Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and joining me today is Matt of Protagonist
Games. How you doing this morning,
Matt? Hey, pretty well.
Thank you and yourself. Not too bad, not too bad.
This is always the the weird part of the show where we
realize we've been talking for like 45 minutes and we have to
pretend we're just getting on. But it's always a great part.
So, so it's great to have you on.
We've been talking for a while. Played played a game that we're
going to talk about a little bit more buff this 2141 that's going
to be dropping very, very soon. So it's I guess the second time
we've actually I just in my head was like, oh, this is the first
time we're actually talking to each other in person.
No, when we played the game we were actually on.
But but it's great to have you here.
I'm very excited for this game. And I guess before we get going
here, why don't why don't you tell us who who the heck is Matt
Brereton? What is Protagonist games?
Yeah, so, so Protagonist Games is the sort of company that I've
set up to publish buff this 2141.
And so really like as I went down the road of developing the
game, I didn't really know how far it was going to go.
I just kind of wanted to see, OK, what can I do?
At what point am I going to stop?
And I haven't actually hit that point.
And Protagonist Games is a way for me to to work on the game,
to publish it, to release it. And we'll also act as a
mechanism for future games and future rule sets.
So, and this is going to be your first game that you're putting
out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So I think it really started to come into conception around the
beginning of last year and started to take it a little bit
more seriously once I sort of thought I'd happened on a good
mechanic and a good play loop. And so it's been just a huge
learning curve, which has been a lot of fun as well, though.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And before we get all the way to
there, because obviously a big chunk of this episode we're
going to be talking about buff this, what what got you into
kind of war gaming in the first place?
Yeah, so I when I was younger, I mean, I'm old now, I remember I
was very much into Magic the Gathering and Warhammer, but
without the guidance or structure.
So like I was, I guess 10, 10 when I started sort of delving
into that world. So I'd see this cool stuff in
shops, I would buy some of the cool stuff in the shops, but
then I wouldn't really know where what to do with it.
I remember spray pasting metal models with like the old rattle
cans in my, in my garage. And then because there was no
sort of community around me, it kind of, I found skateboarding,
I found going out and causing trouble.
And that took up like the next sort of 20 years of my life more
or less. And then I guess it was probably
just before COVID or maybe maybe just after I forget I, I'd had
board games and stuff leading up to this and I decided I wanted
to paint some zombie side models.
And then I thought, oh, it'd be quite nice to go down the road
of looking at Kill Team and some of the GW models because the
scopes were way better than the stuff come on games is putting
out right? And it's kind of snowballed from
there. I think that the one thing I
would say is though I didn't spend a lot of time in GW
ecosystem like quite, I think I was, I was speaking to what's
his name? It's going to kill me.
But I was chatting with somebody today and I was saying I was
quite fortunate that the very first Kill Team was hot trash.
So I played it. It absolutely put me off.
And then I started looking at other rule sets and I think it
was the Weld. So finding the Weld on Instagram
and that Discord server really started to throw me into the
whole Ink 28 scene. The alternative side of of war
gaming. Yeah, that's great to to start
there. I feel like so obviously, you
know, we've been doing the podcast more teach RPG's for for
quite a long time, only recently over the last year getting into
scrimmage games. And it feels like there is like
a lot of similarities between the, the scrimmage side and the
TRPG side specifically. And like, you know, like teach
RPGs, there's D&D is like the monolith that everything is kind
of under. And in skirmish you got GW and
Warhammer, which you know, then you got like the OSR scene and,
and, and the kind of various other scenes and then you got
like the 828 scene and, and things like that.
So there's some commonalities between the two.
So it's always interesting hearing, you know, so many
people on the TRPG side saying, oh, well, I started with D&D,
kind of went from there. And so many people, you know,
going, oh, well, I started with Warhammer and kind of went from
there. Anytime you can find someone
that just kind of like skips that it was like, I never really
played D&D or I never really played Warhammer.
I jumped into something else. It's always a great place to
start. Like I obviously, you know, I
started with D&D, but in skirmish I immediately was like,
you know, jumping into the weird stuff because that's what was
introduced to with people. And that's just a great place to
be, especially right now. There's so much cool stuff
blossoming in the ink 28 and and indie scene in in the skirmish
world, you know, one of which is is your game.
I'm very excited to to to run and play and talk about that a
little bit more. But what you know, you said you
started getting into the freak shit.
What made you want to actually write a game?
Yeah, so I, I've been playing Forbidden Psalm as the as a so,
so one other aspect is so I'm, I'm a dad, I've got young kids.
So solo war gaming is something that I do quite regularly.
