Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I made a pact with a fear
demon and everyone keeps figuring out what I'm afraid of.
And, and today we are joined by a very special guest that is
Kobayashi. How you doing this morning,
Kobayashi? Fine, fine, thank you for having
me. Yeah.
Yeah, I think what before before we immediately tangent because
we've all been talking about how much we're going to.
So it is inevitable for those that might not know Kobayashi
who who, who the heck are you? What might people know you for
in in the space? I think I'm mostly known for the
black sword act. I think I can can make a T-shirt
that is a black sword act guy basically because.
Yeah, a few people know me before that for Flail, but
basically I, yeah, I write and design in the in the RPGs for
well, quite, quite a number of years now.
And as any, let's say in the RPG designer, it's I'm like a Pang
band. I'm known by over Pang bands,
but not by most of the audience in fact.
That's right. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, we Hunter,
I'm this is something we should have done a while ago.
I don't know what episode we did Flayo in, but we we are we are
one of the people that knew Flayo before Black Sword Hack.
We reviewed that a long time, I think years ago at this point.
It was super fun. I mean, for anyone that likes a
black sword hack, if you haven't also read Flayo, you're
definitely missing out. There's so much a little bit of
crossover in it and so much fun stuff in Flayo.
But you know, but yes. Episode 30 was Flayo.
Episode 30 is crazy. This is episode 277.
So that's crazy that it was that it was that long ago black.
Sword hack was 90 so I think, I mean we did Flayo like fairly
early because we backed the Kickstarter, so got it off
Kickstarter. I think the same with the Black
sword hack. So what I guess getting right
into it, what kind of got you into teach RPGs?
And then I guess to to Flayo prior to to the black sword
hack, which again I mean every everyone in the space knows
black sword hack. I think like most game
designers, I think I've started, it's at what moment you want.
You want to play a game and you go to a store and you go online
and you realize that the game you want to play that doesn't
exist and you're just OK, so I have to write my own now.
That's a bummer. And I write one game when I
would like to, you know, play this.
And you write a second game and a third game.
And sometimes people come along and say, hey, I'd like to play
that as well. And you and you kind of, OK,
maybe there is a room for me on this market.
That's how it goes. And mostly, yes.
But the base is I want to write a game that I want to play with
my friends. That's the only thing that got
me going. There you go.
And then black sword hack was put out with the the Mary
Mushman who people know for the black sword hack, but also knock
knock 5 actually just got my knock 5 recently as well as a
bunch of other stuff that they're putting out recently.
How did how did that happen? How did you and the Black Sword
Hack kind of get together? Or you and Mary Mushman get
together to put out the the Black Sword Hack?
First of all, yeah, I published Where was the 1st edition of The
Black Sword Hack and which surprisingly 2 for me because it
worked very well. The first edition.
It was a it's it's still it's a platinum best seller on drive
through RPG. So without without any any ads,
social media, whatever. And I've worked with the Mary
Mushman on the magazine Knock. I write two articles for them
and then one time they send me an e-mail.
Hey, you know what? We've read The Black Sword Act.
We think it's cool. We think it lacks some things.
So would you be interested in doing a new edition?
So I hesitated for three seconds and I said yes, yes, of course,
let's do it. Yeah, because they told me and
we got this guy who do, who does art, Gordon Gligovich.
And I said, is going to do the art?
Yes, yes, yes. Let's do the book here.
Completely. Definitely.
Yeah, I I can't imagine anyones art style fitting that game
more. It was such a perfect marriage
of of art and layout and design. It's it's it just has everything
and it just all parts of it kind of reinforce itself constantly.
And that's that's what we find in in games that are happen to
be our favorites is is that aspect where all of the
different parts of it really sing well together.
And and black sword hack is one of the best that does that.
Like, you know, it's very sword and sorcery and what what kind
of drew you to that like genre? Because when I, when I talk
about sword and sorcery in especially more current Indy
tabletop role-playing games, I will always hold up the black
sword act as like the example of like what to aim for.
So what? What made you want to do that
kind of game or what? Yeah.
Because first of all, I have a love.
We're for the for this job in books, you know, all the books
by Michael Muco, Joe Bercrombie, all that stuff.
