[Interest Check] The Amazing Chocolatier

[Zambu]

The Amazing Chocolatier Keycap Set Webpage


MASSDROP POLL: VOTE HERE!





Background Story

Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this keyset, I shake you warmly by the hand! Many wonderful surprises await you! For now, I do invite you to come to my factory and be my guest for one whole day - you and all others who are lucky enough to find this set. I, Zambumon, will counduct you around the factory myself showing you everything that there is to see, and afterwards, when it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by a procession of SA keycaps.

Inpired by the 2005 motion picture adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Amazing Chocolatier will take your keyboard into the most famous chocolate factory that has ever existed.



Although my idea was to make three of these variants (Blue, Red and Brown). It would be impossible and some novelties wouldn't look great. In addition: three variants means that base kits are huge since they have to contain the non-standard, winkles, etc mods.


Here is an album with the wrappers

So I opted just to do Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight since it was by far the most elegant of those 3.

My Background Story

I first became in contact with mechanical keyboards a year and half ago, when I started browsing over the Mechanical Keyboards subreddit where I learnt about the existence of other communities (such as Deskthority, KB Mania or Geek Hack), custom keyboards, and custom keycap sets such as Calm Depths, PuLSE, Granite, Penumbra, Retro… My interest for keyboards, their switch mechanism, vintage keyboards and also DIY projects and specially my interest for creating a keycap set, hall effect switches and some vintage keyboards led me to Deskthority's wiki which had all the information I needed. With all that information, I designed Ground Control, a keycap set inspired by TAC keyboards. GC helped me a lot as a designer since I learnt everything that I know by doing its IC.
Later on, I decided to create my own 3D renders, which led me to M1To, whom I help him with Godspeed and more recently the PuLSE round 2 GB. While doing this, I kept a low profile and developed my second keycap set, its website and used my experience with Ground Control to create The Amazing Chocolatier.
Since I've lurking around for a while now, I considered that this would be a great opportunity to start to post from time to time over here.

Details

• Designed by Zambumon
• Manufactured by Signature Plastics
• MX compatible (Cherry, Gateron, Kailh and Novatouch Sliders)
• SA 1-1-2-3-4-4 Profile in thick ABS
• Doubleshot legends
• Semi-Matte finish

Child Deals

Base kit

Tsangan+Whitefox

Numpad

Extras

Planck

Ergodox

Dvorak & Colemak

ISO

UK

International

Novelties

Alternative F Row Stripe

Forums

Space Bars


Render Gallery











FAQ

Does [insert a kit] include [insert a keycap]?

All kits include only the keys pictured.

I have an ISO board, which child deals would cover my board?

You'll need the base kit + the ISO kit (which includes an ISO enter and 1.25U R4 Shift) and **either the UK kit or the NorDe** child deal + any other additional kits (Numpad, Tsangan…).

Does ISO include UK keycaps?

No it doesn't.

Is there a DT keycap?

Yes! Check the Forums kit.

Will you cover ISO ES?

I've talked with some folks over a Spanish forum called MediaVida, and there is enough interest to cover this layout!

Special thanks

MiTo, livingspeedbump, T0mb3ry, Matt3o, HoffmanMyster, Steezus, ideus, Data, LeandreN, Trydan, and Ra.

[Muirium]

Only if it is in fact made of chocolate. ABS plain tastes funny.

[scottc]

SA Retro? Never heard of it. Nah, this is SA Choco!

[Khers]

Retro is listed as an inspiration. I guess it was quite an inspiration

[Zambu]

SA Retro? Never heard of it. Nah, this is SA Choco!

While doing an "early" IC with a small group of people, someone pointed me about this very same issue so I PM'd Matt3o a month ago and I sent him the website. Matt3o answered a couple of minutes later and told me that he didn't see any major issue with the set's color way.

[kbdfr]

Massdrop?
Isn't that the site which won't let you even have a look unless you register?
No, thanks.

signed: grumpy chocolate bar

[Zambu]

Massdrop?
Isn't that the site which won't let you even have a look unless you register?
No, thanks.

signed: grumpy chocolate bar

The reason why they don't let you vote unless you are registered is because it is a closed community, which is what allows them to offer prices under the MSRP.

