1
00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:17,000
Hello and welcome to the Weekly 
Scroll Podcast. 

2
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,280
My name is Ryan and today we 
have a very special guest with 

3
00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:22,400
us that is Phil from One D 10 + 
5. 

4
00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,880
How's it going, Phil? 
Yeah, pretty good. 

5
00:00:24,880 --> 00:00:29,360
It's it's evening here so just 
chilling out and looking forward

6
00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:32,720
to see where we go here. 
Yeah, we, we, we've said this 

7
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:34,040
before. 
I'm a night shifter. 

8
00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:36,400
I think this is stream knows 
that well enough. 

9
00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:39,520
But your evening is my evening. 
My time is very much. 

10
00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:45,640
It's basically do you CTBSTBT 
which one is? 

11
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:49,680
GMT. 
GMT. 

12
00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:54,840
BST as well in the summer. 
And then our, our times, our 

13
00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:56,840
daylight savings time goes back 
in an hour or so. 

14
00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,760
Like this month, I'm like, I 
have to make sure every time we 

15
00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:01,920
get on, it's the right time 
because like, I know one of 

16
00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:03,480
these times we're going to set 
something up, but it's going to 

17
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:06,400
be an hour late. 
But regardless, happy to have 

18
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:11,440
you here for, for those that 
might not know you, what one D 

19
00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:13,760
10 + 5 is who, who, who the heck
are you? 

20
00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,200
What? 
What might they know you for? 

21
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:19,920
So yeah, I guess the thing that 
I'm probably most well known for

22
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,640
is producing solitary 
defilement, which is the sort of

23
00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,680
solo kind of engine for 
Merkberg. 

24
00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:34,120
It was, yeah, I think it was I 
sort of got into the Merkberg 

25
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:41,040
thing in in lockdown really, and
then kind of shifted into sort 

26
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,000
of trying to figure out solo 
role-playing. 

27
00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:46,440
And this is kind of what what 
came out. 

28
00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:52,320
And yeah, I guess we're kind of,
I suppose like a lot of people 

29
00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:55,240
in this arena are a bit hard up 
for cash as well. 

30
00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,680
So decided to make it into a 
Kickstarter, which kind of did 

31
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:03,560
pretty well. 
And it's yeah, people have been 

32
00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:06,040
requesting it ever since, 
really. 

33
00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:09,160
So I'm really happy that there's
going to be a a new reprint with

34
00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:12,040
Max Moon, which I believe has 
launched today. 

35
00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:14,600
So looking forward to seeing how
that goes. 

36
00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:17,520
And it's obviously going to look
very beautiful, as everything 

37
00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:22,800
Max does ends up being. 
Max is Max is one of my favorite

38
00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:25,800
people in the entire world and 
everything, everything they do 

39
00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:29,000
is is is gold. 
Like I like this entire this is 

40
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:31,320
just a stack now because I've 
reorganized my stuff. 

41
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:35,640
But my Max moon 12 like 12 year 
stack just keeps getting bigger 

42
00:02:35,640 --> 00:02:39,400
and bigger. 
And then he also dropped that 12

43
00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:41,440
years box recently, which I 
think is base is going to be 

44
00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:44,280
very similar to the boxes that 
the new box that are going to be

45
00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:45,960
in, right? 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

46
00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:47,280
And they, I think they look 
great. 

47
00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:52,560
I've like all of us, I suppose. 
I'm a a huge Zine collector of 

48
00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:55,240
both role-playing stuff and 
occult stuff. 

49
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:57,560
And I have AI gave her a lot of 
work. 

50
00:02:57,560 --> 00:02:59,920
So I've got about a billion 
little church guide books as 

51
00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:01,880
well. 
So I'm always looking for nice 

52
00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:05,320
boxes and I've just been 
playing, you know, I've just 

53
00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:09,760
actually re engaged with 12 
years over the last week or so. 

54
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,960
So now I'm kind of sorely 
tempted to get that box. 

55
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,120
Oh. 
Well, yeah, I mean, so I have a 

56
00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:17,880
so I have a problem. 
I don't know if you know me, but

57
00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:26,200
I have a problem. 
I've only taken one out of the 

58
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,280
plastic so far because I don't 
have rooms on the shelf, but I 

59
00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:36,480
did happen to get all of them in
all four colors. 

60
00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:39,280
And yeah, they're they're 
absolutely stunning. 

61
00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,880
And as we said, I believe this 
is similar to the box that that 

62
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,720
the new solitary department's 
going to be in and it's great as

63
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,120
again as everything Max does is 
great with a magnetic closure 

64
00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:50,920
and everything. 
So I'm very excited to get that 

65
00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:54,920
because I do have not one but 
two solitary department about 

66
00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:57,800
this. 
Do you do you have any idea why 

67
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:03,640
I have two of these? 
One is did we do 2 printings 

68
00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:05,640
already? 
One's glow in the dark. 

69
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,400
One's glow in the dark. 
As soon as the glow in the dark 

70
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:10,680
dropped, I was like, I have to 
get this, this is so cool. 

71
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:15,080
So yes, not one, but two of 
those S Jared of Fivement is a 

72
00:04:15,080 --> 00:04:17,160
great is a great game. 
Again, Max is great. 

73
00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:19,079
We'll get to 12 years. 
Let me write that down on the 

74
00:04:19,079 --> 00:04:21,760
note here because obviously we 
have to talk about that. 

75
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:26,400
But so S Jared of Fivement, you 
said you got to Mark Borg. 

76
00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:30,200
You got in a solo gaming like 
everyone in their mom got to 

77
00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:31,560
Mark Borg. 
You know, kind of during the 

78
00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:33,720
lockdown times it it came in 
like a battering ram. 

79
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:38,440
But what what was the impetus 
for actually sitting down, 

80
00:04:38,840 --> 00:04:41,800
deciding to make it a 
role-playing game, and then 

81
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:46,480
going forward from there? 
Yeah, I guess so. 

82
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:51,240
I'd been out of this whole 
TTRPGRPG, whatever you want to 

83
00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:55,720
call it, scene for a long time. 
I played as a teenager, then 

84
00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:58,640
kind of put my dice away when I 
went to college. 

85
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:04,120
And then during lockdown, we had
a, you know, one of our best 

86
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:08,520
friends had a DND group. 
So we just started playing DND 

87
00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:12,640
with her because it was a great 
way to, you know, to socialize 

88
00:05:12,840 --> 00:05:15,920
and have a bit of fun. 
And we played lots of board 

89
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,160
games and things with her prep 
prior to that. 

90
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,080
And then I guess I was kind of 
looking a bit beyond D&D. 

91
00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,240
So I was curious as to what was 
out there. 

92
00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:30,520
And I think around the same time
I, I stumbled across the idea of

93
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:33,560
like, solo role-playing. 
You know, obviously I grew up in

94
00:05:33,560 --> 00:05:37,880
the 80s with Fighting Fantasy 
and, you know, all this sort of 

95
00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:39,880
Lone Wolf and all those other 
game books. 

96
00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:44,760
But I guess Iron Swan kind of 
intrigued me. 

97
00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:47,840
I tried a bit of for Against 
Darkness and found it was too 

98
00:05:47,840 --> 00:05:51,720
kind of sterile and, you know, 
sort of on the rails. 

99
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,880
But then, yeah, I decided to 
give Iron Swan a try. 

100
00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:03,640
And I think, I think I did that 
before I picked up my book, but 

101
00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:07,200
I was really kind of stunned by 
Iron Swan again. 

102
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:11,480
I guess like Merkbug, it gives 
you kind of the most kind of 

103
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:15,000
pithy sketch of what the world 
is. 

104
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:19,600
But you know, it's loaded with 
with kind of cues for this sort 

105
00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:23,880
of imagination and things. 
So I remember sort of starting 

106
00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:27,920
my first session of that. 
And once you kind of get into 

107
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:30,880
the kind of idea that you're 
sort of almost half telling the 

108
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:35,400
story rather than, you know, 
just responding to dice rolls 

109
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:40,200
and, and stuff it like in in a 
simple game, it kind of really, 

110
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:45,200
really clicked. 
And I thought it was quite 

111
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:46,560
powerful. 
There was a lot of reasons I 

112
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:48,360
thought it was powerful. 
You know, there was kind of a, 

113
00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:51,400
you know, it had kind of woven a
whole narrative for me, like 

114
00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:55,960
about family conflicts and 
things that backgrounded my my 

115
00:06:55,960 --> 00:07:02,120
kind of little campaign. 
I found that also there was 

116
00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:05,000
something very powerful there 
because, you know, I found I 

117
00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:09,560
could, after playing a session, 
you know, I might be sort of 

118
00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:12,880
lying in bed that night thinking
back about it and, you know, 

119
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:16,760
being able to visualize the 
landscape and environment and 

120
00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:19,680
the geography and things, you 
know, in sort of real detail. 

121
00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:22,000
So I thought, you know, that's 
quite powerful, you know, 

122
00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:26,480
relates a lot to sort of some of
these sort of esoteric practices

123
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,040
that I've been engaged with 
since kind of my teens. 

124
00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:34,720
So, you know, I thought there's 
really kind of something here. 

125
00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:41,400
So when it came to picking up 
Merkberg and you know, being 

126
00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:44,360
just really impressed with the 
whole vibe and as I said, you 

127
00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:48,360
know, just this the way the 
world is described in such scant

128
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:53,680
but kind of powerful terms, you 
know, I thought I have to kind 

129
00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:58,240
of at least try to do something 
with this on a solo level as 

130
00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:00,800
well as roping in my friends to 
play it. 

