Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I'm Arthur C Nielsen,
senior. And today, today is our first
review of 2025. And also potentially the
shortest thing we'll review this year.
I don't want to call the game too early, but.
Yeah. But I, I think this might be the
shortest thing we've ever reviewed.
Couple of things to start the year, First off.
Happy New Year. Happy new year.
Hey look at 2025. It's funny I keep saying this at
work that 2024 felt like 2024-2025 feels like what people
said the future was in the past. 2025 feels like Sylvester
Stallone will somehow got like frozen and wakes up in 2025 like
2025 feels like the future. And Demolition Man reference.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Demolition Man It's.
Great. It's funny as I bet you the
future of Demolition Man was probably not before.
It was probably like 2018 or some shit like that.
Yeah, look now. The other thing is I during our
end of year review, hey, go check out our end of the year
review. It was it was really fun.
It was a great one, an hour shorter than the previous one.
2032. Oh, we're close.
We're almost there. We're close.
Yeah. Hunter messaged me.
I don't know, like 15 minutes. Then it was like, you're saying
I'm a lot. I'm like, I, I know, I don't
know why I've been doing that lately.
And then I listened to the episode and I say, I'm in like,
so much. I wanted to RIP my own throat
out and never speak again. So I used to have this little
thing standing up in front of me.
And I don't know why I put it away, but it was.
It's been written like this for about a year and a half.
It says I'm at the top term mommy not to say.
And then the next two things say stop yelling and talk slower.
And it's a little sign I used to post for myself and I'm going to
start, we're posting that again so I can stop yelling, talk
slower and not say I'm so much. That is going to be my
resolution for this podcast for 2025.
What about you, bud? Oh fuck, I ain't never a
resolution ready. Ask me.
Ask me later resolutions are for assholes.
I also just because I want to show off this mug and podcast
land come watch the YouTube. I'm not even look at look at how
look at how dope this mug is. Those that know know it's it's
super cool. If you're listening, go watch
the YouTube. So today, today we're going to
do a review. We're going to do more reviews
this year. We're going to do more than 28
reviews this year. My goal is to hit 40 and we're
going to start with this game right here, which is niesel
knots, Niesel knots, Nielsen knots.
I don't know why I keep saying it wrong.
Nielsen Knots. It's, it's specifically a
reference, yeah, to the Nielsen ratings and the Nielsen box.
Yeah, part of that company. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. As we get into the game, you'll,
you'll you'll understand why it's pretty well.
And I like it. I like it's a great it's a great
name for the game. Yeah, love it.
So this is written by Chris Ramdean, edited by Jerk Crater
Woo layout from Sam Sorensen and cover art by Yomiya.
So we'll get into that and you'll see this page again.
But my gosh, the cover slaps so hard.
Remind me when we when we get started here in a second to to
go full screen on the cover so people can see the whole thing.
But it's fantastic. It's also.
I have the Zine as well somewhere, but I don't have it
to hold up like you do. Yeah.
I I was, I think about doing the Cam for this one, but I'm going
to redo the Cam a little bit, change some of the light up so
you know how hard it is not to say I'm just don't say anything,
Just don't say anything. And then I said, so I'm like, I
got AI got a fill this time. It's fun.
Very small, very light game. Yeah, this is a good You and
your friends are hanging out in the afternoon and you want to
play a game that's not like as in depth of a tabletop game.
Yeah, I would, Yeah. What's your, what's your, what's
your, what's your initial take, I guess.
I like this game. I do.
I think it's it's incredibly lightweight, which you know, I'm
always a fan of. I conceptually I'm really down
with this game. I it is think you need AI don't
want to say like a specific group people like I do with some
games. Like.
But you kind of need a group that's like.
Fun to theatre kids. Yeah, you need a bunch of
theater kids to play this game. You want an improv like Friends,
which I think you don't necessarily have to be a theater
kid, you know what I mean? But like that kind of vibe.
Yeah, I think. Would help, I think.
I think those people wouldn't hurt.
It's so, so tabletop role-playing games, right?
They, they run the, they're a spectrum.
I wish people acknowledge a little bit more.
It's a spectrum of games from almost board games or even some
board games. Yeah, real bright there to to
basically fucking Larping right. And across that you have things
like you like skirmish games and things like that were like like
last war, for example, or or the whole like forbidden Psalm thing
where it is a war skirmish game, but there are T sharp elements
to it. And at the far end you have
things like Fiasco, which is very much it is a role-playing
game. You're playing a role, but it is
a lot of people wouldn't really. Some people might not consider
Fiasco like a tabletop role-playing game, but there's
no dice. It's mostly improv and prompts
and things like that. This falls very close to Fiasco
as far as that spectrum. It's way on the end of basically
improv. I never played Fiasco or Reddit
actually so. You never played Fiasco.
No, I'm not cool or fun. Oh, apparently not, but I think
you would dig it. It's really, it's really fun and
interesting. It's basically, it's a lot of
people describe it as basically improving a Coen brothers.
Movie. Oh, that does sound cool.
Yeah, I think we did get it a lot.
So that that's my initial take is I really like it.
It does feel like an episode of Drop Out.
Yeah, a little bit, which I I think that kind of works for me.
No, it's slaps. I can see.
I can see Brendan and and Josh and gosh, what's his name?
The other noise boy. Zach Oyama.
Zach Oyama, I can see all three of them playing this game and
fucking killing it. Like because my fiance's off
camera like laughing about this discussion because I watch drop
out so much and I've made her watch a bunch of me.
She's she likes it as well, but. Yeah, Drop out's great.
I've watched it, so there's no more.
Yeah, I repeat episodes all the time.
I don't care. Yeah.
Oh, I just put it on as something to have in the
background. That's exactly what I do.
Yeah. Yep.
So, so let's just I mean, this
is going to be the shortest thing we've ever reviewed, so
let's get into it. Nielsenauts.
So again, obviously a reference to Nielsen ratings.
So the game is about TV, right? The cover says Nielsenauts make
TV and die. Nice use of an in dash in there.
I want to switch the view for those that can see it to a zoom
to page level. Look at this cover.
My goodness, the art is insane. So for those in in in podcast
world, the Neil Sinat's make TV and die is it's up and down
against the right side of the cover.
