New! SPIRITS: SEANCE & SOUL COLLECTOR Tuck Boxes

[Evilgamer]

He's serious about this part. I changed my pledge earlier today to add on items and my Afterlife and Resurrection decks disappeared. That was a rollercoaster of emotions to get them back.

yes that would have sucked and heck knows Ive done the 'alter your pledge' thing looking for rare decks A LOT earlier with this campaign (I'm good now)

hopefully throwing 1 deck into the shark pit doesnt cause more drama like the original release did.

[VillainousIndustries]

He's serious about this part. I changed my pledge earlier today to add on items and my Afterlife and Resurrection decks disappeared. That was a rollercoaster of emotions to get them back.

yes that would have sucked and heck knows Ive done the 'alter your pledge' thing looking for rare decks A LOT earlier with this campaign (I'm good now)

hopefully throwing 1 deck into the shark pit doesnt cause more drama like the original release did.

Surprisingly not! Took almost an hour for someone to claim it lol

[Evilgamer]

He's serious about this part. I changed my pledge earlier today to add on items and my Afterlife and Resurrection decks disappeared. That was a rollercoaster of emotions to get them back.

yes that would have sucked and heck knows Ive done the 'alter your pledge' thing looking for rare decks A LOT earlier with this campaign (I'm good now)

hopefully throwing 1 deck into the shark pit doesnt cause more drama like the original release did.

Surprisingly not! Took almost an hour for someone to claim it lol

? according to the post it shouldn't have even have gone up until 30min from now.

[VillainousIndustries]

Oh ffs.

I should just Google things instead of trusting friends.

I knew I was behind an hour of pst not ahead an hour. Ffs.

Welp

I'm just gonna go by MST from now on and everyone else can translate to their own timezone

[Evilgamer]

He's serious about this part. I changed my pledge earlier today to add on items and my Afterlife and Resurrection decks disappeared. That was a rollercoaster of emotions to get them back.

6pm pst, not est


yes that would have sucked and heck knows Ive done the 'alter your pledge' thing looking for rare decks A LOT earlier with this campaign (I'm good now)

hopefully throwing 1 deck into the shark pit doesnt cause more drama like the original release did.

Surprisingly not! Took almost an hour for someone to claim it lol

? according to the post it shouldn't have even have gone up until 30min from now.

6pm pst, not est

yes 6pst is 9est.

[VillainousIndustries]

Welp. That's what I get for being a dumb Canadian I guess.

[STLBluesNut]

Oh ffs.

I should just Google things instead of trusting friends.

I knew I was behind an hour of pst not ahead an hour. Ffs.

Welp

I'm just gonna go by MST from now on and everyone else can translate to their own timezone

lmao. i hate the timezone crap. if it isnt in one of the 4 US timezones i am lost.

[Evilgamer]

Oh ffs.

I should just Google things instead of trusting friends.

I knew I was behind an hour of pst not ahead an hour. Ffs.

Welp

I'm just gonna go by MST from now on and everyone else can translate to their own timezone

lmao. i hate the timezone crap. if it isnt in one of the 4 US timezones i am lost.

Yeah, the "correct" way to do it would be to post everything as UTC/GMT....But even as someone who flew small planes for awhile (where EVERYTHING is timed in UTC) I can never remember whether its a 4 or 5 hour offset due to daylight savings...

Giovanni just posted his time window for this weekend's kickstarter for TWI (its a 7 hour window so.....) in CET which I dont even have a mental frame of reference for....


Alexa play Canadian Idiot by Weird AL on loop for Ben until the campaign ends

[Revelation Workshop]

They just opened a pateron after one project. too fast for me

[Fenrir]

They just opened a pateron after one project. too fast for me

I imagine they wanted to capitalize on the wave of support. Definitely earlier than anyone else but who knows how it will do.

[Evilgamer]

Ben is definitely ambitious.

$10/month top tier isnt too bad though.

Not sure if Im going to do it or not.

Do I wish he would focus on delivering the campaign before selling something else? yeah but at this point hes probably waiting on orders plus his wife is more the fulfillment side as I understand.

