FINE LINE: Playing Cards in Pictures & Words (KS)

[badpete69]

Invited the creators to stop by because I am sure there will be questions

[AdamF]

We're live! Please support our campaign and join us as we make playing card history!

[badpete69]

Welcome Adam. I am sure the comments will start pouring in soon enough. Quick question I know you are printing only 2500 decks but the goal seems a bit low even for that.. Are you partly using your own money also?

[AdamF]

Yes, the $4,200 covers only about half of what USPCC is charging us. The rest is coming out of our own pockets. We really believe in this project, and we'd like to make it a reality, even if it means dipping into the piggy bank.

[Yashi]

I love it but the prices are pretty steep and the international shipping for adding on is crazy.
International shipping for 2 decks is $12 but if I want to add-on another deck, I have to add $10 for international shipping. Assuming I'm on the early bird pledge, I'd spend $22 on international shipping for just 2 decks.

[AdamF]

Thanks Yashi! Glad you like the deck! International shipping is $10 for one deck, $12 for two. If you want to save on the per deck price, the way to go is to get one early bird (or more, if you're in the US), or to get four or more decks.

[Sharpie]

I jumped in... hard. Like I do.

[sinjin7]

I really like the concept of this deck, and I understand the novelty of having us figure out the suits like a puzzle. But it remains to be seen whether this concept can be executed into a playable deck of cards. I want to know whether my poker hand is a straight or flush easily without having to sit there and try to figure it out, that might be a big tell.

I really dislike the fact that this deck will have a smooth finish, this does not bode well for the durability and handling of this deck for cardists. I don't think its a great marketing move to compare this deck's finish to an Aviator deck (which is the cheapest, bargain level deck the USPCC produces). And I like even less that (EBs aside) they're asking for $16.00 for a single deck of what amounts to be a novelty Aviator deck. Its never a good sign when you can't see a clear picture of the back design in any KS campaign, it makes one suspect that so much effort went into the faces that they just phoned in the back design and want to obscure that fact by not prominently featuring the back.

If it wasn't for the low funding goal, I doubt this deck would fund otherwise. For the sake of the Fine Line artists, I hope I'm wrong since they seem like nice guys. Re-work the back design, use an Air Cushion finish instead of smooth, and price these decks at $12.00 with $10.00 EBs and I think these would be a lot more popular.

[AdamF]

I really like the concept of this deck, and I understand the novelty of having us figure out the suits like a puzzle. But it remains to be seen whether this concept can be executed into a playable deck of cards. I want to know whether my poker hand is a straight or flush easily without having to sit there and try to figure it out, that might be a big tell.

I really dislike the fact that this deck will have a smooth finish, this does not bode well for the durability and handling of this deck for cardists. I don't think its a great marketing move to compare this deck's finish to an Aviator deck (which is the cheapest, bargain level deck the USPCC produces). And I like even less that (EBs aside) they're asking for $16.00 for a single deck of what amounts to be a novelty Aviator deck. Its never a good sign when you can't see a clear picture of the back design in any KS campaign, it makes one suspect that so much effort went into the faces that they just phoned in the back design and want to obscure that fact by not prominently featuring the back.

If it wasn't for the low funding goal, I doubt this deck would fund otherwise. For the sake of the Fine Line artists, I hope I'm wrong since they seem like nice guys. Re-work the back design, use an Air Cushion finish instead of smooth, and price these decks at $12.00 with $10.00 EBs and I think these would be a lot more popular.

Thanks sinjin!

Are the decks playable? Yes. Once you figure out how all the cards work, you can play any game you want with them, including poker. Poker players who we tested it on liked playing with our cards -- the feedback we got was that flushes in particular were easy to see with our cards, because the suits are graphically similar to one another -- so all you have to do is take a quick look to see whether all your cards are in the same style. Straights and pairs and threes of a kind, etc. are a little bit harder to see. So, yeah, it'll be more of a challenge to play with these cards than to play with an orthodox deck that has pips and indices. But our testing also showed that most folks thought that the challenge was really cool and added an interesting dimension to the game.

