Consentacle: A Card Game of Human-Alien Intimacy

New Consentacle card art is just about done!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Dec 02, 2017 at 09:48:27 PM

Hello backers!

It's been a little over five weeks since our last update, which is a week longer than I'd hoped, since I'd like to keep you informed of status around once a month. Phew! We've had our heads down getting our final production version ready, discussing details with our pre-press experts at Panda Game Manufacturing, and figuring out other logistics.

We're also at exactly a month since we sent out our surveys to collect everyone's address, which means final reminders are going out. If you didn't get a survey, please contact me right away by leaving a comment here or sending me a message! We've got to lock down shipping plans soon, which means that you have a limited time to give us your address.

Now for the exciting part: our illustrator James has been working overtime to get all the new card artwork done. We're in the middle of making a few tweaks to make sure everything fits the slightly different dimensions of the new cards (standard tarot size, easier to shuffle) but we're well on our way to finishing everything up.

I thought you might want to see some of the new card artwork at various stages:

Each of these cards goes through a multi-step process -- you can see the pencils, inks, and colored versions here, but even before that I'm working through the mechanics and written description of each card to hand over to James. That's basically how we did the original deck of cards, and it's how these new ones work as well. This next illustration is for a recently-added card that I've been testing, and it's also one of my favorite depictions of these characters. I'm thinking we might use this illustration in some form as the box cover art!

Finally, here's an example of a card going from an illustration to a laid-out card. In this case, it's a card that lets you search through your deck to find any card you want. (Some card duelists may know this as "tutoring.") Keep in mind we're still making some tweaks to the art and rules text -- if you have the right kinds of experience, you might be able to guess what the next two revisions are?

Stay tuned for more updates -- our next one should be before the end of the year when we'll let you know how the current pre-production process is wrapping up to head into printing and fabrication!

Naomi

Surveys are coming... and so are Consentacle playmats!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 01:13:38 AM

Hey everyone,

We're just past the two-week period during which Kickstarter tries to collect all the funds, and I'm happy to report that part's all done. Next up: we're going to be gathering everyone's mailing address, and giving you the option to add on any extras you'd like, via a BackerKit survey. Keep an eye on your e-mail for that survey, it should show up some time near the beginning of next week!

In addition to confirming your mailing address, you'll also be able to change your pledge tier if you wish, order extra copies of the game or a limited-edition Consentacle print signed by James Harvey. (They all ran out pretty quickly near the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign, but we made some more available to be sent out later in the summer!) On top of that, we've confirmed some plans and pricing for a cloth & rubber playmat. You'll be able to add that to your Kickstarter pledge for $20 -- shipping included for folks in the US, but there's extra shipping charges for other regions (sorry about that! our ability to ship worldwide is much more limited for this add-on).

The playmat will be 14" deep by 24" wide (that's 35.5 cm x 61 cm) and will look a little bit like this:

This is an early mockup, using some art from an existing card (Touch). For the final version, we'll be doing new art and probably revising the layout. We'll also take off those words that say "WORK IN PROGRESS ART SUBJECT TO CHANGE!" I mean, unless you really want that on there for some reason.

Finally, there's news for everyone who missed the Kickstarter campaign, or had to cancel at the last minute for some reason, or who had a credit card snafu: you can still pre-order the game on BackerKit as we gather everyone's address! We'll keep taking orders until the end of November -- at that point we'll be locking everything down to finalize production numbers. So... if you happen to mention Consentacle and someone says "What!? I never even heard about that, did I miss my chance to get a copy?" point them at this address: https://consentacle.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/

Thanks for all your support! 

Naomi

Thank you everyone! (plus, more prints available)
over 6 years ago – Mon, Oct 09, 2017 at 11:10:28 PM

We have around eight hours left, but I'm going to say a big final THANK YOU for the end of the Kickstarter campaign right now -- since we've already succeeded fantastically and I also want to tell you one other thing...

If you were interested in the sold-out $58 reward level with a game + a signed print of Consentacle artwork, there are more available now!

