Author: Phillip Melchers

We’ve both said this several times before, one of the most fun things in making BaRPG has been the incredible learning curve in game creation, development, and marketing. This week feels like yet another step into the deep n dirty world of marketing.

Things have not been sitting still in the world of BaRPG. Johno has managed to get in touch with a fun gaming community in Amsterdam, and during one of their Sunday get-togethers had a dry round with a couple of hard core gamers there. Not the best way to play BaRPG, but again the game stands up to it’s own. The next time we get a chance to hang out with that crowd again, we’ll make sure they’ll be drinks on the table. More on that shortly.

We’ve also got a deal with the American Book Center in Amsterdam (www.abc.nl), and they too now stock BaRPG for sale!

Phil is getting ready for his whirlwind weekend in Brugge and Gent. The plan is to get back in touch with St. Christopher’s hostel in Brugge to talk to them, show the game around, and then hit our very first gaming expo, Zomerspel (www.zomerspel.be) in Gent on Sunday. Our dear amazingly brilliant South African friend, Lee, will be helping him out (Work has got me chained up from helping out this time round).

And alongside all this we’re gearing up some of our own events to put on the calendar. We’re plotting a date down with Subcultures game shop in Utrecht, to join in their weekly Wednesday get together in Cafe Kopi Susu. Amsterdam Roest (down the street from us) will gracefully host a BaRPG night, penned in for Tuesday the 5th of July. And the boys at Rules of Play gameshop in Cardiff are happy to have us at their amazing Board Game night in the Urban Tap House. We’ll be selling packs at all events as well.

All events are up on our Facebook calendar (www.facebook.com/Barpgdrinkinggame/events).

What else have we been up to? Well, we now have two official Promo banners for BaRPG! MJ’s drawing looks absolutely beautiful at large scale. We got them to help out at Zomerspel, but will obviously use them at the coming events as well, so you’ll be able to find us easier! Next to that we’ve had a couple of fun rounds of BaRPG in the meantime. It seems like an eternity ago that Johno was part of the 7 player storm during the couch surfers meetup at Cafe Thijssen, which was an epic 3:30 hour game. He’s also been playing with work colleagues lately, the most recent example whilst waiting for the inbound aircraft at Cardiff saw one of his colleagues choose the giant red dragon statue in the terminal with which to seige a castle. She then described how she would ride it in and destroy the castle gates, Kalessi style. Epic. She won.

It’s been busy. It’s getting busier. We’re busy cutting and sticking ever more boxes. We’re receiving ever more orders from across the globe. We’re also pondering more and more what the best direction will be once we’ve gone through our initial 200 packs. It’s exciting and scary, kinda like those moments when you start free falling when sky diving (not that I really know what that’s like, I don’t really see the point in jumping out of the fully functional aircraft).

Expect an update from Sunday’s Zomerspel next!

Until then,
Keep questing you fine drunks

~Johno

Jonathan and I are both big fans of HBO’s comedy series: Silicon Valley. With its satirical insights into the tech industry and its cast of well crafted and hilarious characters, we can’t help but keep watching week after week. Lately though, as we continue to develop our novel entrepreneurial life, Silicon Valley has become incidentally a point of comparison for us.  Though our dramas are petty compared to the tech-world troubles the series is based around, there are still those few experiences that as developers we find all too recognizable.

For example, in a previous episode, “To Build a Better Beta,” (aired: June 5, 2016) the protagonists are seen anxiously waiting to launch their Beta. A similar feeling of excitement mixed with uncertainty came to us the first time we decided to begin selling our product.  I admit that when the time came I was all too comparable to the show’s main character Richard Hendricks (played by Thomas Middleditch) in feeling ill-prepared for a real launch. However, much like Richard by the end of the episode, it was the positive reviews from our peers that eventually helped push the project forward.

