I’m still having trouble believing that I’m typing this blog now in November.
Last night we sold our last pack of BaRPG online. The order came in just as I was finishing up some work at around 10:30pm. It took me a moment to realise the magnitude of this acheivement; We’ve sold 200 packs in 7 months, 18 days.
Quick side note, if you don’t want to miss out on our Kickstarter launch, head over to our website straight away and sign up to receive a one-time only e-mail alert when our Kickstarter goes live!
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 American Book Center Amsterdam, the GameKeeper, game shop Schaak & Go, or Waterstones Amsterdam. We owe these guys a lot in giving us faith in BaRPG, and we know they’re going to be onboard for our Kickstarter as well!
Our Print’n’Play is also still available on the website, and will continue to be so up until our Kickstarter launch. So if our retailers sell out, you can still print and play your own copy of BaRPG at home.
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?
Having sold out means our shift from BaRPG towards our BaRPiG Kickstarter has now completely transitioned. You’ll start to see changes on our marketing front as well, some larger than others. Phil and I will also pay more attention to continuously say ‘BaRPiG’, instead of the good old tongue-rolling ‘Barpg’.
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, this Sunday we’re joining the Amsterdice gaming group for their weekly get together, and the Monday after the good people at Subcultures gaming shop along with the Utrecht Speelt gaming group will get their chance to give BaRPiG a swing. We’ll be rebalancing the deck during these games, as well as trying a slight change to the level card. We’ll also be collecting e-mail addresses for our Kickstarter launch.
We’ll probably organise some more events leading up to our launch, each time with a more refined variation of BaRPiG (takes us back to BaRPG).
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- Our first online sale was to Canada on May 11th, and was one of our pre-orders
- Our first person-to-person sale was at Brouwerij ‘t Ij, also on May 11th
- On average, it took Johno 9 minutes to cut, fold, and stick 1 BaRPG box
- The furthest we’ve shipped BaRPG is to New Zealand
End of an era, beginning of the next!
Until then, keep questing you fine Barpigs!
~Johno
