Tournament of the Mythic Kingdoms: New Premium Tuck Boxes

[jon_bg]

Hi everybody,
We just finished the first draft of our Kickstarter preview page today, and are interested in some helpful feedback. We've back many campaigns, but this is our first project.

Here is the link to the Kickstarter preview page: https://bit.ly/TMKpreview

Here is the image we've been using for a teaser video thumbnail:


Thank you!

[Harvonsgard]

Jackpot .

[justplaycards]

Where have these been all my life? Beautifully designed. I am sure someone will moan about the one way back. But I will certainly be in for a few of each colour.
Congratulations.

[Sembero]

[MURRAY] it's time to buy a new deck of cards <3

[jon_bg]

I am sure someone will moan about the one way back.

Thank you! Right, we understand about the one-way back, and we knew that would come up here as well. We had a long discussion about that. But, we were in love with the illustration, so it was a conscious decision. No professional poker games will be played with this deck, but that wasn't really our audience. Our audience was essentially our own families.

[Harvonsgard]

I do play poker with one-way back designs. They didn't hurt anyone till this day .

[wingedpotato]

These are beautiful. I'll be one of the minority that wishes a) the illustrations were in full color b) each suit had its own color (similar to the face pips)

[jon_bg]

These are beautiful. I'll be one of the minority that wishes a) the illustrations were in full color b) each suit had its own color (similar to the face pips)

Thank you. I think there will be others who would like color illustrations but this style was a conscious decision. I'll see if we could mention something about it in our art book.

Suit colors: We originally wanted all 4 suits to be different colors (which they are, except for the corners). But to avoid confusion when playing games that require two colors (solitaire), we went with red/black, and changed only the suit symbol. We tried a lot of different ideas, and liked the red/black best.

We haven't printed these yet (except for prototypes), so minor changes are within the realm of possibility.

[BaconWise]

I love this project and I will be in on day one. I would love to see more on the tuck boxes, though I know you are still working on finalizing the artwork. I didn't notice embossing as a stretch goal. Am I to assume that will be included from the beginning or have you not considered that feature yet? As a picky collector, one of the most important features I look for is tuck embossing as opposed to a flat, glossy tuck. If it's not a stretch goal, would you consider adding it as an early goal?

Regarding the artwork, it is phenomenal. The court illustrations are fantastic and I like that you did custom pips without drastically changing the general outline of the standard shapes of the hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. That makes for easy playability.

Also, kudos for going with USPCC and AoP for your fulfillment. Great choices

[justplaycards]

I was so bowled over by the artwork I missed that the tucks are not going to be embossed. Bacon is 100% right as usual, embossed tucks will really elevate this deck as well as making the difference with a lot of collectors. If possible, you should put some real thought into either doing that from the start (preferable) or making it a stretch goal.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

[Fes]

A few criticisms would be the faux parchment look on the background always drowns the colors used on the deck. Muddies the waters as it were. Pencil drawn look of the images sell it's on paper already in my opinion. I'm a big fan of solid Pips on the indices since I'm half blind I just don't see very well so I appreciate a solid symbol that I can glance at and know what it is. That's not to say that I don't like the art worked pips, not at all. I do like them. I just like them on the pips on the card face proper rather than in the indices.

Campaign page wise. Shipping is steep on this. Pet peeve of mine, shipping is always steep but this is more than it should be. I don't want to have to launch into the whole we, 330 million americans, use USPS to ship and we know what it costs and all that. Lets just say, We know this is expensive so you must be really proud of it for it to be $2 more than it should be. Yea, I'm a card collector, I buy from all over and it's shipped to me. Yea I ship decks to people across the country and pay USPS to haul the things. etc etc. This is expensive, I hope you guys get it nailed down and fix it. We're all in the same boat and covid 19 hasn't been growing money trees for us to use their leaves to shell out extra on shipping.

You're identity is not verified by KS on your profile. Hope you get that sorted out as well.

Curious how you're funding two USPCC printed decks for a $6,000 USD goal. I'm not an accountant I just play on one the interwebs but this just doesn't break down to producing and fulfilling two custom decks even with the inflated shipping prices. Not to mention adding in a hardbound art book into the mix. So how you going to pull that rabbit out?