And one of the games that I was running solo was Forbidden
Psalm. And I thought like, you know,
this is great. We've got these scenarios and I
wanted to try and create my own scenarios.
So I started to write those and it got to a point where I
thought, oh, like I've, I've got sort of ideas and setting ideas
and I wanted to see really how far I could go.
And I essentially started to just reskin forbidden psalms.
And I was like, OK, well, this is, this is good, right?
I'm sort of getting my creative juices flowing by sort of coming
up with some something thematic and but I really wanted to, I
decided I wanted to make something different.
So rather than just reskin the game, I think actually
previously previous to that as well, 5 parsecs, which is a a
great, great solo system. And I reskinned that very badly,
I may add, into GW Law because I wanted to run like I wanted the
five parsecs system, but I wanted to run inquisitors.
I think I've been reading some of the the GW Law like Eisenhorn
and it's sort of got my fires stoked around that.
So I suppose reskinning 5 parsecs and then starting to
write my own scenarios and that really pushed me towards OK,
well what do I want to do with this?
I started to think about the games quite critically.
Yeah, it's so so you were specifically just doing the
lore. You weren't trying to hack like
Inquisitor, the game, you know, kind of like that started all in
28. Yeah, so it was for, yes.
So for five parsecs, it was basically reskinning the tables.
So if you've read through that rule set, there are a lot of
tables. So it was horrible to be quite
frank, because you're going through looking at the stats,
changing the names. But it's important because for
that game, everything's procedurally generated, so
you're rolling on the table to see, you know, what enemies
you're going to encounter. What is the sort of the the
setup for the particular scenario you're been gone?
And so I needed the tables to be as relevant as possible.
I funny thing as well. So I spent maybe, I don't know,
a month on and off reskinning it, and then I played it once or
twice and moved on to something else.
As we are want to do so you I feel like most people are kind
of fantasy or kind of more sci-fi like obviously there's
crossover between the two, but you know a lot of people lean
one way or the other. Often you seem to lean pretty
heavy sci-fi. You know, you're talking about
reskinning 5 parsecs to play Inquisitor.
And if you really look at Inquisitor or like Negarmundo or
like a lot of that, because there are a lot of times they're
in the hive world, you know, Inquisitor, there's a lot of
like, you know, 40K without the space Marines.
But if you, if you scrape off a little bit of the grime, that's
really kind of just cyberpunk kind of.
So what what do you think kind of draws you to that kind of
lower section of the hobby? I don't know.
That's a really deep question. Let's see if I can come up with
a good answer for that. I, I say I can't come up with a
good answer for it, but it's just cool, right?
There's something about it that really tickles me.
I think it's very chic. I like the whole sort of, I
mean, when you look at like movies like Blade Runner, I, I
like noir as a setting, right? And I think a lot of cyberpunk,
a lot of the stories that are involved within those kinds of
settings, they have that noir element to them, as some of
William Gibson's books lean to that effectively.
It's a detective setup, but in the future.
And that's always struck me as something that I enjoy.
Yeah, it's so interesting that that I guess that whole thing is
definitely very much a genre that like, instead of like the
detective noir, how much good cyberpuck noir you get.
And I assume so much that is derived from from Gibson
because, you know, Blade Runner wouldn't exist without that,
obviously. And so many of the other kind
of, I guess like cyberpunk movies, like even like Johnny
Mnemonic and things like that, you know, obviously wouldn't
exist without without William Gibson.
So it's really cool that it came out that way.
It's also really interesting to live in the future now and see
how much they got right, but also how much is completely
wrong about the future of technology.
I think a lot of people miss the parasocialism that apparently
exists once we stop having human interaction.
But but no, it it's it's really great and you can tell in buff
this 2141 like in this, it feels like a noir game.
It feels like even as I was describing it to to hunter after
you and I played it, it feels very much like kind of like a
noir spy versus spy thing. Like you're a detective found
like my guy. And you know, we're having this
like very like Blade Runner at the very end kind of thing on
the top of a of a of a building and a lot of the influences that
you've written down in the in the game, because I did get to
take a peek at it. A lot of the movies and stuff
very much shine through. So I guess what you know, you
said you were adapting the inquisitor lore to five parsecs.
Where did that lead into into buff this?
Yeah. So to be quite frank, I don't, I
don't think there was a very Direct Line because so when I
did that project, there was maybe, I don't know, half a year
until I started working on writing scenarios Forbidden
Psalm and then again after, after I'd done that.
And these were just for myself, right?
None of those are released or published.
I think they're probably on Word documents somewhere on my
computer. And again, there was probably a
longer period of a reasonable period of time between that and
starting both this. And I think I had the inkling I
wanted to make like an arena shooter initially.