131
00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:05,480
So yeah, the first draft of 
Solitude Environment was pretty 

132
00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:09,120
crap. 
So, you know, it was again quite

133
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:15,960
kind of mechanical, but I 
suppose just gently kind of 

134
00:08:15,960 --> 00:08:19,720
introducing some of that Iron 
Swan mechanic, I felt like kind 

135
00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:22,520
of made everything really click.
So, you know, the basic mechanic

136
00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:28,440
for Iron Swan is you kind of do 
a test and you roll 2D10 and if 

137
00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:31,480
both of the dice pass the test, 
it's a strong outcome. 

138
00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:35,400
If both of them fail, then it's 
a an abject failure. 

139
00:08:35,919 --> 00:08:41,320
And if one of them passes, then 
it's the kind of reasonable sort

140
00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:46,880
of outcome perhaps of drawbacks.
So, so I guess the situation 

141
00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:50,280
that you could do that in is, 
you know, if you're trying to 

142
00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:54,560
persuade someone to follow you, 
a strong hit or a pass on both 

143
00:08:54,560 --> 00:08:56,200
dies, they will definitely 
follow you. 

144
00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:00,840
Maybe they'll even walk ahead. 
The if one dies fails, maybe 

145
00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:03,760
that means they'll follow you 
grudgingly at a distance. 

146
00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:06,040
And then if both dies fail and 
they won't follow you. 

147
00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:10,640
So it's a really nice way of 
just spinning out stories beyond

148
00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:14,840
binary success fail kind of 
approach. 

149
00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:20,080
So Iron Swan, that Iron Swan 
there is like a little bit more 

150
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,840
complex because you've got a 
series of like moves. 

151
00:09:23,880 --> 00:09:26,720
And I guess I did kind of bring 
those into solitary development,

152
00:09:26,720 --> 00:09:33,080
but with things like camping and
and so on and fleeing from 

153
00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:38,240
combat. 
But that, you know, on in Iron 

154
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:41,240
Swan, the moves again, are much 
more structured and often 

155
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,560
they're, they're focused on 
introducing A twist into the 

156
00:09:44,560 --> 00:09:49,040
plot or something like that. 
So I just essentially reduced 

157
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:52,800
most of the the possibilities of
what you will do in the game 

158
00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,800
into just a general adventuring 
move where, you know, you decide

159
00:09:56,800 --> 00:09:59,360
what you're doing, make the 
appropriate attribute test. 

160
00:10:00,280 --> 00:10:03,240
Is it a strong success, weak 
success or a failure? 

161
00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:11,320
And I found that kind of, yeah, 
just kind of playing with that 

162
00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:13,600
idea. 
And so it's kind of worked out 

163
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:16,200
really well. 
And initially, you know, I was 

164
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:19,960
pretty much doing the sort of 
journaling sort of approach to 

165
00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:24,360
sort of say low TTRPGS where you
do your thing and write down 

166
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:26,720
what happens. 
And I think that's a great way 

167
00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:30,000
of working with it because it's 
quite literary. 

168
00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:33,520
It's really evocative. 
You certainly remember things 

169
00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:37,760
better because you're writing 
them down, but I've also 

170
00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:40,120
experimented just with a bit 
more of a free form approach, 

171
00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:44,040
just having, you know, maps and,
and, and notepads and, and just 

172
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:46,600
kind of, you know, rehearsing 
what goes on in my imagination. 

173
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:48,600
I don't find it quite as 
immersive, but the game 

174
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:53,240
certainly plays a lot quicker. 
But I, I put it on itch 

175
00:10:53,240 --> 00:11:01,080
initially in, you know, a pretty
rough and ready version and was 

176
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:07,840
really just kind of impressed by
how many people kind of, you 

177
00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:11,120
know, downloaded it, gave 
positive feedback and stuff. 

178
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:15,840
So I began kind of tidying it up
and introducing a bit of 

179
00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:18,240
graphics and, and better 
typesetting. 

180
00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:22,520
You know, I know it's still 
probably in layout terms, it's 

181
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:28,720
obviously a far cry from kind of
anarchic kind of layout, but I 

182
00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:31,760
also wanted something that I was
like an easy reference as well. 

183
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:33,920
Yeah. 
So I think it's kind of, you 

184
00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:37,280
know, the best of both worlds. 
All I would like to maybe one 

185
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:39,760
day bring it all together in a 
single hard bike volume with 

186
00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:47,560
some jazzy graphic design. 
But yeah, I think I just found 

187
00:11:47,560 --> 00:11:53,000
it very compelling, very, you 
know, just to kind of get lost 

188
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,080
in these campaigns. 
And, you know, obviously the 

189
00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:58,000
background to this happening was
the COVID lockdowns and things. 

190
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,200
And I guess that was, it seems 
to be a real watershed for a lot

191
00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:07,040
of solo TTRPG stuff, you know, 
people not being able to connect

192
00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:09,280
with their groups or connect 
with their groups in the same 

193
00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:15,040
way. 
And yeah, I think, I don't think

194
00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:17,640
I would have engaged with it 
though, if it wasn't for that 

195
00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:23,720
Mokbog third party license as 
well as the kind of, you know, 

196
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,080
not only is the world, I guess 
is Mokbog pretty skeletal, but 

197
00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:32,400
the rules are as well. 
I really didn't have time, you 

198
00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,240
know, to learn lots of law, 
learn lots of rules. 

199
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:39,320
You know, the game just fit 
perfectly with what I wanted, 

200
00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:44,160
what time I had. 
And that third party license, 

201
00:12:44,720 --> 00:12:47,560
you know, just being so flexible
with what you can do. 

202
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,400
I think it's really, really kind
of encouraged something 

203
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:53,600
extremely special. 
And it's, it's kind of, you 

204
00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:59,240
know, been interesting to see 
how many similar licenses people

205
00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:03,280
have put out there since. 
And you know, I think that the 

206
00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:08,960
kind of, you know, thing about, 
you know, there was lots that 

207
00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:11,080
appealed in the license, you 
know, particularly kind of the 

208
00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:14,400
kind of no bigots, no bigoted 
material thing as well. 

209
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:19,600
Because obviously with a setting
like that, it could descend into

210
00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:22,240
kind of a lot of sort of edge 
load kind of stuff. 

211
00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:27,400
But I think that it's just 
resorted in a really kind of 

212
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:30,160
vibrant community. 
And I'm glad that it's not kind 

213
00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:32,400
of, you know, it still seems to 
be pretty strong. 

214
00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:35,800
It's not kind of just fizzled 
out after COVID as well. 

215
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,320
So yeah, I mean, one of the 
things I also thought was very 

216
00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:44,920
appealing about Mokburg during 
that pandemic time was that, you

217
00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:49,880
know, the whole apocalyptic 
slant, you know, yeah, people 

218
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:51,840
might want to kind of just 
pretend something else is 

219
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:53,840
happening, get on with, you 
know, something else. 

220
00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:59,760
But I think also, you know, some
people just want to kind of 

221
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:02,240
wallow. 
Stuff you know. 

222
00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:06,120
We're we're a generation that's 
grown up with, you know, 

223
00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:09,680
constant threats about 
ecological collapse and, and 

224
00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:12,520
things like that as well. 
So I think it, you know, I think

225
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:16,680
it kind of really hit something 
actually deeper than, you know, 

226
00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:21,120
just the kind of aesthetics. 
So yeah, there we are. 

227
00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:23,800
Yeah, no, I mean, especially 
that last bit. 

228
00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:25,840
I've definitely always been the 
kind of person when I'm sad, I 

229
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:27,280
listen to sad music, you know 
what I mean? 

230
00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:30,160
Like I don't go outside. 
I don't want to be happy. 

231
00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:32,920
I well, I need to work through 
it and the best way to work 

232
00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,160
through it is to, you know, 
expose yourself to it deeply. 

233
00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:39,040
So yeah, Merk Borg hit. 
I mean the Kickstarter, what I 

234
00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:40,880
think was like mid 2020, wasn't 
it? 

235
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:44,040
Like it it, it dropped. 
I mean, I've. 

236
00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:48,600
So I have a lot of notes now for
questions, but but yeah, you 

237
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:53,520
know, Mark Borg hit and and I 
think there's a lot of people, I

238
00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:57,120
think it hit the industry or hit
this hit this niche in a lot of 

239
00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:00,960
ways that people don't really 
see or don't really like see. 

240
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:04,160
And and you touched on a lot of 
them, like the license itself, 

241
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:07,960
obviously, you know, there's 
CCBY and like all these other 

242
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:10,400
license that people have been 
able to publish under for a long

243
00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:17,160
time, but a lot of games don't 
like you should be paid for your

244
00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:19,080
work, right? 
But if you look at games like 

245
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:21,680
Karen and Mauser and things like
that, where the game is 

246
00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:24,160
basically free all the time, the
amount of support in the 

247
00:15:24,160 --> 00:15:26,920
community that grows from that 
is enormous. 

248
00:15:26,920 --> 00:15:29,120
And Mark Borg, you know, with 
the third party license said the

249
00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:30,760
same thing. 
I mean, we got like mugs and 

250
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:34,720
shower curtains and things, but 
we got, you know, a huge 

251
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,760
community making a lot of stuff.
And if you look at idiom 

252
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:40,840
Workborg kick starters after 
you, you know that they made a 

253
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:43,840
lot more money by putting that 
license out and having a free 

254
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:46,680
version than by trying to pay 
all the entire thing the entire 

255
00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:48,600
time. 
And I think that that really 

256
00:15:48,920 --> 00:15:50,840
opened a lot of people's eyes 
and pushed a lot of people to 

257
00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:53,920
understand that like, you can 
like make money or you can build

258
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:56,560
a community that will like bring
you money, yes, but like the 

259
00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:58,440
community is also a huge part of
it too. 

260
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:01,640
So again, I think there's a lot 
of ways that Mark Borg affected 

261
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:05,440
the, this the TRPG space and 
people realize not just like 

262
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:09,560
making everybody use CMYK colors
on all of their their layouts 

263
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:13,720
and trying to emulate Johannor, 
but a lot more than that. 

264
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:21,920
And I'm just going to go all the
way back to the top of the list.

