Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. Meow, you piece of shit.
And today we are going to be going over 9 lives to Valhalla
from gym room games. This is a a Viking death metal.
Just brutal, frenetic. Yeah, yeah.
Fucking cats. It's cats.
For those that don't know I fucking ate cats.
You know it's not just cats, it's it's everything about cats.
It's cat people. It's it's cat things.
It's. It's all it's.
Literally, like my name is the father of cats on everything and
and I ignore that for you because I love you.
But yeah, so this game is about cats, you know?
Which is fine, so. Also shallow gym room games.
I like I I did enjoy this. This is really cool.
But they also make this game that we're going to go over, I
think, at some point, called High Magic, Low Lives.
That I love. It is like one.
It's like I haven't gotten to play it yet, but I'm.
I'm very into the concept. We'll get there, yeah.
No, you sent that to me and it's definitely one that I'm excited
to to jump into. Well, let's get into let.
Well, let's talk about gym room games a little bit.
So gym room games 9 lives to Valhalla.
Gym Room Games is Kaylee Lowry and Dan Phipps.
Some of the other games that you might have seen from them before
he hopped in Nine Lives to Valhalla.
Duck Borg recent was recently on Kickstarter, if I remember that
correctly. Which you can buy Duck Borg now
on Itch if you want. High Magic Low Lives is out
there. There's the Weaver's
Observatory, which I actually have.
Look, now I got a shelf close enough I can pull it.
I got That, which is an adventure for tunnel goons.
They've done a lot of great stuff, and this Nine Lives to
Valhalla was a Kickstarter funded project.
It's funded in well, I'm not going that far back in the
updates, but it's we've had it for a while.
It had 594 backers for $8396 for a game about Viking cats, which
is pretty cool. Azine Azine.
Azine funded for almost $9000, which is crazy, but honestly, I
dig it. Despite my dislike for cats,
which I'm not going to bring up too many times as we go through
the episode because it'll be the whole thing, because it's all
cats. We'll just ignore that.
So so yeah, that is gym room games, and that's nine lives to
Valhalla. What's your What's your initial?
What's your thoughts? What's your opinion?
I I I like how there's like you just there's only in one
occasion in which you roll dice and then anything else in this
game is like you just you're just going to you're just
role-playing a cat. A Viking cat.
I'm like, oh OK that's good. I like that.
So yeah, I completely agree. I think that's my favorite part.
I think this we we. Talked about, yeah, a little bit
before Serene. We talked about how this is like
a very simple but a very like heady game at the same time, you
know you. Know what it reminds me of?
What's acid mages? Little bit, little bit.
Like in not, not in what's going on, but in the way that it's
like, it's incredibly lightweight and there's really
only rules for this one instance and everything else is just like
you're just you guys just hanging out and role-playing.
Yeah, no, I completely, I completely see that.
I think, yeah, one being magic, one being murder.
But yeah, completely, completely you.
Could still murder with magic. No one says you can't murder
with magic. 100% true. That is absolutely true.
Why don't we? I'm also going to point out one
thing that I really love that Gym room games did before we hop
into that because I'm going to forget if I don't until later.
So in the original printing of Nine Lives to Ala Hala, first of
all we'll get we'll get to the art.
But there is an issue on page 28 where it's got this little this
little mouse buddy here. There's no text here, but
they're supposed to be. Oh yeah, issue with the
printing. So you know what Gym Room's game
did. You know what they did?
At their own cost. At their own cost, They sent a a
sticker. Like, if I actually peeled off
of this, I'm not going to. They sent a way to fix it with
instructions on how to put it into the book if you would like,
at no cost to the backers at all.
They just said, hey, sorry, we fucked up.
We immediately found a solution and we sent it out.
Sorry. Great.
Fix. That's amazing.
Fucking awesome. Yeah, place the sticker on the
upper right corner for exact placement, blah blah blah.
But close enough is good to really, really love that.
There's been a lot of, I'll say there's been a number of times
where this would have been an easy fix for a lot of people on
a lot of projects and they chose to just be shitty instead of
doing something as good as this. So hey, gym room games.
This was fantastic. Really, really, really
appreciated. This good fucking job, that is.
That is how you check your backers.
Great. Thanks.
So why don't we just hop into this?
It's a short game. We'll have a short episode, I
say, and then we end in three hours.
I can't. Because the grocery store is
going to be closed by then, right?
There we go. 9 lives to Valhalla first of all, right off the bat,
if you're in podcast land, I highly recommend at least going
to the fucking niche page and looking at the art because it's
black, red, and white. Perfect in my opinion.
It's really, really very good. Stylistically, it's it's
fantastic and like the cool, like everything is like this.
Stippling on like this. Not quite black, but like this
textured black, like black paper background.
It's like a almost construction papery background that's
gorgeous and the Reds in it are so vibrant.
It's crazy. Every time I looked at it I was
just like, am I on the wrong screen?
But it's such a vibrant red the whole way through.
And then the style of the cat drawings with like the the
halftone shading with like the red, that's just like a little
bit off of like the things. It's so fucking good.
The art throughout this entire thing is amazing.
I like the poses the cats are in this whole time because it looks
like actual cat poses, but then they just have weapons or armor,
you know, like it it looks really good.
I I was very like, I mean it's a very short scene and it has like
incredibly high quality art and there's like a really good
amount of art too. It's almost every, it's like
every page there is like almost a full page piece of art, You
know, It's like, oh wow, it's a lot.
And again, it's fire. The red just pops everything off
the page. I mean, and again, like, I love
that the red is just slightly off.
Of the yeah, it's slightly off more.
It's so good. It's so fucking good.
So the cover has these three cats, one with two two swords,
one with a a Viking helmet and a an axe on his belt, and one
that's just a skull with a Halo. And I love it.
I love that one. I hate cats.
This Also this page right here. The second page that actually
has the gym room games on it might be my favorite piece.
Like, even though I hate cats. This giant one gonna talk about
the whole time. Like not the whole time.
I'm not gonna read the whole time.
It's not. It's not the whole time yet.
This page too. Love this giant piece.
Like just the red on the horns. The face is so good, dude.
I have a couple other pieces that are in contending for
favorite, which I'll point out as we go.
I mean, they're all good is the thing.
They're all really fucking good anyway, all the way through.
It's basically that black like kind of construction paper feel
background like it. I it like I feel like I can.
It looks like I can touch it. Every time I look at it, it's
so. Fucking good, yeah, it's really
nice. The thing is, in the actual
book, it kind of comes through like a tiny bit, but it's
nothing like the PDF. And that's fine.
It's the only way that it could is if it was actually printed on
like that thick LFORLFOSR card stock.
Right, that would make this pop. But anyway, so that's that.
So 9 lives to Baja Allah. The age of man is over now Dawn.
The age of beasts. Here's the thing.
It's like 29 pages long, and yet it still has a table of contents
and bookmarks. It's bookmarked.
Yeah. I did know this was like, oh
wow, they bookmarked the Zine, that is.
What's up? Watching the show should be
fucking default. I don't understand like most
programs automatically do it for you.
I don't understand how PDFs. Yeah, that is interesting
because they do, you know? Yeah, it's not a hyperlink, but
again, it's 28 pages. It's a scene.
