MAIN GAUCHE - a chaos supplement for ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG

June update - printing continues, shipping begins end of July!
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 05:52:58 PM

Dear cultists,

We last posted about our process for print and shipping. We're incredibly proud to announce that we have dates to share:

• ZWEIHANDER offset printing is complete
• MAIN GAUCHE Printing will be completed mid-July
• ZWEIHANDER + MAIN GAUCHE Limited Editions are being bound with the Skivertex/Lexitone covers in Ohio now and will be completed mid-July
• SHIPPING begins mid to end of July

So what does this mean for you? You're going to see one big, bad package - all your cards, all your screens, all your chapbooks, folios and MAIN GAUCHE & ZWEIHANDER packaged into one massive package! As we mentioned before, shipping is being handled by Magpie Games, and we are already in the process of getting pallets of product their way from DriveThruRPG.

Finally, I know some of you are disappointed that the street date of ZWEIHANDER published by Andrews McMeel Publishing is coming before the Kickstarter version is being shipped alongside MAIN GAUCHE. We've went above and beyond to ensure that the new version of ZWEIHANDER is the best format that money can buy (sepia tones, new color plates, all-new artwork, revised layout, new rules, errata updates, better cover and paper, bigger ribbon). If you are interested in receiving the standard ZWEIHANDER offset book before July, we can ship you one (1) copy in advance of shipment. However, you will need to pay for shipping cost up front to split up the shipment. We will ship via Priority Mail anywhere in the world. Drop me a line at [email protected] if that's an option you'd like to explore.

We will have another update as we get closer to completion of printing, along with some pictures/videos of the finished product.

Praise the Purple Prince.

-d.fx

MAIN GAUCHE - Dejan's Cover Art!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, May 10, 2019 at 06:44:24 PM

Dear cultists,

Some of you haven't seen this yet, but here's the excellent cover artwork for MAIN GAUCHE by Dejan Mandic! This is a full cover wrap-around, inspired by Realm Of Chaos:

Praise the Purple Prince,

-d.fx

MAIN GAUCHE printing updates - locked in!
almost 5 years ago – Thu, May 09, 2019 at 11:05:34 PM

Dear cultists,

We are starting our printing this weekend! It's been a long affair to get the right materials lined up with the quality we wanted. In short, we are now in the printing phase! For those who want all the dang dirty details, let's talk about where this started, and where we're going:

The Move Beyond Black & White to 3-Color

Midway through layout on MAIN GAUCHE, we decided to add a sepia pantone to the work. This was to address some concerns we've heard from fans on legibility of the previous work (ZWEIHÄNDER), and to also make our book more accessible to people with color vision deficiency. However, black and white is one of our brand standards. So, we took a long, hard look at the previous work. Using something that resembled a 'scroll-like' effect was entertained, but we eventually settled on sepia as a third color. This adds pop and clarity throughout the work, particularly in tables. Although you should already have the PDF of MAIN GAUCHE, you can view the entire book on YouTube to get a better look at what a difference sepia tones make to the work:

MAIN GAUCHE + ZWEIHANDER Updated Layout

However, we knew we'd be doing a massive disservice if we didn't upgrade ZWEIHANDER to the new brand standards as well. Given that we are releasing the lexitone foil-covered Special Edition books, we wanted to carry these standards both forwards and backwards to ZWEIHANDER. It was a decision that didn't come lightly. It put our production schedule off by 4 months, but in the end, will ensure you get the best version of MAIN GAUCHE & ZWEIHANDER absolutely possible.

Lexitone Foil Edition Books

Hopefully you didn't miss seeing these mocked up covers. They're absolutely beautiful, and we will post pics of the proofs once they arrive in 2-3 weeks:

UPDATED: Colored End Sheets + Improved Ribbons

Those white sheets inside the cover as you open it or close it? Instead of using white, we are using color end sheets! MAIN GAUCHE will have a cool grey endsheet, while ZWEIHANDER will have red end sheets. We are also upgrading our ribbons to be slightly thicker. All of these updates carry through to the standard Special Editions and lexitone Special Editions of MAIN GAUCHE + ZWEIHANDER:

UPDATED: Revised Fonts, P-Breaks, Gutter & Column Improvements, Table Updates, Header Normalization

Our font standards needed to change. Ken Duquet, our layout designer and cover artist for MAIN GAUCHE, made a very strong case to update our brand standards to something more modern. Although we kept the Adobe Caslon headers, we made optimizations throughout the work. This meant no more annoying words split with hyphens, normalized columns, slightly larger gutters, improved  fonts for body copy, revised header styles (which includes sepia lines beneath black headers) and revising all our tables. 