Tomorrow goes in by by Mother Salmanson.
I really like this stuff. And I always found found out
that most sword ancestry games lacked something.
Well, it was always always a bit too close to just Dungeons and
Dragons all the way. It's basically yes, you know,
we, we, we may think of, you know, illustrations that look
with baddies with saucers, but in the rules, nothing changes in
fact, and and especially with the magic and sorcery.
So what I always say in game design, especially in
role-playing games, but it's in every game design.
You always have to look outside your domain.
So when I wanted to make a sword ancestry game, instead of just
reading RPGs in that journal, I went back to the books.
So OK, so how does it work? What kind of stories do we tell?
And how can I model that instead of taking a role-playing game
and see how I can model it into the Sword and Sorcery Journal,
if that makes sense? Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And I know Hunter, you've,
you've actually run the adventure from the book, even
though the book has a way where you can basically make infinite
adventures, you know, with the, with all the resources in it.
But, and, and we've talked about this before with, with sword and
sorcery and stuff like that. What?
I guess for both of you, you know, Which adventure did you
run again? Hunter.
The what's? It's the blood God.
Is it the keep of the blood God? That's what it's called.
Blood for the blood God, I think.
Players are the blood God. Yeah, that. 1.
Really great adventure. We had a fun like fortress to go
through that my players got captured in and then had to
break out. It was pretty cool.
And then you have recently been putting out a bunch of projects.
I know we talked about the Four Golem Parade was recently on
Kickstarter and now Fallen Blades in the Starters on
Kickstarter. And before that was that one.
Why is my brain breaking? Yeah, since.
It's even in Dying Gods. There we go.
And that has all been within like the last six months ish is
that is that how all three of them kind of come out?
Yeah, because for now, for some time I, I became RPG designer
full time. So when you do, yeah, don't tell
that to my banker, but yeah. But so it's, it's a bit easy to
wear wear because before that I had a day job because I started
writing role-playing games in 2008.
But I had a day job and another day job and another day job.
So it was difficult. And when I, you know, I reached,
you know, 50, I was kind of, I'm too old for this shit.
Now I want to enjoy life a little, you know.
And yes, I'll be writing role-playing games and as long
as I can, let's say, as long as it pays the bill also.
Well, I mean, you will always have a backer in US for all of
your stuff. Well, I think we said this
before, I think I put it out on the blue sky or whatever.
Like if you, if you drop a project, you're one of the
probably 3 or 4 people where I'll just like immediately
Scroll down the most expensive one, click back and then
eventually come back and actually read what I backed.
Because it doesn't matter what it is, I know I'm going to like
it. And that that is held true every
single time so far. That's cool.
So so your current project, though, is fallen blades in with
stars and I know I saw you talking about a little bit on
blue sky where you were going to do an itch funding or a
Kickstarter for it. You would decided to end up
doing a Kickstarter for it. So, and it's, and it, I think
it's a, it's APDF only, like it's a printed home version, you
know, However, it turns out what made you decide to do both
Kickstarter instead of itch and to do just a, a printed home
version of a game. So for Kickstarter, it was it
was easier for me to contact past backers indeed.
And on each I don't, I don't think I have enough on of an
audience now to really, you know, Kickstarter is very
effective as a marketing tool. You know, it's not as much for
for the money you get, it's always fine, but just as a
marketing tool for indie designers, even if it's crowded,
it makes it makes things easier. And for the few people who
follow me, it's easier for them to find me too on Kickstarter.
So but I'll see maybe forever projects.
I'll use each, you know, I will see in the future.
And for the do it yourself part, you know, the print at home,
because I, I printed some games at home, you know, like Kala
Roth and other games and I, you know, my little games that I
stapler drums and I thought, you know, oh, it's so cool, you
know, so, so cool. I, I want to make a project, a
project like that. And so that's why I decided, no,
I want something very simple so people can print that at home or
go at Kinko's or whatever. And it it will cost them a dime
and they will be able to to print to print the game.
I wanted to have that do it yourself feeling truly, you
know, not those do it yourself projects where it's not do it
yourself at all, right? Yeah, which?
I like a lot, you know, but. But yeah, the scene is very.