Don't care so much about hyperlinks and things that are
less than 30 pages because you can literally just flip 2 pages
and be happy through the scene. But the bookmarks help a ton.
So here is the story. I'm gonna read this whole bit
here and because it's important, and despite despite my dislike
of cats, I do really enjoy the story of this.
So here we go. It has been an age since the
last of man drew breath. Now only stone and steel
monuments remain half buried and twisted.
The land is broken, the seas are cold, and the nights are dark.
Strange and vicious creatures roam the earth.
Dogs still hold the love of the leash in their hearts, and we
use their strange magics to rebuild the world.
In man's long dead tyranny, glorious death and outrageous
fortune await. Those would stop them.
The blood of ancient warriors flows in your veins.
Your movements are precise and silent.
You walk in darkness, seeing and unseen.
Fang and claw blade and bow might and magics will fail your
foes like wheat under a scythe. You are a cat, sworn enemy of
man and dog. Your only comrades are your
fellow hunters, and death itself, a seat amongst the
world's mightiest warriors, is kept for you in the drinking
calls of Valhalla, headed by the Panthera Pantheon.
Guided personally by death, your merry band will leave a wake of
ruin, ending only at the hands of a truly worthy foe.
On the next page it says 9 lives stalk the earth. 9 times you
will die with sword and paw. 9 times you will be carried by
valkyries to the gates of Valhalla where no man has tread.
9 times you will be found worthy and granted a blessing of your
forebears. 9 times you will cast a wake of blood and carnage upon
the blighted earth. 9 lives to Valhalla.
Like I could. That's just a metal song, you
know? It is.
It's it's good.
Like, it's it's clever. It's clever if you're a cat
person. I get it.
I get it for this.
That's cool. You couldn't make this game as
dogs, you know what I mean? You really could.
So how to play 9 Lives to Valhalla Assemble and choose one
amongst you to make The Mantle of Death.
So, Long story short, summarizing a little bit of this
Death ALL caps is the GM. Always all caps the entire time,
all the way through death. Always all caps.
One person plays the GM which is death and the rest take on
various death metal Viking cats. So you need dice, which are 468
and 10 and 12 is what you need, and other stuff to play game
with each player, except death makes a cat, etcetera, etcetera.
We'll get to that. Each cat has four attributes.
You have brutality, viciousness, cunning, and ferocity, and you
get dice associated with each of those.
Cats are peerless warriors, and the players representing a cat
should be allowed to narrate their actions.
This is, we'll get to that a little bit in the dark times
each death may die. In these are time even death may
die should a cat draw steal against Scythe, which is an
interesting mechanic that we'll get to in just a little bit.
So tone 9 lives to Walahala is a vortex of blood, teeth, violence
and death. It is also a game.
Before playing, pick a tone. Decide amongst yourself like
what you want and don't want from the game.
Don't worry about historical context.
Right wing douche bag fascist fucks that take Norse mythology
and turn it into their bullshit or assholes.
And don't worry about historical accuracy.
That's basically what it says. Yeah.
And then and that's the rule. Yeah, I know.
That's the only rule. It's really the only rule.
I've read this thing like two or three times to make sure that I
wasn't wrong on this, and we'll probably spend a good amount of
time on these like 4 little paragraphs here before we get to
the rest of the game. But this is the only rule in the
entire game. Realistically, anytime dice are
rolled, something must die. I love it.
I love it so much it hurts a little bit.
Yeah, Even when all appears calm, hidden foes lurk in dark
shadows and behind nefarious disguises.
If a known foe or Hidden assassin threatens Cat the Cat's
player rolls 2 attributes, determined either by the weapon
they're using or the context of their actions.
The player declares the attributes they're using and
rolls the dice, reporting the highest result rolled Death,
then rolls two dice, with larger dice representing greater
threats. Foes with special abilities may
get additional dice depending on the cat's plane of attack, and
if the cat rolls the highest die, whatever foe attempted to
kill the cat suffers an instant brutal death.
If death rolls higher, the foe was successful and the cat dies.
If the roll is a tie, then both creatures slay each other in the
maelstrom of battle. That's that's the whole rule.
That's the whole that's so. It's so fucking dumb and
brilliant, you know? It's such a good idea.
It's dumb and brilliant in ways that like as I keep reading it,
like I fall in love more and more with because like I said,
in a very weird, interesting way.
This is a very, I want to say like, intellectual, like game,
philosophical, like kind of thing.
Because it never even like at no point anywhere in this game does
it really talk about movement. Does it talk about skill checks?
Does it talk about anything? So like it never.
It never even says anything. Like the GM will make that up,
it just doesn't address it at all.
Yeah, I like, I I think like, I really love Zine something like
that, that like leave a lot up to you and your table just be
like, I mean that's not what this is and if you guys want to
like add stuff in, that's great. But also, like the implied rule
is that like that doesn't matter, you know?
You can't jump off a four story building.
You're a cat. It would kill you, you know,
like, yeah, yeah, you want to climb up on top of this thing.
Yeah, you're a cat. You do it.
You know, Yeah, really, very great, very great minimal
structure. And it's like we we often go
over games and we're like there's always, there's always
a, well, it's an RPG section or like there's rules for a lot of
stuff, but this is a good game for someone who plays a lot of
games. It's like, you know what, you
guys just take it easy this time, you know?
Just just if if you're going to roll, something's going to die.
Anything other than that, just figure it out.
Yeah, that's the interesting thing about this too is it's
such a light game, but because it doesn't have all the rest of
that, I feel like people that only do a lot of it like trad,
like especially 5 E what really have a difficult time parsing
this I think to just be like, but how do we do like these
other eighteen things? And it's like, who gives a shit?
Like, who cares? Just kill stuff.
Like that's literally the point of the game is to get a a
glorious death and eventually get to Valhalla.
Like, why do you need to know? Like, that's it.
So I don't know. I really, really enjoyed a lot.
I really think that it's really clever in how light it is.
Yeah, and it's absolutely easily adaptable.
We talked about that. Like if you don't wanna play a
cat, you just play people. Same thing with mouse shooter,
like if you really are that up your own ass that you can't just
be a mouse for a little bit in a way that doesn't really matter,
like play it as people, that's fine.
You could play this as people too, that's fine.
But like, I'll play this game and I'll be a fucking cat.
I don't care. So.
I anyway, think that damn, what was I gonna say?
They're really good. I don't remember.
Oh, keep going. Yeah.
Also the art on above it. The guy with the Cape and the
and the, you know, the hatchet. It's all fire.
I'm going to say every single fucking piece.
But this one here too, that's got this.
I got adorable, cute little fucking cat face, but it's
holding like a giant fucking sword.
Great piece like it's a. Spear guy The spear guy is on my
is in my top two. You know, the other thing too is
like, who did this fucking art? The only people listed in the
entire book are the two people from gym room, so I can only
assume it's one of them. There's no artist listed,
there's no enlisted. The only thing listed is gym
room games and their two names and that's it.
So. Good job so cats.
Cats. All players, except for death
take on the role of a cat wandering the blasted mortal
plane, seeking tremendous fortune at this and the still
beating heart of their hated nemesis and glorious death at
the hand of a worthy foe. While in your first while in the
first of your nine lives, death has guided you to the nucleus of
battle. Each cat begins the game with a
name, a hated nemesis, a favored God of the Panthera, Pantheon, a
mastered weapon of their choosing, and a blessing of
Valhalla. Now we're going to take us
through character creation. The 1st is name, fur, color and
description. Very self-explanatory.