[kbdfr]

[…] The reason why they don't let you vote unless you are registered is because it is a closed community […]

Restricting votes to registered users is OK of course, but as I said, Massdrop won't even let you know what they have to offer unless you register. Starting page = end of the journey.

[…] it is a closed community, which is what allows them to offer prices under the MSRP.

I don't see the logics here: why should excluding potential customers result in lower prices?

[Spikebolt]

Q) Do I have to make an account on massdrop?
A) Fortunately/unfortunately, yes. By making all of its users sign up, Massdrop can legally be classified as something other than a retailer, meaning that the manufacturers have no say in how Massdrop prices the items. This allows the site to sell things at a lower price.

I never really understood why people hate massdrop so much on DT. Registering isn't that hard and as far as I can tell they provide huge help to organize high quality GBs with decent costumer care. The only problem for me is that they don't have an EU warehouse.

[Halvar]

I love that there's an international set, which is something not a lot of GBs do, basically only matteo and 7bit used to do this.

Just a remark: people are not going to be happy with these German and Scandinavian umlauts, the dots and ring are much too small.

[Muirium]

Wait, there are umlauts? Where's my magnifying glass?


@Spikey: MassDrop likes to go beyond the call of duty to piss us off. Remember the Ping they won at DTA 2015? Their vote was the heaviest in the whole awards! The account wall, the meticulous control of information, the bullshit artificial community, the customs fees, the foreign shipping, it's all for shit. MassDrop could be a much better player in the community. But they see us as dollar signs and no more. They choose not to integrate, work with, or even acknowledge us. So it's entirely natural we tell them to go fuck themselves whenever they come up.

[KRKS]

Well obviously MD = no buy for me, but even if it wasn't on MD I still don't like the colors Edited out the idea because MD will steal it like the HHKB case

[Thumper]

On the one hand it looks really yummy, on the other hand, i dont know if i could type on it, as i would always think my hands are on chocolate.

Nonetheless, really nice set.

[Spikebolt]

MassDrop likes to go beyond the call of duty to piss us off. Remember the Ping they won at DTA 2015? Their vote was the heaviest in the whole awards! The account wall, the meticulous control of information, the bullshit artificial community, the customs fees, the foreign shipping, it's all for shit. MassDrop could be a much better player in the community. But they see us as dollar signs and no more. They choose not to integrate, work with, or even acknowledge us. So it's entirely natural we tell them to go fuck themselves whenever they come up.

Perhaps this is not the right thread to have a discussion about MassDrop but I seriously thought that award was extremely unfair. The account wall is for your own benefit, as I stated above. I would say the lack of EU warehouse is huge a bummer but I wouldn't call them shit, they're just located overseas. Obviously they are a business, and as a business they need to make money but they do indeed help GB holders, they pay up front for a lot of the stuff. They provide you costumer support, if your order is lost or damaged you will have your money back. They are reliable for your goods, while in some GBs you have to tick the "I'm aware my package may be lost or damaged and it's not my fault" option.

They are not a community like DT, sure, they're a business. A business that can really benefit us, especially those who live in the US.

[Muirium]

Then you're clearly in the minority. There's something very skeezy about them. They could do a lot to change for the better, but they don't. I'd rather take my chances in a community effort, with all the ups and downs, than be a customer of theirs. Judgement call. You can choose otherwise as you wish. But don't expect everyone to think likewise.

[Spikebolt]

I just don't see anything so skeezy that would be a dealbreaker. It's fine, of course, to each their own.

[Crazy Canadian XXIV]

I'm probably not in much of a position to talk as I don't currently buy MX-mount keycaps anyways, but given that this has detoured slightly to a Massdrop discussion, I'll just throw my two cents in and say that even if these were buckling spring-mount, Massdrop would kill my interest, too. For reasons already listed.

[Zambu]

I love that there's an international set, which is something not a lot of GBs do, basically only matteo and 7bit used to do this.

Just a remark: people are not going to be happy with these German and Scandinavian umlauts, the dots and ring are much too small.

Don't worry, that's a render issue that I'll fix this afternoon. I'll also include some modifications to that kit by including ISO ES.

[zslane]

The disdain for MassDrop isn't a DT thing, per se, it is a European thing mostly. But because DT is predominantly European in its membership, it leaves the impression that DT as a whole has a problem with MassDrop. I don't have any problem with MassDrop at all, and in fact I suspect most other Americans don't either. In fact, I think it is a rather nifty outlet for what it is. But I live in the US and face none of the shipping/cost complications that Europeans do, so my feelings won't coincide with the majority of this community.

