Physicals Exist - Dice Exist
over 2 years ago – Thu, Dec 02, 2021 at 09:25:29 PM

Short update. No new news, just new IMAGES. 

Some dice I meant to show off last week: 

Fulfilment on track. Hoping to get books to people in the next month or so. US customs have cleared up a bit (we now have a stable route!) 

If you're lucky enough to be at Dragonmeet this weekend, come and say hey to me and the rest of the team! 

Finally, we're still running our #LATAMBreakout Kickstarter. Head on over and give a hand to some amazing creator from Latin America and their collection of stunning and unique games. 

Thanks and speak soon! 

Zach

See You, Space Cowboys!

- Sleney, Clark, & Cox

Physical Previews + BackerKit + New KS
over 2 years ago – Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 02:39:29 PM

Hey everyone, 

Short version: We're moving forward with printing, and I am hoping to recieve the books in the next few weeks. I'm going to be locking BackerKtiI'm hoping to get books to UK, EU and RoW backers before or around Christmas, and books to the US in the new year. 

First, some fancy previews of Wayward Stars, the GM Screen and the Cassette Adventure.

We're still waiting on shots of the core book, but they're on the way. 

BackerKit Timeline

I'm going to be locking orders on BackerKit for non-US customers. Cards will be charged for shipping and add-ons in a weeks. Addresses will be locked a week after.

I should get copies in the UK of all the books in the last week of November, to be sent out soon after. I'm confident it will be roughly 4-6 weeks, rather than the 3 months it has taken us for Best Left Buried, as I now have the forms and paperwork sorted, and a stable path for books to travel to the US. 

Other Projects

Kickstarter is wild with new RPG things right now, including a new project of our own. In exchange for some self-promotion, I'm going to point you at another project by one of the Orbital Blues collaborators first. 

Chris Bissette of LootTheRoomUK, who created the EP for Orbital Blues that you love so much, has a Troika choose-your-own-adventure solo adventure on Kickstarter called DOWN IN YONGARDY on Kickstarter. Please do them the favour of checking it out. 

Our new Kickstarter launched yesterday: #LATAMBreakout. We're publishing five new games from emerging creators in Latin America, a region can't run Kickstarters of it's own due to KS rules. We're looking to bring a load of these fantastic creators to the forefront of the industry. Fancy a BRDP-esque monster hunting game where you are some really gay monsters? Think you'd enjoy a GM-less Belonging Outside Belonging game where you play witches trying to get through the school year? Like the idea of post-fantasy tabletop game, set in a world inspired by  Brazilian culture and long summer nights playing JRPGs on a pirated PS1? 

We have the project for you! 

We'll be back soon with more info on production schedules, and with some previews of the core book when we have. 

Thanks for your support! 

Zach

See You, Space Cowboys!

- Sleney, Clark, & Cox

EP Release + GM Screen + Print Delays
over 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 05, 2021 at 04:35:11 AM

Hi everyone

Good news, the EP is READY. Bad news, books will be delayed for a while. 

ORBITAL BLUES

You can blaze down the highway listening to the project's music. I can finally reveal the tracklist: 

1. Dramatic Opening Number  

2. Runaway Space Truck  

3. The Shape of Shapes to Come  

4. Chase Ghosts Coast to Coast 

5. Long Haul  

6. Bullfight 

7. Even Stars Fall Apart  

8. Blue Shift

Thanks once again to Chris for putting this EP together. I'll be mailing out download links (sadly via google drive) to everyone who backers at the appropriate level for the EP. We're working on distribution via Spotify and Bandcamp for everyone to listen to, but we want to offer downloads to backers first. You should have got a DM in the last few uploads. 

GM Screen

Here's the GM screen we've put together! As always, art is Josh and design is Lone

Printing Update

We're still arguing with the printers about colour profiles. We nearly had a version of a files that were accepted, but the saturation of the colours was way down, so we're having to fiddle with the export settings and spot profiling to get the things ready. 

There were a few days where there was a paper panic, and we thought we weren't going to be able to get enough paper (half a million sheets!!) to start printing immediately, but we've got over this. We're hoping to get the final files signed off in the next week or so, and then we can begin printing. After this, we can begin distribution. This is where the bad news starts. 

Fulfilment Update

Even once we tackle printing, we have to get the books to the UK and then the United States. Getting things to the UK historically hasn't been too difficult, but this is a bigger project than we've handled before so we have to be prepared for issues. 

I'm hoping we should be able to get everything from to EU and UK backers quite smoothly. We've previously had issues with preparing the paperwork for customs pre-payment, but the experience (and python code) we have should help us get this off relatively smoothly. 

Best Left Buried, our most recent project, has been plagued with issues getting books to United States. We're still struggling with this, and it's been a very painful process. 

I've copy and pasted this info from the BLB KS update: 

I'm in constant conversations with no less than 6 sea freight shippers (who shall remain nameless) and I've still not been able to finalise customs info or a collection date with any of them, despite literally hundreds of emails back and forth.

The international shipping ecosystem is a mess right now. While vaccines are in place and lockdowns are over for most regions, COVID (and to a lesser extent, Brexit) is still a nightmare to handle and wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.