265
00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:24,160
12 years, you said was one of 
the inspirations. 

266
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:26,880
And obviously, I mean, so Max is
a huge friend of the show, 

267
00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:29,680
amazing human being, one of my 
favorite people in the entire 

268
00:16:29,680 --> 00:16:30,960
world. 
And he reached out and been 

269
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:32,240
like, hey, you should talk to to
Phil. 

270
00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:34,040
And I was like, absolutely, 
let's do this thing. 

271
00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:40,000
How did you meet or kind of 
reach out to Max in the 1st 

272
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:41,720
place? 
Was it after you inspired by 12 

273
00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:46,920
years or like because he you're 
a bit like Max does a lot for 

274
00:16:46,920 --> 00:16:49,680
solitary defilement on the 
maximum game store. 

275
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,040
And I don't know if he does that
for really anybody else, but 

276
00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:54,440
like every time he does 
something, it's like, you know, 

277
00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:56,560
things like this like to the 
wall for this game. 

278
00:16:56,560 --> 00:16:58,600
So obviously you guys are 
friends. 

279
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:03,440
What kind of precipitated that? 
Well, I feel very honoured about

280
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:09,880
the way he's kind of, you know, 
done a lot of the labour with 

281
00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:12,040
producing the new issue issues 
and things. 

282
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:17,720
You know, I'm very grateful in 
that respect. 

283
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:20,440
But I was actually kind of 
thinking about this earlier 

284
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:26,359
today and I can't actually 
remember how, how we got talking

285
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:28,960
in the 1st place. 
I think he must have contacted 

286
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:32,840
me about doing an addition of 
Solitary, Solitary development. 

287
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:40,360
And maybe that was off the back 
of me doing the 12 years Quick 

288
00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:49,560
Play app kind of on Itch. 
Because yeah, I think yeah, 

289
00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:51,120
that's probably the way it 
worked. 

290
00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:54,200
Although they might be able to 
correct me if I'm wrong. 

291
00:17:56,480 --> 00:18:05,040
But yeah, I kind of discovered 
Max Min's stuff because I think 

292
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:10,920
through 12 years, I remember 
that I was actually a an occult 

293
00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:13,640
conference on the borders of 
Wales. 

294
00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:17,080
And I was there with my wife and
she wanted to listen to this 

295
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:20,200
guy, Christopher Hughes, who's 
the kind of art steward of 

296
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,880
Anglesey do a talk. 
So I took my kid for a walk 

297
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:27,480
around the gardens of this 
castle and ended up chasing 

298
00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:30,760
Peacocks. 
And we took a break in a little 

299
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:34,200
grotto. 
And I was just kind of browsing 

300
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:36,760
my phone and I think it was 
probably possibly on the dungeon

301
00:18:36,760 --> 00:18:40,920
dive or something in Facebook 
group and and YouTube, you know,

302
00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:43,120
that I think think is a really 
great. 

303
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:46,760
I think it was there that I saw 
a thing about 12 years and I 

304
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:48,960
thought, you know, this actually
sounds great. 

305
00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:50,800
It had a lot of things that tick
boxes. 

306
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:57,080
So I think both Max and I are 
very interested in the fairies 

307
00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:00,360
or the Fae and these kind of 
ideas of other worlds. 

308
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:06,600
So, you know, I thought I have 
to check this out, you know, and

309
00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:09,080
actually, yeah, when I got a 
copy, I was kind of really 

310
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:11,160
entranced. 
You know, in some ways maybe 

311
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,960
it's a little bit like for 
Against Darkness, you've got a 

312
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:16,240
kind of group and you go on 
dungeon calls. 

313
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:22,640
But it's such a charming, 
evocative setting, you know? 

314
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,440
And I, I've always been, you 
know, love those stories about 

315
00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:30,160
people going to the fairy land 
and time passes differently and 

316
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:32,960
they, they come out, you know, 
and it's, it's years later. 

317
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:39,280
And so, you know, I thought, you
know, this is great. 

318
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:45,680
And I think that the way the 
game has so many kind of twists 

319
00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:48,840
of fate is also really good. 
I mean, some people might say, 

320
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:50,960
oh, this isn't balanced, this is
really swingy. 

321
00:19:51,360 --> 00:19:54,400
But you know, I feel that that's
kind of also something I 

322
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:56,720
actually quite enjoy about 
Merkberg as well. 

323
00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:58,960
And, and in Merkberg, the 
swinginess is always in the 

324
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:01,400
combat. 
And it's like, you know, that 

325
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:03,200
means you've got to think of 
different solutions. 

326
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,240
Than just smashing everything 
over the head, you know. 

327
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:12,200
So I guess it's a little little 
trickier in a game like 12 years

328
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:16,160
when there are kind of possibly 
less things to do than evade or 

329
00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,400
attack. 
But yeah, I just love the whole 

330
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:23,520
vibe of it. 
So I just actually, I just kind 

331
00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:27,080
of finished playing a game like 
Max was saying on on the 

332
00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:29,840
appearance earlier that, you 
know, it's a great kind of 

333
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:33,040
lunchtime kind of game. 
You can kind of dip in for half 

334
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:34,560
an hour. 
But the fact that it happens 

335
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,760
over 12 years or so kind of 
feels like it's a kind of epic. 

336
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,160
But yeah, I just played a game 
of the Demon Lord expansion for 

337
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:44,480
the first time. 
That was a pretty great. 

338
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:48,640
It ended, you know, terribly, of
course, one part. 

339
00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:52,120
Yeah, I've yet to beat it. 
I've yet to beat it and and for 

340
00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:55,320
the same thing as you said, like
I literally have like I think 

341
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,160
two or three different travel 
journals now that I have like 

342
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,080
multiple copies in like 1 
literally stays in my locker at 

343
00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:03,040
work because I'm like I got an 
hour lunch. 

344
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:05,000
I'm not doing anything today. 
I'm just going to play some 12 

345
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:05,680
years. 
So. 

346
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:08,600
But yeah, Deep mood's great. 
Yeah. 

347
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:15,040
So we kind of yeah. 
So yeah, my, my games standard 

348
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:19,040
very abruptly because I was on 
year 10, rolled up a party who 

349
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:22,760
had a magic mushroom, got lost 
in the fave for 10 years, and 

350
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:25,600
the world ended. 
But, you know, there you go. 

351
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:30,400
So yeah, one of the kind of 
reasons I did things like those 

352
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,640
quick plays is literally so I 
could just pull it out of my bag

353
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:35,920
and use a phone. 
You know, if I had five minutes,

354
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:38,760
I was on the bus. 
And that actually kind of 

355
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:42,400
extends from the way I also 
digitized the oracles for 

356
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,960
solitary defilement, you know, 
so I didn't need any dice. 

357
00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:48,280
I could literally just do the 
whole thing on my phone with a 

358
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:52,760
notes app as well. 
You know, I'm always trying to 

359
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:57,280
maximize what I do with my time 
because I have so little free 

360
00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:01,840
time. 
So yeah, I think it might. 

361
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:04,760
Getting in touch with Max kind 
of happened, I think via the 

362
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:09,680
sort of 12 years route. 
But it wasn't necessarily so 

363
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,960
much an inspiration for soldier 
development because that had 

364
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:14,680
already been out, you know, by 
that time. 

365
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:19,880
But it was an inspiration for 
Basilisk, which is a sort of 

366
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,000
roll and write type game or 
yeah, in your, in that 

367
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:28,920
incarnation, a kind of, you 
know, board game type 

368
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,960
realization. 
And it was, yeah, it was really 

369
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:35,320
inspired by the game Dungeon 
Quest, the old Games Workshop 

370
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:37,800
game. 
Again, that really appealed to 

371
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:43,800
me because like Mark Berg, you 
know, it's just one of those 

372
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,000
kind of games where there's an 
insane twist of fate. 

373
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:48,040
You can die on your first turn 
practically. 

374
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:52,280
It's actually still one of my 
favorite games. 

375
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,280
You know, I don't know if my 
friends feel necessarily the 

376
00:22:56,280 --> 00:23:00,360
same way, but I just love to 
pull it out because it's just so

377
00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:03,000
ridiculous. 
You know, how someone could 

378
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:06,560
escape with 50,000 gems and 
someone can die in like their 

379
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:10,480
second, first or second term. 
I just love, love that approach.

380
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,800
And also, you know, Games 
Workshop grew up with that stuff

381
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,640
and love the aesthetics and and 
all that kind of stuff. 

382
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,760
So yeah, Basilisk was basically 
a kind of merkbug kind of riff 

383
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:25,040
on Dungeon Quest. 
So you can, if you got to enter 

384
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:32,320
these tunnels and give a 
petition to the Basilisks to 

385
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,040
hopefully at least get your ass 
out of whatever apocalypse is 

386
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:41,600
coming. 
But you know, I think the main 

387
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,200
influences from 12 years there 
was that you have a party. 

388
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,840
Well, you can generate 5 
characters and send them in one 

389
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:53,040
by one. 
But it also has like an 

390
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,040
advantages and disadvantages 
system. 

391
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:57,520
So, you know, you might have one
character who's a nudist who 

392
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:02,120
can't wear any armor or anything
and you know, other characters 

393
00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:03,880
with other powers. 
It's actually been a while since

394
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:08,320
I've played it, but you know, I 
thought and had a lot of fun 

395
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:10,960
working on it and, and designing
it. 

396
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:20,160
And I think so, yeah. 
And the aim with Basilisk was 

397
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:24,200
also to just produce a game that
could fit on two sides of a 

398
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:27,560
four, you know, and be a 
complete game. 

399
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:32,600
So, you know, it's definitely 
working within some self-imposed

400
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,560
kind of creative constraints, 
but I think it turned out like 

401
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,200
as a really good game. 
And I guess the thing about 

402
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:44,280
Basilisk is you can play it in 
half an hour, whereas with a 12 

403
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:48,520
year session, you know you're 
looking at several sessions to 

404
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,720
actually complete the 12 year 
period. 

