Hey everyone! It's been a while, and I hope that I successfully conveyed my gratitude over the course of the campaign, but there's been an update and an extra burst of gratitude that I wanted to share.
Tales from the Cockpit and The Cog That Remains both got to Indie Press Revolution in time for some sales in Q2. Then GenCon happened, and once it was done Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage tripped its Low Stock alert again, so those Q2 sales then contributed to another LATSW print run. Then I got my Q3 report from Indie Press Revolution, and it was a good one folks.
My IPR sales report for Q3: 58 Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage, 48 Tales from the Cockpit, 20 The Cog That Remains
Before running this print run campaign, the future of anything else I created being on a convention or store shelf was pretty severely in doubt. The first few runs of Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage had effectively been squandered, mostly because I had priced them too low to start with, which was then made worse because I'd failed to foresee how many copies would be sold to retailers at a discount. Note that I was and am thrilled for retailers to be buying my game, but I had not math'd the math properly to make printing sustainable. Overall, it was another win for the 'price your own stuff fairly' argument. I adjusted my prices and, I think, was going to be able to avoid the scenario where LATSW would sell out and be unable to print again, but I had nothing left for any other projects, print runs or otherwise.
Enter this campaign, rushed into Zinetopia with a 'why the hell not' attitude, and met with all of your support.
Part of Q3's success was certainly thanks to GenCon, where the entire trio of mecha games were on sale together at a con for the first time (helped by GenCon being one of the cons where IPR sells themselves - those 'Convention' rows - instead of through a retailer, so I get a larger cut). So, I certainly don't expect every quarter to be as good as this last one. However, it still serves as a more clear trial run for the viability of the games themselves and for the pricing I'd set them at, and in terms of actual income the next print run for whichever of my mecha games needs it is already secure. Maybe even more than one! Or, perhaps, the next print run and some work on another project.
I don't entirely know where my game design journey goes next - I participated in PocketQuest 2026 after this campaign funded, NaGaDeMon is rising from the depths once more in less than a month, and there's a vague notion around a crowdfunded print run of No Map, No Plan (I've already got the list of everyone who got a PDF saved for discount purposes) - but wherever it is I'm at least still in the game, and I owe that to you.
Tales from the Cockpit and The Cog That Remains have made their way to IPR and are now available there for giant robots, mecha mechanics, and friendly local gaming stores to purchase!
Both books on IPR's Featured Product page!
So, both the goal and the stretch goal of the campaign have been successfully completed! On the other side of the coin, i.e the backers', I've gotten tagged by a few people who have gotten their book(s), seen a few more on store shelves, and have been checking the tracking numbers that I have and getting green lights on all of them.
If anyone has experienced any issues with getting their books, especially the Royal Mail folks who don't have tracking, please let me know!
All ready-to-fulfill physical orders have been placed with the printer!
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"!
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.
Locking In, Taking Off (Only For A Bit), and Reloading
Another quick update!
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.
Non-giant-robot-game life has been a Something for sure, so just dropping in for a quick update.
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!
Hey everyone! It's been a while, and I hope that I successfully conveyed my gratitude over the course of the campaign, but there's been an update and an extra burst of gratitude that I wanted to share.
Tales from the Cockpit and The Cog That Remains both got to Indie Press Revolution in time for some sales in Q2. Then GenCon happened, and once it was done Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage tripped its Low Stock alert again, so those Q2 sales then contributed to another LATSW print run. Then I got my Q3 report from Indie Press Revolution, and it was a good one folks.
My IPR sales report for Q3: 58 Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage, 48 Tales from the Cockpit, 20 The Cog That Remains
Before running this print run campaign, the future of anything else I created being on a convention or store shelf was pretty severely in doubt. The first few runs of Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage had effectively been squandered, mostly because I had priced them too low to start with, which was then made worse because I'd failed to foresee how many copies would be sold to retailers at a discount. Note that I was and am thrilled for retailers to be buying my game, but I had not math'd the math properly to make printing sustainable. Overall, it was another win for the 'price your own stuff fairly' argument. I adjusted my prices and, I think, was going to be able to avoid the scenario where LATSW would sell out and be unable to print again, but I had nothing left for any other projects, print runs or otherwise.
Enter this campaign, rushed into Zinetopia with a 'why the hell not' attitude, and met with all of your support.
Part of Q3's success was certainly thanks to GenCon, where the entire trio of mecha games were on sale together at a con for the first time (helped by GenCon being one of the cons where IPR sells themselves - those 'Convention' rows - instead of through a retailer, so I get a larger cut). So, I certainly don't expect every quarter to be as good as this last one. However, it still serves as a more clear trial run for the viability of the games themselves and for the pricing I'd set them at, and in terms of actual income the next print run for whichever of my mecha games needs it is already secure. Maybe even more than one! Or, perhaps, the next print run and some work on another project.
I don't entirely know where my game design journey goes next - I participated in PocketQuest 2026 after this campaign funded, NaGaDeMon is rising from the depths once more in less than a month, and there's a vague notion around a crowdfunded print run of No Map, No Plan (I've already got the list of everyone who got a PDF saved for discount purposes) - but wherever it is I'm at least still in the game, and I owe that to you.
Tales from the Cockpit and The Cog That Remains have made their way to IPR and are now available there for giant robots, mecha mechanics, and friendly local gaming stores to purchase!
Both books on IPR's Featured Product page!
So, both the goal and the stretch goal of the campaign have been successfully completed! On the other side of the coin, i.e the backers', I've gotten tagged by a few people who have gotten their book(s), seen a few more on store shelves, and have been checking the tracking numbers that I have and getting green lights on all of them.
If anyone has experienced any issues with getting their books, especially the Royal Mail folks who don't have tracking, please let me know!
All ready-to-fulfill physical orders have been placed with the printer!
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"!
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.
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.
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