Successful Selling!

The week of selling Masquerade card decks to Champlain College students has already proven to be wildly successful, more so than I thought. As of right now, the last remaining decks are on hold to be purchased. That's over 30 decks sold (or given away to the backers in school.)

If you're a Kickstarter backer, you'll be happy to know that your cards are going to get cut back in New Jersey and that I've sorted out the list of backer's addresses.

If you live in the New Jersey area, I'll probably go drive to you and hand deliver your prizes personally. If you're not local (and even out of country) expect it to be shipped to you. I'll message you or email you when the shipment goes out.

I have everything sorted out and am trying to reach out to several tabletop game producers. Someone suggested I get a one page document going, so here it is. Probably will hand these out at conventions and the like.

Speaking of conventions, anyone have any good suggestions for some over the summer? Cheers!

We're Printing!

I know this blog hasn't been updated in awhile, but things have been moving along on Facebook. We've already printed the books and we're working on printing the cards.

In fact, the cards have all been printed as of today (though there's a slight issue) and all they need to do is get cut out.

Here's what I mean, this is the card box

I'm expecting to see the cards in my hand next Tuesday. That means HOPEFULLY, the game will be ready to ship next weekend. But with the complications at the printers, we'll have to see.

If you're on the Champlain College campus though, expect to see the decks around. I'll be sure to show them.

Other than that, all that's left is the book signing and printing out the certificates some of the backers on Kickstarter have earned. There's also the matter of mentioning a few backers on this blog, which I'll be sure to do once the games have been shipped.

It's going to be an exciting week! Once more, check out the Facebook page if you haven't to see some of the pictures of the printing process.

Final Art Update

This is it guys! On tomorrow (Monday the 25th) we will be sending the final version of the cards to be printed from the printers. It is my hope to have them printed in a week and a half.

First off, I'd like to give a big, big thanks to Deanna Vaida who did all of the card art and Elliott Lutton who designed the Masquerade book and card layout. You can find Deanna's websites here and here. Elliott's main website is here.

And without further ado, here they are:

Blacksmith Roger- Roger is a tough man who spends his whole day smelting and hammering weapons for the guards. His is a booster card and offers a bonus to other card's attack.

Alchemist Leon- Roger's counterpart, Leon is a tricky wizard-like man who secretly experiments on his patients, testing potions and ointments on them. He grants a bonus to defense for all other cards.

Dancer Isabella- This exotic dancer comes from the South and captures the attention of all those around her. She plays the role of a mesmerizer in the game, distracting the opponent and weakening their cards. 

Henry the Bard- Henry is a singer who used to play the flute, but after an incident with a noble no longer carries any wind instruments. He's a cheery fellow who goes around bringing joy to anyone around him.

Nan the Disgruntled- Nan is the embodiment of anger in the commoners towards the nobility. She voices the rage they all feel towards the rich and even appears in the first chapter of Masquerade.

Squire Terry- Despite being so young, Terry is tougher than he looks. He's one of the orphans Newgate trains and is on his way to being a strong guard. In the book, he serves as a messenger for Wymund.

Doctor Pestilence- The special 61st card as requested by supporter Kenneth Deshotel.  According to Kenneth "An eerie man hidden behind a plague doctor mask.  He dons a long dark robe fastened with large buttons and a wide brimmed hat.  Little is known of this mysterious man but many believe him to be a doctor gone crazed.  He has a very ominous aurora about him and is often seen to be followed by ravens.  He always carries a twisted wooden cane and special herbs for his “medical practices”.  He addopted the name "Dr. Pestilence" due to his infatuation with disease and the number of deaths that seem to follow in his wake."

Thank you everyone for your support. More news will follow when the process of printing begins.

Art Update #8

As promised, here we are later in the week with a new set of card pictures and 5 more already on the way. Things are really winding down here, the card art and card backs are nearly done. I'll be posting those soon as well. Lots of updates this week, or at least I'm hoping.