And so I started writing rules down for this and it's started
to get too complicated for me to actually, I was like, I want to
throw all these rules in, but I can't figure out a way to make
them work. So I put it down for, I don't
know, three or four months. And I think it's probably out
running. And I had like a, you know, a
tweak of an idea And I thought about how a lot of the time in
war games, there's especially with the bigger war games,
right, A lot of the game is the list building right to start off
with. And a lot of, you know, a lot of
the time as well, you can win or lose based on what list you've
built quite easily. And then effectively when models
are on the table to some extent, where they are on that table
don't doesn't matter so much. It's just more of a here, here
is my list and I'm going to roll some dice to see if they passed.
And for me, a war game, the fact that you've got physical
miniatures on the table, always wanted, always felt like it
should be making the most of that.
So really what I'm looking for is like lots of movement and
lots of interaction within the game.
And I had the, I had the idea of interactive tokens, right?
So we've taken the idea of the arena shooter.
I wanted ways to power up and level up your, your character,
your model throughout the game and I kind of just really
focused in on that during the creation of both this.
Yeah, because it's I mean pretty much the polar opposite of like
a big list building army game. You literally have like one guy
and you don't there is no character creation like you just
kind of you start with the thing, which is fantastic.
Like I love it. So for for those that haven't,
we should really talk about what you been doing with the
Kickstarter. So we will.
So we're going to get above this in a little bit.
So you launched, you did something that I haven't seen
anybody else do, which I think is incredibly clever.
And I'm curious what started it. You launched the prepaid for the
Kickstarter a while ago and I did not know that you could send
out updates before the Kickstarter launched.
So you for a long time, I don't know if you've still been doing
it. We're sending out like biweekly
updates before the Kickstarter even went live in in a, in a
good way, like why? Like what, what, what even lets
you know that you could do that? Because I I've backed so many
Kickstarters that I've never seen someone sending updates to
the game before the campaign even launched.
So what? But what kind of what, what,
what? It's great.
Why? Like what?
What got you Like, what have you been doing?
What have you been sending people leading up to the
campaign? Yeah, so I mean, the first thing
was it didn't stay bi weekly for very long because I realized
like I I think if I'd been earlier on in the game's
development, it would have been way more interesting.
But but really, by the time I got to Christmas of this year, I
was like, right, the bones are there.
It just needs some refinement. And the reason why I pushed the
updates really was because I noticed it was an option.
I thought that's that's quite cool.
I can, I can chat to people, I can give them an update as to
what I've been doing like designing T-shirts or printing
silly masks to take to take to some of the cons.
And actually I think if you look in like the the 1st 2 updates,
they're almost like A blog because it's not even all
specifically about both this, which I think is quite funny.
So I've got I'm going to do I haven't done one for a little
while. I did one after about two or
three weeks ago. It was after Salou, after Fringe
Fest, after 11 Steel. And so I'm going to do one this
Friday, just before the launch date on on Tuesday.
But but yeah, I just thought it was cool to sort of tell people,
OK, this is what I'm working on. And maybe some of it wasn't
super interesting. I think there was a lot of like,
hey, look, here's some merch that I've got, but I don't know
for me, because it's the first time that I'm going through all
of this. Like I'm getting really stoked
and really excited and I'm like, look, I've got like stickers and
I've got these Flyers and I've I'm going to this event and I'm
going to that event. So it was kind of a way to sort
of articulate the experience as I went through it.
I think it's such a great idea. I really, you know, this is your
kind of first game, the first Kickstarter that you're putting
out. But especially for people that
have a bunch of Kickstarters already that are going to have a
bunch of like people that have been following them for a while
that have a spot to follow that that's not necessarily like blue
sky or really social media almost using like A blog or like
a like a lead up into it. As I said, I haven't seen anyone
else do that and I hope more people do.
I think it's a great idea. I every time you dropped a post,
like again, it was, you know, you're saying, I'm so excited
about this. That's great to build excitement
leading with the Kickstarter. I mean, anyone listening, if
you're doing a Kickstarter, do that.
I didn't know you could. And I would love to read A blog
leading up to the Kickstarter and everything it it's great.
So, but so, so about this 2141. It's a game you're putting out.
So what is the quick pitch for for buff this 2141?
What is what is this game versus like, you know, any other
scrimmage game? Yeah, so I mean the five word
tagline is brutally dynamic single model combat, right.
So at a base level, there's no list building.
It's you're you're buffing your model stats when you're in game,
right. So it's very it's engaging, it's
it's dynamic, it changes from gate time to time.
It's a single model game as well.
So it's very relatively low investment.
