Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I am a zip file full of
magic circle art assets. And joining us today, we have a
couple of special guests. We have Emily Antner and Lucas
Zellers. How are you guys doing today?
Hello, I'm well. I'm, I'm great now.
I love, I love hanging out with a zip file full of magics or
glasses. There you go.
I've done it before and I'm excited to do it again.
There we go. So Emily Lucas, for those that
might not know you guys or some of your past work, why don't you
tell us a little bit about yourselves and something that
you might be known for in the space?
Emily, why don't we start with? You yeah, well, Lucas and I
together are known as Graphbound Press and we have been making
little games last month we we did a a tiny dragon game also.
So, you know, we're firmly in the same, in the same zone as as
before. And yeah, I, I and the TTRBG
space mostly do like layout and stuff and got started with the
other half of our team is not here.
The Breitbart games folks, They, they and Lucas were the first
people to be like, I need a layout person.
You do that right? And I'm like, yeah, I do now.
So I did go to school for graphic design.
So I had the the tools to do that.
And then, yeah, I've just, I've gotten into like making some
assets and stuff on itch to hopefully help fill in the gaps
for creators who need like bits or whatever that, you know, they
don't have a budget to hire somebody.
And yeah, it's been a lot of fun to like, meet people and go to
cons or like seeing games with bits of art from that I've made
or layout having my name in it. That kind of thing's been
starting to grow. It's been pretty cool.
Very cool. I think you, I think you're the
first person at PAX that came up to the booth that was actually
looking for us, which was really cool.
So yeah, yeah. And and Lucas same same
question. Yeah, I make and market TTRPGS.
So I've been working with Mae Chan Press for about 3-4 years
now and I got my start back. I got my start writing for games
back in 2018 when I discovered the DMS Guild and the
improbability that someone would pay me for an adventure I had
written and I was hooked. So in 2023 I kick started this.
This is Book of Extinction. It's a 260 page monster manual
for 5E all about extinct animals and the true stories that
happened in the real world and how they translate to AD and D
game. Emily's been my secret weapon
since we started that. She put together the sizzle reel
for me that helped me find a publisher and then we've we
haven't stopped ever since. I have one of the things I love
about the TTRPG spaces that no one it seems has planned to be
here. We just sort of end up here from
a variety of other more lucrative jobs.
Yeah. So I've been, I've been here
ever since, sort of carved out a niche for myself in intersecting
game design and Natural History and also helping people get
people, get other people to notice, read and play their
games. So I've been.
Yeah, I've we're, we're, we're quite, we're quite happy now.
We are quite professional at this.
This is my actual job, which is a very, very weird thing to say.
Someday, you know? It's crazy how many people
actually work in teach RPGs and actually work in teach RPGs
because I think like 90 plus percent all have like another
job or trying to have one as opposed to making it the full
time. So if you can do it full time,
that's awesome and you already answered.
My next question was how you guys got together with this.
They scooped you and you've you've been doing ever since.
I believe it. Zazz lazine question.
We did talk. Did you guys do like a cute
dragon sticker pack or like what?
I think that's how I first heard about the weekly scroll is
because you must. You covered it or mentioned it
or something and somebody pointed it out to us and I was
like, oh, these guys are rad. So.
Yeah. So yeah, we did precious things.
We basically released the Zine, I mean like the digital or the
print at home stuff for free during Zine quest.
And then I used whatever people wanted to donate to fund a
sticker sheet print run, which was a lot of fun.
Yeah, this was our introduction to Zine month and it also blew
me away at how how much fun it was.
So I, you know, having started in 5th edition and with main
Chan press, who is like, I guess you would say AA in the in the
TTRPG space, like Lux art, very sort of in the rich oil
painting, heavily illustrated tradition.
And then moving backward and like having sort of that
opposite trajectory to Emily, where she started in the indie
space and sort of has continued to work up.
And we've sort of intersected in between.
But Zine month is where that really kind of happened for us,
where everybody was just like, yeah, if you say it's a Zine,
it's a Zine. And here's this lovable
community of nerds who are looking for something weird and
surreal and kind of fun. And we were like, well, what if
we gave you tiny Dragons to put in unlikely places And they
loved it. And, you know, I think that was
like the first warm hug that we got where we're like, all right,
we're we're going to stick around.
We're going to do this again. That's.
One of the reasons that we covered it, I mean, I I love
itch. I love the various ways of
people itch fund things and to see something that wasn't just
like AZ in our digital relation. But you don't you were actually
funding to have this like sticker.
She was interesting thing and that's why we talked about it.
And then you've been in our chat frequently since then.
