Book 2 in the Legendary Kingdoms RPG gamebook series. An epic, choose-your-own adventure style gamebook set in a sandbox fantasy world.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Oliver does unboxing
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 04:01:07 AM
Author of Legendary Kingdoms, Oliver Hulme unboxes his new books hot off the press
Whilst you're patiently waiting for your Valley of Bones / Crown & Tower books to make their way out of China, please enjoy Oliver's reaction to all his hard work, as he unboxes the samples that the factory sent him recently.
It won't be long before the next update, just ironing out the shipping logistics
Jon & Oliver
& the Spidermind Games team
Printing and Delivery Update
about 2 years ago
– Fri, Apr 01, 2022 at 04:15:17 AM
Oliver here again. We wanted to share the results of the poll we ran a month ago, and let you know what we’ve decided to do going forwards.
As you can see, about 71% are happy for us to continue, and 29% would rather wait until their book arrives before we launch another Kickstarter. Now, on the one hand, over 70% is a big number (and over 1,200 of you voted – thanks so much!), so it looks fairly clear what we should do. But the more we looked at the 29%, especially those of you who commented, the more we saw that you were just as big fans as the 71%, but just couldn’t in good conscience back another Kickstarter while waiting for your goods for the first one.
In order to explain what we’re going to do I need to give you a bit of background. When Spidermind Games successfully completed its first major project (The Level Up), its international success meant that we needed to create a global system of distribution. We eventually settled on having two warehouses and distribution centres, one in the United States, and another here in Britain. Naturally, this is quite expensive, but it allows us to have global reach and to deliver our projects efficiently. Like other companies, we have our goods manufactured in one country, such as China or Lithuania, and then ship it in containers to our distribution centres.
Now, the recent pandemic has caused chaos with this system. It used to be possible to fill an entire shipping container and move it to the US for around £3,000. It now costs in the region of £20,000. Also, goods are not guaranteed for delivery due to the chaos at ports. It means that goods can take something in the region of half a year to shift from one place to another, due to the domino effect of late supplies.
Oddly, however, the rise in shipping prices has started to make alternative distribution systems more palatable. We would never have considered, for instance, direct shipping for Legendary Kingdoms from its port of origin (Hong Kong), since this would be more expensive than the books themselves.
Despite this extra cost, in the wake of the poll, Jon and I felt we really had to try to find a way to get your books to you as quickly as possible. We are therefore going to do something that we wouldn’t usually consider in normal economic times. We’re going to hire a third distribution company, based in Hong Kong, to ship the books directly to our Kickstarter backers. This means that the books will begin their postal journey to you from Hong Kong and will remain under the care of one courier throughout that journey.
No company wants to do something like this. You don’t go to the expense of setting up a global distribution system and then just bypass it for a more expensive method of delivery. The brutal choice for us is this, though; we either let Legendary Kingdoms slide, which means losing momentum and disappointing most of our backers, or we take those extra costs and try to get the books out in time for a later Kickstarter.
So this is what we’re going to do:
· The books should have finished their printing in the next few days. As soon as possible they will be shipped to Hong Kong for delivery.
· Most books will be sent out in the next few weeks to their final destination, which means that you should get your books before the Kickstarter begins. Tracking numbers from the company EasyShip will be sent out to you when your parcel is processed.
· We are going to begin, from next week, to advertise a new Legendary Kingdoms Kickstarter that we are hoping to start in May. During this eight-week build up, your Legendary Kingdoms books should start to arrive. We have been told travel times for these packages range from 21 days to 40 days depending on your final destination.
We hope that this compromise will please as many people as possible. Those of you who are keen for a new LK book to be launched this year will get their wish, and those who insist on having their books first will be able to get theirs just before the campaign begins in earnest.
Hopefully, all of you will feel able to back the new campaign when it launches in May. If for some reason you can’t back then, those who have previously backed Legendary Kingdoms will get a chance to back us on the same terms as Kickstarter on Backer Kit for a few months afterwards (provided, of course, that the campaign is successful).
Well – with that most important of polls done, here’s to safe sailing. With a fair following wind, we’ll see you all for Pirates of the Splintered Isles in May!
All the best,
Oliver
Printing dates are finally fixed but we have a question...
about 2 years ago
– Sat, Feb 19, 2022 at 03:14:19 AM
Greetings Adventurers,
Oliver Hulme, author of Legendary Kingdoms, here. Usually Jon does all our communications, but I thought I’d touch base with you all about an important production development in the Legendary Kingdoms series.
The plan with Legendary Kingdoms was that we would do one Kickstarter a year, starting with Books 1 & 2, and then one each for books 3, 4, 5 and 6. (Initially we developed and sold Book 1: The Valley of Bones without a Kickstarter, but it didn’t perform nearly as well as the subsequent Kickstarter did). Doing a book a year allowed time for readers to complete them, and also adequate time for me to write them, as they are quite complex to make. The idea was that by 2025 the entire series would be written and complete.
