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Print and Play Giveaway!

8/8/2014

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Want to play Düdle, but too lazy to print it at home yourself?

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NO PROBLEM! Enter our Print and Play giveaway for a chance to have someone else do the work for you!

We bought a lot of colored paper in order to test our Print and Play and we don't know what to do with it all. So we thought we would print some copies of Düdle and reward our laziest fans! Enter here for your chance to win a copy of what you could do yourself!
Giveaway ends Tuesday, August 12! So enter now for your chance to win!
Winners will be notified when they get a mysterious envelope in the mail.
Or maybe when they get a mysterious email in their inbox.
I don't know, don't complain, its a lazy contest for lazy people trying to get rid of some paper.

    I want you to print a copy for me!

    If I win, send my copy here!
Submit
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Print and Play now ready for download!

7/29/2014

1 Comment

 
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After months of research and development the free trial of Düdle is ready for you to download! It's not the entire game, it's only 15 adjective, adverb, and verb cards and 30 noun cards; but that's plenty of cards to play with. Our goal is to make the full game available as a free print and play, but we wanted to release this trial version first to iron out any issues before we invest a ton more time into the development. So Go! Download! Print! Cut! Düdle! And Share!

Click here for the free download!
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Life After Kickstarter

5/7/2014

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Some would say that last week our Kickstarter failed. While we did not meet our funding goal, failure is definitely not the word we are using. Disappointed, yes. Challenged, certainly. But failed, no way.

For instance, we really can’t thank our backers enough! All 123 of them! They made us realize that Düdle is something that people want to get behind, support and play. The fact that we were only $2658 short is super motivating!
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So after a few days off from Düdle, we’re ready to get back into gear! Just yesterday we completed the application to have Düdle trademarked. That way no matter how long it takes us to get our idea out there – it will be OUR idea.

We are also hard at work on the Print-and-Play version of the game. We mentioned this in our last Kickstarter backer update. Our goal is to create a printable .pdf that will be free to download and serve as a sample or demo of the game. That way all the people who backed us blindly will actually get to try the game they supported. We know that people will fall in love with Düdle when they get to experience the fun first hand. Then people will be even more willing to share and (hopefully) back our next Kickstarter campaign.

We are also working on a survey to send to our backers to get some feedback on the first Kickstarter campaign. So be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for those links.

Thanks again for subscribing! Share with your friends, the more the merrier! (Send them to www.DudleGame.com/newsletter and get them to subscribe!)

As a final note, I’m including one of the informational videos from the US Patent and Trademark Office website (www.uspto.gov) It is delightful. I wish every government agency made videos like this. There are a dozen more like this one if you can't get enough.

Thank you again to all of our backers! You guys are our best friends for life :)
Linda Stuart
Brian Fay
Filomena Hengst
underscore3
Melissa
Sandy Walsh
Liz Hennessy
Christopher & Lindsay Rath
Jason Tilley
Susan Wintermute Vala
Joel Kelly
Grant Thiltgen
Dean & Nadine Osmond
Chris Van Patten
Meghan Linck
Jaclyn Sinquett
Jenna Dodenhoff
Justin Tilley
Barbara Tilley
Jill Mader
Laura Petrovich-Cheney
Patricia Jenatsch
Fred Peñaloza
Kyle Kelly
Camellia Sanford
Kari Osmond
Joe Polizzi
Katie Wright
Jonathan & Shanna Polan
Cullen McAuliffe
James Farrand
Tyler Coffey
Colleen Morrison
Helene & Jim Verner
Janice Campagna
Bob Hatke
Sam Farrand
Nell Novara
Candida DaFonseca
Anita Perides
Jonathan Lyon
Johnny Maio
Eric Heine
Andrew Williams
Jessica Palmer
Michael Zangara
Craig Stanton
Mark & Karen Shae
Greg Marsh
Joyce Meisinger
Lori Ziminski
Kyle McKernan
Eric Ziminski
Justin McElroy
Jacqueline Trimmer
Tsampicos Perides
Joshua Cigna
Anthony Wartinger
Gerald Staub
John Hamilton
James O'Rourke
Martin McPhail
Sara Thomson
Danielle Maupai
Casey Young
Kristin Conrad
L Warble
Joan Linck
Ramanag
Leah Farrell
Elizabeth Fredrick
Jake & Marianne Polan
Lorraine Ziminski
JP Leider
Konstantinos Kokkinis
Lindsay Pavlas
Lauren Volpe
Gordon West Ballou
Joshua Phares
Devin & Cassie
Chris
Karen Fay
Claire Fox
David Hatke
Gail Lucas
Jackie Larsen
Emily Bissonnette
Richard Ambrass
Michael Marchetto
Chris Hatke
Kate Booth
Amelia Bierly
Alan Gerding
LeAnne Nienhuis
Jamie
Naomi Brought
Wendy White Stewart-Volpe
Sarah Miller
Jennifer B
Jen Braverman
Erik V White
Vanessa Jubis
Benjamin Ahr Harrison
Brian Salvatore
SMVidaurri
Eric Latham
Kelly Bashak
Malena Farrell
Britta Eresman
Dee Allen
Phil Dimocracy
Lauren Mancini-Komanitsky
Teri Walden
Paula Peridea
Ted White
Brendan Fay
Joanne Weaver
Jeremy Millington
Linsel Greene
Lucy
Greg Weber
Mississippi Mike
2 Comments

