We like itch.io. As an indie publisher, it’s a welcome use of easy point-and-click tools to create a customized webstore that (in our near future) can be embedded right on your site. That’s why we’re happy to launch our BRG Summer Sale from now until July 1st, 2019.
Who says poker and LARPs don’t go together?
Today’s the day! Our 4th Kickstarter campaign went live early this morning and The Deal is ready to place your bets. As our very first live-action roleplaying game, this game quickly proved to be more than a simple idea that deserved a little extra attention that only Kickstarter can provide.
If you haven’t heard of the premise yet, think of a stage production if written by Quentin Tarantino. The Deal is about four strangers at a high-stakes poker game as they discover one of them is blackmailing the others. By combining the game with regular poker cards, this game can be played seamlessly at a table for larp-ers both new and familiar. We’re really excited about this game and hope you’ll take a moment to check it out. (Plus it’ll be the cheapest way to buy a copy as the price will increase between 20%-30% when the final version is released on DriveThruCards.
Check out The Deal right here on brokenrulergames.net and learn about other games in the Fragments line. And, of course, you can find The Deal on Kickstarter until June 17th.
The button has been clicked and The Deal‘s Kickstarter page is currently under review. It won’t be long now until our third Kickstarter campaign is under way. Oh yeah, in case we never mentioned it before… we’re doing a Kickstarter for a larp!
The Deal is a live-action roleplaying game of poker where you play one of four characters caught up in a web of blackmail, deception, and confrontation during a high-stakes game of poker. Playtested at BreakoutCon in Toronto this past year, this Kickstarter will have a small goal of $600 CDN within 21 days and you can back this game for as little as $1 with the biggest stretch goal just a mere $20 to unlock The Loaded Deck, a complete deck of standard playing cards in the same design as the game’s cards that creates a more advanced level of play. (The Loaded Deck will be exclusive to the Kickstarter, btw!) When published, it will be sold through DriveThruCards and all cards are designed to work with existing poker decks to create a seamless and immersive experience. In other words… it’s really fucking fun. (Oh yes, there’s lots of content warnings and this game is intended for mature players.)
You can check out a preview of The Deal on Kickstarter before it officially launches or learn more about the game in our Fragments line. And remember to talk about this game with #PokerLarpIsAThing
UPDATE: The date has been set! The Deal will launch on Tuesday, May 28th and run for 21 days.
Yes, Happy #DinosaurDay, everyone! As museums, libraries, and teachers who actually know their way around social media are sharing some of the exciting discoveries made in palaeontology, we wanted to take a moment to announce our next big project. It’s quite different and more ambitious than anything we’ve done before.
In the coming weeks, we will be releasing a free public playtest for our upcoming family RPG, Dinosaur Project. Designed using a simplified version of the GUMSHOE system, you are a team of dinosaur scientists from a future where their prehistoric ancestors were never wiped out. Using your imaginations, features, skills, tools, and your field of study at Mesozoic University (as well as a time machine, of course), you’ll journey back to the age of the dinosaurs and report back with your findings. Along the way, your scientists will learn something about themselves and discover how they can learn from the past.
Designed by Todd Crapper and Chelsea Hamilton, Dinosaur Project: The Gobi Expedition will soon be available for everyone to playtest until September 30, 2019. By year’s end, we’re also hoping to launch a Kickstarter to fund a boxed set for the Dinosaur Project RPG, including 10 pre-written expeditions and a collection of dinosaur and scientist cards to create a variety of characters. Over the coming months leading up to our Kickstarter, we’ll be sharing some of the mechanics and cool facts we’ve discovered about these amazing creatures.
You can read more about it on our freshly excavated Dinosaur Project page.
When 2019 started, The Deal‘s mechanics were under review and things were moving forward with it as our third Fragments game originally due to release around this time. Yet after a very successful game at BreakoutCon in Toronto this past March, the decision has been made to go all-in.
Today, we’re pleased to announce The Deal: A Live-Action Roleplaying Game of Poker will be going to Kickstarter this Spring. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more details on this project and everyone’s invited to check out our webpage for The Deal as well as catch a preview for the Kickstarter page.
What is The Deal? It’s a live-action roleplaying game (or a “larp,” as the cool kids call it) where four players take on the role of strangers gathered together for a high stakes game of poker. As they actually play poker, special cards known as Twists & Turns introduce plot twists as the strangers discover one of them is blackmailing the others. Nothing will remain the same when this game is done as the strangers discover some of the deepest, darkest secrets even their loved ones don’t know.
Go, go go! From today (Thomas Crapper Day) until February 3rd, all Broken Ruler Games’ products listed on DriveThruRPG and their affiliate sites are 50% off for all PDFs and 25% off for a print copies. It’s the most comprehensive and heavily discounted sale we’ve ever done and just like so many other big sales based on holidays, it has absolute nothing to do with its namesake date.
Well, maybe there is a connection to…. nah, that’s a stretch. What are the odds BRG’s owner & publisher is related? There’s gotta be a lot of Crappers in the UK. That’s like their version of Smith, right?
We’d also love it if everyone reading this shared it on their own preferred social media channels and feel free to get creative with it. Play up on the family name with tweets like, “Don’t flush your money away!” Or “Broken Ruler Games has wiped their prices down to 50%.”
Just click here to visit our DriveThruRPG page before February 3rd.
(Please note DriveThruRPG’s sites will be down on Monday, January 28th for site wide maintenance so we’re making what’s called a “soft launch” for this sale today. Once the site is back up and running again on Tuesday, we’ll be making a bigger push.)