I, I, I will check, I will check and see odds and ends in our in
our user list as we're doing the show quite frequently.
And then and then once again, we finally got to meet you at PAX,
which is neat. So it's, it's cool that you
know, we, we have become or let you up as a fan and, and now a
guest on the show all the way going back from just like, hey,
I found this this cute thing on itch hunter.
Let's talk about this one. You know, it is neat.
Yeah. And like Lucas said, so many
people like, without us doing the, like, PR work of reaching
out to anyone, like just covered precious things on their own.
And it was like, oh, wow. We we're excited that people
like what we've made like that they're promoting it.
Like to this day, I think TTRPG kids is like one of the most
frequent refers to precious things from an article that that
Steph wrote. And like, we didn't ask them to
do to do that. They just, they just felt that
it fit their, you know, content, their their kid focused TTRPG
stuff and and we agreed. And yeah, so just, I know that
there's like the month is hectic in some ways, but we felt like
last year we were welcomed quickly and easily.
Like people were excited to to find things and talk about it.
And it's a, it's a interesting month where it's like either
you're a little stressed out 'cause you're running a crowd
runner or you're like running around emptying your wallet.
Cool things. We're both.
Yeah, we're much more on the emptying the wallet end of that
scenario. I feel like we're both a lot
better about Kickstarters. I've backed exponentially fewer
Kickstarters now than than when we started doing the show.
I had a genuine problem. We started doing a show.
I mean, we started the show in 2021 and it was really during
that time host shut down. Boom.
So they were like, like there was a ton of stuff coming up
like every day. So that's that's what I'm
blaming, not me. Yeah, it's.
Not my. Old circumstances.
Like no, Hunter says he has a problem.
Wild guess on how many Kickstarters I've backed.
Wild guess. 200 you. Know better than this.
You know much better than this. It is pushing 7000.
My gosh, dude, crap. Yeah, it's up there.
I like people's stuff. I like supporting their things.
And once I find someone I like, I like having all of their
things. So I do, you know, it's great.
The crowdfunding is neat. Zen Month and and Zen Quest are
really neat. You said that's how our
introduction to you guys. We did a lot last year.
We're doing very little this year.
We said yes to everyone that asked us and that was two people
and that's all we're doing. So before February started, I'm
not doing this like mid February.
Hey, we're three weeks in. Can we get some coverage stuff?
I'm like plan ahead. But but Emily actually like came
up to us at PAX and was like, Hey, it's nice to meet you.
Hey, also we have this thing coming up.
I'm like, yes, whatever it is, just e-mail me.
We'll we'll do something, you know, if you're a fan of the
show. Absolutely.
So tiny Dragons last year, tiny Dragons this year.
What's up with tiny Dragons? I think it started with, well,
precious things came from Lucas primarily.
I don't I guess I don't know where he came came up with that.
But we we've been close with John and Bri of Breitbart games.
Like I've worked with them a lot and we knew we wanted to do
something together and their their games have a running
theme. Well, they kind of have got two
things. There's like the tiny tiny cute.
Axolotl with a gun. Yeah, there there's like the
little guy kills God and then there's the like ritualize and
the mundane kind of side of. Their game.
Just like Terminus and yeah. And so they're they, they wanted
to do something in that vein of like, I guess you could call it
a cozy genre, but but that might mean something different to
everybody. We.
Have our own. Complaints with cozy, but yeah,
something like something in the vein of like I, I guess
ritualizing the mundane is kind of what I think of both bonds
between and and to some extent precious things of just like,
hey, look at your life a little different.
Like what if you were a tiny dragon?
Like we're like doing things that that hopefully remind you
of things that you could do in in real life.
Psychic and bonds between as a duet game.
You're like playing with somebody that you are, you're
bonded in this case, whether or not it's a romantic or familial
or it could be a contentious relationship.
Like that's kind of part of the game of you.
You set up your relationship and and how you interact is very
like kind of there's kind of an etiquette to it.
But that idea of like, yeah, just kind of spending time
spending your attention on yourself and a person you're
playing a game with or your surroundings.
It meshed well with like John and Bree's stuff.
And so we kind of just sat down on several calls in a row and
we're like, what if we were to make a game together, kind of
what would it look like and threw out different kind of
topics, genres, ideas and thought about.
Which. One we could actually like must
Where would be the best fit for a collab between all all four of
us? So we laid it back on on the
tiny Dragons again. Between 2 they kill God.
I mean, honestly, you know what? I'm not against it.
I'm. Not yeah, I'm open to the.