405
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,400
No battles is great and the 
physical edition this is this is

406
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,520
all Max too, right, Like it's 
the the folder and everything 

407
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,040
like the I mean Max loves screen
printing stuff and he's and 

408
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,760
they're great at it, but this is
this is gorgeous. 

409
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,680
When this drops. 
I got he sent me that right 

410
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:10,840
away. 
I mean you make great stuff. 

411
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:15,160
I'm so glad that, you know, one 
of the things that I love, so I 

412
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,040
love Dark Fort. 
Like Mark Borg is great and 

413
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:20,320
that's cool, but I really love 
Dark Fort And a lot of that 

414
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,360
obviously comes through in 
solitary development and, and a 

415
00:25:22,360 --> 00:25:25,520
lot of the solo stuff. 
And I dipped into journaling 

416
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,440
solo games a little bit and 
bounced off of them super hard. 

417
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,440
Like I'm just my ADHD is too bad
to sit and like write that much 

418
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,800
at one time and focus on it. 
And 12 years is the game that 

419
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,080
got me into like solo, solo like
adventure gaming, I guess. 

420
00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:42,640
And I'm going to be obsessed 
with it forever. 

421
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,600
But it's it's great for, you 
know, all the reasons you said. 

422
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,480
Like honestly, like if I'm just 
like hanging out somewhere, like

423
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,400
a lot of times I'll leave a copy
of it in my car. 

424
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,200
If I'm going to go to a doctor's
appointment or something and I 

425
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,000
got to sit there for 30 minutes,
I can just open up a journal and

426
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:57,720
start playing the game. 
And it's so much fun. 

427
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,280
And you know, you mentioned 
balance and stuff. 

428
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:01,720
I'm like, I couldn't possibly 
care less. 

429
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,600
Like I think we all played 
solitaire when we were younger 

430
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:06,640
or older or whatever. 
Like, you know, especially on 

431
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:10,280
the early computers when you had
that and like Minecraft, like 

432
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:12,840
the mind game or whatever, you 
never win. 

433
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:14,960
Like it's so rare that you win 
solitaire. 

434
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,760
But no, there weren't like I 
don't think that they were like 

435
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,880
Twitter and Reddit threads about
like how unbalanced solitaire is

436
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,200
and how you can't win. 
So like I like when it all dies,

437
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,320
it's hysterical to me. 
You know, I get to put up a 

438
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,400
little tombstones, come, come 
loot corpses later, you know, 

439
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,440
right up their obituaries in the
back and, and move forward. 

440
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:33,520
So you know that that's one of 
the things I really loved about 

441
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:36,480
it. 
And, and both solitaire 

442
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:40,840
development and bass are just 
such fun games, you know, like, 

443
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,840
you know, for the reasons you 
said and, and, and more and, you

444
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:46,880
know, and on top of the fact 
that one of my favorite people 

445
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,320
in the world gets to make them, 
so I get to own things that they

446
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:51,960
make that are also really cool 
is is really fun so. 

447
00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:55,760
I was in, yeah. 
What you said about kind of when

448
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:57,720
you were younger playing 
solitary, that actually just 

449
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:05,320
triggered a, an old memory that,
you know, when I was like 1314, 

450
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,040
I was obsessed with like playing
Advanced Hero Quest, the 

451
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,600
solitaire rendition. 
So you know, it's basically kind

452
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:18,800
of, I guess it was built. 
It was so unlike regular Hero 

453
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,480
Quest, it was basically built on
like the Warhammer Fantasy 

454
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,680
role-playing kind of engine. 
But you know, what I thought was

455
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,520
great about that was that it did
have this dungeon generator and,

456
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:34,680
you know, I would just stay up 
till like 1:00 in the morning 

457
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:40,000
quietly rolling dust, seeing 
where my heroes were going and 

458
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,360
kind of playing out this kind of
epic campaign, you know, for 

459
00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:47,360
like months in my in my head. 
So yeah, that was great. 

460
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,000
And I guess Games Workshop did 
also dip into some of that more 

461
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,840
solo focused stuff with stuff 
like Chainsaw Warrior and stuff 

462
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,600
which I remember also enjoying 
quite a bit. 

463
00:27:57,360 --> 00:28:01,000
You know what's crazy? 
So I, I'm, I'm so deep in 

464
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,280
Warhammer right now, but I only 
really got into like the 

465
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,880
beginning of the year. 
And if I, if I think about how 

466
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,840
much money I've spent on 
Warhammer novels, I would pass 

467
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,200
out again. 
I have a problem, right? 

468
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,360
But we're, we're actually going 
to be starting up a Warhammer 

469
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:17,040
fantasy 2E role-playing stream 
soon. 

470
00:28:17,120 --> 00:28:20,240
Like I really want to do a lot 
of the stuff, but I've been 

471
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,760
finding some of the older games 
that they did like they had like

472
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,080
these Warhammer warriors games 
or it's like a 1V1 game. 

473
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,240
I don't know if you saw those 
really great. 

474
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:33,600
You got to look into them, but 
so I'm now I'm deep diving these

475
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,280
things that you're talking 
about, like all of these really 

476
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,920
cool games, works up stuff that 
they did before and man, they've

477
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,400
been killing it for a long time.
Oh, yeah. 

478
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,920
And I think one of the things 
that I also didn't kind of carry

479
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:49,720
forward from that era in sort of
some of my own stuff is like 

480
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:55,640
that the Games Workshop stuff in
the 80s and 90s, it was so like 

481
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:01,480
political and satirical, you 
know, And I don't know if I've 

482
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,760
not really engaged with any of 
it, you know, in the present. 

483
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,560
I don't know if that thread has 
kind of been lost or or, you 

484
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,880
know, not kind of really taken 
on board by kind of new 

485
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,440
generations. 
But I think the first kind of 

486
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,840
Warhammer supplement I ever got 
was Mac Death. 

487
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,320
And that has a whole like satire
about kind of the miners strike 

488
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:27,360
and things going on, you know, 
that kind of, I didn't know 

489
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,040
anything about that. 
You know, it's like a kid. 

490
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,400
But, you know, it made me find 
out about that. 

491
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,920
And it was quite cool how people
were bringing, you know, these 

492
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,320
ideas kind of blurring the line 
between fantasy and reality or, 

493
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,360
you know, kind of, you know, 
that sort of thing in the game. 

494
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,520
So I think some of that stuff 
kind of also appears in some 

495
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:48,840
aspects of solitary development.
It certainly appears in my own 

496
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,080
games of Merkbug that I run 
with, with a group, with groups,

497
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:58,720
you know, where I imagine that 
King Fathmu is kind of like some

498
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,880
kind of Perubu type character or
Boris Johnson character. 

499
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,400
You know, the Shadow King is 
just kind of a misanthropic 

500
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,520
sadist who you know, even the 
most vile acts no longer excite 

501
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,000
them and that sort of thing. 
But you know, some of that stuff

502
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,360
also comes through in the 
adventures that came a sultry 

503
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:23,680
defilement, sort of like in Aqua
Mortis where you sort of you're 

504
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:28,640
trying to escape from the 
tunnels of the the Shadow King. 

505
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,560
And the final kind of stage, you
reach a picket line at the sewer

506
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:38,960
Workers Union and you've got to 
decide whether you smash smash 

507
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,880
them or whether you wait for the
strike breaker to come and join 

508
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,280
them. 
You know, so I thought, you 

509
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,200
know, I like to add, add kind of
little bits and pieces like that

510
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,480
in. 
And, you know, I think there's 

511
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:56,240
also something that's another 
kind of thing that I think is 

512
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,440
kind of actually integral to, to
Merkbug. 

513
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,800
You know, it's often all, you 
know, aside from this sort of 

514
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:08,360
wretched royal who's like a, you
know, a caricature of the rich. 

515
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:10,680
You know, most of it is about 
punching up. 

516
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:15,240
You play reprobates, you know, 
you play the the drags of 

517
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:22,120
society and you know, you've got
to kind of survive and the law 

518
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:23,720
is hassling you and all that 
sort of stuff. 

519
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,240
I guess that also plays out in 
things like Dungeon Degenerates 

520
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,200
as well, which has become one of
my favorite games over the last 

521
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,400
few months. 
So yeah, I really like that that

522
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:41,320
there's kind of a little bit of 
a kind of class sort of critique

523
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,880
kind of element going on in 
Warhammer, in Merkberg, Dungeon 

524
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:46,000
Degenerates and all that, sort 
of. 

525
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,240
Yeah, it's interesting because 
like I've, I'm drawn to all the 

526
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,440
same things that you're drawn 
to, especially dungeon generates

527
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:52,720
is great. 
I don't know if you played like 

528
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:54,360
this game from Dark Castle, but 
that's also really good. 

529
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,120
Not quite as quite satire in it,
but I love it so much. 

530
00:31:57,520 --> 00:31:59,400
But yeah, it's interesting. 
Oh, go. 

531
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,080
I was just going to say that was
actually the game that got me 

532
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,440
back into this whole area as 
well. 

533
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,760
You know, just obviously 
lockdown broke me kind of back 

534
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,840
into RPGs, but it was visiting 
my friend Mark Cole Kington, 

535
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,480
who's a publisher runs a thing 
called Stranger Track to Press. 

536
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,440
And he pulled out that castle 
and was like, you know, we've 

537
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,600
got to play this. 
It's just like, you know, was 

538
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,680
blown away by the atmosphere. 
You know, the, the cards just so

539
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,760
much evoked those old 80s 
role-playing, you know, game 

540
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,640
books and stuff. 
And you know, immediately went 

541
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,960
out, bought a copy and played it
with my wife quite a lot and 

542
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,080
then got all the expansions and 
the big box. 

