2025 In Review
By Alex White
- 11 minutes read - 2176 wordsI managed to miss out on reviewing 2024 for some reason, but even though we are now three months into 2026 I do want to look back at 2025 and talk about some of the big things that have been happening.
2025 was an exciting year - my first purpose designed solo game published, and my first time actually running a table at a convention (Dragonmeet) high among them. I’ve continued to develop some new games, and I thought that people might find it interesting to see what things are like for a small one-person publisher.
Sales Figures
I’ve seen a number of other small publishers put their sales figures out for the year, and I’ve decided that I’d like to do the same. As you can see, it is quite difficult to bring in money as a small publisher!
| Sales Channel | Income | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| DriveThruRpg | £80 | My worst year on DTRPG ever |
| Itch | £13 | Also my worst year on itch. I didn’t get into any bundles this year and that made a big difference |
| Indie Press Revolution | £733 | On one hand a great year, but with some problems explained below. |
| GMS | £88 | A UK based distributor who has started carrying my products. A slow start, I hope it improves |
| Compose Dream | £181 | A Canadian/UK distributor who has started carrying my products |
| Direct Sales to Retailers | £550 | Really pleased with these figures |
| Convention Sales | £281 | Mostly through my Dragonmeet sales, a little from the TIN stand at UKGE |
| Website Sales | £147 | I’m using Shopify to sell directly from my website, and there is enough coming in to make it worthwhile (it costs £5 a month to run Shopify) |
Total sales income all channels (outside of kickstarters): £2,073
However, there have been a lot of expenses in the year, especially reprinting, travel, and convention costs, so my actual profit at the end of the year is negative. I’ve made a loss of -£1,055, eating into the reserves. Now some of that loss is printing for distribution, and hopefully I’ll continue to recoup some of that in 2026 as sales are made by distributors (although there can be hiccups - IPR has decided that Expect Three Visitors isn’t moving, so they want to get rid of the last 25 copies they have, for instance)
New Games
Tail-End Charlie
My latest game was kickstarted in February during Zinequest, and delivered to customers by April. I’m selling the print edition to UK, US and AU from my website, but unfortunately cannot sell it directly into the EU because of the GSPR regulations.
A solo game about the tail-gunners of Bomber Command. You contrast finding love off-duty with the danger of night operations. Statistically Bomber Command was the most dangerous branch of service in WW2. Over 44% of the volunteers didn’t survive a tour of duty. Will you?
This is a solo journalling game. A deck of cards is used to provide journalling prompts for the operations and off-duty time. The probability of you surviving 10 significant operations in the game is roughly the same as the tail-gunners had of surviving a tour of duty.
You keep a debrief diary of the after-action report on each operation, and a personal diary of the highpoints of life and love on and around the base. During the game this builds a unique story of your character’s wartime experiences.
This is an immersive table top story game for 1 player. A game session can take 30-60 minutes or more, depending upon how much you want to write. All you need is a pack of playing cards, some paper and pens to create your wartime story.
You can read more about the game here https://planesailinggames.com/games/tail-end-charlie/
The White Rose Society
This is a free, solo, one-page RPG which I produced in time for Dragonmeet. I’m currently giving it away on itch, so you can find it over there.
Inspired by Sophie Scholl, her brother and friends who were a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany who ran a leaflet and graffiti campaign calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime.
Powered by draws from a deck of cards, can you spread your message of resistance to another university before you are betrayed and captured?
In the spirit of the leaflet campaign of the real White Rose, I would love it if those who print and play the game then pass it on, leaving it for someone else to find, read, and play.
https://planesailinggames.itch.io/the-white-rose-society
Conventions 😊
A Housecon
Once again I was able to visit my favourite housecon in the US again. I had successful playtests of Escape the Apocalypse and Road to Romance, each of which provided me with actionable insights to further the development of the games. More about them later.
Tabletop Scotland 2025
In September I found myself up in Scotland for family reasons, and my younger daughter and I were able to drop in to the Friday of Tabletop Scotland.
We enjoyed walking around the stands and talking to several of the vendors about their most recent games, seeing old friends and making new ones. There was a great seminar by Malcolm Craig about RPGs during the cold war, with some super Q&A. We didn’t playtest any RPGs, but did have fun with the little board game Deep Regrets.
There is a review of this convention here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-09-08-tabletop-scotland/
Metatopia 2025
This is a New Jersey convention dedicated to playtesting, and I was delighted to be able to attend it again. it is an opportunity to playtest other peoples new games and provide them helpful feedback, and to get really high quality feedback on your own games. I ran Escape the Apocalypse (Robot Uprising and an Alien Invasion scenario where the players decided to play characters inspired by their own retired dads!) and Road to Romance - a regency scenario where all the players were part of the same story.
I also played in many other exciting games, and you can read a full write-up of my experiences here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-11-12-metatopia-2025/
Dragonmeet 2025
Some big changes at Dragonmeet - firstly it has moved from the cosy hotel in Hammersmith to the huge Excel centre in East London. Secondly, it was the first time that I had a stand there, sharing a stand with Matt (Ursidice). He was a great partner for the stand, and our mix of games seemed to work well together. We met on Friday for the setup and then ran the stand together on Saturday (my wife also came along to give me moral support, as I was somewhat dreading it)
Financially I turned a small profit after figuring in transport, table costs and so forth. I gather that this is par for the course for small publishers who sometimes don’t even make a profit, but find that it is worth it for the opportunity to make contact with people.
