Play the villains in a revenge drama and construct the conspiracy that will be their undoing.
A card-based story game for 2-4 players.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Postscript: wrapping up, missing copies, goodbyes.
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Oct 05, 2022 at 01:50:24 PM
Hello!
It's been so lovely seeing you all receive your copies of The Slow Knife across the world. Thanks so much to those of you who've sent me pictures of your wild, chaotic conspiracy boards—I really, really love them.
this was not a real game, but it's a nice photo!
If you completed your survey promptly a few months ago, you should have your copy by now. Drop me an email (jack at mousehole dot press) if you've not received yours yet. I've seen a few late completions of the survey, which I'll be locking & shipping next week.
A few of you have messaged me about misprints—if you've got an issue that you're not happy with, please email me and I'll see what we can do. We've not got any spare components, but I have a good amount of stock left so I'm sure we can figure something out.
Accessible files
I'm continuing to learn about creating accessible files as I work on the screen-reader-friendly versions of the digital files (there's a lot to discover...) but work is progressing nicely. If any of you use screen reader technology, I'd love some folks to test the files for me—please get in touch (I'm happy to compensate you for your time).
Once they're ready, I'll update the files on itch.io.
Soundtrack
I haven't forgotten about the soundtrack, and neither has Chris—but babies are time sinks!
We'll continue working away on it when we can, and update the project on itch.io when it's ready for release.
Koriko
Finally, if you haven't heard, my next project, Koriko, has just launched and is massively exceeding my expectations 🤯. There's a free patch for day-one backers, so if you're interested please take a look.
That's probably it for this project! Thanks for your support, and I hope to see some of you again sometime soon :)
Jack
August: Ready to Ship
over 1 year ago
– Sat, Aug 20, 2022 at 01:50:08 AM
Good afternoon! I am entombed in my office by cardboard boxes, send help.
Addresses locking
i definitely helped
Games have arrived, boxes have been packed, playsets have been wrapped. We're ready to go.
First things first: you should shortly be receiving an address locking email from BackerKit. That means you've got 48 hours to update your address if you've moved since you filled in the survey.
I am shipping around 1/3 of the orders from here, and the rest are being shipped by Ludocards in Italy. Everything should go out the door in the next week or so, provided my evenings remain relatively uninterrupted by kids getting ill etc. Exciting times!
There's always something
bye bye boxes
So, it wasn't the plan to ship most of the games from Italy with Ludocards, but unfortunately there was a communication issue with the game box specification. Basically, Ludocards made the box 5mm larger than agreed, which would push my shipping costs up astronomically as I would need to ship everything as a parcel instead of a large letter (🙄). They've been really good about resolving the issue though, and we've ended up shipping around half of the games back to them for them to fulfil at my original cost estimates. They offer drop shipping for games as a service, so I'm confident they'll give the games the care and attention that I would. This shouldn't impact you at all, and they collected the boxes yesterday and will begin shipping them out next week. It's been an unwanted headache, but it looks like it's going to work out okay (😬).
Next month, I'll have some updates about some improvements to the digital edition (mostly accessibility stuff) and some news about my follow-on project 😊 Looking forward to wrapping this all up soon!
Cheers,
Jack
July: Stock received, address locking imminent!
almost 2 years ago
– Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 09:50:42 AM
Hey! We're in the middle of a bit of a heatwave here in the UK, and the office has never been hotter. It could also have something to do with the 18 boxes, laden with printed materials, insulating the walls—with much more still to come!
Stock received
Yesterday Peter was kind enough to hand-deliver the Playsets to me, and I'm very happy with how they turned out. I've used Fedrigoni Woodstock, a beautifully textured and recycled paper, for all three covers and I like how it makes them feel like they're part of a set even though the illustrations within are very different.
I'm really happy with how this little trio turned out!
The vast majority of you have ordered Playsets in addition to the base game, and I'm excited to hear how you get on with them. I'm currently writing the guidance that will make it (I hope!) easy for any budding writers to create their own Playsets, which I'll be launching next month.
Stock incoming
I also got some photos from Italy yesterday of the base game, all printed and ready to ship. They look really special and I can't wait to see them in person. They're shipping all the games over to me this week, and once they get through customs I can begin sending out orders. One of the advantages of printing in Europe over China is that freight is much more straightforward, or so we hope!
Pictures from the factory
With that in mind, you'll hopefully get an 'address lock' email from BackerKit before my next monthly update. If you haven't been through this process before, this means you have 48 hours to update your address before it's locked and processed for postage (i.e. I've printed a label and posted it!). Please double check your address, and if you know you've already moved you can go and update your address in advance by resubmitting your survey. If you've lost your survey link, you can recover it here.