The amount of freight we want to send (2 pallets, 2.5k books, 1.7 tons, roughly £55k of stock at retail value) is a very awkward amount, referred to in Industry as LCL (less than container load). It is too large for us to use consumer tools, but too small for us to book an entire shipping container, which means that the freight forwarder is  having to squeeze us into another LCL shipment, or on top of a slightly less than full container. This is quite easy to do with a couple of boxes, but squeezing two pallets worth of books into a shipping container is very difficult.

While it is staggeringly important for SoulMuppet, and also for our backers, to get these books to the states, our business is simply very small compared to 'real' industry, and the freight forwarders we are using would rather give the business to someone who will give them many times the volume.

Industry sources are quoting the cost of a shipping container has increased by up to 5x since before the pandemic. These price shocks, and gluts of important resources like MDF and cardboard, make printing and shipping terrifyingly expensive currently.

How do we move forward?

• 1. Try to get the books onto a plane freight (rather the ocean freight). Because there's no shipping containers to attend with, this might be easier to arrange. However, it is FAR more expensive due to shortage of direct flights from the UK to US. My quotes (I've asked for them to explore this option) are close to 8 times to price quoted for the equivalent in seafreight, and would decimate the margins for the entire project.
• 2. Send the books one by one to US customers from the UK. This  would double or triple the amount backers backers paid for shipping. I'm  open to exploring this if we can't get the books out in the next month  or two, but this is an expensive option we really need to avoid if we  can.  US customs are difficult, as a lot of products get dinged and  delays and backers might also end up with unexpected customs fees.
• 3. Wait for someone to agree to pick up the books. This could  happen tomorrow (I think I'm quite close with one provider) but it might  take weeks or even months.

Next Steps

These issues are not going to disappear in the next few weeks or months. Even if we add the OB books to the BLB pile, we're still comfortably within LCL range. 

I'll provide an update with precise estimated shipping dates as soon as we have them. 

I'm hoping to deliver books to UK and RoW within the next 8 weeks, and US copies arriving some time in December/January. 

This dates are temperamental and could be subject to change in either direction. 

We're constantly exploring new options, and we're working hard to get books to you as soon as we can. 

For the meanwhile, please update your BackerKit address for the new dates. We'll keep pre-orders open, address locked and cards uncharged for as long as we can. 

Thanks for your patience,

Zach

See You, Space Cowboys!

- Sleney, Clark, & Cox

BackerKit is Live! - Errata Pushed
over 2 years ago – Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 05:15:23 PM

BackerKit is live, tell your friends! 

You should be able to go into the project, grab any extra physicals/addons you want, customer your order and select shipping details. 

We're hoping everything is smooth for you, but this is a complicated project with a lot of moving parts. We did our smoke tests last week (sending 5% of Backers test surveys to make sure everything works) and encountered a number of issues which should now be fixed. If you did fill our your survey last week, I'd recommend going back and checking everything to make sure you're getting charged the right amount. Any issues, just email [email protected] and we'll do our best to help! 

In other news, we also pushed some errata and updates to the core book, fixing various issues with Stat Check target numbers, Armour and Ship Actions mainly raised by the users of our SoulMuppet Publishing Discord Server! Make sure you download the new version (v3.3 on DriveThru) to get the goodies. We've also compressed the file quite a bit and sorted some bugs with Adobe Acrobat not liking some of our fonts. 

Postcards

We've finalise the list of Postcards, so you'll be able to pick up Falling Skies, Dust Bowl and Star Home to add to your pledges. Beautiful pictures all! 

Next Steps

We're also beginning half way through the lengthy process of pre-print file approval with our amazing. We'll let you know things are signed off with precise dates for when we expect books to arrive in the UK/US, so you can update shipping details should you be moving. Fill in now expecting September if you're UK/RoW, October if you're in the US. 

Things have been delayed by the errata and some problems with Dice and GM screens, but we're working on getting you the books as soon as possible, and we'll keep you updated as soon as we have more info. 

Thanks for your patience, and please share the BackerKit far and wide! 

See You, Space Cowboys!

- Sleney, Clark, & Cox

Core Book PDF Release
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 01, 2021 at 04:39:35 PM

Hi everyone

Zach here! The Orbital Blues Core Book PDF LIVES.

Check the email address you used for your Kickstarter account, and a free coupon should have dropped in your inbox. Drop an email to [email protected] if you have any issues. 

PLEASE check your inbox and your spam/junk filters so I don't have to respond to dozens of emails like with Wayward Stars. 

You can find the storepage here. Please scream from all the rooftops about this, and let all your friends know about the release of our game. 

This is a 'flattened' file for compression sizes, a more up to date, slightly larger file will be coming your way when we have it. 

Production Update

• The Core Book is ready, so we're getting it ready for print. 
• 4 tracks are done from the EP. We're hoping to have a few more by the weekend. 
• BackerKit is coming early August. Our UK/EU/RoW are sending us some new shipping rates, and while we don't expect things to change drastically, I want to be safe. You'll be able to use BackerKit to move around your pledge level, pick up extra items and provide shipping info.
• Shipping Dates: I'm less optimistic about late August, we might be shifting to early/mid September, but I'll keep you updated with rpecise dates when I have them. The Atlantic is still difficult, and we'll keep you updated. Late September for US customers is the provisional date.

I'll leave you with a few more snippets and screenshots of the book: 

Until Next Time,

See You, Space Cowboys!

- Sleney, Clark, & Cox