So it's it's aiming to the left. It's not, it's not horizontal,
it's vertical. And then in the bottom left
there is a pinkish person looking out into the sky,
holding their hands up as if in somewhat of a a prayer ish.
But they are also attached to a bunch of machinery.
It gives me very much a Ghost in the Shell vibes.
Very, very like late 90s anime vibes.
Yeah, I. Was thinking there's a couple
scenes in X 1999 for anyone who fucking knows what that is, that
there's a girl hooked to a robot.
It very much gives me the same vibe so.
Yeah, yeah, I'll have to check it out.
It it it so it it's very much that takes up the bottom the the
whole like left kind of quadrant.
And then in the sky ish in the area around are all of these
eyes, just a ton of eyes and rows looking down at this figure
and then fading away into the distance.
And then at the bottom you see Ramdeen Crater, Sorensen.
And what I can imagine is probably the I believe Kanji 4
Yomiya who did the cover art and my one of the best covers I've
seen in a while. It's so it's so hard.
The cover hits so hard. It's like, I don't want to say
like it's out of place, but it it's something, I mean, it's
great. It's the only piece of art in
the entire book. Yeah.
I mean, there's also that. Yeah, which which we'll talk
about. Do you need art?
We will. We will get into that, I think
specifically in this episode, so.
Yeah, I think you there. Yeah.
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So credits. I do like the beginning.
While this book discusses the future existence of virtual
consciousness that possess artificial intelligence, no
artificial intelligence was used in the creation of any part of
this work and basically says value human labor.
Fuck the machine. There you go.
I my word, it's not theirs, but that's the gist of it.
So again, written by Chris Ramdean, edited by Jet Crater,
layout by Sam Sorensen, cover up by Yomiya in the book and are
links to all of their social medias and also those are
hyperlinked so you can go to their blogs and websites and
things love that. That's great.
Big shout out that. Distributed by Space Penguin
Inc. Yeah, absolutely always.
If you mention a person, your own website link, link it to the
PDF and then there's some play testers, etcetera, etcetera.
And then a special thanks to the writers, cast and crew of every
television show ever made written by Chris Ramdin.
And and the credits page also gives you a nice little preview
into the layout of the entire book.
Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's.
My first question actually almost immediately, do you want?
Me to go to that page or. No, it's on this page.
Big Gray square. Big Gray square.
I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to full.
I'm a I'm a zoom to page level for for this one too.
So, so, so for those in podcast land, the top and and large some
type of like sans serif font. It says credits next to that
it's in Gray. Next to that is a Gray bar that
fills the rest of that line. And then about a little bit more
than halfway down the page the the writing would end.
And then it is just filled with a Gray square.
And at the bottom there's like a line, the number 2 and then a
line. So all of the empty space on the
page is filled with a Gray square.
It is interesting. It is interesting.
I actually don't know that I dislike it.
I'm like, listen, if there was nothing here and this page just
was half empty, would that bother me more?
Yes. Yeah, it would be right.
We talk about it all the time. We literally talk about it all
the time. Do we think this is an elegant
solution to that because it happens a couple times?
It happens throughout the entire.
Book almost every page. So it is.
It is. It is, Yeah, it is clearly a
layout choice and layout is done by Sam Sorensen for me, two
things about it. One, I think it is like vastly
superior to just having blank white space.
Yeah, I think, I think you're right.
I think it's elegant, I think it's interesting.
I think sometimes it looks like a piece of placeholder for where
art would have been. That's what I thought going
through the PDF, Mike. It has that feel.
It's like, did they forget to drop the art into those spaces?
That's the only thing. I obviously it's intentional,
clearly printed. I get, I think it looks great.
I think it's very interesting. Anyone that knows Sam's writing
and Sam's stuff and things like that, I believe they've, they've
even written blog posts about the basically saying why, why
does everything need fucking art to be a good game or whatever.
And whether I disagree or agree with that, it's Sam's writing is
always interesting. And I think this is a an example
of their philosophy regarding art and layout and things like
that, where you don't need a bunch of art to have a good
game. And I think that's very true in
this. And I think this is is an
interesting solution if that is your thought process behind it.
Do I think as we go through that this game could have been more
interesting with a couple of pieces of art?
I do think there are times where pulling in a little bit of that
weird AI space that we're going to talk about and things I think
that could have been really interesting.
I think this. You're saying that this game
needed AI art in it? Really.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
Because of course we're super pro AI art here on the show, so
we we'll get it out of the way early and talk about that in the
layout. It's interesting.
I do like it. I do think it is elegant.
I think obviously, you know, we the human brain likes art.
Obviously if it didn't, the cover wouldn't slap so hard,
right? But I do think that it is
interesting. I think it's elegant.
I think it's fine for a game of this length.
I think if they did this for sixty 7080 pages, it would be
way too much. I agree with for a game that's
19 pages long, this is cool. It's interesting, it's neat.
I wouldn't have. The only thing that I could say
is maybe just different colors or something like it's just a
just it's a, it's a Gray. It's a.
It's Gray.
That would be like. I do agree this is a much better
solution than leaving the page blank.
I do think it's more elegant than that, but yeah, maybe some
color switch as we go through different chapters would have
been kind of cool. And to tie that into the layout,
it's like changing the Heather colors.
A little. Bit to match the boxes you know.
Yeah, because you could do different sections and different
colors, which would have been neat.
But the only thing too is again, that Gray color really gives you
the sense that it was it was that is a placeholder piece.
Like I think any other color might have not given it that
much, but it's such AI don't know.
I don't know why the color. I feel like I could just like
grab a picture from wherever and drop it into that box and it
would have like the, you know, the diagonal lines across it and
it would it would fill the space.
But again, I I think it's really interesting.
I think it's neat. I think that people that want a
super heart heavy thing might not be a fan of it, but I I like
the layout. I think it's really, really
cool. And again, I think as from
someone who I believe, and I could be wrong, correct me who
is on the side or has written about not needing our in games.
I think this is a really fun, not fun.
I think it's it's an interesting, elegant way to to
to do that. And again, way better than just
blank white spaces. Definitely way better than that.
It really dulls a page down too, because we've talked about
before, having a crisp white page is like reading into a
light, you know, I think this really actually dulls a page
down. It makes it much more readable
actually. So getting past that, we get to
another page that's very similar.
So basically introduction, we'll go through the introduction and
then again, The thing is 19 pages long.
