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This was actually the case over the past weekend, and some of you got emails from DriveThruRPG/Lightning Source as a result, but today is when I pushed the final big button too: getting the print run for The Cog That Remains ordered as well! Double hurray!
So, I suspect over the next week or so the actual shipping of the books will be confirmed and I'll start moving orders to Fulfilled, providing tracking numbers (where I can - Royal Mail won't give me any, unfortunately). That will, gradually, bring this project to a close.
The only caveat is that there are five orders that are not ready-to-fulfill. Aside from the BackerKit notifications and updates like this one, I'll be reaching out to you five personal-like one more time to try to get those orders over the finish line. Hopefully it can be managed, and we can get to 100%!
I don't have any plans to do another crowdfunding project any time soon (this project saw to that by sniping The Cog The Remains), but while I was setting this one up I ran across a difference of opinion. Some creators who print the way I do leaned very heavily towards only asking for a lower amount per pledge while giving backers an at-cost print-on-demand coupon, letting them deal with printing/shipping costs directly, while others saw that as less convenient for the backers and did all the ordering themselves while factoring the print costs into their pledge levels and charging shipping once addresses are gathered.
I went with the latter for Tales but ended up splitting the difference on The Cog That Remains, and while 11 folks ordered the TCTR PDF+Physical add-on 19 people have used the PoD coupon option (so far). So, I've also got a poll attached to this update, purely based on curiosity, to see if the larger group has a preference.
Alright, that's it for now, I'm going to go stare at these 87 printing orders without blinking until they start changing from "Confirmed" to "Shipped"!
- Seamus
I've been seeing the digital rewards getting distributed! I hope everyone is enjoying their games or are at least glad to have a larger (digital) Shelf of Opportunity - and that the PoD copies of The Cog That Remains make their way safely to you. If anyone is having any issues, please let me know!
On schedule per my last update, I'm going to be locking addresses on 5/22/26 for everyone who has completed their survey and add-on/shipping payments. That means that over the weekend the physical rewards will begin getting printed and shipped to backers.
I'll be reaching out individually to the last stragglers in the need-to-complete-survey and had-a-problem-charging-cards categories of backer to see if we can sort things out and get those folks their rewards in a timely manner as well.
At the same time, the full print run of Tales from the Print will soon also being printing and shipping out to IPR - i.e. the original point of this whole campaign! Hurray!
Thank you again for all your support, and I'll have another update soon.
- Seamus
- I'm going to lock orders on May 6th! 4% of backers still need to answer their surveys, but I'd like to move ahead with everyone else and finalize the shipping costs for the physical backers. Basically it means no more adding on add-ons, but if you are about to move you can still change your address and such.
- I am going on vacation from the 6th to the 16th! This... won't really change anything, to be honest, as I'll still be hopping online and tinkering away behind the scenes, but just in case someone reaches out and it takes a day or two for me to respond, that's why. That being said, I'm going to soft-schedule locking addresses and charging cards and such for May 22nd.
- The parts of April I didn't spend eyeballing surveys I spent working on my next PocketQuest game! Reloaded - PQ 2026 Edition, is a Breathless game - like A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase - of trying to escape a time loop. There are no chances to catch your breath - the only way to get your die ratings to recover and improve your chances of success are to die and restart the loop. You'll have to face Obstacles again and again to master them, gaining familiarity with the loop and more resources, in order to reach the Source of the loops and live to see a different day. In the backer only content of this update is a discount link, to a degree of discount not seen outside this project, as added thanks for your support here.
Alright, that's it, talk to you again soon!
- Seamus
We're at 92% completion on the surveys! In fact, that means there are only 10 folks who still need to provide their response. If you're one of those 10, but have lost or never received your survey email, you can summon a new one through this fine and elegantly-crafted link; just provide your email and a new survey will be sent off! Right now I'm planning on locking orders on 5/1/26, but it could be earlier if everything gets done.
