Final Upstart Pre-Order Store

Hey, Some Good News This Time!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 12:43:57 AM

Please note: I am not a professional photographer nor have any associated skills.

Good morning!

So, a knock at my door this morning is followed by my wife carrying in a bulky package from China.  "I don't think we're expecting anything yet," I say as I tear it open.  Turns out, it's a single set from each of the style and colors we ran for this campaign.  The factory sent me a round of post-manufacture samples ahead of the bigger shipment (22 sets of dice ship faster than 22 thousand, apparently).

So, this means I have a physical copy of those Beat Dragon dice, rather than just a digital mockup (there's more good news following these BD pictures):

Cool, those came out great!

Then, we pull out a few more, and we get to the Heisenbergs.  My wife (who designed those dice) literally gasped when she saw them.  They are not like the sample we originally got.  They are 1000x better!

The sample we originally got was at a "low translucence" level when we, apparently, wanted "high translucence."  Since this is our first time making translucent dice, I didn't know any better when I got the sample oh-so-many months ago.  Now that I've seen these, I'm so glad the factory knew what to do even though I didn't.  This is what they were supposed to look like since the beginning, and these pictures don't do them justice.  They look like glass.

To give you an idea, here's the original sample d20 next to the d20 from the production set:

I liked our originals ones just fine, with that nice frosted look, but the one on the left (the one that was manufactured and will be showing up in your orders) is much much better.  We're so incredibly happy with how those turned out.

Finally, I took a gander at the CSI dice, and they do look okay, though clearly not a matte finish like we wanted.  We're going to stick by the original plan of sending out corrected versions to people who specifically ordered them (if you got a set as a random or extra set from the late shipment, we won't replace that because we aren't tracking who got those).  However, I'm sure you're going to be happy with them as-is.  They're just as patently ridiculous as advertised:

My wife quickly snatched up those Heisenbergs and added them to her bag, while I grabbed the Beat Dragons and added them to mine.  Ah, the privileges of running a dice company!

Cheers!

Stanford

Dice Are Made, Paid, and ... Shipped
over 4 years ago – Fri, Sep 06, 2019 at 02:49:02 AM

Good afternoon!

Just a quick update to let you know that the dice are on their way from China to me and the other distributor.  We're being quoted 13-16 days for freight, but we'll pad that out by a few days just in case.  With dice packing and shipping expected to happen here the last weekend of September, I expect our local post office to get swamped with dice on September 29.

A quick note: in order to get ready to pack all of the dice, we will purchase and print shipping labels in the week before the weekend.  You'll probably see an email when that happens telling you about it, so please don't get nervous if you check the tracking number and see that it hasn't updated beyond "Label Created" for several days.  The intake scans will likely take place over a couple days (it's 1000 packages through our local post office in addition to their regular flow), so some of the last ones will probably be Wednesday before they're updated.

Here's a fun picture for you:

I will update again when I have dice in-hand (or any other relevant news).

Thanks again for your support!

Stanford

Production Complete; Yet Another UV Dice Hiccup
over 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 12:56:42 AM

Good morning, y'all!

Okay, yes, that's a scary title, but everything will be fine, I promise.

First things first, production is complete and the dice will be on their way to distributors at the end of this week.  We air-freight everything, so we should have those in hand within a week or two after that.  I'm going to tentatively schedule my dice packing day for the last weekend in September.  This means the US orders will be in your hands in that first week of October.  The UK and EU ones will start shipping as soon as they arrive, so they may show up a touch earlier (cutting in before the Brexit turmoil, hopefully).  The rest of the world will be shipped out from here, but it'll take an extra week or two depending on where you live.

Now, about those UV dice: there was a slight mistake at the factory.  Instead of the matte finish, they were given a glossy polish.  Now, they still function 100% the same, but they do look a little different than we advertised.  The factory has already offered to correct the mistake free of charge, but it would require making all new dice at a cost of a month and change of production time at a minimum.  This is, frankly, not ideal for you.  So, here's what we're going to do:

We are going to send these UV dice as-is to those that ordered them (in the glossy finish).  Who knows, you might like them even better!  However, the factory is going to remake them on our next order (which will be early next year, probably January) in the correct matte finish.  When we have those, we will send them out to you free-of-charge, and you'll hopefully have them by next May or so.

I'm so sorry for the little issues that keep cropping up.  We will get this all worked out to the best of our ability!

Thanks!

Matthew Stanford

Manufacture Update
over 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 03:14:53 AM

Good afternoon, everybody!

I have good news, and less good news.  The good news is that nearly everything is complete.  In fact, all colors and sizes are complete except one!  The less good news is, the last color is that tricky UV color.  Arg, such a clever idea, yet so many unexpected hiccups.  The price of trailblazing!

The factory has informed me that the UV is the last batch of sets to finish, and that they'll be done in about 20-25 days.  That puts us a few weeks behind our shipping schedule (sigh), with dice expected to arrive in your hands starting in mid-late September instead of August.

From all of us here, we are super sorry about that.

However, LP has a firm "pamper the customer" policy.  So, as a sincere apology for the delay, we're going to throw a free set of 7-piece polies in with every order.  These will be drawn randomly from our excess stock, mostly 3270, P3, and MKK.  If, however, this delay causes you to be soured on the project, please, PLEASE do not hesitate to let me know and I'll be happy to issue a full refund immediately.  Your happiness is essential to our own.

If this delay means you need to change your shipping address, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can update the BackerKit for you.

Thank you once again for your continued support.  By the time I'm ready to update again (when manufacture is 100% complete and the dice are en route to distributors), I should have a sneak-peak ready for our next line of dice.  I think y'all are going to like that one a lot.

Stanford

end of line

Dice Ordered, Cards Charged
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 01:15:52 AM

Good afternoon, Everyone!

Okie dokie, we have placed our order with the factory.  Production is usually under 30 days, but this is a particularly large order, so it might take a touch longer.  Right now, we're looking to be at about the outside edge of the delivery estimate of August, but we'll let you know if you need to push that back a touch.

We have charged your cards on Backerkit, so you'll see that charge come through.  You still have time to change your address if you need to, and we'll send out a confirmation email for that in about a month.

Thank you so much for your support!

Stanford

end of line