If he ever told the KS backers he was doing it I missed it so hes not really trying hard to market this.. EDIT: He totally did, it was in the 9/29 update I see it reading tonights update

[VillainousIndustries]

I am literally just sitting here, waiting for 5 different production companies to ship me my orders so I can then ship them all to the backers. Everything is paid for. Everything is coming. Everything is golden.

We have a buffer-fund in case there are issues like damages or lost items, shipping funds waiting for... shipping, and another buffer-fund for supplies and materials.

In the mean time, I've been working on my next deck, and designed a modified traditional faced deck with a fan-favorite card back from a poll before SPIRITS, and I was like 'Maybe people would like to see behind the scenes, and see my projects while I work on them. or scrapped ideas, or design processes, and maybe I can give those people a deck every 3 months of patronage, and early access to stuff"

I just want to make playing cards my full time job. I have been a freelance designer for so long, and STILL have 3 jobs just to make ends-meet. If people enjoy my designs as much as they loved SPIRITS, this can can literally change my life.

So why wouldnt I try to capitalize on my own success? My Patreon is a stepping stone into becoming a full-time creator.

My family and I might be able to move out of our shitty neighborhood, where my neighbors house got drive-by'd a month ago, and cops raid drug houses up and down my area every week, all because of my designs?

Yea. I'mn going to capitalize on this the most I can.

I love making playing cards. I love creating things. And I guess that I don't care if I have 0 patrons or 100. I'm still going to make playing cards.

[STLBluesNut]

...designed a modified traditional faced deck with a fan-favorite card back from a poll before SPIRITS...

for me personally, this doesn't get me too excited. modified standard courts aren't really my jam but i havent seen them yet so they could be an outlier.

[VillainousIndustries]

...designed a modified traditional faced deck with a fan-favorite card back from a poll before SPIRITS...

for me personally, this doesn't get me too excited. modified standard courts aren't really my jam but i havent seen them yet so they could be an outlier.

That's completely fair! They're not my favorite type of deck either but I know magicians and cardists prefer them, and they take less work than my full-blown art decks do haha. When this beces my job, I can offer more luxury decks as patron exclusives on top of doing the kickstarters, having an online store, having my decks in retail stores, etc.

[Evilgamer]

Ben I want to be perfectly clear and say "I understand" but we have a saying at my job "perception is reality".

People here are REALLY skittish about KS producers or Patreons where the commitment to delivery on time is in doubt a lot have been burned.

I don't think anyone here would be adverse to you getting to the point where playing card art is your life. But its likely going going to (and you seem to understand it) that this is going to be a long road.
Giovanni from TWI said he was still working a real job not that long ago(year or two), and that man puts out about a deck a month on average and has a large following and has been successful for a LONG time.

Like I said during the campaign you have my trust now, don't misplace it you have a bright future ahead of you if you play your...proverbial and real...cards right.

[VillainousIndustries]

Ben I want to be perfectly clear and say "I understand" but we have a saying at my job "perception is reality".

People here are REALLY skittish about KS producers or Patreons where the commitment to delivery on time is in doubt a lot have been burned.

I don't think anyone here would be adverse to you getting to the point where playing card art is your life. But its likely going going to (and you seem to understand it) that this is going to be a long road.
Giovanni from TWI said he was still working a real job not that long ago(year or two), and that man puts out about a deck a month on average and has a large following and has been successful for a LONG time.

Like I said during the campaign you have my trust now, don't misplace it you have a bright future ahead of you if you play your...proverbial and real...cards right.

At this point, I literally just have to get everything delivered. I have no clue how people can heck this up that badly if they're serious about it.

The only issues I can forsee is the production companies not following through, but they all have great track records and have been researched and vetted accordingly.

Everyone has their trust in Play The Villain, and the only thing I want to do is prove it to everyone that we are in this for the right reasons.

[Evilgamer]

At this point, I literally just have to get everything delivered. I have no clue how people can heck this up that badly if they're serious about it.