And from that single model and from the quite nuanced rules, I
feel like it's quite, it can be turned narrative with a lot of
ease because you're taking much less mental task tax trying to
remember, OK, what is the combat modifier for this or what is my
start line for that, for that. And you're able to sort of
embrace the story that's unfolding on the table in front
of you. I think the the board size as
well is different. It was, it was difficult to come
up with a what the appropriate board size should be because a 2
by 2 for two models is quite a large open space, but also a 12
by 12 is extremely intimate. So going with the isometric sort
of 12 inches by 24 inches, it feels a bit counterintuitive,
but actually what you what it kind of generates a lot of the
time is a race to the middle and then this climatic battle, which
is which is what we found, right.
And you know that with with that kind of guidance, it promotes
the speed of the game as well, which is, you know, usually 20
minutes, thirty minutes if it's just one person versus one
person. Yeah, which is it's so great
because not only is it super dynamic and narrative, but
having a game that can wrap up in 20 to 30 minutes means you
can probably go, fuck, you want to go again like immediately
after and have that excitement and that little bit of a
learning curve, which which feels fantastic.
You're not stuck doing it forever.
And again, it's like a 1V1, you know, as we were playing it, it
just, it felt like every move was extremely important.
Like every time we were going for a buff token or every time
like, like I was literally like, like my man, do I do this?
Do I go for that? Do I climb?
Do I just get out? You're going to shoot me.
So I got to do this. Like there is no, I think
outside of like the first turn and I guess based on terrain, by
the second turn, if both people are really getting at each
other, you can be shooting at each other already.
You can already be put as much damage on.
It's it's really interesting and we talked about also the
character creation aspect of it. You're not doing any list
building, you're not doing any character creation.
So what what is? Because that's kind of where the
name comes from, like what is the character creation kind of
what makes it different in buff this?
So do you, you mean like the the unique citizen creation?
So like, yeah, so well, OK, so there's two things, right?
So the disparity between the models is the collection of in
game tokens. So you have a basic stat line
which is set numbers. And then within the game you're
going to acquire a buff token which is face down.
And in the back of them there are they're numbered.
So they're numbered either 2-3 or four.
And then you take those numbered tokens and put them on your
model card underneath one of your stats and you modify your
stats that way. So it's, it's basically changes
in game as you're, as you're playing and you can know it can
be the luck of the draw, whether you pull A2 or A4 and it can
drastically change the the outcome of the game.
And I think this was really one of the, the one when I when I
had that idea, when I play tested, I was like, yeah,
that's, that's cool. And it's very different.
I will add there is so there's no list building per SE, but
within the campaign mechanics, there are ways to upgrade.
You gain, you gain the ability, you gain access to additional
rules. And so if you play both this a
few times and you're like, yeah, this is cool.
I've got the base level, the base rules down.
I want a bit more depth. You can, you can essentially do
some list building which is there are like specific upgrades
which will allow you to interact in different ways.
Because I thought I wanted the entry level version of the game
to be extremely accessible, but equally I wanted depth there as
well for people to explore. Yeah, it's I So what I'm doing
right now is, is live throwing a graphic that shows the buff
sheet on and I'll cut to that in just a second.
Did I fix it yet? Did I fix it?
Yes, I did. OK, so I'm going to bounce to
that it the first time I saw this and actually figured out
how it worked. It's so it's so smart, it's so
clever. I love this.
And again, it's the whole reason that the game is done.
So I pulled up the graphic from the from the Kickstarter page.
It has the the model stat sheet on it and you have all of your
your like the scared like strike.
How can I not read this? What is the what is that?
What is C? Condition So condition.
Condition, agility, range, energy, and damage.
And yours and mine start as the same card and then buff tokens
are dropped around the board. And if you get to 1 of them, you
flip it over, see if it's a one to two or a three.
And then you can buff your guy by sticking your person, your,
your creature, your being on one of those things.
So I, if I flip A2, I cannot make my strike two or my
agility, you know, 2 or if I do my range, it's an X.
So if I get a two, it now becomes 4.
Like it's it, it's so clever and it's so simple and such, such a
good way that I was just like, oh man, like I'd never have to
worry about like making a war band or doing anything.
I can just start with my guy. And it's extremely model
agnostic because you have very like super lean syndicate
bashing and making whatever kind of crazy person you want.
Wizzywick doesn't matter. None of it matters.
So it's it's it's it's so smart. Like what?
What was there an inspiration for this anywhere or did this
just pop out in your head really?
Like man, you know what, what if I, what if I, what if everyone
just started with the same stat line and the core, one of the
core loops of the game is just bluffing yourself as you, as you
go through it. So, so a lot of this project has
been working, learning to work within my own limitations.
