Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and today we have a very special guest with
us. It is Elliot Davis.
How you doing this morning Elliot?
Hey, Ryan, I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here.
So. So for those who might not know
Elliot Davis, who you are, why don't you tell us who, who Who
the heck are you? Where my people know you from?
Yeah, so I am a game designer and a podcast producer and an
artist that you might know from various places on the Internet
under the name More Blueberries. You probably, if you're in the
TTRBGS, know me from my podcasting work.
I am a Co founder of Many Sided Media and we make my first
dungeon and talk at the table. And you can hear my voice on
both of those podcasts, GM ING, playing, hosting, doing a whole
bunch of other stuff. And then my games, the ones that
you might know are Project Echo and ROM Com Drama Bomb are kind
of the two other big releases that I've had.
So I always, I always mean to do this and then I completely
forgot because I have too many games and they're all on the
floor. But I always try to remember to
grab people's games of stuff that I have and I would normally
just not worry about it. But I got the ROM com drama bomb
like like the DVD case. Oh, you got the DVD.
Amazing. And it's so cool, like it's so
amazing. It's I want to it's, it's in
here on the pile. I'll sort it soon, but I wish I
would have remembered to grab that because Project Echo.
So, so I remember like way back in the day when you guys had
first started the My First Dungeon podcast, you guys had
reached out because you guys were going to do die.
I think we were even trying to do something, but I think it
kind of fell through. Was that was Project Echo around
that same time when that came out?
Well, let let me put the timeline on.
Project Echo was 2023. Oh my God, what years are
blending together? Project Echo was 2023, which I
believe was also the year that Die happened.
I believe that I did. Were those or was it a year
apart? Oh no.
How many years have I been doing this?
I think it was the same year. I think that Zine month
2022-2023, Jesus 2023, Zine month 2023 was Project Echo.
There's the DVD. There it is.
I'm so happy to see that like out at someone's house 'cause it
was, was truly a labor of love cause the had to get it printed
in a different size. And like I printed the labels at
home. I burned the DV DS.
I made the cover slip in. Yeah, really fun.
Great project. Yeah, I remember because.
Echo and die were similar time periods.
Absolutely. Yeah, cuz I don't remember where
I I I kind of heard of you first, whether it was project
Echo or or the my first dungeon. I feel like it was project Echo
cuz I remember backing that and even I remember the crowdfunding
page and be like, this sounds fucking awesome.
And then I got it and it is it's really fucking awesome.
So really, yeah, really, really great, enjoyable game.
So yeah, as soon as I saw ROM com drama bomb, I was all over
this. This is fantastic.
But but yeah, my first dungeon it's like, yeah, like I said, I
think we're trying to do something and then it didn't
work out and then you guys just blew up and I was like, wow,
this is awesome. What you guys do with Die was
absolutely fantastic. Die is a great game that we've
we've read like three times to review on the show, but it keeps
getting like postponed that such a beefy book.
It's a kick ass game and a great book.
Yeah. Yeah, and, and the I mean, the
art is fantastic. The book itself is, is gorgeous.
You know, everything about it is really good.
And again, you guys show was was fantastic.
And you've done so much more since then.
Like I mean for those that might not be on the AP side, like what
are what are like specifically for my first dungeon, what are
what are some of the plethora of games you guys have gone over?
Yeah, so my first sorry die was kind of our first what I would
call like marquee season where we really became many sided
media. It became the team of the four
of us like all working together. And then we've done some big
seasons playing orbital Blues from our friends at Soul Muppet
Publishing, which is one of my favorites.
We've done. We did Wild Sea earlier this
year, which I got to GM. We just did a season of Paint
the Town Red. We've done 10 Candles was
another earlier one that was post die was 10.
No 10 candles was pre die actually.
But yeah, we've done a bunch of really great games and and in
and then we've done a bunch of my games because that's always
when you own your own channel, you get to kind of do that stuff
to. Do what the heck you want.
You know that's what we do with you.
And then also, you know, to the table happened as well and were
you did that did that that came after, right.
Talk of the table came kind of as like a natural, excuse me,
came as kind of a natural collaboration of me and Brian.
When many sided media properly formed, the two of us were like,
we really want to talk to more TTRBG people and like have
interviews that you know, we would want to hear kind of
thing. And and so we just thought we'd
try it. We were just like, let's just
try doing an interview show and let's like really like give it a
lot of effort and like go for bigger names that are kind of
batting above our like our league and stuff.
And so so, yeah, Talk to the Table has been such a joy.
I mean, and I talk about this in the interview Brian just did
where he interviewed me on Talk to the Table in that it has just
Talk to the Table has taught me so much in the last year.
Like I feel like talking to all these incredibly talented people
makes me better at everything that I do.
Yeah, it's really interesting, especially in the TTRBG
community because it's kind of weird in that it is a very small
but very big space. You know, it is might be like a
small number of people, but it's like worldwide.
I I honestly think we've talked to more people in like in Europe
than we even have in America. Yeah.
So it's really neat to get completely different
perspectives, especially in gaming when you think of
especially, you know, for some reason, there's a lot of people
in like Sweden, Denmark, Norway kind of area.
And the way they think about gaming is just like a slight
turn different. And it's so interesting to get
those perspectives. So I can imagine, you know, all
the interviews being, like you said, enlightening.
Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's like, and the more
that was kind of an effort we made in the after the first few
months, we like, you know, hit a bunch of people we knew.
And then one of the things that we heard from our audience and
what we wanted to do was talk to people kind of more
internationally. And so we got to talk to the
folks, the folks who made Goobut Banwa, which was really
fascinating, and Momados, who is another Southeast Asian designer
who does like Arc and the Magus so, so good.
