Here it is: The first ever copy of Good Dog, Bad Zombie. (Video and photos!)
over 5 years ago – Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 08:56:01 PM

Hello hoomans!

Brian here. Winter is settling in, but we’re revving up with Good Dog, Bad Zombie! We are working around the clock to get you this game, and we’ve got some exciting things to share. The base game and two expansions (Weird Smells and Unlikely Allies) have all gone to print. And with that...

The advance copies have arrived!

The first two ever copies of Good Dog, Bad Zombie arrived at my place early last week. We at Make Big Things couldn’t be happier! We have a fantastic relationship with our manufacturer, Community Printers in California. I’m on Skype with them multiple times a day, as they work with us on every detail of the game. It’s hard to express how appreciative we are for everything they’ve done to make this game possible. I happened to be speaking to our account representative, Ross, when the advance copies of the game arrived. So I made an unboxing video of me seeing the game for the first time with Ross on Skype!

We unbox the first copies of Good Dog, Bad Zombie! Length - 5 minutes.

Can you tell I was excited? And I hope you are too. It’s thanks to all of you amazing backers that this game is now real!

And here is a picture of the game:

Since these arrived, Community Printers has started assembling the remaining 4,998 copies! Woof!

Shipping Timelines Update - Mostly On Track!

I want to take a second to give a shout out to the whole team at Make Big Things. I’ve been working with Hannah and Evan—as well as our collaborators Josh (editor), Fox (illustrator), and Ross (manufacturer)—non-stop to get Good Dog, Bad Zombie out the door. The dedication, care, effort, time, and hard work everyone has been pouring into this project is absolutely incredible. With every challenge or obstacle that’s presented itself, the Make Big Things team has rallied relentlessly to bring everything together. It’s been incredible to see and be a part of. It brings us such joy that this game is now almost out of our paws and into yours.

So we’re excited to tell you that’s about to happen! Here’s our shipping timeline:

• The base games and expansion packs will ship from Community Printers in mid-November (that’s soon!) to our distribution warehouse. 
• The games and expansions will arrive to our distribution warehouse by or before December 1st. Our distributor will begin to immediately turn the games around, shipping the games out in the first week of December. 
• Obviously, packages can get lost, or delayed, or sent to the wrong address, or eaten by a roaming zombie. When you ship out nearly 2,500 packages at once, there’s bound to be a couple of hiccups. But as of now, we are on track to deliver the base game and expansions to people in the US and Canada before the holidays! Which is so, so exciting! 
• For people outside of the US and Canada, things are a little trickier. There’s just far more variables. When you factor in shipping over the ocean, dealing with customs and imports, and so on—there’s a lot of things that can happen that can unexpectedly delay shipments. While we’re on track to ship them as well, we want to be forthright and say there are so many factors outside of our control with shipping things when they go over the ocean, and unexpected things can sometimes crop up that cause delivery delays. If that happens, we will let you know!

As we discussed in our previous update, we’re also currently working on all the custom play as your own dog characters ($75 backers and above). It’s our goal to get these to you by the holidays, but there’s the possibility that this part of the project falls a little behind schedule, even though we’re working our tails off on it. We should know for sure in another week or two. We have worked really hard, however, to make sure that this will not affect the delivery of the base game and expansions to anyone, as we will plan on shipping the custom dogs to you separately. This way, if there is a delay on the custom dog end of the project, it won’t impact anything else. For those of you who plan on giving Good Dog, Bad Zombie with the custom dogs as holiday gifts, if we don’t ship the custom dogs in time for the holidays, we’re working on a back up plan to provide you with something that you can use to show your giftees that they’ll be getting custom dogs soon! We really appreciated the comments and messages of understanding from people about this after our last update.

Game session at Lagunitas!

We helped organize an event last weekend at the Lagunitas Brewing Company that brought together 8 game designers from Chicago to play their games in progress. We brought our two advance copies of Good Dog, Bad Zombie to this event and got a chance to play with some great people - including a couple of backers! Thanks so much to Lagunitas for making this space and community available. Plus, all beer sales went to support the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund!

Good dogs, good times.

So close to winning, but also so close to losing! Everything comes down to this final turn!

Victory! Arooooo!

Your Dogs!

Here’s this update's featured pups!

That's it for now, but there will be more soon! Thanks all.

Best, 

Brian

Expansions are printing! Plus, custom doggos and shipping timelines.
over 5 years ago – Mon, Nov 05, 2018 at 08:32:56 PM

Hi hoomans!

