We’ve just put one of our busiest weeks behind us. It’s pretty much a taste for things to come as we head into February. It has been insanely fun though! Talk about Crunch Time!
Let’s start with the weekend. Friday saw BaRPiG being introduced to the Game Freak’s gaming night, where we met George, Glenn, Moses, and Patrick. Best moment was one of our players, Patrick, standing on the table imitating a giraffe. Needless to say he won that round for the Pourceror! Can’t wait till next month’s gaming night.
Saturday we joined the girls and guys at Fun Base Amsterdam. Such an awesome adult playground, we shall definitely be returning! Our first play test with Ali, Jasper, Leslie, Nena, and Nick went so well, when Nick had won, they wanted to give it a second go! We played a further three games and had a great time until late.
Sunday we were back on home turf at Ton Ton Club, where after a round of Star Trek Panic! with some of our friends, I met Donna and Lara, who gave the updates to the Rules Card a whirl. By 6pm it was time to head home and get things ready for Monday and Tuesday’s video shoot.
No rest for the wicked became the fast and hard motto. Monday morning everyone arrived at 9, and after a hearty breakfast, we had the windows covered up in garbage bags, lights switched on, and we could start filming. Script and shot list at hand, our friend and director Matt set himself up in the Kitchen, with 
Phil and I acting as producer and assistant director. Our friend, and Florence’s boyfriend, Evan proved indispensable with his experience working with film equipment back in Canada.
By the time we broke for Lunch, we had some amazing footage recorded and our cast were really getting into the swing of things. We’re so proud of our friends Florence, Marlena, Arthur, and Stephen. They did a bang up job and it was great to see them have fun with the roles too. It was also an eye opener for myself into how much time it takes to record anything!
Day one wrapped up with the set filling with smoke and everyone shouting and yelling excitedly in costume. Pizza ordered afterwards, we hung out and watched some of Matt’s past film projects. We also checked over the footage of the day, and saw again first hand the brilliant work our cameraman, Adiljo, could do! If you ever need a great cameraman in the Netherlands, he’s your man! We’d gladly share his details with anyone who’d want to know.
Day two was the second half of the Kickstarter promo video, and now the focus was on Phil and I, in our kitchen, board behind us. Time to explain exactly what BaRPiG and where Kickstarter could take us. Although we had written the script ourselves, the hardest bit was memorizing and properly delivering the lines. Practicing whilst Adiljo set up each shot, we finally had most parts down in only a couple of takes.
We had worked out how to keep this explanation part dynamic with loads of different ideas to keep each of us busy whilst the other delivered lines. Looking at the footage afterwards, it worked out beautifully! With fewer shots to make the second day of filming took a lot less time. Still it was a lot of hard work. We ended the evening with Matt recording the Pig’s lines for our video, in his hilarious Scottish accent.
So now the footage has been collated, we’re updating the shot list with take and roll numbers, and sifting through the hour worth of audio from Matt to pick out the best recordings of his lines. We think we’ll have the video done by mid February, naturally we’ll only release it with the launch of our Kickstarter. Maybe we’ll manage an earlier release for you, our loyal BaRPiGs.
This week is going to see another exciting step in our development. We’re releasing the new logo! But that’s for another update.
Until then, keep questing you fine BaRPiGs!
We’ve run 3 full afternoons and evening of play testing of the rules changes, with great feedback and adaptations to the rules card.
The Kickstarter project page continues to go through it’s runs of editing and filling with more graphics, gifs, and fun pictures.
Yes, I dropped the ‘d’ for a reason. Homage to one of our favourite animated series, Bojack Horseman. Features a washed out 90s sitcom actor revitalizing his career in a new movie, and really makes good on taking the piss out of the entire phenomenon that’s Hollywood. Our favourite quote of late…
Not that we will mind you, if I’ve learned anything from these last three weeks it’s that so much of making a movie, or in our case video, really comes down to getting the shot right in the first place! We’re less than a week away from our big shooting days (next week Monday and Tuesday), and with the script and shot lists ready to go, we had our first read through with almost all our cast last night. It was great, and everyone really had fun with their characters. Gotta say I’m very proud of how far we’ve come with this. I’m also once again amazed at Phil’s brilliant writing, as this first act we’re filming is the child of his creation!
