Miss the campaign for The Gaia Complex - Hardware 2119? Fear not! You can still late pledge right now and receive your book alongside the Kickstarter fulfilment.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Pledge Manager surveys lock in 48 hours
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Aug 08, 2022 at 02:40:55 AM
Hi all,
Just a quick reminder about the date and process discussed in our last update. There are now 48 hours until we lock down addresses in BackerKit and begin to prepare our fulfilment list. If you have moved house, or are moving in the next 8-12 weeks, please update your address as soon as possible.
If you are one of the few backers that has not yet completed the survey or paid for shipping, please do so as a matter or urgency. Failing to do so may cause your order to be delayed (or worse still mean higher shipping costs if it needs to be sent on its own!).
If anyone has any concerns, issues or questions please get in touch with us and we'll work to get them resolved ASAP.
Regards,
Shep - Hansor Publishing
Progress Update 5
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 04:26:32 PM
Hi all!
I hope everyone is doing great! It's time for our monthly roundup... so let's get stuck in.
So, the good news: we're off to print next week!
As you can see from all the green, the book is written, has been through internal and external editing, external proof reading, layout and file pre-prep has been largely completed. Jesús is now working on the final art piece, which he expects to hand over towards the end of this week. Once that piece is slotted into the place holder space for it, the book is complete.
A note about guest Data Seeds...
Unfortuantely, two of our guest writers, Richard August and Jared Earle, were unable to complete thier guest Data Seeds due to other commitments and life getting in the way. Rest assured, however, this does not mean losing content from the book. Instead Bart Wynants stepped up and provided an additional Data Seed, with the last slot in the book being completed by myself. As these two Data Seeds were unlocked as stretch goals I felt it important to be transparent about the change of writers on them. Hopefully Richard and Jared can return for our next release. Apologies for the last minute change.
Going to Print
I thought this would be a good place to give you a quick run down of the next few steps:
Final art piece gets added to the layout and the files get exported and sent over to the print house. I expect to be doing this within the next 7 days.
After a few days, the printer will provide a list of any issues or corrections needed to the files. Typically this involves colour balance of specific art peices or pages that have a lot of black on them, or where white text on dark backgrounds needs to be overlayed. We learned a lot from this process when we sent the core book to print so we're hopeful that these corrections will be kept to a minimum.
We have a file deadline of August 9th to hit, in order to keep our place in the print queue (the printing is all paid for and booked in!). I am actually going away on a family holiday to Greece this Wednesday, but I'll be taking the Macbook and leaving the family on the beach so I can ensure the files are print perfect as needed.
Once the files are accepted, we'll be looking at a 6 week-ish turn around to have the books in hand. I'll confirm this timeline with you once the print run is complete and the printers confirm my shipping out date.
With our shipping date looming, we need to start thinking about the fulfilment of this product. As a result of this, we need to be in a position to lockdown addresses and prepare the fulfilment list once the files have gone to print. Due to this, we will be locking addresses and closing surveys on AUGUST 10th.
You have until this date to complete your survey, pay for shipping and confirm your address. After this date, access to your survey will be locked - any changes or edits will involve you needing to message us directly.
IMPORTANT - if you have not completed your survey, we can't ship you your book(s). Not only will the shipping have not been paid, but we will also not have access to a confirmed shipping address.
Currently there are 30 backers that have not completed the pledge manager (excluding 'no reward' backers). Everyone has been sent a reminder through Backerkit and I'll directly message anyone expecting a physcial rewards that has still not completed this in a week. If you are a 'no reward' or a PDF-only backer, then this is less of an issue and as long as we have email addresses for digital backers, I'll not pester you.
If you have lost your link or a hungry spam filter has eaten all your Backerkit emails you can gain access here:
Alternatively, or if you have any issues, questions or concerns, please get in touch via a private message and I'll be happy to help in whatever way I can!
Details about shipping-out dates etc. will be given in our next update, when we have a confirmed delivery date from the printer.
With lots of the final art being completed in the last month, I wanted to share my favourite piece with you. This image sits alongside the Exo-skeletons in the opening hardware chapter. Jesús really knocked it out of the park with this one!
As a final note, as I briefly mentioned above, I am going away on a family holiday on Wednesday this week and will return on August 5th. I will be 'working' as needed during this time in order to get the book off to print on time, but please note that replies to comments and messages may be slower than usual.
Thanks again for being here - we're so excited to be going to print with Hardware 2119!
See you next time,
Shep - Hansor Publishing
Progress Update 4
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 03:09:26 PM
Hi all,
I hope everyone is doing great and playing lots of games!
It's time for our monthly update, so let's begin...
This month has seen a good amount of progress, which is pulling us ever closer to completion of the book. Here is a glance at our overview:
Artwork has continued to progress at an expected pace, leaving only six pieces remaining, with one of those expected to be completed in the next 24 hours!
Writing has been coming in from the guest writers, then passing though our editing and external proofreading process. At the moment there are three writers still to complete their Data Seeds, two of which have promised them before the end of the month, the other during the first week of July.
Layout is now completed, pending the final art and text to drop in.
As you can see, we're in a great place and well ahead of schedule. We're aggressively pushing to complete art by the end of July and have the book files print-ready shortly afterwards. With any luck, this time next month we'll be looking at the manufacturing process with you.