And so when it started off as an arena shooter, I knew I wanted
like it when you're playing Halo or whatever, right?
There's weapon drops or there's ammo or there's health or
whatever. And I wanted something like
that. So I'd like roll tables.
And I at that point I was like, well, you could have tokens on
there and you get token and then you roll on the table and maybe
it's even different tokens for weapons or or health or boosts
or whatever. And, and like I say, I got to a
point where that was like just way too complicated, went away.
And I don't know that's where it started.
I want to say it's sort of a flash of inspiration.
I can't think of anything that I've sort of digested that would
be where I've drawn it from. So I think it's probably just
the euphoria, the clear headedness of going out and
touching grass for half an hour in the morning.
But yeah, it's, it's, it is, it's that the thing that I
really like about it is you enter the game completely
balanced, right? There's no, OK, this is better
than that or that is better than this.
It's your balance. And depending on how you play
that game and, and a bit of luck depends on the outcome.
So it's it leans very heavily into the strategy and the
critical thinking that you're performing while you're playing
the game. Yeah, because even the way the
buff tokens work, I, I believe it's you placed three on my
side, I placed three on your side, right?
And then they're upside down. But then when you hit the token,
it doesn't go away. It resets.
But you roll the dice to see how many turns for it to reset,
which can completely change the strategy of how you're going to
play the game. Because if you roll A1, you
might hang out so you can tag over that buff token again.
But if you roll A6, you could go, I'll be dead before then and
you can move on. But if you roll like a three, it
really makes you think about like, oh man, like am I going to
risk it or not? So I think the resource
management aspect of on top of like the character, you know,
advancement aspect on top of the strategy aspect where you go,
well, if I stick around for this token, I'm on low ground,
they're going to come in on high ground.
You know, it's, it's, I don't know, there's so many aspects of
it flow so well together. And like you said, like it
almost builds its own narrative without even having to do that
much because you're SO1V1 right on top of each other all the
time. The picture I I flashed up now
is the one we were talking about for stream start with the rain
in the background. It feels it feels so perfect.
First of all, that's like the best mini.
I know that's like your main guy, but it it feels exactly
like how we play it at the end of our first game.
That's how it ended. We literally ended up on like
the top of the tower of the middle of the board and I had
run up to hit you and it was it's the best death ever because
I went to shove you. And then there's a rule in the
game where if if you win the defense on my shove, you can
basically just like grabbed my wrist and tossed me two inches
the other way, you know, and that two inches put me off the
edge of the building, which means I've dropped like 8 inches
to the ground. Splat had one HP left.
You jumped down after me, but I think you failed too and like
smashed down into the. Ground too, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then I don't remember
what happened, but you got to go.
I think I I used so I started, I had two actions.
I jumped, I failed to jump. So like I shattered both of my
ankles. But then I still had my second
action and so I used that for a combat and shut you point blank
pretty much right? In my mind, what happened is you
toss me off, I smash, you know, I look up, you're coming down to
smash on top of me. I roll out of the way, you crush
down into your ankles. And then as I'm like pushing up
to to, you know, get up and fight you.
You're still on the ground with your gut aimed out me.
Just shoot me. I collapse, you win and you just
get up, tuck the gun away, see if anyone's watching and just
like limp off into the darkness. And I was like, this is it was
so it felt so cool and it felt so cool to die in such like an
insanely cinematic way. And I don't know, you like
hooked me immediately. I was like, I fucking love this
game. After that, you know, we had
already been chatting a bunch. I was like, you got to come on,
we got to play the game. We got to like talk about this
stuff. I was so excited for it.
So hopefully people listening can sense that excitement and
and really get into the game. But I even just having like A1V1
no real setup skirmish game option because you don't need a
crazy board. I mean, your boards are
gorgeous. TTS board is is gorgeous as
well, but throw a little bit of terrain, put a little bit of
height in there and and just hand someone a sheet.
No having to do any character building, no nothing and just
get up and going like that. This is this is great.
Cereal boxes, cans of beans, pork pies, whatever you've got
lying around, it's all, it's all good terrain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so by the time this
episode goes live, the Kickstarter will be live.
Ish. So I want to hop over to that
page right now. Let me see how many windows I
need to hide to get there. Boom, we're here.
So the Kickstarter, you said what is today, don't worry about
what today is, but what is the day that the Kickstarter goes
live? It's the 19th of May, so next
Tuesday. Tuesday and then it's only going
to be a 24 day campaign. Yeah, I think that's right off
the top of my head, yeah. Cool, 6 days of stress off not
doing a 30 day campaign. Good call.
I have no idea why I picked the 24 days, but we'll we'll go with
that. It works.