Also, I should probably mention here Elliott (our graphic designer) has a new portfolio website. Check it out.

And now, on with the unveiling:

Bodyguard Ogg- Another barbarian from the outland countries, Ogg has come here as  Jaroc's bodyguard. Unfortunately, he's lazy and sleeps a lot.

Richard Leowulf- Richard is a bit of an odd shaped man with lanky arms and legs, making him good with a spear. He's not too bright, especially for a guard and might have accidentally let in a few assassins.

Arthur Mourne- A young guard, but still very determined. He respects the  Guard Captain, Newgate, and the King. Though he can be a bit of a bully as a guard.

War Hero Jap Lancelot- Jap is a jouster and a knight. He is hailed as a war hero from the great battle between Berma, but really all he did was hide behind his troops.

Sergeant Oldman- The old trainer of the guard who still commands the respect of all the soldiers in Castle Dacre. He's pressing 70 years old.

So as you can see, there's a lot of soldiers here. But we're almost done and the last step will be finishing the commoners. I hope you're all as excited to see them as I am!

The Last Day

It's hard to believe it, but we're on the last day of the Kickstarter.

We've come so far in the past month, it's hard to believe where we once were. I'm so happy I did this, even if the Kickstarter probably isn't going to go through this first time. The last 30 days have been some of the most enlightening and beneficial moments of the project. I've learned so much in regards to editing, marketing, building connections, and selling a product that I think this Kickstarter has been worth it.

Even to those of you who feel this project doesn't deserve to go forward, I say thank you. Thank you everyone. This has been a major learning experience in my life, both the good and the bad parts. Thank you everyone who has backed me and given me the support I've had this month. Thank you those who have given me criticism. Everything has been valuable.

I'll be posting a "plans for the future" page soon to let all the backers know where I'll be taking Masquerade next. This project is far from over.

Link to the Kickstarter

Working on the Chapter Header

If you've been following the Kickstarter updates for Masquerade (shameless link here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade), you'd know that I've recently begun my search for a graphic designer. Personally, I think I'm going to stick with a student graphic designer who'd be interested in doing the project for their capstone or such.

This includes graphic design work for both the book cover.

And the chapter headers, which are the little detailed pictures you see in a book at the start of a chapter. Similar to the drawings in the Harry Potter books.

These are the examples I have so far of each, I hope that there's a graphic designer out there who can do more with them.

In other news, I'll be holding a Kickstarter "fundraising" event at school in hopes that I can spread the word out more to my fellow classmates. You can find that event here on Facebook. (http://www.facebook.com/events/118540901647589/) There should be free food and a chance to read Masquerade's first few chapters as well as play the card game.

That's all for now, more updates as things move along and the Kickstarter days start ticking down.

The Plague Doctor

If you've been paying attention to how the Kickstarter has been going (shameless link here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade), you'd know that the King Prize, a prize which allowed the backer to make the 61st card in the Masquerade game, had been taken.

To sum up the story, I've been speaking in detail with the backer and he wishes to see a character he invented, a plague doctor, in the game.

This is more than reasonable, seeing a plague doctor in a fantasy game isn't an impossible thing as according to history they've been around since the 500's. The typical image of a plague doctor, however, is a creepy figure with a raven mask. It's very gothic and dark, perfect for Masquerade.

What a plague doctor looks like, art done by Torvald2000 on DeviantArt

It will be fun to play with the concept of plague in the Masquerade game, considering it is a close competitive party game. I was thinking as an effect, the plague doctor forces all players to discard a card they have in play so long as it is face up. The plague doctor, of course, will have to have high defense to make this effect useful.

What do you all think would be a good plague doctor effect? My own concept art of a plague doctor will be submitted in a few days once I get a scanner that works.

Also, please check out the Kickstarter for Masquerade and show some support!