Meanwhile the Kickstarter page continues to see further development and refinement. We’re putting in some great visuals, and in the process I’m suddenly starting to see a theme in how we’re presenting BaRPiG, one that I think will work great with our new website when we launch that too… yes, that too is on the massive ‘to do’ list, hopefully before we launch, otherwise live after we launch. Here’s a preview of what it’s starting to look like. Loving sneak previews!
Finally we haven’t had many chances to play test since our last TonTon adventure. Things unfortunately have gotten in the way. This weekend sees a change to that in a big way. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we’re booked to show off BaRPiG and refine the card and rules descriptions. I’ve been busy prepping test cards with the new logo specifically for this reason. Check out our calendar on 
The end of the year is approaching us quickly, and on the BaRPiG side of things we’re full on Christmas mode. Phil’s parents have come to stay with us from Canada for a week, and it’s been pretty much family and friends all round. At the same time, the hours of preparation work has finally paid off. We’re now taking the holiday season to give ourselves a quick break before piecing all the various bits together. Fitting then to update you all on the shortest day of the year.
There are three elements that have really required a lot of detailed attention, and we’re coming round to having them done either by year’s end or in the first week of the 2017.
Thirdly, but not least, our logo is coming along in leaps and bounds. We had a Skype meeting with 
This will probably be our last blog of 2016. We’ve got some free days lined up boxing day onwards, but we’ll probably be full on busy with the promo video script and content-filling the Kickstarter campaign page. If we have a moment, we’ll naturally give you guys another heads up. Otherwise,
Remember that picture of our ‘board’ a few posts ago? That manic filling of all sorts of crazy? Whilst typing this blog over here at 10:30 at night, I’m proud to say a lot of the things ‘to do’ have been done, and have left the board.
Meanwhile whilst that craziness is underway, MJ is hard at making our new logo. She’s also been busy drawing pigs. Lots of pigs. Once again if you’re not familiar with her work, shes a creative genius! Check out her stuff at 
We thought it would be nice to spend some of this post sharing a few of her cute little creations.
And then we thought, ah to hell with it, here’s a sneak preview of the new logo… Sssshhh! Don’t tell anyone else!
Next update we’ll have steps towards our KS Campaign page, and the initial workings of our promo video! Hollywood baby!
Have you noticed yet? BaRPG’s being vandalised!
This weekend saw us busy at two events in a row to garner attention towards our Kickstarter as well as test the changes to our prototype. It’s still running very smooth, and the most changes end up being silly typos (feels familiar). Sunday Lies and the good people at Amsterdice had us over for an afternoon of fun gaming, where Phil even got to try out Dixit for the first time. Then yesterday evening Utrecht had their go at BaRPiG when Rodger and the Subcultures gang hosted us during their get-together in an old cafe cellar on the old canal. We even ran into Sebastian from Spellenspektakel there as well!
Both times we came to meet yet another fellow game-industrial who we’re beginning to call a friend. Joost has recently launched his own Kickstarter, Hylaria, and after having played the game ourselves we can definitely vouch for a great little gaming gem! 
Plans this week? There may yet be another little blog, with yet another little reveal! I’m free the whole week to finalize receiving manufacturing quotes, and Phil and I have started building our Kickstarter page and the associated rewards structure. MJ’s working hard on the art, and again we’re so chuffed to have her on our team (
I’m still having trouble believing that I’m typing this blog now in November.
Yesterday I delivered the last stocks of packs to our always reliable and friendly retailers in Amsterdam. If you still want your limited edition Beta pack of BaRPG, which is your first access ticket to our Kickstarter at a massive discount, you’ll want to head over to either the 
We also owe a huge thanks to all of you, our dear BaRPG supporters, subscribers, customers, general voyeurists, and fans! Phil and I still can’t get over how welcoming and warm the world of gaming is, from our fellow gamers to our ‘competitors’ who have actually become more like mentors and friends. For both of us, this journey has been one of the most challenging and rewarding in both our lives. Who would’ve thought that could be the outcome of a night thinking up silly drinking puns?