Much moved. Away from DIY, it's really cool
to have a project that's going right now.
I'm like, ah, cool, a little printed home DIY scene.
I love that, you know? Because I'm always happy, you
know, with projects that are, you know, that look good and
all, but sometimes you, you want to go back to something a little
bit more, you know, closer, closer to, to the roots, I, I'd
say. Yeah, back when they were still
just Zen's on Zen quest, you know, and people weren't putting
out I $1,000,000 IP, you know, campaigns during during Zen
month or whatever. Because yes, I talked with
another designer and you know, the analogy with the pank, the
punk bands, it's the same. You know you, you go to a comic
convention, you do a Zen, the guy across the VL do does Zen
also. You come to him, you buy his in,
and then he comes to you. He buys you, He buys you in.
And yeah. You did your day, but.
Just passing the same 10 bucks around the scene for yeah, yeah,
yeah. Yeah, and that's basically
because if you ask anybody, you know, how do you know about
Kobe? Asian, his games 9 times out of
10. You know, you people who say
what? He's a Japanese guy, don't know
him, don't know. But you know, as long as you are
OK with this, you have, it's not a problem.
But, but you have to be aware of it.
It seems for me, at least in France, I don't know, it's not
that much in the USI I I'd say. But you saw first time creators,
they think they're going to come and they're going to do a multi
$1,000,000 Kickstarter right away.
And obviously they're a little disappointed more often than
not, so. Yeah.
Yeah, we have noticed that a lot we've.
Noticed. A couple years we have
definitely had this discussion that's like, oh, this is like
their first project. Do they, do they really want to
aim for like $300,000? Because it's probably not a
realistic goal, you know? Yeah.
Once in a fucking blue moon, you know, maybe one will succeed,
but that's that's that's the exception, not the rule.
You, you have to know that you are a Pang band and I, I was
fortunate enough, you know, the black sword act is like my
single who sold very well basically so.
But it's enough to, you know, it's enough to.
What? Oh, it's enough to to get by so
you know. That's cool.
I mean it because it's it's an incredible game.
I mean, but you know what you were saying about the scene,
We've obviously talked about that here on the show a bunch.
Anyone that listens to us, especially episode 200 knows
that's kind of how we feel about the indie scene right now.
It's definitely moved away from like the hobby space of people
making fun stuff just to make fun stuff into like you said,
like first time creators coming in being like, I'm going to do
this whole time make $1,000,000 and like making games because
they're marketable and and profitable as opposed to making
games because it's the game that they want to make.
And it's a weird kind of space for for Indy teacher RPGs to be
in where, you know, marketing is your first priority as opposed
to design, which feels like a lot of what's going on right
now, Which again, which This is why we love the fact that this
is a print print at home. Like, you know, quick little
game that's coming out right after we just got Gollum parade,
which is great. So it, it's nice to see And, and
your kind of path in this space is the way a lot of people you
know, prior to, I guess I don't want to say the current batch
did where, you know, you have put out a bunch of things, made
a name for yourself, made some successful things and then went
full time versus, you know, getting into this and
immediately thinking this is going to be your full time job
forever. I'll bet you there's like less
than 50 game designers in the world that are full time on game
design right now. So it's it's and they don't,
they're not into game designers, I can tell you that.
So it's just an interesting space right now.
I have a very scientific proved method.
I throw things against the wall until something sticks.
Basically what I do. A classic approach.
Yeah. But but to yeah, to from about
what you said, you know, I always tell people you sometimes
people have a rejection to his, but I say to them, you know,
RPGs are art. It's an art form.
The books are art, but also when you play with your friends,
you're doing art. It's a popular art form, you
know, So there's no, and I don't say this so you know, I'm an
artist and I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No, not about this, but it helps you consider the medium in an in
a meaningful way. You don't do art because you
think it's going to sell. You're not thinking.
You're not thinking I'm going to do this because I think it's
going to sell. You can, of course, a lot of
people do that. Yeah, we, we live in a society
that basically live like that. But I don't think that it what
produces the best heart around. Yeah, yeah.
I'll not go too deeply into that.
