YouTube Livestream tonight with artist Vanessa Lemen
8 months ago – Tue, Sep 05, 2023 at 10:38:46 AM

Hi All,

I'm reminding all of you that there's a PSYCHE Livestream tonight, and this time, it's with guest VANESSA LEMEN. Vanessa is an award winning painter who's work is exhibited and collected internationally. In her paintings, she explores myth and allegory in a swirling, dreamlike, mythological visual world. She created a stunning piece for this project in its early days, and the image has become iconic to PSYCHE and what it endeavors to do for character, story, and creativity. 

In tonight's livestream, we're going to use the PSYCHE cards to explore the character and story possibilities in her own work! I for one, am VERY EXCITED. It's happening on YouTube, at 8 pm EST. Just search for "Reckless Deck" in YouTube's search bar, and our channel will come up as an option. All you need to do is be on the channel at 8 when the livestream starts.

I invite you to blow up the chat with your own ideas and opinions, and to subscribe to the channel for alerts for future livestreams! ( And while you're there, feel free to peruse the last 3 weeks of livestreams, with an LA screenwriter, a romance author, and a Marvel & DC comic book artist!)

Hope you join us at 8.

Cheers,

Clark

Livestream tonight with Paranormal Romance Author ELLE GRECO
8 months ago – Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 10:12:39 AM

Hi All,

Just a reminder that I have my second YouTube Livestream tonight, Aug 22nd, at 8 pm EST.

Tonight's guest will be Paranormal Romance author Elle Greco. Elle wrote both the LA Rock Star and Hell's Belle series, and also hosts an extremely cool podcast called STEAM SCENES, where she and other Romance & Urban Fantasy authors get together to discuss writing the spicy bits (and writing in general).

tonight she'll be picking from a small assortment of PSYCHE cards,  and then we'll dive in and make an amazing Urban Fantasy story come to life - 100 percent on the fly. Last week with Marvel & DC artist Khoi Pham was an absolute blast, and tonight will just as fun while being totally different. Here's the link to Reckless Deck's YouTube channel.

I hope you'll tune in. Join us live! Blow up the chat stream! Watch after the fact! All of these things are SUPER supportive, and are much appreciated. Plus, it's gonna be wicked fun.

Cheers,

Clark

Several Announcements and Bits of Good News
9 months ago – Mon, Aug 14, 2023 at 02:38:11 PM

Hi All,

Turns out, even though we just communicated late last week, there's a lot to go over. 

First, there's been problems reported with the downloadable BxW A4 version of the Fairy Tales 60 card deck. I've since worked with Backerkit to get it fixed, and according to them, it's now good to go and available to download.

Ongoing YouTube Livestream series

I’m very excited to announce the kickoff of an ongoing weekly series! On Tuesday evenings at 8 pm EST, on Reckless Deck’s Youtube channel, I’ll be doing PSYCHE character-and-story sessions.

Each episode will feature a different guest, usually (but not always) a working creative of some kind. Each guest will tell me ahead of time what kind of story they want to tell, or what genre or world they want to play in. I will prep a small selection of PSYCHE cards for them that fit that bill. Sometimes, they’ll choose their cards ahead of time, and sometimes they’ll choose them in the moment. From there, we’ll take the prompts we end up with, and start spinning them into a cool character with a compelling story right there in real time.

Tomorrow we'll have my friend, and Marvel & DC Comics artist KHOI PHAM on! Khoi's credits include Teen Titans, Scarlet Spider, Amazing Spider-Man, Hercules, and X-Factor. And even though he's a comics expert, he's asked to do a FANTASY character session! I'm excited to see where we go with it.

Next week we'll have ELLE GRECO, paranormal romance author of the LA Rock Star Romance series, and the Hell's Belle urban fantasy series (and PSYCHE Anthology author!)

