Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I'm Tatsu Oshima.
And today we are going to be looking at CYCERS from Logan
Dean. This is a sci-fi action
role-playing game of Psychic Misfits run amuck based on or
inspired by Scanners and Firestarter, which I love.
Also gives me really hardcore episode one of Elf and lead
vibes. I have not seen all three of
those things usernamed. You've never seen any of those
things? Oh, OK, well, Scanners is
amazing. Is Scanners A Cronenberg movie?
I don't know if it is. I need some head exploding in
scanners, right? Yeah dude, if they did a remake
of Scanners, I'd be so happy. No, no, they shouldn't remake
stuff like that. They'll fuck it up.
No, they really do, because the effects on it are really
terrible. It's a great movie though.
It is Cronenberg. I might need to see more
Cronenberg and then fire starters.
The only good thing that Drew Barrymore ever did?
She was also like 12 and then and then elfin lead is weird.
Yeah, I it's an it's an anime. I'm familiar with it.
Yeah, the first one is the first episode is brutal, but she's got
this split personality and it's very weird because she's kind of
like a little girl and there's weird sexual stuff.
But I mean, there's no but I mean, also anime does that a lot
and they should stop. But anyway, Psychers from Logan
Dean, fantastic game. So I have the physical here.
This is currently on sale right now at Space Penguin Inc.
What I also have right here happens to be the Chase version
from Space Penguin Inc. I don't know if you guys, if if
those in the stream can see it is a a pearlescent, shiny cover.
I don't know if it's coming through very well in podcast
land. It's a very like pinkish
pearlescent shiny cover. It's got purple stitching on the
side. It's absolutely stunning.
There's also like a nice texture to it that's different than the
regular one. This is fantastic.
This is the chase version of the game from Space Penguin Inc
Chase as in you know like a Funko pops up chases and shit,
but I absolutely love. And then the interior writing on
the inside is like a silver but with sikers, especially with the
normal looking at the physical. Still, there is this wrap around
and I gotta say, I love this like wrap.
Oh you know what? You know the wrap on the on the
like. Do you see this that you have on
your book? Yeah, yeah.
That is the whole cover of this. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what it.
Is it's like the band like I just I think it's a cool thing
to have on your. Oh no, never mind.
It's not. It's the same kind of texture,
but imagine it's slightly pink and you're confusing.
All of us. Pearl SNT.
Anyway, it's dope. But yeah, I think it's
fantastic. Because if you take it off, you
get the cover of the PDF which we'll get to, which has the like
WB project code name Basil underneath it.
But I love this strap. I know that the original prints
of the company have it. For those on podcast land, it's
like AI don't know it's bigger than a ribbon.
Just look at the game, it's fantastic.
And then? This takes place in like the
company, like universe, you know?
Mm hmm. Yeah, the mega core situation,
you also get in the physical, you get 3 cards, which are your
test subject cards, which are basically your character sheets
and each one on the back has the three different abilities that
you get in the game that we'll talk about soon.
So that's really cool. And I also love that in the back
of the scene, the last two pages are those things, the character
sheets and those. And they're they're cut out,
able or printable from the PDF. So that is the physical fuck.
I need more coffee anyway. Yeah, so that's we're going over
Cycers. Cycers is great before we get
into Cycers because it's a it's a pretty light game.
We've been doing just two fucking many episodes lately.
Quite a few episodes. They've been, they've been a lot
of fun. It's been a lot of fun.
And like, I look forward to, like, you know, the next month,
essentially we're going to have a shit ton of episodes.
It's in a blast, but it is nice to sit down and be like we're
going to do a little Zine, have a little short episode.
It's also cool. This just came out and we're
both big Logan Dean fans. And I will say that when we get
into the book, my one of my favorite parts is the portrait
of Logan Dean on the first page. It's really good, yeah.
So this month alone we've done 123456789101112.
This is our 13th episode this month.
Holy shit. And we have at least two more
this month, so we'll be doing 15 episodes this month.
And just as of right now, we have 12345678910111213 planned
for next month, and we're probably scheduling four more,
so I think we'll do 17. So in the first 2-2 months of
2024, I think we're going to have 30 plus episodes.
Kind of crazy. Yeah, kind of crazy.
Well, and so why, why? Why?
The fuck are we doing this for ourselves?
It's inquest. It's Zingquest.
Yeah, Zingquest, So that's coming out.
So a lot of what we're going over is Inquest projects are
coming out in February. Some of them have already
launched, some of them are launching very soon.
And as we do episodes here at the month, especially the
Thursday, this is our prime time, current permanent for now,
time for reviews. And we're going to do everything
we can not to miss those. We want to do every Thursday no
matter what, no matter what else we're doing.
We want to make sure we get a review all year.
I want to hit 50 reviews this year.
So every week we're going to try to go over and remind you all of
the Zenquest projects that are out that we talk about and some
of the cool ones that are going on so that we can actually
promote Zenquest. There's not a lot of promotion
for Zenquest out there right now.
There's. Really not.
I was actually looking right now.
I'm like I has Kickstarter, even like a.
They announced it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK. But, you know, I don't know if
Zemo is still a thing, but I haven't really seen anything for
that. I so looked.
For Zemo stuff earlier, I looked for Zemo 2024 and I found like
people posting like stuff on Twitter and shit, or you know,
But yeah, I don't know what happened with Zemo, you know?
Whatever. So it's in quest slash cool
projects in February. It is just a TTRPG month for
stuff to come out. So there's Ozo.
We were like, whoa, Ozo's not here, we can't do the episode.
But there he is #1 fan. So anyway.
We're we're Ozo's number one fans.
I think is what you meant to say.