It's it's crazy small. So introduction corporations
have three years of experimentation to win the
content race. Found the formula for limitless
content artificial intelligence. How prescient is this?
By having artificial intelligence create unscripted
budget less entertainment in their incredibly realistic CGR
world, corporations have done away with actors, writers and
production crews, replacing them with disposable virtual workers.
Thanks to this new form of tireless free labor, profit
margins now exceed anything in television history.
So they're doing what every company is trying to do, which
is get rid of get rid of all a need to actually have labor so
that they don't have to pay labor.
And I mean labor is like the movement and the people and and
and and and we're we're we're we're pushing closer and closer,
right? The the players, which is people
playing are Nielsenant. I don't know why I want to say
Neil like measle knots every time.
I don't know why. No snots.
Yeah, their virtual consciousness is created to
generate television by playing it out in real time using their
computer generated living space in front of an audience of
hundreds of 1,000,000. But they aren't our tours.
No, they're just a step in a process that will one day reach
perfection. That means that one day, sooner
rather than later, they must be killed.
Don't fret. The data Nielsenotz Nielsenotz
generate will be carried forward to the next wave of Nielsenotz,
repeating it over and over and over, blah blah blah blah blah.
So basically you are an AI in this system creating television
for people, and you need to like, continue to do that better
and better or you die and you'll die anyway as the algorithm in
the process gets better and better and better.
You are a cog in the AI machine that is just there to generate
content for the masses, for the corporations.
That is an extremely interesting take for players.
Yeah, I think yeah, this game is like oddly dystopian.
Not. Oddly, it's extraordinarily
this. Game is like super dystopian and
it's actually like it's a fun concept and like Oh my friends I
would like have a good time playing this.
But I'm also like the actual dread behind like all of us
being replaced by AI to create nothing for no one essentially
because no one will have any money because they will all be
replaced by AI. It fills me with dread.
Yeah, it's terrible because honestly, people, especially
Americans, are stupid enough to allow it to happen because you
know, the dollar, the dollar speaks, right?
Corporations make money, right? So if a corporation is creating
AI generated content and you don't want that to take over,
you know what you can do? Not watch the fucking content.
That's true. Right.
You can just not buy into the process, but there are plenty of
people out there. You can see it literally every
day on social media, people going, yeah, whatever.
It's the future, right? Like it's inevitable.
Like it's insane. You could just say no.
You could just say no to. Take.
It's inevitable. It's like, well, yeah, because
because you're, you accept it as such.
Exactly. You could just not like you
could just not. If no one used ChatGPT, chat BT
would shut down because I mean, it's already not profitable and
it's already destroying the invite anyway.
Fucking. Leftist rants, right?
How to play the game. So to play you need 26 sided
dice, 210 sided dice, a pencil and a paper.
Boom, that's it. So the gist of it, and I'm not
going to read this, I'm going to give you the gist of the gist.
You have 15 minutes. Yeah, you have 15 minutes of
real time and it is live television.
So when you are playing the game, you are actually live for
the masses. So everything you do, everything
you say is on television, right? Imagine yourself in a box and
everyone is watching, right? You are in the stadium and
everything you see and do, including communication with
your fellow Neil Sonat. So you do this verbally by
describing scenes and actions taken by the characters as well
as directly speaking to the narrative in the dialogue.
You are given metrics in order to to use to generate the
television both from buzzwords pulled from society and, and
everything going on and from CEO's from what do they call it
here the, the market buzzwords in the executive orders for you
to put this together right? And in order to put this
together right, you first determined the scoring metrics.
Which will then give you the prompts to start the scene that
you have to go with. So there is a a little graph
here. It's it's, it's 1-2, it's 5
lines. It says ABCDE and next to it, it
says 2 to 3/4 to 5-6 to 8-9 to 10:11 to 12:00.
Right. And how you create a scene.
Why don't you, do you want to, I mean, do you want to just roll
one up as we go through this? You want to head down to the
prompts and we'll just kind of put one in.
Yeah, I mean. Scroll 5 pages down.
Or improvising your first episode, players determine the
parameters right as a team. Write down to numbered sets of
five empty slots, which is 2 sets of what I just said, one
for executive orders and one for market buzzwords.
And next to each slot, write down the number shown below.
So basically create this, this, this graph here.
Then you roll five times on the executive order D100 table on
page 13, and you write down the five executive orders and then
you roll five times on the market buzzwords.
You will now have generated 10 entries in total across 2 lists,
one of each. And it looks like this my.
My only real issue with this game is it took me a second to
figure out what right order meant because it's the only.
Time it's right. I did the exact same thing
actually, because it's right executive order, right or
buzzword, but it's just right order.
I I did that for a second as well.
Yeah, it took me a minute to be like, what's the right order?
I, I, I, I think it would have been a slightly more.
It took me a second. I'm not fucking stupid.
Yeah. If it just said executive order
or buzzword, I think that would make just that one little spot
at the bottom of the page for it just a a tiny bit clearer
because I kept looking for. I was like, well, I know it's
the executive order, but what's the right order?
Yeah. I didn't think the moment I was
like, oh, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's the executive order. So do you want to roll up five
executive orders and five buzzwords?
Sorry, go for it. What are 5 executive orders?
So. Executive order the first one we
got demographic under demographic appeals because
these the D100 executive order list is divided up between like
subcategories. Let's Scroll down to that
actually real quick, because the game is so we're we're we're
going to get to it, so let's just scroll through.
Yeah. So the D100 executive order
list, why don't you go through the different categories on the
on the D100 executive order list, Yeah.
So the categories on the executive orders, first one is
general, the second one is business oriented, the third one
is censorship, the 4th is demographic appeals, the 5th is
Bezos, 6th is Campbell, the 7th is 8 sequences slash 3 acts, and
then the 8th is TV writing formulas and then the 9th is
genre elements must be introduced.
Some really interesting categories with some really
funny stuff in all of them. They're great.
Yeah. Yeah.
So what Fine. Did you roll up?
So the first one I rolled was under demographic appeals.
I rolled 41 which is depressed indie writers and artists.
So it must appeal to the demographics of depressed indie
writers and artists. Great thing for AI.
The next one I rolled was much higher up in business oriented.
I rolled 16A Core plot turn involves Smile XM radio.
Love the within the world. Within the world, there's ad
placement, you know, because of course there is.