I think the way a lot of people view it or the lot of people
interact with that concept makes it feel more like they're doing
crafts, not art. Because to me, how I've always
thought about it and, and the most pretentious way possible,
as someone who was an art major for a period of time, that art
is a thing you make to make a thing, and crafts are the thing
you make to sell a thing. And I think there's a lot of
people making crafts in this space and not art.
And yeah, and that's, that's probably as far as I go with
that because I think our last episode is going to piss enough
people off. But it's like I said, I think I
think the, the, you know what I mean, We also live in in a world
and an economy that's burning and no one has any money because
capitalists and oligarchs have stolen it from us for
generations. So I understand the desire to,
to monetize and make some extra money on the side, but I just, I
just don't like the space we're in where we've moved out of
hobby and into some Sigma grind set where every second of our
life has to be productive and therefore make money.
So, you know, it's, it's a weird time to be making a thing that
can also be sold. And I don't envy, I don't envy
that I, you know, that's what, that's why we're critics, not
creators, you know? Yeah, yeah.
But that's good, because one thing you can do with art also
it it, it can be criticized. That's a great thing about it.
There's nothing sacred about it, you know so but also yes, when
you are an indie creator, you can in between a rock and a hard
place because oh, you want to make money yes, because I have
bills to pay guys, I'm. Sorry, but yeah, because I have
to, yeah. I have to, you know, it's not
like, you know, because I've done 40 years of shitty jobs and
OK, I consider I've done my part now.
Now I'm going to enjoy myself a little and as long as I can.
But but but but yes, it's difficult because, you know, if
a big company releases a game, everybody's oh, it's great, it's
cool. It's a new game if you're an
indie creator. And why do you sell it?
Are you a capitalist, dude? Dude bills Banks.
You know, I have a mortgage to pay.
I'm sorry. Yeah.
But yes, it's it's not an easy place to be.
And you're never really going to be like, like, is this worth the
$5 or dot it off or like the thing?
And it's just like, yeah, bro, like, that's less than the cup
of coffee you had this morning. And you're going to get hours of
play out of this. So it's, yeah, it's a weird.
It's a weird. If only people could make art
and not worry about it costing anything.
But that is not the society that we're ever going to have
anywhere. And that that's unfortunate.
So money is always part of it and we just have to kind of
navigate it as as best we can. So your your current game,
fallen blades endless stars. What?
What is fallen blades? Endless stars?
I'm going to try to talk about it without violating any
copyrights, but basically I watched Andor and I play Fallen
Order on my PS4 and and I was and I read Mythic Bastion Land
by Chris McDowell and it was oh, nights.
Oh, I want to make a game about space nights because I want to
play Star Wars with my friends, but I don't have the money to
pay for Star Wars. So I'm going to make write
something completely different space nights that nothing to do
with Jedi's and an empire who doesn't have anything to do with
the over empire. But basically I wanted to do
that. And as always, I want to make
games that basically you, you read in one, maybe two hours and
you get to play the following evening or the following day.
But and with people who don't know much about role-playing
games as well, something easy to teach and easy to run.
That's because that's how I like to do things.
But yeah, basically I wanted to have a game using IN2V odd rules
where I can play a space night and slice and dice across the
Galaxy basically. Yeah, I gotta gotta wield your
maze blade, you know? Legally distinct Space nights,
Legally distinct space nights. There you go.
So you said it's it's into the odd, it's mark of the odd.
What made you go? I know you, you were just
reading Mythic Bastion Land, which obviously is it even Mark
of the Odd if it's from the guy who made the odd, but what made
you, Is it because you were reading it, you wanted to go
with that or or is Into the Odd just something that you enjoy?
I know a lot, especially with like mouse shooter and stuff
like that. Into the Odd just feels like
such a approachable system for newer players to kind of get
them into that OSR ish sphere of of games and stuff.
But what made you want to pick that system specifically for
this? Because first of all, the first
time I read the first edition of Into the other, it, it, it just,
it blew my mind. I was how can you put that much
stuff in 48 pages? Because yes, at the time it was,
it was 48 pages. And I, I, I, I jammed it, I run
it. I played.
I really, really like. Yeah, exactly.
I I really like this system because yeah, the ease we've we
that you can introduce people new to RPGs with it.
It beats almost every every other game.