I don't read anywhere that it says it's a hardbound book, just the image. So is it hard bound, soft cover maybe a comic book or a just a PDF? Need a little clarity.

There's no add on's menu that I see. How much for just the art book if I want me an extra for the shelf? The backers would probably want to know that. I guess you're not using a backer kit type company to help manage the add ons and will be doing it in house with that dollar goal so maybe no add ons. Clarify for backers please.

I'm also hoping to see a tuck box when it launches. I read that it was in the works on there somewhere, hopefully it'll be in the working images when the campaign launches though. It's good to see what we're buying and it's a bad idea to guess at it.

Page looks good, sans what I said. The video is a fun little thing too. I like the decks, they're fun. I like the little texty banners on the courts, letting us know who these peoples are. The courts show a lot of personality, it's fun. You already know the art is good, you're showing us Greg's award for some of it on the page. I don't need to comment there but, where's the coloring book man?

Looks like there's still some work to get done there. Hope things work out well. We all like fun.

[jon_bg]

I didn't notice embossing as a stretch goal. Am I to assume that will be included from the beginning or have you not considered that feature yet? As a picky collector, one of the most important features I look for is tuck embossing as opposed to a flat, glossy tuck. If it's not a stretch goal, would you consider adding it as an early goal?

Thank you very much for this feedback. Through USPCC, cmbossing would add [a few dollars] per deck. I've seen other posts here that suggest going with a different company for custom tuck boxes. But, we are just too new at this to want to get that complicated for our first project.

If this campaign ends up being crazy successful, who knows what might happen. But, we are not currently planning on embossing due to the cost. I'm the financial model guy and I've done my best to get us down to the $12 per deck price point. Collectors may be willing to pay more for embossing, but it won't be a stretch goal with our current pledge levels.

I'll have to look into whether it's possible to print a smaller number of decks with more premium tuck boxes, or maybe somebody here already knows if that is possible.

I will say that I have worked with Carat Case Creations to design a new DS2A deck sleeve (2 decks side-by-side), and that WILL be one of the stretch goals, and also an add-on. I just don't have a photo of it yet, which is why there is a "?" stretch goal listed.

[BaconWise]

You are in great hands with Sherman at CCC! I might suggest Clove Street Press for a tuck box estimate, though I don't know what their pricing structure is. They have been absolutely crushing the tuck game with Kings Wild Project decks lately. Good luck and I look forward to this one!

[Harvonsgard]

Just to throw another name into the mix. I heard from a guy in Greece that makes occasionally superb tuck boxes. Oath aka Lotrék. Latest example the Meadowlark tuck box.

[jon_bg]

[Fes] Thank you very much for your detailed feedback. We are already working on making changes.

Shipping Cost: Using AoP adds a minimum of $X to every package. For the US, I will be managing the fulfillment, but because we may fall back on using AoP for all fulfillment, I have set the US shipping to about a dollar less than what I've calculated AoP to cost. I could raise the cost of a deck to $14 and lower the shipping cost by $2, but that would only change the perception. Whether we include the uncertainty in shipping within the shipping cost itself, or within the price of the deck is mostly a matter of perception I think (could be wrong, though). It sounds like from a professional's point of view, who knows exact shipping costs, it may be better to raise the cost of the deck itself so that the costs added through 3rd party fulfillment are part of the deck cost rather than the shipping? Right now it's a bit of a dilemma on what to do. I could raise the deck cost to $18 and say it's free shipping. The point is that we have a margin we are trying to reach. I personally would rather list the shipping based on the cost of the 3rd party fulfillment, but I'm not opposed to other options.

This feedback about shipping is exactly why we are doing a preview. Thank you.

Funding Level: Our actual break even point is higher than $6000, but we will print these even if we only get to $6000 and don't break even. Maybe we will to $7k by the time we launch. Our funding level is the minimum at which we will consider following through with printing exclusively for this campaign. We could end up with a bunch of extra decks to reach the 1000 minimum, but that's a risk we are okay with taking. Another reason for the lower funding level is that Kickstarter rewards you for getting funded the first day. If it weren't for that fact, I would be listing the funding level higher.

