Dec 11, 2020: Production / Timeline Updates!

We're excited! You're excited! Let's do this thing!

Baltimore, Maryland: Alex and Sarah made plans to meet one another (Covid testing, quarantine precautions were adhered to) on December 4th. The plan: to review the Pre-Production Copy arriving from the factory. Quality review and final changes and updates can be made to the digital files in advance of printing.

Production: It's hard to contain the excitement of having the PPC in our hands, and having the finish line in our grasp is a surreal feeling. We have to manage our desire to just hit "go" with our standard of quality for the game.

Most everything that we've gotten meets and exceeds our expectations. Here's some of the conversations we've had: "It's weird to say that I have no notes for specific cards. Like, we knew we'd get here but to say it is totally done is a little surreal!" ~Sarah

"How about the soft finish on the boards?" ~Sarah

"SO SOFT." ~Alex

"IT'S GREAT." ~Kiki

"Yeah I'm super into it." ~Sarah

Kickstarter Backer's Choice Dice: The moment we've been eagerly awaiting is here! The dice design was voted by our backers via the CrowdOx survey. We tallied all the votes, and winning by a 10% margin are the Original Six Dogs! As always, Sarah did the illustrations and Kiki made the vectors which allow for this stunning design to work!

We've got a lot to say about the dice!

"I LOVE THIS DIE what the heck" ~Kiki

Timelines are still mostly on track; but there are known risks to our project that are outside of our control. The team is working hard to try to get up, over, around, and through the obstacles as they present themselves.

DELIVERY STILL ON SCHEDULE FOR MAY 2021

Potential Risks to the Timeline

1. Covid: The global health crisis has delayed several points in the world supply chain. Unfortunately, we're just not big enough to be prioritized over some of the other larger projects.

2. Chinese New Year: Shipping over the ocean is challenging enough, however there are other delays that may happen moving our materials across land. Trucks are in shorter supply and truck drivers must take additional health precautions.

Shipping FAQ

Thank you all for your support!

Kickstarter Backer's Choice Dice Design

Show off your copy of Dogs BOND with the Kickstarter Backers' Choice Die: The Original Six! This special add-on for Dogs BOND gives game enthusiasts and dog lovers a very satisfying "thud" with every roll of the die!

Fall in love with the Mutt Mixes every time with the easy-to-read designs and large size for easy handling by small hands! Heck, add this to ANY of your board games! Just like dogs, we love being included!

The dogs were drawn by Sarah as a fun and playful interpretation of our dogs that would work on the dice.

Kiki took the illustrations and turned them into vector art to lay on top of a beautiful and unique marbling color pattern on the die that matches our Instinct card color.

The Mutt Mixes were placed on the die in size order, smallest to largest, on the six sides. Our Original Six Mutt Mixes for the game are Pomeranian, Jack Russell, Basset Hound, Border Collie, Labrador, and Golden Retriever.

This is a 25mm six-sided die, which is significantly larger than the standard 16mm six-sided die. The material is resin to make the sound louder and more emphatic.

All the votes were tallied as of October 25, 2020, and winning by over a 10% margin was the Original Six Dog Mutt Mixes design.

You can still let us know your favorite design, and we will show the final results of voting once we are through with pre-production!

What's a PPC and Why is it Important?

Back in December 2019; Alex flew to North Carolina to meet up with an artist named Sarah to discuss the art concepts needed for Dogs BOND. We had a dream and some "ruff" ideas.

Fast forward to December 2020 - Dogs BOND was successfully funded and we're holding our Pre-Production Copy (PPC) in our hands!

A Pre-Production Copy (PPC) sends us as a proof of concept for our review prior to printing massive quantities. This is extremely important in the quality assurance process for small, independent, game publishers such as ourselves. We are able to review print quality of the paper, the finish on the cards themselves, the color values and warmth in the illustrations, and also how do the cards feel with the appropriate finishes.

Color correction: Even though Sarah and Kiki worked diligently and use universally understood color values in CMYK and the computer has the values; there can sometimes be issues with the color mixing and printing on paper when it's at a factory. Since this is such a vibrant and colorful game, it only made sense for us to focus our attention to detail here.

Paper finish: What's the difference between matte and glossy finishes? What about the difference between ivory, blue, or black core paper? Take a look at a common card game like Uno or a deck of cards. You'll notice a difference in that pulp weight and feel, but also do the cards shuffle nicely in between? That's something that we needed to physically feel to have confidence in the final project printing.

Sizing and printing safety: The team set very specific sizing margins for the cards and the boards to make sure things are well proportioned. It was critical for us to know that the actual cut of the cards and the tokens and the board would align to our standards as well.

Shipping a PPC from the factory: To minimize our guess work, we wanted to ensure that the factory that is printing the game gets true to our vision. You deserve nothing less.

What does all of this mean for you? Quality. Quality control at every step of the way. Your name is associated with us as one of our early supporters and we want you to share in the pride of accomplishment and the professional level of product. Quality also takes time. If anything, Alex is even more eager and excited than most of you to see this project printed and in your hands. But we're not cutting corners and we're not allowing any shortcuts. Thank you again for your support and your patience as we work on this final step of the process before printing and shipping.

Q: What did you feel when you got the PPC in your hands?

"I'm just excited to see this puppy so close to finished!" ~Alex "It's scary to be so close to finished! The PPC quality was so high, so I'm excited for everyone to get their boxes - but mostly I was just anxious that we're so close to done!" ~ Sarah

Q: As artist/graphic designer; what are the things you're most proud to share with our audience about what's coming?

"There's a lot more warmth and highlight that the PPC printing is showing off better than our initial prototype. I'm most excited about the polished art - we got to use a lot of it in the campaign of course, but there's so many pieces nobody but us have seen yet, and they look great in print!" ~Sarah