I think even more Bog is a little bit more complex than
into the other to to be honest. And, and when I read Magic
Bastion Land, yes, it was yes, a bit of synchronicity, you know,
nights, space nights, yeah, OK, let's do that.
Seems seems OK. And I wanted to do how much, how
much stuff I could ram into 40 pages as well.
It was a basically a minimalist exercise for me, how much I can
put in into 40 pages. Space combat OK, design scenario
OK, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, I mean 40 pages because
right at the top, you know, that's what it says.
You said a forty page gene brewing with tools and ideas to
play space nights fighting an evil empire.
And then the list of stuff you put in here is crazy for 40
pages. I think a lot of people could
put one of these things in there, but you got maze blade
attack moves, rules for maintaining upgrading your ship,
space combat, chases, duels, apprentices, tools and lists for
creating MPCS, design planets and adventures with a few Daisos
and 120 adventure seeds. 20 adventure scenes Crazy crazy.
Yeah, that's, that's the worst, that's the worst part to do to
to be honest. Why?
Why'd you do 120 adventure scenes?
Because there there are 20 type of planets.
You, you, you can go on, No 20 kind of activities you can have
on a planet basically is a planet, a factory or prison,
whatever. 20 And I wanted to have at least 6 adventure seeds
per planet type. And when I did the math and I
found out, Oh my God, I have to, I have to write 120.
I, I think I wept a little, but then I, I got to work.
But you know, you're just why, why did I did this?
Why? Why?
Well, you saw you saw the 70 plus Knights in Mythic Bastion
land in which I will almost double this.
That is what I'm doing. Chris McDowell.
I think that's like a valuable use of time though, because I
think adventure seeds, especially for something that's
like a mark of the Odd, but it's fairly easy like to take a spark
of an idea and put together an adventure.
As someone who's run a bunch of into the odd, I think that is
like such a high value part of any like game you could possibly
put out because it it gives it so much life, you know?
Yeah, I mean, I would much rather have 120 adventure seeds
than one OK adventure. You know what I mean?
Like especially with a with a game like into the odd, you
know, which is easily designed around, you know, campaign play
and stuff to being able to take something and run with it as
opposed to have something and and kind of have to follow along
with it. Is is more my play style.
So you know, I will, I will always appreciate the adventure
seeds and you. So this again, pretty small
project printed home everything going on.
But you do have a stretch goal in here.
So what what do we have for the stretch goal which which you're
not far off of at this point. You're 2/3 the way there with 25
days left. The first stretch goal is done,
so you'll have a little adventures, static adventures.
So in the last stretch goals, yes, I thought, you know, So
what I take inspiration from, there are several episodes.
So maybe I I wanted to have another take on this resetting.
And I thought, what if I mix, you know, Indiana Jones and Star
Wars? So basically let's play space
archaeologist. So that will be that will be the
second. Yeah, the second, a stretch goal
will be this, I think around 20 pages.
So, you know, to design your quest, what objects to find,
design your nemesis, and yeah, and creating your team of space
archaeologists fighting the empire.
And of course, because they're the same.
That's awesome. And are you gonna keep it to 20
pages or is this gonna, is that gonna be your mission?
Like, no matter what, I'm gonna stuff it all into 20 pages.
Or is this gonna, is this gonna? For you, I'm I'm gonna, I'm
gonna let myself a bit more, yes, a bit more leeway with this
one. If it's more, it's more it's
it's not gonna be a problem because people always ask
already ask for things. Can we play an alien species?
Well, OK, yes. So I guess I have to make rules
for that. So it's it keeps adding up, it
kicks, it keeps adding up, but I try to stay, you know, A2 page
spread or one page per subject. That's when I want to.
I want to keep it at least a bit that way if possible.
Gotcha. So I mean with, with the
possibility that this is at least 20 potentially up to 40
pages backing 1 project basically gets you 2 projects at
this point. Like that's, that's what you're
if it hits $3000, which again it's already at over $2100 with
I think it's only been out for it was 30 days, right.
So it's only been out for five days.
Yeah, plenty of time to to get all the way up to the stretch
goal. As I maybe already said, I suck
at marketing, so you know, yes, I'll do this for free.