Podcast Famous!

4/23/2014

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What a wild ride this Kickstarter campaign as been! (you’ve backed us right? I’m sure you have! But in case you didn’t, go do it now! CLICK HERE!) The last three weeks have crawled like a tank through molasses as much as they have disappeared in a blink. We have one week left, 7 days, to reach our goal. We still need $5000... whoa Nelly. But over the last week a lot of awesome stuff has happened and we’re more stoked then ever that we may make it!

Firstly, our advertisement was featured on My Brother, My Brother and Me – the (comedy) advice show for a modern era. We did a bunch of MBMBaM specific düdles and put them on a special landing page mentioned in the ad, www.DudleGame.com/mybrother if you want to check them out for yourself. When the brothers read the ad and looked at the page they loved it! I cut out just their ad below so you can listen to them rave. Here’s the link to the full episode as well, which I also highly recommend. Episode 197: Number the veins

We’ve had quiet a few backers come from the My Brother, My Brother and Me fan base, which is sooooo cool!

Düdle Game ad on My Brother, My Brother and Me! from Oz Hatke on Vimeo.


In other awesome podcast news, I was featured as a co-host on Not A Real Job this week! The episode just came out today and I think I did a pretty good job. So if you want to hear a little more about the behind the scenes of Düdle and enjoy a good laugh or two with Chris, Joel, and me you should give the episode a listen. Episode 37: Düdlestravaganza!

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Kickstarter, Sketch Daily, and Not A Real Job

4/19/2014

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The Kickstarter is still chugging along. We are now about 1/3 funded with 11 days to go. Yes, that’s quite a hill to climb, but I am optimistic! Earlier this week Düdle was featured on the subreddit page Sketch Daily. Every day that site posts a theme and the community members submit their sketches for the day. Tuesday April 15 they featured Düdle as the theme! Lots of people participated in Düdle A Day that day! People scrolled through previously posted phrases and chose ones to illustrate. And I will say... they were amazing! I’ve included a few at the bottom of this post, but you should really check out all of them. I added them all to our Düdle A Day page and you can also find them on Reddit.

In other exciting news the online marketing and small business podcast Not A Real Job has asked me to be a guest podcaster this week! I’m going to call in and record the episode with them! I’ll get to talk more about Düdle and answer Düdle related questions. If you want to send a question of your own you can do it here: www.NotARealJob.com/questions

If you want to send a question about Düdle make sure you send it in this morning (we’re recording early this afternoon), but you can send them any types of question any time.

And as always, we are forever grateful for all the people that have helped us share and get the word out about Düdle! And a huge thank you to all of our backers! We’ve had many more since I last posted!

Cullen McAuliffe
James Farrand
Tyler Coffey
Colleen Morrison
Helen and Jim Verner
Janice Campagna
Bob and Janet Hatke
Sam Farrand
Nell Novara
Candida DaFonseca
Anita Perides
Jonathan Lyon
Johnny Maio
Eric Heine
Andrew Williams
Jessica Palmer and Mark Bednar
Michael Zangara
Craig and Beth Stanton
Mark and Karen Shae
Greg Marsh
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JackKaiserArt - Haunted Alligator Anteater Flying Wisely
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Drawer_of_Drawings - Haunted Alligator Anteater Flying Wisely
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brachaalizah - Haunted Alligator Anteater Flying Wisely
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Martabo - Giant Llama Bicycle Hiding Expertly
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EvilPancake - Giant Llama Bicycle Hiding Expertly
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Moondevil - Lumpy Pelican Vampire Snorkeling Dangerously
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tokagechan - Lumpy Pelican Vampire Snorkeling Dangerously
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Kickstarter Fever!

4/9/2014

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It has been a crazy week at camp Düdle! Last week we launched our Kickstarter campaign. We are beyond excited; this may actually work! The initial response has been incredible. At the end of the first week we are at about 20% of our goal.