Editors and Book Covers

The majority of my updates concerning the Masquerade projects these days have been on the Kickstarter website with the handy update feature they have. As a result, this blog has been neglected somewhat over the past few days, so here is an update just for you guys!

Remember though, you can find the Kickstarter here (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade).

The biggest news I have concerning the Masquerade book is the fact that I have two new copy-editors looking over the book for me. One is a full-time author for a variety of books and the other is a professional journalist for online gaming websites. For privacy, I won't mention their names. This is good news for me, considering I just finished applying my own edits to the entire book. I've already went through a first chapter edited by one of them and seen plenty of errors I'll need to go back and fix.

Another important thing I've been working on is the actual book cover for Masquerade if you recall in my last post. I had a simple design worked out, but I took it and modernized it.

I really like this new design a lot and want to take it to a graphic designer in school to have them polish it up. I feel the font needs a little work.

There's been no real news on the card game side for Masquerade, I need to begin work on the King prize's card, the Plague Doctor. I'll probably start sketches for that idea sometime after Christmas.

King Prize and Book Cover

As of writing, we are 16% into funding for the Masquerade Kickstarter! I honestly didn't expect to get that far in just two days. What's more impressive is that the King prize has already been claimed! That means someone has backed $300 or more for Masquerade and earned the right to create their own card which will appear in the final version of the game.

I won't say who is the victor without his express permission, but he's a friend of mine!

In other news, I realize I'm going to have to work really hard to get everything printable next semester once the Kickstarter is a success (That's right, claiming victory already). That includes the book and the cover, and trust me when I say I've been working hard on the editing all over break. As for the cover, well...

This is the first draft I had in mind, a sort of old fashion feeling. I don't know if this is what I want though, it doesn't feel modern enough. I'm going to have to be playing with styles on my own all over vacation unless I find a graphic designer interested in helping me with the book.

Perhaps I'll have to look around school when I return.

Remember, dear readers, to tell your friends about the kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade). Shameless advertising away!

We've Begun!

The Kickstarter for Masquerade has now officially launched! Check it out here (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade).

I thank everyone who has shown support to me so far, here's hoping that the project becomes a success!

Tomorrow, We Launch

Here I am, sitting in an apartment, waiting for my ride back home for Christmas break. There's still a lot I feel like I need to do for the Masquerade project, but it's either now or never. The actual project itself has been ready for some time. All it needs now is that push and some good marketing, maybe I'll have to go look into hiring one from the majors here at Champlain College.

That's another story though. For most part, the Masquerade Kickstarter is all set. There's only one detail missing and that's the credit card information, which should be here tomorrow. Unfortunately, I won't be arriving home until late, so that means I'll have a lot of work tomorrow.

You all can expect the Kickstarter to be launched sometime between 12-2 PM, by then all the problems should be worked out and I can finally begin. I'll probably do updates regularly explaining what Masquerade even is to some of the people who come from the Kickstarter. (For those of you who don't know, you can click the tab up top to find out).

I think another project I'll be doing in the future is a how-to-play video during my time off, so look forward to that.

I'm really excited and can't wait to begin.

The New Date

After weeks of waiting for the bank to finally get back to me, I've come to the conclusion that I can finally begin the Masquerade Kickstarter project! Hurrah!

The problem is I still need to wait for my new credit card number before that happens. Hurroo...

So basically, what this update is boiling down to is me announcing when the new date is going to be for the Masquerade Kickstarter. It's going to be December 17th. Yes. A Monday. December 17th. December. Seven. Teenth. Remember it.

This is going to be for real this time. I can't wait to see what happens. The new date will also allow my general audience, people at Champlain College, a chance to look at what I'm offering without being stressed over finals, considering that's what's going on this week.

That's all I have to say. I'm also working on designing the new book cover for the Masquerade novel, pictures will happen when I'm happy with a design.

Actually, you know what? I'd like to hear what you guys think. What is YOUR favorite book cover? Post it here in a comment and let me know.