I'm open to the. So you mentioned Breitbart a
number of times and then John and Bree to the other
collaborators on The thing is Breitbart Lucas, John and Bree
and then and Emily, you're working with them or is it, is
that a a third part of? This John and Bree, they're do
the duo of them, Lucas and I. John is a writer and editor, and
together they've come up with some.
They've come up with a set of games that has a very distinct
voice, and they've most they've recently coalesced under the
Breitbart name. Yeah, cool.
Yeah, no, I remember I crave the Loop was an interesting 1.
So that's when I first saw Breitbart.
I was like all. The way.
Yeah, I know, I know that one. But and then so so so it's
Breitbart plus Lucas plus Emily all coming together to make a do
a duet card game about cute, cute Dragons.
So I guess, and not only that, you have an editor, Will Yelpst,
someone we've talked about, yeah, number of times on the
show. We were we.
Were chef, he said yes. So, so bonds between for those
that haven't gone to the Kickstarter yet, because they
will, you can also download, so you make sure to download the
preview that's on the Kickstarter page, but.
You like it? Yeah, there you go.
What what's what's the pitch? What's the full elevator pitch
for Bonds between and the game that they can get right now in
Kickstarter? Yeah, Bonds Between is a duet
card altering TTRPG in which you play Dragons in an everyday
world who are using their considerable magic to restore a
rundown layer. But dragon magic is the magic of
things and of places and for the things that you're playing with.
We've, we've chosen a deck of cards to represent it.
Not everything is suitable for a Dragon's horde.
They're picky. They're connoisseurs of their,
of their chosen horde. So every card, any magical card
has to be altered by you in some way.
And that's the that's the core of the gameplay is we want you
to take a deck of cards and ruin it and make of it a cool new
thing that's like very you and very your bonded and very part
of the story and experience. Any altered card can serve as
any card of its suit, regardless of its original rank.
And to cast Magic and restore your layer, you're building sets
and runs of cards from that, a hand that you draw from your
deck. So the more altered your deck
is, the more magically you are and the easier it is to cast
larger and more complex spells to deal with larger and more
complex threats over the course of the year.
And after 12 months or 12 spells, you've gone through all
Four Seasons. And that's kind of the kind of
the scope of the game. And you either have healed your
layer, your your healed your your domain, or you have changed
it in some irrevocable way and you have to decide how to live
with what it is now. Yeah, you mentioned card
altering and you said you're ruining.
You're not you're you're, you're altering the deck.
What? And that's a key component of
it. What first of all, why what,
what made you want to do that? But also kind of dig into that a
little bit more, like how does actually altering the cards
affect or is affected by the gameplay?
Well, I'll let Emily tell you why, and then I'll tell you what
we're actually doing because. Yeah, one of the early like in
discussions we talked a lot about like keepsake games or
like artifacts of play as like a mechanic that we wanted people
to engage with. I think that comes from like the
artsy side of four of us that we and we kind of wanted to
encourage a creation event in the in the play playing of the
game. So like altering cards is it's
both like it's kind of a real commitment to playing the game.
It's like I'm going to take a deck of cards and make it only
usable for this game. Potentially.
I guess there might be other games out there you can use it
for after that, but not certainly a normal deck of cards
after that. So it's kind of a committing.
It's like it's making a little bit of a commitment to, to
changing something, which definitely feeds back into the
themes of the game of, of, of that relationship with the, the
horde. And like Lucas said, the your,
your Dragon's magic and stuff. And yeah, so I think, yeah,
commitment. And then I like the the idea a
lot of having something at the end of the game that you've
you've created through play that you have to remember the game by
or to kind of represent that experience that you that you
had. Yeah.
And rather than a functional deck of cards, you have a deck
of like collage art that was made under a certain
circumstances for a certain purpose.
And they can be as as fun and creative, as weird and weird as
you want them to be. But they're always going to be
yours. Yeah.
You just need to have an
artifact in in teach RPG play. Artifacts always fun to have so.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of like encouraging people to just try
making something like they don't have to pass a certain bar to
Internet. And I think like colleges and
even just destruction potentially is one of those
things that it's like you can do this.
Like if you accept that whatever you do is a success, like, then
you've you you kind of get the the hang of it.
There is a certain transgressive joy to what we've suggested you
do, which is to just take a pair of scissors to a deck of cards
like it's not You're allowed. Yeah, I am.
I'm reading the the altering the card list.
I did look over it previously, but yeah, it's really just like
punch a hole in it, cut the corners off, nail the card.
It's unusable for the ritual till it arrives.
Like there's some really like fun and interesting things.