We have also been having a lot of fun with the Düdle A Day campaign. Every day we have been posting a Düdle prompt on our website, Facebook, and Twitter inviting people to participate. A huge shoutout to Mrs. Lindsay Knight Rath and her students at Middletown High School North! Without the daily düdles of MHSN students our Düdle A Day page would be super boring.

Check out all the Düdle A Day’s we’ve posted so far and submit your own here!

www.dudlegame.com/duumldle-a-day.html

Also, please keep sharing the Kickstarter link with your friends and family! We can always raise more than our goal, but we can’t raise less... even if we raise $9,999 the project will be considered unsuccessful and we won’t see any of the donations L

A huge thank you and virtual hug to everyone that has donated so far! (If you want a real hug and you’re with 5 miles of Lambertville just let us know, we can work something out.) You guys helped us launch this the right way!

Thank you!

Linda Stuart
Brian Fay
Filomena Hengst
underscore3
Melissa
Sandy Walsh
Liz Hennessy
Chris and Lindsay Rath
Jason Tilley
Susan Wintermute Vala
Joel Kelly
Grant Thiltgen
Dean and Nadine Osmond
Chris Van Patten
Meghan Linck
Jaclyn Sinquett
Jenna Dodenhoff
Justin Tilley
Barbara Tilley
Jill Mader
Laura Petrovich-Cheney
Patricia Jenatsch
Fred Peñaloza
Kyle Kelly
Camellia Sanford
Kari Osmond
Joe Polizzi
Katie Wright
Jonathan and Shanna Polan
Donate today!
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Kickstarter pending!

4/1/2014

1 Comment

 
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April fools day has come and gone and a lot has happened in the world of Düdle. For one, the Kickstarter launch was delayed due to Amazon not being able to verify our federal tax ID number. And of course they wanted me to FAX them some form that the IRS had EMAILED me (it was April fools day after all). But they were pretty quick about getting back on track (AFTER I went to Staples to fax them the papers on my lunch break). With that bump in the road behind us we were able to submit our campaign for Kickstarter approval. So all that's left is the waiting...

Yeah right! Yesterday was also the launch of the official Düdle A Day campaign! Every day we plan to post a Düdle prompt for you to illustrate. Then share your düdles on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. And don't forget to @dudlegame1 #DudleADay

We also invested some money into an ad on a one of our favorite podcasts that will air during the Kickstarter campaign. More on that later.

Lastly, I've got a preview link for the Kickstarter link that I shared with the newsletter subscribers. Enjoy your sneak peak at the video and reward levels!

Looking forward to the next blog post! :) The one all about the launch of the Kickstarter campaign!!!

1 Comment

Products need barcodes?

3/26/2014

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I visited an “entrepreneur” friend not too long ago. I was explaining the concept of the Düdle game to him when he asked me, “Do you have a UPC code?”

“You mean like a barcode? No... Should I?”

“Yeah! How can I sell your product if its doesn’t have a Universal Product Code?”

“How do I get one?”

“Same place we get everything, online.”

So the rest of the visit UPS and barcodes were all I could think about. When I finally got home I spent the whole afternoon researching the history of the UPC and the barcode. It’s pretty interesting. They first appeared in the US in grocery stores in the 40’s to make it easier to stock products and check out customers. If you really want to learn about the history of barcodes and UPCs, I recommend this article.

www.barcoding.com/information/barcode_history.shtml

So after researching how to get a UPC today, I found that I had two options.

One was to become a member of the GS1, the global organization in charge of international business standards like barcodes and UPCs. Or two, buy a pre-existing UPC from a third party company for a discontinued product. While it’s way cheaper to go with a third-party UPC provider, I wouldn’t have any control over it and major retailers wouldn’t carry my product. So I decided the best bet was to dish out the $250 to become a member of the GS1 and develop my own UPC. The nice thing about the $250 membership is that it includes up to 10 different UPCs! That way when I make the Düdle expansion pack I’ll have a new UPC ready and waiting!

Find out more at:
https://www.gs1us.org/
Or watch this delightful propaganda piece

All that’s left now is to update the package design to include the newly acquired UPC barcode! Man, it’s feeling like a real product now!
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Companies that listen

3/19/2014

2 Comments

 
Last week I wrote a blog post about the different companies that I researched and prototyped with in a search for a printer. I was really impressed when Monday morning I got a notification about a pending comment. Here's what I found:
Hi Oz

We wanted to contact you personally but couldn't find a direct contact so made this post instead. Anyway, we are contacting you through MakePlayingCards.com and would like to thank you for your blog post comparing card game printers. We learn so much from our customers just through their honest review posts online just like the one you posted here and we always strive to improve wherever possible. 