You know, I think that's that's what you know, unfortunately,
this is again, is this the space we live in?
Because I guarantee if the the same people that are like, wait,
who's Kobayashi are the same people that are like, oh, I love
the black hack, you know, or I'm sorry, the black sword hack.
So it's you know, it's social media, man, it's hard.
You know, I've had to even even just for doing the show, there
was a time period where I was what, like 30-40 episodes behind
on like posting about like our stuff on social media.
I had to because I used to do like I used to craft the
Instagram page. It was always in like this
correct order and shit. And I'm just like, no, I can't
do that shit anymore. I like, I post one post when
we're done and that's going to be it.
So I can imagine kind of how hard it is as creative to like
just want to be making games and having fun stuff, but to also
kind of have to be a personality on social media too to really
get that, that following and to be posting like multiple times a
day. I mean, there's people that I
have muted now that post like 1015 times a day, but they got a
following. So, you know, I couldn't do
that. So I can't imagine as a creator
wanting to do that part as well. No kidding.
I'm I'm like yourself and and I think that's why sometimes some
of my projects struggle or at least I don't reach, I don't
feature a larger audience because, you know, I don't want
to be posting on Blue Sky every day.
Oh, today I had a coffee. It was great.
I bought a book. It was a great book.
Oh, I took a shit. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I don't care. It's.
A great seat, you know. Yeah, yeah.
You know, so basically, you know, I just what I posted all
you where is this miniature game?
I think it's fun. I played and that's it.
Or yes, I'm writing a game it's released now, please go see it.
But I post once, no, twice, I think you know, and and that's
it because I I don't care. You know, I don't pay ads on
Facebook as well. But on the same time, you see
that the more people are present, the more where I'd say
unbearable, the larger organs they have.
That's, you know, that's that's sad, but that's how it works.
But the truth is you don't always know why something works
and something doesn't. You know, Flail was my first
Kickstarter. So I basically, I was expecting
to make, I don't know, $500, you know, expect to send a book to
my mom and, and that would be it.
But yeah, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
You it's really hard to predict, but I refuse to go to, you know,
yes, social media and stuff. I do what I enjoy.
I think sometimes I connect with some people who remain and it
will grow, I hope a bit more steadily, but I'm happy with
that. I have no problem with that.
Yeah, I mean, Flayo made close to €9000, which is, which is
great for our first project on Kickstarter.
Yeah. And and yet we backed it.
I don't remember. I literally don't.
I mean, I don't remember yesterday.
So this is not like it's a stretch that I don't remember
like 2 plus years ago, but I don't even remember.
I didn't even remember that I backed on Kickstarter.
I'm glad Hunter said that because it brought it back a
little bit because in my head I was going, how did I even hear
about Flayo? Yeah, but I think Flay was one
of those ones early that we backed and then actually
received and then reviewed as well, which was which was cool
in the early days when we were backing, I don't know, peak
2021-2022 Kickstarter, indie game time when I was back in
like 50 projects at a time. But God, I had something that I
was going to ask and it escaped my brain when we when we started
talking about Flail. But I mean, so the Kickstarter
too though is great because of one of the things you said where
you can basically use it as a newsletter to contact your
previous. So the more you do and the more
new people you get, the more people you reach in the future.
Have you thought about doing something like a newsletter
instead of like social media where you can actually get all
those people to just basically sign up for the your own version
of of what you get from Kickstarter?
Yeah, and I think maybe I should do that because you know, I can
do it to you know what when I want basically and I and I can
keep it to useful stuff. So it would be I, I, I think
maybe I, I, I will try that in the future yes, because most
people where is your discord and I think I don't I don't I have
glasses discord make my eyes bleed.
I cannot do that. I'm sorry.
Yeah. And but newsletter, yes, may
maybe that that's the way to go. Yeah, I, you know, I use Discord
for a lot of stuff. I'm.
But I'm also in like 40 discords that are muted and stuck in a
folder. But our discord is nice and
small and I can still talk to everybody in it when I've hopped
into some of the bigger discords, you know, I would love
to be able to, you know, looking at like the mothership discord
or the Merkborg discord, you know, I have ideas.
