Lairs: Build Your Lair, then Defend It With Your Life

In Production!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 06:52:21 PM

We’ve hit another exciting milestone! 

Moments ago, I sent an international wire transfer to our printer in China… which means they can finally begin production. Instead of a sharing a screenshot of the transfer record, how about a picture of what we’ve been up to over the past few weeks?  

That is Pat holding a proof sheet, sent from our printer a while back. And while you probably can’t tell from the picture, there isn’t enough contrast between the yellow background and white text on some of the cards. And this is why we wanted to proof it first; on the PDF that you all reviewed (on monitor and printed off) it seemed fine, but at this particular printer… not so much.

There were a few other small issues; the plastic tray was a little too tight in some places, and too loose in others. Both sides of the character cards were glossy, while only one should have been. Nothing major, and very easy to miss in specification (especially with the language barrier) but they were the kind of things that get frustrating when you own a game.  That said, we’ve resolved those to our satisfaction, which is why we wired payment the printer to begin production.  

From here, they will begin printing, assembling, bagging, shrinkwrapping, packaging – and eventually put them on a couple palates, and send them off to warehouses for fulfilment to you! We will be pestering them for pictures and updates along the way, and share them as soon as we hear back.

Thanks again for supporting Lairs, and it feels great to be in the homestretch.

Origins and Print and Play!
almost 7 years ago – Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 09:12:37 PM

 Hey all,  

First off it was great to meet some of you fine folks at Origins Game Fair!

We are pretty bad at remembering to take pictures, but Sean and Pat got to pose for at least a few shots with the wonderful backers below. Also, we wanted to say thanks to all of our lovely volunteers.

 If you stopped by the booth, you might have seen our Print & Play copy all setup! That’s right, the Print & Play is ready for backers. You should have (or will soon) receive an email from BackerKit with download instructions.  

From there just print it out and send us your pics! We suggest printing on cardstock if you can swing it, but regular paper will work as well. Let us know if you have any trouble.  

As for the actual print run, we are pleased to say everything is with the print shop and being worked on. More specifics to come.  

Happy Lairsing  

Sean, Alex, Zack, and Pat

Proofing the proofs!
almost 7 years ago – Sun, May 28, 2017 at 09:10:31 PM

Hello everyone,

We’ve got some more progress to report: last week, we received the proofs from our printer! This is exciting, because it means that, after all of the back-and-forth with our print files, they are ready to put us on the production schedule... just as soon as we give them the go-ahead.

Of course, before we give the ole ::thumbs-up::, we need to look over every single asset. Yet again. For like, the 1000th time. We’re in the middle of doing that right now, and are continuing to go back-and-forth to resolve some minor (but expected) glitches – like wrong backs on wrong cards, etc.

By the way, this is what their print-ready files look like, by the way. Last update, I shared with you our print files -- which they took, and then re-laid out (by hand) onto files that will work for the process they designed specifically for this game.

If you’re interested in giving us a second set of eyes, we would be very grateful for the help. The file are huge, so we can send you a link to download if you wanted to help. Just send me a message.

As for the print and plan... while we wait for updates overnight (or two) from our printer China, we’re continuing to work on laying out the print and play. This is also an arduous process of laying out every asset (by hand) to fit on standard printer paper, adding borders, dashed-cut lines, etc.

Thanks again for the patience, we will update as soon as we give the go-ahead. We'll also be asking for pictures of the print process, and hopefully will receive some that we can share. 

Now Working Through the Print Process
almost 7 years ago – Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 02:45:34 PM

Hello again,

Great news! We are officially on a "rules freeze" -- actually we've been there for a couple weeks now. Rules freeze may or may not be a game design term, but it's like a code freeze from the software world (i.e. our day job): the corner cases have been smoothed out, the bugs have been fixed, and we're now actively going back-and-forth with the printer in China.

What does that process involve? Well, it's basically figuring out *how* things will actually be printed, designing the dies, and those sorts of things. For example, here's a screenshot of what we think the die lies for the punch-card should be:

From there, the printer in China will make a die proof from our file, and then send us back their work in the form of a pre-proof. We'll adjust as needed, and repeat the process. Sometimes, text or lines end up looking a little strange due to some setting on our end, or theirs. It's just the nature of getting this to print.

The reason we're a bit late in this update... I had planned to send an update when we received our "truly final, final proofs", but since each iteration has taken a few days given the time-zone differences, I wanted to at least tell you where we're at as of today. 

Once we approve the final print proofs, we'll post another update... and begin the design work again, and re-layout the print-and-play edition with all the content!

Cheers,

Alex, Sean, and Pat

Current status: smoothing out corner cases before going to print!
about 7 years ago – Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 11:57:34 PM

Hello all,

It’s been a few weeks, so we wanted give a quick update to share what we’ve been up to. 

First and foremost, thanks for all of your feedback on our Legacy vs Boon poll. Based on your overwhelming preferences to stick with Legacy, we did just that.

That said, we’re just about ready to send the files to the printer. At this point, our main delays are in playtesting. We’ve been smoothing out some of the corner cases we’ve found with the stretch-goal content and various player counts. 

We’re nearly there and, as with all game design, what seems good on paper sometimes just doesn’t quite play right. And obviously, we’d rather discover this ourselves than ship a “buggy” game. 

We really appreciate your continued patience on Lairs! This is a truly a labor of love for us, and something we’re doing in our nights and weekends -- if it weren’t for your kind words and enthusiasm, I’m sure we would have given up long ago! 

Thanks again,

Alex, Sean, and Pat