First official robot art- Shoutout to AJ Uchoa 🤖
Excited to bring a new aesthetic to Escape Land. Love AJ Uchoa’s work and excited to share the rest of the robots along the way.
u/escapelandccg — 10 days ago
u/escapelandccg
r/Base44 r/RoyaleAPI r/tabletopgamedesign r/TCG r/tcgcollecting r/kickstarter r/escapelandccg r/u_escapelandccg r/n64 r/cardgames r/homemadeTCGs r/frog
First Dino Art Revealed!
Excited for Dinos to be a part of Escape Land! Jett has done some amazing work and it’s really cool to see her designs in bringing these awesome critters and monsters to life. Really think people are going to love set 2.
u/escapelandccg — 14 days ago
Art Reveals for Set 2 Start Tomorrow! 🦖
Showing off the first Dino art tomorrow for The Great Escape. Second set is already done testing wise and we’re about 70% of the way through with art. Targeting the first quarter of 2027 for release!
Jett Yates is returning to do all art for Dinos and the base traits, and AJ Uchoa has come on board to do all of the artwork for Robots - really excited about how those turned out.
u/escapelandccg — 16 days ago
Got the foil uncut sheet from my game framed!
Crazy to be in this place now and getting to see this finally put together. From idea, to funded on KS, to now being in stores and selling online - it’s been a journey and I’m really happy to be here. Thank you all so much for this!
u/escapelandccg — 23 days ago
Got to do a fun art reveal for the second set!
After spending time further developing the lore of Escape Land into a cohesive story, I had a concept for a Critter that I had as a center point of the conflict in the first set - something mysteriously created a need for its unique powers, an evil force trying to corrupt the critter, and ultimately the critter being corrupted and creating a large event that paves the way for the second set.
I spoke with Jett about it and she absolutely knocked this one out of the park! Not only with the art, but also following up with an emote for the Discord, as well as a profile pic option to help celebrate the reveal!
Beyond excited for the work being done already on set 2, The Great Escape and excited to do more community based reveals like that in the future for sure!
u/escapelandccg — 1 month ago
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A Critter from Set 1 returns in Set 2… as a Legend. Can you guess who?
u/escapelandccg — 1 month ago
Onboarded another LGS and got this awesome email!!!
Beyond thankful for Ozzy from the Escape Land community for showing the game to the owner’s of Treacherous Waters in Brush, CO! We had a great call and they decided to purchase products from us! Excited to get their weekly league setup and growing a great community in their store!
Over the weekend I also got an email from someone who just recently got their products in - such an amazing read and definitely a reminder of why I created this game in the first place!
u/escapelandccg — 1 month ago
A Kickstarter Retrospective: Escape Land CCG
The last time I wrote something like this, all of it kind of led up to the Kickstarter – but today I want to dive into life after the Kickstarter campaign ended in April.
One thing I want to note here, is that when setting up your Kickstarter campaign, you can enable late pledges – which I did. What I did NOT know was that once you opened the Pledge Manager, things got a little more difficult for folks to purchase items through Kickstarter, since it forces them into the Pledge Manager. I highly recommend you allow the late pledges phase to last a few weeks after the campaign’s completion to allow you to maximize late backers.
Another thing to note is opting the “Pledge Over Time” feature for folks to be able to spread out their payments – which I think is a great option! The only thing here is that the payouts for Pledge Over Time are paced out in roughly 4-to-6-week increments, so having to wait on payouts can slow down your production time.
The bright side to Escape Land launching the Pledge Manager was that it allowed me to wrap things up quickly and start moving forward with WJPC for production.
Since I had done a test Booster Box from them, I had the opportunity to experience the packaging and ended up being able to swap out the physical booster packs being used – making them much easier to open. Additionally, my files were already prepared since I had already done the test run! A thing to note when printing with WJPC is that you MUST use their card template and ensure your images are properly resized for the provided template. Additionally, what was big for me was uploading the editable PDF version of each card to a matching file based on the product it was being placed in, along with the rarity. Utilizing Google Drive for this process of sharing files with WJPC was seamless – just be sure your file names are clear.
On May 5th, I sent the first half of my payment over to WJPC so they could start production. I waited until then so that some KS funds could come through and cover that initial piece. Production completed on June 22nd and from that point was shipped via sea freight from China to New York. For those curious, sea freight cost plus duties/tariffs came out to be about $1,900 – which for 2 pallets weighing in at about 1800 pounds, was not too bad! Since the Kickstarter performed the way it did, I was able to purchase 1,000 Booster Boxes and 1,000 of each of the Quick Escape Decks (Splash & Burn/Creep & Cuddle). Reason for this size run was to fulfill the roughly 450 boxes needed for the Kickstarter orders, while allowing plenty of cushion to continue growing Escape Land and really start moving towards becoming more cash positive.
Sidenote here: Allowing people to buy product and making them aware it exists is huge. This is why I stood up the Shopify store, escapelandgame.com , quick. It was important to establish a home base for people to shop, find content, read articles, etc. – outside of Kickstarter. Also, setting it up is easy nowadays and the shopping experience is lightyears better, along with providing you easy access to shipping tools and label creation.
