Hello everybody!
It took us a while, but APEX: Collected Edition is now LIVE on Kickstarter! Thank you for being patient, giving us feedback, and sticking with us while we sorted out all the details to give this the biggest chance of success as possible. We appreciate it!
Thank you!
Hello everybody!
We’re well aware that we’ve had multiple announcements for the launch of APEX: The Collected Edition on Kickstarter and apologize for that. We were excited about getting the game back out there and we made announcements prematurely.
To that end, I wanted to talk a bit about why we’ve delayed the launch several times and address some concerns that were raised.
It is no mystery that Outland has had trouble with delivery of past Kickstarter projects. We recognize this and admit to having post-Kickstarter issues with getting our products in backers hands. With that in mind:
In terms of delays to the launch of this project specifically:
As it stands, we have all the feedback from backers and have made changes accordingly.
We have all the numbers in.
We have engaged a fulfillment company that can provide friendly international shipping.
And now, we’re just waiting for the holidays to wrap up.
We’ll be launching Tuesday, January 7th, 2020.
Once again, our apologies for the delay on the launch. We’ll see you in January!
Thank you!
Hello everybody!
I know that we announced the hard launch date for the Kickstarter for APEX: Collected Edition yesterday.
When we announced that, we felt pretty sure we were ready to roll, but we had a significant amount of feedback on the campaign. Because of how the first two campaigns were run and the fact that not everything was delivered on time or at all, we are being extremely cautious about launching this project before everything is locked down.
There is no doubt that some of you are frustrated with the continued delays and we apologize for that – but we have to make sure that what we offer is not only the best possible product for you, but that we will get it to you in a timely manner and at the best rate possible.
To that end, we’ve adjusted a lot of the campaign based on feedback, which has required that we get new quotes on a few items. That said, we’re really, REALLY, close. We just want to make sure that everything is locked down before we press the launch button.
Again, we apologize for the continued delays.
In the meantime, please feel free to continue to comment and make suggestions! We’re taking all comments into consideration!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apexdeckbuildinggame/795323121?ref=ag6cpc&token=0a9bf845
Thank you!
Okay folks!
We finally have news. We’re planning to launch the APEX: Collected Edition on Tuesday, December 10th. Here’s a preview of the campaign that you can check out before launch!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apexdeckbuildinggame/795323121?ref=ag6cpc&token=0a9bf845
This is a hard date – we have everything we need to launch. Thank you for being patient with us!
And by all means, let us know your thoughts!
The Jötunn War Issue 02 just reached it’s primary funding goal on Kickstarter!
We’re now at the final 20 hours of the campaign and we’re hoping to raise funds for issue three! Thank you all so much for your continued support!
The Jötunn War is a FOUR ISSUE graphic novel that takes place in the worlds of the Vikingverse and is a follow-up to the the full-fledged novel, The All Father Paradox. You can find more about The Jötunn War Issue 01 here!
***
A war as old as time, where fate itself hangs in the balance.
In the Vikingverse, the Norse rule the stars with restless fleets and an iron will. But when the thralls rebel, turning to the artifice of Norns to help them escape their bondage, the Natural order is thrown into chaos.
The Jötunn War has been fought across the Nine Homeworlds to contain the threat, a battle against the stuff of ancient nightmares, red in tooth and claw. Jötunheim is the rebellion’s last redoubt, an indignity the Empire planned to cleanse with flame and fury.
But now Emperor Dietbald is dead, his army annihilated at Vimur River. As the last desperate survivors rally on the planet below, the Norse fleet prepares to rain vengeance on their eternal foe.
The Jötunn War. Go Big or Go Home in a body bag.
***
We’ve brought it to Kickstarter to help fund the printing of the second issue. The second issue itself is COMPLETE. It’s a 22 page comic that is completely finished! We just need a little help getting it into print and out into the world.
Hello everybody!
A quick update on the status of the upcoming Apex Theropod: Deckbuilding Game Collected Edition Kickstarter.
We had expected to launch the Kickstarter last week, but it took a little longer than we anticipated to get all the details in from the printer. We want to make sure we’re doing this absolutely right so we can deliver as soon after the campaign as possible. The only way to do this is to make sure that everything we can possibly consider in terms of cost of printing and shipping is as close to accurate as possible.
Right now, we’re expecting the remaining details from the printer to arrive early next week and depending on that info, we’ll move forward accordingly.
Our goal is to launch within the next several weeks and we’ll keep you all updated as we find out more news.
Thanks!
Hello folks!