We're taking a page from how other campaigns have done this and staggering delivery of the prints -- so if you pledged for a print already, they'll be sent out to you at the same time as the game (est. May 2018) but if you back at the new reward level I've just opened up, you'll get your print a month or two after the game. (Please ignore the "January 2018" label on the new reward level; it's a glitch that is refusing to go away. Nobody's getting anything Consentacle-related in January!)

We'll try to keep these updates more intermittent in the upcoming months, only if we have something neat to share -- I know more people who get vexed by overly frequent campaign updates than the reverse. But if you have comments or questions, please feel free to drop by the comments page. The next update for this campaign will come when we've got surveys+online-store set up on BackerKit for you to adjust your pledge level, for friends who missed this month to get a copy, etc.

Thanks again, it's been a wild month!

Naomi

Consentacles stretch further... goal attained: the prequel comic!
over 6 years ago – Sun, Oct 08, 2017 at 09:57:01 PM

Hi everyone!

We're almost to the final 24 hours of this Kickstarter campaign! Thanks to all your support, it looks like we'll be able to proudly say that a quirky little two-player co-op card game about human-alien intimacy has over 4000 backers and 4 times what we needed to make a basic version of the game. 

Also I'm really excited to announce that Consentacle has reached its third stretch goal: a 12-page prequel comic that will be created by James Harvey (the artist for all the cards, in case you don't know!) -- with me assisting on plot outline, dialogue and details about the world of Consentacle where it's helpful. James is an accomplished comics artist -- you can check out his ongoing story "Midnight in the Phantom Zone" in the back of DC Comics' Bug: the Adventures of Forager, in comic shops now!

To strike a balance between "it's so nice to have lovely printed artwork" and "it's so nice to get a game delivered on time" we won't be delaying production of Consentacle to include the whole comic in the game box. Instead, the back of the manual will have the first two pages, followed by the full comic as a digital download, all available when your game arrives circa May 2018. This also means that James and I get to experiment with an unusual format: the game manual will be square! (See the campaign page for a picture of the box -- it fits in there!)

As we count down to the end of the campaign, tell your friends, playmates and colleagues that we're wrapping up this batch of orders! The campaign will close at 9 PM Eastern time on Monday night. However, I do have one other thing to announce: we'll be using BackerKit to handle pledges and rewards after the end of the campaign. I'm figuring out how to use it right now. This way, folks will be able to order a copy of Consentacle or adjust their reward levels for several weeks! 

We're also using BackerKit because I'm in the middle of planning and costing *drumroll* a rubber+cloth playmat for Consentacle that you'll be able to add onto your order for an extra cost. (I'm still determining the exact cost due to the fact that it would ship separately.) We got a huge response to our survey asking if you'd be interested in playmats, and you guys really wanted some kind of physical playmat! Based on level of interest from you all, along with quality, design considerations, and cost, we're going to go with this kind of mat. Stay tuned for more details!

Naomi

Final Consentacle livestream: Robert Yang and merritt k
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 03, 2017 at 12:40:53 PM

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update as we head into our final week of the Consentacle Kickstarter campaign: our last livestream is just under two hours away, on Twitch! You can tune in at 6:30 Eastern time by going to https://www.twitch.tv/radiatoryang -- hope to see you there!

This time around, for our last live game of Consentacle, we'll be playing with Robert Yang, the creator of some of our era's most notorious gay sex games -- titles like Succulent, Hurt Me Plenty, The Tearoom, Cobra Club, and Stick Shift. Curious? You can find Robert's games on itch.io -- many of them available for free or a donation. Robert's partner / collaborator, who has sworn to "crush Robert at consent," is author, game designer, and poet merritt k, host of the Woodland Secrets podcast and also well-known for her games dealing with intimacy, consent, religion, gender, Castlevania, Vin Diesel, and much more. I'm excited to see what a consent showdown looks like between these two personalities... and also to hear what kinds of thoughts their mutual play provokes?

Join us tonight, it's a great way to ask questions as well!

Wondering about other aspects of the project? My Consentacle agenda for the rest of the week includes mapping out plans for playmats (thanks to everyone who responded to the survey!) to the point where we'll hopefully have something to announce. Then I'll be headed to Los Angeles for Indiecade 2017 -- if you're in the area, definitely come by to play Consentacle and chat with Mattie, Naomi, and friends!

Naomi