charged for shipping, add-ons, and late pledges
Feb 24: Addresses locked (shipping addresses can no longer be changed after this point)
Feb 26: Books ordered from printer
Late March: Books begin shipping from printer to backers; bonus items begin shipping from me to backers
Early April: Orders start arriving
That's all for now! Hope your new year is off to a great start, and take care,
--Aaron
P.S. re: the digital version released to backers over the holidays: there were a few snags with the distribution on this that meant that not all backers were able to see them at first. These should all be resolved now (I hope!) so if you had any trouble accessing the file last month, you can log back in to your BackerKit survey at https://downcrawl.backerkit.com , make sure it's completed, and on the confirmation page, look for a button reading "Get Your Digital Downloads" or "Get Your Digital Rewards." Note that for now this only includes the early PDF of the book: other digital rewards will be added this spring once the project is officially released.