543
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,800
Yeah. 
And then dark sector drop and 

544
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,880
I'm like, I don't even like 
space that much, but I got to 

545
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,200
get all that too, yeah. 
I mean, I've only got, I've only

546
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,480
got the core and one expansion 
for Dark Sector and I've never, 

547
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,360
I've never even beaten it. 
I found it much more difficult 

548
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:59,000
to play, but definitely Escape 
from Dark Castle playing that 

549
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:00,560
was kind of real watershed 
moment. 

550
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,720
And the fact that it's so easy 
as well, you can introduce kind 

551
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,880
of non gamers to it and it only 
lasts half an hour. 

552
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,320
You know, it's kind of really 
the perfect introductory game. 

553
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,880
It's, it's so good because you, 
I mean, and you can bring in 

554
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,920
like rope, like RPG elements 
into it more too, for that, for 

555
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,320
that kind of table. 
And just, yeah, like I've played

556
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:20,280
it with people that have never, 
that have never even heard of 

557
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,640
D&D or anything like that. 
And, and got them to start 

558
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,320
getting into teach RPGs because 
of that game and, and the 

559
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,360
introduction to it. 
And like the first time I saw 

560
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,240
it, I'm like, I got to get this.
The first time I got it, I was 

561
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,200
like, damn it. 
Now I have the vinyl and the 

562
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,060
tapes and like all the, yeah, 
the big box, the expansion, the 

563
00:33:36,060 --> 00:33:40,080
T-shirts, like, yeah. 
So yeah, kind of went, kind of 

564
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,840
went hard on that. 
But slight dip into the politics

565
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:44,520
stuff. 
I will say, like, I love, I love

566
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,000
where I'm, I wish I would have 
found it as a kid versus a lot 

567
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:48,200
of the stuff. 
I mean, I read a lot of books 

568
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,640
and they were great, but 
Warhammer art is amazing. 

569
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,640
But it, it shocks me how many 
people, like, I don't know, 

570
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:57,800
don't get it. 
Like they don't get the satire 

571
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,120
of like space Nazis, like 
murdering, like casinos and 

572
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:02,600
stuff. 
And I'm just like, they're not 

573
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:03,680
right. 
They're all wrong. 

574
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:05,840
This is one reason I love Chaos 
more than anything, because 

575
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,360
they're all genocidal 
psychopaths. 

576
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,199
But like Chaos is honest about 
it. 

577
00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:12,320
You know what I mean? 
Like they're like, we're the bad

578
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:13,239
guys. 
That's fine. 

579
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:14,760
We're doing literally the same 
things. 

580
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:21,400
But anyway, so solidarity 
department box set. 

581
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,280
I believe you said it dropped 
today. 

582
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,800
I mean, I know it's out because 
before stream I was like, shit, 

583
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:26,800
wait a minute, when does that 
drop? 

584
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:28,679
And I click the links, Max and 
the disc one, I was like, it's 

585
00:34:28,679 --> 00:34:33,560
here now and I like bought 1 
real quick, but that is that is 

586
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,960
the thing. 
Oh yeah, let me bring up at 

587
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:41,760
least this banner page that that
that Max put here because it is 

588
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:48,520
gorgeous. 
So the box set, talk to us about

589
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,000
like what people are going to 
get from this new beautiful box 

590
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:53,760
set. 
Yeah. 

591
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:59,280
So you get obviously the kind of
core solitary department book 

592
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:06,680
which has it's pretty much kind 
of just explains the basic kind 

593
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:11,320
of role mechanics and love it is
constituted by oracles. 

594
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:18,920
But again, I think, you know, 
people have kind of said, oh, 

595
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,160
there's not enough oracles. 
But I mean, personally, I think 

596
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:26,240
there's there's plenty, you 
know, it's just I don't like 

597
00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:28,000
that. 
You know, if you do get the mass

598
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,080
too many, then you, you know, 
and you get that one that's like

599
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:34,920
100 village situations, you 
know, then it just keeps coming 

600
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,920
up and it's like, I want to riff
on this, you know. 

601
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:44,000
So I think with the design of 
the oracles, just if I've I, I 

602
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:45,960
know I'm going to, I'm going to 
talk about what's in this book 

603
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:47,560
set, but just to go off on a 
tangent. 

604
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:49,520
Go for it. 
Please do. 

605
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,800
It's a team of the. 
Show one of the things that 

606
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:58,240
really kind of struck me about 
Noor's rock black sludge 

607
00:35:58,240 --> 00:36:05,960
adventure is how often instead 
of going for straight for visual

608
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,960
descriptions of the spaces, it 
will tell you how something 

609
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:14,600
smells or feels you know so it's
got this kind of element in 

610
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,440
solitary developments. 
I call it sensorium because I 

611
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:23,000
think that is like, you know, 
obviously we we think visually a

612
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,120
lot and when we think about 
role-playing games, we're often 

613
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,080
thinking about the kind of you 
know, mental imagery and things.

614
00:36:28,720 --> 00:36:32,000
But I think that engaging with 
this sensorium is actually makes

615
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,400
it much more immersive, you 
know, and embodied because 

616
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:36,960
you're thinking about your other
senses. 

617
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:44,040
So I think often instead of an 
Oracle kind of immediately 

618
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,760
giving you a situation, when I'm
playing it, I like to 

619
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:48,920
concentrate more on the 
sensorium like, you know, to 

620
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,200
look on those tables, think, you
know, how's this smelling or 

621
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,760
what's that sound? 
And then use those as cues to 

622
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,400
kind of them develop kind of 
what happens after. 

623
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,880
So for me actually amongst the 
oracles, it's kind of like the 

624
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,800
sense stuff is, is actually 
probably the most important to 

625
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:13,160
me in many ways. 
But yeah, you've also got kind 

626
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:18,200
of tables of NPCS, you've got a 
kind of travelling loop as well.

627
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,280
And a lot of people said that 
was really useful like to think 

628
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:27,440
about in terms of how how how a 
merkboard day kind of works or 

629
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,720
how travelling works even in 
their own kind of tabletop 

630
00:37:30,720 --> 00:37:33,680
games. 
And you've also sort of got a 

631
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:41,160
dungeon crawling system which is
based on the idea of kind of 

632
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,680
hitting a number of kind of 
waypoints. 

633
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:50,360
So in the actual little leaflets
that come with it, it usually 

634
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,760
gives you like four kind of 
what's called special rooms 

635
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:56,040
which structure the adventure. 
But what happens between those 

636
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,880
is completely chance or random 
or part of your storytelling and

637
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,000
engagement with this, the system
of strong and weak hits. 

638
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,280
So it might mean that when you 
reach one of those kind of 

639
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:12,000
staged parts, actually the whole
environment could be completely 

640
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:13,040
different. 
You know, you could have 

641
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:14,920
completely offended things or 
you know. 

642
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,040
So I think that I played the 
Shadow Clink Adventure so many 

643
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:25,320
times, like while writing it and
testing it every time was a kind

644
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:30,080
of whole different experience, 
despite the being, you know, a 

645
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,400
kind of semi structured approach
to it. 

646
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,160
So I really like that approach 
to kind of creating solo 

647
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,960
modules. 
So I'll talk a bit more about 

648
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,520
what those are or what the 
themes are in a bit. 

649
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:46,600
But yeah, then I guess you've 
also got concepts like micro 

650
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:51,280
crawls where it's, again, I 
guess there's a possible year, a

651
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,000
resonance with 12 years, even 
though I thought about this 

652
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:55,680
before I'd engaged with 12 
years. 

653
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,600
But a micro crawl is like, oh, 
you're going through a tunnel in

654
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,360
a hill. 
You know, you don't necessarily 

655
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,600
want a whole dungeon. 
You want one to four encounters,

656
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,960
basically one to four spaces. 
So the micro crawl kind of 

657
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:11,880
allows you just to quickly do 
that. 

658
00:39:12,240 --> 00:39:17,600
And the whole thing I think is 
focused actually on, you know, 

659
00:39:18,720 --> 00:39:22,080
not kind of getting too bogged 
down and planning everything, 

660
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,640
but just kind of reacting, kind 
of telling the story and seeing 

661
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:29,400
where it spins. 
And I think that's a lot easier 

662
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:33,840
to do in workbook, again, 
because it's not so loaded with 

663
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,960
mechanics or law, you know, 
pretty much anything can go. 

664
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,160
So I think it works really well 
in that respect. 

665
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:46,000
There's also quite a significant
kind of playthrough example, 

666
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:49,280
which shows you exactly how 
everything works and fits 

667
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:54,320
together. 
Amongst the PDFs that I made 

668
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,600
available with the full digital 
edition of Solitary Development,

669
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,040
there's actually a book 
dedicated to playthroughs as 

670
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:06,000
well that has playthroughs of 
Shadow Clink and one of the 

671
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,280
adventures. 
There's a mini adventure in the 

672
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:12,280
supplement Alone in the Crowd as
well, which is a kind of city 

673
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:16,120
crawling adventure. 
And I even looked at ways that. 

674
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:21,000
You can actually take a MacBook 
adventure that's pre-existing 

675
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,440
and kind of also abstract it 
into this four special rooms 

676
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,440
kind of formula. 
So there's also a play 

677
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:31,120
throughout there of a kind of 
radically different take on rock

678
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:37,280
black sludge where, you know, I 
took 4 four key areas and then 

679
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,440
kind of generated a lot of other
stuff around it. 

680
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:45,000
So yeah, you get the core book. 
You also get this book called 

681
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:50,080
Alone in the Crowd, which is a 
city crawling kind of 

682
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:56,480
compendium, or you know, it goes
from the smallest kind of hamlet

683
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,640
or settlement to, you know, city
level. 

684
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:06,760
And it's just full of oracles 
and encounter tables and that 

685
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:11,800
kind of thing to kind of try and
flesh out what's going on in a 

686
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,320
city. 
So there's an adventure in there

687
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:20,400
as well called Chalice of Ruin, 
where you've got to kind of 

688
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,320
essentially poison someone using
a sort of cursed chalice. 

