Wednesday, 31 December 2025

Tricube Tales sales figures for 2025

As has become my yearly tradition, I'd like to share the Tricube Tales sales figures for 2025. You can also view the figures for previous years here if you're interested: 2019/2020/20212022, 2023, and 2024.

Total Sales per Month

Here are the total number of sales for the entire product line this year:

  • Jan 2025: 1744 sales
  • Feb 2025: 1247 sales
  • Mar 2025: 1441 sales
  • Apr 2025: 979 sales
  • May 2025: 1292 sales
  • Jun 2025: 1285 sales
  • Jul 2025: 1562 sales
  • Aug 2025: 1246 sales
  • Sep 2025: 1417 sales
  • Oct 2025: 912 sales
  • Nov 2025: 960 sales
  • Dec 2025: 1336 sales

Breakdown by Product


Here is a breakdown of the total sales figures for the main products:
  • Tricube Tales: 3364 sales (inc. 774 print copies) since 2019-11-08
  • Solo Rules & Deck: 2116 sales (311 printed decks) since 2021-05-14
  • Tricube Tactics: 776 sales (183 print copies) since 2024-11-08
And here are their associated print-only products:
  • Tricube Tales Micro Edition: 70 print sales since 2023-05-20
  • Tricube Tales Solo Rules: 113 print sales since 2023-03-07
  • Tricube Tactics Rules Primer: 23 print sales since 2024-12-12
These are the "payment optional" one-pagers on DTRPG (in order of publication) -- people can download them for free, but I'm only tracking actual sales where people paid for them:
  • Goblin Gangsters: 1289 sales since 2020-08-27
  • Samhain Slaughter: 1326 sales since 2020-10-08
  • Chrome Shells & Neon Streets: 1467 sales since 2020-11-21
  • Metahuman Uprising: 1385 sales since 2020-12-28
  • Rotten Odds: 1314 sales since 2021-01-31
  • Tales of the Goblin Horde: 1308 sales since 2021-04-01
  • Wardens of the Weird West: 1368 sales since 2021-06-12
  • Firefighters: 1282 sales since 2021-07-06
  • Horrible Henchmen: 1268 sales since 2021-08-13
  • Pirates of the Bone Blade: 1339 sales since 2021-09-15
  • Eldritch Detectives: 1428 sales since 2021-10-30
  • Wiseguys: Gangster Tales: 1224 sales since 2021-11-20
  • Interstellar Mech War: 1352 sales since 2021-11-30
  • Voyage to the Isle of Skulls: 1226 sales since 2021-12-31
  • Down in the Depths: 1130 sales since 2022-01-24
  • Accursed: Dark Tales of Morden: 697 sales since 2022-02-17
  • Twisted Wishes: 1128 sales since 2022-02-23
  • A Welsh Werewolf in Llanfair PG: 1186 sales since 2022-04-01
  • Interstellar Smugglers: 1286 sales since 2022-05-04
  • Winter Eternal: Darkness and Ice: 1037 sales since 2022-05-17
  • Sharp Knives & Dark Streets: 1183 sales since 2022-05-31
  • Summer Camp Slayers: 1109 sales since 2022-06-28
  • Titan Effect RPG: Covert Tales: 1081 sales since 2022-07-20
  • Sundered Chains: 1021 sales since 2022-08-07
  • Stranger Tales: 1060 sales since 2022-10-06
  • Minerunners: 1003 sales since 2022-11-01
  • Spellrunners: 1060 sales since 2022-11-22
  • Christmas Capers: 986 sales since 2022-12-18
  • Heroes of Sherwood Forest: 967 sales since 2023-01-28
  • Tales of the Little Adventurers: 905 sales since 2023-02-19
  • Tales of the City Guard: 918 sales since 2023-03-26
  • Maidenstead Mysteries: 880 sales since 2023-04-19
  • Interstellar Rebels: 924 sales since 2023-05-04
  • Hunters of Victorian London: 858 sales since 2023-05-29
  • Stone Age Hunters: 811 sales since 2023-06-23
  • Paths Between the Stars: 832 sales since 2023-07-01
  • Mythical Heroes: 776 sales since 2023-09-15
  • Academy of Monstrous Secrets: 722 sales since 2023-10-29
  • Eldritch Apocalypse: 735 sales since 2023-12-07
  • Champions of Osiris: 644 sales since 2024-01-27
  • Conniving Cat Burglars: 709 sales since 2024-04-01
  • Tales of the Sewer Samurai: 601 sales since 2024
  • Champions of Fenrir: 548 sales since 2024-07-01
  • Ghost Banishers: 515 sales since 2024-10-10
  • Vermilium: Tales of the Wildwood: 370 sales since 2025-01-30
  • Eldritch Cultists: 338 sales since 2025-02-13
  • Metal Gods of the Apocalypse: 289 sales since 2025-02-26
  • Tomb Guardians: 290 sales since 2025-03-20
  • Rabbit Tales: 261 sales since 2025-04-11
  • Sylvan Sentinels: 210 sales since 2025-06-17
  • Wicked Dreams: 254 sales since 2025-06-22
  • Specters of Locksworth: 180 sales since 2025-06-26
  • Road Hogs: 159 sales since 2025-07-27
  • Arcane Resurrection: 98 sales since 2025-10-11
  • Starbreaker: Tales From the Rim: 65 sales since 2025-12-02
These are the DTRPG freebies (in order of publication). A few free products help build up my mailing list. However, since I've added a print-on-demand option, they now have a few sales as well:
  • Interstellar Bounty Hunters: 5339 downloads (41 print sales) since 2020-09-29
  • Welcome to Drakonheim: 3671 downloads (29 print sales) since 2021-03-10
  • Interstellar Troopers: 4734 downloads (39 print sales) since 2021-04-26
  • Interstellar Laser Knights: 4395 downloads (37 print sales) since 2021-05-04
I also have a few freebies on Itch, which I entered into Jams. Here they are, once again listed in order of publication -- and these now have some print-on-demand sales as well:
  • The Fools Who Follow: 1284 downloads since 2020-07-29
  • Deep Trouble in Oldport Bay: 854 downloads since 2021-02-20
  • Halfling Hustlers: 428 downloads since 2021-07-03
  • Guardians of the Shadow Frontier: 1200 downloads since 2021-07-31
  • Interstellar Explorers: 838 downloads since 2022-08-02
  • Arcane Agents: 404 downloads since 2023-08-15
  • Troll Couriers of the Sky Isles: 552 downloads since 2024-08-01
  • The Wyrms That Turned: 160 downloads since 2025-08-17
Sales for the printed versions of the character cards have continued to be very slow:
  • Minerunners (cards)22 print sales since 2023-03-07
  • Sharp Knives & Dark Streets (cards)26 print sales since 2023-03-07
  • Spellrunners (cards)24 print sales since 2023-03-07
  • Christmas Capers (cards): 13 print sales since 2024-12-12
  • Eldritch Apocalypse (cards)17 print sales since 2024-12-12
  • Interstellar Rebels (cards): 14 print sales since 2024-12-12
I'd like to offer print versions of some of the Tricube Tactics character cards as well, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. While the cards don't sell very well, I love being able to hand them out when running games.