UPDATED: ZWEIHANDER Full Color Plate

That's right, we're adding a full color plate to ZWEIHANDER! This color plate is of the illustration Dejan did from our previous Kickstarter cover, one which will divide the book in half. It's a two-page spread in the book, placed right before the Gamemastery chapter. This will be a great physical and visual indicator of where the player's side ends & the GM's section begins:

UPDATED: MAIN GAUCHE + ZWEIHANDER Spelling, Errata, Rules Updates, & Revised Bestiary

We have fixed all spelling errors, included all errata, the rules and revised the layout of our ZWEIHANDER bestiary for better user experience:

UPDATED: No POD Books, All Offset!

We are upgrading all POD MAIN GAUCHE and Add-On ZWEIHANDER orders to get everyone who ordered it a true, offset print. Why? Because it's the quality we want to deliver for all future books. For those of you who previously paid for an offset version, drop me an email at [email protected]. We are going to extend a special DTRPG coupon for you to pick up some other awesome stuff you may have not purchased already.

Our Printing Estimate: 5-6 weeks

Files are off to the printer already, and we expect around a 5-6 week lead time. Once again, we are printing in the United States. This results in bigger cost for us, but you'll get a higher quality book with a faster turnaround time.

Our Shipping Estimate: 5-7 days

We will be working with our trusted partner Magpie Games to handle all pick/pack/ship operations. Once all books are printed off, we have three pallets to send direct from the printer to Magpie:

• All non-book POD products from DriveThruRPG (cards, screens, folios, etc.)
• Offset prints for MAIN GAUCHE + MG/ZH Lexitone Foil Editions + Slipcase (these are titled  Special Editions)
• Offset prints for ZWEIHANDER (this is the Revised Special Edition, as pictured here:

Once they receive all material, they will package it all up, nice and neat with proper dunnage to ensure that corners don't get banged up. As we used Backerkit for fulfillment, you will also receive tracking numbers through their system as everything is prepared for shipping. 

And that's all we have to share for today! We will keep you apprised here and across our social media channels as we get updates on print + shipping. Thank you all so much for your support. If you have any questions, please do not direct message us here. Send an email to [email protected], so I can personally handle it for you.

Praise the Purple Prince,

-d.fx

MAIN GAUCHE print updates
about 5 years ago – Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 01:33:55 AM

Dear cultists,

As we mentioned last week, our galley proofs came in. Suffice to say, we aren't all that happy with the quality, and need to make numerous changes to the files to ensure that they meet our brand standards. We want nothing but the best our printer can produce, and that requires some minor reworking of the InDesign files.

We are now tracking towards a locked-in schedule, once we can get files back to the printer. Our estimation is 2 weeks, and shortly thereafter, we will be able to communicate our final print+shipping schedule.

We invested additional funds to revise Zweihander and to bring it up to the new Main Gauche brand standards, and assure you that the quality will be substantially better than our first print edition from 2017. 

Please be patience with us; we're in the final stretch, and need to ensure the print standards are up to snuff. Beyond these layout issues, our shipper is locked in and ready to go.

In the meanwhile, Adam Koebel has done a crawl-through of MAIN GAUCHE (which you should check out immediately):

More news to follow soon. Join us over on our Discord for more immediate news and interactions with our development team: https://discord.gg/yNd6BAA

Praise the Purple Prince,

-d.fx

Shipping addresses lock down in 24 hours!
about 5 years ago – Tue, Apr 02, 2019 at 11:01:24 PM

Dear cultists.

For those of you who backed MAIN GAUCHE on Kickstarter or through Backerkit, this is your final call for updating postal addresses! We are locking down all postal addresses in 24 hours. Update here:

https://maingauche.backerkit.com/

Print schedule + shipping updates to follow next week!