It's Done. What's Next?
about 7 years ago – Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 12:27:10 AM

Well, it’s done! That’s right. 

The Kickstarter for Infected! is officially over!  

If you have not received any part of your pledge yet, please email me at [email protected] and I will sort it out for you straight away. There are still a couple of people who haven’t filled out their details, and I have been unable to get through to. So if you find yourself reading this now, please get in touch with me. Of if you have any questions too.  

A Recap  

To recap the Kickstarter, here are some highlights: 

• We raised $26,523 on the Kickstarter (though in fact, after fees and a few pledges that didn't go through, that amount ended up being about $23,000), and another $5300 through Backerkit preorders. In total that's roughly $28,300!
• We had 308 Kickstarter backers and 32 Pre-Order backers. A lot of Kickstarter backers also chose to upgrade their pledges through Backerkit.
• We did a 1000 book print run, and fulfilled it internationally, with warehouses in the USA, UK and Australia. 
• We are having a French, Brazilian and German translation being done (so, so cool – I’ll certainly keep you posted about these).
• I learned to work with an international team of artists, editors, playtesters, bloggers and enthusiasts. 
•  We created a community of people who like Immersion RPG and Infected, and have built it into something far greater than it was two years ago. I now have over 500 people on my newsletter (if you haven’t yet joined, you can sign up here to stay in touch for future projects). 
• And best of all, I found that my backers are simply amazing people. I have made a lot of friends, and been simply amazed by the support, positivity and helpfulness of everyone! I have not had a single backer who was negative at all, even when faced at times with significant delays. This makes me feel truly blessed. My backers are the best anyone could hope for. So that’s you guys. Take a pat on the back. You have made this journey truly worth it in every way. 

I learnt a lot of valuable lessons on this Kickstarter road, and most of them I have written down on my blog at immersion-rpg.com

Printing

For printing I went with Regal Printing in Hong Kong, who I found did a job of high quality. At times their speed was quite bad, and sometimes communication as well – more than a few times I found something had stopped, but they hadn’t notified me of the problem, so were just waiting for me to “somehow” know that it had occurred. 

However they were always rapidly available to answer my emails and phone calls, and I found this made it possible. I would recommend them if you have a very clear deadline with them, and if you are familiar with the way to prepare and upload files (this is something I will be writing about further on my blog).

Fulfillment

Fulfillment was in some ways very easy, and in other ways a nightmare. I used an import specialist to assist me with the shipping to each company (as the books were coming from Hong Kong). This is something you need, but no one seems to mention anywhere! The only way I could find one was to be referred through a daisy-chain of them! 

I had to use a second specialist to get them into the USA. If anyone needs their details, please let me know. 

Getting the books to each warehouse was fairly simple, though the dice and reference cards were not sent to Australia for some reason, and I had to have them separately shipped back. 

Once in each country, I had a warehouse and fulfillment operator to assist me. 

Fulfillment Companies 

In Australia this was Aetherworks, who I can highly recommend. They were kind enough to invite me over to their warehouse, showed me around and chatted to me for several hours, explaining the ins and outs. They even allowed me to help them with the picking and packing, which saved some money (and made me realise just how hard it is to do!). 

In all my dealings with them I have been very impressed. They even showed me how best to create a spreadsheet to make it sensible for quick fulfillment (this will be in another blog, quite soon). 

In the UK this was Gamesquest. Similarly I have been very impressed with them. Their communication is fast, and it was as simple as sending it over with a spreadsheet. Done. I think one or two books disappeared in transit, but this happened in Australia too and I put down to postal issues, not them – they had tracking numbers for each item. 

In the USA this was Fulfillrite, and this is a more complex answer. I found at first that this was a complete disaster for me. But to be fair to them and the situation, I should mention that I now consider them excellent to work with.