Like Momentos is one of those designers where like her layout
is just a master class in every book she makes.
And I feel like just looking at it, it's like I now have like
little tips and tricks to do that I wouldn't have thought of.
Yeah, yeah, we, I think we did arc on the show.
I didn't get a chance to do Magus though.
But you like you said, her, her graphic design work is, is
absolutely insane. So yeah.
And then and then you yourself, you know, I mean, that's part of
the reason why we're here. That's that's what the logo here
in the bottom says the time we have.
But you, you not only do mini sided media on top of that, you
are also a game designer. And again, the first one that I
encountered from you was Project Echo, which is amazing.
And just tell us a little bit for those that might not have
played it, like what what at first was Project Echo?
Yeah, Project Echo is a solo time travel TTRPG.
It is in the like tradition of journaling games, but instead of
a journal you have a year planner and it is a time travel
game. So as you write in the planner,
you are moving backward and forward in time in the planner
as you hunt this cosmic horror entity which is called Echo, not
the Dolphin. Although I didn't know about the
dolphin and I've gotten that on the Internet like 150 times
since that game come came out. Yeah, cuz I mean echo Dolphin
doesn't get like super weird at the end because there's like.
I think it goes to like an alien planet, yeah.
Yeah, like it gets really weird, which would make sense in like a
weird space travel solo game, but.
Totally. I just didn't even know it was a
thing until I started posting about it online.
And all these people on Reddit were like, can you play as a
dolphin? And I was like, what?
Not yet, but way for the first supplement to project Echo.
Yeah, yeah. And then go from there.
So that's a solo game and there's a theme to this.
Just a second cuz then we have ROM Com Drama Bomb which is a
two player game. Three player. 3 Two players,
Yes. Yes, three players this time,
yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly 3 players. Yeah, so tell us a little bit
about ROM Com Drama Bomb and how you went from not one but to
three players for this one. Yeah, sure.
ROM com drama bomb is the I like to say it is the mash up of a
cheesy ROM com and an over the top action movie.
It's like if you just took them and made them kiss.
And it is a game where you play two people who are a ROM com
trope and one person plays a super villain of sorts that is
forcing the other two to to act out a ROM com.
It uses like no dice, no masters token based mechanics, but then
puts them on a time pressure so that the sort of comforting,
cozy pacing of token play gets kind of ramped up to 11.
But yeah, it was like ROM com drama bomb started with a name.
And then it was like, what is that?
And I came up to this idea of like a Dufen Schmertz esque
figure forcing people to like fall in love.
And then it became like, OK, this is always three players.
And that's what it, that's what it has to be.
Gotcha. And then the game that we're
eventually gonna get to today that we're talking about is a
game that you currently have on backer kit, which is the time we
have, which is a two player game.
So now we've hit 1-3 and two, I did it in.
The wrong order, I know. Yeah, if you would have done the
two, then the three, then you could have moved on.
So before we get into that, I guess to just kind of iterate on
the theme, what draws you towards these?
Like I want to say like non traditional, I guess for those
OSR people out there, but the clearly more story games,
clearly not for like big groups, you know, again, one player, two
player, three players, specific specific numbers, things like
that. Yeah, I, I taste wise, I, I've,
I've learned that I'm really drawn to specificity in games
and games that are trying to go after like a really particular
experience. And that kind of goes back to
one of the first games that really like lit my brain up was
10 Candles, which we which we played on my first dungeon.
And 10 Candles is just one of those games where it's like it
tells you exactly what it is from the jump.
It is a tragic horror role-playing game and you will
die at the end of it. And like it is this very
specific tight 10 scene story. And then I got into the work of
Jay Dragon with games like Wander Home and specifically and
especially games like Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast, which we
played also on my first dungeon, which Yazeba's Bed and
Breakfast. I like unlocked something in my
brain about games and like, oh, you can do that in a game kind
of thing. And that's largely why there are
specific villains in ROM com drama bomb is because he's Ava's
been breakfast makes these real specific character playbooks and
asks you to embody them and like not really put too much choice
on it. But because of that limitation
of choice and because of the specificity, you end up in this
very fun, constrained space of role-playing creativity where
you make choices and do things that you never would if you had
the freedom to just character create whatever you wanted.
And so those, this was all kind of a subject of taste.
And then I find myself to be a really narrative focused person,
like really like tight, like I'm a huge movie person, always have
been. And I love the tight narrative
experience of watching a movie. And I think that I often am
emulating that in games of like this is a this is a one night
experience. This is a, you know, this is a
sit down and do sort of thing. And I think that it comes also
from doing AP. Like I think the more I make AP
and the more I think about making like an arc of a
narrative in a show with games, the more I think about making
games that make that easier for people.
Yeah, it's weird. It's not weird.
It's it's an interesting thing to think about, you know,
because especially again, a lot of people in our space are very,
let's call that quote UN quote OSR, even though you can hear
flooding my other rants about why that's fucking dead.
But it's very not just the here's a structure of a game and
then an open world and it is dangerous.
Go play swords and Shields and make up, you know, whatever you
want as you go. Like you said, Tin Candles is a
fucking amazing game. I love that we've played it on
the show. We've played it, you know, off
the show and everything like that.
It's really fantastic and and games like that.
And like Fiasco is another one that I think is to me is really
similar, like you said, is it's very much narrative focused.
It very much is themes. It very much is, like you said,
Tin Candles has those 10 scenes and that's it.
Fiasco has, you know, some stuff that turn and then it all goes.
It's really interesting. And as you said, from like an AP
standpoint, if you, it's a lot harder to have someone on and be
like, hey, we're gonna do this open sandbox adventure and we're
gonna stream it. It's like, yes, but we only have
three hours, right? So it's a little different.