689
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,520
But again, it's like a city 
crawl, but it's structured on 

690
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,320
this kind of four or in this 
case 3 special areas. 

691
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,080
So you're kind of wandering 
through the city looking for a 

692
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:42,200
contact and then I think going 
into some kind of games and 

693
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,120
catacombs and then eventually 
fight like sneaking into the 

694
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:50,000
House of your target and things.
So I kind of like, I like doing 

695
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,000
those kind of little modules as 
well as playing more free form 

696
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,160
because it's sometimes it's nice
to have very definite aims and 

697
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:58,800
and things. 
And I find them really kind of 

698
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,480
rewarding to write. 
So yeah, the you not only get, 

699
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:06,040
of course, alone in the crowd in
the core book, but there's four 

700
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,600
of these modules. 
So there's this one called 

701
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,880
Shadow Clink, where you kind of 
escaping from the dungeon of the

702
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:16,160
Shadow King after being wrongly 
or probably possibly rightly 

703
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,960
imprisoned. 
Once you kind of escape, that 

704
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:22,880
actually does lead on to a 
second adventure called That 

705
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,840
Commotus, where you kind of 
escape into the sewers and you 

706
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,560
got to get out of there. 
And there's also a couple of 

707
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:31,520
other ones. 
There's one called Park Pale. 

708
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:37,640
This was actually inspired by 
some of my kind of work in the 

709
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:43,000
kind of occult area. 
So in this adventure, you're 

710
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:47,560
kind of trying to hunt down to 
necromancers, to kind of 

711
00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:51,480
aristocratic necromancers who 
who have made that, who are kind

712
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,920
of doing experiments and in this
kind of in their kind of country

713
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,240
house, in the grounds of their 
country house. 

714
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:06,760
So this was actually inspired by
some work that I was doing 

715
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:10,320
around a guy called Humphrey 
Gilbert, who was Walter 

716
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:16,920
Raleigh's half brother. 
And he was a real colonial 

717
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,880
bastard. 
Basically, he was part of the 

718
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,920
Tudor kind of colonizations of 
Ireland, you know, did some 

719
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:31,760
absolutely abysmal, despicable, 
cruel things to the Irish. 

720
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,240
You know, you'd like, you know, 
cut off all the heads of the man

721
00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:36,880
and things just to make a 
statement. 

722
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:43,560
And then kind of he went back 
to, he was sent back to England 

723
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,600
with some dispatches for Queen 
Elizabeth. 

724
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,480
And he took a little sabbatical 
when he decided that what he'd 

725
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:55,680
do would be basically go to a 
shed in his garden with his 

726
00:43:55,680 --> 00:44:00,200
friend John Davies and try and 
conjure the Princess of Hell. 

727
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:11,280
So I basically came across, or 
sort of came across Humphrey 

728
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:15,160
Gilbert's Diaries of this 
magical working. 

729
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,200
So it's extremely rare to come 
across things from that period. 

730
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,160
I think John Dee's records of 
his scrying and Angel 

731
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,080
experiments, you know, that's 
the most complete. 

732
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,360
I mean, much of this stuff 
wasn't written down or has been 

733
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,840
lost for one reason or another. 
So it was amazing to actually 

734
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,960
find the whole record of, you 
know, this magical ritual or 

735
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,320
like, it's actually a series of 
workings over several weeks that

736
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:44,320
had happened. 
So that kind of I did a 

737
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:50,280
transcription of that and wrote 
some kind of commentaries on it 

738
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:52,440
with my friend Al Cummings, 
Doctor Al Cummins. 

739
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,440
And that was published about in 
about 2020. 

740
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,720
But this kind of really riffs on
that story. 

741
00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:06,200
You know, you can come in to 
kind of deal some pain to these 

742
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,560
kind of really despicable 
necromancers. 

743
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:15,360
So that's part pale and tragic. 
Catalog session is a kind of was

744
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,040
a new addition to the set with 
the last printing. 

745
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,120
It's really inspired by the kind
of black metal band Old Nick. 

746
00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:25,720
I don't know if you've ever come
across them. 

747
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:32,960
Their music sounds, yeah, it 
sounds like kind of umpire bands

748
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:37,040
and dance music and all sorts of
stuff kind of makes with black 

749
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:39,920
metal. 
It's extremely stupid, you know.

750
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,720
And there's a whole album which 
is just obsessed with vampires. 

751
00:45:43,720 --> 00:45:48,920
So they've kind of carried on 
into this, this adventure where 

752
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,080
the tagline is vampires, 
vampires, vampires, everything 

753
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,040
is a vampire, even your water 
skin, because there's this kind 

754
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,720
of cursed moon that can actually
make anything into a vampire. 

755
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,560
So I had a lot of fun also 
writing that. 

756
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:07,720
And this one, it was actually 
done as a full adventure. 

757
00:46:07,720 --> 00:46:13,160
Yeah, a chat book by Max Moon. 
So this is more kind of laid out

758
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:19,880
in this sort of rock black 
sludge type vein and actually 

759
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:24,920
this kind of adventure was it 
was really the output of a solo 

760
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,720
solitary definement session. 
I find that doing that is 

761
00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:31,720
actually a really good way to 
come up with situations and 

762
00:46:31,720 --> 00:46:34,160
ideas. 
So you know, I thought, OK, I'm 

763
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:36,520
going to do this session where 
I'm kind of exploring a vampire 

764
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,440
castle. 
Let's kind of see how this goes.

765
00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:43,480
And then eventually, you know, 
the many of the best parts kind 

766
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,680
of worked their way into the 
adventure and like I was talking

767
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:50,440
about taking rock black sludge 
and reducing it to this kind of 

768
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:52,560
four special rooms type 
approach. 

769
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:56,400
That's kind of exactly what 
happens in the additional 

770
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,280
pamphlet for solitary 
development to ask you. 

771
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:01,920
That was the question I. 
Was going to ask is I have I 

772
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:06,280
have both of them obviously 
because again problem so the the

773
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,480
newer version because I know 
this did come with the second 

774
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:11,800
box that not the first box that 
because the second box that all 

775
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:15,360
of them are on this like like 
thick textured paper. 

776
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:20,840
I got to say so this is a filing
down of this not vice versa. 

777
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:22,960
You didn't this guy down it 
didn't go up. 

778
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:24,720
I mean, it's quite, it's quite 
I. 

779
00:47:24,720 --> 00:47:28,920
Guess weird like this. 
You know, the adventure version 

780
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,440
kind of came out of a it's 
playing a solitary Parliament 

781
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:32,360
session. 
Yeah. 

782
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:34,280
And then it was boiled down 
actually into another. 

783
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,000
We got levels to this. 
That's cool because like, again,

784
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:40,960
like you said, like with with 
rock black sludge, like any 

785
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,880
adventure, if you if you take 
out the key parts and then put 

786
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,480
like the the the random parts in
between, you can turn into 

787
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:48,920
something. 
So it makes sense kind of in 

788
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:52,560
that context that you would go 
down or like boil down versus 

789
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,000
like expand up from from that, 
because they're great and the 

790
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,720
cover is is stunning on on both 
of them. 

791
00:47:58,720 --> 00:48:03,560
But again, on the the newer 
version or the the boiled down, 

792
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:06,520
just kind of like, you know, one
paid version, like one full paid

793
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:10,560
version. 
It's it's great. 

794
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,320
And and again, the cover 
absolutely slaps. 

795
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:15,280
Oh, thank you. 
Yeah, I. 

796
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,880
Drew that like just on a a 
morning before going to work. 

797
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,320
I think so. 
You're, you're, you're. 

798
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,400
You're. 
I don't know if you've. 

799
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:24,800
Touched on your music, but 
you're you're. 

800
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,360
You're an academic that finds 
like the writings of like, you 

801
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,160
know, people trying to some of 
the demons of hell. 

802
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:35,080
Musician, teach, RPG writer, 
artist, kind of a little, kind 

803
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:36,640
of get a little bit of 
everything, huh. 

804
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:38,560
Yeah. 
I mean. 

805
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,360
I have incredible imposter 
syndrome, so I don't think I'm 

806
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:45,440
any good at any of them. 
But you know, I'm glad to just 

807
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:47,480
know that I enjoy it. 
I enjoy everything. 

808
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:50,120
I've got from you, so I I 
appreciate it. 

809
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,280
I was just going to say there is
one more element. 

810
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,800
Of the book set, which is 
Records of Ruin, which is 

811
00:48:54,800 --> 00:49:00,520
basically your sort of campaign 
journal, which has, yeah, 

812
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,320
entries for kind of dungeon 
crawl, city crawl, kind of main 

813
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:08,800
map and these kind of Rd. maps. 
This was actually also inspired 

814
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:12,920
by looking at 17th century kind 
of atlases. 

815
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,800
So there was one that it gives, 
I can't remember what it was 

816
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:20,920
called, but it gives like the 
routes to every kind of like 

817
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,640
market town. 
And they're always drawn in 

818
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:27,400
these kind of roles, like 
showing the road to where you're

819
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,680
going, kind of going down and 
you know, the turnings for the 

820
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:32,840
different cities and the 
landmarks you'll see on your 

821
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,920
way. 
So I thought instead of doing 

822
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,920
like hex crawl or that kind of 
thing, that I would kind of 

823
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,760
imitate that by doing these sort
of Rd. maps when you do your 

824
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:46,160
traveling. 
But of course, you can do a hex 

825
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,200
scroll if you want. 
I'm not not averse to that. 

826
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,840
And you know, people have 
produced some really great hex 

827
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:56,760
crawl stuff, I think. 
Was it Paolo you had on the show

828
00:49:56,760 --> 00:50:01,200
a while ago? 
You know, that that guide to the

829
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,040
dying lands, you know, I think 
looks, looks incredible. 