Everyone I know that does a 30 says, you know, I wish it would
have been a little shorter because it'll drive you crazy.
Goals right? Around $3000.
I don't know what that is in in pounds.
Two 2141 lbs. So it's like 22141, yeah.
That's perfect. It's great.
I love it. It's silly.
Yeah, I love. It's perfect.
And so most of what we've talked
about is on the page. You got a lot of information
here on the page, but as far as pledge levels, as far as what
people can actually get when they go back to Kickstarter,
what can people get physically and digitally by backing the
Kickstarter? Yeah.
So there's there's 8 reward levels.
So there is a reward level for each of the physical books, for
each of the books rather. So there's the PDF version,
there's the wire a bound version, which I quite like.
I think I've flagged it as the player book because it's
accessible, it's easier to use while you're at the table.
And then there's the collector book, which is going to be the
hardback. And then we effectively have a a
reward level for each one of the versions of the books.
So we'll have a digital all in which is the PDFSTLS of the four
miniatures, STLS of the buff file, the buff tokens.
And then we'll have the same for the player book and the
collector book, except it's physical versions of those.
The there is an all in as well level which will get you PDFs,
STLSA physical copy of each of the books.
So you've got one to sit at home on your shelf, one to take with
you when you go gaming, and obviously the physical
miniatures as well. And then I think I've got a
retailer reward as well for just getting like 5 copies of the the
hardback book. Yeah, I mean, first of all,
thank you for doing a wire bound book because they are the
superior version of the book. I know a lot of people don't do
them because I've been told that stores don't like them.
They don't like sit on the shelf.
Well, they don't play well with other books.
You can't read the spine. But for at the table play my I
have like the wire bound version for like Flames of Orion.
It's the most superior version. It's just so easy to have like
flip through and have on the table and have open in front of
you. So that's fantastic.
So I know which pledge I'm going for, but you know, base pledge,
let's just say like the collectors edition, you know,
with the PDF and everything. I mean, it's all extremely
reasonable because even just the what everything is in pounds.
So the collectors book is only 39 lbs which is probably around
50 bucks USD which is great but the the player book is only
about 30 lbs which is probably about like 40 ish USD.
Super reasonable because the book it sounds like a relatively
straightforward game. There's some beef to the PDF
though, like you have a lot of stuff in there.
Like how long is the PDF roughly?
It's 148 pages, not including the covers and end papers.
Because there's like your finger fit.
You can split the book into like 3-3 parts.
Yeah, three parts. So you've got the core rules,
then you've got or maybe even 44 sections.
So the core rules, then you've got what I called Ion Bill High,
which is like a little nod of the head to Ion Springfield.
And that's all about the unique citizen creation.
So that's how you can incorporate more more in depth
rules in there as well. There's loads of roll tables for
generating fluff to get inspiration for kit bashing or
writing a back story for your unique citizen, right.
So there's like a roll table for vibe.
There's a roll table for mall odor.
So what do they what do you smell like?
And there's roll tables for weapons and stuff.
And none of that has mimic mechanical meaning within the
game. It's just something to use as
inspiration. And there's also sort of law and
mechanics applied to each of the four model STL's as well, so as
Sal and and Wyatt, and also a bonus one for Raging Annie,
which is a model from bad Skidder games.
Very cool model. And actually just while I'm just
a slightly Segway while I'm talking about the models and
they were sculpted by mangling minis who make some absolutely
amazing miniatures. And he's got a patron at the
moment for his name, his game that he's working on, Milligan
Flash. Yeah, Malignant Flash.
Definitely worth checking out. I have that downloaded the play
test version or whatever downloaded it looks incredible
so. So, and then so, so you've got
the unique citizen creation and then you've got the campaign
rules, right. So how to play the game in a
campaign setting. And then finally there's
multiplayer rules and campaign rules and multiplayer rules come
with scenarios as well, which actually substantially changed
the way that you're playing the game.
So some of them I, I think I really like.
I mean, I would say that I'm biased, but they're they're
quite interesting. Yeah, so you know, what I really
love about the the PDF about the whole book is how kind of like
easy it is to get the game up and going.
But you put so much depth above and beyond that so that you can
play the game as simply as you want.
Or if you want to do a bunch of the unique character, character
creation, a full campaign thing, like the whole 9, you can go as
deep as you want with it. And it's all optional, you know,
outside of like the base thing. And again, the base getting
someone into this game, you could literally just be like,
hey, I have a table over here, take this card.
Let's just go play a game real quick.
And then after that when someone gets into it, having the depth
to, to keep going and going with it just great.
Like even getting up to the point where you said multiplayer
campaign full of unique people, you know, making it like a much
bigger skirmish game, all completely optional.