Want to bounce off people. Then you realize there's like
10,000 people and it's too much. I can't, it's overwhelming.
Yeah. You feel like you're just a drop
in a bucket. You know, we're trying to trying
to start talking and it's just too much.
I I like the size of our discord right now.
Again, small join out there if you like the link Turner bio,
but that anytime you ask a question, like 3 people will get
back to you and and you'll get something from it.
And that's a good size for for where we're at.
If it if I mean we're never going to blow up and have like a
massive discord, but I would I would be I would struggle with
that a lot to try to keep up with it because I mean hunters
of pro discord is in there every single day, you know, chatting
up with everybody. I'm.
The worst at it so. Yeah, I think you've said like 1
message in the past like couple of weeks.
But anyway I can I, I feel your pain.
Just the the Internet interaction is a struggle,
especially for us pre Internet people you know?
Yeah, yeah. Because once again, I don't we,
we were talking about, you know, then we have the need, I would
say, but your obligation to monetize our work already.
I don't want to monetize in any way or commodify, as we say the
rest of my time, you know, no, Hey, here is Kobayashi,
Kobayashi showing books, Kobayashi showing miniatures,
Kobayashi watching a movie, Kobayashi reading a book.
It would I would no, I would shoot my I would shoot myself.
I don't want to impose that to the world.
You know that that's not possible.
Listen, as long as you can pay your bills and you're having a
good time, you know that that's the dream.
I think at this point, like I know I'm never going to own a
home, you know, so I just want to pay my bills and and go from
there. So so this is this is yeah,
right. This is going to be coming out
again, 25 days left on this and then you are going to be working
on hopefully the Star Raiders space arcs game.
What's what? Is there anything on the docket
you have planned for after that? Because again, you've been
pumping stuff out, which is which has been fantastic, but
anything that you actually have like in line.
Yeah, because I'm a bit, I'm a bit mad in the head.
So I'm always working between 4:00 and 5:00 projects basically
on the back burner, but I come and go touch.
So yes, I think next game it will be a Stimpen game.
Unlikely gentleman. I I did a a long time ago, a
quick start that you can find on drive through RPGI think.
But it it's going to be, I think a 200 pages book this time.
But as always, you know, 10 pages rules and the rest just a
lot of content to to build your adventures in the setting.
And after that it would be another big project.
It would be Doc Leningrad. So so I can some of this imagine
that John Carpenter, you know, the movie director, he was born
in the Soviet Union and he made movies there.
And this is the game about those movies.
John Carpenter, Redstone. I got it.
Nice. Yeah, basically that's it.
And I think because, yeah, my, my mother is from the Soviet
Union. She, she was burned very, she
lived there for a long time. So I'll, I have a lot of
testimonies of documentation and I heard a lot when I was a kid.
I went there when I was a kid, a lot of time.
So I have plenty, plenty of things to to put in there.
But you can trust me, it's going to be stupid.
You know, Brezhnev is a, is a Cyborg.
You have sharks in the sea of Finland.
It's it's going to be pretty stupid, I think.
That sounds awesome. That sounds awesome.
Not stupid. That sounds incredible.
I'm very excited for that. Yeah.
And then my brain broke again. I think we're all tired this
morning. I didn't get coffee the same way
that Hunter. Hunter did also not get coffee.
I'm looking at a Society of Unlikely Gentlemen quick start
on drive through RPG right now. Actually I'm like, I'm going to
grab this right now. I'm.
Kind of excited that I are not excited.
I'm surprised that I actually haven't heard that one if it was
up on drive through RPG because I have a lot of your kind of
previous stuff or stuff that you've done before, like Cursed
is fantastic. I don't think a lot of people
have seen that. Gun Dogs, I think is one that
you've done as well, yeah. Extinction, which nobody talks
about, but which sells quite well, in fact.
It's a gold seller. It's basically, yeah, space,
Space or with the Black Hack, basically.
And it worked pretty well in fact.
Oh cool. Die 100 times is also one that I
love that slaps. You just have so much stuff it
like I'm like, you're definitely on like my list of like your
favorite game designers, favorite game designers.
You know, there's a couple of people out there that don't
really have a social media presence, but everything that
they drop is just absolutely incredible and and you are very
easily, you know, on on that very short list.
