Category Archives: Announcements

Hey, there’s something coming up that I want to tell you about!

Announcements, Crossposted

Last Chance!

Today is the last day you can back this project.

Our Game Chief Screen Kickstarter has funded, and manufacturing will begin sometime early next week. We will make more than we need to fulfill orders, but we might not have the opportunity to make more of these. Running the molding machinery costs around $12k regardless of the size of the run¹, and these are a niche product. We cannot promise that they’ll always be in inventory.

We will ship what’s left of our inventory to GenCon Indy in August, where a great many of the shoppers in this particular niche hang out. It is entirely possible that by the end of that show these quirky, silly, incredibly useful² tools will be forever sold out.

Act now! Like, RIGHT NOW.

¹ Financial note: In 2015 and 2016 we invested roughly $22k in R&D and mold-making. This project isn’t actually paying any of that money back yet. That’s okay, because you’ll be getting your stuff, and we’re happy to have made a cool thing, but the financial prospects for making more of these are stark. Like, Ned Stark.

² Also, incredibly customizable.

Announcements, Crossposted

Only Three Days Left!


This Kickstarter of ours is a quick one¹. It closes on Friday, so if you want the Game Chief’s Deluxe RPG “Handbrain” Screen, you should pledge today. Or tomorrow. But don’t wait until Thursday, because by then you may have become distracted by other things, and then it will be Saturday…

I’ll be posting a photo tutorial later today explaining how to use some simple hobby paint tools land techniques to make the ABS plastic screen look like it’s made of rusty wrought iron.

¹ The project had to fit between a couple of other things: the earliest date at which we could, in good conscience, launch another Kickstarter, and the last possible date at which we can give the manufacturer numbers for the run, and still ship stuff in July². 

² Why July? Because August is full, and September is full, and October is aghast at how ragged we are after our slog through August and September, and November is like “are you ready for the holiday stuff yet?”

Announcements, Crossposted

The Game Chief’s Handbrain

Two years ago I had this idea for what I really wanted in an RPG screen. We spent a chunk of R&D budget determining whether it was a thing that we could actually make, and it turns out we can. So we are!

The project is 97% funded as of this writing. The molds have been tooled, and the manufacturer is waiting on us. When our Kickstarter closes we will tell them how many to make. This is going to fulfill very quickly¹.

We’ll be including PDF templates for the half-sheets, to help you align whatever information you want on the drop-ins you print, and we’ll be including some Planet Mercenary drop-ins as well. Oh, and we’ll include an adventure, “Size Might Matter,” which will debut at Gen-Con.

If this is a thing you want, you should act soon. The Kickstarter only runs for 17 more days, because our manufacturer really does need to get started.

¹ The Planet Mercenary Kickstarter is going to be fulfilled at around the same time as this one, because it’s off to the printer now. By the end of July we’ll have gotten everybody their physical products for all this stuff. 

Announcements, Crossposted, Journal

PLANET MERCENARY Goes to Print This Monday

Ten days ago I finished my last big piece of writing for Planet Mercenary. Yesterday Sandra and I finished the last small piece. Today we reviewed the cover layout, and realized it’s ready to be sent to the printer.

This has taken much longer than I wanted it to, but the project looks much, much better than I believed it could. Part of the delay is due to repeated discoveries that we could be doing something better, and then deciding to do it better. And of course another part of the delay is us not knowing how to work as quickly as we originally thought we could.

If you backed the project, your book (and anything else that ships with it) will be shipped July. If you didn’t back the project you can still use Backerkit to place a pre-order, but that link will go away in a few weeks. Eventually we’ll have Planet Mercenary in the Schlock Mercenary Store, but that’s not going to happen before July.

I need to write a whole different post talking about how awesome Sandra and Alan are, and how grateful I am that they figured out how to work with, and around me. For now I’ll just say that in terms of actual work done, Sandra’s name is listed at least one position too far to the right.

Note: The cover art above is by Jeff Zugale, and was laid out (along with the rest of the pages in the book) by Mike Brodu under Sandra Tayler‘s direction. The fact that the logo I designed two years ago is still a part of all this is evidence more of the force of my personality than my skill at logo design.