I’ve done a bunch of these kinds of workshops before using the PSYCHE cards, and they’re extremely fun, and the creative sparks that fly are often exciting, and sometimes downright magical. Each episode will be one part writers room, one part happy hour, and one part tarot card reading. The episodes will happen live, but then be available for viewing afterwards on the YouTube channel. I hope you’ll join me and watch tomorrow night.

We’ve talked before about doing this as a fun backer activity. I still want to include those of you who are interested, starting with the first 3 backers we selected several months ago. I’ll give each of those 3 individuals the choice of being a guest on the YouTube channel, or doing a smaller, “backer only” event.

Shipping all US Essentials Sets

I’ve seen an opportunity, and I’m taking it. It looks like soon, I’ll be able to ship the Essentials sets to those US backers who added it on.

I’ve been shipping things like the playmats to Shuffled Ink in Florida for their larger fulfillment effort, once the cards are complete. (I had all the coins delivered directly to them, as well.) I had originally planned to send the mostly complete Essentials sets  to Shuffled as well, for them to add a few last expansions, and add them to your larger orders. I say "mostly complete" because I need to do a short run of three sold out expansions that should be included in it. Two expansions will contain the same content, but with the most current versions of the card face art, and Shuffled’s improved-quality cardstock. One expansion will be new content, which I’ll get to in a moment.

We may not yet have all the funds we need to run the entire PSYCHE series (emphasis on yet), but we certainly have enough for me to do these short runs of three 20-card expansions from original Reckless Deck. So, Shuffled is going to run these expansions, and then ship them directly to me. I’ll add them to the Essentials sets, and fulfill them from here personally.

Is it completely equitable that certain people are getting some element of their rewards when others aren’t? I admit that it’s not. But you’ve all been waiting for so long, that if I have the opportunity to get some people some things without breaking the bank on the added shipping it will cost the project, I’m going to do it. And I regret that I can’t do the same for those international backers who added on the Essentials set. The cost of the International shipping, in addition to the international shipping costs when the rest of the products ship just isn’t doable.

Improved Expansion Content

Like I said, I'm running 2 out of the 3 Expansions, Dungeoncrawler (Fantasy) and Dark Forest (Fairy Tales) as is, with their content unchanged from the 2018 Kickstarter. But the third one, Gods & Monsters (Mythology), is getting completely swapped out. Though it has a cool name and was one of the most popular of the 20 card expansions, in retrospect, it's the expansion I like the least. Half of it was based on the now-retired Reinvention category, which didn't integrate well with the rest of the system, and has since been replaced by the Powers category. And the other half needed serious improvement as well. With a category as juicy and momentous as Mythology, I've felt for a long time that I could do a lot better. And, I just couldn't bring myself to actually re-print such an outdated set, even if it was only 20 cards.

Having had a lot of time to think about new content since then, I have vastly superior Mythology-related content at my fingertips and ready to go. Ultimately, after PSYCHE is finally 100% shipped and in your hands, I'd like to do an entire 60 or 70 card Mythology-themed deck, tentatively titled PANTHEON. This new 20-card set will be a bit of an advanced sneak peek into PANTHEON's content. 

If it turns out any of you want to add on this 20 card deck by itself, let me know. I'm sure I can get Backerkit to help make it work. I can offer it for $8. If this prompts any of you to want to add on the Essentials set who passed on it the first time and get it relatively quickly (within the US), let me know that, too.  (At this point, I have very limited stock available on some of the expansions, and it's listed as Out of Stock on the website.) But if there's enough inventory left to satisfy any new demand, I'll try and make it work.

Progress?

Last week, some of you commented that you wanted to be more informed about the efforts to get the completed funding. The truth is, without a definite deal in place, there's not a lot I can say about the meetings and conversations I'm having, and the lead-following I'm doing that's all still just speculation. But, for what it's worth, I wanted you all to know I had a really, really good meeting on Friday. I hope to have more to report soon.

OK, that was a lot. Hope you'll join us tomorrow for the YouTube Live, or watch it after the fact. I'm excited for it.

