Well, not really. It might look that way, but it’s actually been another hectic week behind the scenes. On top of all that, we’re also organising our annual Halloween bash with our friends (you should see the living room right now, oh wait, here’s a picture). It’s something we do every year, and this year it’s going to ring out the last major party from us until our Kickstarter launch next year March.
Yes you read that right, March 2017 is turning from pencil into ink on our calendars. We have plans for the exact dates, but until we’re 100% sure about pegging them down, we’re going to keep those cards close to our chest.
It does mean a lot of our work has shifted from BaRPG towards the Kickstarter launch of BaRPG… which will be called something else. If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll probably have seen the direction we’re heading towards. Don’t worry though, it’s still the same BaRPG game you know and love, only we’ve managed to make it even better! So many changes, we’re so excited about! I wish I could share more here but that would take the thunder out of our Kickstarter launch.
Needless to say, if you do wanna know more, come to our events. Like last Thursday at Roest, where our little get together was a fun collection of old and new faces. We had a small enough group to try out the Kickstarter edition, making on the spot changes to the game play rules, the character cards, and even some items. 4 games later, we had something which worked a treat!
I’m busy in the meantime getting in touch with game manufacturers worldwide, gathering quotes, information, and some great advice towards printing 1st ed. We actually met up with 3 of them at Spiel, and that was actually good to talk one on one, bouncing ideas back and forth, better understanding what they can do and them understanding what we’re aiming for. Those guys are working the numbers for us, and with a few already in it’s also up to me as “the numbers guy” (Phil’s quote) to figure out the financials for the Kickstarter campaign.
We’re selling the last 50 packs (soon to be 49) fast as well, and again like we’ve said so many times, those packs are going to be your ticket to a real big ‘THANK YOU” from us when we launch at Kickstarter. We’re working out the finer details to that, but rest assured it’ll be a great deal for the initial 200 supporters of BaRPG.
As for upcoming events? We’re stoked to be at Spellenspektakel in Eindhoven on November 12 and 13th. Not only will we have a great chance to show off our game amongst the Indie tables, but they’ve also asked us to introduce the game in their ‘preview bar’, on camera! Very exciting stuff, and I’m sure we’re gonna make one helluva splash in Eindhoven.
So yeah, not really all that quiet. Just not as loud as always 😉
Until then, keep questing you fine drunks!
~Johno
Many might not know the full story of BaRPG beyond what we’ve shared on this website. Our steps from initial pub-crawl joke, to continual testing and development with our friends, up until our initial 200 beta pack run of the game has seen us playing hundreds of games of BaRPG now.
Getting to this point has been a lot of hard work, but I would be lying if I said developing a drinking game hasn’t been fun. One of those moments was back in the cold dark days of early January this year, when Phil’s best mate Ben and his friend Matt came to visit us as part of their Eurotrip. We took them to Brugge, and whilst playing the night away at St. Christopher’s hostel’s bar (along with now BaRPG-, and our friend Iris who works there), we introduced them to the game. At the time Phil and I were still bumbling along the idea of whether or not we should publish the game. It was after this night when Ben and Matt convinced us that BaRPG deserves to go to Kickstarter.
Cheers!
Drmunk (Ben) ‘blesses’ the dice
Phil has to ‘charm’ Ben… 1 hours into game
Ben: “Drink and f***** die”
First, we’ve been looking up quotes to produce our next edition for Kickstarter, which will be a much larger quantity than our initial 200 packs. We’re thinking somewhere between 3000-5000 to get us started! We’ve got quotes running from several different producers, and are looking at our production options. Bear in mind there are several steps to this; card printing, box manufacture, pack assembly, quality sealing… we haven’t started on fulfillment yet! It’s exciting, and I’m personally glad we’re nailing these details down now.
On the other side of things, we’re finally starting to collate the feedback we received from our players. Our thinking caps went back on, and we did something we haven’t done in a long time: thought up (new) characters! It was serious fun, and a lot easier than the first time we endeavored on this adventure. We’ll call that progress, folks!
