I wish I had one of these!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jun 05, 2020 at 11:19:42 PM

Well, it's officially June and we're all still facing a lot of issues. The world seems to be going insane while it’s trying to slowly open back up… we haven’t seen anything like this before in our modern generation. It seems like everyone could use some Balm of Social Distancing as we face true waves of violence, insecurity, viral infection, and the need to do something good for our fellow man all at the same time. I know I'm just one man and my opinions may not be super important but through all of this I'd like to remind you of the famous words of two very important men...

"Be excellent to each other and PARTY ON DUDES!" - Bill S. Preston Esq. & Ted Theodore Logan

So what's with the silence on your end Session Zero?

Well, let's start with a major thing like "legal matters" which we can't yet talk about too openly. Our lawyers are talking to the other party and we're finally making some headway. We might not ever fully explain all of the small details but suffice it to say we're both trying to protect our assets and our... back sides by delaying any releases that may have been brewing previously. We don't expect the delay to last much longer and we do expect to have several big things all release at once as soon as we get the go-ahead from our legal team.

As we explained before WE'RE STILL WORKING ON THINGS; we just haven't been able to send them out to everyone at this time. It's a weird situation but we've worked really hard to get where we are and 2020 has not been kind in the way it’s treating the world. I’ve read comments accusing of us having vaporware or of not planning to deliver things to backers… honestly, what I REALLY hear when I read that is "other people have done this to me before, you better not!"

WE’RE NOT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE. We plan to be around for a long time to come and WE WILL DELIVER EVERY ITEM THAT YOU HAVE PLEDGED FOR!

We're still here, we're still working, we've got things to give you AND we've got plenty of new things we want to get to once we can take care of the situation we’re in right now. Believe me, we are really just as frustrated as you are. We just ask that you hang in there with us for a little while longer and you'll see things start rolling into your inboxes again!

Is there anything we can do to help speed up the process?

Actually, THERE IS! One of the issues we've been facing with two of our projects is needing to have printed copies of physical items delivered to us so that we can package and distribute them out to you! With the lock down happening we ran into an issue we never imagined would happen: ALL OF OUR PRINTERS CLOSED DOWN! We've been using the same printers for years now and their quality and pricing is what we've based our projects on. Now we've reached out and met new printers, we're swallowing the big pill of higher prices for the quality we expect and we're looking forward to the benefits of moving our printing back onto US soil for faster delivery times.

We've also hit a 6 month drought where not a single new project has been released; as you may know, small companies need to keep creating new and interesting things so that the ball keeps moving forward - both to keep our banks happy with the financials and to keep our company name and products relevant in the larger eye of the public.

With that in mind we're launching a new project that's live RIGHT NOW!

Hold on, let me make some short bullets that might assuage any fears here...

-The work is already complete, so it won't eat into our previous projects.

-The product and project are straight forward and simple so it won't overwhelm our schedule or push us farther behind.

-The proceeds above the minimum needed to deliver the project itself will go directly towards previous projects being printed at the higher cost printers on the faster timeline.

I'm happy to announce a gorgeously realized extremely limited-edition release of one of our oldest ground-floor products: Truly Wild Magic: Remastered!

Gold foil everywhere, elegant redesign of the entire layout and super premium card stock. Something that will make anyone who sees it ask, "What's that and where did you get it?"

You'll be able to tell them that it was a onetime thing only on Kickstarter but you were lucky enough to grab one while it was available. (Or maybe you grabbed a second one for just this occasion.) Check it out by clicking the link above, the link here or the image of the cards. Remember that by backing us you're directly supporting the existing projects and helping us produce them and ship them faster than before!

See you on the other side of this one,

Session Zero Games

MAY update! Looking at options!
about 4 years ago – Sun, May 03, 2020 at 07:35:21 AM

Greetings backers; I’m here with the long overdue update full of hope and good tidings!

I saw Vecknon’s comment where he expressed concern that it doesn’t “look promising” that we will deliver on the book version of The Cursed Collective. I can certainly understand why Vecknon might feel that way, but I can assure you that we will deliver the cards and book to backers as promised. We’ve just been sideswiped by the same stay at home orders and business closings that have crippled the economy across the world.