The next is hated. Nemesis, a Craven antagonist
from your past, has done you a terrible wrong, and worse,
denied you the satisfaction of death.
Your first stands on end, suspicious.
On end, suspicion becomes uncertain or becomes certainty.
I cannot read Tonight your nemesis is close.
You feel the blood in your veins, gently pulling you to the
end. This once and for all or God,
what is wrong with me? Gently pulls you to end this
once and for all. I know what words mean.
Ryan, I swear, described your hated nemesis to the table,
naming their transgressions for all to hear.
Basically, you have a nemesis that did you wrong and denied
you death. Whenever they're nearby, you
know that they're nearby. Your blood runs cold.
Your hair stands on the end. I could have just described this
instead of tripping over reading the whole time, yeah?
That's a hated nemesis. Real quick Callie from gym Room
Games. Hope I'm saying that right.
She did the art or they did the art.
So it's fucking awesome. Great art.
Despite despite how I feel about cats, I will say every one of
these is awesome and brutal and cute as fuck.
So good fucking job. There's also.
So much of it, Yeah, there's. So much but like, also like if
you make the game and then you get to do the art for your own
game. As much as you fucking want, you
know. Yeah, no, it's.
Great. Just in your own time, Yeah.
Favored God. Five gods rule over all cat kind
through devotions or through mighty deeds.
Each cat brought by death to fight, die and fight again is
overseen by one such God. These are the Panthera pantheon.
In choosing a God, you are given 4 dice to assign to your
brutality, viciousness, cunning and ferocity.
Attributes. Yeah, you have 4 attributes.
Like we said, it's brutality. That's like your vigor,
hardiness, your bod, viciousness, which is your like
more dexterous, fine, precise action.
Cunning, which is your it's actually very upcoming things.
Machinations, treachery, anticipation or ferocity, which
is your reaction? Awareness, fury, instinct.
Funny, I'm glad they laid this out because brutality and
ferocity, Me and Mike, those are very close, you know?
Yeah, I mean. I guess.
I mean, I mean brutality. I I imagine brutality as like
when you do something, you do it, you do it Brutal in a brutal
way, Yeah. And ferocity is more like an
attitude that you have as opposed to like the action
itself. That's how I kind of viewed it.
And I think that's how it's like explained a little bit in the in
the book, if that's how you, I don't know if you read it the
same way I did. I did definitely read it the
same way. But when I first was reading
through, I'm like, let's feel close for me.
Like not in how they're defined in the game, but how the words
are used outside of the game. Maybe that's just like the
degradation of the English language though, and I'm just
not as good as speaking as I should be.
Gotta be a gooder, but gotta be a gooder.
Speaking, yeah. So we have the the five gods.
You got. You have a favorite?
I do enjoy. Leo, I think it's a good one to
talk about. It's not my favorite.
I don't know if I have a favorite one.
Probably. Probably unsea.
Actually, it's probably my favorite.
She This is the snow leopard, twin of partis, partisan.
Earlier, God made a homeland for all cats by blessing the
mountains with blinding snow, bitter wind, and winters of
complete darkness. Her folk were drawn to place, to
place a thought unlivable, compelled to seek out veiled
magics and places of ancient power.
Ontia's witches speak in riddles, but offer weird and
elderish power to those who can suffer their company.
Dig that one? Very cool.
What about you? I was only with Anka.
The Jaguar stalks across the night sky, wandering far from
valhouse, warm halls each night with the moon in his mouth.
Anka sees those who travel far from home, Shipbuilders and
sailors, all who have forgotten the comfort of their hearts.
Anka's temples are hidden. They're Pontus revealing
themselves rarely. Secret God.
Secret Traveler God. What I what I dig about this and
it reminds me, does this give you like Rayutama or like red
giant vibes? A little bit, A little bit,
yeah. Totally, yeah.
So what? The thing is characterization.
Super easy. You, you pick your God, and when
you pick your God it gives you your dice spread.
You're dice bread. Yeah, you get so, so for, for
for Anka, you have D4D Sixty 6012, and for Uncio I would have
D4D4D8D12. So I have to pick.
Of those four dice, I assign one of each to brutality,
Viciousness, Cunning, and Ferocity.
So by picking the God you favor, you can you get the dice that
you actually get to put into your characters.
And it's different for each one, which is a great mechanic.
I really dig that a lot. Yeah.
The they, they're very, very fair spreads of like what dice
you can get. Like all of them have like, oh,
they have a couple good ones who are like hardest.
The first ones like really very balanced.
It's like D6D6D8D8 and then yours is like almost the
opposite thing where it's like no, you gave up two to be weak
and two are like D8D12, you know?
I didn't do the math for it, but are all of them like what's 6
and 618? Are all of them 28 points?
They all have four dice. Uncia has 28.
Well, I mean, it doesn't matter if they're four dice if if you
have like it was a joke. Oh, Oh, yeah, yeah.
Six and six and eight. It's 12 and yeah, what what's 12
+ 16? Yeah, that's 28.
So it's all 28. So it's it's five different ways
to put 28 together with four dice.
Smart, clever. I like it.
So it's a spread where you get the same number of points all
the way through. Even though it's curious though,
because clearly like if you take averages, I'm curious and I'm
not looking at it in my brain in a way that is going to mouth
well right now if you have 28 total possible points in your
Max's. I don't think that still equates
to possible points as far as averages go.
Like if you have 2D fours, that's two points versus like 2D
sixes. Like, I'm curious, and I'm not
going to sit here long enough to do the math for that.
Regardless, I think it's clever and here's your here's your
spear boy. Yeah, the spear boy.
I like the jumping cat with the spear.
Well, it's on my top two of art pieces, so.
It's such a good piece. Yeah, it's got the Cape.
It's just that, red, man. Let me tell you what like that
red makes this entire Z And artistically for me, all the art
is great, but the red is such a vibrant color that just pops off
everything. It's insane.
It's so good. So mastered weapon.
Every cat is a master of a style of weapon.
Choose a style that embraces your nature.
Panthera may bless you with an additional mastery or further
refine a style you've already mastered even greater heights.
Name and describe your weapon as their extension of you.
A cat may use a weapon they have not yet mastered, but it's
likely to break under their unbridled might after single
use. Again, I love that.
Outside of that, when you roll, things die.
There's like no rules. And even that says it's likely
to snap after single use. It never says there's no
technical jargon. It never says any weapon after
You know what I mean? Like you just say one and your
weapon breaks, yeah? Yeah, none of that.
It just says it's probably not going to last long and I'm good
at it. So there are a number of weapon
types. Dual weapons, single weapons,
great weapons. Bows, Fang and claw and magics.
Each one you roll 2 dice for. So for example, dual weapons you
do Brutality and Viciousness. Great weapons you do Brutality
and Ferocity. So.
So you already picked your your God, all right.
You get a weapon master as well. Which one would you pick and we
can just go over those. Which weapon would I pick of
these? Which one do you think that I
would pick and? Everything would.
I think we would both pick the same one in this in this
situation, but which one? You would also pick dark magics.