And then I rolled the next ones under Campbell for 58.
Character is in the belly of the belly of a whale.
And then what did I say? Belly of the well was that one
that was 58. Next one still under Campbell's
55. Character is called to adventure
but refuses the call. I love that there's like the
hero's journey but you can roll multiple times on it and have to
involve multiple sections of the hero's journey.
And then the last one I rolled above that under Bezos is 46
moral Cho choices. Nope.
So the executive orders are obviously things that you need
to have in the episode is like things to do or things to, to,
to, to demographics to reach out to things like that, right.
Yeah. Which is different than the
market buzzwords. So you rolled up.
So what are what are the categories for the market
buzzwords we got? There aren't categories in
market buzzwords. It's all just.
Oh, yeah, yeah, right. This is one.
Yeah, yeah. All right.
So what? What are the five that that you
rolled up? The first one I rolled up is 51
legal proceedings, then I rolled 32 which is deep statements and
then I rolled 50 which is Isakai slash virtual or otherworld.
The worst kind of manga and. Then I rolled 16 class
differences and then I rolled 63, which is mutual
misunderstandings. That was 5, right?
Sure. Yeah, I fucking love the East.
Kai's on that fucking list. It's so dumb.
Bro, there's, there's so many good ones like dynasties, aliens
coming of age, mutual misunderstandings, neurotic
savant, all of all, of all of like that, that that is the core
of the game is those 200 prompts basically.
And, and they're all good. You know, you could play forever
with, with that sort of problem. So how are you using those?
Right? So basically what you just did
is you roll up five of each and that's how you're starting the
game. This is how you, you, you put
together your first episode. You can and it says you can
print the score sheet template out on page 19.
Love that. So next to the feed goes live
and the episode begins. So Nielsen Otz are given digital
form in a world that they can sculpt and shape just by
thinking it into existence. Again, a Nielsen OTT is just an
AI thing creating live content for the for the viewers, right?
So as a player, there are it's a list of three things, 3
principles to keep in mind that are here.
What you what, what the players say happens.
So by default, anything you do exists, you are on live
television. So they basically say spoken
dialogue or narration. This is soon to be happening
live. And you should make clear in
some way, shape or form of the 10 signals or something when
you're only talking to the other Nielsenants so that the TV, the
viewers can't hear you or, or if the viewers can hear you #2 is
if a player needs to think ahead, they're doing it on the
air. Again, you're live.
No matter what you do, you're live.
You get one exception, which is a single commercial break that
you can call at any time and then last for two minutes
because again, it's 15 total live television minutes.
You can get a 2 minute break and you can use that time to get a
plan ahead and then the audience expects a bare minimum of
continuity. So basically what it says is in
case you survive and continue to do multiple episodes, there
should be, it shouldn't be just scattershot, scattershot,
scattershot. There should be a little bit of
continuity between the episodes. So as you're planning your next
episode, think about the previous episode and move
forward with those things. It's basically what it comes
down to. And then when you're 15 minutes
are up, the episodes, credits and mid credits, a role
automatically plays. The Nielsenauts become inert and
unable to play in the next episode.
You can roll the credits early, though, and have that little bit
of time within that 15 minutes to plan.
I always imagine, you know, when some shows, especially live
shows, would cut away and the credits will be rolling over
people, but you can't hear the audio anymore.
Yeah, that's what I imagine happening at that point and then
at the start of the scoring phase.
So one thing that I think I didn't read aloud before.
Right. I don't think you did either.
So it says. However, due to changes, and
this is part of the gist, due to changes in market data and the
CE OS opinions on quality content, some of the metrics
will change at the time the episode ends.
This means players do not have perfect knowledge of how they
will be scored. So remember when when you roll
executive orders and buzzwords, you're coming up with a scoring
metric which gives you kind of prompts out of game but in game
basically saying like this is how you will be judged if you do
these things. But two of them change by the
end of the episode because the data changes constantly and CEO
just feels like it. So basically what happens at the
end during the scoring phase is 2 executive orders and two
market buzzwords are replaced before the scoring occurs.
So you roll 2D6 twice for each list to determine which of the
slots is replaced, and then for each replace you roll a new
entry for that. So that sucks for them.
It does kind of suck. It's interesting that you only
use the five prompts, but it's D sixes.
As you go through you'll see that the letter C because it's
ABCDE counts twice. So for scoring for points.
So if you get C correct, you get double the points.
And if you roll, well, you roll the 2D6, it's a 2 to 12 anyway,
and it'll do that. So for example, say the players
have generated the following list.
We don't need, we've already generated it.
We don't need to do another one. But it says after the episode is
over, just before scoring, you roll or determine which ones
have changed, they roll A7 and A10, which means the entry slot
is C. And again, this is an example.
There's a great example to play here.
We're not going to go over that part of it.
It's basically explaining what we just talked about and you do
this for the marketing buzzwords and you do this for the
executive order. So that's a total of 4 metrics
that change. And once the new metrics are
rolled, players self score the content of the episode.
According to A Rubik explained in the next section.
If the score falls below the minimum passing grade, the
Neilson are killed and the show was cancelled.
Just like real life. Just like real life, every
failed pilot is a murder. If the players determine that
they've scored a passing grade, congratulations, you live to
create another episode. However, every show must exhibit
growth, right? Because what what, what what is
capitalism? It's just, it's just perpetual
growth, right, Because that's, that's possible and there's.
Nothing wrong with that idea. There's that.
There's no way that could go wrong.
Right. Not not consistent continuous
consistency, right? Just perpetual upward motion.
So, however, every show must exhibit growth.
Thus, the passing grade goes up every episode.
So when you score, players score the episode after the time is
up. They take into account the three
sets of metrics, which is their own opinion, the executive
orders and the market buzzwords. The scores generated for each
set add up to determine the final grade.
Remember that executive orders and market buzzwords must be met
every episode to count for scoring every episode.
So even if it seems like they should logically only happen
once in the season. So, for example, if you get it
says here, if you establish two major characters in episode 1
and that comes up again, you have to do it again in episode
2, right? Yeah.
So players will score the episodes themselves using the
following rubric. So there's the internal metrics,
which gives you a possible of 30 points.
And there's five questions that you can ask for that.
And this is the again for the players own personal internal
satisfaction. What they did.