It was a tiring day; there were some times which were very busy and others when there were lulls in the activity. I found that solo games and games with a solo mode were better sellers, and I didn’t sell any of my big A4 games that I’d brought along.
I wrote up a full report of my experience at dragonmeet here: https://planesailinggames.com/review/2025-11-30-dragonmeet-2025/
Interviews 😊
I've been interviewed on the Perceptive Podcast by Game Wisdom about Tail-End Charlie in particular, and historical game design in general. The interview is in two parts
And
Game Design Work
I’ve been working on a number of games this year which are in various stages of development. Here is a quick run-down of them.
Escape the Apocalypse
Originally this was going to be a reskin of The Long Road Home for post-apocalyptic scenarios - some text tweaks, some new tables of prompts and that would be that. However, along the way it became clear that there was an opportunity to do something which engaged with the premise of post-apocalyptic adventures more closely. Engaging with the problems of resource management, and adding additional mechanics where threats have values and you need to try to overcome those threats with the approaches you have available to you, plus spending resources.
So this will be a GMless game for 1-5 players about escaping an apocalypse and finding their beacon - their source of hope...
You decide what kind of apocalypse from the following options
- Zombie Plague
- Alien Invasion
- Robot Uprising
- Nuclear B-Movie
- Nuclear Holocaust
- The Ice Age Cometh
- Scorched Earth
- Global Pandemic
- Lovecraftian Horrors
You can also decide whether you want to play within the Young Adult, Heroic, Grim, or Horror genres - the escalation of horror gives more harrowing tropes to incorporate in the game, and makes bleaker endings more likely.
You play through three Acts, with three scenes in each Act. Playing cards are used to indicate the level of threat in each scene, and the capabilities which the player characters are able to bring to bear to attempt to overcome those threats.
Throughout the game you are collecting valuable resources - supplies, tools, weapons, and secrets. These can be used to bolster your capabilities when facing threats, but you have to be careful how you use them! If you run out of supplies or tools, then you will face trouble in the ranks as your supporting characters turn against you! If you don't have many secrets gathered by the end of the game, the future for humanity as a whole may look bleak!
Can you escape the apocalypse, find your loved ones and live happily ever after? Or will you die trying?
Playtests throughout the year have helped to focus the game on what is fun and streamline other elements of play. It has gone down well at convention playtests with friends and with strangers, so I’m very pleased with the point it has got to now.
You can read more about it here: https://planesailinggames.com/games/escape-the-apocalypse/
I plan to bring it to kickstarter in the first half of the year - if that sounds interesting you can sign up to find out when it launches here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plane-sailing-games/escape-to-utopia
The Road to Romance
Work on Road to Romance has been very up and down this year. The political situation with heavy US tariffs on card games made in China put a real damper on my plans for the game, so I’ve been vacillating between going ahead with my original plans or turning it into a more traditional RPG game book powered by playing cards (and with print-and-play or print-on-demand specialty decks available).
It’s frustrating, because I think it really can work best as a card game, so it has been on a bit of back burner during 2025. However, I have run a number of playtests which continue to create some rather lovely stories. You can find write-ups of these here:
- A gothic romantic napoleonic thriller “Unexpected Strength”
- A classic contemporary military romance “The Face from the Past”
- A classic romantasy “The Faerie Princess’s Muse”
- A sci-fi romantic thriller “Neon Nights”
- A paranormal romantic thriller “The Chosen”
Normally a group of players will tell a collection of stories, each in different genres while they play the protagonist of their own story, the paramour of the person to their right and the trouble of the person to their left. At Metatopia I tried an alternative approach. We played in a regency ball, where each person played their own protagonist who happened to be a trouble for their friend on their left (using troubles like jealous, busybody, over-invested, an ex- etc). There was a central pool of paramours who could be picked up by other players as needed. It was a fun approach, and was a little more complicated to play but the additional interactions between the players was fun.
I hope that in 2026 I’ll get back to this, and I’m going to be seeking advice from someone who has been in the RPG industry a long time who thinks that a card based game might still be a good option for me.
Born to the Purple (working title)
Once again this Forged in the Dark game has taken a backseat to other game ideas which I’m bringing to the table. I hope that later this year I can get back to planning and designing something tightly focussed around space diplomats finding their way amidst changing agendas and policies. Making deals and compromises along the way while the galaxy might be collapsing around them (metaphorically).
The core of the game remains a combination of simplified Forged in the Dark, with some Fate sensibilities. You can see some of my earlier design diaries on the site here, and I’ll be adding additional ones this year as I’m thinking about how to represent interstellar politics in the game in a fun way. https://planesailinggames.com/tags/born-to-the-purple/
Conclusion
Much of the world is in upheaval, and hope you can find places of happiness within it. Playing games is one of those places for me, and I rejoice in the opportunity to play with friends and create games that people enjoy.
Cover photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels