Up Your Game with Custom Dice!

Update #29: BIG NEWS and Reminder: Lockdown date is May 27th!
almost 4 years ago – Thu, May 21, 2020 at 04:00:38 PM

Hi, all. 

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm for our dice and games, and for standing with us. Because of you, we're going to have some really cool goodies to enjoy later in the year! 

Awhile back, I noticed a few backers made adjustments to their carts which resulted in the Underkill D6 Red Stretch Goal dipping below the 100 unlocking requirement, which should have meant that they actually didn't unlock. I didn't want to bum anyone out and figured we'd make up the difference, and we very quickly did, shooting up well over 100, but it got me thinking. I realized (or remembered) that the way I was unlocking dice based on the sets wasn't right. It wasn't anything that would hurt you, but it could hurt me. I mentioned this in a comment the other day and kept thinking on it. 

As you know, I've been counting the Apocalypse Rising dice sets Stretch Goal toward unlocking the individual dice within the set, but if the set itself doesn't unlock on its own, then technically none of the dice from the Set Stretch Goal should count toward the individual Stretch Goals if together they don't unlock everything (and so far they don't.) I don't think any of them would unlock if we ignored the sets at this point, since there's only 8 days left to tack on a lot more sets or a lot more individual dice. And since the set is not quite halfway to the Stretch Goal, it doesn't seem likely to unlock, which would be a shame, and it means that the individual dice should stand on their own. Of course, there's roughly 65 backers who haven't finalized their shopping carts and we have a lot of folks who do want those sets. 

A large number of backers have put Apocalypse Rising dice in their carts. The dice are popular, it's just that there's 7 of them. I love them, too. I can't imagine the entire set not being made. Even the Orange Overkill is getting more popular and is sitting close. As such, I have made . . . 

The Big Decision!

I'm unlocking everything and trusting that eventually, I'll be able to sell any remainders that I don't keep for my private collection. You wonderful folks have taken us very far, and maybe I'll get lucky and the remaining 65+ backers will add a few more Apocalypse Rising dice in, and we'll all share a little more online, and get a few Pre-Orders in to help get us where we should be to unlock those dice the normal way. But I'll unlock them regardless.

I had been counting on having at least 50 or so new customers by now to help unlock dice. Unfortunately, I ran into several snags getting Backerkit set up. In the meantime, most folks who were excited but missed the campaign visited the page, didn't see a Pre-Order link and quickly forgot about us. The momentum was lost. QT Games is a small company and getting discovered has been very hard, especially doing it on my own.

As for the dice, every time we go over an increment of 100 dice, I'll still need to buy more dice to cover the extras, and since I've cut the prices way down, that means sometimes buying an extra 100 to keep the price reasonable. That means I'm already eating a ton of dice, likely, but between the Apocalypse Rising set orders and the individual dice, we should be able to at least cover the first 100 of those - hopefully. I've been saving some money toward replacing my old truck, and I can just keep driving it for awhile. - personally, I'd rather see the Apocalypse Rising set get made! And I'm hopeful that eventually I'll be able to sell off most of the extras if I get into a position to do so down the road. 

Frankly, the future of QT Games, our ability to do Kickstarters and put out more great content is really in the hands of its fans, not its owner (me.) I put in a ton of hours at night and on weekends (I have a day job). I have to universes to feed, tons of irons in the fire and a big pile of game designs. Tooting my own horn has never taken me very far. Getting folks excited about my wonderful fiction, games art, and now dice? That's where it's at. Getting noticed so that I can get people excited about the cool projects - yeah, there's the rub. The dice are but a single bite of a very tasty pie. We have lots of cool things going on. Some of you have been sharing and that's totally awesome - I'll be forever grateful! Hopefully, we'll see more sharing because it helps me get more goodies out the door, and less time and money spent on marketing instead of creating!

Anyway, there you go. All dice unlocked! I'll go in and update Backerkit soon and make changes to reflect the big news. Don't forget that we lock down the shopping carts at the end of day May 27th. After that time, I will total up all the dice in the carts and place orders with the factory so we can get the dice into production. Then I'll get cracking on formatting my latest novels because they've been waiting for me to find time for months. And I'll continue working on games and a secret project. I won't have time to open a dice store. That window is closing for awhile. We need to wrap this up, so please spread the Pre-Order link. Thanks! My next update will likely be all about Zone Racer!!

