Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My name is Ryan and joining me today are a couple of people,
one that's been here before. What it's not that is Zach and
Nick have soul. Muppet, how are you guys doing
today evening? Doing pretty good, thanks.
Yeah, happy to be his chop up doom spiral.
Doom Spiral. Yeah.
For those that might not know, at least Nick, Zach, you've been
here. Fuck, I I was going to count.
I think it's like 9 times or something like that at this
point. But for those who might not know
who you guys are, what soul Muppet is all those kind of
things. What what, what?
What is a soul Muppet and and what are you guys to it?
So I'm Zach, I'm the director founder of soul muppet.
We are Auk based in the RPG company, which makes games like
orbital Blues inevitable, paint the town red, best left buried
and Matt as hell. And now Doom spiral, which is
the game that Nick created for us tells tells me about
yourself. Nick.
I guess you know you, you go. Well, yeah, and I'm Nick also UK
based RPG writer, sort of long time collaborator.
I suppose that's the best word for done a lot with soul Muppet.
I've written the the Monster Manual for best left buried.
I've written Gangs of Titan City, sci-fi crime game and yeah
now now doing Doom Spiral, horrible dark fantasy boss
fights and such. Yeah, so we've talked about all
of, well, I don't have Paint the Town right in my hand yet, but
I've seen it because we saw it together at Gen.
Con. Don't have Matt as Hell yet.
That's still coming. You guys have a lot of stuff
kind of in the queue on the way and you know, Maul was here
after Gen. Con, but I don't think have we
talked since Gen. Con or was like the Matt as hell
stuff prior to Gen. Con.
That's how stuff was back in sort of May time, launched on
International Workers Day on May 1st.
So yeah, we've not been in since.
Time is just it just rolls on, doesn't it?
It's kind of crazy how it all blurs into one, but you have a
lot of stuff in the queue. This is what the so this will be
the is this just the I guess if it's just mad as hell, This is
second Kickstarter of the year then?
Or is it the third? Yeah second kick start of the
year painting town red was this time like October ish last year.
There we go. And we've done reviews of Gangs
of Titan City. We've talked about it before,
but so Doom Spiral, we're we're going to get to that soon.
But there's kind of like a difference between Doom Spiral
and Gangs of Titan City and like paint the town red and orbital
Blues and stuff like that. One of which I think is defined
by sad before describing every version of those games.
Because you have sad space Cowboys, you have sad vampire.
And then I guess Nick, like with, you know, with Kings of
Titans City with with Doomsboro, which we'll get into a little
bit soon. Like what would you kind of
describe more as your kind of like writing style for the stuff
that you bring some of it? That's a great question.
I, I would say something more kind of along the lines of from
the stuff that I've done with soul Market at least.
So it's the stuff I I quite like doing is a systems systems
driven a lot of the time. So like gangs of Titan City has
a very tight kind of engine for propelling the plot along and in
terms of like giving players lots of tools and things that
they can do to influence events, whether sort of in a sort of
more zoomed in person to person scope or zoomed out curve more
scheme E plotty stuff. And that is also kind of how I
got into serious collaboration with Zach because I was the
person who understood the best left buried monsters as much, if
not perhaps slightly better than Zach at the time.
So that's why I was then doing the Monster Manual.
Take a bit of the the stress off Zach.
And so yeah, so Doom Spiral is kind of in a lot of ways defined
by it's it's combat system, I would say, but also just really
like writings of horrid grungy settings with like, you know,
sort of a little stuff to find if if you're interested in
looking for it as well. Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely say
that of all the systems that so Muppet has put out, Doom Spiral,
and maybe I'm wrong, I mean, I read all of them, it feels the
crunchiest, I think by a pretty far margin.
Would you say, would you guys say that that is correct?
I think the only real rival would be gangs.
Yeah, Nick, Nick's like corpus of work like sits in quite a
different place to mine. Does I think while like do
Spiral Gangs both feel like some of the games certainly in terms
of like having really strong emotional storytelling, really
precise settings and genres, but mainly through like being about
escaping people trying to escape from a situation, right.
And that being the case of like best left buried and orbital
Blues economic situations and like stuff about mental health
that goes through those games and also paint the town red, you
know, looking at like escaping economic situations as well.
Like in mad as Hell and Gazetan city.
There's lots of like really common language there, which
feeds over into Duke spiral because ultimately, right, to
address the elephant in the room, this is a game that's like
looking at cyclical apocalypses, right?
And like the world, the age of fire fading and like this
decision point about why what's going to happen next.
And that is something that is like fundamentally a a soul
muppet game in that it feels very dark, salty.
But also, yeah, Nick writes a hell of a lot more mechanically
inclined than I do. I'm very much in any
relationship writing relationship.
I'm the vibes guy, right? I'm not the most confident
mechanical writer going and we're and I think that my
background like comes from a bit more of like a story game, OSR
fusion as a writer, whereas I think Doom Spiral and to a
lesser extent gangs as well do lead a little bit more trad than
like some of the other soul Muppet stuff.
So while it's really different to these other games, it's still
fundamentally a soul Muppet game.