Smooth finish: the artwork on the cards is very clean and crisp. We didn't want the dimpling on the air cushion finish to interfere with that crispness. That's why we went with smooth. USPCC charges the same for smooth as they do for magic finish -- this wasn't a cost-driven choice. I also like that smooth cards' paper is actually stronger because the paper is not weakened in the embossing process that USPCC does to get the magic finish. So what will cardists think? Yeah, I know, they prefer magic finish -- it handles better. (Although I think a decent cardist wouldn't mind too much handling an Aviator deck.) In the end, we made a choice to go with smooth because we thought that for this deck artistic (visual) considerations were more important than handling considerations.

The backs: the backs are very straightforward: they're very dark and raw, like someone has taken an Etch-a-sketch and drawn all over it. You can see a fan of the backs in the first product shot on the kickstarter page. Again, an unorthodox choice to go with our very unusual deck.

There was a tremendous amount of care and thought that went into making a ton of original art for this deck. I sincerely hope you back us!

[AdamF]

I jumped in... hard. Like I do.

Awesome! Thank you for your support!

[WillHart CthulhuWho1]

I posted the following in a Kickstarter email to the creators of this deck before stopping by here and seeing that some of this had already been discussed:

Adam1 & Adam2,

I'm interested in your deck of cards, but I have to tell you, having been burned before, something about your project just doesn't add up...

Before all of the extra set-up fees at the USPCC, a minimum order of 2500 decks (with a plus or minus 10% surcharge) is $5200; and they charge you for every deck they print over your 2500 order, which can end up being 2750 decks for $5720!

You are asking for $4200.

And this doesn't even count the nearly 10% off the top of each project for Amazon and Kickstarter; nor does it take into consideration that postage and shipping costs eat up 15-18% of each project.

So how will your goal of $4200 cover $5200 (minimum) for printing, plus all of your fees, postage, shipping, and handling? Which can end up actually costing a grand total of something more like $11000 if you want to cover all of your expenses.

Please don't tell me you expect to pay all of the extra costs out of your own pockets, because that is what many past failed project creators have promised too.

Will Hart
Fullerton, California

[AdamF]

So how will your goal of $4200 cover $5200 (minimum) for printing, plus all of your fees, postage, shipping, and handling? Which can end up actually costing a grand total of something more like $11000 if you want to cover all of your expenses.

Please don't tell me you expect to pay all of the extra costs out of your own pockets, because that is what many past failed project creators have promised too.

Will Hart
Fullerton, California

As I wrote to Will on kickstrarter, and as I noted in my post here yesterday, the $4,200 only covers about half, and we've already given USPCC quite a bit of money to lock in the November delivery of the decks. Because we really believe in this product, we're paying what we don't raise out of our own pockets. (I've also addressed this question on the discourse aka playingcardforum, and last night I had an hour-long phone conversation with Don Boyer the discourse administrator about this.)

I encourage folks to google me (Adam Farbiarz, New Haven, CT) and my partner (Adam Douglas Thompson, Brooklyn, NY). We're real people who understand accountability and our obligations to our backers. As with any project on kickstarter, we understand that trust is a big part of the deal. I hope that our project reflects that we're professional, attentive and straightforward, and, above all, trustworthy.

Which is all to say ... if you like the deck, I hope that you will support us! it's a wild deck and really tremendously fun. Thanks.

[sprouts1115]

@AdamF - This is the stuff I like to see. Something different and creative. These sorta remind me of old Tarot cards. Back then, it was just a "1-sided" card and you had to memorize the rank and order by the picture on the card. I can't really see your back of card in detail so I can't make a judgement, but your front of card needs a white border. Hopefully Don made that suggestion. What ever he says is usually true. If your wanting poker players to use your cards you can't let them cheat by getting a hint on the sides. If your wanting this to be strictly an art deck. You don't have to change anything.