EVEN MORE PHOTOS! THEY'RE COMING!
about 7 years ago – Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 09:51:30 PM

Hello, faithful supporters!

Amazing news - THEY'RE COMING, AT LONG LAST!

Check out these pics that were taken as our printers were packing the decks for shipping, which they sent to us today:

In all, we're getting 14 large boxes with 505 copies of the game and 100 expansion packs. They hope to get them on a ship before October 1st, which starts a Chinese holiday. Now, to find a place around the apartment to store these...

THANK YOU for your support!

SO much love and gratitude,

Ryan (and Jess)

THEY'RE PRINTING OUR STUFF! [IMAGE!]
about 7 years ago – Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 05:23:27 PM

Hey, guys and gals!

I got a message from our printer broker with honest-to-goodness proof that our Chinese printers are finally printing our game!

They wanted to know if a design choice we'd made was a flaw or intentional: 

It's real, and it's ALMOST HERE!  We're relieved, excited, anxious, and all the rest. Once they arrive, there will be HUNDREDS of copies of the game lining the walls in my living room as we deliver/box and ship them. So, there's that. Haha.

Thanks, again, for your support and patience. We know it's been a journey. Seriously.

SO much love,

Ryan (and Jess)

Mega Update! Real talk about our process, and good news!
over 7 years ago – Mon, May 22, 2017 at 07:17:52 PM

Hello, Backers!

Ryan here. I'm going to be completely honest with you.

As you might remember, we discovered that producing our game in the US was going to be cost prohibitive. Like, $10 more per unit than the retail price of the game! We based our pricing on what similar games cost, so we knew we had to make that work. We first tried working directly with a Chinese manufacturer, which proved to be quite challenging, mostly because of a language barrier but also because we westerners have a different context around how we think about the quality and details of a product. Not better or worse, just different. And since we're not experienced with manufacturing physical products, it was challenging for us to bridge that gap. So that was fun. 

We subsequently found an American broker who has been working with Chinese manufacturers on our behalf. Still, we had trouble getting the quality we wanted (the product you saw in our last update video was their test print and it was very, very sub par - we were being polite about it in the video). 

Our broker just got back from China a couple weeks ago, where he found a different manufacturer who could produce this game with the quality we want (better card stock, higher quality packaging, etc.). He called me from China and was making the deal with the guy while he was on the phone, verifying the specs we wanted (card stock, etc). It was actually kind of cool! He also took a copy of the game that inspired ours to show them what we meant. we have gotten two waves of photo updates from the Chinese manufacturer, and they look SO MUCH BETTER the what the first company produced! (See attached!)

The test print is being shipped from China as we speak, and assuming it looks good in person, we're going to authorize the full order and should have them in the US for order fulfillment within 60-90 days from authorizing the order (hopefully sooner, but we've learned to under-promise, over-deliver in this process). 

We've learned a lot during all of this. One of the biggest and hardest lessons was not to rely on friends as vendors to work at a discount, however talented they may be. Most of the delays we faced right after the campaign ended originated with being low on the priority list of people who were doing us favors. The people are awesome, but the arrangements were not. We have not wanted to blame, complain, or throw anyone under the bus, and so I'm not going to name names or anything like that. But since several of you have told us privately that you're learning from watching our experience, we wanted to be transparent about our own mistakes so that you guys and gals can benefit from those lessons.

From me to you, our backers - I apologize for how much longer this has taken than we anticipated and promised. We came into this as novices, and I'm hoping we'll come out of it much wiser for the wear. 

Thanks for sticking by us all these many months. We feel a deep sense of responsibility to our backers and, while we've wanted to throw our hands up and walk away several times in this process, we're going to see this through because we said we would, and we are people of our word. 

And if we ever do this again, we're going to hire someone to manage all of this for us! Because, damn. ;)

Much RUUUDE love from Jess and I to you. We'll never be able to fully express our gratitude.

xo,

Ryan

WE HAVE SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU!!!
almost 8 years ago – Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 07:54:39 AM

YOU GUYS!

We made a video to show you something that is SO COOL! We can say now that we are finally in the final countdown! (Cue music!)

Check out the BIG REVEAL video here:

https://www.facebook.com/ruuudegame/videos/1899440260290304/

Thank you, once again, for your patient support as we learn how to make a physical product. It'll be worth it!

Love,

Ryan and Jess

Production Update!
about 8 years ago – Tue, Oct 11, 2016 at 09:16:23 PM

Hello, glorious backers!

So, as RuPaul would say, here's the tea.

We've learned a TON about manufacturing physical products. We've also learned a really valuable lesson about that old adage, "under-promise, over-deliver." Oh, and it turns out that working actors are almost always on set and can't just sign things for us whenever we want!

MANUFACTURING PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

We're patriotic Americans who want to create jobs in the US whenever we can. However, the cost per unit of manufacturing our game in America was nearly $30. Since our game (as well as it's comparable competitors) is $25, that wasn't gonna work.

At first, we tried to find a printer in China on our own. We braved Alababa.com, the online exchange of Chinese manufactures used by the rest of the world to produce there, and it turns out we don't speak a freakin' lick of Mandarin. It also turns out that all of the lovely Chinese folks we tried to work with spoke way less English than they thought they did. The result? Tons of miscommunication and delays. And we didn't even realize there were problems immediately because we all thought we were communicating effectively. This should be a sitcom.

Since then, we've found an American company with strong ties in China's printing industry, and they've been an amazing support in bridging the communication gap! We found a way to produce our game for an affordable price AND support an American business!

UNDER-PROMISE, OVER-DELIVER

Ignorant makers of a very inappropriate card game that we are, we had no idea how intensive it would be to convert our creation into something that printing companies could instruct their machines to produce; let alone maintain our day jobs, raise a kid (Jessica), attend funerals and weddings (Ryan), and try to lose a beer gut (most def Ryan). So, we told you guys we'd be able to deliver your perks in July. JULY! Looking back, that was silly!

So, we owe you all an apology. We didn't know what we were doing and we made a promise we never had a hope of keeping. We apologize. I mean, we also backed a card game called Joking Hazard back in February and we literally got our deck on Monday. That's almost eight months. #lessonlearned

Our goal is to get you your copies of this delicious game, as well as the other perks you so generously backed, before Christmas. That's right, YOU CAN GIVE THIS THING AS THE MOST HORRIBLE CHRISTMAS/HANUKKAH/RAMADAN/FESTIVUS GIFT EVER!

WORKING ACTORS ARE BUSY

For those of you who supported our celebrity-infused perks, please know that we are working diligently with them to get you goodies (not code for something Donald Trump would grab without permission). When they shoot for 18 hours a day on set in rural places, it can be challenging to get items to them to be signed AND THEN have them returned. We'll have those to send you by the time the decks of the game go out, if not before (probably before).

SHARE THE LOVE?

And also, if you *really* want to be a horrible person, you can share our pre-order link (www.ruuudegame.com) with your friends, family and social media followers so they, too, can be horrible. 

We apologize, again, for the delay. We hope you'll forgive us or (better yet) ROAST US IN A VIDEO AND POST IT EVERYWHERE! Let's be honest: we deserve it. 

Much love and many middle fingers,

Ryan (and Jess)