Today, I opened up my mailbox and I finally got my Death Mesa Prototype that I had ordered from a POD. Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome, and I am confident I can fix the errors that creeped into this one. As I walk through my judgments, I will show pictures to aid the narration. When I opened up the package, my custom deck was nice and tightly shrinkwrapped. The cards did not show any sign of being bent or warped.



A Shot of the Shrink-wrapped Deck.



The Shrink-wrapped Deck in my Hand.


As I opened up the deck, there were many things that I like. The card stock is very sturdy and has a good flex to it for shuffling cards. The cards printed in the areas I had planned and were cut about as good as I could hope for. The text printed cleanly (despite the photos on this page, which I took quickly with a camera borrowed from my work place), the fonts showed up well, and the cards had a slight glossy finish to them. In terms of the colors, however, I had mixed results. To specify, it was really the brightness/darkness of the cards where I had some problems. I would have done some color management work, but I don't know what printers they have, and they weren't going to do it on their end, so this was bound to happen. Fortunately, I can tweek the colors for the official release. Anyway, time for some pictures. Some cards I think turned out really well:



Others were a little dark:



And sadly, others were way too dark:



I will have to adjust some of these cards' brightness for the official release. This was the only real problem with the cards, and that is very fixible. I might have to spend a little time on the phone with the POD, but I am confident things will turn out great. I should be able to set up online also I way for you to order your own copy for around $7.20+shipping. Details on that I will post soon.