So #1 Did characters, locations, or concept from previous
episodes return? Did interesting or exciting
situations emerge that relate to the show's original premise?
Did most scenes serve a purpose and deliver on what you believe
to be the show's key selling point?
Was there a satisfying and surprising ending?
Would you watch another episode of this show?
So this doesn't have anything to do with the prompts, right?
It really is just the quality of the show.
And then you can score 3 or 6 points for each.
Basically nothing if you didn't touch, if you didn't do it at
all, three if you touched on it, and six if you feel like you
nailed it is basically what it comes down to.
So it's a possible 30 points because it's 6 * 5 and that's
how math works. Yep.
Yeah, that is actually how math works.
So I do like that. It's like, it's very much like,
how do you feel about this? Do you think that you earn three
points on this or do you think that you're in six points on
this? I think it'd be fun to play with
a very honest and self critical group.
It's like, no, I could have done that better.
Or like, yeah, we killed it every fucking time.
Then fine, do another episode and it just keeps getting
harder. So the next two are pretty
straightforward. So it's your executive orders
for a possible 36 points. So you basically it's you go
through the executive orders. So what was one of your
executive orders again? I've already blanked.
I did not write them down. I'm a bad person.
Honestly, I don't. Pick anyone, any single.
One, Yeah. Avoid making any political
statements. There's one.
So if you if you you didn't make any political statements, great,
six points if you brushed. Up again, make any statements at
all whatsoever, right? Right, because politics is all
things, not just your. Version if you're seeing a
political is a political stance, right?
If you're not seeing politics and anything, it's because
you're only seeing your politics anyway.
So so for that, for example, if you in in as much as you can,
right, if you don't do any political shit at all, right,
six points. If you broach politics, maybe
like a tiny bit, but don't make a big statement about it, maybe
3 points. And if you literally were like
down with capitalism, 0 points, you failed, right, right.
That's how you judge the things, right.
And you do the same thing for market buzzword.
So that's possible 36, you know, six and six each.
And again, slot C you score twice as many points for.
So if you super fuck up, that sucks.
Or if you did well, you can double your points, which is
great. And the passing grade for the
first episode is 40 points and then every subsequent episode
goes up by 10. So 40506070 again, That's how
math works. And then you.
But after 100 it doesn't go any higher than that.
So you inevitably will eventually fail and die.
Is is what doesn't like. That's how it works.
If any episode fails to reach the minimum score, the show was
cancelled and then Nielsenauts are deleted.
You're gone. Big Gray box.
You know what's interesting about the big Gray boxes?
First of all, there isn't one on page 7.
I was going to point out I totally forgot there there is
space for one right there. It's the only page that has
space and doesn't have a great box.
Right, because on number six there's there's even less space
and they put a box there. I feel like that's a missing
box, man. So that's it.
That's the game. That's the entire game.
The next section is called the first Episode, and it is no, no,
no, no. There's a little bit more.
So basically strategies. And stuff coming up too.
Right, I forgot, I thought that this was the example play.
So basically this is the first. Overall though, that is the
game. Like we've just gone over really
the game. There's some survival strategies
I think is a good point. But yeah, there's this, the
first episode section as well. Yeah.
So the first episode on the way to corporate all OK, stop
yelling talk slower. We're we're, we're working on
this, right? You should, you should just give
me a tap the sign symbol or something and I'll slow the fuck
down. I had too much coffee and
Adderall this morning. Me too legal crack.
One way the corporation assesses the development of each
generation of Nielsen Otz is through their ability to predict
executive orders and market buzzwords.
Thus, at the start of each new show, the group may fill one
slot of the Executive Order and Market Buzzwords list with
anything they like taken from a list or created on their own.
I like that they gives you the ability to control at least one
of the prompts, which could also change later because of the way
that you roll the scoring metric at the end, which is great.
I. I think that like this game is
like rife or replayability if you are at the right hill,
because the executive orders and the market buzzwords are like
it's a list of 100. It's a really impressive list,
but I know we as people who consume media could create like
infinite words to add to either of those lists, you know?
You know what this strikes me as is have a couple drinks with
your buddies, right? This is charades for theater
kids. Is is what this is.
Yeah, I would have. I would have like.
I would have way more fun playing this than charades.
Absolutely. I mean again, this is basically
just one giant improv prompt like turn into a tabletop
role-playing game and I'm all for it.
I think. I think it's really fantastic.
Giant grey box filling 80% of this entire page.
Again, I think this is the fuck you to art in my opinion.
This. When I saw this one where it's
basically an entire page filled with one giant box instead of
any art whatsoever, I genuinely felt like this was them.
Like saying we don't need no fucking art.
But honestly I'm going to be. I'm going to be brutally honest
about this as I scrolled through, didn't even notice
them. Didn't even notice them.
I after my first notice of them, I definitely was like, OK, you
know, like it's just it. Yeah, I'm unbothered by it.
Again, I think it's interesting. I think it's an interesting
choice. I think it's elegant.
And again, it's we talk about colors, right?
Colors would draw your eye to it.
I honestly think this soft grey, my eyes just roll off of it and
you just read just reading the words of the game and just
focusing on what obviously they think is important, which is the
words of the game, which is so survival strategies.
Yeah, ignore that. I just pinned the message so
survival strategies, this is basically just a section for
like how the players can should try to work together to get the
best experience of this game. It says that it literally says
as advanced television creating virtual life forms, Neil Snotz
have complete freedom of how they create their content and
meet their metrics. However, Neil Snotz who live
longer than average have been observed applying the techniques
below. Players should use them at their
discretion. And yeah the the list for it.
It's pretty much just kind of rules for like working together
like Neil Snotz. No Neil Snot is required to
agree with the course another wants to take a story in, but
all have to agree on what is physically happening and being
shown to the audience to save time.
Most Neil Snotz accept what any other adds to the scene by
default, only stopping to arbitrate material that can
seriously imperial the episode's success.
I really do like that role. A It's very much a not like no
saying no, but it's a yes and kind of thing.
Yeah, which which at the end of the day, again, it is improv.
Like that's the number one rule of improv is basically don't
like just just keep going. Just just yes and everything,
right. If you know, if you know
something, you can see people be like, wait, what?
But yeah, just yes, hand, it's improv.
Yeah, and then many groups designate a Neil Snot as a
director or narrator. This Neil Snot's duty often
includes setting and complicating the scene,
assigning roles and providing narration.