For the most part, finding these comparable moments gives us a positive feeling. Not only does it add a level of realism to the show but in turn it helps us find reassurance within our own business strategies. Still, in all episodes of the show, there is one thing we have yet to see. That feeling of, “What do we do now?”

For us, the line between fact and fiction becomes drawn in the unseen periods between each episode. Because the show is a serial, something new has to happen during each episode. For us, in watching the show, it gives us the illusion that a business develops speedily along a track of day to day plot developments. The reality is there seems to be a lot more waiting in developing a business; there seems to be a lot more patience required. I constantly feel I am always looking for the next green light ahead of me before moving to the next step. Sometimes this means waiting for that next email, or for the next Google Analytics spike. Other times it’s waiting for a meeting, or the next convention where we can demonstrate BaRPG. The fact is life would be far less frustrating if we had an editor, or at least some kind of fast forward button (Adam Sandler references aside).

 

In comparing ourselves to Silicon Valley, I feel like BaRPG is during that moment between episodes. We’ve sent some packs to game reviewers, we’re meticulously been hunting social media for meet ups and conventions and we’ve even been talking to some agencies about potentially finding a publisher. Still, for the most part I feel like we’re waiting and searching for that next green light, our next big step, our next bounding leap to lead us to our next stage of development. Is it Kickstarter? Is it finding a publisher? We don’t know because simply put, we too are waiting for the next episode.

 

Till then, keep questing you fine drunks!

Phil and Johno

 

t’s been a very busy week for us. Very busy. We’ve gone full swing into touring town and getting BaRPG out there. We’ve attended one event, and signed up for a gaming convention down in Gent on the 26th of June! It’s still a learning curve, but it keeps getting clear where we should be focusing our efforts.

BaRPG continues to sell! Our latest order came all the way from New Zealand! It’s strange, sending a package off to a corner of the world I haven’t seen yet. Part of my Australian genetics forbids it you see ;-). I know we’ll be going there one day, and honestly I can’t wait.

We’ve also got BaRPG stocked in two gaming stores in town as well! Both The Gamekeeper (Hartenstraat 14) and Schaak & Go (Haarlemmerdijk 173) have chosen to give us a go, and we’re very happy to have such good contact with two retailers in our own backyard! We’re eager to see how it goes, and
will be checking in with them in a few weeks.

Meanwhile Phil has been busy stalking tens… hundreds of game reviewers online. We’ve registered a twitter account (yup! @BaRPG_Game), and it’s been incredible how we’ve been building a following and attention for BaRPG in just a few days since! We might even get a review from one blogger very shortly!

Events wise, as mentioned above Phil will be heading down to Gent on the 26th of June to attend the ZomerSpel convention. They’ve got a special area for game developers to showcase their creations, and BaRPG has got a 4 hour slot in which to show off a little mayhem! Our dear friend Lee will be joining him, I’ve got KLM passengers to deliver on four different flights that day (unfortunately??).

We’ve also started to get ourselves onto the Amsterdam event calendar. So far the American Book Center would like to see us join them when they plan a mid-summer gaming event. And we’ve planned our own Tabletop Gaming Night with Couchsurfing.com at Cafe Thijssen next Wednesday, 8th June. The cafe has a cupboard full of games, and we will be bringing a few of our own, but also of-course, BaRPG.

Where do you find all our events? Well, we still need to plug a calendar into the site, but the best place to find all this for now is definitely our Facebook page. When we get a calendar up here, you will be the first to know. Especially if you Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.
Back-end business wise, besides the insane need to start seriously mass-cutting and folding more boxes for the upcoming sales rush, we’ve also been in touchwith a gaming agency based in Vienna; fruits of our labour during our trip. We can’t say much about this at the moment, but they’re a helpful bunch who are interested in helping us get BaRPG actually published! Very exciting stuff, even though reading through an initial contract did give us a bit of a legal-headache!

So that’s it for now. If you’re in town, join our gaming night on the 8th! If you’re near Gent on the 26th, come visit Phil and give him and Lee a hard time down there! And if you’re playing BaRPG this weekend, please take photos and tell us about it! Share your stories with us, cause we love to hear about them!