I I love the like the past, just like the the the kind of in
theater of the mind playing the game, this actual like the
artifact thing that you play with and there's an end product
to that was the deck of cards kind of the original.
Is that was that y'all's first idea that you just went with, or
were you looking for something to like create an artifact with?
We we talked about kind of this idea of like life is a special
occasion, so use the fine China or like this idea of like
getting people to do something with something they've been
holding on to that they've never committed to using.
And so we were going to do that with like stickers or like, you
know, something that you've had that just anything that that
people might collect, but that they wouldn't be, it wouldn't be
like something they're using regularly, which like for my
grandma would be the fine China. But for for most people that
probably maybe not. But then it, it was a big ask.
Like that's a big ask to, to to tell people like to do that for
the whole game maybe. And so we kind of reeled it back
to representing real objects with with the deck of cards.
And that was like, it's also less of a financial task to
people, like it's a little more accessible there was.
Really nothing else. I think that was perfect for
that exact function like cards are transitory.
We have a very I I I'm obsessed with cards, playing cards,
especially in the unique magic and history and mathematics that
they have. I think they're an intrinsically
magical thing, but they're also ephemeral and unnoticed and
transitory and easy to acquire and throw away and forget and
discover. So yeah, it was it.
They're kind of. We had some other stuff that we
considered, but I don't think there's anything quite as
perfect for exactly this as a deck of cards.
And I knew that we had something when I brought my initial list
of ideas for how to alter a card to the team, and everyone
immediately had three or four more.
And they're like, yes, you've got it.
You understand the bit, and you can.
Yes. And me all night on this one.
So yeah, very. Cool.
And then the game, it's a, it's a duet game and it's called
Bonds Between. So what are the bonds between?
In a way, they're what you make them.
But in any group of two people, there are at least three
entities, each person and the relationship between them.
And in a group of three, it goes up to five.
In a group of four, like it's exponential.
It's crazy. So we, we, there may be a point
where Graft Bound makes a solo journaling game.
I don't know. It's not, you know.
People may need to check on us if we do that.
So we wanted to offer an experience that was at least for
you and for someone else. And duet games have this like
really cool niche where you don't have to manage the
relationships between you and like four other potentially
strangers where you would in Dungeons and Dragons.
So it allows you to like cut through a lot of the, the hard
stuff or the stuff that makes role-playing games hard to play
where you have to work with people, you have to like figure
out how to trust people very quickly.
So this is this is like for that space where it's someone you're
comfortable with, someone you're willing to ask some fun or
interesting or deeper questions with, someone you're willing to
sort of meditate and do art with.
And I don't know, I think that's really cool.
I think it's underserved in TTRPGS.
There's a surprisingly, in my experience, there's a
surprisingly low number of these that are just built for two
people. And I think they have a really
cool use case. It wasn't lost on us that this
is coming out in February. Valentine's Day is right in the
middle. We keep like, I keep like giving
this game to my friends and being like, hey, next date
night. And they're like, yeah, whenever
that happens, we will let you know.
And then months later I'll get play test feedback.
So, but yeah, that was that was part of the original design.
And it's, you know, it's, it's important dragon and like, so we
could get real deep on why dragon, But one of the really
important parts of that is that historic, like historically, the
the narrative, mythological functional role of a dragon in a
story is almost always solitary. There's almost always one.
It's a tyrannical figure. It's a figure, it's a Nexus of
evil. And that is like not being able
to cooperate with people are being sort of lonely and
antagonistic and xenophobic. That's like, that's, that's
dragon all the way. So this was a, a deliberate
subversion of that to say, by the time you have survived to
the present day, you no longer have the luxury of being of of
being a mythological dragon in the vein of Smaug.
You, you have to form at least one relationship.
So what does that look like for a creature who has all of that
history and legacy and lore built into it?
And we haven't told you how to do that, but we we know that you
intrinsically understand that if you know anything about Dragons,
people tend to get that. So it's a duet game for a lot of
reasons. One of them is like for
positioning in the space and like offering a offering a buyer
something cool and unique that they're not likely to get
elsewhere. It works for the mechanics of it
because you know, like it has a very mechanical impact and it
fits for the lore. Like the lore and mechanics of
this rhyme with the selling points.
So that's, that's what we're trying to do with every game
that we make. And for this to be a duet game
really solves a lot of that and brings it together.
Very cool. Yeah, there.
I mean, I've talked to we at one point on the show here, either
on the show or, or with our our sister brand, the Adventure
Archive. I was talking about doing like
duet streams. And I was like, let me look
through my massive collection and find all my duet games and
there was a stack like this big. Oh man.
So. I can see your bookshelf that's.