Hello again, Broken Ones. What’s this? Two new posts in a single week. Since we’re not launching anything new this month, you might be wondering what kind of madness this is. Fear not, for this is but another chapter in my ongoing tradition of sharing our sales results for the year. Why? To help those who are also trying to break into the industry or simply want to feel better (or worse?) about their own results.
For those of you interested in the inner workings of indie RPG publishing, it’s time for another instalment of Measuring Success, my ongoing financial presentations for Broken Ruler Games. Rather than go quarterly or bi-annually, I’ve decided to keep things simple and go with annual presentations for the near future due to my very busy workload. And because of that very busy workload and in the interest of expanding on the meaning behind the numbers, I’ve decided to forego most of the writing for this year’s presentation and instead record my take on 2018’s results.
So here goes. Below are the Broken Ruler Games sales results for 2018, including quantities sold by product type, gross and net sales.
| PRODUCT | SALES | GROSS $ | NET $ |
| Killshot: The Director’s Cut | 40 | $223.39 | $138.26 |
| 39 | $203.40 | $132.21 | |
| Hardcover B&W | 0 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Hardcover B&W + PDF | 1 | $19.99 | $6.05 |
| Killshot: An Assassin’s Journal | 9 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| 9 | $0.00 | $0.00 | |
| Softcover B&W | 0 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Killshot: Direction | 1 | $5.00 | $3.25 |
| 1 | $5.00 | $3.25 | |
| Softcover B&W | 0 | ||
| Killshot Files #0 | 36 | $3.95 | $2.57 |
| 36 | $3.95 | $2.57 | |
| Killshot Files #1 | 12 | $22.91 | $14.89 |
| 12 | $22.91 | $14.89 | |
| Killshot Files #2 | 11 | $36.27 | $23.58 |
| 11 | $36.27 | $23.58 | |
| Ironbound | 138 | $1.40 | $0.91 |
| PDF (PWYW) | 65 | $1.40 | $0.91 |
| Blessed and the Damned | 73 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| ScreenPlay | 643 | $138.84 | $77.06 |
| 639 | $103.60 | $67.34 | |
| Softcover POD | 4 | $35.24 | $9.72 |
| Dial M for Monster | 626 | $21.90 | $14.24 |
| 626 | $21.90 | $14.24 | |
| Softcover POD | 0 | ||
| Fragments | 619 | $57.00 | $37.05 |
| Duel (PDF) | 619 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| By The General’s Hand (PDF) | 38 | $57.00 | $37.05 |
| High Plains Samurai: Legends | 1800 | $91.50 | $22.56 |
| 1793 | $0.00 | $0.00 | |
| Softcover B&W | 4 | $39.41 | $10.33 |
| Softcover CMYK | 3 | $52.09 | $12.23 |
| High Plains Samurai RPG | 34 | $435.00 | $273.29 |
| 31 | $330.00 | $214.50 | |
| Softcover B&W | 3 | $105.00 | $58.79 |
| TOTAL | 3980 | $1,073.43 | $631.24 |
| Killshot Directors Kit (Bundle) | 9 | ||
| The Ultimate ScreenPlay Bundle | 9 | ||
| IPR Sales | $276.01 | ||
| IGDN Convention Sales | $315.85 | ||
| TOTAL | $591.86 | ||
| ALL SALES COMBINED 2018 | $1,223.10 |
It’s important to note we participated in two charity bundles this year (the Puerto Rico Charity Bundle and ConTessa), which skews the sales to dollars ratio as we obviously didn’t actually make any money off those products.
And here is BRG’s overall results since I launched this company in 2012 with the past three years provided in detail. The total includes everything since day one.
| PRODUCT | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2018 | TOTAL |
| Killshot: The Director’s Cut | $140.08 | $75.42 | $138.26 | $1,688.43 |
| Killshot: An Assassin’s Journal | $5.95 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $22.64 |
| Killshot: Direction | $4.18 | $0.00 | $3.25 | $20.43 |
| Killshot Files #0 | $3.98 | $2.90 | $2.97 | $9.85 |
| Killshot Files #1 | $11.67 | $4.81 | $14.89 | $112.85 |
| Killshot Files #2 | $33.47 | $12.27 | $23.58 | $130.21 |
| ScreenPlay: The Rehearsal Edition | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Ironbound | $37.72 | $5.25 | $0.91 | $43.88 |
| ScreenPlay | $260.01 | $111.44 | $77.06 | $448.51 |
| Dial M for Monster | $0.00 | $40.08 | $14.24 | $54.32 |
| High Plains Samurai | $0.00 | $0.00 | $295.85 | $295.85 |
| Fragments | $0.00 | $0.00 | $37.05 | $37.05 |
| Killshot Directors Kit (Bundle) | ||||
| TOTAL | $497.06 | $252.17 | $608.06 | $2,864.02 |
Those annual totals have been divided up to showcase how they accounted for the overall percentage of BRG’s product lines and total earnings. For example, the total sales for Killshot equaled 8.19% of its overall earnings since the product was launched.
| PRODUCT | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2018 |
| Killshot | 8.30% | 4.47% | 8.19% |
| ScreenPlay | 57.97% | 24.85% | 17.18% |
| Ironbound | 85.96% | 11.96% | 2.07% |
| Dial M for Monster | 73.78% | 26.22% | |
| High Plains Samurai | 100.00% | ||
| Fragments | 100.00% | ||
| TOTAL | 17.36% | 8.80% | 21.23% |
Now for the analysis paralysis and this is where I’m going to save all of us the trouble of reading through my various thoughts on these numbers and record them for you. Feel free to scroll along as you listen (I tried to keep myself to a reasonable duration) and ask any questions you may have in the comments below.