I want to talk about the models a little bit more.
So you have 4 guys. The guy to me that I keep saying
the main guy, Ozzy Buchanan. What was the inspiration for for
for Ozzy Sal Auger, you know, Wyatt and then the outraging
Annie as well was the inspiration especially for for
ounces? Are these all your guys you came
up with that someone that you, you know, got someone else to
model off of pictures or did someone else come up with any of
these? Yeah, so it was like a a free
step process, right. So the the thing that I can I
can do is I can write law, I can write back story.
And so did that for each of these models.
I mean, look, my writing's trash.
It's like horrendously trophy. But I think if you were in a
cyberpunk environment, you can kind of get away with it a
little bit, right? It's quite it can be quite a
trophy genre. So I would, I wrote the law and
then I reached out to my younger brother Britain illustrations on
on Instagram because he's he's got all of the creative talent
in in the family or like an unfair amount, I would say and
asked him, like I said, look, I've got these got this law.
Like could you, could you do me an illustration for it?
And initially, like I felt quite bad as well because initially I
wanted to use it as the cover, but then it didn't fit in with
the rest of the direction that I ended up going with.
But the illustrations he made were amazing.
And these, this is what I provided to some mangling minis
who then used them to create the scopes from.
So it's, it's like the background, the law, the
illustration, and then the sculpting.
And I think following that process allows for you get you
get each person involved putting their own spin on it a little
bit and ultimately what you end up with in the end is something
quite unique and amazing. Yeah, they're a great spread of
of minis too. You got so Oz classic very this
feels very like straight out of the hive.
You know pink Mohawk, you know big open jacket 6 sunglasses.
Sal is this giant robot. It almost gives me a little bit
of like orc kind of like Dreadnought Y kind of vibes to
it. Like it's very much just looks
like a a piece of construction equipment that has been turned
into a fighter, which is incredible.
Auger is it almost looks like a religious figure to me.
Is that what the the inspiration is for that?
Because it's got these drapey clothes and these giant almost
look like these huge prayer beads around him.
Yeah. He's a, yeah, he's a, he's a
cult leader. I've been listening to a lot of
Behind the Bastards and they do lots of episodes on cult
leaders. So I figured that's that's
quite. That was quite a nice spin to
throw in there. That's great.
And then Wyatt, you got here, he's got like a melting face,
but he's got like a teddy bear on his belt.
Fantastic. So and then what about Raging
Annie? You said this is 1 from Bad
Squido. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I picked up the miniature. I think I bought it while I was
while I was writing buff this. I liked it because it's it's
it's Annie, right? It's raging Annie.
And I bought it and I I I painted it and I was like, this,
this is awesome, right? This is this is like a badass
with a machete, an assault rifle.
So a pink Tutu. I think I painted it pink and I
reached out to, it was like, hey, like, would you mind if I
did? I reach out to her first?
I think I might have written the law and say, hey, look what I
did. Isn't that cool?
Do you mind if I put that in the game?
And she was like super, very appreciative and supportive as
she always is and said, yeah, that's that's absolutely fine.
So I kind of, I think the story that I wrote for it really it it
kicked us. So I was just like, it needs to
go in there. Yeah, no, it's great.
I mean, and it's also great to have a little bit more, what's
the word? I'm looking for representation.
It's nice to be able to, you know, have have people pick the
the the feminine character. They like to have a feminine
character. So that's great.
And yeah, the the Tutu with the assault rifle is incredible.
It's a great mini. So so yeah, you said Buffest
launches on Tuesday the 19th. Yeah, very, very excited for
that. If you're watching this episode
too, there's probably another episode that's going to be come
out that you should also go watch because that I'm very
excited for that. We're actually going to get to
play the game so you can see that I is there anything else
about buff this 2141 that like people really need to know as a
campaign is launching right now? Oh, stretch goals Is, is that a
thing? Yeah, kind of.
So the, the, the key aspects for me for running this campaign and
doing like like a majority of, of everything myself was I
wanted to make sure that what I delivered was attainable.
And so, so an important part of that is costing things out
correctly, right? So the, the main stretch goal
that's involved in the in the campaign is based around the
level of additions made to the collector book, right?
So the more physical versions of the collector book that are
sold, the the more things that are included, like foiled
titling on the cover page, sort of embossed end papers, ribbons,
that kind of thing. So it's not a monetary goal, but
it's like, hey, the more of these books that we sell, it's
going to reduce the cost of producing that book so I can
include more stuff in it to make it the sort of the high end
premium products that I want. So that's, that's the core
stretch goal. There are some others that are
going to be revealed throughout the course of the campaign as
well. One of them's quite cool.