Cheers!  -- Bob

Pre-Order Link ( https://overkill-dice.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders )              

Backerkit Link ( https://overkill-dice.backerkit.com/ )

Update #28: Stretch Goal Progress!
almost 4 years ago – Sat, May 16, 2020 at 10:54:39 PM

Hi, folks.

As promised in the Comments, here's an update to show the Stretch Goal progress. Yay, we've got 4 dice unlocked now—the Apocalypse Rising (AR) D6 was the latest! The Orange Overkill is slowly edging up and is the next closest to unlock. Just need 13 more in shopping carts!

Important: The dice in the AR set have ALREADY BEEN INCLUDED in the individual AR dice figures, below. That's very important. Also, while the set is rising slowly, if we can get the individual dice numbers over the top, that unlocks the whole set also. Me? I want the whole set because I love them, but whatever you want to do. 

End of day May 27th, I'll be locking down your carts and will then tally up the numbers so I can place an order with the factory. I will remove any dice from your carts that are still locked. Please don't remove locked dice from your cart if you still want them. You won't be charged for locked dice, but if you remove them early, they won't be counted toward unlocking Stretch Goals!

BackerKit can be found here. 83 of you have not answered your surveys (check your InBox and Spam folders for your private link.) If you don't answer in time, this could result in some dice not getting unlocked and cause other problems. I know, we've got a pandemic and life is turned upside down. I'm NOT complaining, but we need to get these dice into production asap. It can take up to 3 months to make and deliver the dice to me so I can pack them up and deliver them to you (which can easily be another month plus.) If you don't respond in time, some dice may become unavailable to you, as I'll have to guesstimate how many dice we'll need. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but that's one of the reasons why I've been posting updates, so we can minimize issues. Those of you who have done your surveys already - thanks a bunch! You can continue to update them, as desired, until they are locked down.

Speaking of which, we are quickly running out of time, folks. Just 11 days left to finalize your orders. So far, we still don't have a single customer in our Pre-Order store (https://overkill-dice.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders). Please tell your friends! Their orders will help unlock these dice, too. :) 

Btw, the Zone Racer game is looking really good so far. I'll be doing playtesting and tweaks all weekend. More on that soon. Thanks!  --Bob

Update #27: New, Lower Prices and Harbinger Trio
almost 4 years ago – Mon, May 11, 2020 at 11:16:38 PM

Happy Monday! 

I meant to post this yesterday, but ran out of time. As some of you may have noticed, I dropped the prices on several dice over the weekend. More on that in a bit. Just a reminder, many of you have still not selected your dice. Of the 75% of you who finished selecting all of your dice, you may want to revisit your cart, if you haven't over the weekend, now that your final, lower shipping charges are in place and since as I mentioned, we've dropped some dice prices, too! Btw, if you chose a lower reward tier, even if you've finalized your carts, since I'm not charging cards yet, you aren't stuck at that discount tier, You can get the prices even cheaper if you want them cheaper (both reward tier dice and Add-Ons!)

The prices on many of our dice have been lowered even further a couple times, based on reward tier (there's not as much wiggle room at the top tier because prices have already been carved down, but you'll notice some nice price drops overall), and more Stretch Goals have been unlocked, to boot. Unlike on Kickstarter, you can select locked Stretch Goal dice and put them in your carts (in fact, that's the ONLY way they will get unlocked.) Then, after May 27th, when the orders are locked down, I will take out of your carts any dice that are still locked. If you do it before May 27th, some dice may not get unlocked. That's why I'm doing it -- I always have access to the latest Stretch Goal numbers. 

(I included a new Harbinger Trio discount because 3 Harbingers are ideal for playing our Print & Play and other upcoming board games! And of course you can use these cool dice in your roleplaying games and other games as well.)

If you included Stretch Goal dice as part of your reward tier and they remain locked, I'll be asking you what you want to replace them with. To make sure we don't slow down dice production, please shoot me an email as soon as you know that information (you can do this anytime), and if those dice remain locked, I'll swap them out for the substitute dice you tell me about in an email or PM. Sound good? We need to get the dice into production asap. Again, don't worry if you already selected dice, you can make changes through the 27th of this month. Even the Pre-Order store will be closing on that day. 

