Sales report and the future

Earlier this month I posted a few of my games as PDF downloads on DriveThruRPG.

I am a bit curious about why Okult is considered to be 30 times more valuable on average than Until Dawn. My hypothesis is that it has to do with page count. To test this hypothesis I have enlisted to produce some artwork, and I have started revising the text. It will be interesting to see if the game is considered more valuable as the number of pages goes up.

Somewhere between the two falls The Daughters of Verona, valued at one third of Okult, but still ten times that of Until Dawn. And the page count is somewhere in between.

Looking at the scientific method of this study I am aware of a couple of weaknesses. There are other factors that set the games apart than just page count. But still, it will be interesting to see how a revised Until Dawn fares against the short and sweet version.

Pay what you want games on DriveThruRPG

While the bills-paying work has taken a lot of my time and effort this far this year, I haven’t left the game development stuff entirely.

I have done some minor edits on Until Dawn, tweaked the layout on The Phenomenon. Both games have then been posted on DriveThruRPG as Pay What You Want downloads.

While I was at it I also posted the Epimas edition of The Daughters of Verona, also as a PWYW download.

One journey ends. One journey starts.

To night i finally got an email from DriveThruRPG, Okult has been approved and published as a pay what you want PDF. And so a journey that started in December more than a year ago has come to an end. A game that started with a name and a couple of black and white photographs (page 33 and 35 in the book) is done and released.

It feels good. Sales are going a bit better than expected, and the last couple of months of a game design project always feel like a steep uphill climb in the rain. But my work is done, Okult is out there in the hands of players. And I’m standing at the top of the hill looking out over a landscape full of new game design projects.

For a couple of years I’ve had a nice set of illustrations done by Daniele Poma. Made for a game that got stuck in playtesting and never was released. I’m considering blowing the dust off the old notebooks and seeing what I do with it now. It’s been seven years since the first playtest, and now the niche of games set on boarding schools is a bit more crowded. But I still think it will be relevant.

The Academy casts the players as the students at a fantastical and dangerous boarding school. Over the years they form alliances, relationships and make enemies among the other students. A game somewhere on the intersection of Harry Potter, Ender’s Game and Before the Fall for four to six players. Where you play the events of several years in a single session, and see how your student grows from a child into an adult.

Okult is now for sale

I got the proofs from Lulu today, they look good so I have opened the store to the public.

For now only dead-tree books are available, but I’ll provide a way to buy PDFs in a week or so.

Epimas 2013

Epimas is here again, those of you who missed your chance of getting the print and play version of The Daughters of Verona last year have another chance this year. Chance in a very literal sense …

X-mas sale on The Daughters of Verona

I like X-mas, I like The Daughters of Verona and I want more people to play it with their friends and family during the holidays.

So I cut the price on the remaining copies over on IPR. It’s somewhat of a boutique game, if there’s such a thing, but at least there should be less of a threshold for those of you who have been sitting on the fence over the matter.

It is non-violent, rules light, engaging, beginner friendly and the story always ends well. It is the perfect game to introduce new players into the hobby.

Direct link to the sale on IPR

Okult is coming

The stars a aligning. The layout is completed. The proofreaders have done their part. Now all that remains is to make a proof print to check that everything actually works with the printer’s machinery.

Okult is coming and at least for the PDF-version will be available in time for X-mas. Things look a bit tight for the printed version, but all hope is not yet lost.

The game is 35 pages – well 36, but the printer uses the last page for their own purposes. It contains examples of play taken from actual playtests. There are 12 interior photographs, making Okult my most illustrated game yet.