A few weeks ago I contacted Kevin from Galladoria Games on the Dwarven Forge forums. There is a thread on there about his company, with almost universal acclaim concerning the product and customer service. I had some lingering disappointment over their Kickstarter from a few years ago, when I was shorted a few pieces and a few others had some casting problems. I had contacted him at the time, with pics, but told him to take his time as he was having big problems with fulfillment. Things slipped through the cracks, and I never got replacement pieces.
Rather than whine about it on the thread, I contacted him privately. His very professional response shamed me a bit, and he made a generous offer to me.
That Kickstarter had been a near disaster for him under his original company, called Forge Prints. It’s all documented on their Kickstarter page for the Adventurescapes campaign, and I may talk about it later. But in having the discussion with Kevin, I was reminded just how much he fought to deliver on the campaign, and what it cost him.
Kickstarter is littered with failed campaigns, projects that took in a lot of money and then failed to deliver because the people were not business people and did not appreciate what it took to fulfill on your commitments. Most of these people end up just folding and walking away from their campaigns when things go south.
But Kevin stuck with it, facing and beating problem after problem, even as his partner bailed on him. I remember now that I was very impressed with his drive and integrity, and that is why I shrugged off the missing pieces of terrain. I had forgotten that over the course of the last couple of years, and was glad that he reminded me of just what he went through and how he ultimately triumphed.
Kevin told me that he was very glad that I contacted him concerning my lingering disappointment, and offered me a gift certificate that was far more valuable than the missing and miscast pieces from the old campaign. I felt tremendously guilty…but still took him up on the kind offer.
I also offered to do an interview with him, to help get his and his company’s story out there. I sent him a rather comprehensive list of questions, so we may or may not hear back from him! No worries if he declines, of course. I’ll still spread my impressions of the two products I recently ordered from him
Which arrived this morning! Behold!
This is their City Docks package. Very nicely packed. Evidently a few people had reported the pilings breaking off of the docks during shipping, so Kevin devised this foam insert to protect them better.
These are cast in a resin material, but tough with a more plastic-like feel. This resin is superior to what they used in their Kickstarter campaign, which did not hold paint particularly well. If you saw the green-painted dungeon pieces from Greywater issues 6 & 7, and the Copper Slug bar from issue 16, those are pieces from the Kickstarter, and you can see a few places where the paint is flaking. This formulation feels better raw.
On that note, most of their terrain and pieces will be SoiCast going forward, which is a plastic injection from what I understand.
Close-up of the dock pieces. I like the detail quite a bit, and the resin feels solid, as opposed to slick like the earlier resin pieces. Most of the docks have the pilings; the one that doesn’t is an intersection piece.
They sell these pieces painted or unpainted. I almost always get unpainted so my dollars (or credit, as the case may be) stretches farther. The painted pieces on the company’s website look very nice.
I also got their tavern set, to augment those I got during the Kickstarter. The pieces are different, now, but I am hopeful they will blend well.
These are the base pieces that came in the pack. 4 floors, 4 corners, 5 walls, a door (not shown), and the cool hearth piece. Plus two long bar pieces, a table and chairs, and some bowls of food to put on them. A few other goodies, too.
Close-up of the corner piece. Interestingly enough, it is not cast as a whole piece, like their earlier corner piece from the Kickstarter, and Dwarven Forge’s pieces. Rather the walls are glued onto a floor piece. Hopefully, paint will blur these lines a bit. But you can see the nice detailing of the plaster walls.
All in all, I’m very happy with how these pieces look. They should be pretty simple to prime and paint. More pictures when that process is done.
And a picture of some projects on the bench right now:
Probably hard to tell what they are with the black primer, but these are almost all terrain pieces from the first two Dungeons and Lasers Campaign from Archon. These are pretty nice pieces for the most part, and will go a long way toward filling out dungeon and space station terrain.
I have finished reading Tales From the magician’s Skull #6, and in the next day or so I should have a review up. Spoiler: this was a strong issue.
Hope you are all well!