Doom Spiral because it's about like, you know, people trying to
work out what to do at the end of the world, and this time it's
attack and dethrone God, you know?
Yeah, yeah, I mean emotions. If I if I, if someone had to
say, how are some of the games different than like the other,
you know, piles of games I have behind me?
I will say that, you know, a lot of games have emotions and
things in it, but I feel like that's kind of like a core
aspect of soul muppet stuff. Is that the the vibes, but
specifically like the emotion that's brought to the game being
like a core aspect of it, even if it is, you know, escaping an
apocalypse or, you know, being saggy vampires or being sad
space Cowboys or, or, or any of the things that even in Gangsta
City, it's never just like a system.
It's never just a setting. I feel like there's always an
overarching kind of like something pulling at your
heartstrings a little bit like some emotion is really like
driving a core aspect of the game forward.
So if I describe some Muppet, I think that's kind of how I would
say different from a lot of these other ones is like as a
whole, I think the catalog probably is more emotional in in
a in a great way than a lot of other games and systems or
publishers put stuff out, especially because there's kind
of like a through line between all of them versus maybe like a,
you know, like a, a publisher that has put out, I mean, I'm
like a Free league or Evil hat or whatever.
It's just kind of like a smattering of stuff, you know,
and I mean, that's one reason that I love saw muppet is is
that kind of, I don't know, depth to the games.
It's more it's always more than just a setting or a system.
There's always, I don't know, I think buy in that really helps.
It like feel I I guess, a little bit deeper and and that's why
you've been on the show like, you know, 15 times and we did
gem together. But but so do spiral going to
get in that in just a moment. But Nick, how, how did you get
involved with saw Muppet in the first place?
Mostly by chance, I can't remember exactly what year it
was. It was like 20/17/18.
When was the I? Think. 18 so.
This year, best of grade came out was 2018.
Yeah. So that's the year it would have
been. Yeah, so this was for the Zine
Quest Quartet where Zach had released Best Life Buried and
then sort of just sourced 4 authors to to write adventures
for it as part of this BIG4 part Kickstarter.
And I think the first they put out an open call in their
Discord. Well, it's how I remember it.
And I originally pitched it. And then Zach was like, that's a
really cool idea, but I think unfortunately we can't do it
this time. And I was like, ah, OK.
And then a few days later, I think they, they, they came,
they came crawling back and like actually there, there is a
space. It was months you have.
Was it? I don't remember it that being
that long. But and then we did dark things.
Seas of ours mare. We did the dark things, seas of
ours, mare as I was, yeah. And so I ended up writing this
sort of Zine sized adventure for best left buried alongside some
really very talented writers, which was quite surreal,
particularly in hindsight now that like I'm kind of more
familiar with people like Zedexu and Luke Gearing who are kind of
like, we're very well respected writers in the OSR community.
Yeah, might have heard of Luke gearing a place or two across
the key charity space, you know. And, and so that kind of went
reasonably well. I think we, we made a cool
adventure and then I in my own times was having a great time
writing it. So I, I started for my own
pleasure just writing a, a best left Berry, best Yuri because
what else are you going to do at that time?
And I think Zach, then you just happened to offhandedly mention
that you're going to do a remaster of the game with kind
of a more 3 core book structure, which became best left very
deeper. And I said, oh, well, I have
this as I was like, let's go. And then we I've just kind of
pestered them ever since it. Was very refreshing.
Like there's Nix monsters in darkening seas of ours.
May as Nick said, I said at the time they were better than mine.
They were really interesting. Like it was really nice, like
writing a framework and then like watching somebody else work
sing with it and that be something really fantastic.
And then like I realized I needed that Monster Manual, but
I didn't really have enough ideas or enough time to write an
entire one myself. I kind of liked my buried
monsters being really simple. And then Nick was like, here's
some stuff you could do with this engine to kind of make it
more exciting. And that's where that, like,
Hunter's Guide came from with lots of like, now really central
iconic monsters that are like, quite key to the best left Berry
setting, I think, you know, So it's super great to collaborate
on. And we've made a few more games
since then. And Nick's been like, also a
mainstay at some of the convention staff in the UK.
And he's like, really familiar with all of our games.
And it just makes sense to keep making stuff really.
And me and Nick both really really love Eldon Ring and Dark
Souls indeed. Like, you know, I don't know if
this is. Obvious from the.
Crowdfunding project, but me and Nick played through the entirety
of Elden Ring to play with each other, which is something like
all not just the boss fights, like all the big legacy dungeons
as well, which is not something the game really helps you or
lets you do. So, you know, we've done a lot
of a lot of dodge rolling in the same space with Nick being much
better at that than me as well. So you know.
Yeah, yeah, I saw the blue sky posts talking about actually
going through Elden Ring and doing it all over again and and
everything. I actually have still never
played one second of Elden Ring. I own it, you know, I
pre-ordered it, I got it. But I just, you know, every time
I try to sit down and watch video games, my brain just goes,
man, you could be doing something else right now.
And then I just I can't, I can't get into it.
But I've watched a lot of twitch.