Fuck yeah, I'm picking dark magics.
I mean, listen, I'm. Talking to the magic boy that
are the Edge Lord. So if it's dark magic, like, of
course I'm going to pick the one that has like.
Just a skull for a head. And I picked the God that had a
witch and shit. Yeah, of course I picked that
one. So dark magics employ cunning
and ferocity, piercing energies and dooming hexes, madness and
despair. Effective against tricky and
magic foes. So the interesting thing about
each weapon is it gives you the two dice that you would roll for
the two stats, the attributes you would roll for.
A little bit of flavor, and it also gives you 2 foes that it's
good for. So I think there are 5 total
foes. We'll get to that in a little
bit. Like Giant and Tricky, Tricky
and Magic. Each have different things that
you can do for each one, but that is basically how the
weapons work is that's what you get for it?
And then what about blessings? Tell me about blessings.
Blessings of a Hallow. They will sing songs about you.
Oh Companion of Death and the Panthera sing with them also
whatever they say. Basically this is just like
little. This is like a bonus, like
little thing that you can get. And some of them are like, you
know, rolling the additional D6 against tricky foes.
Very cool, very like mechanical bonuses, but some are like a
little bit different. One of mine that I enjoy is the
very, very last one is blessing of the gifted breath of
mankind's babe. You may speak as men once spoke.
On exactly 1 occasion you may issue a simple command to a dog,
and they must obey like you can speak as men once spoke.
The cat This other thing I like the the mechanical ones because
I feel like in this game where like because you can receive you
start with a blessing but you can also receive them as you go.
Like the very mechanical ones are very cool, like hand out as
they go. But like picking those, like
very dramatically titled, like The Blessing of Babista's Fur.
Your fur is marked with weird and shifting darkness role and
additional D6 when striking from the darkness.
Like very thematic stuff I I like for starting the character
out. But yeah, there's some really
cool ones and they all have really cool names.
You know, Blessings of the Cold Flame, Blessings of Bone and
Keratin. Yeah, very cool little mechanic
for making your your cat Viking. Well, The thing is, this isn't
just like a little bonus. This is also this is
advancement. This is your entire character
advancement. So like, every time you die a
glorious death, you get. That's correct.
I did get that hard. Yeah, there's other times where
you can get blessings, like if you if you there's a hidden
nemesis thing we'll get to later.
But I like you just said, like, I love that these are not just
mechanical, although you can you get like eight or nine of them.
So like, it's not a bad idea to take like.
Increase your bonus size. I'm definitely taking a bunch of
mechanical ones, I'm just probably starting with a more
thematic 1. For sure, For sure, yeah yeah.
But some of the base ones like Blessing of Leg and Fang
increases your brutality by one die size to a Max of D12.
So. If you start with the D4,
theoretically after like 3 deaths you could take your
brutality all over the top if that's what you want to do.
Like if you really want to make stats, you can and that's fine.
But I'd like you said too though like so the first it basically
is stats for all four things, so the you can raise all four stats
by one, then the next batch lets you increase additional.
There's no advantage or disadvantage in this.
It's pretty much just like you get another D6.
Like good guys, bad guys, whatever.
So the next batch of blessings is AD six against the different
types of foes with different weapon masteries.
And then we get the fun flavor ones like what you're talking
about, and they're they're also good.
I think it's such a good spread of possibilities.
And the way that you can gear your character is great because
you get how many? How many other 1234567891011?
12131415161718192022 There's like 23 or 24 blessings.
That's a shit load of options. Quite a bit, yeah.
It's crazy. There's some really good ones,
too. Yeah, I I would play this.
This sounds like a lot of fun to play.
You know, it's crazy. It's really like you die five or
six times, you know, and you have like 5 or 6 blessings, you
know? I mean, that's pretty good, you
know? Yeah, we'll get the point where
you're just annihilating. And if you look at the
adventure, we, and we don't go over adventures on stream.
I might flip to it just for the dope art and stuff.
But the adventure for the book, the the wreck of the murderous,
it actually says just oh it's dope.
It actually says to start with a with a veteran war band.
So you'll you'll roll 2D4, take the highest number and you've
died that many times already. So you start with that many
blessings. So like, less deaths that you
get for total, but more blessings you get to start with.
Yeah, yeah. Super dope.
Couple more great full page art pieces.
The cat wearing the skull has like that.
It's so I don't know. And then the next one where it's
got like whether it's blood or dark magics or just like the
shading on the I think it's just the shading on the claws because
it's a weapon. I think all weapons are red in
this with its dumb fucking cat face on it like one of the
weapon types is it is claw there is like.
Sting and claw. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's dope that that the hand is is even got that on it
too. But but yeah, glorious death.
Love this. So those who count death amongst
their companions are given ample opportunity to kill.
The true measure of cat is in their glorious deaths.
Death with sword and paw and unflinching of nerve.
Courageous, but not foolish. Cunning but not cowardly.
And at the hands of a foe where they distract you down.
Catch a walk with death. Do not die, and gloriously,
Therefore any death your cat faces must be glorious.
If you're offered a death that does not belong in the sages,
feel free to request another. So you can literally say I want
to die cooler, let me die cooler.
And it says in the beginning you get to narrate your deaths and
stuff like that. This is such a a narrative heavy
like you, like you want to play this with a group of people that
are going to invest, have late and go like balls to the wall
goofy the whole time. Yeah, the 1st 8 Glorious Deaths
will see you carried by the Valkyries to the gates of
Valhalla where you'll be found worthy of blessing but still
living. You'll be returned.
Catch it right down the cause of each of their deaths and the
blessings they receive of all Hallscape.
That's dope. And what about the final Death?
Yeah. A cat's final death at the
conclusion of their ninth life brings to a close their part in
maintaining an endless cycle of bloodshed when even the fates
conspire against them and wisdom bade them flee.
A cat who remained a companion of death has earned their place
in the drinking halls of Fall Hall.
Sick, by the way. Just sick opening.
There's a lot of writing in this.
I'm just like, this is cool to read, you know?
It's like good luck. It's murder cats.
Yeah, it's murder cats. But yeah, embrace your cats.
Final Death with good humor. Even if no enemies fell to their
sword and the night is still young.
If you are drinking, toast to their memory and invent a tale,
a tall tale of their heroism. Leave their shell of the body in
such a state as to strike fear into any dog who crosses it.
Death should give the cat over to the Valkyries for their final
journey to Valhalla with dignity and grace players whose cat has
left the moral plane. And for the final time, it may
continue to play in a number of ways.
They may alight upon death as a Raven, personifying foes and
providing outrageous details to make the inevitable viscera more
visceral. Amazing, Fantastic.
They may create a new cat being cycle new, a cat whom Death
should soon invite to meet their new siblings of destruction.
Yeah, very cool. You can come back as a cat, you
can play as a Raven and just make describe everything worse
and grosser. Great way to deal with death.
Yeah, I just love that the the whole thing.
It's not like so many triad games where it's like, you know,
let's be honest, in 5E you don't die unless the GM wants you to
because they're just going to flood for roles or it's not.
It doesn't fit in their story. This literally says just like.
I mean the only rule basically is like.
Something has to die every time you roll die.