830
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,320
And I, I look forward to seeing 
how that works with solitary 

831
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:09,480
development. 
Yeah, they do. 

832
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:15,920
A a bunch of amazing stuff on 
with I mean, heretic to the 

833
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,440
dying The the the yeah, the guy 
the heretic side of the guy 

834
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,840
dying lens is the one that 
you're talking about, right? 

835
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,840
Yeah, but they've, I mean. 
Korborg and like all the. 

836
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,240
Stuff the the people that the 
Corp Mark Borg people that are 

837
00:50:26,240 --> 00:50:30,240
still doing work work stuff have
so much more to do. 

838
00:50:30,240 --> 00:50:34,880
It's crazy, you know, because 
there was this big like, I don't

839
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:38,320
know, a lot of a lot of output 
of like third party stuff that 

840
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:40,800
was like very like supplements 
and like little bits and pieces 

841
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,000
and stuff like that. 
But then some of the stuff like 

842
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:46,760
pobble stuff and like your stuff
like the, the, that really kind 

843
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,680
of like settled in and then 
became a thing that other people

844
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:52,920
like the second generation of 
things that people were building

845
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:55,560
off of is just so great. 
And seeing this kind of stuff or

846
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:59,160
the, or the the heretics guide 
stuff is, is amazing to see. 

847
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:01,240
And like you said, like, it's 
not like it just happened in the

848
00:51:01,240 --> 00:51:04,600
Merkboard community faded away. 
Like there's a really strong, 

849
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:06,400
you know, current of it still 
moving forward. 

850
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:10,440
So there's actually a question 
to chat real quick. 

851
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,840
So I'm going to ask, would you 
ever consider working on a 

852
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,840
Merkboard solitary definement? 
I guess there's been some third 

853
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,640
party attempts, but it says 1 
gets close, but some of the 

854
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,160
references, like they're not 
quite getting it right. 

855
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,080
Like have you thought about 
doing a Cyborg solitary 

856
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:26,720
definement? 
Yeah, yeah. 

857
00:51:26,720 --> 00:51:29,080
I mean I I. 
I was actually looking for my 

858
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,680
notes on my phone earlier and I 
saw, yeah, there is there is one

859
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:34,440
in there called Silentry 
definement. 

860
00:51:35,720 --> 00:51:45,960
But I think basically my parents
had some health issues and then 

861
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:50,520
I kind of had to pause my PhD. 
And then when that was resolved,

862
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,320
I was just fully into the PhD 
then. 

863
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:55,600
Now that's finished. 
I'm kind of like trying to carve

864
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:58,560
out a little research area. 
So I mean, it's something I'd 

865
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:01,000
really like to do, but 
unfortunately, I don't think 

866
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,040
I've got the time right now, you
know? 

867
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,600
Yeah, bring on another lockdown,
see what happens. 

868
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,360
OK, Now listen. 
Hello. 

869
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:17,240
Now I will say if there's any 
silver cloud that came out of 

870
00:52:17,240 --> 00:52:20,640
just that awful time and the 
health crisis that struck the 

871
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,880
entire world still happening now
in the TRPG space, like you 

872
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,560
said, the number of solo games, 
but not even just solo games, 

873
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,800
but games in general. 
The kind of TRPG movement that 

874
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:34,800
happened after it very much 
based on I I can do anything, 

875
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:37,640
but I can't do anything but like
be in my head and, and maybe 

876
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:39,560
this is the time where I can 
finally sit down and get done 

877
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:42,600
with this thing that I have. 
There is definitely like a a pre

878
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:46,280
COVID and post COVID indie 
scene, especially in like you 

879
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:50,160
said, solo games, But there's a 
lot of things there's there's a 

880
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:53,200
lot of games now that are kind 
of staples that came from that. 

881
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,240
So if there is any silver lining
at all, at least in this space, 

882
00:52:56,240 --> 00:52:58,880
it is the the amount of creative
output that came from being 

883
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:00,520
forced inside. 
Oh yeah. 

884
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:07,120
And I think it. 
It, you know, yeah, it was, I 

885
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:12,800
guess, a very isolating time. 
You know, I felt, you know, went

886
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,440
through some fairly down 
patches. 

887
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,840
But yeah, like you say, a lot 
has actually come out of it. 

888
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:24,960
And also in music, you know, I 
was talking to some record 

889
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:29,920
producers and studio owners that
conference a while ago. 

890
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:34,360
And again, they're saying 
they're still actually dealing 

891
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:38,280
with people's creativity that 
came out of that, that, that 

892
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:41,160
thing, you know, because people 
started, you know, playing audio

893
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:43,120
interfaces, recording their 
album at home. 

894
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,840
And now, you know, they're still
kind of just finishing these 

895
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:50,080
things, tinkering them, bringing
them into studios for that kind 

896
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,280
of last bit of Polish and kind 
of validation from an actual 

897
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:58,120
kind of engineer. 
So yeah, it's it changed so 

898
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:04,360
much. 
And you know, I guess also as a 

899
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,200
teacher, I'm still feeling the 
effects of that on my students. 

900
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:12,560
So yeah, kind of maybe it was a 
bit of a flippant comment, but 

901
00:54:13,720 --> 00:54:16,920
but certainly, you know, also 
changed my whole relationship 

902
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,400
with this spare. 
I was also kind of asked by 

903
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:24,080
Limnethrone to do a kind of 
pirate Vogue version, which I 

904
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:27,120
kind of, again, time just didn't
allow. 

905
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:31,280
But I got into that. 
And, you know, I was framing it 

906
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:34,360
as like a manuscript that had 
been discovered in a kind of 

907
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:40,040
drifting kind of sea vessel 
because the captain had been so 

908
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:47,040
busy playing, something terrible
had happened. 

909
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:49,120
And he's just like, oh, wait, 
what? 

910
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:51,680
What's going on? 
That that's fantastic. 

911
00:54:51,720 --> 00:54:54,040
I mean, it sounds like you have 
like way too many irons in the 

912
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:57,280
fire, but hopefully these are 
these are ones that might 

913
00:54:57,280 --> 00:54:58,760
eventually get put in there as 
well. 

914
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:01,920
Because again, I mean, it 
doesn't seem like Max is going 

915
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:03,400
to slow down on putting your 
stuff out. 

916
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:07,440
This is going to be the third 
box set of solitary defilement. 

917
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:10,440
So if I had someone that was 
willing to to put out such 

918
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:14,160
gorgeous versions of my work, I 
would I would have to keep it on

919
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:15,680
the back of my mind at some 
point too. 

920
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:22,080
So But yeah, so so the answer in
chat maybe, maybe, maybe 

921
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:27,280
eventually, you know, and I. 
Will say like very like I jump 

922
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:32,360
between things all the time and 
you know, I really loved like 

923
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:37,160
Cyborg, you know, it's just such
a great production and the 

924
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:40,360
graphics are brilliant and but 
I've not really had time to kind

925
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:44,280
of get my teeth into it and it's
the kind of just a tiny bit more

926
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:48,600
complicated than MacBook. 
So it is it it definitely is. 

927
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:49,800
We we played. 
Both. 

928
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:54,560
We played both a lot on stream 
and Cyborg definitely has it's 

929
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,280
it's denser. 
It is it's it's still not like 

930
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:59,320
rules medium by any stretch. 
It's not AD and D. 

931
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,360
It's not even like 5AD and D, 
but it's it definitely adds a 

932
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:04,760
little bit more. 
I personally prefer Merck Borg 

933
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:07,320
cybergs. 
Cool, but I'll take, you know, 

934
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:10,800
picking my nose until it bleeds 
and like, stabbing goblins and 

935
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,320
stuff in the apocalypse any day.
And I'll stay away from the tech

936
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,400
stuff. 
Yeah, I mean, I. 

937
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,120
Think again. 
It looks great also because it 

938
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,360
does have that kind of was a 
slightly kind of political kind 

939
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:24,680
of edge to it as well. 
And I think this stuff was 

940
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:27,680
slightly. 
Kind of miseries is. 

941
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:31,160
Great, You know, like it's all 
kind of about geopolitical stuff

942
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:34,240
and things. 
You know, I think, you know, I 

943
00:56:34,240 --> 00:56:36,960
read and I think, wow, this 
could be like a fantastic 

944
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:41,680
campaign if I ever have time. 
Well, I think, I think if I'm 

945
00:56:41,720 --> 00:56:42,440
not. 
Mistaken. 

946
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:45,440
There's only like 1 true rule on
the game and that's that you 

947
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:52,840
can't be basically like working 
for directly or like being 

948
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,200
allied with like the cops, the 
corps or like the government or 

949
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:59,400
anything like that. 
And I'm like, I mean, we could 

950
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:00,760
just. 
That could just be real life. 

951
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:04,680
But like, anyway, yeah, a little
bit of political overtones in 

952
00:57:04,680 --> 00:57:09,600
that one, but the. 
Box set it. 

953
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,080
Is up. 
I mean I don't know when it 

954
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,520
dropped. 
It is on the Maximum Game store 

955
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,960
right now. 
I think it was just this 

956
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,160
morning, like a few hours ago. 
Really. 

957
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:21,160
Well then, Perfect. 
So so. 

958
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:22,760
If you're listening to this go 
buy it. 

959
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:27,480
This is the pre-order it is for 
the entire box set with 

960
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:31,320
everything included. 
It's $75 plus shipping and then 

961
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:35,680
for just the empty box full of 
nothing but hope it says it is 

962
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:38,200
$20.00 for the box plus shipping
for everything. 

963
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:39,440
Unless you can go pick it up 
locally. 

964
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,200
It's it's stunning. 
If you are in podcast land, go 

965
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,760
go to maximum games, go find 
this. 

966
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:49,880
We'll make sure that the link 
directly to the box that is in 

967
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:52,760
the description stuff below. 
But my goodness. 

