In the immortal words of Hannibal Smith, I love it when a plan comes together. Thank you to everyone who backed this campaign!

Now, we move on to the next stage of the process: I have to admit, I'm not entirely clear on when Backerkit will collect your initial pledge and send the funds my way, but it will happen. I already have the pledge manager ready, including the option to buy add-ons from the Ramen Sandwich Press catalogue. I'll submit it for approval very soon, and I expect it will function pretty much like the Backerkit post-campaign store we used to open after every Kickstarter.

Not gonna lie, it took me almost an entire day to assemble the pledge manager this time and it was a real pain in the ass. I was hoping that Backerkit would let me import items from my previous Backerkit stores, but I guess that would have made it just too easy. We can't have that, now can we. I get the feeling that Backerkit has put its various functions in silos, so that its relatively new functions — hosting primary campaigns and pledge managers — are effectively sealed off from its old post-campaign store business. So I had to create all 32 listings manually, which is not terribly difficult from a mechanical point of view, but it is brain-numbing and requires periodic breaks to uncross my eyes.

I didn't even dare make any entries for Ramen Sandwich Tees items, because, with with possible size and color combination being a separate SKU, it would have become a nightmarish spider web of separate items that I would have to double- and triple-check for mistakes that got input when by mind went blank. I'd still like you all to check out Ramen Sandwich Tees and buy whatever you find interesting, but I'll just direct you to our website instead.

I'll be in touch soon to let you know about the next steps after the next step!

This is no doubt long overdue because we're already more than halfway through the campaign. But I just posted a design diary-type glimpse at some of my thought processes behind Lair of the Storm Giant to my Substack blog. I hope you find it interesting, and if you haven't yet backed this campaign I hope it encourages you to come off the fence and get a copy for yourself. No matter how many pledges we get, we can always make more copies.

I also hope that you'll find "'I Think We've Been Playing It Wrong'" interesting enough to subscribe and keep up with it. I'd like to build a strong following for the blog and Substack seems to differ not at all from other self-publishing platforms in that success breeds success; the search algorithm rewards you if people pay attention to you and punishes you if they don't.

You can subscribe for free and keep up with announcements about Ramen Sandwich Press and Ramen Sandwich Tees, get my quick reacts to game industry news and some game reviews. Or you can get a premium subscription for $5/month or $30/year (that's the least that Substack lets me charge) and access longer essays like my ongoing series about the cold, hard realities of game publishing, as well as book and other media reviews, more board and digital game reviews and tips and hints sheets and convention photo rolls. I'm still working on adding audio content and guest posts from my friends in the game industry as premium content. If you prefer to support the blog through Patreon, you can become a member for $5/month and I'll gift you a premium subscription for as long as you care to keep it up.

Just a quick update to mention that the YouTube channel “Road to the Con” uploaded an interview with me that they recorded at Wondercon last year. I refer you to it because I think it turned out rather well and I had almost 10 minutes to explain Ramen Sandwich Press and the larger arc of my career in the game industry. Watching it, I’m astounded that I remained coherent for that long speaking extempore, but they caught me on the first day, when I was still thinking straight. “Road to the Con” seems like a neat little channel that deserves a lot more likes and subscribes than it has gotten so far.

At about the 8:00 mark, I talk a bit about crowdfunding and why that is so important to Ramen Sandwich Press. So, thank you again to everyone who has pledged, and thank you in advance to everyone who will pledge over the next few weeks!

I’m still on the road after a wonderful but exhausting week at Consim World Expo, during which I seem to have won the tournament for Down in Flames, GMT Games’ WWII dogfighting card game, by means I still don’t quite understand. Ramen Sandwich Tees did well, and we’re definitely going to have to reorder before we head up to Pacificon next month. I’ll return home tonight, and then, it’s back work, getting Path to the Storm Giant’s Lair ready for layout.

I am still in summery, but surprisingly mild Tempe, Arizona, where Consim World Expo is just finishing up. It was a very good show for Ramen Sandwich Tees, and we owe many thanks to convention organizer John Kranz and all of the attendees for their enthusiasm and support. Maybe CSW Expo is just the sweet spot for our t-shirts and accessories, but it's hard not to reflect that we got more love from a small gathering of old grognards over the past week than we sometimes get on crowdfunding platforms in the course of a one-month campaign. But be that as it may.

Which leads me to the fact that as of yesterday, this campaign is now funded! Thank you to everyone who has put down their marker, and to those of you who are still hesitating, I will say: There's still plenty of room on the bandwagon, so there's nothing stopping you from hopping on board.

Tomorrow, I will take the train back home and resume work on Path to the Storm Giant's Lair — at least for a few day before heading out to Ventura for ConQuest Ventura. I'll be sure to keep you Pathfinder fans posted on its progress.

Hello, everyone! I'm in a bit of a rush right now as I get ready to leave for Consim World Expo tomorrow. I'll be in Arizona for a whole week, selling Ramen Sandwich Tees goods to the grognards, but also gaming with them. Even so, I'll bring my computer with me — the nice thing about having a Mac Mini as my desktop is that I can wrap it in some clothes for padding and take it with my wherever I go, as the hotel TV will usually do for a monitor. Have HDMI cable, will travel. So I'll do my best to keep tabs on the campaign, answer questions and comments in a timely manner and maybe get some work done on Path the Storm Giant's Lair.

Thank you to everyone who has put down their marker and helped us right off the bat! Every pledge helps. To everyone else, come on in, the water is fine!

I'll keep in touch to let you all know how the work is coming along, but you can also keep track through my Substack blog, "I Think We've Been Playing It Wrong." I should upload at least one design diary-type post before the campaign ends to try to rope in more backers from my subscribers.