Though we want to save some surprises for the book itself, here is another image that was completed this week - one that shows the darker side of new Europe's black markets. Exactly what that 'SM' tag on the wall means, you'll have to wait and see...
Due to us closing in on finishing the book, it is time for us to look towards the fulfilment process. Over the last few weeks I've been working with our fulfilment partners to lock down shipping rates and I can confirm that we will be launching our pledge manager over the next few days (please bear with us). We are using BackerKit to collect your delivery address, allow you to pay for your shipping fees and give you another chance to buy any add-ons you may want.
Once we launch it, you will receive an email from BackerKit which contains a link and instructions on how to complete the survey. It's super simple. Please double check your shipping addresses so we have everything accurate.
Shipping Fees
On the main campaign page, I provided a rough estimate for the shipping costs. On the most part, these have not changed, or if they have, it's by a small amount (the odd £1-2 here and there). A few territories (some areas in Europe and all of Canada) got mega expensive - I've done my best for everyone to keep costs as low as possible.
As a round up, if you are only buying Hardware 2119, then shipping isn't too bad. Buying the core book as well pushes the weight bracket over 2kg (and thus the cost up), but again, these prices are, for the most part, within my estimated tollerances. For anyone that has ordered over 4kg of books, I'm afraid things got expensive. If you ordered over 8kg worth, it's agonising. Thankfully, from what I can see, no one is buying 10 copies of the book, so I think we're okay.
Once again, I've done everything I can to keep near our original estimates, but as I'm sure you're aware, global freight is currently a cluster f@@k and as such, there are places where things have just got difficult and expensive.
Importantly, this project is still UK, US and EU friendly (meaning no customs fees etc):
Parcels to the UK will be shipped from the UK.
Parcels to the EU will be shipped from the UK via a DDP shipping method. This means I'm paying the tax for those parcels upfront so you don't pay it on arrival (and thus avoid the silly fee that couriers add).
Parcels to the US will all be palletised and shipped from the UK to a shipping hub in the US, where they will then be sent to backers via domestic shipping services. Any duty due on the parcels is paid by me on arrival at port so you don't have to pay it. Please note that this process literally cuts US postage costs by 60% - massive saving to backers - BUT, means a slower process as the sea freight isn't quick. As such, US backers will get their books after most other backers. If you are a US backer and really want to pay for express shipping, after completing your pledge manager survey and paying shipping, please message me via KS and I can send you an invoice for the difference in shipping cost (it will be roughly what you've already paid in shipping again, and you may have to pay taxes and duty on arrival - be warned!).
That just about covers everything you need to know at the moment. The pledge manager will remain open until the stock is inbound, which gives us 6-8 weeks. Though we have plenty of time, it really helps us to get this completed as soon as possible and prevents me needing to chase people and sound like I'm moaning :)
If you have any questions about this process, please ask. Look out for those BackerKit emails over the coming days.
Until next time, thanks for your continued support!
Regards,
Shep
Live play - tonight!
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Jun 03, 2022 at 02:28:46 AM
Hi all,
Just a quick update for you all.
The awesome folk at The Initiative Order will be running a live play of The Gaia Complex tonight at 6pm PST.
If you get the chance, throw them a like/follow on social media (https://m.facebook.com/theinitiativeorder/) and tune into twitch.tv/theinitiativeorder tonight to catch the stream!
(Apologies about the rough formatting of this message - I’m away on my honeymoon in Iceland and making pretty looking updates via your phone is seemingly impossible!).
Big love,
Shep
Progress Update 3
over 2 years ago
– Mon, May 23, 2022 at 11:24:23 PM
Hi everyone,
I hope everyone is well!
It's time for our monthly update, so let's get stuck in.
Let's take a peek at our monthly overview...
Since our last update, we've completed five more large pieces of art - four backer headshots that came from the result of our Merc Tech Trader backers, as well as a character headshot from the lore of our Corporate Profiles chapter. Check out those backer headshots below.
We've also had one of the five outstanding guest data seeds returned. This has been through editing and layout, and was returned by the proof reader today. I've spoken with the other four writers who all assure me that we'll see their pieces very soon. They are writers though, so, you know... ;)
That leaves four pages of text and eight art pieces to complete. Jesús has just started on the first of these outstanding illustrations: the back cover art. I hope to share that with you next time.
With permission from our amazing Merc Tech Trader backers, we'd like to share their pieces of custom art with you, all of which are now included in the layout for the book. These illustrations are always a joy to work on and we hope we have the opportunity to work with many more backers like this in the future.
Apo, Ercole & Flavia
Yasmin & "Chop Shop" Kev
Those of you who fancy a little art hunt will be able to see the evolution of Apo's character from the corebook, where he clearly won enough to afford that gold encrusted cybereye! Massive thanks to the above backers for supporting us at that level.
Other Stuff
This Thursday I go away on holiday (my honeymoon!) for ten days. I'll be away until June 6th exploring the wilds of Iceland, so replies to any messages may be a little slower than usual.
When I return, I'll be taking steps to get the pledge manager up and running so we can start to finalise orders, collecting shipping costs and lock down delivery addresses. We're likey to be looking at going to print within a couple of months so it is closing in on time to start that part of the process. I'll aim to have the information ready to share during our next update.