We fixed the book issue. The plan is for it to be a soft cover, with the possibility of a hard cover as a stretch goal. So, thank you for catching that. Great feedback.

Add Ons: We wanted to get the preview page up and just didn't have the images for the add ons ready yet. Still working on how the add ons will affect the shipping as well. Thank you for catching that we haven't mentioned using BackerKit. We will be using them. The art book will be an add on. There will be other add ons. I'm still working on the shipping costs associated with add ons. Any advice on that would be appreciated.

Tuck Boxes: My understanding is that collectors really love the tuck boxes. Our prototype tuck boxes were not USPCC tuck boxes, so we didn't want to show them because they were not the level of quality we wanted and they don't look exactly like the final product will look. We are working on showing a better product image with tuck boxes, but they will be digital mock-ups.

Yep, still work to be done. I'm hoping that the work will be done by December.

[Eric Lee]

Tuck Boxes: My understanding is that collectors really love the tuck boxes. Our prototype tuck boxes were not USPCC tuck boxes, so we didn't want to show them because they were not the level of quality we wanted and they don't look exactly like the final product will look. We are working on showing a better product image with tuck boxes, but they will be digital mock-ups.

Yep, still work to be done. I'm hoping that the work will be done by December.

Fes has already said more than I could, but would like to add a few points.
- Honestly, I feel that USPCC standard tucks are crap. The right side tab always seems to catch with top flap slit when I open uspcc tucks. (Am I the only one here?) As others have suggested, and you've mentioned you seen other posts as well, but just in case you missed the best one, see the Infinitum thread about printing tuck costs here

As GW can do both tuck printing and fulfillment , do consider using them if they can get you better tucks at the same or reduced cost vs USPCC/AOP. I totally respect that you're willing to go out of pocket just to get the deck printed and how scary this can be as it's your 1st KS. You can reach out to the other designers on that thread like Alex of Montenzi, Ben of EPC and Sunish of GPCC how they handled KS, fulfilment and logistics, especially since they're in NZ and Aust.

You can see it as an encouraging sign that we here are asking for better tucks to match the cards. It's a testimony on how strong we feel for the decks.

- Art like that demands a full color version, IMO. Consider a full color version of the deck as a stretch goal or as a 2 deck option. 1 B&W and 1 full color rather than just a color swapped back. Raise the cost of the Full color if you need. Again, you can use the Infinitum KS as a reference.

- From the designs of the courts and the name of the deck, it looks like there's a special game that can be played with this deck. Specially since you guys are the ones running Boardgames.com. Any chance of a special kid friendly rules to play with this deck based on the art? That would be a very fun stretch goal and encourage backers to get more decks.

[jon_bg]

Thanks, Eric. We are looking into the other tuck box options. We want to use USPCC for the cards, but I suppose we aren't necessarily committed to anyone for tuck boxes. I personally would love to have these embossed, so we will consider other options.

We got the next few steps of the kickstarter finished (identity verified and review complete), so the prelaunch url will be coming soon.

Special Game: I'd love to say we already have a game in mind, but this is an element that may be fun for the backers to participate in. I won't say more on that except for this: we have not decided yet what will be on the last extra card in our 56-card deck.

[Fes]

Great to see you're identity verified on Kickstarter. Tuck box images are up and looks like a change to the art book image. Good stuff is happening.

Call me crazy but there are campaigns that fund in an hour or two and, I'm going to say it because I must, actually fund the project. Many campaigns fund in the first week, the first day, the first fortnight. They fund based upon the merits of their design and forthrightness of the campaign. Why not simply shoot for your actual funding goal? That way you have no issues or complications, you have the funds to accomplish the goal. I hope you'll rethink that silly $6,000 funding for two decks. It's a red flag to a lot of us who know you can't possibly produce two decks for that. So I'm curious and have to ask. Do you have so little faith in the design and art of your decks that you don't believe it will completely fund in the first few days? You speak of kickstarter rewarding you for funding in the first day. Do they knock a percentage of their take off the board? I'm sorry but I don't follow this flawed logic at all. I'd believe in my design and award winning art to carry the campaign.