As for this keyset, well, I like the idea of a brown set, but not all dark brown like this. The biege & brown colorways put up for vote in 7bit's Round 7 survey are more what I'd be looking for. The only reason SA Retro looked even remotely interesting to me, as a colorway, was the burgandy option.

[Muirium]

They're especially bad if you're any other place in the world. But you guys still get the registration barrier and general feeling of being a wallet on legs, too. MassDrop could play a better part in the community. But it's very inward facing.

[zslane]

I don't look to MassDrop to provide community. I only care that it provides a secure and reliable storefront for buying keyboard stuff. If it weren't for the fact that spherical keysets are such niche products, I'd be buying all this stuff from Amazon and be all the happier for it. Since MassDrop is just a place to buy stuff (as far as I'm concerned), registration is sort of necessary, or at least very convenient because it lets me avoid entering all my credit card and shipping info over and over and over again.

I'm quite content for MassDrop to see me as a wallet on legs; after all, they are just a keyset supplier under a bunch of HTML5 to me.

[gogusrl]

This isn't about asking you to register to purchase stuff, it's about letting you see their products without registering (or read the comments on a drop).

[Spikebolt]

Q) Do I have to make an account on massdrop?
A) Fortunately/unfortunately, yes. By making all of its users sign up, Massdrop can legally be classified as something other than a retailer, meaning that the manufacturers have no say in how Massdrop prices the items. This allows the site to sell things at a lower price.

This isn't about asking you to register to purchase stuff, it's about letting you see their products without registering (or read the comments on a drop).

Sure, but the reason for registration isn't being stubborn or petty. It's a way to provide you cheaper prices without requiring manufacturer approval.

zslane worded it perfectly, IMHO

[Muirium]

Every other webstore I use, including Amazon, lets you see prices when logged out / before signing up. Amazon very clearly considers all of us wallets on legs. Massdrop is just being douchey.

I know their excuse about the need to hide prices. It's bullshit. Whatever partner they're supposedly hiding the OMZG! lowered price from can sign up to see it, just like you.

[kbdfr]

[…] if your order is lost or damaged you will have your money back. […]

Apart from the fact that at least in Germany this is legal practice anyway, it has nothing to do with registering to be able at all to see more than their start page. You won't even know what's on offer if you don't register.

[…] the reason for registration isn't being stubborn or petty. It's a way to provide you cheaper prices without requiring manufacturer approval.

Manufacturer approval? Do you live in a country where sellers need manufacturer approval to decide on their retail prices?

[fohat]

That is a really good-looking set, and chocolate-eaters would not have to wash their hands while eating at the desk.

But alas, I don't Massdrop or MX, so this has no place in my life.

[ReleaseCandidate]

Do you live in a country where sellers need manufacturer approval to decide on their retail prices?

You do too. Although that ('vertikale Preisbindung', can't be arsed to look up the english legal term) is illegal in the EU, that happens way too often.

[zslane]

I understand Muirium's point of view with regard to MassDrop's policy of only providing access to members. I just don't find it very compelling. Registration is easy and free of charge. It is a minor annoyance for the five minutes it takes to register and then it is never an issue again. In the amount of time people spend complaining about it online they could be registered already. Just register and be done with it. Sheesh. There is no "principle" here worth clinging to so intransigently.

[Muirium]

Sure there is. All this free advertising that keeps on cropping up here at DT. MassDrop invites its users to spam us with their marketing. All for naught. And all a very costly trap for any foolish European to be duped into it. Fuckers!

[Spikebolt]

It is legal practice for a store, but not for our standard gb settings.

You'll have to dig into the USA laws, not your own. They're located in the US, not Germany.

[…] if your order is lost or damaged you will have your money back. […]

Apart from the fact that at least in Germany this is legal practice anyway, it has nothing to do with registering to be able at all to see more than their start page. You won't even know what's on offer if you don't register.

[…] the reason for registration isn't being stubborn or petty. It's a way to provide you cheaper prices without requiring manufacturer approval.

Manufacturer approval? Do you live in a country where sellers need manufacturer approval to decide on their retail prices?