Yeah. So was there a time prior to
that prior to getting into like making project Echo and ROM com
drama bomb you seems like you said where you were more of kind
of like a triad or OSR player and there was a shift or or did
you get into gaming kind of through through that lens?
Yeah, I was actually, I was a 5 E player first.
I I discovered 5 E during the pandemic.
I had a friend who had played some Pathfinder in college and
wanted to like get back into tabletop and so me and him.
He was my roommate. He's actually Behold who is the
musician I collaborate with and we collaborate with on my first
dungeon a lot. 1 of my oldest friends and he, he was like, I
think he'd really like this like let's do a one shot.
And I had some friends who lived in other places and it was the
pandemic. We had a lot of time.
So we did like, you know, a 5 E one shot where a wizard is a
sheep. I think it's like kind of a go
to starter adventure for a lot of people.
And I just was really excited about it.
I had never played any kind of TTRPG before.
And it was just like, wait a second, like what is this?
And then we started running like me and two of my friends all had
campaigns going and we would rotate through our campaigns
every week over the course of the pandemic where it'd be like,
OK, you get to schedule 1 next week, you get to schedule one
the week after. So we had like these three big
long running campaigns. So I was a huge DND 5E person
and then through TikTok and through my favorite local game
store, 20 sided store in Williamsburg.
Great place. I discovered indie RPGs.
Dicebreaker also at the time was doing videos about like 10 games
that are not D&D you should check out and Kids on bikes was
the first non D&D book I bought. And then it kind of from there I
became a collector and player and I ran Honey Heist was the
first non DND game I ran. And when I ran Honey Heist that
was like, oh, games don't have to be DND, You know, it was
like, that was kind of like a, oh, we can play as bear
criminals and have like a really compelling, fun, narratively
satisfying experience in about 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Like great, excellent. And then I was kind of on board
from there with this other style of gaming.
That's awesome. It's really so I started as a 5V
player as well back in 2014 and I love if you watch a show, you
know that I'm not a fan of 5V for a billion reasons.
The biggest one being Wattsy is a terrible garbage company, but
I love people's like like I don't even know what word you
would use for it. Like that moment they realize
that like there's other stuff besides 5 E like the stories
that they tell them, like the first game that they had kids on
bikes being such a great game and like the entire like on bike
series or the kids series is fantastic.
So it's always nice to hear that story of like what radicalized
you like what what what got you off the path.
So that's great. And then and then that led you
to eventually, you know, everything that we already
talked about, like the game designs through project that go
through ROM com drama bomb and then to what we're talking about
today that which is the time we have.
So what is the time we have? The Time We Have is a tragic 2
player RPG about brothers in the zombie apocalypse and the final
days after one of them is infected and the conversation
that the two of them have before that brother turns.
It's a card powered game inspired by games like For the
Queen, and you play it sitting on opposite sides of a closed
door to kind of get that emulation of the experience of
not seeing the other person and having to, you know, separate
from each other. Yeah.
So it's kind of it's, it's that's heavy.
There's some heavy shit I'm just doing out there.
It's. Very heavy and it's a big tone
shift to make in the same year that I made ROM com drama bomb
for sure. Yeah, yeah.
And it's so. And then Romcom drama bomb is no
dice, no masters, which is theoretically Pbta or whatever
Windley, the umbrella that they want to call PBT at this point.
But this is a like card game, which is so you did journaling.
You did, you did no dice, no masters.
Now you're doing storytelling card games.
So you're just gonna hit all of the bases eventually.
But but why? Why?
Why did you go towards like a
card game style for this for this game?
Yeah, so this game idea is in its in its first little, when it
was first a little glint in my eye two years ago, it was a
short note on my phone. That was when I was really into
solo games, really into solo journaling.
And I had a note about, you know, a solo game about
processing someone's turn into a zombie.
Like that was the first nugget. And then it was, no, this is
actually a two player game and it's using playing cards and you
split the deck like, you know, hearts and diamonds and spades
and clubs and you're either reading them or passing them.
But I wasn't still quite kind of on board with it.
And then late last year, I came to the realization that.
For me to get excited about this game, it has to be more
specific. I need to be more excited about
writing it and like really feel like I need to write it.
And then the idea came of like, what is the single most
devastating relationship for me that I would have to process
this through? And it was my brothers.
And so I was like, that's what this game is about.
This game is about specifically brothers and the weird
relationship that a brotherhood entails and and having to go
through like a hard thing in that.
And then at breakout con in March, I played for the Queen
for the first time, which was a game that I had heard a lot
about. It's like a designer's game in a
lot of ways. Like I feel like every designer
sites this game in some way as like opening up something in
their brain. Have you played for the Queen?
I I'm not same as you, I had heard about it forever but I
haven't got a chance to play it yet, no.
I highly, highly recommend, especially it's a great game.
Like if somebody you're at a con or something and somebody has
it, it's a great like pull out and play game.
I played that game. And what for the Queen does is a
magic trick of the rules cards being as soon as you open the
game and you start reading those rules cards, you're playing and
you're in the like magic circle and you're and you're getting
into it. Like you pull that first card
and it says like, go around and read these cards one at a time.
And then the next person goes and then it's like, you're right
in the fiction. And it's like the the Kingdom is
at war and the queen has to go on this thing.
And then the third card, which is this one that my friend
Vedicci Valetti, who's an incredible designer, really
loves and has like totally gotten me on board with loving
is she chose you for this mission because she knows that
you love her. And like that statement holds so
much power and gives you so much context for like who your
character, no matter like what else emerges about your
character and play. She chose you because she knows
that you love her. Just like hits so hard and like
makes this real specific decision about you.