So until then, keep questing you fine drunks!

~Johno

I’m gonna sound like a broken record. Doing this has proven to be one of the toughest, but most fun learning curves Phil and I have ever come across. I’m sure there are business school degrees for this stuff, but we bravely (read mistakingly?) choose the path of trial and error. And it’s still fun.

I don’t think I could have hoped for a better partner in crime in this endeavor, we managed to feel the same way about our business choices, and we both are flexible enough to change tack where it seems fit. The best example of this has to have been our road trip these past two weeks, where we began to crystalise our marketing strategy for BaRPG.

When we left for Cologne that Thursday afternoon, we had brushed up our business plan a little, with the clear intent to sell person-to-person. That seemed obvious, it was the best way to showcase our product and engage our target audience to learn from them. What play testing and meeting people in the two weeks since then has taught us is that yes, this aspect is incredibly valuable in learning how to market for those people.

Selling to those people however is a completely different ballgame. Affiliation is a clear power ball when it comes to people making that step over into buying a copy of BaRPG. And that makes sense, it gives the validation from an established business you’re already engaging in. What do I exactly mean here? Well, think about it for a second. If you didn’t know about us at all, would you be more likely to buy a pack from two randos who wanna play a drinking game with you, or would you buy a pack if the randos said they were here on behalf of the bar, that’s working with them, and the bar believes in your product enough to buy a couple of packs, oh and by the way you can get a pack directly from them at the bar?

This applies for EVERYWHERE BaRPG is gonna be played; Hostels, Bars, Bar Crawls, Gaming Cafes and Game Shops. So this is kinda where we’re changing our tact somewhat, and approaching these places head on; firstly to see if we can tag along to any of their events, secondly to see if they’re willing to stock us in store. We’d expect that if step 1 works out, step 2 would be a natural progression for them, as we’ve proven ourselves. What we keep finding though is some places are willing to give step 2 a chance before step 1 even happens, which is great! It just makes us a little nervous if we’ve managed our packaging right. So much to learn, so much fun learning!

In the meantime we’re still going strong doing demo-plays at various locations in town. We’re also building an events agenda where we will be playing BaRPG, and after a quick meeting a Cafe 2 Klavertjes today it looks like we’ll be there on their Tuesday night gaming event at around 19:00. The other big thing that looks like it’ll enter the calendar is a convention at the end of June in Gent, Belgium. More here once we know for sure if we can go or not! It’s also the most fun in this whole project, actually playing the game, watching people get stuck into it and have a good time! I guess in the end that’s the reason why we believe so strongly in BaRPG, and why we’re pushing on through to bring something brilliant like this to the world.

You’ll hear from us soon when we have our coming events plotted out. Shout out to Cardiff, you may be hearing from us next Friday/Saturday too!

Until then, keep questing you fine drunks!

~Johno

We began our adventures in Vienna at The Travel Shack, a place that was recommended to us by Isaac from the Clock Tower Pub Crawl in Prague and coincidentally the work place of a friend and previous play tester, James. For us, it seemed that all roads lead to The Travel Shack, and rightfully so, as Frans, the bar owner, was kind enough to immediately buy 5 decks from us before leaving for an AC/DC concert later that night.

Before the bar got too busy, we began the night with a few rounds of BaRPG with James and his work colleagues. What started as a quick 4 player game grew to a 7 player full hour mayhem fest. The bar picked up quickly after that and soon we found ourselves surrounded by a full out party. I wont spoil anything but trust me, The Travel Shack isn’t as small as it seems (it’s full of pleasant surprises). One of which, as I experienced, was a true slap to the face. If your confused by that previous statement then I recommend you go there and order a “Chuck Norris” from the bar.