Some Thoughts


The overall sales figures continue to climb, with new releases driving sales to the older ones. Last year, 13 of the one-pagers had reached Platinum Best Seller (1001+ sales). This year, that number has doubled, with 26 one-pagers reaching Platinum Best Seller (although they're still years away from the 2501 needed for Mithral).

Accursed: Dark Tales of Morden would very likely have reached Platinum Best Seller as well by now, but it's one of the collaborative one-pagers I published through someone else, and they've had the entire setting line set to "private" for over a year now, which is a big shame. This loss of control over the fate of my work is definitely a risk when collaborating with other publishers (it's a similar situation to selling through most Community Content Programs, I guess, although at least in this situation, I still retain the rights to my work, and I could, in theory, file the serial numbers off and republish it myself).

In terms of genre popularity, the five top sellers are the same as last year: Chrome Shells & Neon Streets (cyberpunk) maintains the top spot with 1467 sales, followed by Eldritch Detectives (supernatural horror) with 1428 sales, Metahuman Uprising (superheroes) with 1385 sales, Wardens of the Weird West (weird western) with 1368 sales, and Interstellar Mech War (science fiction) with 1352 sales.

I often see people comparing DriveThruRPG with Itch, and I think it's quite interesting to use the one-pagers for such comparisons, as they're the same style of product. I've observed before that I get far more free downloads on DriveThruRPG than I do on Itch, but comparing the two again now, it even looks like I get more purchases on DriveThruRPG than I get free downloads on Itch!

That said, DriveThruRPG is far more selective when running site-wide sales these days, and they rarely include any of my products (due to my low prices). They've also raised the threshold for Deal of the Day to around $5, which means that despite having enough PPP to run a couple of Deals of the Day, I don't have any products expensive enough to submit. This is something I will need to address in the future, because I'm losing out on a lot of the promotional tools I used in the past.

In December last year, The Dungeon Dive posted a video about Tricube Tales, and the sales that month skyrocketed to the point where I was able to reach the requirements for a new "Tricube Tales" Game System filter on DriveThruRPG. This was a milestone I'd been working toward for a while, so I was very excited to finally reach it.

Tricube Tactics hasn't proven overly popular, but it was really designed to fill a need (offering a solution to those who wanted deeper combat and/or more mechanical support for character advancement in their Tricube Tales games), and I think it's succeeded. It was never intended to replace the base system, just broaden the target audience, and provide me the tools I needed for some of my own future projects (like converting the Saga of the Goblin Horde setting, which is still on my TODO list).