I know that things have been a bit quiet most of the last year, but things have been grinding along! We’ve been looking into ways to correct some of our past mistakes, namely, the extreme mismanagement of our crowdfunding campaigns.
We KNOW we have really screwed things up.
What we’ve been doing this past year is assessing just how badly we have screwed up and how we can go about fixing what we screwed up. Now, we’re well aware that we’ve been pretty terrible at –
We recognize that these have been major problems of ours. There’s no excuse, outside of terrible management on our part. And we’re taking steps to fixing these problems. You know that saying –
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in fixing the problem?
Well, that’s what we’re doing. Admitting the problem and taking steps to fix it.
To that end, we’ve partnered with a company that specializes in helping to correct mismanaged campaigns (which is a category we firmly fall into). They also manage campaigns from start to finish as well, which we’ll be taking them up on moving forward.
This is KickCTRL.
KickCTRL is taking over the delivery of any and all outstanding projects we’re working on. They will also be handling the projects that we will be running in the future as well. All projects we run moving forward will be COMPLETE before we run the crowdfunding campaign, and we’ll be turning over the material to KickCTRL at the start of the campaign and they will have full autonomy on the project until it delivers.
We’re really looking forward to straightening everything out. We have a plan to deliver all outstanding material in place and KickCTRL will be starting the implementation of everything shortly. We’ll be updating the various KS pages with these updates soon.
More soon!
Hello everybody!
We just wanted to share the news that the Apex Theropod: Deck Building Game will be launching on Kickstarter next week.
Right now, we’re planning to call this the “Collected Edition.” This version of the game includes a new box with all new box artwork and collects not only the BASE GAME, but also the three primary expansions, STOMPING GROUNDS, SAUROPHAGANAX, THERIZINOSAURUS, and the PHD exclusive SUCHOMIMUS deck.
Additionally, we’re offering the option to get a couple Kickstarter exclusive decks that are only available through the Kickstarter campaign and nowhere else! The MEGALODON and PROMETHEAN WARS decks!
The game has been off the market for the last couple years and this is all about getting it back out into the world. Since Outland took over the project from Herschel Hoffmeier, we’ve received many inquiries from folks looking to find their own copy of the game. Your inquiries have not fallen on deaf ears!
We’re going to be keeping this project pretty simple and direct. We’re raising funds to do another print run on the game, which is what will be going out to backers and, after we deliver to everybody, we’ll be putting it back out on the market as well.
A couple other items, just for clarity –
We will be working with a company called KickCTRL. We’ll be the first to admit – we’ve not always done the best at managing our Kickstarter campaigns (in fact, we’ve been pretty terrible). We’re working to turn that around. KickCTRL will be running the campaign, coordinating response, managing the funds, production, printing, and shipping. This is their sole focus! We are incredibly excited to be working with them on this project!
KickCTRL has also very thoroughly quoted out the prices to print and ship the game. Our goal for the KS allows us to do a substantial print run and deliver the games as soon as they are printed. This is the same printer that printed the second edition of Apex, so they are a known quantity in terms of quality and delivery. Furthermore, they have an amazing warehouse in Chicago that can pack and ship all the games to the backers.
So, dependent upon a successful campaign, we will be able to immediately order the games as soon as the campaign completes. It’ll take about a month to print everything and a month and a half to ship it to our warehouse in Chicago, so we fully expect to start shipping games tentatively no later than April, 2020 (with a bit of a buffer built in for any potential delays).
We’re very excited about this and we’re looking forward to getting the game into your hands!
Thank you!
One of the ideas that fascinates me most as an author are the symbols we use throughout history.
For example, the cover of the latest issue of the Jötunn War is a pastiche of a well known WWI poster. We have subverted the Army Air Service American Eagle and added in a raven, very much a Norse symbol.
Because the whole premise of the Vikingverse is that the Norse never Christianised – and in my alternate history, even conquered Rome – it is the Raven banner and not the eagle that flutters proudly across the Norse Empire. Same idea, different reality!
You might wonder why artists and propagandists were so keen on the eagles in the first place….
The bald eagle was chosen June 20, 1782 as the emblem of the United States of America, because of its long life, great strength and majestic looks, and also because it was then believed to exist only on the American continent. But the eagle as a heraldic device goes further back. The Reichsadler (German “Imperial Eagle”, also featured in the original) is derived from the Roman eagle standard, used by the Holy Roman Emperors and in modern coats of arms of Germany, including those of the Second German Empire (1871–1918) and the Third Reich (Nazi Germany, 1933–1945).
It was meant to embody the reference to the Roman tradition similar to the double-headed eagle used by the Palaiologi emperors of the Byzantine Empire or the tsars of Russia. It’s all about power and legitimacy.