 

I’m not sure at what time we eventually got to bed. There was something that night about grilled sausage and an older Austrian man, who I remember as being nice, but without any idea as to why. That being said, the next morning was rough for us and so we spent most of the day on foot exploring beautiful Vienna before eventually passing out in a park.

Once we were done with our nap it became time to start showcasing BaRPG again. First we played a game with our friend Dani who was visiting us from the Czech Republic. After that, we brought the game to Brot & Spiel: a gaming cafe and bar. It is here that we met the bartender, Andreas, who happened to also work for a company that helps game developers meet publishers. What surmounted from this little surprise was an overall positive experience that resulted in a sharing of business cards, a purchase of a deck, and a sincere promise to keep in touch.

We ended the night with Sushi, followed later by some rounds of BaRPG in some bar on the Donau Canal (Or as Phil likes to pronounce it: Durum Canal).

 

Currently we are on the road back to Germany, this time headed to Munich. This will be our last stop during our trip before Johno and I make the long haul back to Amsterdam. Already in the distance I can see the famous Alps. In seeing them, I can’t help but feel excited as we drive on, closer and closer to the mountains…Closer and closer to the end of our journey.

Till Then Keep Questing You Fine Drunks,

-Phil and Johno

I would never think that I would ever know what it’s like to feel like a kind of underground style, dingy pub to dive bar, rocking-late-in-the-night rockster. But as we came in from Berlin, feeling exhausted from our less than stellar time there, Prague would give ourselves an adventure comparable to the earlier trial years of The Who, Rolling Stones, and perhaps even The Beatles. Yes, even they had to start somewhere…

 

It started with a chance encounter with a random arcade bar located somewhere in a dirty cellar beneath Prague. We were attracted to the place when my eye happened to see it advertised as a game bar. The place ended up being more arcade than tabletop, and was still quiet before peak hours. However, of the few other patrons there, all who crowded a foosball table, we ran into Gino, who happened to be part of a pub crawl (Clock Tower Pub Crawl). After discussing BaRPG, Gino kindly offered us the opportunity to later introduce us to his boss: Isaac.

I’m hesitant to describe what exactly Isaac was like at the chance that he may end up reading this blog post. What I’ll say, in a few words, is that he definitely was The Boss: cooler than cool, a witty quipster who would best be played by a slightly more charismatic Jeff Bridges.

The pub crawl he ran was headquartered deep inside an old, deeply subterranean Wine Cellar, similar to most bars in Prague. Surrounded by old, moist stones, this borough contained a number of handmade bars, each constructed from pallet wood boards. The place reminded me of images of punk bars from the golden years, minus the masses of screaming youth…that would come later. It is here that we would be given a venue for the night. I have to admit that it’s grimey appeal and broken aesthetic presented all the right vibes for a great adventure.

 

After taking some time to explore Prague, we returned the next evening and began setting up. Eagerly we awaited for the first round of Pub Crawlers, in this case, a group of German students. As friendly and engaging as these students were, ultimately language was a challenge. Still, we managed to play several rounds of BaRPG, enough to show them what we were about.  Ultimately, the reaction to the game was positive.

During that night, we managed to sell 2 packs. We have gained some great exposure and met a valuable asset towards BaRPG’s future goals.  I imagine a close future between Clock Tower Pub Crawl and BaRPG.
Now we are in Vienna, after just having visited Bratislava. For the night we will be set up at Travel Shack under Isaac’s recommendation. It looks like it’s going to be another wild night…

First of all, thank you so much for those who have already sent in payments. For you, we’re happy to report that we have already sent you a limited edition beta deck. As for those remainders who have pre-ordered but have not yet sent in payments, then we’re going to have to postpone sending any more decks until the end of the month. This is because we are beginning our ten day European Road Tour!!. You may still send in payments if you like, but just know we will be out of office (our living room) until the end of May. If you haven’t made an order yet, then please do so. It’s the only way we can ensure you a limited edition BaRPG beta deck. Who knows, with any luck, we might sell out while on tour!