However, three of the one-pagers have also offered tie-in adventures using Tricube Tactics. The first (and main one) is Tomb Guardians, which comes with a 2-page adventure specifically designed for Tricube Tactics and a 12-page example playthrough showing how to run such a game. The other two are Sylvan Sentinels and Arcane Resurrection, both of which include adventures that can be run either with or without Tricube Tactics. All three micro-settings include Tricube Tactics character cards (although these can still be run with just Tricube Tales, by ignoring the knacks, minions, etc). The Tomb Guardians character cards even include gameplay advice on the back for each character.

What's Next?


I've not made much progress on my major projects this year. I've expanded my notes for Saga of the Goblin Horde, Tricube Terrors, and Tricube Toolbox (formerly known as Tricube Tricks), but I need to push myself to take at least one of them to the next step.

I'm also thinking of updating Tricube Tales and Tricube Tactics with some minor errata (no rule changes, just some slight adjustments to clarify certain things). I don't generally like updating products once people have bought them in print, but I think as long as I don't change any rules, it's probably not too bad.

I'm also toying with the idea of expanding two of the one-pagers (Goblin Gangsters and Tales of the Goblin Horde). I generally try to avoid doing this, but with my plans to convert Saga of the Goblin Horde (and perhaps The Gobfather) to Tricube Tales, I think it would be beneficial to have promotional one-pagers that include adventures to help promote those settings.

Of course, I'll also continue releasing new one-pagers! There's the expanded traditional fantasy micro-setting I discussed recently, but I've also been putting together some ideas for an ETU/Buffy-inspired one-pager for a while, and that's something I'd like to publish in 2026.

I ran three Tricube Tales games for my local TTRPG community earlier this year, which was a fun experience. I've also run a few online games for various people. I don't do this for marketing purposes, but because I enjoy it! However, I'd like to run some more this year, particularly using Tricube Tactics.



Monday, 22 December 2025

Musings on an expanded Tricube Tales fantasy scenario

Something I've wanted to create for a long time is a fairly traditional fantasy scenario with adventurers roaming the land, taking on various jobs. Of course, there are already several fantasy one-pagers for Tricube Tales, but their settings are all rather quirky, and I'd like something more vanilla.

Having recently been playing a lot of The Witcher 3, I've got a good feel for the sort of jobs the heroes might take on (and honestly, it's not that different from various novels I've read or TV shows I've watched, where people post jobs on notice boards and members of the "adventurers guild" complete them for rewards).

However, I really want this to be an expanded product, with three Six-Scene Scenarios (one set in a town, one in the wilderness, and one in a dungeon).

I had originally planned to split it into a trilogy of three separate one-page RPGs, one for urban adventures, one for wilderness, and one for dungeons, meaning each would come with its own Six-Scene Scenario. They could even be combined into a single product (like I did for Champions of Fenrir and Champions of Osiris), or released as separate products in the same series (like I did for Eldritch Detectives, Eldritch Apocalypse, and Eldritch Cultists -- or Twisted Wishes, Sundered Chains, and Wicked Dreams). But unlike those other settings, these fantasy adventures all follow the same characters in the same time and place, so I worry that it would feel very repetitive to offer them as three one-pagers.

The second option would be to adjust the layout and add another adventure generator table on the right-hand side, like this:

The problem is there's not enough space for three tables, so I'd need to combine the wilderness and dungeon adventures, which isn't really ideal when they have separate Six-Scene Scenarios. It also means there would be two pages of adventure examples, so I'd be left with a blank page I'd have to use for something else.

The third option would be to have a standard adventure generator for urban adventures, then offer two alternative location tables for dungeon and wilderness adventures, like this:

The GM would then roll 3d6 for the adventure as normal, but they could pick one of the three location tables depending on where they want the adventure to take place. There would then be three pages of example adventures, meaning the one-page RPG and its adventure examples would fit onto two double-sided sheets of paper.

Of course, each page would share the same objective and complication tables, and although I could offer different examples for each, the table entries would still need to be phrased fairly generically in order to fit all three location types. Making them too generic risks stripping the table of flavor.

But the more I think about it, the less comfortable I am with the idea of having an entire double-sided sheet of paper with just adventure examples on both sides. I like having the entire game and all the adventure examples on a single sheet of paper; it keeps the product concise, and if you're running a one-shot, you don't really need too many examples anyway. Even if you want to run more adventures, the examples are supposed to be for inspiration; they're not intended to cover every possible situation.

That brings me on to the fourth option, which is to design a simple one-page RPG in the same style as all the others, with a regular adventure generator that includes a mixture of urban, wilderness, and dungeon locations. There would still be three Six-Scene Scenarios covering urban, wilderness, and dungeon adventures, and I could also offer another sheet with an example town (much like I did for Sharp Knives & Dark Streets), which would include a map and expanded locations in and around the town.

After all this, I think I'm favoring the fourth option. As much as I'd like to expand the one-pager format and experiment with different setups, I still want the core product to fit onto a single sheet of paper (otherwise I'd be better off turning it into a book). The first page is really the "one-page RPG", as it contains everything needed to play, and the second page (i.e., the back of the sheet) includes examples for each entry in the adventure generator table.