And so for the queen just kind of broke my brain and I was
like, this is so powerful. This is such an easy way to get
somebody into role-playing. You don't have to reference.
I love playing card games. I love tarot card games.
Like obviously Project Echo is a lot of pulling playing cards,
pulling tarot cards and referencing things.
But when the game is on the cards, you don't have to do that
referencing. And so we also had the
opportunity to speak to Alex Roberts over the summer.
And I got a lot out of that conversation of like what goes
into good prompts in this kind of game?
And like how Alex thinks about the activation energy of playing
games and how she is more inspired by like folk card
games, like old deck of card games and the ease of which you
can just pick up a box of cards and play a game so quickly.
Really, you know, got me. And honestly, this game was
going to be a book until like August.
I was still thinking it was going to be a book and using
playing cards. And then I just like was
thinking about the game and talking it out with some
friends. And I was like, I think it's got
to be a deck of cards. I don't think this game will
ever like work as well if it's not just cards.
And then I just priced it out and it made the budget way
higher and and I was terrified to like go into this like bigger
endeavor. But, you know, as of today, it
has worked out. But yeah, so that's kind of the
journey to to getting to cards. It was like, ultimately this is
the best possible way to help people tell this story with with
the least amount of friction possible to immersion and to
play and to role play. Yeah, that's good.
I mean, a quick shout out for Vidich Valedi as well, cuz blood
beam Badlands is an insane game and I cannot wait for it to come
out with world champ, who is also one of our favorite people
in the entire world. So I, I, I'm, I'm very excited
for that. So we'll see.
We'll see when that comes out. I've had a chance to play some
of the updated stuff and it's. It rips.
It really rips. It's.
It's so funny cuz we, we rarely on our show cuz primarily we, we
still do interviews, but primarily we try to do reviews.
And we did the, you know, the PDF of blood Beam Badlands and
it was like an in progress. And we don't really often do
that. But when I read it and then I
gave it to Hunter, we were like, we have to like and read this on
stream. We have to talk about it.
And like our biggest take away after we read it was like, we
need more of this, like, please finish this game.
Like we will do anything we can if you just finish this game.
So I'm very happy that that is happening.
It's OK, I'm gonna go bully him that this came up after and that
he needs to get to work on on the finishing touches because
he's. Close.
Yeah. Tell him, tell him, tell him,
wrap it up, wrap it up. And then I was gonna say come
talk to us right now. We will be happy to review it
again and play it for sure. But as we said prior to talking
about the card games of it, we talked about how fucking heavy
this shit is and it's quite a lot.
But why don't you? So going through it's, it's
gonna be a deck. It is.
It definitely leans kind of towards that like journaling
game aspect like you said, cuz there's prompts and things like
that. But it's two people through the
door. But if you if you go to the
backer kit page, which we'll go into a little bit, you can
download the print and play demo.
So go check that out, but talk to us a little bit about
actually playing the game. I know here on the thing there's
prompts, perceptions, infection, those kind of things.
Like what are the steps to actually getting through the
game? Yeah.
So, so obviously there's a set of rules cards very, very
inspired by For the Queen where you read those and that helps
you establish what apocalypse are we in?
Like what's the nature of the zombie infection we're dealing
with? Which of us is infected and
which of us is older? Those are kind of everything you
establish. Then the deck gets split between
the infected and the survivor. You close the door between you
and you begin play. And this is going back and forth
in turns, drawing a card and doing one of three things.
One of those cards types is a prompt card.
Anybody who's played for the Queen will very much recognize
this sort of card. You pick it up, you read the
question, the other person answers it aloud, and you have a
sort of you let the conversation flow from there.
If you'd like, you could also play it where you just answer
the question as written and still have a very narratively
satisfying experience. But often with these kinds of
games, I wanna encourage people to just kinda let the story take
them a little bit before they move on.
The other kind of card, which is my favorite kind of card in the
game, is the perception cards, which these are cards that when
you draw them, you don't read it aloud.
You simply pass it under the door for the other person to
pull and read. And these are sensations,
smells, sounds that then you have to respond to without ever
kind of acknowledging it initially out loud.
And it creates this really eerie and fun and surprising sort of
immersion where like when you are just like in the middle of a
conversation and then it dies down.
And then instead of being asked a question, you just feel or
hear a card get slit under and it says you smell blood.
It's like, oh shit. Oh shit.
OK, now I have to like ask you what that like are you bleeding?
And like, what is that? It's it's proven to be some of
the most fun moments. Fun is fun is a hard word with
this game. It is a very good game, I
believe. I don't know that it is always
fun. It is like it's good.
It's narratively satisfying. It can be very heavy.
It can be very cathartic. There is fun to it as well.
It's kind of weird to like, I sometimes feel weird throwing
the word fun around when it comes to this game because it is
so heavy. But yeah, the perception cards
are great. And then the third kind of card
is the infection card. And the infection card is only
in the infected brother's deck. And these do two things.
So in the fiction broadly of the game, the infection takes six
days or less to to take hold. And so there are five of these
infection cards. Each of them signals the end of
one of the first five days. And then obviously the 6th day
would be the end of the game. These end those days you pause
play for 30 seconds. They also give the infected
brother role play instructions to kind of change how they are
role-playing to emphasize the fact that the infection is
getting worse. So one of them, for example, is
the infection makes you angrier. Take the next question your
brother asks you the wrong way. So it gives somebody that kind
of permission to, like, go over the top in a way that they might
not if they weren't told to. You know, like, there is a kind
of player who, when asked a question, if it feels right in
the narrative, might be like, I'm going to take this the wrong
way. But when you're told to, again,
this is that idea of putting constraints on your
role-playing. You get to do sort of surprising
things from there. And then the single most
devastating card in there is an infection card that says the
infection makes you hunger. You need your brother to open
the door right now and is the I love this card because it is a
thing that tells you to do the one thing that will end the
game. It it's a thing that tells you
to beg your brother to do the one thing that will end the
game. And it is so horrifying and so
tragic. Every time I have encountered
it, nobody has ever opened the door when it's come up and ended
the game. But it is that like you get that
impulse when somebody is like saying it to you of like open
the door. It's like, oh, oh, I love it.
