Monday 14 May 2012

A peek at the upcoming Shadow Era cards

Well since I've been raving on about this game and the decks I thought I'd fire up some pre-release information plus photos of the cards. posted by Kyle the owner of the company, I'm not sure yet if they will be MTG / Pkm size or the smaller YU-GI-OH size... either way they look crisp clean and well produced, and with 200 cards in the beginning set combined with 20 hero choices (Included in the 200) you have a wealth of deck options to work with.

A few weeks ago we received color proofs for all the cards and packaging from Cartamundi, the printer behind all the top TCGs such as MTG and WOW TCG. These were proofs, printed on different paper to approve the color and print quality. The actual card stock will be even superior to that used by MTG and WOW TCG, making Shadow Era truely a premium game yet at a reasonable price.


Anyways, all I could say was "wowwwww!" The colors were so amazing, so sharp and clear, I didn't know it was possible to get that kind of quality in print!! Below for your enjoyment is a sneak peek at some of the proofs, including revealing for the first time the class deck design and some more premium foils!


To see the full photo album, visit us on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/WulvenGameStudios









And even better, Kyle has announced their updated shipping information.

Shipping Date Confirmed!
There's a bunch of news to update everyone today, as we get into the home stretch and prepare to launch the physical game to the world!

As you may have guessed, due to production delays we missed our original print window at Cartamundi. It was quite a challenge to deal with all the unexpected things like delays in finalizing the card text, strict quality requirements on images in CMYK mode (not too much black coverage!), packaging design and barcodes, design requirements for making foil premium cards, etc. I can't overstate how impressed I was working with Cartamundi though, they really are passionate about their work and always have an eye on the quality at every stage of the process! From their original estimate a few months ago, the "ex-works date" has only slipped a few weeks to the end of May. The cards are currently rolling off the presses and I have already received some very impressive "first off the line" uncut sheets that will be framed and go up in my office . I'll be visiting their headquarters in Belgium on May 22 for the final days of packaging before the cards are shipped out, to give everyone a special behind the scenes look at the production process!

The second big piece of news is that Shadow Era has been accepted to be distributed by Alliance Game Distributors, the largest distributor of hobby games in the world. They will be receiving all the products from the printer directly to their warehouse in Indiana, USA and will handle fulfilling the pre-orders as well as using their sales team to sell directly to retail stores worldwide. Realistically, this means everyone should get their pre-orders fulfilled in the first two weeks of June, while it will take another 1-2 months for Shadow Era to roll out to retail stores and start to achieve a physical presence.

The third update is the news about the digital version of the game. Digital foils will be coming online in about 2 weeks found in online booster packs, but all pre-orders will get a free complete set of the 65 foils to show off! These will surely become very valuable when the player auctions system opens up this summer. But going a step further, I can confirm now that digital versions of the 55 exclusive limited edition foils will also be granted to all pre-orders! In short, your online foils will match your physical foils!

A special thanks to everyone that has been so patient throughout the process! It's been a real roller-coaster ride, everything from a crash course in CMYK printing techniques to the expensive reality of physical shipping to PayPal still freezing $90,000 of the funding . But it was a huge learning process that will certainly ensure the next expansion goes really smoothly!


Summary:

Origins Game Fair June 1-3: Very limited quantities for sale
Pre-order Fulfillment: June 1-14
World-Wide Availability in Retail Stores: July-August


Production Scale:

Class Decks: 40,000 (first print run)
Booster Packs: 250,000 (first print run)
Premium Decks: 10,000 (never produced again)
Collectors Edition: 500 (never produced again)
Complete Playsets: 300 (never produced again)
Card Sleeves: 10,000
Other physical bonuses: 5,000 each

I cannot wait to get my hands on these cards and see properly what the details and quality are like. And judging by who they got to make the cards I expect great things.  

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