The only issues I can forsee is the production companies not following through, but they all have great track records and have been researched and vetted accordingly.

Everyone has their trust in Play The Villain, and the only thing I want to do is prove it to everyone that we are in this for the right reasons.

Its a combination of a lot of things.

How many decks did you actually sell (you had what? 5 variations yourself) vs How many did you print? vs the final total you either chose (to sell later) or had to (minimum print runs) print, same with the other merchandise. Im sure some projects were in the hole before everything either was ordered or came in because they just focused on making prototype "cool things' and didnt do their homework on what it really would take to make them. This is how you end up with "pyramid scheme" campaigns where a 2nd effort is actually paying for the first to be completed, at best you do this once to get out of the hole and learn your lesson, at worse you end up in this cycle forever.

Shipping, figuring out how to package 100s or 1000s of orders of different sizes to safely get them to their destination, stack up the orders, get them boxed up, to the carrier, track them, and pay for it. Plus fix the inevitable issues with shipping. There's a good reason why established fulfillment houses like gamblers warehouse are still in business.

And those are just the things you can control. As you say you can have suppliers not deliver, or screw up an order (worse if you agreed to the screwup in writing at the order stage) or literal "act of god" covid, the war in Ukraine (and its effect on everything Russian) hurricanes.

Now try to juggle all those balls while running or delivering a second or third campaign or another business without dropping some.

Yeah..people screw it up, there's a number of threads about even people who have done it several times managing to get it very wrong.

You have to understand why people will only trust a company with no track record so much.

By all means work on your Ritual deck, perfect it, have it ready to go the week after the last package goes out, work with the community here and on your patreon to shape that campaign ONCE YOU START SHIPPING, have previews of it to include in the updates that you send out via KS, plant the seed so that people happily looking at spirit decks for the first time mark their calendar for ritual. Be ready...but don't be in a rush or early. Once you have done this a few times people will trust you (more, not everyone will).

[Drewser]

Ben I want to be perfectly clear and say "I understand" but we have a saying at my job "perception is reality".

People here are REALLY skittish about KS producers or Patreons where the commitment to delivery on time is in doubt a lot have been burned.

I don't think anyone here would be adverse to you getting to the point where playing card art is your life. But its likely going going to (and you seem to understand it) that this is going to be a long road.
Giovanni from TWI said he was still working a real job not that long ago(year or two), and that man puts out about a deck a month on average and has a large following and has been successful for a LONG time.

Like I said during the campaign you have my trust now, don't misplace it you have a bright future ahead of you if you play your...proverbial and real...cards right.

The necessity of working a day job while selling cards is relative to the lifestyle that someone is trying to maintain. 50k/year, 100k/year, 200k/year, etc. may not be enough for some people and for a workaholic, no amount of money may be enough for them to quit their day job. Individual's goals differ across the board.

[VillainousIndustries]

At this point, I literally just have to get everything delivered. I have no clue how people can heck this up that badly if they're serious about it.

The only issues I can forsee is the production companies not following through, but they all have great track records and have been researched and vetted accordingly.

Everyone has their trust in Play The Villain, and the only thing I want to do is prove it to everyone that we are in this for the right reasons.

Its a combination of a lot of things.

How many decks did you actually sell (you had what? 5 variations yourself) vs How many did you print? vs the final total you either chose (to sell later) or had to (minimum print runs) print, same with the other merchandise. Im sure some projects were in the hole before everything either was ordered or came in because they just focused on making prototype "cool things' and didnt do their homework on what it really would take to make them. This is how you end up with "pyramid scheme" campaigns where a 2nd effort is actually paying for the first to be completed, at best you do this once to get out of the hole and learn your lesson, at worse you end up in this cycle forever.

Shipping, figuring out how to package 100s or 1000s of orders of different sizes to safely get them to their destination, stack up the orders, get them boxed up, to the carrier, track them, and pay for it. Plus fix the inevitable issues with shipping. There's a good reason why established fulfillment houses like gamblers warehouse are still in business.

