RV Games January Newsletter
Exciting Times Coming in 2023
RV Games has had a crazy 2022. We published our first module for Mothership in July, and now here we are in January 2023. We’ve had two successful Kickstarters and now have a catalog that includes a Slickspace Adventure (Slasher), an adventure zine (Rampant), and four adventure pamphlets (The Cerdo Cycle with Chris Airiau). We have a lot more in store for 2023 that we’re gonna announce today, and there is still more that isn’t ready to be revealed.
Cerdo Cycle
The Cerdo Cycle is going to be distributed digitally via DTRPG to backers this week and will be available for sale on DriveThruRPG starting next Tuesday, January 10.
Everything is off to print and patches are in production. We’re looking at an on-time fulfillment. Moving to using Amplifier for 3PL and fulfillment is a worthy investment. We get a lot of control over the process and our products like if we continued to do our own fulfillment, but we don’t have to perform the labor, same as if we used a game specific fulfillment provider. We’re also gonna be able to have an open Shopify store very easily once we’re done getting all of our inventory there.
The one drawback is that we need to barcode all of our old inventory, we’re able to build barcodes into all of our products moving forward (some will even have UPCs and ISBNs, I’ve been learning so much about distributing boxed games and books).
Retail support is looking strong, and we’re really thankful for all of our backers who helped make this full print run happen for these fantastic, ready-to-run pamphlets.
Mitosis - April 2023 - Kickstarter
This is our first new product announcement. River had made a killer prototype of an abstract board game, and I made it my mission to figure out how to get it released to an audience. It is my gift to her to have created an avant garde board game/adventure pamphlet hybrid with absolutely fantastic art by Curious Friend and an adventure pamphlet by Chris Airiau.
I’ve been learning a lot planning to make a boxed game, including finding manufacturers for different levels of scale. Sean McCoy recently commented that in creative work success is about getting lucky, but you can be prepared to be lucky, and this has been in my mind preparing for this project.
We will soon be revealing a trailer made by the creator of the WNUF Halloween Specials, Chris LaMartina.
The Progeny - Spring/Summer 2023
We are also launching an adventure pamphlet inspired by the Cronenberg film The Brood. This pamphlet will be available during the Mitosis Kickstarter, and it will be going straight to retailers and distributors. A system agnostic first draft is almost ready to be submitted to the One Page Derelict Jam, and we will complete more playtesting before releasing as a licensed Mothership module.
Orgy of the Blood Leeches - Early 2024 - Kickstarter
We’re really excited to publicly reveal the existence of this project. This is our first full sized box set module. We’ve partnered with the incredible Amanda Franck to design our creatures and npcs and to help us tell the story through a short graphic novel integrated into the main book. This is an ambitious module, and we’re excited to be able to share behind-the-scenes peaks of this as we move forward with the development over the next 1-2 years. This will be the first module where we will actively look for media coverage during development and will hopefully work with BackerKit Marketing for our campaign.
Disrupter
We’d previously announced our open source wargame disrupter. This is a passion project of mine, and I will to continue to hack it a little bit at a time. I believe that I can hit what I would consider a 1.0 release by the end of 2023. I’m gonna be 3d printing and building out and playtesting this game extensively with River throughout the year. There is no product in mind for this at all, so it actually fills the role of #dungeon23 better than my actual #dungeon23 project that I do want to develop into a product later.
Demon Planet - #dungeon23
I am working on a dungeon23 project. It is a Mothership setting titled Demon Planet. I am using this as a way to help me flesh an out an idea that I’ve had to make a dark horror fantasy megadungeon inspired by the city of Midian from the Clive Barker movie Nightbreed. Dungeon23 is just the first phase, getting the ideas on paper. I’m not going to do any polishing or revising or publishing of anything from this until 2024 at the earliest. For now, it’s something that makes me feel good because I can draw a box and a line and write three bullet points as a way to settle my neurodivergent brain. There’s already more worldbuilding and atmosphere in my three rooms than I have made in any of my other modules. I generally roll my eyes and want to get on with encounters, so this is stretching my writing muscles. There will be encounters, but I’m writing them later, I’m just giving super brief descriptions of creatures for development later. It’s a location and world centric type of design that is more traditional to ttrpgs and fantasy, and it’s why I avoided ttrpgs for a long time (CRPGS let me skip that stuff if I want). I like gamey games, so settling into an environment has been causing me anxiety while being relaxing at the same time.
Other Projects
We have a few projects in the works with Curious Friend that are more design forward projects, including a project involving Mothership dice and accessories. We’re continuing to talk with other creators whose work we believe in and should have some modules lined up for publishing or distribution throughout the year as well. We’ll share more about this projects as we have information to share.