I think I've I think I've watched all of Elden Ring at
this point. At some point I'll have to
actually sit down and play it. But so Doom Spiral, you know,
we'll get to the, the meat of the episode clearly, if we're
talking about Elden Ring and and Dark Souls and and everything
like that, maybe that might be involved, you know, a little bit
of inspired by this project. So I guess to get started with
it, where, where, where did Doom Spiral come from?
Like what was the impetus for this project?
How long has it been cooking? Well, partly for me.
I say partly. Mostly Dark Souls and that sort
of series of of games has been one of my my primary loves and
joys for a for a long, long time.
One of the kind of the big influences on my writing and
design even. And it was getting to the point
where like, you know, we had our Souls 3 and then old and ring
and blood born and all this and there hadn't been a good Dark
Souls RPG. They've been they've been like a
few goods, like kind of solo games inspired by that series,
like like Ruined by Spencer Campbell, I quite enjoy.
But in terms of like the big a big meaty thing, there hadn't
been anything. And then Steam Forged released
their 5E version of the game to mixed reviews.
Perhaps that's kind of you to say.
I, I, I can't, I can't wear my heart on my sleeve too much
about that given what I'm doing now, I think.
But I think that was kind of the impetus for me to like,
seriously sit down. OK, well, how would I do that?
And, and this was many moons ago, I think this was even while
I was doing Gangs of Titan City. And it, it, it was just kind of
like in a pot by itself, bubbling along.
And like I, I, I talked to Zach recently often, I would say.
And we, we, we talked about it here and there.
I don't remember exactly when we sort of first sat down
officially to say, shall we make this a project?
Zach, do you do you recall? And I know we signed the
contract in April of last year because I was looking.
At it, yeah. You know, but in terms of like
how long you'd been thinking about it and when we agreed to
do it, it was a very long time ago and it wasn't called Doom
Spiral for all of that time. Yeah, the the name itself.
This has been something. Yeah.
That has been like cooking with you for some time.
Mainly what trying to like work out how the hell to do it
because. Yes.
It was about like, quite fundamentally understanding the
things that we loved about that genre and the other.
People love. Right and what bits of that we
want to try and replicate in tabletop form and what what bits
of it could like not be done in transferred away from video
games, right. And I understand there's a
document I think we made quite early on which is like these are
the key joys that we wish to translate, you know those sort
of chemical materials. And then next since like
designed this fantastic system which and a big setting as well.
It's worth mentioning like most of this book is just a massive
adventure, like the biggest adventure some up has ever
written. Maybe inevitable is slightly
bigger, but not in any way that matters.
Inevitable is a big book. It's I was shocked when I got
all three of those books at how big it is.
I literally had to move my shelf to a bigger shelf because
Inevitable was too tall with. The rest of it?
Yeah, Inevitable is one of the bigger the bigger books on my
shelf as well. Absolutely good.
It feels good. Quick question.
So I mean, we'll get in the mechanics a little bit more.
So when you guys were were making this, were you trying
more to if, if we call it like genre emulation, were you trying
to emulate more of kind of like the system or more of the vibes
of the system, if that makes sense.
Like not necessarily how a Perry works, but just how will a Perry
makes you feel kind of thing? Or was it a little bit of a mix
of both? I think it definitely started
off for me with kind of emulating or adapting the system
because if only because like in terms of like the vibes and the
aesthetics, I knew I could do that.
I understand the aesthetic and what I enjoy about it at least.
So I was confident I could do that.
But it's the system itself and like the mechanical feel of the
game. That was the the bigger obstacle
for the longest time because like.
There's kind of the two approaches I think you can take
for this where you kind of really try and copy the system
in like a high fidelity and especially with something like
Dark Souls, which is very, you know, reaction based.
That's a hard feeling to make in a spoken word dice rolling game.
So certainly there was an attempt at doing that, which I
think the current game does about as well as I think you
can. And yeah, and kind of it was
then once I had the bones of the thing that we started putting on
the meat of like building up this, this setting this world to
explore using the system and sort of I'll fed into back into
each other. Yeah, it makes sense.
I mean, you can only do like Zach said, that there's you can
do a lot of what video games to do, but you can't do everything.
I mean, that's why. It's.
Just in separate spaces. So being able to try to emulate
the parts you want the most is a great way to start it.
I mean, we've talked about how it's, you know, it's it's
Soulsy, right? But what is the, what's the
actual Doom Spiral pitch? Like?
What if this is, you know, inspired by those games you guys
love? Like what is this game actually?
What is Doom Spiral itself? Right.
This is we've, we've not, we've struggled to put this succinctly
before, but in essence, the game is about this world that has
been doomed by like the decisions of the people who rule
it and like fate has been set. Everything's going to just fade
away and die and be just generally quite horrid.
So you then play characters called Forsaken who are
deathless beings who are importantly severed from like
the progression of fate and destiny.
So, but in being nothing to the system, you're kind of free to
do anything. So then you engage in this
Soulsian journey to explore this kind of magnificent but fallen
world and overcome the dangers there and drag God from his
bloody throne to then actually secure a new future for this
this world. I sure feel like that was
reasonably succinct. Yeah, just something like that,
you know, just just cut out from death so you can go kill God.