Speaking of everything getting done, an update for the last update: I should have the finalfinalfinal3definitelyforsurethistimefinal.exe proof copies of The Cog That Remains in hand within a few days, so at the risk of angering the layout gods and having them smite the copies in transit I feel comfortable saying there will not be any lag between Cog and the other rewards. Once surveys are locked everyone should get all their digital rewards at the same time, and when print rewards go out both books should be ordered at the same time.
I spent last weekend at PAX East, and part of that was spent running add-on A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase with Games on Demand; it was the first time I exposed that game to the unhinged crucible of convention play as opposed to people I already knew. It was a lot of fun, and I came away with some lessons learned, so Stern Chase will be even better by the time everyone gets it.
Alright, that's it for now. See you on the next one!
- Seamus
Behind the scenes, a proof for The Cog That Remains came in, and had lovingly suffered something of a formatting error. Small? Yes. Ignorable? Not for me, I'm afraid. As a result the digital rewards for Cog will lag a bit behind the others while I fight format demons and make sure that those who get the PoD version will be getting something I'm satisfied with. This is more of a bother than it should be given the reduced speed in printing that I mentioned in an earlier update, but it should still be resolved by the end of the month.
That's it for now! Fingers crossed that it's the smoke from a fancy cocktail and not a terrible server fire.
- Seamus
Just a minor update to let all of you know something and then give some small number of you another heads-up!
I know, the graphics in the campaign said 'fulfilled through DriveThruRPG' and all that, but I just wanted to let you know that on the digital side of things you also will be getting download keys for itch.io. Well, for those games that I can do that for, anyway. Tales from the Cockpit itself, The Cog That Remains, Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage, and A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase are available on both sites, so everyone who has those games in their pledge levels will be getting access to them on both. Take your pick!
Rustling Electric Sheep and No Map, No Plan are DriveThruRPG-exclusive, so they won't be graced with an itchy option. Such are the vagaries of the post-Tales PocketQuests, alas.
As of this update, every pledge has been run through ye olde charginge functione, and now I'm just waiting for Stripe to hand over the cash on the 11th. There are $122.00 worth of failed charges, however. Good news? The campaign is still perfectly safe, as without those pledges we're still past the stretch goal and way past the basic funding goal. Nobody whose pledge succeeded will lose out on anything, and everything will continue to go great on my end. The bad news is that if your pledge failed, you won't get your stuff (I believe you'll get a chance to re-pledge when surveys go out, but that seems quite a bother)! As I understand it, you have until 3/13/26 to fix things, so if you haven't gotten a confirmation of your pledge being processed I'd urge you to fix your info. If there are still failed pledges circa 3/12/26 I'll send out another reminder, possibly with part of the Play Log depending on the timing,
Until the next update!
- Seamus
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Project Update: The Presses Are Heating Up...
This was actually the case over the past weekend, and some of you got emails from DriveThruRPG/Lightning Source as a result, but today is when I pushed the final big button too: getting the print run for The Cog That Remains ordered as well! Double hurray!
So, I suspect over the next week or so the actual shipping of the books will be confirmed and I'll start moving orders to Fulfilled, providing tracking numbers (where I can - Royal Mail won't give me any, unfortunately). That will, gradually, bring this project to a close.
The only caveat is that there are five orders that are not ready-to-fulfill. Aside from the BackerKit notifications and updates like this one, I'll be reaching out to you five personal-like one more time to try to get those orders over the finish line. Hopefully it can be managed, and we can get to 100%!
I don't have any plans to do another crowdfunding project any time soon (this project saw to that by sniping The Cog The Remains), but while I was setting this one up I ran across a difference of opinion. Some creators who print the way I do leaned very heavily towards only asking for a lower amount per pledge while giving backers an at-cost print-on-demand coupon, letting them deal with printing/shipping costs directly, while others saw that as less convenient for the backers and did all the ordering themselves while factoring the print costs into their pledge levels and charging shipping once addresses are gathered.