968
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:56,480
So did you and Max work on like 
so I actually got to see some of

969
00:57:56,480 --> 00:58:00,560
the previews for this. 
Max asked for some insight and I

970
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:02,000
was like, holy shit, that's 
awesome. 

971
00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:04,880
So did you guys work on the 
design for this together? 

972
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,560
Was it was it Max mostly or Max?
Yeah, I mean. 

973
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:13,400
It's great that Max is 
incredibly proactive because 

974
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:17,520
half this stuff would not get 
done if the ball was in my 

975
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:21,680
court. 
So yeah, Max kind of came to me 

976
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:23,960
with the sort of idea about the 
box. 

977
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,360
And, you know, I thought it 
looked, it looked great. 

978
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:32,720
You know, we he sent a few kind 
of images and we kind of, you 

979
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:35,480
know, asked for my input. 
So, you know, I'm always happy 

980
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:38,320
to give that. 
And I think we kind of zeroed 

981
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:41,040
down on the kind of praying 
skeleton kind of thing. 

982
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:47,560
I think, you know, it is quite 
funny that I'd actually sent him

983
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:52,600
a postcard with that image on in
at some point in the past. 

984
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:57,320
And then, I don't know, he 
rediscovered that as well after 

985
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,920
kind of we fixed this box 
design. 

986
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,440
And yeah, I think we talked 
about kind of, you know, I think

987
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,320
just things about the layout of 
the text and stuff. 

988
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:10,080
But, you know, I think he's 
really great strong kind of 

989
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:13,560
graphic designer as well. 
I do a lot of of stuff kind of 

990
00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:19,200
in that area, you know, design 
gig posters and album art and 

991
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:23,480
things. 
But, you know, I think that he 

992
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:25,360
does it really well for his 
stuff. 

993
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:28,040
And, you know, it always looks 
great when it comes out of the 

994
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:30,920
screen printing process. 
And, you know, I'm a big fan of 

995
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:34,120
screen printing. 
Just the texture of the ink and 

996
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:36,960
the paper and things, you know, 
I think it's all great. 

997
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:44,120
So yeah, I'm sure it's going to 
be look, yeah, when I grow up, 

998
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,200
only be Max Moon. 
Is kind of what I figured out. 

999
00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:48,120
I started getting into book 
binding recently. 

1000
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:52,040
Definitely a lot of inspired by 
the book binding that they do 

1001
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:54,240
and screen printing is always in
the back of my Brian. 

1002
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,640
So anytime I do something I'm 
just like, hey Max, how do I do 

1003
00:59:57,640 --> 00:59:59,120
this? 
He's like, here's a cool book 

1004
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:00,680
and it'll be great. 
All right, I got it. 

1005
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:02,920
But yeah, the prank skeleton's 
great. 

1006
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:05,920
I love like the morning skeleton
on the side of the box too, just

1007
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,960
like head in the hand instead of
towards the sky like it's it's 

1008
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,800
just vibes all day and just with
that like bright gold on it, It 

1009
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:14,400
looks absolutely stunning. 
So definitely do not want to 

1010
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:15,920
miss this. 
I know it's a pre-order. 

1011
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:17,560
I I highly doubt there's a 
limit. 

1012
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:19,480
I don't think Max is going to do
like a million of them, but that

1013
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:22,000
would be dope. 
But you definitely want to go 

1014
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,120
snag this and if you don't have 
the the previous stuff from the 

1015
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:29,680
box, again, worth, definitely 
worth grabbing. 

1016
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,960
And while you're there, you 
know, if if basilisk or anything

1017
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:34,360
else from Wendy 10 is on the Max
moon shop, just grab that and 

1018
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:35,640
you can just stuff it all in the
box. 

1019
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:39,040
That's that's my plan. 
I don't here's the thing. 

1020
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:42,160
It's like, I don't know, like 
I'm going to have three solitary

1021
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:45,080
deployment boxes, but I'm just 
going to like stack the one up 

1022
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:47,160
this way and these this way so I
can see all the covers in the 

1023
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:50,440
glow in the dark. 
So very excited. 

1024
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:55,640
So again, this is out on Max 
Moon games again, I'll put the 

1025
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:59,600
link below. 
But as far as where Bass Lisk is

1026
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:03,840
where I mean so much stuff that 
we didn't even talk about with a

1027
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:06,520
quick flip through here. 
We didn't talk about a painful 

1028
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:08,480
at all. 
We didn't go through like a ton 

1029
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:09,480
of the generators. 
You do. 

1030
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:12,560
I know we touched on briefly 
that 12 years you do the 

1031
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:14,360
generator for that, but there's 
way more on. 

1032
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:17,800
So if you go to the one D10, 
where can people find your 

1033
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:19,240
stuff? 
Yeah. 

1034
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:22,200
So it's. 
Mainly H really, that's my only 

1035
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:26,160
presence at the moment. 
So because it doesn't allow you 

1036
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:34,640
to put a plus in your username, 
it's just one D105 dot H dot IO.

1037
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:37,800
But I'm sure if you search 
solitary department and H, 

1038
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,280
you'll kind of find it. 
So yeah, that's kind of pretty 

1039
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:44,840
much where I'm just archiving 
everything that I produce, 

1040
01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:47,440
really. 
So you can download also like 

1041
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,640
the sort of demo version of 
Solitary Definement, which gives

1042
01:01:50,640 --> 01:01:55,000
you the call book and the Shadow
Clink adventure to kind of dip 

1043
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:58,520
in. 
And there's a bunch of the stuff

1044
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:01,000
on there. 
Yeah, lots of generators to 

1045
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:08,880
support Merkburg and other 
projects like the Pain Flail and

1046
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:12,480
Basilisk and some of the stuff 
I've done for the game Fallen, 

1047
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:16,760
which is a kind of gothic horror
I'm very into. 

1048
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,320
So yeah, one thing I meant to 
ask at the top. 

1049
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:27,120
And I completely I forgot on I 
know I know that we I mentioned 

1050
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:30,280
in discord the other night. 
But if you want to say like why 

1051
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:34,680
one D 10 + 5? 
Yeah, it just came out of those 

1052
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:38,760
D&D sessions that I was playing 
with my my friend Emily and my 

1053
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:43,800
wife Layla, and I just had 
something that was like 1 D 10 +

1054
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:45,720
5 damage. 
And I thought that just looks 

1055
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:49,880
like the word idiots. 
So when it came to, you know, 

1056
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:54,240
putting out my first bit of 
Merkbug content, which was it 

1057
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:58,840
was just for the folklore jam. 
I can't remember who was kind of

1058
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:01,280
producing that jam, though. 
It's really bad. 

1059
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:05,280
But you know, I thought, Oh 
yeah, Merkbug, I'm really into 

1060
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:06,480
that. 
And I'm also really into 

1061
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:08,880
folklore. 
It's been a major kind of 

1062
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:13,160
musical kind of or in part of my
music for a long time. 

1063
01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:16,240
So I was like, Oh yeah, I've got
to got to create some stuff for 

1064
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:18,200
that. 
But of course I was kind of 

1065
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:21,840
stuck for a name. 
So I just kind of typed that in 

1066
01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:26,120
not, not expecting to do more 
than one or two little bits of 

1067
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:30,280
modeboard content. 
So I wasn't really thinking, 

1068
01:03:30,520 --> 01:03:34,400
thinking it through very deeply.
But now it's great. 

1069
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,160
Oh, there you go. 
It's funny because right next to

1070
01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:41,040
me like. 
I I so my ADHD is awful. 

1071
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:43,600
I have like whiteboards and 
pretty much all of my rooms. 

1072
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:45,920
So I can just like keep notes 
and I'll have the same notes on 

1073
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:48,360
all of them to remind me. 
And my payment chip is terrible.

1074
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:51,240
So I wrote like all this thing 
I'm supposed to do and I wrote 

1075
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,440
one D 10 + 5 and like, do the 
overlay, do this, do that. 

1076
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:56,840
And my payment was so bad. 
I came back to it like two days 

1077
01:03:56,840 --> 01:03:58,760
later and I was like, why did I 
write idiots on the board? 

1078
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:00,760
I don't understand what this is.
And then I was like, oh, wait, 

1079
01:04:00,760 --> 01:04:02,720
no, that's one D 10 + 5. 
And that's when I messaged you 

1080
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:04,920
in Discord and it was like, Hey,
did you know it says this and 

1081
01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:06,480
you're like, yes, that's why I 
did it. 

1082
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,120
So that's great. 
That's awesome. 

1083
01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:13,720
So hey, listen, I'm, I'm so glad
that you came on the show. 

1084
01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:16,080
It was fantastic talking to you.
I feel like I could talk to you 

1085
01:04:16,080 --> 01:04:17,960
for like 3 more hours. 
We again, we didn't touch on 

1086
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:19,240
painful at all. 
We didn't touch about your 

1087
01:04:19,240 --> 01:04:21,960
academia at all. 
So next time you're doing 

1088
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:24,400
something, you know, hit us up. 
I mean, we're Discord friends 

1089
01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:26,600
now and we'd love to have you 
back on the show and talk about 

1090
01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:30,480
more of your projects. 
But yeah, it was an absolute 

1091
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:31,800
pleasure getting a chance to 
talk to you. 

1092
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:34,360
Maybe Hannah will get to be in 
on the next one. 

1093
01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:38,880
But again, everyone listening, 
go buy this game. 

1094
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:42,600
It's a fantastic game put out by
two fantastic people and it 

1095
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:46,560
looks fantastic. 
So again, the links will be 

1096
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:48,880
below and thank you so much for 
being here. 

1097
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:51,800
Thank you very much, Ryan. 
Been great to talk to you. 

1098
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,440
I'll catch you later. 
Bye everybody, we'll be done 

1099
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:55,440
for. 
The day, have a good one. 

1100
01:04:55,440 --> 01:04:55,720
Bye.