This is rather surprising, but I realise that it was primarily a matter of miscommunication and not understanding their system. Unlike Gamesquest and Aetherworks, Fulfillrite have an online database that you upload each order to. Unfortunately, this requires a totally different layout of the spreadsheet, which I found took me many hours to get right – because if you get any part of it wrong, it will reject your upload. I found that when emailing them, they were prompt with replying, but not always very helpful in their communication – they mostly suggested I check out their tutorials. However, these actually didn’t show me how to do what I wanted to do (which was extremely basic actually), and this was very frustrating. 

Additionally, I found that because I didn’t label my boxes according to their specifications, one of my boxes was lost for a while. I’m not sure how it could have become lost actually, but lost it was, at least until I came across the manifest they had signed, which stated the number of boxes they had received - and which was clear evidence that the box had arrived. By the time they located it however, I had already sent out spares from the UK, so this cost me quite dearly. 

Eventually, with several orders sitting there unable to be completed for a fairly long time, I openly complained in a Kickstarter update, and then they called me. On the phone they explained how it worked, and since then I have found the system very good. 

I should mention that they felt it was unfair for me to complain about them on Kickstarter, where they couldn’t have the right of reply. They also said I was the only person to have ever had this sort of difficulty.

What I can say for sure is that it was necessary for me to make that much of a fuss to get it sorted. After that, it has been fine.

So what does all that mean? I guess it’s a matter of communication and instructions. They were not as noob-friendly as the other two companies, but now that I know how to use their system, I can check orders any time, without having to email anyone. I can also upload orders very specifically. This is very useful. Unless of course you upload the order slightly wrong, as I did with the dice... and sent out five sets of dice to about thirty backers. Again, an expensive mistake to make, which required me to get more dice created (speaking of which, the people at Q-Workshop did my dice for me, and they are excellent).

My recommendation for anyone using Fulfillrite would be that you take the time to really become familiar with their system before using them. Make sure you follow their rules and guidelines exactly. It does make sense once you get the hang of it, but like any new program, it can take some time for this to happen. 

Backerkit 

Backerkit was another site that I was quite dubious of when I started, however I now find it is utterly invaluable. Do yourself a favour and use it! There’s no better way of keeping track of backer orders, their state of fulfillment. It is a little complex unfortunately, but it is still awesome to use. 

Future Sales 

I have had the pleasure of meeting Angus Abransson from Chronicle City, who has been kind enough to offer his services of marketing and promotion to the US and UK for me. This is utterly invaluable. 

Angus, if you’re reading this, you are an absolute gem. 

Aside from that I will be doing some online marketing to bring people to my online store (which is now nearly ready – it’s been a long time coming!). This will hopefully get some more sales, and will help to fund future works! 

So What’s Next? 

I've always had a bit of a problem of wanting to do more than I can fit into a day. There’s so much I want to do, and have been working on. As you likely know, Immersion RPG is a totally universal system. Its purpose is to allow you to play real characters with great depth in any sort of world you want, capturing a sense of reality and grit even in high fantasy and super powered campaigns. There’s a lot of potential for this system, and judging by the backer reviews it and Infected! have been garnering, people are really enjoying it. 

So, next up is a finalization of these universal rules, with lots of playtester feedback. I’ve been testing it myself for about six or seven years now, and have run it through its paces in every direction I can think of. I’ve run it with large groups, small groups, online, face to face, at conventions, with new players, veterans, with those who love rolling and min-maxing their characters, as well as those who don’t like rolling at all and hate adding up. 

This has allowed me to create a system that is very simple at heart, yet has depth. It is flexible enough that it can be what you want - super light and story based, or more crunchy and blow-by-blow. 

The nature of a universal system I believe is that it should capture different types of gameplay, as well as different “feels” of game. It shouldn’t feel like a one-size-fits-all (which kind of poorly fits everyone, but doesn’t have that great “tailored” feel). Rather, it should feel like it captures the quintessence, subtlety and character of the setting and game you’re wanting to play. 

That’s the ambition anyway. 

So far, I think we’ve done it, but that’s also why I’m creating this rulebook. I’ve already written two earlier drafts, so I’m not starting from scratch, but it’s remarkable to see just how much it’s streamlined from my Infected! experience. 

If you would like to become involved as a playtester, please join my newsletter, as I will be sending out beta samples there pretty soon! 