Today Might be the Day

That's probably a pretty self explanatory post. The bank in my hometown is opening today, so here's hoping that they will finally approve my account and I can get back to work on starting the Masquerade Kickstarter. It really is just a waiting game this point.

In other news though, I've recently been playing with the ideas of where I'd like to go next with the Masquerade project or any side projects in general.

The first thing that came to mind was continuing the Masquerade story.

Lately I've been trying to come up with a new plot with some interesting characters to advance the story behind Masquerade. I didn't originally intend to have a sequel to Masquerade, but now that I've finished the story I can see that there's a lot more places I can take the plot. There's more I'd like to say and more adventures that will follow Mary and Newgate.

While I don't want to say anything about the plot idea I have in mind just yet (It's likely to change in an instant knowing me), I will definitely confirm that a sequel will be more than likely depending on the success of Masquerade.

I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that I'd like to eventually publish Masquerade (the book) full time with a company. That means I'll have to start looking around for an agent once I do a little editing. I would also like to wait for the Kickstarter to see how popular the idea is. If it proves really success, it will make finding someone to publish my book that much more easier.

I was also thinking about working on another tabletop game idea, only this time it would be a stealth game tabletop game. I don't think anyone's ever attempted doing something like that and I have a few ideas on how to make it stealthy while including all the elements of a sneaking game like one you would play on a console or computer.

Again, we'll just have to see where the Kickstarter goes. Here's hoping it starts this week!

Still Waiting...

I'm still waiting on word from the bank. As a reminder, I need to open up a new account at a local bank and get a credit card, which is the only thing Amazon is willing to accept if you open an account for selling stuff on their website.

Until now, I didn't even know Amazon was involved with Kickstarter but it's been an important lesson on preparation ahead of time. I'm starting to think I needed a little more time than month to prepare for Masquerade's Kickstarter, but there's nothing that can be done about that right now.

I guess the important thing to do is to study for my finals (which are next week) and continuing providing you guys updates. Once it's Christmas break, I plan on advertising the hell out of Masquerade's Kickstarter page. I've already worked on the press release and everything. I'll even be contacting various blogs and websites in hopes that I get an article up about the project, that would really be something. Of course, there's always the support of the school too and various connections I have within Champlain.

Am I worried that Masquerade is going to flop? Absolutely. But I think that enough people like the idea and it will interest people on Kickstarter. Even if I don't get the money, I have the experience of being only one person in my year to pursue a goal like this. No one in Champlain College has had the guts to try and publish a card game/ book on their own.

At the very least, it's going to make a nice portfolio piece.

Where We Are

As I mentioned last Saturday in the blog post, Masquerade is currently going through some account difficulties in terms of banking. I'd like to inform you all that the problem is currently being solved. I'm working right now to open up a separate bank account to use for Amazon (the primary distributor of money for Kickstarter).

It's going slow as does most things to do with the bank. My hope is that by the end of the week I will sort this mess out.

Apologizes to having everyone wait like this. I should have looked into this matter sooner, if this were a real job I probably would have been fired. I'd like to promise that a solution will come soon, but considering its bank involved and out of my hands I have no idea how long this will take.

I can promise that as soon as the banking gets sorted out, I'll post that the Kickstarter is up. So stay tuned until then!

Check out the map in the meanwhile! A full hand drawn version of it is going to be one of the prizes for the Kickstarter, it will even be signed.

Banking Issues

So, if you might have realized it's December 1st and the Kickstarter for Masquerade still isn't up yet. That would be where you're wrong!

I completely made the Masquerade page but there's a catch. I hadn't counted on all the banking information I was going to need for my Amazon account for Kickstarter. That means that I'm going to have to wait until Monday before I can finally get the project off the ground.

I could sit here and complain about the situation but that wouldn't be fun. That's what the update is anyway and why there isn't a Kickstarter yet. Stay tuned for more updates, with any luck there the Masquerade Kickstarter will launch on Monday.

Wish me luck.