I mean, who doesn't want that? You know, kind of just like real
life, there's there's a quick start you guys have out now, a
quick, an 80, almost 90 page quick start, which is wonderful
that I've been going through over the past couple.
Days it keeps happening to me. Yeah, I actually have a physical
version of it that I got at Gen. Con and in the process of
finally putting all my books on the shelves, I think it got
tucked into a pile that ended up in a box.
So I need to find that and pull that out again.
But but it's gorgeous. I mean, you you guys have put in
more work into this than a lot of people put into like the
actual games. And this is 88 page, like a
5:00-ish, you know, softback book.
When you said it's the longest adventure that is going to end
up in a book. What is this book going to
actually look like compared to the rest of the stuff on the
Solemn of it shelf? Like, you know, that's a very
deeper or inevitable. Is it like a happy medium?
Is it going to be bigger and better?
Like what? What's the?
Plan for that.
So the book itself is quite large.
We kind of understood that to get the required like mystery
and labyrinthine scale and also reasonably complicated combat,
what we wanted to do was like present something that felt like
the complete package for the game.
We looked at like splitting up the call book, the adventure
into two like orbital Blues size books.
What we ended up settling on is like something that's going to
feel more like a the inevitable book.
If you've got one of those more like a sort of traditional
hardcover RPG. It's going to be a four.
So US letter slightly smudged and then probably about 240 to
270 pages is what we're projecting.
So a meaty book with a lot of like gorgeous detail to it.
We've also ended up going quite silly with the cover with the
assistance of our lovely printers.
At the moment the plan is that it is a so it's bound in a faux
leatherette bronzed leather, which is like this kind of
sparkling, not quite leather, you know, you know, vegan plant
based material that kind of glitters in the light.
But the good the advantage of the particular type of leather
rat we've chosen is that when you deboss it, you can also heat
treat it. So when we put stamp the words
doomspile into it, it changes it from like a a kind of glossy
bronze to a sort of tarnished, burnished metal.
And then on top of that, we're also applying foils to get this
element because like our version of, you know, souls or blood
echoes or ruins is this thing called thread, which is meant to
be like destiny, specifically woven from the great loom of
fate by the by the gods themselves at the sort of end of
the world where they've like built their godly Kingdom.
And that like is something that is going to be physically
represented in both like the metallic Sheen of this book and
also the specific metallic detailing that is going to be
around like because, and then the bonfire equivalent or your,
you know, sculptors, idols or sight of grace or whatever is
this thing called a tether. So the book is going to and the
logo of the game itself, like incorporates a bunch of these
kind of spindly details that then allow fate to be tethered
to them, of which you are on wound from and also collecting
it. So like it's a real, you know,
my me and Eric who saw Muppets like operations manager, real
sort of purchasing disrupt, convert, where like it is really
just a, you know, a thing from one end to the other that like
represents the thing it's trying to be.
We also have dice, which is which I don't know how well this
will show up, but they also have the physical golden tether
inside of them. Obviously if you're a podcast
listener, this is useless. But if you go to the Doom Spiral
web page, you will now be able to see like some of the most
absurd dice that artists and dice maker has ever made, which
have bits of thread and these like golden, you know, bonfire
equivalents like set inside them.
And yeah, just generally terrifying myself with the
extent I'm willing to go to to make RPG, which I personally
find interesting and sickos are willing to spend money on.
Yeah, I mean, that's how you describe it on the Kickstarter
page is aspirational dream of any book sicko and and I agree.
I mean, I'm very excited. It sounds crazy and I know that
you get real excited about this stuff.
I mean, when we did the mad as hell and you talked about how
many punches are in that book, like how many holes are in the
cover and, and all of the various covers and how you can
wrap it. And it's these layers and
layers, which is sick because books are sick and only like 16%
of like the adult US population like reads a book a year.
So like books are cool and people need to make more cool
books. I'm glad that that you're really
just dive in head 1st and I'll have some really cool books on
the shelf before we get into more of the rewards and stuff
that were like what you know, people are going to get when
they go back. This this system for doom
spiral. We've already said it.
It's it's, you know, sole Z right?
And it's it's beefier than a lot of the stuff.
I know that Zach, you said it, it leans a little bit more trad,
which you know, of all the somewhat the games that I've
read, which is all of them, it definitely does feel the most
trad, especially because there are like attribute scores that
go up to like what like 18 ish or something like that.
There's dice associated with it. It's more of a dice pool game.
So so I guess system wise, how how does it work in in the in as
much as you want to say, but like, also, how do you make it
feel sulsy? How do you make it feel like
you're, you know, wearing a bucket and rolling away from
like a giant creature with that lore you'll never understand,
you know? Absolutely.
So I guess like the the main thing that I was trying to to
emulate with this system, the the kind of the two competing
push and pulls of games of this style of the kind of the back
and forth combat between you and your your enemy and then also
kind of very light resource management.