Crazy. Yeah, there's not one duet.
Of them though. No, I would say half of them are
in my living room right now. But it is crazy how few duet
games, a ton of solo games. I mean, everything post
pandemic, there's a million yeah, solo games.
But duet games are still few and far between.
So it is really neat to see something that does take a lot
of things and kind of take them in a different direction from
the cards to the the duet game to the Dragons and everything we
said you wanted to get you could get deep on Dragons.
Why don't we like you don't have to get you don't have to go
Marianas Trench. But like, yeah, I mean Dragons
last year, Dragons this year. Why Dragon?
OK, this is not it is. It is no accident that this
happened after Book of Extinction.
I felt like I was going crazy when I wrote this because I had
to. I wanted to write a book just
about modern day or like near history extinctions because we
are living in a time when that is happening far faster than
maybe it ever has. And most of its human caused.
Like I had a point to make and then people were like, but what
about like the Saber toothed tiger though?
And I was like, fine, we'll put the direwolf in the book.
And what I discovered was that there is a Direct Line between
like fantasy literature as it exists now and as it's
celebrated by Dungeon and the Dragons all the way back to the
last Ice Age when everything was taller, larger, bigger and
woolier than it ever has been in any sort of modern
understanding. And I think like, quite
literally, dragon mythology and lore is built on that historical
record. So then to like, I'm so like to
imagine where Dragons are. Like we're one of the last
megafauna. We're one of the very few
creatures on the planet that is over 100 lbs in its adult stage.
So like we're already Dragons to the by comparison to the rest of
the world, but to understand that like to to function in a
modern ecosystem. I like I'm already off the rails
here, but the function in a modern ecosystem, you have to
figure out how to be small. The word is neotenic, younger,
sort of more juvenilized than maybe it would have been in the
past. And again, like Dragons are a
locus for this. There's no creature.
More like they're the apex predators of entire continents.
They're the biggest thing in the Monster Manual.
And that is like what they are. So to to do a game about tiny
Dragons is to deliberately ask you to sort of reimagine every
part of your fantasy in like a very fundamental way and and
figure out what that wouldn't like ask you to sort of look
forward to what kind of what kind of stories does the world
we live in produce on its own? So to like, to my mind, I'm not
interested in mountain cracking Dragons anymore.
We've done that. I know where that comes from and
I know what that makes. I'm far more interested in like
a four foot, like a four inch dragon who lives in your house
and has to sort of interact with a human centric ecosystem.
Like what is that? And that to me is that to me is
the real magic of a dragon that's that's tiny.
Yeah, so Dragons are interesting because we all understand them,
all of us fantasy nerds, right? We for some reason this
immediately let me think of Mouse Ritter and how I explained
Mouse Ritter to. People.
Because when you think of dragon, like there's a dragon in
like the introduction adventure for, for DND 5E and it's like
your level 1 adventures and you're going to fight a dragon.
Like you would fucking die, right?
But like, you know, so, so there's No Fear left in Dragons.
I mean, we've seen them all a million times.
And in Mouse Ritter, the way that I describe it to people is
like, you can even say like, oh, you're not really afraid of
Dragons. Saint George fought the dragon
everything. But imagine a mouse fighting a
cat and they're like, no, absolutely no chance whatsoever.
And it's like, well, that's the Dragons of the mice world.
And that brings the fear back. So it's really interesting to
think that to take the concept of Dragons and to, you know,
like you said, kind of subvert them into a different thing or
look at them from a completely different lens.
And yeah, thinking of them is like tiny, tiny little cute
little Dragons. Is is one way to do so?
And like, like I said, like we're asking you to play as
Dragons. So like, whereas a typical
dragon would be the thing to be defeated or the monster to
negotiate with or whatever, like sort of considering yourself as
a a creature who like carries with it that history of like
being the apex, but now has to like kind of coexist and with
other Dragons and and potentially other other types of
creatures in the area. Like it's yeah, it's a
perspective shift on like kind of I think Lucas and I, if you
can't tell, I think like to think deeply about concepts and
and themes. So even if it doesn't all get
written out, we're we're we're working on it in the in the back
of our heads. I.
Love that. I think it's great.
I I enjoyed that kind of tangent.
I think it was also very appropriate for the show that's
built also completely. We are literally entirely built
on tangents. That's what 80% of our episodes
are. But so, so bonds between you've
talked about the Dragons, we've talked about they're cozy and
they're, they're, they're Neo Tenic and, and everything.
But the actual game, we talked about altering cards already,
but what does the actual game look like if you're sitting down
with two people getting set up, like character creation, those
kind of things, Like how deep does that go towards what people
normally expect from a TTRPG? Or is that also shift a little
bit more? What does actual play look like?