The Next Infected Project 

I haven’t forgotten Infected, and I will be doing more for this great setting! The next one will be an expansion of setting, going over some different geographical locations. 

I’ve got some great ideas for Australia, Europe and Africa – but part of the fun of the Kickstarter will be that others can put in their ideas too! 

It’s obviously quite a challenge to produce a book in the middle of a busy life. For Infected I did nothing else in my spare time. Just wrote and wrote and wrote. My schedule is even more tight now, working 7 days a week in my own store (which is much more than 9-5) and with a new baby just born! 

However, I’m still making good progress. The key is to keep your eye on the mountain and focus on the important things. Unfortunately, because writing has to take precedence, my communication sometimes suffers, and I haven’t been as regular with my updates or blog posts as I would like to be. I’m aiming to rectify this and to get this back to a regular pace.

What Do You Think? 

As always, I love hearing your feedback. I want to know what you think! 

On the Immersion RPG Rulebook, I want to know what you want in it! What would you expect to be in such a book, and how would you find it an indispensable handbook? 

Of course, we will be listing powers and skills and so on, but what else would make your Immersion RPG experience truly epic? 

And on the next Infected book, please let me know what you want to see in it! Would you be keen for more scenarios, or would a book full of setting ideas and plot hooks be more up your alley? 

As always, thank you for backing our project and making this a reality. You are awesome, and I look forward to hearing from you. 

~Oliver R. Shead

Last Scenario Sent Out!
over 7 years ago – Sun, Jan 08, 2017 at 11:04:06 PM

Hi everyone!

Well it's a momentous day. The final Stretch Goal has now been achieved. "Friends in Need" is our fifth scenario, and I've just sent it out via DriveThru RPG to all backers and pre-order supporters.

If you haven't received these scenarios, please do let me know straight away and I'll get them out to you.

Reference Cards

I'm having all the reference cards shipped back to me from Gamesquest. As soon as that happens, I'll be able to ship out the remainder to all backers who haven't received them.

Dice

All the US orders have been done now, except for about a dozen who didn't receive any dice. I've had another order put through with Q Workshop... however, they couldn't do an equal number of red and white dice (that would have taken another 3 months). They had a bunch left over from the last order, which they've added to, and will now send to me. It will hopefully be enough for all the remaining orders, but if it's not, they may receive a higher proportion of white dice - I do hope that's okay!

I hope everyone has a fantastic 2017! It's certainly shaping up to be a good one for us!

~ Oliver R. Shead

Merry New Year!
over 7 years ago – Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 10:49:56 PM

Hey everyone!

Well it's been a full-on year, but 2016 is finally drawing to a close. 

I want to thank you all so much for being part of this project with me. And to really finish the year off with a bang, I've now sent all of you a complimentary digital copy of our third scenario - Lobster Problems.

I've had a blast playing this, and writing it too, and I'm really hoping you all like it as much as me! :)

As an update for the few backers who haven't yet received their copy of the book - thank you for being so understanding. You have not been forgotten! I have decided to circumvent Fulfillrite entirely, as I just can't rely on them at all. I will be having my UK and AU warehouses send you the materials early in the new year.

For all the Australian and Oceanic backers who are waiting for their cards, they will be sent shortly by Gamesquest.

FulfillriteWhat can I say about these guys? I've very rarely had such a bad experience with anyone. They looked so good on the surface, and had so many recommendations, that I thought they must be good. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case.

With Gamesquest and Aetherworks in the UK and Australia, it was a very simple process - I sent them my goods, told them they would be arriving, and sent them my spreadsheet. Each backer was a single row on the spreadsheet, with a column for each product they had purchased. This made it easy to change orders, check orders, and count orders.

Once I sent them the orders, they gave me a quote of how much it would cost, and then sent them out. A couple of backers were missed, or were late, and these people simple contacted me, then I contacted the warehouses, and they fixed it immediately.

Simple. Total time spent fluffing around: 10 minutes.