 

Speaking of touring Europe, for those interested we now have a tentative travel plan:

Thursday, May 12th:

Germany, Cologne- 10:00 p.m at MEININGER

Friday, May 13^th – Sunday 15^th

Germany, Berlin

Sunday, May 15^th– Monday, May 17^th

Czech Republic, Prague

Tuesday, May 18^th- Wednesday, May 19^th

Slovakia, Bratislava

(Budapest?)

Thursday, May 20^th-Friday, May 21^st

Austria, Vienna

Saturday, May 22^nd  

Austria, Salzburg

Sunday, May 23^rd

Germany, Munich

Monday, May 24th

(Begin trek home!) – Heidelberg castle?

Tuesday, May 25^th

Amsterdam recovery day!

 

Till then,

Keep Questing You Fine Drunks

When it comes to arts and crafts I am not the kind of person who has patience or precision. Growing up, I’ve never been good at colouring between the lines and given enough time I could most likely find a way to accidentally lob off an appendage with the dullest of safety scissors. So when Johno came up with the idea of doing all 200 deck boxes by hand, I was a little more than just apprehensive.

Still, what was our alternative? With the printing company asking for more than what was originally offered (apparently they forgot to include the actually cutting costs) it was either we do it by hand or risk having to raise the price of the entire game. In wanting to keep cost as low as possible, we went ahead and ordered 200 uncut, unfolded deck boxes. Well, looks like arts and crafts and I were going to have make-up real fast.

 

To help with this task we managed to recruit a group of our friends.  Our first recruitment drive took place during a dinner party which we hijacked into a box folding party. During this event, we were only about one deck box in before I managed to slice my finger with an X-Acto knife. Okay, so maybe I work best in management positions after all…

Luckily, Johno is a machine when it comes to this kind of work, and if he can cut them, and another friend can fold them, and if I only need to stick the sticky bits, well then, we’ve got some production! Looks like this major task won’t be so difficult after all. Still, we only have less than a week before its go time.

 

On top of this, we’ve had other setbacks as well. After sorting through our cards, we found errors in 33% of our decks.  This meant that we had to go through all 1000+ cards and re-organize them to the best of our ability. Luckily, after the first 20 decks you eventually get a system, and then, in terms of brain power, its robot work from there.

Although, sorting through the cards was certainly a headache, we managed to fix this problem over the course of one evening and an entire afternoon. When we finished the task, both our brains were pretty frazzled, and so we spent the rest of the day going for a walk (training for the 4dagse).

Unfortunately this sorting time stole from our folding time, and so we feel like we may be a bit behind production schedule. Luckily we have enough cards sorted and deck boxes folded that we can still complete our current mailing orders and then some. So please(!!) order your deck now because we are actually ready to start sending some out.

 

Till then, we’ll be making deck boxes like mad men,

But really…

…Keep Questing You Fine Drunks.

Phil & Johno

There’s only so much planning anyone can successfully do without running into error. At least, that’s been in the back of my mind since sending off the designs to the printer for our boxes.

Did we miss something in the dimensions? Is there gonna be enough space inside the boxes? Will they fold closed OK? Will they fold easily?

The moment of truth arrived today.

 

First thing we did, was pull out the arts and crafts supplies, and started cutting, folding and sticking.

 

Granted for this VERY FIRST box of BarPG, we’re using normal tape. We’re too eager to head out to the arts supply store just yet, we want to see if the final box works with the contents and all. So for now it’s still gonna look a little bit rougher than when we’ll use double-sided tape and such.

 

After a bit of reworking a few tabs here and there, seeing where the trouble spots are, we finally had our VERY FIRST OFFICIAL BaRPG BETA BOX READY!!! This is so exciting!!! And thankfully, it all fits beautifully!

 

Tonight we’re gonna be at a friend’s place for dinner with some of our fellow initial testers. They’re happy to lend a hand in getting the first couple of boxes folded and stuck. Sunday next is gonna be our next big “Boxing Party”, soon to be officially announced. The business cards arrive tommorow afternoon, so it’s looking like shipping for pre-orders will happen Monday next week already!