As you all know, the final digital version of Crown & Tower, and the updated version of Valley of Bones, was completed in September 2021. (If you’re a backer and you’ve missed it, you can download your digital copy now). We sent the final files to our printers that same month.
Proofs from the printers
What we expected was a month of ‘mucking around’, where the printers came back with questions about print quality, the depth of black ink, colour corrections, the thickness of the covers and all sorts of other details. This is quite normal, as what you produce in a digital format rarely looks exactly the same when printed.
The process went on for much longer than we expected, and included curious delays while they sent us hard copies, individual page layouts, and other printing paraphernalia one week at a time. At first we assumed that they were merely being thorough, and were quietly reassured that the final product was going to look better than ever.
Eventually, word reached us of an entrenched, world-wide paper shortage and we began to worry. We believe that this is why our printers took so long with their print corrections. It is clear that there is a large backlog of printing, caused by this shortage.
However, today, we finally received the date that the print will be completed. According to the schedule, the books can be shipped from their premises on the 29th March, 2022.
The Splintered Isles
On the one hand, it is reassuring to finally get a print date. On the other, it has been incredibly dispiriting to have to wait seven full months for the printing of a relatively simple book.
To add to our woes, international delivery via container ship is still expensive – but more importantly, slow. Ports are still overwhelmed and distribution has become complex and sluggish. So, while we will finally have our books printed at the end of March, it will be an indeterminate time (two months, four months, six months?) for the books to arrive at our distribution centre.
The executive summary is this: Books 1 and 2 are printed at the end of March. We don’t know how long it will take to deliver them, but there is a risk it may be many months.
What does this mean for the Legendary Kingdoms creation schedule? Will we still be able to make one book a year? Well, at the end of the day, that will be up to you.
We want to keep to our schedule, releasing a Legendary Kingdoms book each Spring, but we are now hit with a moral quandary. Can we really run another Kickstarter for Book 3 when the physical Books 1 and 2 are still undelivered?
Our current plan would be to begin an eight week, pre Kickstarter promotion for book 3 the moment the printed books (1&2) leave the factory in China. This is set for the end of March and will see the books taking to the sea at the beginning of this eight week lead up to our next campaign. Before Covid, time at sea would be 3 weeks and then a couple of weeks at the port. If this happens again then Crown & Tower will be delivered before the next Kickstarter campaign begins. But what we are looking at here is the reality that shipping takes longer.
Our window for developing Legendary Kingdoms is quite narrow. Other projects are due in Summer and Winter, and pushing these back isn’t realistic for contractual and scheduling reasons. So, even if Legendary Kingdoms was delivered in June, we wouldn’t be able to hold another Kickstarter until the following year if we began the eight week pre launch promotion then.
Shipping delays could just be a new reality. It might be that the ports will never unclutter, and that shipping will never return to the reliability that it had pre-Covid. If that is the case, we could only produce a new book once every two years, turning a five year project into a ten year one.
Legendary Kingdoms
The alternative is that we launch a new Kickstarter each year anyway. As soon as a book is finished, we release the PDF version while we wait for the physical delivery, as we have done for Books 1 and 2. As soon as the print copies leave the factory we start the pre launch promotion for the next book.
So this is the choice that is before us. We love Kickstarter, and enjoy the fact that our backers come with us and help us improve each project. But that also means making hard choices, and we’d like you to help us make this one. So, we would be very grateful if you would answer the following poll.
Should Spidermind Games launch the Book 3: Pirates of the Splintered IslesKickstarter this Spring?
· Yes. The sooner the project is completed the better. I’ll wait for my physical books.
· No. Deliver the physical books first and then do a Kickstarter next year.
(The Poll will remain open from Friday 18th Feb 22 for 2 weeks)
Your choice will determine the direction we will take. For our part, we really want to do the Kickstarter this year. We promise that as soon as any books are delivered to our warehouse we will ship them straight out. We are so keen to get them into your hands.
If you decide you want us to wait, then so be it. You guys who check the updates are our biggest supporters, and if you are shaky about us launching another Kickstarter there really isn’t any point in doing one.
So, this is a big decision, and we think it’s only fair that we hand it over to you. You know what we want to do, but if we do go ahead with a Kickstarter this year we’ll need your support. But, you know, whether you decide we should keep with the yearly schedule, or go every two years, I want to assure you that I will get it done. The adventure will be completed, and we’ll do it together.
Ever scribbling,
Oliver Hulme
Chapter Forty One - Sacrifice
about 2 years ago
– Sat, Feb 12, 2022 at 12:25:22 AM
Week 41 and the girls have got a challenge ahead of them...
Here is the link to the poll and do note that there are two videos this week.
Chapter Forty - Choice
about 2 years ago
– Sat, Feb 05, 2022 at 09:08:30 PM
Week 40 and Amelia and Tasha may have woken something terrible...
To see the results of last week's voting and to make you decision for the party's next move, follow the link to this weeks poll. Poll closes 21:00 DST every Wednesday.