So for any of our listeners that are listening, definitely go
grab all of all of Kobayashi backlog and you'll see some
amazing stuff, especially if you like lighter games.
Because like you said, you're gonna put a 200 page book.
It's gonna have 10 pages of rules.
So you're gonna see something like Curse or you see something
like Gun Dogs or or die 100 times.
And it's light, but it's fun and it's always full of flavour and
vibes. And I really like what you said
earlier about like when you made the Black Sword Hack where
you're not, you know, picking the system and trying to stuff a
game into it. You're, you're picking an
experience you want to have in a genre you want to play in and
trying to make a system really fit that genre, which comes
through a ton in your in your. Yeah.
Which just makes the experience
much more enjoyable when you don't feel like, you know,
you're doing the five E thing where it's just five heavy
reskinned, you know? That's yeah, that's that's I
remember a long time ago it was, you know, I think it was, I
don't remember, but the thing the guy did a noise, an OSR game
and you are we have psychic powers and the psychic powers
were just GNG spells renamed I psychic powers.
Perfect, amazing. Such a such a great fresh idea
of. Course.
And and. And they put on Kickstarter for
$30,000. But so, so when people go find
all of your previous works, when they go back, you know, falling
Blades in the stars and everything, where can they find
you? Where can they find your stuff?
So mainly on drive through RPG. So as I said, drive 4 RPGs for
my my big projects, so to speak on each IO and I am Alexander
Kobayashi. And this is my experimental
stuff, you know, like die 100 times, kind of things like that
roots my pacifist game and those kind of things.
And you can find me on one no two social media because I'm
old. You can find me on Facebook.
So where where I am Alexander Kobayashi.
And because I'm not a fascist, you can find me on Blue Sky
where I am, I think Alexander Kobayashi as well.
I think I guess but. If you if you if you search
Kobayashi, you find you right at the top.
So yeah, you are Kobayashi Dash RPG.
There you go. I have a question.
So you have a lot of stuff on your drive through that's not on
your itch dot IO and you just say use your itch dot IO for
your like more experimental stuff.
Are you ever considering migrating your like previous
work on to Itch as well? Maybe, maybe to be to be honest,
not not now, because the problem is most the well drive through
RPG. If you put APDF on it, the first
comment you get is when do I get POD?
When do I get print on demand? And if I and on each area I can
only put the PDF and the people want the POD, they have to pay
more. So I'm kind of screwed on that
point to be honest. But as Fallen Blaze Endless
Stars is a digital product only, I think I'll put him, I'll put
him on both. But that, yeah, on each shirt.
That's the problem. If you want to do print on
demand, it's it's complicated. It's complicated because as I
live in France, Dre 4 RPG is great for, you know, people in
the US and Canada, whatever, they can still buy my games,
physical copies of my games. If I print things in France,
it's going to cost an arm and I like to send it to you.
Yeah, it's. Only get worse and worse with
the terrorists and stuff. I know we've had Alex T on a
lot. Black oath and that's exactly
their philosophy as well as they live in.
I believe it's Spain, maybe Portugal, but I believe it's
Spain and that's exactly their philosophy.
If people want hard prints, my books, which they really like
Dr. Thru has print shops in Europe and in America and and
you know, even, you know, just to be able to have it is is
better not having it. So it makes sense.
And again, it's only going to become more and more viable as,
you know, the tariffs and and whatever's and the, you know,
when fascism spreads, you know, but the the the nice wave of
orange fast or something. But yeah, so that's we'll make
sure that the links to fallen blades in the stars to your itch
to drive through everything is exactly where everyone thinks
links are down below and everything.
And Kobayashi, seriously, thank you so much for coming on again.
We are big fans of yours. We're always going to re skeet
and back and and everything, all of the work that you do.
So it's it's really been a pleasure getting to talk to you.
Thank you very much. Yeah, and that's going to be it
for today. Catch us on Thursday, we're
going to be chatting with Logan Dean.
And then Friday maybe we'll do a game.
We haven't decided yet. So we'll see.
We'll see what happens in. But again, thank you so much for
being here and we'll talk to all of you later.
Bye. Bye.