That could be cool depending on what your group looks like and
how well you guys work as like equal collaborators or if that's
just like a couple things you want to hand off to a certain
person. Next one, it is common for
groups to create verbal or gestural signals to indicate
when they are speaking in character, providing narration,
or speaking inaudibly, IE only to the other Neil Snotts and not
the audience. Super solid rule.
There will hand symbols, you know, is what how I think I do
it on our table. Next one.
Some groups take brief notes on what happened in each episode to
make scoring and subsequent episode production easier.
I would definitely consider just putting my phone on the table
and recording. Yeah.
I mean, how much time though are you going to have between
episodes? Yeah.
I mean, I think like, I don't know, it's hard for me to
imagine taking notes on what we're doing when you have a 15
minute like crunch in which to like actively play this and also
take notes or whatever. Yeah, I guess.
I mean, the scoring stage is separate, right?
It's outside of the 15. Minutes, but you have you have
the exactly and you have the scoring metric.
It wouldn't be and not all everyone's talking at the same
time. So someone could do something
and just flip it over, read a little note on the back and flip
it back, you know? Yeah, that's.
Very fair. The next 1 is long living.
Neil Snotz. Remember that no single metric
is the sole determinant of their episode success and quickly
pivot to focusing on other metrics when it is clear one
will not be met. Probably a good advice you know?
And honestly, I think that is something that people will
forget all the time because you see when people are doing like
any type of charades game where they're clearly not going to get
the clue, but they keep trying and trying and trying instead of
just passing, Yeah, just keep going.
And that's great. Compare this to charades.
But I think that's like, I think it's a very apartment comparison
as like, yeah, pivot, you know, like we're not going to hit
that. Keep going.
You know, that's very much in the spirit of yes.
And still, you know, the forward momentum of improv.
And the last one is some Neil snotz find a way to act outside
of the normal parameters of content creation, changing the
time limits, adjusting the minimum score to pass, or
discarding unwanted executive orders or market buzzwords to
suit their own desires. This, of course, in breach of
the terms of service of a Neil Snotz existence and any found
engaging in such behavior will be terminated.
I'm so a little addendum there at the end.
It's like, you know what, You guys can mess with and edit the
rules, but also like, that's against the rules.
You'll die, you know. Yeah, yeah.
I love how every time they talk about dying, it's a different
one. I think they said killed,
deleted, terminated. There might have been a fourth
one in there, but you're just an AI thing.
So there's an example. No, Oh, sorry.
I I just think all those rules are really great, especially if
you're not like super deep into any improv culture at all, which
I wasn't in theater or anything, but I watch a bunch of improv
shit. We've understood some of the
rules at this point. But it's good to have those
written out, and when you read them, I think it clicks just a
little bit more. I think this page is a good and
meaningful page in this fairly short scene.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So the next part is an example transcript, which is literally 3
characters, Sterling, Lindsay and Chris going through some an
episode basically, and then afterwards talking about scoring
it great. Obviously having an example of
play for something like this, because I think this will be out
of a lot of people's wheelhouses that expect any type of
traditional, not Trab, any type of more traditionally ish right
Dice and adventure game. Having an example play is
fantastic. And this is a really well
written one. I like it.
They discuss a lot of things, They discuss the scoring.
It's cool. And then you have the executive
orders, which you've already gone over 100 of those with the
I think it's nine different categories.
And then you have the the D100 marketing buzzwords again, lots
of grey. You get to page 19, which is the
score sheet. Square sheet looks great.
I love that there's the little star next to the seas to remind
you to do that. It's basically what was written
out earlier. But then there's per episode
scores to the side. It only goes to seven because it
goes 405060708090 a hundred because that's how Mathworks
when you start at 40, you only need to get through 7 episodes
to Max out at 100. So I would be shocked if
someone, it depends. I mean, you have a well, can you
even get what's 36 + 36 + 30? Yeah, that's like 105.
No, what is I'm just dumb. 33 and 33 and 33 is 99102.
Yes, because six and six is 12 and I'm a fucking idiot.
And so in a calculator. But I've been up since of 4:00
AM so that's my excuse. So the the Max number of points
you can possibly get is 102 and you need 100 for your last
episode. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean it's. Possible dead.
It's theoretically possible. The score sheet looks great.
I think it's super well laid out.
They have a show title at the top a whole.
So this is your note section right here on the scoring
metric. I honestly printing this out and
putting it through. What's the thing where you stick
it through and it becomes plastic on both sides?
A. Laminator laminating this sheet
and then using just like a wet erase marker.
Great for those that don't know, wet erase maker red wet erase
markers vastly superior to dry erase markers.
Love them. Wish wish more people would use
them. Wish we used them at work.
And then you have the back of the book.
The only not white page of the entire thing.
It is a rule summary goes through the, the seven things.
You roll your gate of orders, you get 2 timers ready.
You improvise the thing when the timer runs out, you know, you
switch up the, you switch up the, the four metrics you have
to change. You go through the scoring.
If the episode achieved a passing result, you do it again,
starting with part number three. And then otherwise you're
killed. And that's the end of the game.
That's the entire game. It's, it's 19, it's like 19
pages, right? Probably the smallest thing
we've ever reviewed. And I do love you talked about
this and the first time I saw it, I asked Jared about it too.
The space Penguin ink logo on the back, which is the one they
use for usual, usually the spine of the book.
Love that. So cool.
And really and then heavy pepper.
I don't know if that is Chris Rambdine.
I don't I don't believe it's him Sorensen.
So I assume it might be Chris Rambdine or like maybe their
collaborative group. But obviously it's the label for
something. I do love the little pepper
logo, though. It's it's it's nice and heavy
font or heavy pepper. It's cool, good looking book.
Again, very short. We're at under an hour and
that's with pre stream and bullshitting.
So let's go to the review scores for this.
I have the wrong thing up. So let me get rid of because
this is absolutely. We're not the book score for
this one. Oh, you don't want to do a whole
book metrics for this. So starting off the year we are
doing for for zenes again, we we quantify our terrible opinions
every week. We give numbers to our thoughts
mostly so we can compare. And for zenes we only do 3
metrics versus books, which is five.
We consider anything a Zen roughly 40 ish pages or less and
books more. And then the the metrics are
visuals, ruleset and vibes. Visuals are the layout, the art.