Yeah, we, we have character creation in a sort of seasonal
alignment. We I think the the suits of the
cards, we wanted them to matter thematically.
So we aligned those with seasons of the year and Dragons kind of
fit in a in a season. So there's some character
creation as to like your, your seasonal alignment, and your.
Each of those seasons has a special ability, unless I'm
wrong about that. No, you're right.
When we like one of the other things that that let us do is
access that sort of ancestral memory of Dragons.
So I can like everyone has an idea of what a dragon is and
usually it's slightly different from the person next to them.
But if we say you are either a summer, spring, autumn or winter
dragon, then immediately someone's like, OK, now I can
like the interplay of those two things tells me, gives me enough
to sort of hang my character on. So that's where we started and
we made it matter. Mechanically, you sort of choose
what it is you hoard, like what your cards are going to
represent. And then so like that's sort of
and then, and then you get to that third piece of what a
dragon is, which is what you hoard or sorry, where you, where
you live, like where you're from.
And when you design for playing cards, you end up designing,
designing in groups of 413 and 52 and like multiples of those.
So you like there's 13 suggestions for where you might
be from? Vending machine was one of my
absolute favorites. Like I am the dragon of the
vending machine. It's like, I know that guy.
Yeah, the place matters and and the the place you choose to play
and then can be a representation of like the objects in the room
are part of representing like my horde or us are the relationship
with the play and stuff. So that was, that was definitely
a fun like to, I think that comes to from that like
ritualizing things where it's like, oh, we want people to go
outside or like take this game to a place to play it like plan
ahead. Like because I'm, I think we all
know that playing a TTRPG takes planning anyway.
So it's like, oh, I'm going to intentionally sit down, spend my
attention. I'm playing this game with
another person and maybe even go somewhere specific to to like
play this or take my deck of weird hoarded stuff and go to a
person and be like, do you want to cast a spell at a convention
or whatever? Like that's kind of the pic, the
picture we have. So you build your character and
then So what? And then the initiating of
gameplay, like how like walk us through that.
Yeah, You wreck your deck. The the fictional justification
for this is that you've inherited this domain from
someone else. Like, most of us don't live in a
house that we built or on a place of land that wasn't
previously settled. So that's like, deeply true
about the human experience right now.
So we reported that over to Dragons.
Be like, you have a horde. You have a domain.
It was someone else's before it was yours.
What have they left you? So you go through an altar, 5
cards. And that also kind of gets you a
sense for what this kind of looks like or gives you a way to
play or like, do it, do one that you don't like and figure out
what you do. John and Bri and Emily sat down
when we launched the Kickstarter to, to do a stream where they
did just that. And like, I was blown away by
what came out of that. Emily, what is it like?
What is it that you what is it that you get out of a collage
art in this experience? It was fun to like kind of take
the bar of like making something perfect and just lower it all
the way to the floor and be like, I just have to, I just
have to turn these 5 cards into something unrecognizable from
their previous state. And for me as like a classic
hoarder of paper, it was like time to use some of the stuff
that I that I've collected just like a, a fun experience of
like, OK, like the, the altering the cards is the fun part.
So it's like to start with that is a, is a really great opener
to be like, OK, we're, we're starting with five cards.
It gives you time to, like, think about your characters a
little more, like what you've just built up to that and sit
down and just like, get out the glue sticks and yeah.
I mean, I have a an envelope full of stickers that I've
collected over a few years of the convention circuit by now.
So for me, it's like where which which ace is going to now have
the Meichi impressive me Boyd sticker on it.
Yeah, and I get to like figure. Out, King of human hearts.
Pretty cool. Yeah, I believe it was.
Is it John that popped into to chat here and was talking about
the the queen of egg and the chipmunk of diamonds?
Yes. Yeah, those were fun.
Yeah, just like imagining kind of the setting and stuff like
the Queen of Eggs was me being like, well, I have this egg
sticker that didn't go very far. The the trail ends right there.
It's like 2 points. That's the station we stopped
at. But yeah, it's yeah.
Like it was fun and artsy and some of them I didn't like as
much as others that you I feel like was great.
But yeah, it's it really did feel like lowering the bar to
just be like just start like just.
Start the game. Just like let yourself run as
far as you want to like and then you have these things to to play
the the rest of the game with. Seems like there's a lot of fun
experimentation, like if I got multiple card decks to place a
few times, like the first deck that I altered would be it would
be successfully altered like you said, like destroying.
The thing is, it's self creation.