That's it for this month, all the best!
Jack
June: Digital Release! Printing underway.
almost 2 years ago
– Sat, Jun 25, 2022 at 09:47:18 AM
Hey everyone, how's it going? Progress is continuing to go smoothly, so let's get on with the update.
As long as you've completed your survey on BackerKit, you should get an email today or tomorrow with your download key. If you've lost your survey invite, you can regain access here.
There's a few things still to be added to the page, including accessible versions of the files (which are due to start imminently) and the soundtrack (which will happen when it happens —Chris is in new baby jail at the moment!). But all the content is there, including some Miro boards for online play.
I'd love to hear how you get on with the game, so please share any feedback or play experiences with me. And if you find any typos, please drop me a message.
Printing
Some more proofs of the playsets. Final covers will be foiled and wire will be gold.
The printing of the game in Italy is almost complete, and here in Hampshire we're ready to go to print with the playsets too. I received the final (ish) proofs yesterday with fancy paper covers, and I'm really happy with them. Next month is all about packing & shipping!
That's it for this month, hope you like the game 😊
J
May: Printing, Preview, Portraits
almost 2 years ago
– Sat, May 14, 2022 at 07:13:36 AM
Hey folks, hope you're doing well!
Things are going swimmingly here. I'm fairly confident that we can get the digital release out to you all ahead of schedule, hopefully towards the end of next month. I'd like to think the physical stuff will come early too, but we're a bit more dependent on the tricky task of actually making real things and getting them places. Regardless, we're ahead of plan, which is ace.
Print Samples
The boxed game is being produced in Italy with Ludocards, but the playset booklets are being printed at a local printers—about half an hour away from me which is nice and easy. I popped in for a visit over the weekend.
This is their ground floor, where they keep some of the more traditional (fun!) machines. You can see a foiling machine and press on the left, and the litho printer on the right.
We took a look at some samples and talked about paper, and there are a few little extras that I'm hoping we can add to the playset booklets while staying reasonably within budget. I think we'll definitely be able to do foiling on the cover, even though we didn't quite hit that stretch goal in the campaign. These booklets are shaping up to be something really special—and it's not too late to add them to your pledge once I send out surveys!
This is a little collection of print and paper samples. The playset booklets are just a quick mockup, they'll be top-bound and on nicer paper when we're finished :)
Editing
The game itself (cards, rules, etc) is currently with the two game designers who are collaborating with me on the project, Will Jobst and Luke Jordan. Will is focusing on mechanics, structure and understanding, while Luke is doing a pass on my writing to suggest areas to tighten or consolidate. I always love getting feedback from other designers, as I can feel the game improving as they identify weaker areas and points of friction.
I should get feedback from those two in the next week or so. After that everything will go to my long-time editing duo, Fiona & Jarrett Crader, for a pass on spelling/grammar/efficiency of language. The finalised text will then go to Yubi to make the documents accessible, including preparing plain text versions with all illustrations described with alt text.
Then we're ready for the digital release and printing!
Backer Preview
If you'd like to check out the game early, you're welcome to download this backer preview. I'm mostly happy with playtesting at this point (if you volunteered for playtesting, thank you! I was a little inundated, so if I never got back to you I apologise!), but if you check it out and have feedback I'd love to hear it. Just drop me an email (jack at mousehole dot press).
Art Update
Portraits
20 portraits, ready for play!
The portraits are done, and look fantastic as a set. I'm really looking forward to seeing them printed on cards. Rafael is now moving on to the Saint-Lazare illustrations.
Arcadia
Arcadia Prime, interior illustrations, line art
Torben is almost done with the interior illustrations, which are extremely rad and tell a devious little story. I found that full-colour art dominates the page a little too much, so we're going with line art + shading + single colour for these pieces (same for the other books too!). I've almost finished writing the Arcadia playset, which has been very enjoyable. It's been nice not to have to worry so much about navigating a real historical time period (as in Saint-Lazare). And I always love making up silly space names...
Arandil
The Court of Arandil, cover, line art
I've got the line art through from Hortense now, and I'm in love with these fashionable monsters! They're going to be working on the colours this month, so I should have a finished piece to share with you next month.
I'm still toying with a new name for this playbook, just because I keep confusing Count/Court and Arandil/Arcadia! We'll see though, it's lodged pretty firmly in my brain now...
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That's it for this month! Speak soon.
Jack
p.s. these updates focus on news & progress—if you're interested in a more behind-the-scenes look at life & labour at Mousehole Press, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter(as many of you already have!).