It's the it's when you look at when you look at this fucking
thing, What what do your eyes see?
Right? Rule set is you can probably
guess. And then vibes are the visuals
and the rule set working together and you wanting to play
the game. Basically, that's what we say.
Like when you close the back cover, do you say, fuck, I
really want to play this fucking game.
Those are some good vibes. You know, does the art or layout
tie into the rules? Does it all feel super cohesive?
Those are the vibes and those are the three metrics we use for
this up to 10 points each. So visuals, I think this is
going to be the the interesting one we're talking about because
we're talking about this very interesting layout.
And I, I will preface this, this is our first review of this year
and we do actually do have like a new internal like grading
metric that I was. Going to say don't say it out
loud. We're we're internalizing that.
Yeah. We've internalized it.
So if you feel like this year some of our ratings might be a
little bit lower than they were last year, you might be right.
Or, you know, whatever visuals you know.
I think the cover's amazing. I think the layout is incredibly
serviceable and readable. I think the Gray boxes is an
elegant solution to a problem that we often complain about.
I think it's good. I do think it's good.
I think so. I think the cover, I think the
cover is, is great. I think the cover is great.
I think the layout is good. It's just does the cover pull
the layout enough for this to be really good, You know what are
your what are your thoughts? I I, I like this game.
I don't think visually this is what's really going to what's
really popping out for me. Yeah, I'm, I'm going to go with
good for this. Yeah, I think so.
What? So what number do you think
we're I'm? Thinking about the six for this,
I think it is like a step above average, which 5 would be
average. But, you know, I don't think
it's like blowing me away visually, which is fine, no.
Which is fine because again, I feel like that was kind of the
point. Yeah.
And I'm totally fine with that. Again, the the layout is
incredibly readable, incredibly serviceable.
And it's interesting, as I said, as I've read this a couple of
Times Now, that the Gray boxes fill a white space that feels
like a void until as you're reading it again, my eyes would
just glazed over them and just focused on the words.
And I thought that that was interesting that my mind just
kind of moved on from them so I could just focus on on the rules
and and the wording, which is really cool rule set.
So this is at the end of the day, like I said, this feels
like an improv prompt made into a game.
And I like that. I I think it's different.
I think it's interesting. I think a lot of people that are
used to quote UN quote more traditional style TTRPG is more
middle of the spectrum dice swing sword kill dragon games.
This is going to be a little bit out there for them.
But the people that do learn more towards the Fiasco's and
thing this it is perfect for for for that more improv, more role
play heavy side of things. This would make a great fucking
stream for a lot of those AP performers out there.
They would fucking kill it. Yeah, and not and because you
can do multiple episodes, we literally multiple fucking
streams and and streaming it to an audience that can't see you
would. It's very meta, you know.
Yeah, it's it's meta on top of it, I think.
I think it's really interesting. Again, it's very light.
I think my only critique is it's not even a critique, it's more
just an observation. It's just so light.
It's one thing I would be curious to see.
Like I'd be curious to see more Nielsenot and maybe if they said
like, oh, the metric is now changed, we're going to do
movies, you know what I mean? Like if they're if they're
cooled or would be anything more to this or if it's not.
But also one thing that we talked about in the review that
I liked with things like the job was that when the game is just
the game and you can experience this very specific thing.
It's not a framework, it's just thing.
And I think this thing does that thing very, very, very well.
I, I do like it. I it's not a rule set thing.
The only thing, actual thing that is I, I think would be to
change right order to executive order.
I don't know where that that doesn't fall into this at all.
I think that's my only part of any of that.
I don't know. I, I, I, it's, I don't even
know. It's interesting.
What are your what are your thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, I am always on the side of I don't think a game
needs to do a million things to be a good game, right.
Like that's that's my constant critique of 5E is that it just
doesn't need to be every type of game in one game.
That actually makes it all worse.
Also, hey, 1st 5E reference of the year.
But yeah, I think it it does a thing in an enjoyable way.
I don't think there is a massive amount of obviously it's a short
ZI don't think there's a massive amount of support for people who
don't like aren't already kind of familiar with this kind of
like improv space in a game. But what more?
But what more would you want though?
Like I do think that's the strategy page basically is this
is how you do improv? Yeah, You know, I don't, I don't
think it needs anymore because I'm also very much in the camp
of not every piece of media. You are not the target audience
for every piece of media. And if someone picks up and
goes, I don't really like improv, I like 5E and just being
dragged through a story that someone else wrote, they can
just put it down and not fucking play it, right.
And I don't think that deserves a critique.
I think the people that will lean towards this pick it up and
and see what it is, those people will immediately understand and,
and, and no one want to play that.
I don't think there's a a big grey area for people that want
to play this style of game, and I'm super OK with that.
So give me a number. Fuck.
I know this is a hard one. So the thing, so again, the
difference with Zenes with with books, right, and we've talked
about this before with something like 9 lives Valhalla, right, is
there's more in my opinion of a focus on does the thing do the
thing it wants to do really well?
Right. And I do think that this does
the thing it wants to do really well.
IA 100% know how to play this game and no just going through
the list of buzzwords and executive orders, how weird and
strange and cool it could be. You know, the the example of
play is, is basically like a zombie apocalypse thing breaking
out, you know, and but you can do so many different genres and
things like that and take it in a new in different directions.
I I think I think it does the thing really good.
I think it does the thing really well.
OK, So what number you think I'm the I think.
Probably about A7. I'm in A7 as well, yeah.
Yeah, cool. All right, so go 7 for that.
I think it. I think it.
Like I said, I think it does the thing really well and I really
enjoy it. It's it's ultralight, but I do
really like it and vibes. What are you, what are your what
are your vibes at the end of this?
I mean, I definitely want to play this.
You. Know going through.
It do I think there's like very strong, I mean there is like
this like tongue in cheek funny dystopian, like AI generated
content. And I think that that really
lends to that as well. And yeah.
I I think. For vibes, I'm at about A7 as
well. Yeah, I'm going to be honest.
I I. I'm also in the camp.
I'm not in the camp of a game doesn't I'm in no camp.