And those are just the things you can control. As you say you can have suppliers not deliver, or screw up an order (worse if you agreed to the screwup in writing at the order stage) or literal "act of god" covid, the war in Ukraine (and its effect on everything Russian) hurricanes.

Now try to juggle all those balls while running or delivering a second or third campaign or another business without dropping some.

Yeah..people screw it up, there's a number of threads about even people who have done it several times managing to get it very wrong.

You have to understand why people will only trust a company with no track record so much.

By all means work on your Ritual deck, perfect it, have it ready to go the week after the last package goes out, work with the community here and on your patreon to shape that campaign ONCE YOU START SHIPPING, have previews of it to include in the updates that you send out via KS, plant the seed so that people happily looking at spirit decks for the first time mark their calendar for ritual. Be ready...but don't be in a rush or early. Once you have done this a few times people will trust you (more, not everyone will).

I feel like everyone is under the assumption that I'm gonna put up a new deck as soon as possible. RITUAL is still in the design phase. I barely have linework done for 3 cards, and only 1 card concept finished for feedback. I don't expect to have another kockstarter until q2 2024, lol.

Edit: I'm keeping kockstarter, cause it's funny

[VillainousIndustries]

SPIRITS

SPIRITS

UV GLOW

https://youtu.be/4bOUf7iSo-w?si=qHnyDNto9q2C7-OK

AFTERLIFE

AFTERLIFE

CLOSER LOOK
https://youtu.be/P6sUFUnqY58?si=Jl_XV5kYKmV4luQa

[VillainousIndustries]

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[Honeybee]

The name looks ordinary on Soul Collector - maybe change the text color

[VillainousIndustries]

The name looks ordinary on Soul Collector - maybe change the text color

No.

It's a part of the same series. The names are supposed to be the same.

[kevork]

I understand what Honeybee means. Almost makes me wonder what these would've looked like with no text on the front and indicating the version on the bottom, side, or top. I'm okay with the way it is though, as they've already been made.

[VillainousIndustries]

I understand what Honeybee means. Almost makes me wonder what these would've looked like with no text on the front and indicating the version on the bottom, side, or top. I'm okay with the way it is though, as they've already been made.

The renders I made for the kickstarter had these designs, ya know? I think the white stands out and you can pick the decks out among others with similar colors with ease.

I Personally will be displaying these decks back facing outward, cause i think the back is a lot better looking lol

[kevork]

I understand what Honeybee means. Almost makes me wonder what these would've looked like with no text on the front and indicating the version on the bottom, side, or top. I'm okay with the way it is though, as they've already been made.

The renders I made for the kickstarter had these designs, ya know? I think the white stands out and you can pick the decks out among others with similar colors with ease.

I Personally will be displaying these decks back facing outward, cause i think the back is a lot better looking lol

True. I'm fine with them the way they are. I'm thinking having the spirits one facing forward, centered in a Carat X5, with the other 4 variants on each side, facing backward.

[Honeybee]

Yes the tuck backs in the first pic look fantastic. Which is the more accurate pic - the first or the last, as they look quite different

[VillainousIndustries]

Yes the tuck backs in the first pic look fantastic. Which is the more accurate pic - the first or the last, as they look quite different

It's the oighting plus the foiling that's makes them look different, they're the same tucks in both tho.

[hsbc]

After careful consideration and thorough testing, I have made the difficult decision to scrap the front lenticulars on the SPIRITS Decks. I understand that many of you were eagerly anticipating this feature, and I sincerely apologize for any disappointment or inconvenience this may cause.

After having the panels ready to be glued to the tucks, I decided to review the test panels again, and it became clear to me that the quality of the feature does not meet my standards, as you can see in the video above.

I refuse to compromise on the integrity and excellence of the product, and I would rather deliver a final product that I am truly proud of.

I want to express my deepest apologies for having to exclude this feature from the final product. It was not an easy decision, and I am genuinely sorry for any frustration or inconvenience it may cause.

[kevork]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for a lenticular panel to work properly, you need two different images interlaced in alternating lines underneath. Otherwise, the panel just blurs the image underneath.

Maybe those panels can be used on a future project.