That's my favorite card in the game.
Probably is the is the you need your brother to open the door
right now. And then there's one other card,
which is the ending card. This game always ends the same
way. It is a card passed from the
infected brother to the surviving brother silently, and
it just says, do you open the door?
And that is the final question of the game.
That is where the game ends. It's, it's not, it's, it's fun.
It's funny seeing you smile like real big when you're like, this
is the most devastating card in the game.
Yeah, I'm. It's horrifying.
I'm a sicko. Yeah.
Listen, I'm right there with you.
This is this is fucked up and awesome and I, I can't wait to
get in hand. You know, one of the things I
really enjoy about your game design is that like a little bit
extra, like, you know, Project Teco is a journaling game, but
you decide to make it. And not just that, just like the
time travel stop, you're like, but it's in a planner.
Like there's a little bit more. And with this, it's the things
like the perception cards and actually being like, this isn't
just a journaling game. You're actually, I need you to
actually sit on two opposite sides of a door and you're gonna
slide stuff back and forth underneath and even going so far
as the knock for safety like the the X card variant, which X
cards are great safety tools are great.
Everyone should use them. You're not too cool to use
safety tools, people, but it's always nice when you can use the
safety tool in a way that doesn't feel like you're
screeching everything to halt and everyone's like staring at
somebody. So the the not so so So what is
knock for safety? Yeah, so knock for safety is A3
knock system precisely because in this game you can't see the
other person. You don't have a shared table
space. The X card.
Well, I love the X card as a safety tool just was not going
to work for the system. You can't tap the X, you can't
verbally saying I'm going to X that would like especially
because you can't always hear each other super well through
the door, which is kind of part of the immersion that like it's
verbal safety tools. I just decided we're not going
to work. So the knock safety card is A3
knock system. One knock is very functional
like an X card. It is, I want to move past this.
I want to end this particular discussion or topic or I want to
skip this card. It is a it is a let's Fast
forward, let's move on. Script change is another safety
tool that inspired a lot of this.
But two knocks is I want to pause play and talk out of
character about something that happened, make sure everything's
still feeling comfortable, and then we will resume knock,
resume play defiantly with two more knocks.
And then three knocks is a full RIP cord, no questions asked.
You knock three times. Let's open the door.
We're done playing. Maybe we'll start playing again,
you know, later today. But like for now, that is the
full RIP cord on this story. And it, and it's nice because
it's like it is a thematic way of, of, of using safety like
where like you have like it's a very easy tool.
It's a very quick thing you can do.
And also, like I said just previously, you have like some
cards like the one that I was talking about before, where it
is like you are verbally telling the other person you want them
to open the door, which if a safety tool was verbal, could be
misconstrued as like, I'm having a bad unsafe time in the game,
please open the door. But when you're doing that and
you're not using the knocking system, then that gives the
signal to the other person of like, oh, we are in play, we are
in role play. I don't need to worry about your
safety. So, yeah, that's the knock
system. So each player gets one of those
cards. Yeah, and and like I was saying,
just the the thought that goes into stuff like that beyond like
you could have literally just had an X card you slide into the
door. But but making it thematic is so
it's clever. It's so clever to not only have
a a good adaptation for those non verbal cues since you're
literally not looking at each other, but like you're at a
door. So like knocking kind of like
feels like the thing you do at doors.
So it it really makes sense and then I know, so it says there
are 10 door cards which defines the zombie apocalypse.
So like, what are the different types of zombie apocalypse
ellipsize ellipses that that people could have?
Well, so it's interesting because I, I've heard a couple
pitches from some folks, but ultimately the door cards will
be, you know, pieces of little microfiction on one side and a
corresponding door illustration on the other.
You can choose these. This is another pulled
inspiration from For the Queen, which has Queen cards which help
define your world. And I don't actually know what
all of these zombie apocalypse's are going to look like yet
because I have 10 guest writers and 10 guest illustrators who
are going to be collaborating to make them.
And they're definitely going to be doing it now that we're
funded. And I sent them all an e-mail
today that was like, hey, now that we've funded, if anybody's
excited to share pitches, I'd love to hear what you're
thinking. But when I sent the brief to to
these collaborators, like I threw out some, you know, wild
directions that you could go. You don't need to go traditional
zombie apocalypse. I was like you.
You might do like a magic blight in a medieval like high magic
setting. You know what I mean?
Where like magic is corrupted and maybe you're playing two
wizard brothers now and that like changes the game entirely.
Or another one that I like kind of threw out there to give them
some inspiration was like imagine like the the piece of
micro fiction is like a note from a priest about how there is
like a possession epidemic beginning or something.
And then you play with the zombie virus as a possession.
And it's I think actually a great way that people can see an
example of this is if you listen to the actual plays from No
Quest for the Wicked and a queer PG, because both of them set
their the time We have game in an existing world from their
show and used a plot point to define the infection, which I
love. And the No Quest for the Wicked
folks specifically, their infection was this kind of
cosmic horror deity infecting the mind of the infected
brother. And so it was this live
processing of like these impulses in his head to do
certain things that he's dealing with throughout.