Art of play is a very nice company with great folks working for it. It's also a boutique. When the girls want to go shopping it's all fun and good. When they decide to go Boutique shopping, it's a different feeling entirely. Me arse clenches up like I've just eaten an atomic burrito. I'm sure you know why. Boutiques are expensive and I'm about to take a hit. You're a board game guy, we understand. Please keep your mind open to others who may actually be an actual fulfillment center. Don't get me wrong, I love Art of Play and believe me they know I do. I'm not speaking ill of them at all and I would love them to have the extra work. It's still a covid nineteen world and we're still all broke or going that way and they're still an expen$ive option for something that anyone who deals in playing cards can do. I'd look at it as a dollar saved is a fan made. If your goal is to generate more customers for your site and brand. Maybe it's just make a couple decks of cool cards though. I don't know.

I don't know what formula you're using in this campaign. You're a first time creator on Kickstarter so I can't begin to imagine the lessons you're about to learn. I wouldn't worry too much about the tuck though. Ultimately it's a friggin box wrapped in plastic at the end of the day just make it look pretty and seal shut, folks are going to be happy or not it'll always be subjective and someone will ALWAYS want more. It's just the nature of people. You could stand on the side walk and give everyone walking by a five dollar bill with a smile just to do it. Someone's going to complain it's not a ten. Again you already have award winning art, the award is on the campaign page. Make the tuck you want to have an option from the start and bells and whistles later IF you feel like you want to do that. You'll get support from people or you won't based upon the design and the art not a couple creased lines on the box. It's not a fidget spinner and embossing, cutaways, foiling, etc, are wish list items.

Again I don't know what formula you're using for the campaign. I'm hoping you're going to go with total cost + 5% for screw ups because odds are something is going to get screwed up somewhere somehow. It's just the nature of the machine.

The image for the Tucks look nice. Have you considered your band on the top tuck flap in white text though? Just as the names of the decks on the tucks face draw the eye, when a person is opening the tuck flap some white text up there will also draw the eye. They'll see it and it will register as seen vs eyes sliding off of it and not registering in our minds because the focus will be the stamp seal. By the way, foil stamp seals suck. Most every card user dislikes the things. They're a pain in the keester to tear with your thumb nail, almost always have to get a knife out or peal the whole thing off which leaves that glue mess behind. The perforated foil stamp seals suck too but to a lesser extent sure but suck is suck. May want to consider a change from foil stretch goal to a "Custom" stamp seal and have the thing done on paper. No it's not shiny that way but with color choice it's plenty of bling. Your customers will be glad in the end even if you don't hear about it and you can stick your brand on it. The lock thing, yea seriously, branding branding branding.

Price your decks according to what you need done. We could have a discussion about cost break downs and all that fun stuff over the batch, where the money is made, how much is going where and long term goal for the run, but that's quite the long chat isn't it? I'll say that I like the $12 US price. I think it's honest.

Great to the stuff you're doing! Seriously, where's the coloring book? Hello free money.

[jon_bg]

You could stand on the side walk and give everyone walking by a five dollar bill with a smile just to do it. Someone's going to complain it's not a ten.

On the funding level ... we just had a KS expert ask us why we can't make the funding level even lower. So, it's a toss up. I'm going to write some numbers and stick them in a hat, and the result will be the funding level. Just kidding, kind of. According to multiple sources, there really is a KS algorithm that rewards reaching a funding goal early.

Quite frankly, I have no idea what will happen during the first day. I've been encouraged by our feedback so far. Ultimately, how far this goes will depend on how much people like it and how many people we can get to see it, and 100s of other variables. Most of our efforts over the next week will be marketing, but we are also looking into tuck box options.

A pet peeve of mine is how tuck boxes get used and torn so easily. So personally, if I had to decide between whether I'd get a free Carat deck sleeve for my tuck box vs. embossing ... I would choose the deck sleeve. But that's because I plan to play with these cards. I'll keep one set for the start of my collection of course.

Interesting take on the foil stamp. Haven't heard that issue before, but I do know what you mean about the sticky mess left if you remove the stamp. I do like the idea of just calling it "custom" and then we can decide whether we want to make it foil or not.