So the way the combat works is you have a pool of dice that
represent your stamina, and you get a certain number of those
back every round. And each combat rounds, you can
spend as many of them as you like doing things as long as you
have the dice kind of available. So you can spend them on doing
things like attacking or casting spells, all the all the all that
good stuff. But then obviously your enemies
get to have a go if you haven't killed them all and they're
going to unleash all sorts of horrid hell on you.
And so it's the it's the push and pull of we need to deal as
much damage to these guys, but if we don't kill them, we need
to have resources spare to then be able to defend ourselves.
And everything is, is like I said, these, these D6.
So they are very kind of, you know, knowable numbers, but
nothing is ever going to be a given.
Everything you kind of do have to roll the bones for and it's
like sort of almost loose gambling and just very the aim
is at least for very comprehensible odds and kind of
having to go by your gut rather than calculating.
So we want this combat to like kind of have a conceivable
amount of depth without having to, you know, do lots of big
calculations or like really in depth tactics.
So like there's also kind of a abstracted like position is the
name of the system. So you don't have to have like a
grid of with miniatures moving around.
You just have a number that kind of represents how much control
you have over the battlefield. So it's very much, I guess you'd
call it kind of theater of the mind esque, but with kind of
some depth and like calculation to it without it getting too
overwhelming. Is that the intention at least?
So you have this kind of the combat is kind of the core
mechanics of the game, but then there's also going to be a lot
of focus on exploration, but that is very much sort of
looser, more free form to encourage, you know, rather than
in combat engaging with mechanics and numbers and
abilities. Exploration is stripped right
down, almost to encourage you to take in the world, explore it,
and ask questions about it. You'll look like a monster and a
boss is like really important as well.
One of the ways that the game works on a quite fundamental
level is that each monster that you fight has its own custom
move table, right? With the six or so things it is
capable of doing, which might be some kind of reaction, some kind
of attack, some kind of like stance or movement and way it
changes. And each turn, that monster is
rolling a number of dice kind of similar to you and then
performing the actions on the dice that it rolls.
You know, if it's got three move dice, you're going to be picking
three things from that move table.
But the idea is that as the players fight the creature and
maybe fight it repeatedly, you know, if they die and have to
come back or, you know, encounter it in a new position,
they're learning the stuff that's on that move table and
learning how to interact with it.
And the stuff in the quick start is really simple.
You know, it's like, you know, and then the monster on a four
will do an attack or monster on a six will try to grab you and
stop you from moving. And as like the game gets more
complicated and the monster, well, not the game gets more,
the monsters become more powerful.
They start to do more utterly unhinged shit that then your
characters have to like learn to interact with.
And it becomes a bit of a puzzle game as you are like, because
your characters for all this exploration you're doing are
going to be accumulating all these abilities, right?
And these abilities all use different resources.
They use the position, they use the stamina.
Some enemies are going to be better at dealing with certain
types of equipment or certain types of attacks.
You know, they might have attacks that are more easily
parable or like, focus on dealing with ranged attackers
rather than melee ones. Like all monsters will target
characters at different sets of positions.
So you can like learn, oh, because this big monster is
about to do a smash attack between positions four and five.
I have to be in positions 123 or five through 10, right?
And as you kind of unlock that, you understand the dance of what
your characters are capable to do because the numbers are
actually really transparent for what you can expect to achieve.
But also so are the monsters once you learn what they are.
So it becomes this sort of really intricate dance of like
in the moment understanding that there are like things you can do
as you learn what the monster is doing.
And by accessing like the incredible amount of build
variety that the game allows by using all the different weapons
and equipment and spells and stuff like that that you've got
access to, there's actually like a super in depth compat system,
which is just completely unlike anything someone has ever
attempted to write. Best of buried like maybe tries
to start doing some of that, but like this is these monsters are
like incredibly intricate and difficult.
And once you get to the final like boss fights like the six
big bods that you're trying to kill or their various powerful
servants, like each of them starts breaking the rules and
messing with the mechanics in new ways.
You know, and there are like 100 something monsters in this
campaign or working on right now and that you know, adventure
that we put in the quick start. The sort of 90 Page 1 is like
maybe 3 or 4000 words of the five of the 50,000 word
adventure. It is like an absolutely tiny
equivalent. It is the equivalent of a Dark
Souls of like maybe getting as far as Undead Burg or something
like that. The very first area and what you
get in terms of options outside that is just going to be
staggering. I'm going to be so excited to
like see people play and interact with it because it's
really just got some incredibly cool stuff in terms of like
vibes and the law, right? And the secrets that people are
going to be able to learn and interact with.
But also some utterly epic, mind bending boss fights that I'm so
excited for other people to experience the same way that we
have while writing and play testing it.
So yeah, it's just going to be epic really.
Like, I'm so excited. Yeah, I mean it it you know,
like we've all said at this point, it's it's a crunchier
game than so Muppets ever put out, but it still feels so
Muppet like a it's got D sixes, which I'm pretty sure just about
every game y'all put out is is D6 based.
Yeah, I, I, I like the dice that people have in their house for
playing Monopoly with. It's my favorite dice, you know,
D sixes are are are are the are the best in my in my opinion.