You're going to die a bunch. You get to do it like 9 times,
die fun, come back with a blessing and even when you die
you can come back as something else.
Like it's it's so. I don't know.
Yeah. I mean like it's so the lack of
yeah, the lack of rules does make it a really open-ended.
Like yeah, you can come back as something else.
Just tell me what you want to do to come back and we'll fit it
into this weird ultraviolet metal narrative.
Yeah. Where were you?
Where? Where did you leave that?
Because I lost? You're going to tell me about
playing Death? Oh fuck yeah, yeah, Six.
So playing death. So this is basically the the,
the how did GM section, right? So the player who chooses to
take on the role of death represents the foes and the few
allies along the way. A death should feel free to
speak directly to the cats, ideally through strange portents
or cryptic Ravens and cats. Cats, true to the nature, should
be expected to ignore death guidance and seek where the
opponents. Death is a constant opinion and
they should describe everything this in a very favorable, fun
way. It says do the shit GM does.
You're the bad guys, you're the you're the world, you're the
NPCS, you're everything. That's fun.
But it does. There is a part down here.
It is possible that another player will request a different
death, either because they have already seen a similar one, or
because they would be ashamed to face a Panther in other
circumstances. Take this in stride and all for
another. So literally, just like who
cares? Supposed to be a fun cool death.
So just let them have fun and and be cool and deaf.
And then this last part is fun. Though too brave or foolish,
cats may turn their claws towards death itself if they are
worthy. Death may die and the royal
passage to the cat who performed the killing stroke.
Death is now free to take on the life of a mortal and begin their
own pursuit of a HALA. So you can just be like you know
what? Fuck it, I'm fighting death and
have a roll off and if you kill death you are now death AKA you
become the GM. And then the GM can like roll up
a cat and not even roll up a cat.
You don't even roll up, but like you can just do the cat and and
go on. I do really like that because I,
and maybe always the the GM forever and always like I I
really like so much about this game and I'm interested to see
how the rolling two dice mechanic plays out regularly.
Like I feel fine about it, but I'm I'm interested in actually
trying it. But I feel like playing this
game, if you're in the middle of your tabletop journey, you know
you're like you're not new but maybe you've only been playing
like Call of Cthulhu and 5E or even just OSC.
Like this would be a great game to try and be like hey yeah,
nothing matters, like you guys are going to play Viking cats.
None of it's serious. You can hand off being the game
master, maybe even mid session, by just somebody killing you and
them becoming the the death you know like.
Absolutely, Yeah, I very. Much enjoyed this to touch on
something you said and we talked about a little bit earlier like
this is one of the things I love about this game is like anyone
can pick it up and play. It's so simple like it really is
but re. But really, like if you I don't
know how douchy's is gonna sound, if you play a lot of
games and you know a lot about game mechanics, this game
becomes like exponentially more interesting.
Because of how all of the unspoken shit that's not there
at all. And that just it it just gets
me. Because like so many fucking
games feel like they have to over explain fucking everything.
And it's like 9/9 of 100 times I can tell you this is not going
to be someone's first game. Don't give me how to do this
section. Don't give me how to do that
section. We all know how all of that shit
works and your random indie game like doesn't need all of that
shit at all. Just give me a game and that's
exactly what this one does. Like, it literally just gives
you the game as it's going to be played with no fluff.
No, I mean plenty of like fluff and fur and stuff, but like, you
know what I mean? Like none of the bullshit that
it's just like we've read a million times.
Like, and I just, I really, really, really love that about
this like a lot. And it's fucking 28 pages and a
half of it's art. We're already almost done.
This is the other art piece that's like, in my like, it's so
crazy good. Yeah, top two, top three.
Easy. Yeah.
Just the oh God, like so.
So for those in podcast land, it's a full page of just a cat
skull like floating above like a caped body with like a red Halo
surrounding it. And again, it's got this just
gorgeous texture to the entire thing and the vibrant red and
it's just beautiful. Again, the the art throughout
this entire thing is beautiful. Do you want to do photos?
Do you want me to do photos? Foes.
The age of man has ended, but any other creature, great or
small, veal or imagine they stand between cats and their
ultimate goal. Yeah, Death may prefer to plan
their foes ahead of time, sign dice and qualities in advance.
Death may also choose what feels appropriate in the moment.
That's me. Sign dice and call these in
context and random chance. Whom among you has the courage
to judge each of us to die, or to die associated with it?
It may be Giant armored, Tricky and or magic and quality smaller
dice. I was watching you count in your
hands. I was wondering when I was
going. Smaller dice are reserved for
meeker foes. Larger dice for more lethal
villains. Foes with one or more unique
qualities gain the ability to roll additional dice, making
them particularly dangerous. The cat who face.
Cats who face them would do well utilize A judicious plan of
attack. Each quality allows the foe to
roll an additional 6 sided die unless the cat who seeks to
destroy them is using a specific nature.
So again, I know you said you didn't read the adventure, but
what's interesting about the adventure is it does have
reminders on the side little boxes here.
I literally have it right here. I don't know what the fuck I'm
doing, like why I didn't just right here.
But again, we don't go over adventures, but we'll show real
quick. There's a reminders with when
you see different armor types in the adventure for their time it
says that cats do not use viciousness.
Or for this fellow specifically, we'll have an extra D6 reminder
to you. Reminder, the players are really
and I really like that about the way that they set up the
adventure. The reminders are out.
So that was really cool. Yeah, also a great example of
writing an adventure for your game and employing the mechanics
you use in the adventure. It's just like, it's funny.
It's like recently I've been reading, rereading through old
stuff because we've said that several times, as we said
before, and I'm like, oh wait, when do I employ this rule in
this game? And it's not in the adventure.
But yeah, so there are a lot of foes.
And I think my favorite thing just right out the gate is under
giant foes. It has coyotes and Dragons next
to each other. It's honestly, if it's bigger
than a cat, who cares how big it is?
I mean it is. Bigger than a cat.
So yeah, that was a genuinely my favorite part of all this.
I was like coyotes, Dragons, but but they're all really good at
like the armored one has a plate of night or a crab.
The tricky one has a Hummingbird or hidden assassins.
Like I love the dichotomy. Exactly it.
Makes sense though you're like, OK, like I could see how both of
those things fall under like. Tricky foes, you know?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Just picking one of them. Yeah, the Giants.
Well, two magic foes. Wizards of all kind are best
matched with unalloyed wrath if a foe is magic and the attack is
not. Ferocity.
Ferocity My online, I can't say that word.
Then roll an additional six sides.
So pretty much each one has like if the attack is not this thing,
roll an additional D6 like you the death.
Four types of foes and each one has a stat like if you're not.
If you don't roll a specific stat against them, then they get
an extra D6 against you, and I love that as like a really
interesting way to do advantage throughout this entire thing.
Since you're using D4D6D8D12, you're already rolling two dice,
just taking the highest, getting to throw another D6 in there.
It's not too high, it's not too low.
It's an average of three. Like it's sometimes It will give
you like a six, whatever and that'll be good for you.
But it could roll A6 and then you could have AD 12 anyway.
So like, I love again the simplicity and complexity of the
dice mechanic because you're now doing a dice pool of three
potentially different dice for different reasons.