And he has these sort of chilling phrases he says and
stuff. So like the door cards are where
this game gets replayable and really like opens up the
definition for folks is that like, you can play the Last of
Us, you can play, you know, I am legend, these like zombie worlds
that you know and love. But like, what does this become
when you're on a space station and you're playing like somebody
who has like the alien parasite in their from alien and that's
what they're processing, you know what I mean?
Like it's just you get to bring in so many different weird
angles with the door cards. It's the part I'm most excited
to see take shape because it's also the part that's like kind
of amorphous right now. Yeah, You know, it's really neat
that it is amorphous. I have the list of or the image
of the guest writers and illustrators on the screen right
now, but the whole game sounds awesome.
That's the part I think I'm the most excited for because like
like you said, the the possibility of opening it up for
so many things, but also just in like a design and play sense.
If it was if it was just zombie apocalypse, people would play a
lot of zombie apocalypse. But the fact that you have 10
things that are different makes people go, wait a minute, I have
10 more ideas that I could do when we could play this a
million different ways. Just by being like you got bit
by like a vampire or something like you got bit by a werewolf.
You have the whole plethora of of classic monster lore in front
of you to to do it and and beyond, so really fantastic idea
to give the game legs for a long time.
Yeah. And I, I, I know from some folks
who played the game at Big Bad Con told me that a couple of the
people who were there when they were playing were already
writing their own door cards after they played it at the
thing. And I was like, that's so sick.
I don't know why I hadn't thought somebody would just do
that immediately, but I was like, that's so sick.
Like I would love to see, like, what they write.
So you're right. Yeah.
It's not only options, it's permission to like tweak the
game to your own setting. Yeah, which is always nice to
have if anyone that's in the TTRBG space.
It's like we don't need to give you permission theoretically to
hack shit, but it's always nice to have it at least once in
there. Just be like, sure, yeah, go for
it. Like some people like that
little bit of permission. So, and the game is a deck of
cards and I know you said previously that you like you're
a fan of tarot cards and stuff like that because it is a tarot
sized deck of cards, correct? Yeah, the yeah, the actual
format size is tarot. Yeah, 2.75 by 4.75 inches.
I'm sure you had to say that a lot to try to get those printed.
Yeah. So as far as the pledge levels,
like what can people when they go back this on back?
OK, right now 'cause like you said, it is already funded.
It is over $15,000 for a two player card game.
I'm so excited. We talk a lot about I back too
many fucking projects and we talk a lot about projects here
on the show. And backer kit is becoming more
and more and more popular and more sustainable as far as
things like that go, because you know, $15,000 for a project like
this is fantastic and it's really nice to see it able to
make that kind of money off of Kickstarter with.
But when they go to the backer kit page, what can they get from
this project? Yeah, so you can grab APDF copy
of the game for $20. You can grab a physical copy,
everything you need to play the game for $40.
You can bundle those together for 50, which I did have
somebody asked the question about why don't I just bundle it
with the base game. I do kind of see the digital and
physical as pretty separate things because the digital is
also going to have a guide for using a deck of playing cards
that I'll layout sort of nicely like a digital Zine.
So it's a little bit of extra labor that I'll need to hire.
So that's that's why there's that little price differential.
You can also get 2 physical copies for a discount at $60.00
in a very cutesy tier called Four Brothers.
You can get the special edition deck which will be in a magnetic
book box with an alternate silver foil cover.
Very minimalist. Essentially, I wanted to make a
version of the game that is an art piece that does not have any
of the stuff that I'll have to put on for retail so that it is
something that you can kind of display on your shelf.
The way I put it is like this is the thing you turn sideways
rather than, or you turn front ways rather than put in sideways
on a shelf. I'm really excited to work with
Ripley, the illustrator to design the alt cover for that.
They have some cool ideas. And that special edition will
also contain three additional door cards that I will write
because I have a lot of ideas that I want to, you know, cram
into the game that I couldn't fit into the base version with
all of the incredible Murderer's row of contributors for $150.00.
This is the throw more money at the project because you would
like it. But in in exchange, you get a
limited signed edition of that deluxe copy.
I will put a small, you know, signature plate.
It'll be numbered and signed as like a Kickstarter exclusive.
And then if you're feeling nasty, you can pay $500 to play
the game with me. And I think so far my mom has
backed at that level. So there.
You go, you gotta listen, you gotta throw it out there.
You never know when someones going to just drop that.
Never know. You never.
Know we a lot of projects have been like, we do this out there
because it's ridiculous and we got five people to back it.
So but the the four brothers series kind of shit I was
talking about earlier where I was like, you just had these
like little clever extras that just that in all the stuff you
do and even having like, yeah, just do 2 decks like that's a
great thing to have for A2 player game.
And it was I I laughed, I think out loud when when I saw that
too there. So that I'm glad I'm glad you
kind of chuckled when you saw that too.
One thing I do want to talk about too though, is we
mentioned there's a lot of guest writers and guest illustrators,
but like who? Who we talking about here?
Oh yeah. So these are some of just like
names you will recognize from TTRPGS, some illustrators and
writers that I've found outside of TTRPGS.
So our guest writers are, and there's a lot of names, so bear
with me. Harlan Guthrie of malevolent
fame, Caleb Zane Hewitt, who you might know from Triangle Agency.
Jay Stroutman of Planet Arcana and currently working on A
Fool's Errand. Kendrick Smith of Tales Yet
Told. Kyle Tam, known for such games
as Mariah Vediccia Veletti, who we've just talked about today.
Caro Assertion who wrote I'm sorry, did you say St.
Magic? Amongst many other cool games,
but Taylor Navarro who made not Yet which was a romantic game
that came out around ROM com. So we were sort of romantic game
buddies. And then Dylan Napelion, AKA
Super Dylan, who is a dear friend, host of one Shot,
incredible game designer in his own right.