Cheers,

Clark

PDF Downloadable Content Drop #4
9 months ago – Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 08:44:25 AM

Hi All,

Here is your final drop of printable PDFs for you to download. In this installement, you get:

• Espionage & Black Ops (223 cards)
• Steampunk & Victorian (223 Cards)
• Fairy Tales & Folklore (60 Cards)

Use this link to your Backerkit profile to access the PDFs:

https://rdpsyche.backerkit.com/

As has been the case with the other PDFs, all of these are available in both BxW and color, and in both US letter and A4 paper sizes. You don't need to download all 4. If you want both the color and BxW options, help yourself.  But ultimately, they're intended for you to decide whether you want to economize on printer ink, or go for the full color designs. And the different paper sizes are for US (letter) vs international (A4) backers. Just download the set that suits the size paper you use in your printer.

And, just like last time, let me know if there are any errors or problems with these. I *think* I've fixed any issues with the previous PDF sets. If I'm wrong, you can let me know in the comments below.

 Let me know if you've been using the PDF versions for character and content creation! I'd love to know how you're liking the different sets.

The next update will be on MONDAY. I have some fun and interesting announcements to share (not that the funding issue is completely solved, unfortunately, but very cool all the same.)

Enjoy your PDFs!

Clark

Addressing Some Backer Questions
9 months ago – Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 02:16:46 PM

Hi All!

Like I said in the last update, I wanted to address some of the backer questions that have been sent my way, and that I've seen in the comments. Before that, just a quick note to mention that the final downloadable PDF drop is coming tomorrow. Actually, the first question is about the PDFs:

These are a lot of files. Can you put them in a Zip file to make it easier to download?

No, I'm sorry, Backerkit isn't set up for that. I know there’s a lot of different pdfs, and variations of each on top of that. But, we’re almost done - there’s only one more content drop. This has to go through Backerkit, because I need to be able to exercise some control over who gets access to them. This is essentially exclusive, pre-released content, and is meant for backers & preorder members only. I also need to be able to track how many of each get downloaded, and which backers have downloaded which sets. Backerkit is the best way for me to do this, and this is the system they have in place.

I already paid for shipping. What happened to our shipping funds? Will I be expected to pay more?

The funds you paid for your shipping essentially got rolled into the total amount of funds available for the project. Most of the funds I’m trying to raise are for covering the shipping fees that instead got used towards manufacturing, design, and other expenses. I have no intention of asking you to pay additional shipping fees. It’s been suggested to me by both advisors close to me and also some crowdfunding professionals that asking for more shipping funds could be a potential way to help close the funding gap. I don’t think that’s at all fair to you, and it’s an option I’m not interested in taking.

From the photos you’ve shared of the card faces, we’re worried about readability, and that there’s not enough contrast between the text and the design. Is there a design problem?

I’ve looked at this closely since you guys raised it, and I’m confident this is a product photography issue and not a design issue. Photography is not my strongest suit, and the finish on the cards always manages to catch some degree of glare. Getting photos that accurately represent how the printed cards look is a problem I have consistently when trying to post product shots on Reckless Deck’s Instagram. I’ve worked with my prototype decks extensively, and I think the text is totally readable, and that there’s no issue with the balance between the text and design.

What’s up with shipping the final product?

The downloadable PDFs are definitely not the end.I still have every intention ofshipping the finished physical products. You should be able to see from the completed pdf sets that I've released that the work on the design and content creation for the project is indeed finished. I hope you're putting the PDF versions to good use, coming up with compelling ideas for characters and stories, and mixing and matching content from different sets for some real genre-bending results. I’ll be honest, though, I very much wanted production to be in full swing by this point in the summer. I know this is frustrating for you, and I’m working as hard as I can to get the printing started. I’ll let you know as soon as humanly possible that we’re good to go. 

Please let me know in the comments if these answers address the questions sufficiently. Meanwhile: tomorrow, more PDF content to take you into your weekend!

Cheers,

Clark