The Kickstarter was now a month ahead of the September delivery date and in the meantime, I had to take all the necessary steps to ensure I could hit the ground running once the materials got here.
Another thing to note when creating your campaign is that the complexity of your rewards – not just the tiers, but the add-ons, stretch goals, etc. need to be incredibly well thought out in terms of costs and how they will impact shipping. For Escape Land, my general rule of thumb was that I wanted to really lean into only offering printed media for my tiers, backer rewards, and stretch goals.
For the Serialized Cryptags, Bandles Backer Reward Promo, the remaining Backer Reward Promos, Rapturion Preview Card for set 2, and the Kitchen Table Organized Play Kits – those all got to be added to my WJPC order, which was super helpful in terms of my ability to execute on them, while keeping costs minimal.
The 8x10 print was easy. I went to qprints.com and ordered 200 of them, shipped them to Jett to sign, and then they were just shipped back to me.
The playmats were all done by custommousepad.com – I placed an order for 175 of the Kickstarter Exclusive Mat and 25 of each of the different ones I was offering, keeping costs minimal with some room to make some money back after the campaign ended. Turnaround time for the whole process was two weeks.
A couple weeks prior to the product arriving, I went through each Kickstarter order on my Backer Report to start grouping them into the “Base” version of each tier and then capturing any of the orders that were “Base Tier +”. This was invaluable in developing the type of boxes I would need to ship orders, while also establishing a workflow that my wife and I could follow once we started shipping. I ended up leaning on U-Line to purchase my boxes – a little bit more expensive than other channels, but the quality, along with the delivery timeframes, are top notch.
The weekend prior to the product arriving, I began putting together and staging roughly 85% of the boxes that would be needed to start filling orders. The product arrived on Wednesday, August 12th at about 1:30pm and I immediately broke down the pallets and got them set up in my garage.
Once my wife got home, we utilized the kitchen table to hold all the backer rewards, promos, and prints, as well as the area where I would manage the orders and print shipping labels.
Thw strategy for fulfillment was working from least complex to most complex.
$30 Tier “Base”
$85 Tier “Base”
$170 Tier “Base”
$350 Tier “Base”
$30 Tier “Base+Add-Ons”
$85 Tier “Base+Add-Ons”
$170 Tier “Base+Add-Ons”
$350 Tier “Base+Add-Ons”
$700 Tier “ALL”
$1500 Tier “ALL”
$2500 Tier “ALL”
This strategy allowed my wife to ship ~150 Kickstarter Orders + ~40 Shopify Orders in just 10 days, as we finished shipping on all outstanding orders by Saturday, August 22nd.
Overall, my experience with Kickstarter fulfillment was smooth – this is largely due to having a partner in completing all of it who was just as dedicated as I was. Huge shoutout to my wife – the greatest of alllllllllllllll tiiiiiimmmmeeee.
TL;DR
Leave your campaign open a few weeks prior to opening the pledge manager, if you’re trying to maximize on late pledges.
Ensure your game files are done and ready to print well ahead of time – while also making sure you and your printer have an agreed upon way of sharing information.
Establish a new place to start accepting orders, as this will be your main hub moving forward. Shopify is easy to use and setup.
When creating your campaign, really try to lower the complexity of what you’re offering. This was huge for Escape Land – keeping the main products as just simple starter decks, booster boxes, playmats, and promos meant I only needed to source those items from 2 places, one of which being my printer for the game itself.
Get your product dimensions and go through your Backer Report order by order to figure out how many different types of boxes you’ll need – you will really thank yourself for the item above if you do.
Order your boxes ahead of time and take the time to put them together and stage them ahead of time.
Establish a dedicated workspace and a fulfillment workflow that allows you to gain momentum – we opted for going based on order complexity, which worked out well.
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
National Take Your Necrostag to Work Day!
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
A closer look at the holo rare/fabled rare uncut sheet!
So cool to finally see this in person!
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
Pretty Surreal :’) Thanks Everyone
A week later… and all Kickstarter orders for the Escape Land Collectible Card Game have been packed and shipped!
Product is making its way out into the wild and here are some pics of people receiving their products, along with some sweet pulls! The feedback from everyone has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of the card quality, foiling, and the overall experience of opening products from our Kickstarter print run.
I am beyond thankful to my wife, Berina , for allowing me to be myself and supporting me throughout this entire journey - from being the first play tester, to helping me pack and ship all these orders. Of course, none of this is possible without the amazing work of Jett Yates - who brought this amazing world to life and illustrated all of the Critters and Monsters of Escape Land. And the work of Zilla (Zak Swanson), at Rival Spirit Games, who did all of the graphic design work for the packaging, the Escape Land Card Back, and the foil masks for all the beautiful foils people get to enjoy.
This amazing team is the reason why this game exists and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish next. Thank you for making my dream come true.
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
Kickstarter Products Arrived!!! It’s a real game… and we’re shippin’ it!
Unloaded these 2 pallets yesterday and the wife and I got to work immediately with packing up orders and getting them ready to ship! Gonna be a busy birthday weekend for me - really excited to get all this product out to folks.