Illustrators, we have Raul Vopato, Victor Winter who did
the villains on ROM com Drama Bomb.
So if you loved Victor's work on that, I'm very excited to be
working with him again. John Gagney, Sonia Hennar,
Justin McElroy, No Relation, Connor Nolan, WK Hall,
Evangeline Gallagher and Nadir Noor.
And that's a mix of illustrators who have been in TTRPGS, as well
as about four or five folks who are brand new to TTRPGS.
Yeah, I think Murderer's Row is, is the right the right thing to
call that. I mean, just the the the spread
there. First of all, I mean, putting
them on the cards was a fantastic idea too.
But between the illustrators and the writers, it's it's it's it's
an insane project. Like in the fact that you don't
even know what they're all doing is one of the coolest parts of
all of this, where you've made the game, you've opened the door
for the door cards for for that, and then just brought on this
fantastic a group of people to just make it even better.
So that's, I mean, good job. I don't know what else to say.
It's fucking awesome. I'm very excited for it.
Yeah. It was a real I knew I wanted to
get a bunch of people involved with this game and I wanted to.
And when I figured out that it was through the door cards, that
was great because that is an easy pitch for someone who is
really wild and artistic and cool.
Is like, hey, do you want to define a weird fucking zombie
apocalypse for me? And everybody on this list was
like, yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, I do want to do that.
No projects funded. Again, it's over $15,000, but
I'm still looking at the back of the kit page and there's room to
grow with stretch goals. So what?
What are we looking at for that? So we are there are going to be
three additional door cards that are stretch goals.
These will be in the core game, unlike the three that I'll be
writing for the special edition, the first of which unlocks at 17
five. That will be a card written by
Felix Isaacs, who is the designer of the Wild Sea and a
good friend. And the illustrator on that will
be B Marsolier, who also did the logo for the game, which
absolutely knocked it out of the park with that logo.
And then once we hit that, I can reveal two more exciting folks
who are gonna make a card at 20,000 and then two more folks
who are gonna make a card at 22 five.
And then at 25,000, if we can hit it is my favorite kind of
stretch goal. It's the everybody gets a range
stretch goal. It's where I can make room in
the budget to up all the contributors rates.
And I love to do that. I love to pay people to make
art. It's the best.
Yeah, it's, it's like if you pay people, then you you make stuff,
you know, one of the I, I love, I love the space.
I do. I promise I do.
I wish more people kind of thought about it that way.
Not that a lot of people don't, but there's definitely people
that make, make stuff, pay people and people will play your
stuff. Like if you, if you make things
with love and, and surround yourself with good people and,
and creative people, you will get more from it.
And, and clearly you, you make great things and surround
yourself with great people. And, and here we are now talking
about this project that's just funded on backer kit with.
So that's evidence of it enough, but.
And people want to work with you again.
You know what I mean? Like a lot of these people on
this project are repeat collaborators.
You know, Samantha Lee is editing for me once again.
Like I said, Victor is an illustrator.
Jay Strautman is a guest writer. Yeah.
You know, when you when you treat people well, they want to
keep working with you. And I very much believe in
trying to make the kind of business I want to exist, even
though it's not objectively the most profitable or most like
growth minded. But I like to do business
practices that I think are good. Yes, we there's already too many
Dragons hoarding gold in this world, so I'd rather be happy
than than than that. As someone who backs too many
fucking projects, I do have to say I love that you have like
you're waiting until you hit the stretch goal before you announce
the next one. It's really nice.
It's clever to people being like, I wonder what the next one
is. So I'm gonna see is a lot better
than being like here's up to $1,000,000 and and we're at
like, you know, 10K right now. So it's, it's again, just a
continuation of the fact that you've you're this is a
fantastic project and you do stuff in a very thorough,
creative and interesting way. So thank you very much.
Yeah, It's, it's, I don't know what to say.
You make good shit. And I'm very excited for for
what goes beyond this. So what what the time we have is
obviously going to be on your plate for a little bit.
You still have to do everything with these door cards and and
then make your own and things like that.
But what's is there a four player game in the future that
we can look forward to or like what what's what's, what's
coming down the pipeline? Yeah, I've been, I've been
thinking, I mean, I've been starting to think about what
2025 looks like. And you know, this was my first
year going full time into this. And I think that the turn into
the new year is figuring out like, can I make this
sustainable? I've been like pushing and
pushing this year. Can I make it sustainable?
How do I do that? I think that I'll be focusing on
some supplements maybe in the beginning of the year.
I think ROM com I might do some supplements over February.
Maybe a couple Zine supplements to keep an eye out for.
Get some people to write some new villains, some new
playbooks. That's a thought existing right
now. I've wanted to do 2 different
Project Echo supplements since it released and just haven't
been able to give them time. The dolphin, Yeah.
Yeah, the Dolphin, the Dolphin supplement.
No, I really want to do Project Echo.
I really want to do a A2 player supplement where you introduce a
way to play as the entity in the same planner so you can pass it
back and forth. Very weird esoteric thoughts
about how that might look. And then I want to make a sequel
to Project Echo eventually. That is a much more hopeful
concept. I'll just tell you about it.
It's called, it will be called hopefully Project Echo
Architect. And it is the idea that in the
year that you destroyed playing Project Echo, this is a
different kind of time traveller who is responsible for
rebuilding time and rebuilding people's lives.
And like it's the hopeful response of a project Echo that
I hope to eventually make. And then otherwise I'm working
on an abstract strategy board game that I would like to late
make next year. So totally out of out of RPGs
that that is actually what's really exciting me right now is
I have this little prototype of an abstract strategy game that I
want to make really bad. I that sounds awesome.
