Re: Piecepacks from Blue Panther?

["Steve Jones" <steve@...>]

Hi:

This is Steve Jones (Blue Panther LLC) and the recent posts are, of
course, of interest to us.   First, let's answer a few questions...

1) Yup, we're looking at publishing the JCD piecepack - it's a good
match for our equipment.   We'll be making some pieces and I'll post
them here or on www.bluepantherllc.com shortly.

2) With a laser, we can engrave birch, hardwood, plywood, plastic and
a variety of materials.   Most likely, the piecepack would be birch
with a polyurethane surface coat.   Plastic can be done -
transparent, transluscent or solid (like engraver's plastic), but it
is significantly more expensive raw material, so the final price of a
piecepack would probably not get alot of takers...  It might be the
kind of thing we would make for a contest, though.

3) The IEHK laser is indeed cheap.  We looked at it, but the vendor
would not give us a list of contacts in the US to ask about how the
product worked for them.  Also, note that it is WATER cooled, and you
supply the water - it is not a closed system.  There were also some
file format, printer driver concerns.  It might be a great system,
and I might take a chance on it for a hobby tool, but I wouldn't buy
it for a business.

4) A little bit of market research.   If you've visited our site, you
would see that our games come in wood boxes.  The question I would
ask of this group is whether you would prefer the pieces in small
wood boxes (say 6"x2.5"x"2.5") or in drawstring bags?   A wood box is
slightly more expensive, but not by much.

5) We have a game of our own called Cubed, which is rock paper
scissors in 3D with dice.  There are 24 dice in 4 colors, along with
a wooden 5x5 board and the rules to 3 different, but related games.
Right now it is a BP product, but it might be the kind of to release
into the public domain, similar to Piecepack - what do you think of
the idea?

SJ

Steve Jones
Blue Panther
--- In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, "palindromic_man" <barry.reber@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi all (this is my first or second post),
>
> when I saw this thread I had a crazy idea: use something like
> fundable.org to get enough pledges/pre-orders for piecepacks to buy
> your own laser-etch machine, which you could then use to make you
> piecepacks with..
>
> I haven't done any comparison shopping but here's an etcher for
$1299:
> http://www.iehk.net/Products/IE300.html
>
> I should just do it, but have neither the time nor the inclination
at
> the moment; everyone else is probably in the same situation.
>
> My wife and I made 10 piecepacks to give to family at christmas, and
> laser-etched pieces would have been way cooler than poorly painted
> (but still pretty cool) ones.
>
> -Barry
>
>
>
> --- In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, "Ron Hale-Evans" <rwhe@> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks, Jonathan! That's so cool. The more manufacturers of the
> > piecepack there are, the more the piecepack meme will thrive, and
> > that's good for everyone reading this (I can only assume).
> >
> > Marty points out that Blue Panther also works with plastic and
other
> materials:
> >
> > http://www.bluepantherllc.com/Prototypes.htm
> >
> > A laser-cut, laser-engraved plastic piecepack would be nice too...
> >
> > Ron
> >
> > On 1/11/07, Porter235 <porter235@> wrote:
> > > I have sent the first email to Steve. I will let you all know
> when/if I hear
> > > back.
> > >
> > > Thank you for your encouragement.
> > > JCD
> > >
> > > On Thursday 11 January 2007 17:20, Porter235 wrote:
> > > > > Jonathan, why don't you approach him about making the JCD
> Piecepack
> > > > > one of the games he sells on his site?
> > > > >
> > > > > Ron
> > > >
> > > > Clark has suggested the same to me (before Christmas actually)
> and it is on
> > > > my todo list... my freakin' huge todo list :( It would be
super
> cool.
> > > >
> > > > JCD
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >     Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@ ... http://ron.ludism.org/
> > Mind Performance Hacks book: 
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
> > 	   Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
> > (revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower
wine has
> > 		   bucked the kick on poor won man)
> >
>