 

If you have sent in your details for a pre-order, we’ll get back to you to finalize your details and sort out shipping either by or during the weekend. If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, DO SO NOW! We’re amazed at how fast this thing is running, and this will be the only way to ensure you get yourself a pack before the first 200 limited edition betas run out!

Tommorow we’ll share the progress with the first few boxes so far. This is really exciting guys, we’re scarily close to putting this on the market.

Until then,
Keep questing you fine drunks!

~Johno

 

As if designing a card game was hard enough, getting the boxes together is a whole different ball game.

 

We’ve been in touch with several packaging printers for a couple of months now, and gotten a truckload of quotes in. What we keep running into is the cost gets very high in each case. This all comes down to the fact that we’re designing a card game that’s not a standard size. We decided to do this to improve legibility of the cards, but it means we also need a custom sized box. And every custom designed box comes needs a specially designed cutting tool, a one-off cost that hikes up the total order price for just 200 boxes. If we were making 2,000 boxes, the unit price would drop significantly, back into the realm of our asking price for the game. At 200 only, it just can’t be done.

So, does this mean no box? No my friends! It means Phil and Johno just get more creative! We’re gonna be designing our own box, and the way things are looking we’re gonna get it printed at the same place as the cards. Then with the help of several close friends here in Amsterdam (with the promise of booze and food), 200 boxes shall arise from a one-night cottage-industry production line. Quality is going to be paramount here, so we’re getting the trusty guillotine out alongside lots of nifty tricks we’ve picked up along the way. It’s not a definite decision yet, but it’s looking more and more likely.

As for the box itself? Our time with my parents gave us a bit of a break to really focus on how we want it to look. It took a little while, but we finally had the artwork we thought would look good, so we stuck it on a basic box design, printed it out (on a printer that only had magenta and black ink left, figures the colors), and had a good long look at it.

Nice, definately heading in the right direction. Now for the design of the box itself. Since our stack of cards is ‘higher’ than the space required for the included dice, it rules out using the standard ‘playing cards’ box. The cards sticking out above the dice could slide loose and push the flap open. A two-piece box won’t do either, we don’t want people fiddling around with a lid and a bottom in the pub. It needs to stay portable and small.

Then the inspiration came to us in form of a cigarette packet. It seemed to do the trick, and made sense. Hard-core gamers will know the Magic deck boxes out there. Perfect! A quick search on the interweb found a net diagram for a flip-top box, which I got stuck into with my crazy geometry.

With the design ready to go, Phil used his word-smithing prowess on the descriptions on the packaging. The design was finally reaching something we were happy with. It was time for another prototype test. The net-diagram is slightly larger than an A4, so a bit of realigning was necessary to get most of the important bits on a page that could be cut, folded, and stuck together. But it worked. We had our flip-top box prototype Mark I!

The prototype presented only one slight problem. My calculations took things a little bit too royally, and with the side of the top exposed we could clearly see the room for the dice atop the cards resembled more of a dice palace than a cozy little cave. Too much room for the dice to bump around.

So now I’m finishing the rework on the design again, adjusting the sizes, getting a PDF file ready. I’m away at work for a few days, but I will have the chance to find a printer at work sometime tommorow, and will give another whack at the new prototype, Mark II

Also since we’ve come back home in the meantime, we’ve had an extra aid in doing all this work; we have our hands on our new cards now! It makes it so much easier when testing the box sizes, as now we can put the actual cards into the box to see how they fit. Since we promised you guys a bit more eye candy on those cards, here are a few snaps of the cards. They look absolutely gorgeous!

 

So, more news on the box to come this week. It should take only a day or two for those to be printed and arrive at our humble domain. When they do, we’ll give you the latest.

Until then,
Keep questing you fine drunks!

~Johno
=)