You mentioned a few issues with our company which I would like to provide some feedback on. First of all, we are really glad that you chose to test out our services and found that we had a fast turnaround. We use some of the latest in technology in order to print and manufacture cards to the highest in quality at the shortest of times and have an efficient shipping mechanism in place to get goods delivered as quick as possible. We are working on further improving this area. Our manufacturing plants are currently based in China but we can assure you that quality is not compromised as we source our materials internationally and our staff are well trained in their profession to carry out their job to a high standard.

As we are a major manufacturing plant for many well-known games companies, we do have the capabilities to create boxes specifically to client's needs. We haven't detailed this too well on our site but this is something that we do for other clients on a day to day basis. If you are still looking for a supplier, just get in contact with us and we can provide you with more information and a quote if needed. You also mentioned that our customer service is not the best at the moment where sometimes your questions are not answered directly every time. We apologize for this and we take these cases very seriously which we will take steps to improve on. For your information, we are currently working to expand our customer services team and have training programs to improve our staff's knowledge and the way enquiries are handled. We are also implementing a better ticketing system. We hope that you will find this information useful and we also hope that you will continue to use our services. If you have any further questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours
MakePlayingCards.com
It was great to get this kind of feedback from a company after finding their name mentioned in a blog post! I did email him back and certainly will keep them bookmarked for future projects. Perhaps I'll have these guys in charge of a certain perk I have planned for the Kickstarter... but that's for another blog post!
2 Comments

Prototyping!

3/12/2014

2 Comments

 
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With all the words picked and all the cards designed, its time to get some cards printed!!! After lots of online research we’ve realized that there are TONS of places that advertise “custom playing cards,” but only a few that could actually do what we want.

For instance, apparently there must be a much higher demand for normal playing cards with custom backs (getting your own picture printed on the other side of the king of hearts and the 4 of clubs.) rather than fully customized cards.

Then there is quantity. Some of the sites would not print custom cards unless you ordered 10,000 decks or more. Which would mean we would need to get 40,000 decks (one for each of the parts of speech). While we would love Düdle to be a smash hit and sell 10,000 copies, we are realistic!

So with those factors in place we were able to narrow it down to a handful of possible companies.
1. The Printer’s Studio (www.printerstudio.com)
2. Make Playing Cards (www.makeplayingcards.com)
3. Superior POD (www.superiorpod.com)
4. The Game Crafter (www.thegamecrafter.com)
5. Ad Magic (www.admagic.com)

The Printer’s Studio and Make Playing Cards were very similar sites. Their card editing interface was so similar in fact that we suspect they may be owned by the same company, or at least hired the same company to create their websites. Their prices were very similar (with Printer’s Studio being slightly cheaper) and turn around was very quick (with Printer’s Studio being a bit faster). The finished cards were almost the exact same quality, which was very good! The big draw back though was that both of these printers were based out of China and the customer service was a little hit or miss. They always answered our emails, but didn’t always answer our questions. They also didn’t really have any options for boxes.

Superior POD wasn’t really designed for what we were looking for. The info that was on their website led us to believe that while they did have options for custom boxes, they didn’t offer bulk printing discounts. Their prices were also much steeper than the first two companies (almost 7 times more expensive for a prototype). So they were out of the running pretty quick.

The Game Crafter is an awesome website and community of independent game designers. While they had all the options we needed (smaller runs at affordable prices and options for custom boxes) they are also game hosting site. If we wanted to use them it would be in our best interest to sell the game through their site’s shop. If that were the case they would take a cut. At 70% to us and 30% to the Game Crafter for every game sold we weren’t sure that was the way we wanted to go.

Ad Magic is a custom printing company based out of Netcong, NJ. What caught our attention was how prominently they featured print work they had done for Kickstarter projects on their website. After several emails back and forth with their reps we think they will be the best company for the job. They had competitive card printing prices, plus affordable options for a custom sized and printed box. The cost to prototype is a little steep (about $150), but it looks like the over all project will be totally affordable (around $15-$25 per game depended on the size of the run).

Now that most of the research is done, time to get prototyping! Once we’ve got a finished prototype we can start putting together photos and videos to use in a Kickstarter campaign! Whoo hoo! Things are getting serious now!

Also, feel free to leave us any advice or insights you may have on printing custom cards in the comments!

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    Oz Hatke

    An artist, a teacher, and most importantly, a co-creator of Düdle!

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