Two of them are extremely cool. So when the the story like
there's pixelated images there, they're not super pixelated.
So I think if you know people, you will get an understanding
for what's involved. But yeah, very, very excited to
to hopefully announcing those stretch goals as well.
Yeah, that's great. That's my favorite stretch goal
is you know that and like people get paid more are the two best
ones. Because if you're already, if
you're if you have stretch goal to create more content, you
already have a good idea. Just write the fucking content,
stick it in the game, right. But making the book itself like
a higher quality product means no more work for you, just
cooler looking when you get it. It's a great stretch call to
have. So those are those are my
favorite. So fantastic for that.
Very excited. I assume all of those are going
to be into the collector book. There's not a whole lot more you
can do with this. The spiral bulge, you're not
really going to be putting bookmarks in that.
Yeah. So no, no, exactly the the only
thing you could do with the Wiro bound.
Well, there's a there are a couple of things like you can
put like tabbing in there, which I thought was quite cool, but I
wasn't really the aesthetic I was going for.
And then the other thing is because these are so I'm going
to go for an acetate cover over the front.
And then the the front page is a heavier card stock.
You can get hardback wire a bound books, which I got one of
the one of the first Test prints above this done in in that
style. It's really hardcore.
The only issue with it is because you've got the, the
cover is larger than the internal pages.
The actual the circumference, the diameter of the of the wire
row is massive. So it's like you were talking
about shelf storage, like for this, it's, it's, it's insane,
but it's quite cool. Like I might get my cell phone
printed like that but. Yeah, see, doing one for
yourself is the best thing to do and be like, hey, could I get a
tester of this style and like dope, I just have another one.
That's great. Like I said, very excited for
this project project. I'm very excited for it to
launch. I mean, I think you're going to
do just fine as far as like getting to the goal.
You have a very modest goal, which is fantastic enough to get
the book printed, you know, without without worrying about
it. And again, not a ton of stretch
goals to to burden yourself too much, especially for your first
project. So I think you've done a
fantastic job leading up to the campaign.
I'm very excited for it. Again, I hope more people take
your take your lead and start using the pre launch page.
It's like building excitement and blogging.
I think that's a fantastic, fantastic idea.
So so once again, if you're listening to this at this point,
just back the fucking campaign. It's right there.
We'll make sure the links are below.
We'll make sure all that stuff is there.
But for for the rest of your stuff where people can find,
because I know there's a a free version of the game out right
now. There's some other stuff where
can people find you on the Internet and and your stuff.
Yeah, loads of work, loads of places.
So HIO if you're interested in the games, HIO protagonist games
or if you search for buff this 2141, I'm on Instagram.
I think I've foolishly got free Instagram accounts because
there's one for like my creative page.
There's one for buff this there's one for protagonist
games, YouTube, Blue Sky, Facebook, blah blah blah.
I would say only follow me on one thing though, because like
it's just the same stuff shared everywhere, right?
So you will go insane if you keep up to date with me on all
social platforms. Yeah, so so everywhere and
actually on the HIO right now, there's a play test rules for
what will be coming next, which would be the working title is
buff city, block wars and solo up rules for the game.
It's way more narrative, way more special rules driven.
But actually the way I'm trying to create it would allow you to
plug that into a PvP campaign as well.
So you get the same kind of bonuses, the same kind of XP
leveling as well. So that's what.
So after this Kickstarter exist and is out there and gone, the
next thing we're going to, we're going to stay in the buff this
universe and and move into the the solo and Co-op.
Yeah, I think there's two things I think I kind of want to do
with buff this and that would be the first one.
The next one I'm kind of working with and I may take a break.
It depends whether it's too too much to do that consecutively,
but I've got a couple of other ideas for games that are just
percolating at the moment. So there's this kind of quite a
nice runway. The main thing is time, really
working like a nine to five, right?
Trying to fit everything in around family and work is always
a challenge. Yeah, I mean, the older you get,
I feel like the less time we get, which which is just it is
just a struggle. If I can hobby all day, I would
at least get something done. Maybe not everything I want to
get done, but but great. And that's, you know, the other
cool thing about backing buff this 2141 right now is, you
know, there's more coming down the pipe.
So definitely, definitely great to go check that out.
So Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I really appreciate talking with you.
I'm very excited for this project.
I can imagine this will not be the last time we see you here on
the show, and I'm very excited for that as well.
So once again, thank you so much for being here.
I really appreciate it. Ryan, honestly, thank you for
having me on. It's a brilliant opportunity.
Yeah, no problem. That's going to be us for today.
For now. And back to the Kickstarter.
We'll see you all next time. Bye.
Ciao. Bye.