But one of the things I asked a while ago that is just kind of
coming up again is is, you know, emulating system versus
emulating the vibes of the system and position.
When I read that in quick start was one of those things where I
was like, yes, like this is this is how this works in my head,
right? Where it's like if you actually
had minis on a board playing this game, I think it would give
it such a completely different feel and needing to worry about
my guy is, you know, five blocks away instead of three blocks
away and stuff like that. Because in Dark Souls, I've
played Dark Souls and one of the things I learned, and maybe it's
wrong because I definitely have played as much as you guys, but
a lot of times like you want to be close to the guy when until
you don't want to be close to the guy.
But realistically, like the distance between I want to be
close and I need to be very far away doesn't often matter except
in those, you know, those times. So playing the position when I
read that I was like this, this makes sense to me where I can
just know like I am not necessarily the position doesn't
matter necessarily my physical position, but more of like the
vibe of where I'm at in the battle being the important part
of it. And having like the vibes of the
mechanics, I think is such a smart way to, to emulate video
games when it's impossible to emulate video games onto the
table because of the way that like electronic works And, and
you know, the, the kind of the limit that video games puts on
the limitless world that teach RPGs has.
So being able to be like this feels like that without being
that feels really fucking cool. And that's one thing I noticed
throughout the entire system was what to me look like, how not do
I do what they're doing, but how do I do something that feels
like what they're doing, which just feels really, really cool.
Yeah, absolutely. Like trying to nail, like you
say, it's just the way it feels rather than the actual thing
itself. Because yeah, like you say, if
you if you were to do it with minis on the board, it's just
going to end with like, I shuffle my guy half a centimeter
this and then and this guy is going to turn 30°.
It's just you get bogged down doing the wrong thing where you
just want to be able to like kind of get to the electric bit
and and find the excitement rather than having to add up
lots of integers or do little minute movements.
And that's definitely part of part of the design goals that we
had. It's interesting how, you know,
especially for the 5E pill out there, like how important minis
and battle maps and everything are when at least for from From,
I wasn't alive playing the games in, you know, 1978 or whatever.
But I'm pretty sure they just did theater to the mind for a
really long time. And that was kind of the focus
of the way the rules worked. And you just kind of like had an
understanding of it. So being able to kind of step
back from that, like if I want to play a skirmish game, I'll
play a skirmish game. And I feel like if you did put
minis in this, that's what you would end up with here is you
would end up with feeling like a skirmish game and then having to
worry about like activating your guy or, or or, you know, having
a whole thing, which would also be fun if it was its own thing.
But keeping it, you know, kind of the trad mixed with story
bits, which again, also feels like a soul Muppet thing, I
think continues to make this feel like a soul muppet thing,
which is really neat. So going back to all the cool
bits over on the Kickstarter page, we've already talked about
the insane book and how cool that's going to look, but you
guys funded day one or two with. The day one it.
Was about four hours or something.
Yeah, like congratulations. Very happy to have got that
success early on. Yeah, I think according to the
American numbers, you've you've double funded at this point.
You've now reached the goal twice.
That's 40,000 UK or 40,000 American and 30,000 UKI guess in
pounds. But when people back this
project, what you know, we've talked about the dice a little
bit, we've talked about the crazy book.
What all can people get? What all can people expect from
from Doom Spiral? Yeah, so as well as all the sort
of traditional pleasures when you've got like the initial
physical and then the the PDF pledges as well, there's free
PDFs of all the physical purchases that we do just
because that's how someone does things.
We've acknowledged that like the characters are slightly more
complicated in this game and they would be in a in, in like
something like orbital Blues. So there's in it, there's going
to be a proper explicit character sheet.
We're designing we I've done like a preview version that
works for the for the quick start, but it's going to be like
expanded out to be slightly longer with lots of rooms for
like capability and note taking and stuff like that.
And what then follows on from that is also we've had a
gorgeous cloth map designed by Fernando Salvatera, who's like
working at that moment. You can see some of the early
sketches for that and the light will not sketches the line work
actually for a bunch of those sections on the we got those
final sketches who today actually, which Nick needs to
review after this call. Those are the main thing as
well. And as well as the dice.
We also had a selection of really beautiful handmade batik
cloth banners that are artists Twin did.
We've already talked about doing yet, but they're just a a.
Crime on our part, really. Certainly the the other big
pillar of this game. Has been the art for as well.
And yeah, but those banners went pretty much immediately.
Why didn't charge enough money for one.
Happy to put that on my to wear that on my hat now.
But yeah, So, yeah, but the art for the game has been like a
really big standpoint as we met to win at UK Games Expo about a
year ago where they were running like that.
Obviously a very talented, you know, traditional and digital
artist and was running a docs a lot of sorry, a an art stand at
games Expo, which was mostly selling Dark Souls fan art and
you know, lots of other really cools as well.
But the stuff that jumped out to me and Nick immediately was like
Dark Souls fan art. We were like, oh, this is the
artist we want project. And once we said to Dwayne, hey,
we want to make a Dark Souls like RPG with and you to do all
the drawing for it. It was it was the fastest I've
ever seen someone sign a contract.