Coloring book ... interesting. Maybe an idea for a printable PDF.

[jon_bg]

What do you all think of LPCC (Legends Playing Card Company)? We're in the process of getting a quote from them - the tuck box options seem very reasonable, but we haven't gotten the official quote yet. The main question I have is whether the quality of the cards is really as good as USPCC as they claim.

The Bitcoin deck used LPCC.

[wingedpotato]

Here we go...

[jon_bg]

Oh no ... I looked for other threads on this, but if there is one I didn't see, point me to it. No need to rehash an old conversation.

[Harvonsgard]

Here we go...

The printer discussion is as old as this forum or even older. It's complicated. The TL;DR would be: some accept/don't mind it, if printed with LPCC and some will hate it.

[jon_bg]

I see. We are going to at least get some more quotes to see what's possible before deciding to stick with USPCC.

[Fes]

On the funding level ... we just had a KS expert ask us why we can't make the funding level even lower. So, it's a toss up.

I see what your plan is now. I believe you think you're going to have a super campaign runaway success and the goal is irrelevant. Truly, I hope that you do. Otherwise you'll be clicking cancel on the final day or facing a lot of pissed off backers because you can not possibly fulfill two USPCC decks for six grand. You're here because you want to begin generating hype for your playing cards and have people repeat what you've already heard. The art is nice. Well you already knew that.

Fun, I fell for the suckers role.
Who's the goose? This guy.

[jon_bg]

[Fes] Yes, we have hope. By an expert, I mean somebody that we watched on youtube who has done multiple kickstarters (for board games mostly). We emailed to ask questions and got a helpful response. There are other sources talking about this as well, so this is where we got a lot of our information. Another person recommended that we post in this forum to get expert advice on kickstarter campaigns for card decks, and we were also warned that the criticism would be harsh.

We have indeed gotten a lot of constructive feedback, which we are hoping to use to make this a successful campaign. By successful, I mean profitable for us and excellent quality for our backers, for a reasonable price. If we reach the funding level, we are going to print these cards. We won't kill our brand by canceling a funded project. We still have a little over a week to make changes before the launch, so the pricing and funding level and shipping and everything could very well change before we launch, based on collective feedback, what we find out about printing tuck boxes elsewhere, etc.

We have posted here to let people know about the campaign, just as everybody else does. But we actually DO want constructive feedback. And we have gotten a lot of that, for which we are extremely grateful.

So, again, thank you for all the constructive feedback, even the brutally honest.

[MagikFingerz]

Here we go...

The printer discussion is as old as this forum or even older. It's complicated. The TL;DR would be: some accept/don't mind it, if printed with LPCC and some will hate it.

"Hate" might be too strong of a word here. I mean, it's not like we're talking about NPCC

[Harvonsgard]

[montenzi]

If you need custom boxes, try using USPCC + Gamblers. Why?

1. Shipping decks from USPCC to GW is always free.
2. International shipping rates are better at GW.
3. GW produces boxes. They can even do all work to print your decks at USPCC! They will also help you with after-Kickstarter fulfillment for decks sold on your site.
4. Printing USPCC decks without boxes is $0.75-0.5 cheaper, so you can invest this difference into producing upgraded boxes
5. Even if you print some boxes elsewhere, GW will do all cello wrapping/packaging (at cost), but you will control how your boxes are made. It's recommended if you are planning to use your local box printer.
6. Once I printed boxes at WJPCC (China) for 50% of my HT decks. Then GW assembled decks. It was a basic but upgraded box. The difference USPCC/WJPC was huge as I added inner printing, matte finish, thicker paper stock. And It was not that expensive and complicated.
7. LPCC? Maybe. But think about logistics + taxes.
8. Use Cartamundi if you want to offer EU friendly shipping

Good luck!

[sms69x]

8. Use Cartamundi if you want to offer EU friendly shipping
Good luck!

Only you to think of your fellows European friends!

Btw, the deck looks fantastic, I'm quite sure I'll be there, providing printer is not NPCC. I'll support even if it is LPCC.