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
Playmats arrived! Kickstarter Fulfillment scheduled to start next week!
Shoutout to Speedrobo for the endorsement of custommousepads.com for playmats! They came out great, process was easy, and delivery was pretty quick!
Excited to get these in, with all the booster boxes, decks, and promos from the kickstarter print run set to arrive on Monday - which means fulfillment is starting a month ahead of schedule!
u/escapelandccg — 2 months ago
Printing Update: Create-A-Cards!
Really excited to get these Create-A-Cards out! Was awesome working with the folks that chose to back Escape Land at the “All-In Tier” to bring their art direction and design ideas to life. Jett Yates did an incredible job, as always, and WJPC is simply unmatched in terms of quality! Really looking forward to seeing the reactions once orders are fulfilled.
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago
Another Printing Update - Foil Rares & Fabled Rares turned out great!
Seeing all these cards with their final treatments has been so dang cool! The level of inspection WJPC does is awesome and I’m really thankful they sent me some pics and videos to capture as much as they could without spoiling all the cool stuff. Still a lot of stuff to be surprised about with all the backer rewards, promos, and more!
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago
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Worked with artist Jett Yates on creating these care packages!
Jett did all illustrations for Escape Land, came up with this neat idea to try and get more eyes on the game, and also made the cool stickers and critter profile cards. Excited to see how this effort ends up going!
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago
Froakage: The Loyal Frog Ninja of the Sea Realm
Critterologists, prior to moving onto the Guardian Trials, spend a semester in each of the realms studying the behaviors of Basic Critters. When spending time around the sea realm, one of the first Critters they encounter is Froakage.
This isn’t just a typical encounter though, Froakage spends time carefully p
lanning his approach and the variety of martial arts styles he plans to use… if required. As new students enter the realm, they’re often greeted by a giant leaping frog ninja; causing quite the stir. Froakage quickly strikes a selected pose and at the same time examines the newcomers. If his gaze comes upon pure hearts, they are allowed entry. However, if his gaze discovers darkness, be ready for swift strikes and a variety of martial art moves to send you packing.
Building a Bond with Froakage requires an inner connection with the sea realm, and a devotion to learning the habits and personalities of all Fishpals. It also helps if you have some flashy moves and poses to teach Froakage.
You can find the uncommon version of Froakage in Escape Land: Free the Monsters Booster Packs! If you’re looking for the special, full-art foil version, be sure to back the Kickstarter or purchase a Kitchen Table Organized Play Kit!
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago
Don’t Forget the Magic!
When I was mostly a player of TCG’s, I spent a ton of time consuming TCG content related to gameplay & strategy. I even spent a lot of time making content of my own because of the passion I had. As I’ve fully transitioned into being not just a player or designer, but instead to a publisher/”business owner” – I spend a lot of time consuming content related to the industry in general.
I do a lot of research and try to learn as much as I can about any given thing that I am passionate about, which now is about how to make the collectible card game I was able to get successfully funded on Kickstarter as successful as it can possibly be. The crazy thing is, there just isn’t a ton of content out there that talks about real things that apply to us solo-preneurs/small publishing studios.
And with that, it gets easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you’re never going to be able to do the things that these larger companies, some leveraging massive IPs, are going to be able to do. Not only that, it kind of becomes disheartening to see some of these games that just feel like soulless copies of other games that already exist that manage to garner a ton of attention due to the IPs attached and the state the TCG content being so collector heavy and secondary market driven.
But then, as I was cooking dinner last night and the chicken I was baking still had some time to cook in the oven my wife asked me, “think we can get a game in?”. It had been a few weeks between being super busy with work, taking a vacation, and all the other things that come with life – so I quickly said, “absolutely.”.
We sat down across from each other at the kitchen table and were able to squeeze one game in, and boom… magic. The game was 15ish minutes, but an absolute blast that quickly reminded me of the magic that got me to do this in the first place. That 15 minutes was an escape from the world around my wife and I. We summoned Critters, pulled off combos, thought intensely about our turns, and held our breaths as we waited to see what Monsters would be rescued. All the while we got to talk with one another, have fun with each other, and truly connect.
That is the magic. That is why we’re all here. That is why we love TCG’s.
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago
Rottenwrath: The Refuse Revenant of Deadwood
In the shadowed corners of Deadwood, where discarded relics and forgotten Critters gather, Rottenwrath rises from the remnants of what others have thrown away. It is said that every relic discarded and every fallen Ghoulie feeds its strength; a creature born from the collective spite of the discarded.
Rottenwrath thrives amid ruin. The larger a Guardian’s discard pile grows, the more its power swells, drawing energy from the echoes of lost battles and abandoned spirits. To summon it is to awaken the fury of the forgotten; a wrath that turns waste into weaponry.
Among the Ghoulies, Rottenwrath is both feared and revered; demonstrating that even decay can be reborn into dominance. For Critterologists and potential Guardians, beware what you discard… for in Escape Land, one Guardian’s trash truly is another’s Rottenwrath.
u/escapelandccg — 3 months ago