I when you said a two player game or one person gets to play
the bad guy like that, that is really tweaking me there.
That sounds fantastic. I mean it.
There are two player games like, I don't know, like Matt
Graveland, A clever girl, where you're like the human and the
Raptor, which is cool. There's a clever girl, actually,
yeah. Yeah, there's a game called, I
believe it's Tangled. That's a two player where like
one person is kind of like this entity and one person is not.
But having Project Echo where you actually get to play is that
would be awesome. Again, the reveal is that it's
the dolphin, but the. Dolphin.
The entity is the Dolphin spoiler.
There you go. It has to be.
But but that sounds great. I mean, you know, on top of
everything you're doing with mini sided media, on top of the
success of my first dungeon and the wonderful Talking Table
podcast, being able to do these big game design projects, I can
only imagine that your calendar is full frequently.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you juggling all of
that? Oh wow, not always.
Well, I, I work too hard. I, you know, I chatted with a
friend and a very, very designer who is a huge inspiration, Will
Yobst at the beginning of this year when I, when I first quit
my job. And what they said was like they
and I, and I still haven't pulled this off, but they said,
Elliot, I'll give you a piece of advice if you can pull it off. 4
day work weeks. And I was like 4 day work weeks.
Are you insane? Like, I pretty much still work
six day work weeks. But they're right.
And like Will has a lot of really good thoughts about like
burnout and keeping yourself from burning out.
And I think that that is something I have not reached
burnout this year, but I think that I have gotten close to
touching that stove. And I think that one of the
things that this project funding and hopefully doing, you know,
well beyond funding over the next couple weeks gives me space
to break, take a break. I'm planning on taking two weeks
off in December over the holidays to go back home to
Massachusetts to see family and like, really turn off from
everything because I haven't really taken a proper vacation
this year. I've taken, you know, some small
ones. So that's the key.
And the key is that going full time gave me the space to make
all of these things happen at once.
Like the fact that my 40 to 80 hours a week is focused just on
games means I can get a lot done.
And, you know, it's not always the most financially viable, but
we're getting there. And and yeah.
And honestly, the other answer is I have a lot of really good
supportive friends, really good friends.
And also I have a really good group of games friends who I can
play storm and, and play test with and, and just talk about
games with that all live in New York.
And that has been really, really rejuvenating and and sustaining
so. I can only imagine, like you
said, I mean, be a good person trying yourself with good people
and you're going to just keep finding more good people to be
around you. So that's, I mean 100% keeping
it going. So we've already said the term
we have is on backer kit. I'll make sure.
So sadzombiegame.com, yeah. Sadzombiegame.com.
Love that. I know Adam over at World Champ
does that a bunch where they'll get just a little URL vanity
URL. It's funny too, because when I
was setting up all of this, I was like, man, I want to put the
URL on the screen, but it's a really long backer kid thing.
And then I was like, there has to be something else.
And I went to your, it must have been like your Twitter page and
I saw this ad zombie game and I was like, that's it.
This is this is what we have. That's fantastic.
So always great to to to have that on top of again, everything
else we already talked about, you know, prior to the show with
the thoroughness with which you are prepared for these things.
But besides sad zombiegame.com, which is where they'll go to the
time we have, like where can people find more of you, more of
mini sided media, all of those things.
Yeah, so you can find me on pretty much every social media
at More Blueberries now that I'm not really on Twitter,
Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok, Tumblr.
Actually, I might be more bloops on Tumblr, but I'm most active
on Blue Sky and TikTok. On TikTok, I mostly talk about
my stuff. Sometimes I talk about other
games and stuff. I'll talk about the process of
being a game designer here and there.
But I've been a little bit, it's been a little one note on my
TikTok lately because I've been promoting a crowdfunder and you
can hear me once again my first dungeon and talk at the table
wherever you get your podcasts. And we have a new show coming
out tomorrow. Bitcherton starts releasing new
episodes, which is not a games podcast.
It is an improvised Regency podcast and I'm very, very
excited to see what people think of that.
I'm not on that, but I produce it.
Yeah, because not only do you do you do everything you've already
said, but you're a producer on top of everything else.
So you just have all of all, of all the fingers and all the pies
there. Last question, what?
Why more blueberries? Why were there not enough
blueberries before? Where?
Where did? So this is a this is a small
story. Long story short, I was in
college and a friend of mine and I were in a class where we
couldn't really talk much and we had a carton of blueberries and
we ate them very quickly because they were particularly good.
And my friend flipped over the carton and wrote quickly in pen,
more blueberries on the back of the carton.
I took a picture of it. I posted on my Instagram.
And then something broke in my brain where I decided that I
needed to post the words more blueberries in some fashion on
my Instagram every day for like a year.
And I taught myself Photoshop. I got into photography.
I started doing that to do that. And it was just a big like kick
off to my artistic journey. And then when I had to make a
website for a class in college, it was more blueberries.com.
And then it was kind of cemented as a personal brand and it's
stuck with me ever since. Well, listen, if anything's
gonna do it, I'm glad that the blueberry has got you on the
path to where we are today. So hey, listen, it was so nice
talking to you. I'm I'm very glad that you were
able to come on the show and we got to talk about this fantastic
game. So thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you so much. This was really a great easy
chat. Super fun.
Thanks for giving me the space. Yeah, let's let have this be the
only time next time you have something coming down, Dolphin
supplement and everything, I would love to have you back on.
So, so let's set that up for the future.
But again, thank you and thank you everyone listening out
there. You can find us the same place
you always do. The links are where they always
are. And that'll be us for today.
We will see you later. Bye.