March 2024

Hello again, Jupiter Bunnies fans!

INSERTS

My update for March is a little shorter than the past. And it's coming a lot later than I had hoped for. I have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with the inserts trying to get them working right. I just wanted to get them all ready and show you a final product.... But it has stretched out too long. They have taken a lot longer than I expected but I've still made a lot of progress. The thing is, these inserts are the final thing I need to get right before I can move on to the next step of ordering boxes that are the right size for each package.

FUNCTIONALITY

The inserts where I have them now have turned into a full-blown, integrated storage and indexing system. I have a place for every single piece to be stored if you really want to keep track of all of them. If you don't like the time it takes to put the pieces away, there is enough space to just throw them in scattered if you'd like. 

Here is a look at the first Starter package:

The secret I mentioned from my last email is that each package's insert is a piece of a larger system that works together. Each of these inserts will be able to fit together to create a larger insert that fits inside the main Jupiter box. I had to pack it in as tightly as I possibly could in order to be able to get it to fit in the Jupiter box. I'm coming at this from the experience of purchasing a million booster decks for Killer Bunnies and eventually running out of room to store it all. My goal is for this to solve that problem.

Here is a look at the first Booster package:

I have also made the colors of the inserts line up to make it an indexing system as well. The functionality behind this is that oftentimes when playing Quest normally, you have to take out later boosters in order to not overwhelm newcomers. After playing the full Jupiter, I can already see how this game will have the exact same effect. Depending on the experience level of the players, you will want to stand ready to play at any level of booster. I designed the insert to be colored such that you can see which booster each piece comes from. Each piece does have the booster dot indicating the booster color as well, but this is placed underneath each piece which would require shuffling through every single piece, flipping them over one by one, in order to determine which of them to use. With the indexed insert method, you can quickly glance at the color of the insert next to each piece in order to determine which pieces you need to pull out for this current game.

And finally, here is the second Booster package: 

PROBLEMS

The problem I have been running into is that the insert looks pretty hodgy-podgy.... I spent a lot of time getting the colors to line up so that the location of each piece could have at least a part of the area where the piece is stored match the color of the booster it comes from. It worked in my head, but after printing it all and seeing it in real life, I knew something needed to change. As I received feedback and got people to test the process of inputting and removing pieces, it became clear that the overall look was strange. I'm now experimenting with other ways to indicate the color of the booster so that the majority of the insert material can stay a uniform color, which will make it look a lot better. I'm working with a dot system, maybe a line system, depending on what will be the best quality and the quickest to manufacture. 

I have started planning out the manufacturing assembly line and sourcing all the shipping materials I will need. That should be all pinned up by May, and I will hopefully be able to get on to finishing up the ships that are so close to being done.

Until next month! Thanks for following.

~Hale-Bent