No matter what I come out with, it would be done.
But did you see as you iterated and like went through multiple
card decks, you got a little bit more like kind of dialed in on
the process of altering the cards and making them
interesting? Yeah, those like first five
cards. It's my understanding is that
it's, it's really open-ended. Like there's there's those
instructions later that are like alter a card this way, but those
first five cards are like alter these cards.
These are the things you've inherited.
So they're definitely like open-ended.
Yeah, I, I think there's, there's something to like, I
guess it's like even in the short term, just warming up to
like collaging or to whatever it is you're doing illustrating on
the cards. Or even just like Bree kind of
spliced a card in a way that made it look like it had
shattered, which was rad. Which I, I, you know, I don't
know if she had ever done that before, but she certainly
figured out how to do it right then.
And I can tell you that like even, you know, even among one
of the things that you develop is a sense of your personal
style. And I don't think anybody like
looking at what came out of that stream with John and Bree and
Emily, if I even if I hadn't known which card was done by
which person, I could have told you.
And that's, that's the other super fun thing about it is that
like you will be able to add I'll, I don't know that this is
true, but I'll stake my reputation on it.
You will be able to spot your own card in the deck.
Be like for sure. And other like other people get
to sort of see you in this funhouse mirror of what happens
when you're left alone with scissors and a glue stick and no
responsibilities. And, and my hope is like, I've
heard people have this experience with like two hand
path where they are doodling throughout the play of the game.
And it's like, oh, I actually, I'm, I'm really proud of this.
The thing that I made in the process, like where in a time
where I just was doing it because I was being instructed
to at the end, you're kind of like, oh, well, I have made
something that was kind of cool. Like maybe I'll do more collage
or maybe I'll, you know, just, I don't know.
I think I've as an artist, it's so it's so common for somebody
to be like, I can't throw stick finger.
It's like, Oh my gosh, did you try like, like have you ever
gotten out like any tools and just like giving it a shot?
Because like, yeah, I definitely missed that.
I was listening to another the Dice Explorer podcast and they
they talked a lot about like on this episode about two hand path
and like just how kids like make art because it's fun and it's
like you can do that. Like just take all the like
judgment out of your mind and just do it like.
What am what am I without that little voice judging me in the
back of my head though? Yeah, well, maybe it would be.
Not that hard to find out. Going to wreck a couple cards
and see what you feel deck. Of cards it costs you 3 bucks,
you can get another one exactly like.
It tomorrow, yeah. Go insane.
I do really like the low bar to just like getting started on
that because I think a lot of people's I'm going to complain.
I'm not going to call a valid complaint with a lot of games.
It's just getting going, just getting started and actually
going up. And it's not this game seems
very easy to just like, yeah, do the five cards, do a little bit
of the the the generation stuff and then you're then you're in
the game and going and it's really nice.
And like you said, there's a commitment to to getting going.
So I feel like once you've like kind of fucked up that first
card, you're like, well, we're doing this now right here.
We're seeing this to the end. I'm not going to stop at this
point. It's just real fast.
Yeah, so, so it is Zing Quest. This is on Kickstarter.
So as far as a Kickstarter goes, what like tears?
What can, what rewards can people expect to have?
What can actually get for bonds between?
Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, we've got like AI want in
later tier for $2.00. That's like I just want to have
the chance to come back and you know, look at the the post
campaign and or like get add-ons or whatever.
And then we have a $10 PDF tier, $20.00 for the book and the PDF
is included in all the other tiers from there on.
So $20.00 for the Zine. We made a square book which
that's my dragon tangent is formatting so.
It's going to be she wanted a square book and everyone and all
the rest of us were like, we can't stop you and we're not
sure we would want to. Yeah.
So it's it's it's on that line of Zine like it's going to be
seen by page count. But I think we're perfect
binding it for logistical reasons.
So they'll have a tiny spine. So that's the the $20 tier.
And then we have a, I'm doing this by memory.
So we have a $60.00 retailer tier.
So if you're a retailer and you want to get 6 copies of the
book, you can go ahead and like pre-order those $60.00 mailbox
tier, which is our version of, it's not quite a box set, it's a
mailbox set. All the stuff you need to play
arrives in your in your mailbox. Yeah, we'll send you the, but
we'll send you the book, we'll send you the Zine, we'll send
you a journal, we'll send you a deck of cards.
We'll send you some stickers to to mess around with.
And we'll send you a permission slip to Rex and Deck of Cards.
Yeah. And then the $100 tier is that
plus we'll customize a the team will customize a card for you.
We had an early bird tear as well.