So, if you would like to see more Stretch Goals unlocked, please share the Pre-Order store link with your friends so they can help unlock goodies. You can even go in on some dice with your friends and split the shipping so you both save!

Stretch Goal Update: As you may recall, I said the progress numbers on BackerKit are not remotely up to date because they don't sync across the various discounted reward tiers. Here's the latest numbers:

In case you forgot about what you liked so much about the dice, here they are again . . .

17 days remaining. Don't forget to tell your friends or get their Xmas gifts now! Good stuff! 'Nuff said. 

Cheers!  —Bob

Update #26: Exciting News! (Short Update)
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 06, 2020 at 12:32:28 PM

Hi, all. 

Because it isn't currently possible to sync the Stretch Goal dice on BackerKit to accurately reflect their true progress, I will be posting quicky updates like this one on the Stretch Goals when something noteworthy happens—and this is just such an occasion!

As a special perk to show my appreciation for your patience, and for voting to switch back to traditional DDU shipping (allowing me to pursue more shipping options and transition to a courier that will serve us better with lower prices) I have decided to reduce the D20 Stretch Goal requirements from 200 dice each down to 100 dice each! I also lowered the price on the D20 Overkill Green. The green Overkill was a which was at 104 picks, so now it's auto unlocked and price-dropped!! Check out the progress:

Shopping Carts: Please review your carts, as I replaced the placeholder "estimated" shipping price with the final shipping charge recently. I should be able to offer an additional service or two, such as tracking or insurance—I started looking it up, but have been so slammed. I'm sure I'll have answers soon. Please select your dice if you haven't (you can keep updating them all the way up until we hit the Lock Down date on May 27th, if needed. (We aren't charging the cards until later in the Summer.)

Pre-Order Store: It just opened and hopefully with the advertising I launched this morning and word of mouth, we'll see some more folks dive in and help unlock more Stretch Goals for some very cool dice! If you'd like to see some more dice get unlocked, please consider sharing the pre-order store link with your friends: https://overkill-dice.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Have a question about our transition back to traditional DDU shipping, the recent vote, how Stretch Goals work or anything else? Please drop me a PM or email [email protected] and I would be happy to discuss them. That's it. Short and sweet!  

Thanks all. Stay safe and have a great rest of the week!  --Bob

Update #25: Stretch Goal News & Hard Numbers on Int'l Shipping DDU Option (Short Update!)
almost 4 years ago – Mon, May 04, 2020 at 01:01:58 AM

To all of my wonderful backers I promise there's a lot fewer words in this update! And, I won't post this often normally. It's just we're in the middle of some big things. Okay, let's roll!

Stretch Goals! 

From my comment this morning: Looks like we're very close to unlocking a few Stretch Goals in less than 48 hours. That's awesome, folks! I couldn't be more excited about those Stretch dice! Since the Stretch Goals can't be synced due to all the discounts I built into the reward tiers, here's the accurate numbers:

I'll post at times in the main Kickstarter Comments section updates on these numbers at times when we aren't sending out one of these big updates.

Shipping DDU Option: Hard Numbers!

From my comment this morning: DDU looks promising! I know some of you would still prefer Friendly Shipping and I thought I could make it work for our campaign, but I think it's the type of product (super light weight), number of backers and some other factors I don't seem to have much control over that is causing that one to fall on its face. It's good to have options, and I'm still researching, but I wanted to get you guys some hard numbers to compare. The decision is yours.

Good news for Domestic Shipping, too! If we dump Friendly Shipping, US shipping charges drop by $1!        (I would ship myself, rather than using a fulfillment center, which charges more for packing, labor, storage, etc. so that means everyone is affected by the outcome of the polls. Please vote today!          

Only the first column is what you would see in your shopping cart (plus .03 per die for US shippers, as we have already, but per die charges for International Shipping would be removed completely!

With these options come the ability for individual backers to add on shipping services like insurance, tracking, etc., which we couldn't do as robustly or cheaply with the Friendly Shipping system we have. Just something to think about. 

As promised, I'm locking the polls down today unless someone makes a request to extend it beyond 6 pm PST. It takes about 30 seconds to vote! Okay, I'll stop typing. Not too long, right?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!   -- Bob