It was a busy October for our small team! In just a few months we managed to get the GDBZ base game to press, plus our two expansion packs: Weird Smells and Unlikely Allies. We’re overjoyed to have hit our target print dates. Since then, we’ve been hard at work processing over 1,000 custom dog cards. 

Expansion Packs and Production Videos

Check out some of the finished expansion pieces below!

We’ve been working closely with our printer every step of the way, for both the base game and the expansions. We’ve been on Skype or the phone with them almost every day—sometimes multiple times a day! It’s clear the people who work at Community Printers are having a fun time with this project. Check out some of the behind the scenes videos they’ve shared with us below.

Watch as the rulebooks are stitched together! (46 seconds.)

Here you can see the bottom of the box and the tray insert get cut out by the metal die-line. They're doing that 5,000 times! (46 seconds.)

Meet some of the people assembling the game! (33 seconds.)

The team at Community Printers has been working nonstop getting these games ready to ship. The amount of communication they’ve been able to offer us is second to none, and we feel so lucky to have a printer who’s just as invested in the quality of this game as we are. 

Custom Dog Cards

We’ve also been hard at work on your custom dog cards. The custom cards are a tricky business, and we’ve been tackling all of the quirks they’ve thrown our way. Because all the cards are the same size, one too many characters can cause a cascade that pushes all the text off the card.

Everyone did a great job filling out their cards. It’s just a quirk of design that even two sentences with the exact same word count can have very different lengths. Like this:

Luna 

Cuddly, good, kissy, smart

Luna 

Vivacious, exuberant, lovable, voracious

Both descriptions for Luna have four words, but the second would push past the bounding box on Luna’s card!

This means that each card requires a careful eye to make sure your words fit.

We’re still hoping we can complete layout on all custom cards before our printer’s holiday shipping cutoffs, but we also want to acknowledge that that window gets smaller by the day. As you know, we’re working round-the-clock to get GDBZ to you. We know that for folks who backed at levels that included custom cards, these cards were an exciting bonus. While we’re working our tails off to get those cards out by the holidays, each card needs a design pass. At the end of the day, we’d rather those cards arrive after December than you receive a card that says something like: Luna: She’s a very goo—

We’ll have more updates soon as we continue processing through these doggos! In the meantime, we’re so happy to have completed every single piece of the base game and the expansions and we can’t wait to send those your way! 

Current Shipping Plan 

If there’s a delay with the custom doggos, that does not mean there will be a delay with the shipping of base games and expansions. Because of how the custom doggos are being printed, we will plan on shipping those separately from the base game and expansions. And we are currently on target to send the base game and expansions to everyone by the start of December.

If you planned to have the custom dogs as part of a holiday gift, we'll make sure to get you something that you can use to let your gift receiver know they'll also be getting custom dogs very soon. We’re not at that point yet, but we want to be intentionally thinking ahead, making a back up plan, and making sure we are transparently communicating with everyone! The goal right now is still to ship the custom dogs in time for the holidays, but if that is delayed, we'll let you know as soon as possible. 

Thank you for being on this journey with us. We can’t wait to get you this game.

Woof woof,

Brian, Hannah, and Evan

Good Dog, Bad Zombie has gone to press! (Behind the scenes video!)
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 11:59:23 PM

Hello hoomans, Hannah here!

With production now moving at a rapid clip (or is that yip?), we’ll be sharing frequent shorter updates to keep you looped in to the process!

So, let’s start with the big news: We’re happy to announce that the Good Dog, Bad Zombie base game has officially gone to press, with your custom dog cards and the expansions soon to follow.

Here’s a peek at what some of the final press sheets look like, all laid out and ready for printing!

Brian also had the chance to meet with our printer in-person to look over some of the printed elements of the game. Working with a US-based game’s manufacturer has been such a privilege. Because they have a hand in every element of the printing process, we can do things rarely seen in board game printing, like add thematic illustrations to every single surface of the game.

When you open up the GDBZ box you’ll see that there are almost no unprinted areas. The underside of the top of the box, the divider that keeps the pieces in place, and the box tray have all been lovingly customized to look like Central Bark! So that means when you rescue hoomans in the game, you’ll bring them back to Central Bark—and when you put the game back in the box, you’ll be putting it away in Central Bark.

Note: These pieces don’t represent the final quality or thickness of the game’s pieces. This is a low-res/paper version of the box. This look over was to focus on things like edge bleed and image placement and alignment, especially on assets like the game box, where every side needs to line up just right!

Behind the scenes video of production

Community Printers, our printer and assembler, sent us some behind the scenes videos of their work to make 5,000 copies of Good Dog, Bad Zombie. We thought we'd share that with you! Check out the short video below!