But we all know history is rewritten by the victors, and in my setting that means Vikings! So, go and tell people to buy up War Bonds/make a Kickstarter pledge.
The Empire needs YOU!
Ian Stuart Sharpe
Although this very question sounds paradoxical, the horror genre has always been at its best when it injects the shocking, the gruesome, the profane, the unknown, the ugly with the everyday lives of people and when it pits horror against cultural homeostasis. This conflict creates tension in a story and of course anyone who has taken a college creative writing course 101 has been taught that conflict moves a storyline. Frankenstein befriends a little girl, he admires a gentle flower; Dracula enters the peaceful and safe bedroom of sleeping damsels, and Satan started out as an angel and the favorite of God. And, every Stephen King piece starts with some idyllic setting, beautifully detailed before all hell breaks loose.
So, as long as we have had horror stories they have frightened us with evil entering into everyday life. Current horror fads, such as the slasher movies, echo this age-old formula. The happy, good-looking, care-free teenage culture is preyed upon by an evil maniac. Popular horror films of the last two years such as Get Out and Us, by Jordan Peele are set in pleasant everyday life, then the horror comes. The winning formula for fundamental scariness. Peele builds the atmosphere of ‘living the good life’ in both films then, BAM! It all goes horrifically bad. Many theologians posit that this is the most frightening horror of all, when the evil doer has no clear reason why they are choosing these people are their victims.
Recently, the Zombie genre has taken up subjects such as gentile setting of Pride and Prejudice (The film: Pride and Prejudice vs The Zombies) and the iconic Abraham Lincoln (vs Zombies), daring to pit zombies against cultural icons. Santa vs Zombies takes these recent treatments even further into our cultural ethos and challenges us to consider Santa at war with Zombies. Think about it, in our story we have Santa Claus, possibly the one purely joyful (jolly) tradition that is untouchably good and never associated with evil. Even God has enemies, has vengeance, inflicts his wrath on sinners, but Santa is pure joy and giving and kindness. In our story our Santa is all that, but he starts out tired because of the conditions in the world and the disbelief in him that is widespread. Like a Jordan Peele set-up, Santa innocently prepares for ‘one last ride’ on this Christmas night to spread joy and good cheer as always. But, when he arrives at his first stop he plops right into an apocalypse!
With only a limited time left, join the cheerful fray and support Santa Vs. Zombies on Kickstarter here!
***
ABOUT SANTA VS ZOMBIES
Meet Santa. He’s having a mid-life crisis. He hates his job and wishes he was doing anything else other than being Santa. He’s just going through the motions and that’s why he doesn’t notice the zombie apocalypse until it’s almost two late. Saved by two kids, he at first tries to get back to the North Pole only to discover that his reindeer have been eaten. On the run and just trying to survive, Santa befriends the kids and falls in love with their recently-divorced mother. Soon Santa rediscovers his Christmas spirit and does everything he can to save Christmas for the kids—even if it means his own death.
ABOUT JOHN MAYER
John Mayer is a well-published author both in fiction and non-fiction with three previous novels, two screenplays and a performed stage play. With over twenty non-fiction books published. His latest, Family Fit: Find Your Balance in Life, which was published by Healthy Learning, one of the world’s foremost publishers of instructional materials for health/wellness, fitness, exercise, sports medicine, and camp professionals.
Mayer’s day job as a clinical psychologist specializing in violent behavior has him consulting to law enforcement regularly. His 10,000 Twitter followers (@DrJohnMayer) (@jemayerbooks) look to his daily tweets for advice on psychological issues. He is an associate staff psychologist for Doctor on Demand (doctorondemand.com ) as well as a provider (Telemedicine) on DoctoronDemand.
Mayer is also a writer for a cable TV series, The System, that is currently in production with the pilot episode completed.
ABOUT KOJI STEVEN SAKAI
Koji Steven Sakai is the founder of Little Nalu Pictures LLC and the CEO of CHOPSO (www.CHOPSO.com), the first Asian English streaming video service. He has written five feature films that have been produced, including the indie hit, The People I’ve Slept With. He also produced three feature films, a one-hour comedy special currently on Netflix, and Comedy InvAsian, a live and filmed series featuring the nation’s top Asian American comedians. Koji’s debut novel, Romeo & Juliet Vs. Zombies, was released in paperback in 2015 and in audiobook in 2016; his graphic novel, 442, came out in 2017. In addition, he is currently an adjunct professor in screenwriting at International Technological University in San Jose.