Like it's so good and you could maybe roll 4 because if you have
like a specific weapon one and you get to roll another DI don't
know it's it's it's it's got so much again complexity in the
simplicity I would love to play. This.
Yeah, let's fucking do it. Yeah, great.
All right. I'm not going to read the
adventure though, So now that I know we're going to play it, I
so I read. I didn't read enough to really
know what's going on. I skimmed it so I could
understand it for the exact same reason I hate reading
adventures, because I really want someone to play him, to run
it for us. Yeah, sure.
So I do love this. I do love a Nemesis Revealed.
This is. Really.
Tell me about Tell me about the
Nemesis revealing itself. Should a single singular folk
kill each cat at the table? Long search or if if it TP KS
right, you all come back. But that cat, that nip, that
thing that killed you now becomes a nemesis to all of you,
right? And the name is whispered upon
the wind. And then all of you should
pause, take a moment, come up with a bunch of like legends and
stories and stuff of this like insane foe, this nemesis right?
And the cat who slays the nemesis eventually gets a
blessing, right? You don't even have to die to
get a blessing. You get a blessing immediately
for killing this foe that like TPKD the party previously.
And it's also got a dog. A dog.
It's so funny. Because it's got this little
like this, little like frenchy fringy, that's the least
intimidating dog they could have picked.
What I love too is on, its on its little, on its little
jacket, like its Cape. It's got like some embroidery or
pin or something. It's a leash and it's in red and
I love that so much. It's the leash that they still
capital T, capital L the leash, which is still what they they
have in their heart and it's the fucking embroidery over the
heart like cracks me the fuck up.
Such a great little detail. I don't know.
I love it. Oh, another full page piece here
of this archery. Crazy amount of art for how?
I mean, because we're we're almost done.
There's a few pages left, but I think it's mainly treasures
after this. I can't and I just wanna pretty
much. Oh, and merchants.
Yeah, but like, oh, the merchants, of course.
So much art in the scene again if you don't have to pay for it
with anything but your time, that you know artists that
become game makers. Like, I envy them so much.
You know what I mean? So it's must be nice, you know?
Yeah. So treasures are cool.
Did you did you have one that you really loved?
I'm going to be honest, No, I don't remember.
So OK, well, so treasures. I feel like a treasure.
Just a few of them. Go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead. Good to hear, because we're all
great. They can all be traded to
merchants or other strangers met, and the player must declare
their intent to use an item before rolling dice.
If they if that role would be affected, that's basically it.
Well, some of the ones that I really liked, I really liked.
Even just the vial of man's blood, Yeah.
That's a very vial with human blood.
Drink to improve your cunning. And I'm like cats are like, oh,
these cunning fucking human. This man.
That's great. But a catnip pouch was also
great too. A dryer with strange but
pleasurable effects. Burn it to improve your ferocity
by one die size for one roll. Another way that they do fun
mechanics, and this is just the increase of die sizes as opposed
to more dice and stuff too, which is really neat.
So like increase one die size for one roll is a really cool
way to just be like, OK, bump that D6 to AD 8, maybe it'll
help you a little bit, you know, statistically like .3.
But we like, it's cool. I really dig it.
And what was the other one that I really liked a lot?
There's a lot on this page. It's literally like 3 pages of
them. Yeah, I like the rumors of the
outside world. Ghosts are trapped in one place,
with few opportunities to learn about life beyond their
hauntings. It's cruel to lie, but they will
never know you did. These are the grasshopper in it.
And then what page are we on? Oh, we're almost into there and
then we get to. So yeah, so there's a ton.
So there's a ton of those. Again, there's pages of those.
What I really like is the things that you need a lot of.
You really do get a lot of like there's pages and pages of
blessings, pages and pages of treasures, a lot of real
interesting things. But the things you don't really
need a ton of, you don't really get.
Like there's not a roll table for cat names, there's not a
roll table for cat fur colors. It's just says pick a name, pick
a fur color. Like just go for it.
And if you want to make. Your own blessings.
It's so simple. Like all of the mechanic stuff
taken care of, but like for whatever narratively happens at
your table, if you're going to be like.
Yeah, you now have the the blessing of snakes or whatever.
If you have a snake driven adventure that gives you
something. Or rather, point being like very
clever, very simple and clever. And yeah, great game, super
easy. The merchants are really neat.
I really like these. So basically not all who wonder
Meow guard, which like made guard and it cracked me up.
I think it's over, Simon said. Meow guard.
Yeah, I think this. Too seek to kill every cat.
Some are in PCs but they are all fighters too, which is really
cool. Some of them.
Which ones are which ones? The one I really liked a lot
There was oh, the Witch of Unseo, which is the God that I
picked. So yeah, it says read even the.
Like priests or people related to the gods are like in this
immediately, which I thought was interesting.
I was like, oh cool, there's at least one NPC for every God.
So cool. Yeah yeah.
Wreathed in flowing garments and shaded under a wide brimmed hat,
often wreathed in smoke of unclear origin, Speaks in Riddle
and idiom and laughs at their own jokes.
Commonly named and I love there are names for these NBCS cuz my
God there's by so many bobs. I was just like fuck it I don't
care you're talking to ABC I didn't want to talk to.
The name is fucking Bob. Guess what this is Bob friend
Bob. Like fuck off.
I'm coming in August, Spike, Min, Min, Sunshine or Cathar.
But and I really like this about the MPC too.
So what they seek is the SAP of the world tree, the ancient
amber. And I've knew all three of which
are treasures and they have absolution, an arrow of truth
and vials of poison which are treasures.
And I really like that that little bit of start in there for
you to just be like, oh, I need this thing from you.
What can I get from them? Built in in a really quick easy
way. Really, really cool.
Yeah. There's some great ones.
I mean, just coward, yeah. It just you heard Death's
calling. You ran.
You're just a coward. You have tattered old armor and
it has a coward's soul and it seeks Canyon.
Oh, and this is the no. Is this the page?
Yeah, this is the page right here.
I think this is page 28. So yeah, like I was saying, this
is the page. It's got this little mouse guy
here, which is fucking adorable. I love the striped like coat
that it's wearing. This page right here is the one
that has the missing piece that once again like so fucking cool
that they just saw an issue. Fix the issue and and synthetic
I. Like the sticker fix you know
dude it's such a good fix because it's because it's I'm
not going to peel it off but like it's clear so you can
literally just stick it right in the book and it's it's it's so
smart again. Found the issue fixed the issue
in a in a relatively inexpensive well at least for us because it
was freeway and I just felt like that was such a good.
I think a lot of people in Kickstarter would just been
like, oops, sorry by the next printing.
Holy dude. So often that happens, you know,
Yeah, I mean, it was crazy. You could even like, it's a
signature on here and send it out to people, you know that.
Got that. So yeah, I I love it.
That was a a fix that they did. Again, a lot of respect for
people that respect the Kickstarter backers that funded
their project. So I'm really, really glad and
happy to see that that was done. What are you?
Oh, the even more black, even more NPCS.
That's the thing. Tons of NPCS.
Yeah, the Wiesel, Watchman page, Raven a deaf the Mouse hero.
Love the. Mouse hero.
That's on the last page and that's it.
That's the fucking game. Like, that's the whole game.
And I really like that the the back cover for whatever.
Like it's the same art as the front, but it's clean, like it.