You know, it was like we were talking for like maybe two days
before they agreed to do like 80 pieces of art for us.
It was a stunning display. And like their stuff has just
been like, I think in the same way that like Nick and I really,
really love these games and like understand a lot of like what
the vibes are. We just started like speaking in
tongues to each other. Like the art direction of this
game has been super weird. Like there's been a lot of stuff
that wouldn't make sense to you if you're an all person just
like, Oh yeah, like this, like like this bit, you know, it's
like that bit plus this and then mixed in with that and then add
some Norse rude carvings and a particle accelerator, you know,
like it just works. And it's such a a fun person to
collaborate with as well because they're just so excited about
the stuff we're making. It's great, yeah.
It's been really been really fun to to to work with it.
You know, one of the the my favorite artist relationship
I've had certainly in the last yes.
Yeah, the art is is insane. So, so you, it's one artist for
the for everything all the way through the book then.
Other than this map that we mentioned, yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, apart from the map, which is like a little bit outside
their skill set. Yeah, one artist all the way
through for the whole book, which is like how we like to do
things as saw Muppet generally, you know.
The the the code, the coherence of cohesiency is is is really
great. And the pieces that are on the
Kickstarter page are fantastic. The pieces I got in like the the
art folder from mall are are absolutely stunning.
So yeah, good call on good call on that one.
I think you definitely hit the vibes on this one, which you
also did great with inevitable too.
I think you maybe you just have a good eye repeating artist for
the vibes of your games, which I mean, and then I mean don't even
start on the orbital Blues, which have some of those vibes
for games of of anything on the shelf back there.
But so that's that's kind of the the the book is really the core
of it. You know, you guys are doing
dice and and the banners were a thing, but you're not doing a
1,000,000 bells and whistles with this project, right.
The focus is kind of more on this like big gorgeous book and,
and and really packing it right. The book and the world itself
were ambitious enough for us as is.
We might do a couple of small ZS if we hit some really high
stretch goals. Like we've had a lot of people
asking for solo rules, so we might try to put that together.
But like, I doubt things will be that complicated.
You know which you just want to get this main book out the door
because it's it's a big book and it's been, it's taken a lot of
Nick and I's attention over the last year and a half to get it.
To get it, yeah. Like because we, we just want
to, I think, I think we mentioned though, we want it to
be like just the complete package.
Because if you're going to get a big book like that, you don't
want to have to do a whole heap of other stuff kind of on top of
it. So we want the, the rules to be
really like robust and as succinct as they can be.
And then this sprawling campaign that you can you can just read
off and go bam, bam, bam and just go through it.
Or you can really dig into it. But we didn't want you to have
to like choose. Oh, well, I want XY and said to
put that together to actually make something that works where
we just want to don't put it on the table.
Let's go, boys and girls. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like
with the size, I mean, even just the size of the invention, the
quick start, which by the way, is free, like on the website for
Soul Muppet and you can download it off the Kickstarter page.
But it's just Soul Muppet Dash Store Dash Co Dash UK.
And that link will be where links are on the Internet
whenever you see this video. But again, it's created, it is
an 88 page quick start. It is way more than enough to
play the game. So I can't imagine if you said
that that is like a fraction of of what the campaign is going to
be. You pretty much are just going
to need the campaign because you're going to be locked up in
that for a while. But you did talk about stretch
goals at one point. And I know there are a couple
for the project that you've already reached.
So what are the stretch goals for the project And and and the
next one looks like coming up as as you continue to fund?
So the first two we did were both extra MPCS we were going to
add to the game. Nick wanted to write a guy
called Motley the Crow, and I'm doing a guy called Angmere of
Bassingat. Am I saying that right, Nick?
Yeah, yeah. Sure.
Absolutely. And and those have both been
funded. Now.
Next up on the list is a, I'm writing a sort of like how to
write your own Doom Spiral content bit just like a couple
pages that are like, hey, if you want to add some more stuff onto
this or home brew your own thing or write your own campaign from
scratch. Here's like a bunch of advice
that I, I can give because like Nick's obviously written this
whole campaign from scratch and it's come very naturally to him
as I've had to, I've had to work to learn how to, to make douche
viral, you know, in someone else's image specifically.
And it's got a bunch of worked examples from a adventure that I
started writing but kind of haven't learned to finish in
time for the project called Curse Rotten Corvast.
Maybe we'll like be able to address that in a future stretch
goal. But after that one, which is a
40K, so I guess like $55,000, maybe something like that, we'll
be doing a just a stretch called pay rise for our collaborators,
which is like a super important thing for us to do.
When the project does well, we want the people we're working
with to share in that success. And then after that, anything's
possible. Who knows, solo rules, maybe
I'll be allowed to finish the adventure that I've written
about 10,000 words of. Who knows?
Anything's possible, but we've got some more exciting stuff and
for the future. Yeah, I mean, there is.
Damn, I don't know why I felt like this has been going for a
while. Maybe this because it's been
funded the entire time. There's still 20 days, there's
almost three weeks left on this campaign.