What we ended up with is a whole list of 7 extra characters to juggle around with. Because of this we’ve decided that our First Edition on Kickstarter will have a slightly different character line-up (2 will be replaced to be precise) and one item card type less. Those other characters and item cards? Those will be offered as a (game changers) expansion pack , which will be one of our first stretch goals for the campaign. Disclaimer; This isn’t final yet, but a very good chance this is the way we’re gonna head.
Curious about the new characters? Best way to find out is to catch us up at one of our upcoming events! Listings are always on our 
As some of you have already seen our 
We kicked off at 1pm, and after a quick photo shoot with some of the ROEST waitresses (done up like Bavarian Beer servers – 1 litre beers and all), we headed into the outdoors area of Roest, where we found our first group of eager players. For this first round, we saw the longest Drmunk dash ever to date, 150 meters across a city beach to an obsolete blue shipping crane – a relic of Amsterdam’s industrial past. Quote of that game was Michael shouting “Yeah bitches you like that?” Just goes to show you, in our game, revenge is a dish best served intoxicated.
Inside was a party too loud to play, so we stayed outdoors for the afternoon, playing another 4 games. We saw hilarious Brewid chains, witnessed some class act Pintcess charming (best one goes to Paul, who was royally rejected. Caught that one on video, watch this space!), and voted on dozens of Witches. All the while the beer mugs kept draining.
The costumes were successful in grabbing attention. We had augmented them with BaRPG which grabbed some notice during the final hours of the evening when playtime made way for dancing. Continually we were asked about this ‘adventure drinking game’ by people passing by. Turns out guys dressed as Subway sandwiches does bring home the bread!
Our next big event is at TonTon Club on Sunday October 2nd. We’re going to be in costumes again, hopefully along with translation cheat sheets for the Dutch, and with plenty of BaRPG posters and taglines.
This week has been a great building up for the busy months ahead. We joined in the Vrij Universiteit’s freshmen intro gaming night at Roest, and had some epic games of BaRPG. It turns out Uni students especially love the evil facets of the Brewid, as we saw the longest 150m dash to the DJ booth ever! Similarly there was an epic PaleAledin non-witch argument given by Abdul, “I’m so sad, I want to be a witch! But Hogwarts won’t even take me! So I can’t be a witch, and I’m really disappointed.”
Three games and 2 and a half hours later, the hall turned into a major party zone, and our time there with BaRPG was over. We sold packs, got people interested, and even made a new RPG friend! What a great night! Thanks again to Megan and Carly from the VU for having us, and also thanks to Bea at Roest for suggesting us to them.
On the other side of things, our behind-the-scenes work has finally borne fruit. After much deliberation and work on the giant BaRPG board (on our kitchen cupboards), we finally came up with our advertising tagline for Facebook; “The New Pick-Up and Play Drinking Game taking North America by Storm. Play for Shots and Giggles… Anywhere with your Friends.” Proud? Damn right we are! And since 8pm last night this ad with various photos is making it’s way through the Facebook news feeds of American and Canadian gaming enthusiasts… Yes, we’ve joined the evil league of commercial social media users.
OK, enough marketing for now (he says whilst writing a development blog, lol). We’re going to start looking at the final changes for first edition, and for if we hit Kickstarter, also where and how we can produce the cards, expedite them, etc. It’s a big, big, big list. All along we’re going to be checking how our Facebook ads are doing and adjusting them as necessary.
It’s here Ladies and Gents! Our Print’n’Play edition. Yes, we’ve stuck with the fisher-price toy name, but we like the ring it has to it. After much hard work getting the PDF files ready, the email to download page set up, and the download link email automation set up (lost of dusting off the old HTML guides there), we’ve now launched our dedicated part of the site for the Print’n’Play edition. 
I did mention 2 events, and I kinda lied. We’ve got a third one coming up beginning next week, but it’s actually a private do! The Vrij Universiteit is having their new students welcoming event at ROEST that night, and we’ve been invited again to come and help ‘break the ice’, or siege the castle if you like. Super duper chuffed we’ve been asked to help out for this, and we honestly can’t wait.