First of all, my apologies for not updating you last month when I posted updates on other projects in the works. I was in the middle of several things that I was hoping would come to fruition so I could announce them… because I always hope to have good news for you before I post anything. I know everyone gets tired of hearing "not much is happening right now" – I get tired when I have to write it, but 2020 has been a Demogorgon of a year without a lot of “good news” to relay about anything.

But I understand you at least want to know we're still here and the book version of the Cursed Collective has not been forgotten, right?

So long story short: unsurprisingly, several printers we have used in the past are shuttered right now due to edicts surrounding the coronavirus. We've been talking to a few manufacturers here in the US that are still open and printing, trying to negotiate numbers and see if we can make things fit into our existing budget. After due diligence and quality checks and vetting, there actually IS good news to share.

We've found a few printers who are still operating AND have a high-quality production line but they come with one caveat... price! We normally work with a set budget that’s put in place when we initially plan our Kickstarters; we've been using the same printers for years now with the same price points, so we were definitely caught unaware by the pandemic and an increased price for printing.

We have little choice than to trust a new big company, but we still have to contend with that "funding limit" wall. We raised a good bit of money for this project including a lot of little extras but suddenly looking at a major price increase (over 50% at the low end) really put the brakes on rushing ahead. As you know, we’re a small company without the kind of cash reserves that we can pump into solving this kind of problem! Plus we’ve all had to deal with the personal ramifications of COVID-19 as well. Now we're all trapped in our homes with no outside income, no local hiring to bolster cash flow AND all of the "small business loans" we were promised being simply unavailable.

That left us with two options: either wait this out a little longer and when things “open back up” hope that our original plans come to fruition and offer the same pricing/shipping as before OR we figure out a way to raise some additional funds to pay the higher cost of services to the new printing companies for theirs. We WANT to get these cards and books out the door sooner rather than later, believe me. Plans for a year’s worth of new products have been put on the back burner for this, it’s beyond frustrating! I think we’ve landed on a plan that will help us cover the increased costs and make everyone happy. Just give us a little bit more time to announce it :)

It's an in-between solution; we're not just running ahead with a new high target project that would require a ton of work and bury us further in undelivered work… but it's also not us just begging for money (although if you want to donate to the cause send any funds to paypal.me/kingnerd and they will directly help the company).  Keep your eyes and ears open for another update coming soon (yes, really. Soon!)

Talk to you Soon™.

-Levi

March 2020 update! (See the TLDR for short and sweet)
about 4 years ago – Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 01:56:57 AM

Hello backers!
 

It's the 3rd of March… I know, I'm 2 days behind schedule on my monthly update (the last was published Feb. 1). I encountered even more unexpected MAJOR changes that all seemed terrible at first but have actually become somewhat of a blessing! Let me catch you up to date on all the drama.

Previously you were all informed that I had been searching for a warehousing and shipping partner to handle my projects; I was debating on ordering product to ship from the new location. While doing that we finished up and sent the Print and Play version of the Cursed deck and had turned toward the compilation and layout process for the book – which I was trying to handle myself. Turns out that it's much harder than I had comprehended: who knew that layout was an art form that I had more confidence than skill in doing?

(Well, I do now!)

I've handed off the book to a professional layout artist who is starting from scratch; this will not only speed up the process but will also increase the finished quality tremendously – giving you the top-quality product you deserve, the Cursed Collective the way it was always envisioned!

While we continued to work on all our other projects to the best of our abilities based on ever-changing Real Life situations, we ran into issues with the warehousing and shipping that absolutely needed to be corrected ASAP. It seemed our options were tremendously limited at our new location. That’s when it all unavoidably GOT WORSE… and yet the ultimate resolution will actually solve some of our major issues!

The life-changing drama went down like this: less than six weeks at the new location, we were FORCED to vacate the premises due to a legal resolution against the landlord of the property. We had NO IDEA this was coming when we moved in but there were zoning law violations and a litigious next-door neighbor… when it was all said and done, we were given exactly two weeks to get out of Dodge.