It just has just the art on it, which I think is really cool.
Yeah, No, it's a different, it's a different set of caps.
It's a wrap around. It goes.
It's them all following. It does.
Yeah, that's so cool. I love the the cover for the
adventure too is a full wrap around with the hex map right on
the cover, which is really, really great.
Again, we're not going to go over the adventure, but I'm
going to, I'm just going to show it to people real quick.
We'll just flip through, look how again, same art style.
Look how beautiful the ship is on the front cover there.
So there's a Viking ship on the front cover and again it wraps
on the back cover. It has a hex map on the back,
which is really fantastic and oh I I like this little guy too
with like the scar on his eye. But really fun adventure.
Again, like it walks it through pretty well.
It's definitely, it's so it's hex map style, that's definitely
descriptive. It doesn't feel it's a good
adventure. It doesn't feel super like
railroading or anything. It's more definition.
There's not a whole lot of like if they do this you should do
that and then they'll do this. And if the the really coming
ones it, it's more of just like here are things if they find
things here this. But one of the things I really
love too about the adventure. Every time you get to a new
spot, one of the most important parts, they have a this section
here where it says like, feel, hear, see in different areas.
So really descriptive for each area you go into.
And more important, every every new location has a What can you
kill here? And what can kill you here?
I mean right? Off the bat, the whole game, the
whole game is pretty much just kill stuff.
So yeah, this is, this is fantastic and that's nine Lights
Walhalla. That's one of the shortest
reviews we ever did for a really, really fantastic game.
Yeah, I mean, its brevity is its strength, you know?
Yeah, one of its many strengths, I think.
Yeah, for sure. Not its many, absolutely.
So let's just hop into the reviews and thank you so much
for the follow Keegan. Yeah our chat just on this other
we don't really so you know we we record this for podcasting
YouTube. So we don't really address chat
a lot at least verbally even more text into it But man a lot
of great people in chat tonight. We really appreciate it Kristen
serial Keegan yeah and and the the people from gym room.
So thank you so much for being here.
We really appreciate it. Yeah.
So for those who don't know, we do do these deep dive reviews
and then we do give scores. We have a different metric for
zines versus books because it wouldn't really be fair to
compare this to like I don't know, Apocalypse World or
something, you know, 200 plus page book when this is a 28 page
scene, right? And we do review projects as a
whole. That's why more often than not,
we really wait to try to get a printed project so that we can
review like how it was printed and all that kind of stuff and
actually review the entire thing, not just the the words in
the page. So for zines, we have 3 metrics,
for regular books we have 5. We're doing it.
This is the Zine, obviously. So for this we decided on
visuals, rule set and vibes. As three scores, they get a
total metric of 10. Visuals are the visuals of the
entire project beginning to end in regular book review.
It's split more on like layout, art and stuff like that.
This is the visuals entirely, Layout, art, style, quality,
quantity, all of that stuff. Rule set obviously is the rule
set and if it's an adapted rule set, how well is it adapted?
If it's a new rule set do we like it?
Is it good? And vibes are kind of like a
catch all originality arts. It really comes down to and how
I I really view it in my head is how bad do you want to play this
game. Once you close that cover, you
know that's the vibes. And does the art build into the
vibes? Does the rules build into the
vibes? Is there any part that just like
kills the vibes for you where you just go, Man, That part
right there really makes me not want to play this game.
That's where we go for this. So visually, I mean, my
goodness. What are your thoughts?
Oh, I mean, this has to be, this is going to have to be one of
our highest ranked zines. Visual.
Yeah. Well, it has to be, yeah.
I mean it like, I don't know if we're ever going to do better in
the Zine than this, you know, I think, well, I mean, that's OK.
It's it's really, really good. This is a what?
Speaking of zines. What?
Actually, you know what? I'm.
I'm gonna look. What are you thinking?
Oh gosh. I mean, here's the thing.
The art shit, shit, ton of art the entire way through.
I mean, just a ton. The layout is fantastic.
The font choice is good. It's clean, it's super readable.
I love that they didn't go with like 2 columns.
Very rarely do you get a page like this where there's like
text on both sides. More often than not it's broken
up with a one whole page as art and even when it is across 2
pages, there's still a piece of art on it.
So visually it's really appealing.
It really keeps your eye moving forward.
The art itself is really fantastic.
There's a ton of it. I mean, but as far as Azine
goes, this is what you want in Azine, this is, this is what you
want in Azine. It's super clean.
It's, it's and I just can't get the art style is so.
Perfect. Give me a number.
Throw. Throw a number for me.
It's it's perfect. Do you hear me say that?
Did you did you hear, did you did you get that?
Yeah. I got.
It's a pod. It's a PUR.
Yeah, I got it. Absolutely.
I heard you. Yeah.
All right. So, gosh, it's a, it's a, it's
a, it's a. It's probably at least a nine
for me. Like at least.
It's at least a nine for me. It's also like Speaking of
visuals, it's incredibly readable.
Like at no point in time do they allow the art to make it less
readable, which is a complaint I've had about other scenes, but
a lot of art that were really good.
But very readable. None of the text feels cramped.
Does it? Doesn't feel like there's walls
of text. I mean, there's definitely like
some writing in this, but like, no, it's broken up really well.
At no point in time does it feel like a chore to read it so.
So so that's the thing that's what's ever than this and the
Nazine's first say something something else.
I got a nine is like I'm pretty sure that below dwelling sewer
mutants right. I don't know if that would get a
nine. I know for vibes is really high.
But the thing one of the things about readability is they never
put like the the text is always black on a white background so
it's never over stuff. And for like an art scene, like
I also love the shit out of that if the text becomes part of the
art and like all this stuff, I love that too, right?
But that. Isn't better or worse than just
having the incredibly readable text next to a shit load of art?
And clearly they weren't worried about page count when they put
like 30 pages that like like 3/4 of this book is like just art.
The whole page is art without any words on it.
So 9. Yeah, yeah, easy 9, easy 9.
I mean to go to a 10, I don't know, need a little something
extra, but. But nine easy, I think.
So rule set, There's like one rule, but I love it.
There really is. There's one rule you know.
Yeah, I mean you have attributes, you know, you pick a
God, the God gives you 4 dice to use as a standard array.
Every time you roll, you roll at least two of those dice, because
you have to roll 2 attributes together and the whole game is
about glorious death. And killing to get to Valhalla.
And the only real rule in the game is every time you roll
dice, something has to die. I You can't get much lighter and
better than that to be no I I mean it has everything I need
and it like it's weirdly perfect like there's there are blessings
that increase like to die size and it's incredibly simple.
I'm just not sure how to rate something like this because I
don't want anything more like I don't I this is great where it's
at. So here's the thing, like
objectively on its own, standing on its own.
It's great in the context of zines that have done a lot more
and I think, although I think it's perfect in its simplicity.
I do think games can all are all.
We've also seen games that are near perfect with more, more
with more so like you know it's one of those things like how
yeah, how do you rate something that has what amounts to one
rule versus something that has like a whole rule set in a scene
that has much more in it. But, like, I guess it really is
how perfect for what that is, yeah.
It's perfect for. It's perfect for what this game
is. That's the same.