We're so thankful we have such an amazing partner manufacturing this game with care, love, and joy.

What’s next? 

We’re wrapping up layout on the Weird Smells and Unlikely Allies expansions, which will go to the printer by the end of this week, and we’ve begun layout on the $75 and above “Play the Game as Your Own Dog” cards. These cards represent a bulk of the work for the entire project and we can’t wait to ship them your way.

Timeline

As of our last conversations with our printer and manufacturers, we’re still on track to get you these games by Christmas. We’re thrilled with the progress and we’ll have more updates soon!

Best,

Hannah (with Brian, Evan, and Lupin too!)

Clarifying Pupdate on Energy Cards and Custom Dog Sheets
over 5 years ago – Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 04:17:01 PM

Hi hoomans, Brian here!

Have you ever confused 900 people all at once? Well, on Saturday, I was taking my dog Lupin for a walk when I realized that’s exactly what I’d done. Woof!

Clarifying Information

On Saturday, we sent out an update featuring the game’s revised Energy Deck. We also asked $300-level backers (who have dogs in the Energy Deck) to review their illustrations if they hadn’t had a chance to yet.

However, in our excitement to share the new look of the energy cards, we worded the update in a way that made many $75 - $150 level backers think we had sent them their custom dogs to be reviewed. As a result, many were rightfully confused, because they had not received any custom dog sheets.

If you’re one of those people who will be getting custom playable dogs from the $75 - $150 backer levels, or from backerkit add-ons, we want to make sure you know that you do not need to do anything further. We have not begun laying out the custom playable dogs yet. That’s one of our big tasks for October.

With over 1,000 custom dog cards getting created, we will not have an opportunity to review those cards with every backer individually. That said, if you have special concerns about your photo or if you're worried it won't render well on the card, you are more than welcome to reach out to us at [email protected]. We will work with you to make sure the photo and custom dog card look their best!

We’re going to be giving our all to these custom playable dogs. Each photo will be individually modified to fit into the game’s style and placed on an illustrated background. Backers will receive digital and physical copies of the customized sheet and accompanying token, along with a letter of thanks! We hope you find the result as cool as we do. :)

Thanks for working through the confusion with us!

We’re sorry to those we confused. We’re so excited to get you this game, as well as the two expansions and your custom dogs. We’re grateful for everyone who reached out and chatted with us, as it reaffirmed to us how enthusiastic people are to get the game and their custom playable doggos. Good Dog, Bad Zombie has an absolutely amazing community, and it really means a lot to us to be making something people care this deeply about. We were delighted to get the chance to connect with many of you individually and hear about how you’re looking forward to getting the game.

Also, I’d like to apologize to my dog Lupin, whose walk was cut extremely short on Saturday when I realized what had happened. I’ll buy you a new chew toy to make up for it, buddy. We can practice taking on zombies!

Best, 

Brian

Debuting the Updated Energy Deck and Your Custom Dog Illustrations!
over 5 years ago – Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 01:56:23 AM

Hi hoomans!

We’re excited to share with you a first glimpse of the look of the new energy cards in Good Dog, Bad Zombie. We’ve been working our tails off to finish everything to send to Community Printers, our ethical, sustainable, and US based printer! They’ve been collaborating diligently with us to have everything prepared in time to ship for the holidays, and we’re so delighted to be working together.

But without further ado (arooo?), we are excited to share with you some early glimpses of the illustrations in Good Dog, Bad Zombie:

Energy Cards

Below is a sneak peek of some of the Energy cards (there will be 64 total, each with a unique illustration) in the game! These are all dogs submitted by you, our backers (at the ”Have Your Dog Illustrated into the Game” level), and that were lovingly illustrated by Evan Rowland and Fox Desfleurs, who did so much incredible work to make them possible.

Here’s what the cards looked like before:

And here’s what they look like now, featuring some of your dogs:

We’ve heard from a ton of people that they are really happy with their dog’s illustration in the game, and we’re so happy about that! But what if you’re not loving the illustration we sent you? That’s okay! There’s been a couple people already that felt that we haven’t quite captured their dog’s spirit. We’ll do our best to make adjustments to the illustration within reason to make sure you’re happy with it.

If that’s the case for you, please respond with your thoughts to the email we sent you with the illustration; that will ensure we see, track, and respond to your request. But please do so as soon as possible, with Tuesday, September 25th, at 5 PM EST being the last possible time we can accept those requests.

Thank you for sharing your dogs with us to breathe life into this game. (We’re saving hoomans from the undead, after all!)

We’ll have another update for you soon, showing off the updates and improvements to the other parts of the game.

Best, 

Brian, Hannah, and Evan