I I some people like it doesn't have to have art to be a good
game, right? The game doesn't have art to be
a good game. But if this game had more art in
it, like the cover art to give just a little bit of inspiration
as you're reading the rules, I think the vibes would be way,
way higher, right. If there was some pixelated TV
stuff. It doesn't even need to be like
necessarily illustrations, but just any any bit more in it, I
think vibes go up right, I agree.
I think I think the layout again, is is good.
It's serviceable, It looks it looks nice, but I do think if a
couple of those Gray boxes were like just the the rainbow TV bar
or you know, something that gives you a little bit of this
is TV, you know, this is AI, this is people watching you even
like I it's like anything more visually, I think the vibes
would would be higher for me. Can I do 1 number?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I'm thinking I'm.
I'm leaning toward I'm. Between 6:00 and 7:00, yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, is it good?
Or is it really good? I think it's good.
I think it could be really good. Honestly, I would even even even
if the pages were all black and there were these eyes like on
the cover throughout, so something was watching you.
Even that, just a little bit of something.
Even even if they had switched the colors of the pages from
just plain white all the time. Maybe have a black page, maybe
have a Gray page, maybe a white page, anything to keep you
pulling through it. I just think that's what really
pulls it down for me is I totally understand how to play
this game, but for people that don't necessarily have the
craziest imagination, a couple of pieces in there that tie in
the AI Ness or the TV, the artness I think would have,
would have elevated it just a little bit.
But also just as again, what amounts to a prompt to go play
the game and you create that on your own.
I think it it does well, but I, I think the vibes do come down
just a little bit because of the, the kind of promise that
the cover gives and then what kind of like doesn't show up
artistically through the cover immediately what I was going
through. It felt a little disjointed
because of how hard the cover hits.
And then there's just there's no other art in it, which is fine.
I mean, a game isn't the art, but there's also no other like,
really kind of visual aspect to any of it.
Yeah. Which again.
The game, the prompts are fantastic and then can give you
good mind pictures. There's a lot of people out
there that I that apparently don't have mind pictures, which
is mind boggling, but I know many people.
They're like, yeah, I don't see stuff in my head, you know?
Oh, you see stuff in your head. OK, Did.
You imagine, but I know there's people that don't right?
That, that, that. Don't so just a couple of little
things to the people go Ah, ah, you know, would have been nice.
Not it doesn't even need very much, but the fact that there's
zero pulls it down a little bit. So I think 6 is a good one for
this. Still still still good, still
good. I, I do really want to play this
game. It's really interesting and I, I
do generally think that this is a very AP able game.
I wish some of the the moment you said that, I'm now shocked
that. There aren't a ton of APS this
'cause it it is like the perfect format for this type of thing.
Literally the perfect format. We should just let some.
Some of those all those AB people that we interact with on
a regular basis know that like hey this is perfect and you
should play this on stream dungeons and dragon actors.
I actually play performers. Oh bro, don't.
Even so, as I always do, despite the fact that I know how math
works, I'm going to do 6 + 6. No, not 6 + 66.
I forgot how to add 6 + 6 + 7 equals.
That's going to be a 19. It is.
It is so. 19 for the 1st. One of the year.
Good fun, interesting game. I definitely I the the.
Other fun thing about the suit is it's only. 15 minutes.
So if you just wanted to do one or two episodes and then move
on, you could easily do one, hopefully survive, get your feet
wet, and I bet you the second one would just blow it out of
the water. You know, it's kind of like
changing a tire or or doing the brakes on your car.
The first one an hour, the 2nd 115 minutes.
You know, I definitely think this is also, it's also the type
of game. Where if you're like, hey guys,
let's just try this it'll take like, you know, 20 minutes we'll
read the rules real quick and then 15 minutes to play it the
moment you got done with episode 1, I bet you almost everyone
you're with would go we can do one more episode tonight, you
know, oh, I they would do that 80 to. 818 * I guarantee they
would do that. Like I think people would get to
a point, especially after like a Dirk or two where you're setting
up backstages and shit and like the next group is like coming in
and stuff like that. I think this game would be this
is an insanely good party game. If you have like 6 to 10 people
who are down for improv or have had a couple of drinks, this
would be great. The interesting thing about
about this too is for like the I don't want to call them normie
is the people that don't know teach RPGs and stuff like this.
You get like people don't think charades has a table top
role-playing game, but at the end of the day, like that's
really what it is. I think people that I'm not
going to keep going. Monopoly.
You know so. I think that you could.
Really pull a. Lot of people in that are like,
I don't really want to play Dungeons and Dragons and and
then be like, this is like a weird side intro into tabletop
role-playing games. I think there's plenty of people
out there that would that would enjoy the party game aspect of
of potentially of this. So good fun, interesting game.
I really enjoy it. This is once again is from Chris
Ramdean. Edited from Jared Crater, laid
by Sam Sorensen, cover art by Yomiya.
You can get it right now over on Space Penguin Inc.
I'm sure they still have it. I know I have like two of them.
Really fun, interesting game. I highly recommend it and I
highly recommend everything in Space Penguin.
Obviously, we do a monthly episode with jerk and this we we
did briefly touch this and I'm glad that we got to talk about
it on the show. This is definitely going to go
into the I want let's try to run this on the show this year.
I think this would be fun and that's that's going to be it for
for our first episode. Of not a first episode.
Because that was yesterday, our first review of the year.
We're going to try to do more zines, more total games overall.
This is the first one and yeah. Is that it?
Is that all we have to say is that?
Is that? Literally all we have to say,
yeah, do we have nothing so. Well, I.
Have no idea what. We're going to do next week.
I am either, yeah. And if you're watching this, you
might have watched the episode prior to this.
But if somehow you missed it, I highly recommend.
The episode that I recorded yesterday, which will probably
come out before this one, was what we are now, I guess, a
writing seminar series. We had two episodes with Luminal
Horror with Goblin Archives and Josh Jamansky, and now we had
what on doing a talking kind of a writing seminar on writing
literary adventures, what they mean by that and what that means
for Cloud Empress. It was really fun, interesting
presentation and conversation afterwards.
I highly recommend going and checking that out.
If you like Mothership Cloud Empress, watch adventure,
writing, any of those things, go go and watch that episode.
But follow us where you normally follow shit on the Internet.
I don't need to explain it to you.
We will see you next Friday and expect jerk on for Space Penguin
Ink and not Cat chats #10 at some point, at some point at
some point, all right? We'll see you later.
Bye.