Breaking Down Breakout Con

It’s been announced: I’m an industry guest at Breakout Con, running 10-12 March 2017 at Holiday Inn Yorkdale in Toronto. In case you were wondering, this is what I’ll be doing:

On Friday, I’m running a game of Lawless Heaven from 20:00 to 00:00. I heard somewhere that Friday nights were made for fighting. We’ll put that to the test.

On Saturday from 13:00 to 14:00, I’ll be moderating a panel. More on that when the schedule is announced by Breakout Con. Hopefully I can learn some stuff at the panel, because the lineup is stellar.

I’ll be moving from the panel directly to another game of Lawless Heaven, from 14:00 to 18:00. I should be very ready to run a good game after basking in wisdom at the panel.

Sunday morning from 11:00 to 15:00, I’ll be running the final session of Lawless Heaven for Breakout Con. This will be bittersweet, as it means another amazing Breakout Con will be drawing to a close and it’ll be a whole other year until there is another one.

What will you be doing 10-12 March?

You can learn about Breakout Con here.

You can learn more about Lawless Heaven here.

What Is Lawless Heaven?

Lawless Heaven is a modern action adventure set in Ulsan, South Korea using Sword’s Edge RPG. The tagline is: Four cops. One hundred criminals. Countless broken bones.

I’ve actually made sure there are 100 criminals the PCs can beat up. That was a design goal.

In Lawless Heaven, three cops and an intelligence operative in South Korea’s industrial heartland face off against a local gang involved in a heroin smuggling ring. The cops have only one order: bust the ring, but no one realizes the true depth of this particular cesspool.

It’s a love letter to Korean action movies, and especially Nowhere to Hide. There are a few paragraphs in the text discussing my favourite movies in Korean action cinema, and some of the movies mentioned are The Man From Nowhere, A Bittersweet Life, and the Yellow Sea.

This adventure was designed as a convention game, so it runs in 3 to 4 hours. At present, there is no plan to publish it, but I am moving toward the idea of Kickstarting Sword’s Edge to recover costs, and this would make a good stretch goal.

Right now, the only way to get in on Lawless Heaven is to join me at Breakout Con in Toronto on 10-12 March 2017. I will be running a game on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning. I hope to see you there. Following Breakout Con, depending on interest, I might run some online games, especially if I end up Kickstarting Sword’s Edge with Lawless Heaven as a stretch goal.

You can learn more about Breakout Con here.

Lawless Heaven

Sword’s Edge RPG has been updated. It’s ready to go. And the first place you can find it is at Breakout Con in Toronto 10-12 March 2017. I’m going to be running three games of Lawless Heaven using Sword’s Edge: Friday 10 Mar, 20:00-24:00; Saturday 11 Mar, 14:00-18:00; and Sunday Mar 12, 1100-1500,

In Lawless Heaven, three cops and an intelligence operative in South Korea’s industrial heartland face off against a local gang involved in a heroin smuggling ring. The cops have only one order: bust the ring, but no one realizes the true depth of this particular cesspool.

This game is inspired by Korean action cinema, and especially Nowhere to Hide, a 1999 actioner that is really style over substance but has some of the best acting talent working in Korea at the time and some amazing scenes.

Watch Breakout Con for information on how to register for these games. The con’s indie game store will also have Ashcan editions of Sword’s Edge RPG for sale.

I hope you are as excited as I am.

You can find out more about Breakout Con here.

You can find out more about Nowhere to Hide at Wikipedia and IMDB.

Sales for Fourth Quarter 2016

Here we are at the outset of 2017 looking back on 2016. Last year, I did a few retrospectives of SEP in 2015, both sales data and general activities. I’m afraid I don’t have time for that, but here are the fourth quarter sales for SEP, the annual sales, and the total, all-time sales. Even with my enforced absence from game design due to enrollment in a Master’s program, there will be a release in early 2017. I’m even thinking about Kickstarting it to try to recover some of the costs upfront. It would have to be a fairly hands-off Kickstarter, and it might be interesting to see how that would pan out.

The only new product in 2016 was Starship Commandos, which was released in September and has done fine for a PDF-only release with no marketing. That was simply a game that was done that could be released fairly inexpensively. My one other game that is ready to go would need significantly more investment to bring it to market, and so that’s not going to see the light of day, possibly ever.

In any case, here is the sales data.

Sales for Fourth Quarter 2016 (Oct – Dec)
All sales venues

Albenistan
Albenistan: Election Day, 1
Khorforjan Gambit, 1
Qalashar Device, 1
Raid On Ashkashem, 1

Arcane Kingdoms
Arcane Kingdoms, 1
Gifts of the Elder Gods, 1

Covert Forces
Canada’s Combined Security Reconnaissance Section, 2
Covert Forces Redux, 1
In Her Majesty’s Service, 3

Other
Centurion, 3
Line Zero, 1
Nefertiti Overdrive, 4
Starship Commandos, 6

Sword’s Edge System
Crossing the Millers,
Kheufer Scrolls,
Kiss My Axe, 7
Suffer the Witch, 1
Sword Noir, 10

Sales for 2016
All sales venues

Albenistan
Albenistan: Election Day, 1
Khorforjan Gambit, 1
Qalashar Device, 1
Raid On Ashkashem, 3

Arcane Kingdoms
Arcane Kingdoms, 5
For Simple Coin, 1
Gifts of the Elder Gods, 1

Covert Forces
Canada’s Combined Security Reconnaissance Section, 2
Covert Forces Redux, 3
In Her Majesty’s Service, 6

Other
The Boltcutter, 4
Centurion, 16
Line Zero, 1
Nefertiti Overdrive, 48
Nefertiti Overdrive Quickstart Rules, 54
Starship Commandos, 30

Sword’s Edge System
Crossing the Millers, 2
Kheufer Scrolls, 8
Kiss My Axe, 28
Suffer the Witch, 2
Sword Noir, 43

Total Sales to Date
Albenistan
Albenistan: Election Day (Modern Dispatch 113), 42
Khorforjan Gambit, 122
Qalashar Device, 135
Raid On Ashkashem, 179

Arcane Kingdoms
Arcane Kingdoms, 68
For Simple Coin, 6
Gifts of the Elder Gods, 40

Charity Products
Relief Effort, 55

Covert Forces
Canada’s Combined Security Reconnaissance Section, 111
Covert Forces, 100
Covert Forces Redux, 184
In Her Majesty’s Service, 159

Other
The Boltcutter, 4
Centurion, 197
Cyber-state Avatar Toolkit, 43
Line Zero, 40
Nefertiti Overdrive, 113
Nefertiti Overdrive Quickstart Rules, 652
Operation Nearscape, Free Product, 430
Starship Commandos, 24

Sword’s Edge System
Crossing the Millers, 156
Kheufer Scrolls, 203
Kiss My Axe, 229
Suffer the Witch, 97
Sword’s Edge System, Free Rules 1669
Sword Noir, 677