Any of you who has ever gone house/apartment hunting with a family knows it can be time consuming under the BEST of circumstances, which we definitely did NOT have. It was not a good day. We expended furious effort, called in every favor we could, and - somehow! -  managed to make things happen in time… with surprising side effects that ultimately, FINALLY worked in our favor.

By happenstance, I moved to a larger city. I quickly discovered 3 important things:

1. A thriving D&D community with 20 or more active tables at each gaming shop in town!

2. A nice new home with MUCH faster internet *which had been crippling my uploading ability and productivity for $10 LESS than the previous location. How crazy, right?*

3. The new location has a workshop in the back yard with FULLY CLIMATE CONTROLLED STORAGE with more than enough room to warehouse new inventory, new products, pack/ship in house. My local USPS offers direct pick up so when I put all of your packages *or any others* in the mail they will come and get them for me.

We move into the new house this weekend; internet will be installed by Saturday and I'll be able to get back on track with your deliveries!

Having my own climate-controlled storage and shipping location will solve the majority of my issues INCLUDING why I have as of yet not ordered the physical rewards for this project or spoke about them. The custom items for the Tricks and Treats bags are lined up with the manufacturer but until I had a way to store them and a safe place to ship them from there was no reason to make a huge order. I couldn't risk damaging anything and since we weren't finished with the book I wasn't able to place the double order for books and cards from the same printer to maximize our savings on bulk printing. We would have had the same issues with the cards... where to put them until the rest was ready to ship as well!

I know sometimes a Kickstarter hits a bump in the road but this one slammed into a street full of potholes right after we shipped out those last packages. Finally, FINALLY, we’re shaping back up and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for this project.

I don't want to hand out any solid delivery dates yet for the Cursed Collective book. After everything that’s happened, I want to have a good ballpark of when it will be done FIRST. I promise you will all receive an update from me when we’re finally ready to start sending out backer PDF's and requesting test prints. We're still further away from physical deliveries than I'd like… but I'm happy to say we are finally able to move forward with a lot of things that were holding us back. Slowly but surely! Maybe I can even start sleeping nights again!

TL,DR:, we moved so we could make this a full-time business and unexpected, unforeseeable, AND unavoidable PROBLEMS arose that were out of our control. Our creation time has been impacted due to the multiple moves, shipping was significantly delayed and our ability to communicate all of this with you was significantly crippled. Those issues are MAGICALLY being resolved and we'll be back on track soon.

Please stand by for more good news… and again, THANK YOU for everything you've done to get us where we are. If you have any questions please message them to me directly, I'll try to answer them as best as I can. If anyone sent me a question that wasn't resolved in this update, please know that I had some issues with lost emails and I might not see anything until I get notifications about comments being posted. I've been trying to reply back to them as I find them.

Have a good March everybody! (It’s GOT TO BE BETTER!!)

-Session Zero Games

Print & Play PDF reward just sent!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 03, 2020 at 02:53:27 AM

Sorry for the long delay backers, we've been having to make an emergency move half way across the country and in doing so we were without reliable internet until today! Now I'm happy to say that the Cursed Collective cards are finished in their design and the Print & Play PDF of the card deck has been sent out just now so if you have that ordered please check your email! 

We are still going to be working on the book PDF and then sending off for prints as soon as we can so there is still more work to be done BUT the individual items are done and the card files are ready which is a major mile stone. We're a couple days behind schedule, apologies for that BUT we're making progress as always.

In the next few days we'll be working on the parts of the Book that need to be finished and we'll be uploading the digital files to Roll20 for use on that platform, we can't send off for any type of prints until the final files are done.

Thanks for your support and please check your email or your backerkit if you pledged for the PnP Version of the Deck, if you can't find it let me know!

-Session Zero Games 

Surveys are LIVE!
over 4 years ago – Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 02:26:07 AM

Look in your email or use the link here to log access your BackerKit survey!

tcc.backerkit.com

You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://tcc.backerkit.com.

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-Session Zero Games