This weekend has seen leaps and bounds in that department as well. We’re close to short listing our manufacturers, and we’re about to fill in our Kickstarter page as well. We’ve got the rewards structure worked out, and there are some neat extras in there that we need to square away first with third parties. We’re also finalizing work on our campaign stretch goals.
On the BaRPiG evolution side of things, 
It feels good to be at this point. Phil and I will definitely celebrate over the weekend, and bid a fond farewell to BaRPG which brought us this far. Before we close off this blog, a few facts and figures about BaRPG:
Our first sales were to our good friends Alena, Valery, and Madison on May 5th
The good news is that we’ve almost completely sold out of our original run of BaRPG. As of this post, we’re down to less than 20 packs and we still have final retail orders to fulfill before the holidays. The bad news is it’s almost time for us to move on from BaRPG. So if you want a pack of the original 200, it’s going to be first come first serve from here on out. Consider this your final warning. This is your last chance to get a rare piece of our process and also score yourself some benefits for our upcoming Kickstarter.
Now after taking in all that feedback, we are prepared to evolve our product once again. What started off as a collection of drunken puns sloppily recorded on a beer soaked notebook will soon find itself in full release via Kickstater. Not as BaRPG, but rather as BaRPiG, the adventure party game (bacon not included nor required). If you are wondering about the name, it’s a parody of how people would most commonly mispronounce BaRPG. We also happen to think pigs are very cute and occasionally delicious.
It was at Spellenspektakel at Eindhoven where we first got our chance to show the public BaRPiG in its prototype form. Though we were nervous to see how people would react to the change, we ended up being a huge success. In fact, our table was rarely empty and as the chaos continued, we at one point had people queuing for a chance to play. 
Though we may have only been one small table tucked in the faraway corner, we still were among the loudest and craziest games on the floor. Special shout-out to our table neighbors, Dictators who remained quite tolerant during our occasional disruptions. Oops.
By the end of the weekend we had sold more packs than we had brought, leading us to create a “back-log” email list for anyone at Spellenspektakel who was still interested in getting a pack. This by far has been our biggest success yet during any convention, and because of this, I can say that we’ve grown quite proud of the silly little game we created.
If you missed your chance to play BaRPiG at Spellenspektakel don’t fret, as we will be hosting more local events before we add the finishing touches to our game. There will also be more reviews coming, such as 
It always feels like the ‘quietest’ weeks are actually the busiest! This week was no exception.
One of the hardest parts of this process has been the marketing side of things. We want to be honest and forthcoming with our development, our roots. Yet until this week we’ve had trouble explaining what BaRPiG is in relation to BaRPG. This is probably one of the biggest tricks to anyone doing marketing; How do you convey the message, with it’s feeling, to your public?
Last Sunday Phil and I bashed it out on our white board. How do we pitch this change, what is the reason we’re doing it, why is this better, and how different is it really? What we came up with in the end makes us both really proud, and we’re going to test it out on the floor this weekend.
In many ways we’ve come to terms with the fact that we’ve always known what BaRPiG is, what we wanted from the game and why we developped it in the first place. It never was intended as just another drinking or bar game, it was always meant to be more. And now with our slight rules changes and tweaking of the characters, we finally have a version of our game that actually reflects what we aimed for in the first place. BaRPG was part of that journey.
Well, this was unexpected… After a stab in the dark at sending a message to local radio station 3FM here in the Netherlands, I got a phone call the next day from one of the afternoon show’s producers, Evert. They wanted to know what this whole BaRPG thing was about…
So, a little after 1pm, Tuesday 8th November, I found myself on live national radio with two of my favourite DJs, Timur and Ramon. Turns out that Timur is a bit of a tabletop game fan himself! As soon as they felt I was trying out a product pitch, they asked if I wanted to do an elevator pitch. Problem, our apartment doesn’t have an elevator.
What ensued was a good old Amsterdam-style stairwell pitch. In the space of about a minute, I had my chance to pitch BaRPG on the air. Talk about new experiences, challenging as it was it definitely helped, our website hits spiked and we suddenly got more orders in! (down to the last 40 now).