Not so with Fulfillrite. From the start they wanted me to label everything, which I simply couldn't get done. Then they wanted all the backer orders down in rows - so each backer had a single row for each product. I had to upload everything to their cloud, and if it didn't work (which it didn't even after many hours and attempts), they simply said that there were tutorials on the website.

Actually there weren't tutorials that showed how a lot of the stuff worked, but I figured it out after many frustrating hours, usually late at night after work. 

They also misplaced a box of Narrator Screens, forcing me to send more from the UK.. then when they found the box, they said it was really my fault as I hadn't labelled it correctly and separated it on the pallet.

To add insult to injury, on the latest batch, I must have uploaded too many copies of dice and reference cards for the 30 or so backers that were still to be sent to, so many of them were sent multiple copies, and I have prematurely run out. If this were done with the usual column method of spreadsheet I would have easily picked it up.

This is what happens when you've got a complex monstrosity, and you have to constantly modify spreadsheets and re-upload. 

I must have spent somewhere around 10 to 12 hours all up, working on spreadsheets, troubleshooting, and so on. And countless days spent stressing over it, trying to handle things, and having them simply not help me.

Their customer service during this time has been minimal to say the least. When they wanted to speak with me, they expected me to call them at 2am my time, seeing as they didn't want to call outside of their normal work hours. Fun.

If I had had this experience with each warehouse, then I would have thought the fault was my own. But I have had no issues at all from Gamesquest or Aetherworks. They have been friendly, quick and very efficient. In fact, they have been generous and really pleasant to deal with. I write up the spreadsheet, send it to them, and it's all done. No effort.

So, that's my rant. I have resolved to have no more to do with this company. I will have the remaining copies sent out shortly after the new year, as the warehouses are closed at this time of year.

Other News

In other news, some of you may know I have recently taken over a game shop in Canberra! It's a lot of fun, but rather exhausting - especially seeing as I work 7 days a week. So that has been a challenge, and everything else has ground to a halt. However, I am now largely on top of my schedule, and have resolved to start getting up at the wee hours of the morning to churn out the wordage. There are more books to get done!

First up, there are 2 scenarios still awaiting their final edits from me - they've come back from Scott Vandervalk, our editor, some weeks ago and so tomorrow, my day off (sweet, beautiful day off) I will get right into them and polish them off!

Some other cool news is that Jeremie Rueff, from Sycko Games in France, will be translating Infected into French, and another really cool fellow is working on translating it into German.

So it's rather exciting!

Still need to put some time into getting the books into stores, but I'm getting some incredible help there from Angus Abransson of Chronicle City (really, really cool guy).

I find it quite incredible just how much help and support I've received from this great community so far. Thank you to all of you, and I look forward to a huge year in 2017!

Here's what I'll be working on:

• A POD expansion of 10 scenarios and some other extra content for Infected.
• The main rulebook for Immersion RPG, allowing everyone to play any setting they wish.
• Another expansion for the Infected RPG setting, probably going over the UK, Australia... and a few other regions I'm contemplating at present.
• The Myths of Khoralla first setting book.
• Oh, and of course, the God Forge first setting book with AJ Pickett (aka The Mighty Gluestick), who is the mad genius behind this mind-bending setting.

Those are my big 3 at the moment. Depending on schedules there may be room for more, but that's what I'll be hammering at in the short term. 

I hope you all have had a fabulous 2016, and that 2017 will be even better!

~Oliver R. Shead

Final Orders Being Sent!
over 7 years ago – Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 07:00:27 PM

Hi everyone!

This is just a quick update to let you know that the final orders are now being sent out.

Turns out that Fulfillrite found our box of Narrator Screens (after I discovered they had signed for them in the first place... there's a lesson, always get signed deliveries!). Of course, I'm not sure if they'll reimburse me for the added costs this has caused, or for the delays - my thoughts are that they probably won't, but never mind!

I have also struggled through the Fulfillrite spreadsheets yet again, and now have all remaining North American orders being sent out. If you do not receive an email in the next few days, please let me know.