And once again, you guys are already Yeah, yeah, like almost
three stretch goals in and and funded on on day one.
And are are. What is the percentage when you
fund it twice? The 200 Yeah 2. 100% is that how
math works? Cuz my brain just went that
doesn't feel right I guess. I mean so 200% funded on a
project and again, the 2nd Kickstarter of the year with
Paint the Town Red coming out soon.
Mad as Hell still in the works. Doom Spiral is still in the
works. So you're doing your darndest to
stay busy is what it fucking sounds like.
So is there Beyond? You thought there's a big ass
project coming in March next year, and then October the year
after that, and then March the year after that.
On October that same year, you know, I'll be going into our
drop dead or, you know, so we'll be making games all the time and
you know I won't be able to write all of them, but I'm going
to do my damnedest. I will, I will.
I will continue to clear shelves out of the way and keep putting
stuff in boxes to make room. But So what?
What is there anything on the horizon, new new or new old that
that that is coming, you know, something like an afterburn for
orbital Blues again or, or anything else or is a focus more
on future projects? We've done our we've had our
little time of not doing any Orbital Blue stuff and making
new games. You know, it'll have been three
projects since our last Orbital Blues 1.
So I think I'm safe to say that in March this year, you can
expect Orbital Threes. Will it be as ambitious as
Afterburn? No, because that was too much
work. It took too much time to
fulfill. Sam and Josh have already
started writing and doing art, but there's something else
coming in that period which is so Muppet related and is Orbital
Blues related that I think I might have told you in person,
but I am not going to say on this podcast.
There's more. There's secrets coming.
And after that, who knows what will be October next year.
All I can say is I've personally started writing many standards
of epic poetry to facilitate this gameplay.
I feel like that's like one of the least surprising things I
could hear you say is that I've written stones of epic poetry.
But be I'm sure you told me and I'm sure as soon as this call
ends, I'll be like, what was it again?
And it'll be like, ah, yes, that's what it was.
But you know, as long as you are willing to come and talk about
it, anyone that is a sole mother fan can always find some of it
here talking about the projects. Someone in chat just said solo
rules hype. So I think I think people want
that. I think the.
So keep asking. Solo rules is absolutely not
the. Loneliness epidemic is real a
lot of people. Yeah, no, I hear it.
I hear it. Yeah.
We've, we we are working out how to look after you person and
other people who want solo rules.
It's just not something we've planned.
We've been making this game for a really long time.
And like, Nick and I aren't solo rules guys, you know, I don't
play solo games. I don't think you do either,
Nick. Correct.
No, the only one I really did get into for a bit was 1000 year
old Vampire, but specifically because I was playing it with a
friend. Or rather, we sent each other
letters about our games of 1000 year old Vampire, so even that
wasn't hugely solo. But we we, we have a solo games
guy. We will hear shortly from our
solo games guy and then maybe there'll be some solo game
content. That's what I was going to say
is just I mean you, you the wonderer was was not y'all just
find someone who really excited that is like I'm working on one
and be like all right, cool, that looks good.
We'll just we'll just take that one and and just kind of go from
there. But but yeah, so that is doom
spiral. That's what's coming up.
It's there's still 20 days left in the campaign and once again,
there's still like a plethora of stuff both new and old from soul
Muppet on the on the website. And we'll make that make sure
that that's all where those links are.
But where can people find you guys?
We're going to people find you Zach, you Nick and and Soul
Muppet as a whole to grab all of this stuff that I have on my
shelf here. So.
I'll let you feel. The First Web Store and the Doom
Spiral Quick Start and also Campaign page are the places to
find the games you've been talking about most recently.
You can get copies of all the other games that Ryan has on his
shelf from our web store, which ships for both from the UK and
the US, so we can get you books relatively cheaply wherever you
are. I personally am Zack or the
Jelly Muppet. You can find me at at Jelly
Muppet on most platforms apart from Instagram.
Where I am at, Muppet makes minis where you can only find my
Warhammer kit bashes and none of my What about you Nick?
A lot of my stuff is on solar, as I've said, so that's a good
way to do it. Get Doom Spiral.
It's pretty good out here. But I in terms of me
specifically, I'm at the expense on Blue Sky.
The other kind of thing that I have cooking, it's called a
heist game. It's a OSR styles kind of
medieval crime game that's cooking.
It's not quite done, but I will shout about it when it is.
Well, make sure you shout at us about it and and maybe we can
have a chat about about that. Hell yeah.
Again, Zach, always a pleasure having you on, Nick.
It's very nice to meet you. I'm a big games.
I'm a big gangs Titan city fan, I do.
Thank you so much. So just everything else.
So it was a pleasure to to get a chance to talk with you.
We'll make sure that everything that we just had all the links
to these these wonderful people. And where you can find this
stuff is again in the description below because that's
how the Internet works. But seriously, thank you guys so
much for being here. And and that is going to be us
for today. So we will see you all later.
Bye. Thanks.
So much for having us on. Thank you.
Ciao. Ciao.