I was thinking I'm, I was, I'm between like an 8 and a nine
just for that simple thing. It's just like we've read I've
we've read some Zine games that are like fucking good, you know
what I mean? That have a lot more to it.
So I think that to me is what what would drop it down.
I mean, it's perfect for what it is in and of itself.
For me it's a nine. I'll let you make the call
though. So there's just nothing else I
want in this. Like I don't want to add, I
don't want to. We go through stuff all the
time. I'm like I would add this or I
wouldn't do that. I wouldn't add anything to this.
We'd be like other than like maybe adding blessings as we go
to their relevant to the table that I'm running and the
narrative going on there. But that's part of the game.
Like there's nothing I'd add to this.
So my argument. Here's my argument.
Blood being Badlands. Got a nine.
OK. It's also perfect for what it is
and has much more. You know what I mean that's my,
that's my thing is I think it's perfect in a bubble.
I think this is a super high score contextually with
everything else, which is generally our review scores.
I just, you know what I mean? That's that's that's where I'm
at. No, He makes the call.
I'm still a nine for this one. I won't die if it's AI, if it's
an 8, but I just like, yeah, Bloodbeam Badlands has more
rules. A lot of games have more rules
and less rules than other games we look at.
But I'm just saying, like, this rule is great.
I mean, there's really, there's smaller things that go into this
one rule. But like I, you know, I enjoy
this thoroughly on its own and compared to other things, I
would just have other experiences, you know?
So this is still a nine for me. Don't let chat bully you, you
know, Don't let chat be beat. I can let Chat bully me.
I'm actually not, you know. I'm just what I'm saying is
like, I I think Blood me Badlands for the exact same
reason is perfect for all that. It is.
Yeah. But I don't wanna play that and
be like, oh, I would do that or I wouldn't do that or take like
there was something in there that I was like I would house
rule that. And there's nothing in this side
of house rule. I play this thing all the way
out, you know? All right, I'm gonna let Chat
bully me, but I'm gonna let you bully me.
Yeah, vibes. I mean, I think we're on the
same page on this. I don't even think we need to.
I don't. I don't think we really need to.
I mean, what do you think our highest rated scene, you know?
What do you think? Oh, it's an.
I'm I'm saying it's a 10. You know, it's a 10.
It's a 10. It's a 10, yeah, it's a 10 easy.
It's 10 easy. I mean we didn't get to go
finish going through this before.
I'm just like fucking on place so bad.
Like it's such a like, it's funny and I love, I love really
engineered rule sets with like a lot of like choice design and
like a lot of like mechanics that go into it to make this
like really full, well-rounded experience.
But God damn do I love a game that's just like, no, anytime
you roll dice, something has to die.
Fuck everything else, nothing else matters.
Your cats like this is that's it.
This is all of it. And you're just like oh, that's
brilliant. Yeah, yeah.
No, I I I agree. I agree the.
This is exactly this is a this is a damn near perfect game
Zine. Yeah, you know what I mean?
Like, it's it's like you said, it's got the literal, exact
amount of rules you need. It's got more than enough of all
of the everything else you need, like 20 plus blessings, 20 plus
NPCS, all the treasures you need.
It's got an intro adventure. That's also gorgeous.
That is written in a way for both death and for players to
understand really, really easily.
The art's fantastic, the quality is fantastic, and you know what?
Like even even just this bit here, this little bit here.
Like I we would need to find some way to give a bonus point
for this for yeah, I really do like that fix.
It is like, it's so charming, you know.
Yeah. I'll say this, there are
Kickstarters that I've backed. OK, let me start that over.
If you have a Kickstarter that funds and then you hop on any
social media and just start talking shit about your
Kickstarter backers, you're a piece of shit and the opposite
of that. Is a mistake being found in your
book and at their own expense. The Kickstarter creators finding
a solution, getting it out to you, getting into your hands,
you know, with an apology and a thank you, you know and that is
fantastic to see. So gym, room, games, a lot of
respect, a lot of love. They make great stuff and seem
like fantastic people and and yeah.
That is that is 9 lives to Valhalla.
It is damn near perfect. Didn't it?
It is really, really good. It's really very good for.
For what? It is, yeah.
And I love very, very lightweight games and scenes
like I really do. It's like very much what I'm
into. And this is like, oh, it's like,
it's so funny, like working on games, reading of the games and
like myself, like writing a thing and thinking so hard about
it. And then someone comes out with
a game. It's like, there's one rule and
that's it, And you're just like, fuck, it's so good.
And that's the thing too. I'm sitting here feeling so dumb
I can't get the game to work. And it's like, yeah, there's one
rule. It's like, fuck you, this is.
One rule, yeah. And that's the thing.
That's the thing, like you said, like for in, in and of itself.
Like, it's perfect. It's the perfect rule for this
game. Like you could make this game
150 pages. You could make a game of liking
metal, you know death metal cats, 150 pages, but they didn't
like. Honestly, if you just put the
rules down with no art, this game is like 5-6 pages long,
right? Yeah, but yeah, it's damn near
it's damn near. Perfect.
There's not much more you could ask for for beyond here.
You know we would have to see something and it would blow our
mind and that's what would give it a 10/28 though that's like
that's. I forgot that that's the thing
that we do. Yeah, you have to, you have to
add them all together. But 28?
I mean that's we're never going to buy a scene score, right?
Easily. Unquestionably.
Like it's not even. I don't even need to look it up.
I think the the next closest thing that we have was below
dwellings or mutants. Because visually Fantastic fives
through the roof again, a really, really light rule set.
Not a game for everybody because it is.
They just kind of like you're in the sewer and there's like gross
shit in it. Yeah, for us though, like, I'll
take it all fucking day. But gosh, I don't even remember
what, what, what did that? Got a 26?
So this is unquestionably the highest rated scene that we've
ever looked at. And honestly, so fucking
deserved. So smart, so clever.
So well done. Art.
Fantastic Gym room games. Fucking killed it.
You guys are great. That's it.
That's our episode. I mean, it's like the shortest
episode we've ever done. Yeah, it is.
And I would like to say that tentatively right now on our
schedule, if you were interested in more gym room games, because
I'm still very excited to talk about another one we're going to
talk about on, I think it's on December 3rd, we're going to
talk about high magical lives, yes, yes.
But next Sunday, we're talking about Apocalypse World.
Oh shit, I forgot. We're doing, which is going to
be a much different episode from this.
Oh boy. And I have a feeling that I'm
going to enjoy that episode just a little less than this, but
it'll be really interesting to go through Apocalypse World.
Yeah, it's going to be. It is definitely going to be
quite interesting. We'll see how that goes.
Here's the thing, I'm not saying it we're done.
Definitely go check out gym room games.
You can find all their stuff in the lighter notes.
If you're listening on podcast or if you are on YouTube, you
will find links to both our each page and to their website.
Definitely go check out all of this stuff.
Just search gym room games on anything.
Again, fantastic stuff. Seem like great people.
That is it again. Thank you everyone for being
here in chat. Aaron Motherfucking King,
Christian Sorrell, Keegan, the gym room people, Vince Van
Davis. Appreciate all you guys.
You can find all of our socials at our link tree at the weekly
scroll. We got some fun, interesting
stuff coming up for you until the end of the year and we will
be doing another year in review. So check that out and I will see
you later and bye everybody bye.