Dawn of the Last Day

Now the nervousness is starting to kick in, knowing that I need to create the Kickstarter tomorrow. It's making me crazy!

It's the last day to get everything I wanted to do done and I have to say I feel like I've made significant progress since the start of the month. If you've been following my Facebook posts, you'll know that I now have the official Masquerade website up and running. You can find it here (http://themasqueradeproject.com/).

So the two major things I wanted to do before the Kickstarter began are officially done: the website and the trailer video. I'm going to start up the project tomorrow sometime in the afternoon and post the crap out of it. I'm not expecting a huge success, that's why I set the bar to just enough to pay for printing costs. But don't get me wrong, I'm going to advertise the crap out of Masquerade everywhere.

Wish me luck and see you guys tomorrow!

Video's Done!

As of right now, the Kickstarter trailer for the Masquerade project has been completed! I'm a little shaky about the results of it, but for a first time I would say it's not bad at all. I really like how the music fits with the theme of the game and everything.



I followed the basic guidelines that Kickstarter laid out for making the video: talking about who I am, what the project is, where the idea came from, and why your support matters.

Overall, I wish I had a better quality camera and had more help with the footage. Maybe next time I work on a project like this, I'll hire a professional to do it for me so it looks a thousand times better. For now, at least I have the ability to say that everything in Masquerade so far is 100% created by me.

In other news, the website is still underway though I did get to see the results! I don't want to post them here because it's not quite ready yet but it's looking good so far.

Look forward to Saturday when the Masquerade Kickstarter finally gets created!

Copyrighting

If you have been paying attention to the Facebook Group (http://www.facebook.com/masqueradegame), you'll know that as of Friday, November 23rd, Masquerade has applied for copyright. What does this mean basically though?

Well, aside from being one of the goals I wanted to complete before the Kickstarter on December 1st, copyrighting the game and novel is going to be what protects it should the project become a hit. Legally, no one will be able to "steal" the idea of Masquerade. Really anything can get copyrighted so long as it's an original idea and in fact I was debating if Masquerade needed copyrighting or not.

Combined with this blogs, which systematically dates each post, and my saved files I have proof that Masquerade is an original idea created by me at a specific date. No other person in the world should be able to prove me wrong in that respect. What copyrighting is, or at least the copyright I applied for, is essentially adding a date for the government or courts to refer to should there ever be a legal issue over intellectual property. I know that sounds absolutely complicated, but trust me when I say it makes more sense to the blood sucking lawyers than it does to me.

It other news, I printed out the first officially bound hard copy of the Masquerade novel. It's quite long and heavy, but what do you guys think?

With under a week left to start the Kickstarter, the only thing I have yet to do is edit the video together. That's my goal this week, wish me luck! I'll post it on the blog the moment it's completed.

The Website

So some good news before I launch the Kickstarter, I found someone who promised to put up the website before December 1st. And she's a professional no less!

In celebration of this, I've decided to post what the website is going to look like when it's complete. That's right, all the pages up for viewing. Check it out!

The Home Page

I was going with the theme of letters, wax stamps, and childish character drawings. I made the decision that it's actually Mary, from the book, doing these doodles. It's fitting with the style that someone her age would draw in and it adds depth because we get to see what she sees in the world around her.

The About the Book Page

The book page doesn't have the book cover just yet (I haven't created it after all!) but it certainly adds to the feel I was trying to create. There's even a little Mary sketch in the corner of the page.

About the Creator Page

To match the theme, I couldn't use an actual picture of myself so I came up with the Wanted Poster look with a stamp idea of a photo of myself.

About Game Page

This is probably my second favorite page on the website. It's a letter to Newgate, another major character in the game and story. I love the little note from another character, Carnell, to add to the theme.

And now my least favorite page.

Card Page

Yeah, I just don't like how this page came out. In the future, I'll probably rework it. But for now, it's important to have because I want people interested in the game to have a place where they can download the cards from for free.