Batch 3 - Production Update #3

Hey hey everyone! It's been a while. This is going to be a big production update!

Since you last heard from me, we've completed tons of individual parts. We've had unexpected international shipping disruptions. The en-yellow-ification of components. And a feature in a magazine! Let's break it all down into the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Important USA Update

As you may know, the USA have recently introduced tariffs for international shipments. I haven't provided any updates until now, as the situation has been constantly changing every day. And it still is changing! It's finally starting to clear up so I feel a bit more comfortable sharing the plans. But please note this may change in the future.

The short answer is: There's a new 10% tariff for all USA customers, this will be charged from me before shipment.
Your order is still secured, and you will receive it.

The long answer with more details can be found below in The Bad section.

The Good

And now for something completely different!
We were featured in the August issue of Patch magazine! A physical gaming magazine based out of the UK.

I realise now it's the middle of September, but this update was delayed while I waited for the whole USA situation to clear itself up.

We've got a multi page interview and a review in the magazine, you can read part two of the interview here.
And for the rest of the interview + their game review you can get yourself a digital or printed copy here!

Physical Progress

All the physical parts have been shipped on their way to me, or they are already here. We're currently filling bone and heart tins, laser cutting and gluing scales, adding parts to folders and running out of physical space in our workshop.

Assuming no delays, the last of our parts should arrive in the next 2-3 weeks and so we should begin the final assembly and shipping process in early October. Aiming to have it all done before the end of November.

The Repainted cards have all been completed and any part orders shipped! Very exciting to see those head out into the world.

And we now have Repainted Kaycee's mod cards available!
If you've already ordered Kaycee's mod and you'd like to swap your original cards to the new Repainted cards. You can do so free of charge by emailing me

The cards are also available separately here if you'd like to buy some on their own!

The Bad

In late August, my courier Australia post immediately suspended all shipments to the USA without warning. This was definitely a shock to wake up to. I knew tariffs might be coming up, but I didn't expect a full suspension of shipments! After a few weeks of radio silence from Australia post and a not so minor panic on my end, we got an update.

Services have resumed as of today. This doesn't affect our current shipping timeline. But there may be some longer delivery times until the rush of packages clears.

There is a 10% tariff that needs to be collected before orders are shipped. Most countries will charge any import duties, taxes or tariffs directly to the customer when the package arrives in customs. In Australia we often pay a 10% GST when importing goods.

However, the USA has flipped this process around and is requiring the sender (me) to pay these costs upfront. I will need to collect these as an extra charge, which I know isn't the news anyone was hoping to hear!

This charge is 10% of the product price and a little bit for final service fees and exchange rates. I anticipate it to be around $30-40USD for most orders.
We will be manually adding this to any USA orders, and the balance needs to be paid before your order is shipped. Keep an eye on your emails for an invoice from me.

Going forward, this price will be automatically added to the shipping fees. So future customers will pay the same amount, just all bundled into one fee.

Please get in touch if you have any questions about this! I can be reached at nathan@crypticcrafter.com

The Ugly

I just realised I put the worst thing in the bad category. So to make up for the lack of an Ugly update. I drew these cards. Are they ugly? I guess that's for you to decide.

They've been randomly added into some Kaycee's mod card packs, so a few lucky people will get these monstrosities!

En-yellow-ification

Each time I do a new batch of production, there's so many lessons learnt. This time around it's a lesson in product consistency.

Now we've got all my preferred production methods and suppliers organized, I figured we could just repeat the exact same thing with no issues. Amateur mistake.

We've had what I'm calling the en-yellow-ification of parts. Where individual components are coming out with minor colour differences compared to last time.

Generally this isn't an issue, as Batch 3 parts are pairing with other Batch 3 parts. And a minor colour difference, as long as it still looks good is irrelevant.
The issue pops up when I was trying to combine some leftover Batch 2 parts with new Batch 3 parts and they no longer match.

That about wraps it up for this update! Lots of big changes and lots of small ones.

Apologies for the radio silence between these updates. I didn't want to send an update without any USA shipping details in it!

We're super close now to the big crazy rush period of shipping and final production. Hopefully there's no more unexpected curve balls coming my way!

- Nathan
CrypticCrafter
nathan@crypticcrafter.com