I went with the latter for Tales but ended up splitting the difference on The Cog That Remains, and while 11 folks ordered the TCTR PDF+Physical add-on 19 people have used the PoD coupon option (so far). So, I've also got a poll attached to this update, purely based on curiosity, to see if the larger group has a preference.
Alright, that's it for now, I'm going to go stare at these 87 printing orders without blinking until they start changing from "Confirmed" to "Shipped"!
- Seamus
I sort of did both things in this campaign with The Cog That Remains, but the PoD coupon wasn't an option for Tales itself. I'm just curious as to what people would like to see if I do a similar print run project in the future.
Project Update: Lock it down, and ship it out (soon)!
I've been seeing the digital rewards getting distributed! I hope everyone is enjoying their games or are at least glad to have a larger (digital) Shelf of Opportunity - and that the PoD copies of The Cog That Remains make their way safely to you. If anyone is having any issues, please let me know!
On schedule per my last update, I'm going to be locking addresses on 5/22/26 for everyone who has completed their survey and add-on/shipping payments. That means that over the weekend the physical rewards will begin getting printed and shipped to backers.
I'll be reaching out individually to the last stragglers in the need-to-complete-survey and had-a-problem-charging-cards categories of backer to see if we can sort things out and get those folks their rewards in a timely manner as well.
At the same time, the full print run of Tales from the Print will soon also being printing and shipping out to IPR - i.e. the original point of this whole campaign! Hurray!
Thank you again for all your support, and I'll have another update soon.
- Seamus
Project Update: Locking In, Taking Off (Only For A Bit), and Reloading
- I'm going to lock orders on May 6th! 4% of backers still need to answer their surveys, but I'd like to move ahead with everyone else and finalize the shipping costs for the physical backers. Basically it means no more adding on add-ons, but if you are about to move you can still change your address and such.
- I am going on vacation from the 6th to the 16th! This... won't really change anything, to be honest, as I'll still be hopping online and tinkering away behind the scenes, but just in case someone reaches out and it takes a day or two for me to respond, that's why. That being said, I'm going to soft-schedule locking addresses and charging cards and such for May 22nd.
- The parts of April I didn't spend eyeballing surveys I spent working on my next PocketQuest game! Reloaded - PQ 2026 Edition, is a Breathless game - like A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase - of trying to escape a time loop. There are no chances to catch your breath - the only way to get your die ratings to recover and improve your chances of success are to die and restart the loop. You'll have to face Obstacles again and again to master them, gaining familiarity with the loop and more resources, in order to reach the Source of the loops and live to see a different day. In the backer only content of this update is a discount link, to a degree of discount not seen outside this project, as added thanks for your support here.
Alright, that's it, talk to you again soon!
- Seamus
Project Update: Survey Progress and Unwrenched Cogs
We're at 92% completion on the surveys! In fact, that means there are only 10 folks who still need to provide their response. If you're one of those 10, but have lost or never received your survey email, you can summon a new one through this fine and elegantly-crafted link; just provide your email and a new survey will be sent off! Right now I'm planning on locking orders on 5/1/26, but it could be earlier if everything gets done.
Speaking of everything getting done, an update for the last update: I should have the finalfinalfinal3definitelyforsurethistimefinal.exe proof copies of The Cog That Remains in hand within a few days, so at the risk of angering the layout gods and having them smite the copies in transit I feel comfortable saying there will not be any lag between Cog and the other rewards. Once surveys are locked everyone should get all their digital rewards at the same time, and when print rewards go out both books should be ordered at the same time.
I spent last weekend at PAX East, and part of that was spent running add-on A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase with Games on Demand; it was the first time I exposed that game to the unhinged crucible of convention play as opposed to people I already knew. It was a lot of fun, and I came away with some lessons learned, so Stern Chase will be even better by the time everyone gets it.
Alright, that's it for now. See you on the next one!
- Seamus
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