For everyone else (not in the USA), you should have your copy of the book by now. Some people have contacted me to find out where their orders are, and those have now been shipped out too. If you have not been in contact with me, and have not yet got your order, please get in touch with me now, either here on Kickstarter via message, or through email at [email protected]

Exciting times! It is very satisfying getting these books into backer hands!

Reference Cards

For Australian and Asian backers, the reference cards will be sent to them very shortly by Gamesquest. I've had to handle the tangled web of Fulfillrite first unfortunately, but now that's done, I can get these into your hands! Stay tuned!

Do You Want To Be In The Next POD?

I've had a few backers kindly mention to me that they were interested in the next POD that I was doing, full of small scenarios. It's directly connected to this KS, with a large amount of the content provided free for all backers.

However, I had a cool idea. Cool ideas can be really awesome.

Would you like to be a part of the new POD? Just like the Kickstarter, it is possible I could put backers into the book, incorporate their ideas and create scenarios based on what information they give me - and if so, I would probably do so as a small Kickstarter. The target would be low, because I'm not aiming to create more art, but I am looking to create digital content. Therefore the cost to me is low. However, any funds raised would go a long way towards helping the shortfall of the project.

I'm just testing the waters as yet. It seemed like a cool way to get backers involved - and there's nothing cooler than having your idea, your character, your name, in a real live book! 

Please comment below to let me know what you think. Cool? Not? Would this enhance your gaming experience and make Infected that much more awesome? 

I want your feedback! :)

~Oliver

Orders 90% done!
over 7 years ago – Fri, Dec 02, 2016 at 11:20:43 PM

Hi everyone!

It's been a little while since my last update, and so here's the rundown to let you know where things stand.

About 90% of the orders have been fulfilled. All UK, US, Asia and African orders should now be done. I've noticed a couple that have been missed, but if you're in one of these regions and haven't been in touch with me, please let me know if you have not yet gotten your items.

The Aussie and Asian orders still need reference cards, which I will now have sent back from Gamesquest in the UK... talk about a slow boat to China! Turns out the printers didn't include any for me, even though I had asked them... so there's a lesson, double check and triple check your bill of lading!

The US orders have been a bit of a nightmare, to be perfectly honest. As opposed to Aetherworks (in Australia) and Gamesquest (in the UK), Fulfillrite in the USA are hideously complicated in their systems, and won't lift a finger to help if you can't work them out. I had to re-do my spreadsheets from columns to rows, which meant organising each individual order, for each backer, by hand. And then I had to tweak it about eight times to get it right. 

Once that was done, they informed me that an entire box of Narrator screens had gone missing... that's 32 screens, with a value of over $600! I specifically shipped them extra to make sure this wouldn't happen... but there you go.

I've gotten Gamesquest to ship some of the remaining screens, but they don't have enough to cover the shortfall, so I'm going to have to do another shipment from Australia as well... this one to Fulfillrite, then to the backers. At the same time I'm trying to get the orders sent out sans screens. You'd think it'd be simple... but no, it is not. And again, if I can't work their system, they won't lift a finger.

So if you're in the Americas and haven't yet gotten your order, that's why! It's not that we've forgotten you! I'm hoping to get this sorted so that at least the main orders can go out next week for all the remaining backers.

Digital Rewards

There's movement at the station on our digital rewards. All 5 scenarios have been written and typeset, and now they've all been edited by the incomparable Scott Vandervalk!

That just leaves me to finish applying the edits, and you'll have a brand-shining-new series of scenarios to play with!

I'm actually trying to be a bit more ambitious than that, and want to create a small POD book, with some more scenarios, and some other content - like perhaps a list of extra weaponry that could come in handy.

What do you think? Sound cool? Have some cool scenario ideas? Let me know!!

Awesome Backers

It may sound trite, but I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our backers. Not just for supporting us financially, but also for really supporting this project with your hearts and souls. You really can't pay for that sort of support, and it means the world to me.

Despite delays, and a couple of mishaps, everyone has been truly stunning in their support, assistance and understanding. So thank you for being the best!! 

I'm looking forward to getting these digital rewards to you as well, so stay tuned! :)

~Oliver R. Shead