That's that's gone. So some people will be getting
it a custom like a pre doodled in journal.
But they're like the custom card is the the version of that
that's still out there. Yeah.
And then we just have like, I think the stickers are add-ons
and the journals an add on. And then like if you want to get
some Breitbart games or precious things, those are, you know, all
the past catalog of graph bounds, pretty New South
precious things is kind of the game.
But as far as like Breitbart games, like the stuff that.
You can pick up axolotl with a gun or I.
Can pick up Yeah. If you want to fight God, you'd
be a. Coma over the trench goat.
It's. Fine, yes, Terminus and I crave
loop and those things are are available too very.
Cool, that's cool. Yeah.
And and so you said 3 1/2 weeks, did you get started on February
1st? Start on the 4th. 4th right?
So there's 16 days left to go. Just over two weeks.
You guys are 2/3 ish funded so you got plenty of time to to get
this if you're listening. To this.
Yeah, listen, you get a third of the last 24 hours.
I, I'm confident in this. It's a great looking project.
You guys are, are wonderful. The ideas and it, you know, cuz
it's more than just, hey, here's cute Dragons.
Obviously, like the depth to which you guys have thought
about the game, not only in the way you're altering the cards,
but why and even like the choice of the Dragons is, is really,
really interesting and like it's, it's much deeper than it
seems on the surface. And I was really glad to, to
talk about, you know, again, the depth that you put into it.
So this is a lot more than it seems at first glance, but it's
still really interesting on its own and another duet game for
for the shelf for a lot of people that don't have those out
there. It's neat.
People should definitely go grab this.
You definitely go. I'll make sure all of the links.
It is on the overlay down there at the bottom.
We got a brand new Bitly link that'll take you right to it.
Bitly slash bonds between, but we'll make sure that all the
links are down there below. And for for Emily and Lucas,
where can people find your stuff, either your individual
things or precious things or, or where they can find you if they
want layout or or whatnot. Collectively we're at
graphbound.com or graphbound dot blue sky dot social, very easy
to say or Instagram Graphbound, that stuff socials and then
Breitbart is Breitbart games. I came prepared.
Yeah. And Bree, Bree Dannon, at Bree
Dannon and at resident Bard individually.
That is Breitbart games dot itch dot IO, and they also have a
link tree that's just Breitbart and then a Breitbart dot blue
sky dot. Social.
Yeah, Breitbart, dot dot blue sky.
And then individually for me, I'm at odds and it's pretty much
everywhere including odds and it's on itch where I do like if
you need some of the some assets or whatever you can check those
out and then. We actually just saw some of
your assets yesterday when we were talking to the guys from
Prequel. Yeah.
Yes. Oh.
Wow, yeah, I did some some icons for them.
Yeah, that was really cool. And then, yeah, if you want me
to do layout after like July, you can my portfolios at
emilyantner.com and there's like a contact form there.
Or you can just look at the other games I've done and judge
me on my work, which is kind of why it's out there.
Yeah, and and Lucas, where can we find you?
I'm on Instagram at Lucas Zellers.
That's probably the most engaging way to find me.
I'm trying desperately to make Blue Sky the new TTRPG Twitter,
so I'm going to be having a lot more conversations out there.
But like for the ritzy, glitzy stuff about like what you know
what for example Baldur'sgate might have missed about
dragonborn ecology and some ill advised adventures in miniature
painting you can find me on on Instagram.
Most of my work in terms of writing or editing for the
community these days is through. Oh.
Suspenseful. We'll never know there was.
Something. Everyone was so still that I
thought I froze, but Nope, it's just like this.
I was just, I don't know. We're back anyway.
OK, I'm back. Yeah.
Short version, find me on Instagram.
I work with main Chan press, so a lot of my writing and design
comes out through them. We're doing a horror RPG called
Blood on the Lens. Some of my design work is in
there. And you can play that now.
And if you want to see entirely, if you want to see some more of
this iceberg with like entirely too much thought about how
Dragons work and for example, what Baldersgate might have
missed about the ecology of Dragonborn, there will be reels.
There you go. All right, well, we'll make
sure. Like we said, all the links to
to finding these fine folks are below.
Listen, first, thank you for being a fan of the show, Emily.
That was very nice to see you at PAX and someone to come up and
talk to us. But thank you for making this
really fun game and coming on to talk to us about it.
We really appreciate it. Yeah.
Thank you. Pleasure guys.
Thanks for having us. Yeah, of course.
Absolutely. And that is going to be us for
today. Thank you all for listening and
we'll be here at some point probably Friday.
All right, everybody. Bye everybody.
I have a zip file to look at.