It's. Exactly so.
So focusing in, yeah, the projects that are currently
funding right now that we want to remind you of that you should
definitely go check out. First is Tacticians of Om which
is on itch right now. It's slow funding that is from
Christian Sorrell, me Castle, Game Ware.
That is the tactical fantasy heartbreaker that they put out.
It's awesome. We did a whole episode on that.
Don't know what number. Check it out.
It's in the last 10 that we've done.
It's great. Love Christian, love the game.
It's really neat. It's trying to see it, excited
to see it. So it was each funding for 1000
bucks and it's already up to 2300.
So we're already past the second goal and it's going to keep each
funding in the Wolves upon the Coast style that Luke Gearing
has pioneered in that you can get it for the current price for
the rest of the month I think. And after that, as content is
added, the price will slowly go up.
So I highly recommend grabbing it now.
It's really good. There's already been an update
since the drop, Check that out. We also have two-month 1000
doors, which is the Mouse Rider Mega Dungeon from Matt Morris of
Mandadon Games. And like.
The entire mouse rider community.
Yeah, like 30 fucking people. Fantastic project.
That's super worth grabbing. It's already at like 65 K, which
is insane, but very, very excited for that, you know?
And Matt Morris, fantastic friend of the show, Mandadon,
awesome human being. Really great.
Yeah. Really just great person.
All these people you know are great people.
Greenhorns from Marcus Serrano. We did part two of our
Greenhorns AP like a day or two ago and I've just forgotten to
put it out to expect that dropping sooner than later.
That's funding. Right now it is funded.
It still has like almost three weeks to go.
The dangerously fast weird space RPG.
The Together we go hack. Really fun.
Fantastic. The art is amazing in that.
Definitely want to check that out if you want some weird space
stuff. You can just get our our second
TPK on stream, yeah. So yeah.
Yeah, it's not out there yet. So you guys, you're hearing it
first from us. We fucking.
We all fucking died. We all died so.
Yeah, great game with Adam Bass. Always love, you know Adam Bass
Dan Podcast J We love to have them on the show and you'll see
more of them coming up. Also, go check out Bloodborg.
Is it Bloodborg? It's called Bloodborg, right?
Yeah. The Yeah.
It's called Bloodborg, yeah. The gruesome, witchy Merckborg.
I'm so excited for that one. Like, yeah, if you're gonna do
Merckborg, go hard. Like that godspark from M
Ellenhall. I got to sit down with M
Ellenhall. They're the creator of.
Also the game Sprinkles is missing, as well as a lot of
solo stuff, Cyborg stuff, Merckborg stuff, a little bit of
everything. They have a big catalog already
and a lot of it is just fantastic.
Sprinkles is Missing is a super cute family adventure.
I would definitely run the shit out of that for the homies.
You basically go into a mystical wood to hunt the missing Unicorn
who is the mascot of your magical elementary school.
So it's cute, but they're funding right now, a game called
God Spark. It is a solo pen and pencil
adventure game of dead gods and reborn Saints.
Sounds fantastic. You basically go try to get the
God sparks out of the corpses of fallen gods.
Just like real life. Yeah, just like real life sounds
dope. And they were fantastic to have
on the show and H right. How sick does?
That sounds really cool. So.
Yeah. And then I think the last one
for right now that's actually currently funding and is also
funded but obviously you know give them more of your money is
Rune Care and Ward and Saga remastered from Colin Lasor of
by owns Beard. So we did a review of Ward and
Saga in the past. We've had Colin on to chat in
the past. Did we?
Yeah, so we reviewed Ward and Saga on episode 25.
Colin came on episode 52. 52. And then three days ago.
Yep, four days ago. Sidequest 6.
Sidequest 6 Consor ran Ryan I and the illustrious legendary
John Davis of Civil Sanctum through an adventure, and it was
a it was a blast. Yeah, super good time.
Randomly generated cave. Yeah.
Krug. Krug, Krug, Krug.
Doesn't matter. He's fucking.
I don't learn. Trolls names so.
Super great. The Cave was all generated from
stuff in the game. It is funded currently.
Still funding, definitely go check it out.
I mean everything Colin does is fantastic.
They're fantastic human being and the Norse like the Norse
souls like teach RPG. Rune Cairn Warden Saga
Remastered looks fantastic and Rune Care Warren Saga by itself
is fantastic. So this is not a 2E, it's just a
kind of a cleanup of some of some extant stuff and coming
together if some rules are added with the bestiary and a fresh
coat of paint with with some new art and a new cover and
everything, definitely, yeah, new Chrome cover I'm excited
for. To have both of those.
The graphic novel The Bird Game, which I don't know if you've
seen. I I think I've probably seen it
on the I follow them, so I'm sure I'm seeing it in passing.
But it's it's pretty cool so. Yeah, So that's kind of the
recap of the projects that are going on right now.
Like I said, every week we'll just touch on those, remind you
that you should go give them your money because they are
worth it and the project to make sound cool.
And yeah, and now, why don't we, why don't we review a game?
Why don't we look at psychers? Let's talk in.
Yeah, I know we got deep. It's gonna take us a few minutes
to get through this, so. Yeah.
Wait, so wait. I had a whole page up here and I
got rid of it. So Cycers.
I know, right? Cycers.
Logan being an itch, I'm trying to be better about.
About actually entering these games a little bit more.
God, I need to start taking my fucking Adderall before we get
on these. So Cycers behold the future.
So this is a game that originally came out in January
22nd of 2023. So literally just a few days
passed. A year ago they updated it from
V1 to whichever version we have now, V4V4 May 5th 2023.
And now like I said before, you can get the digital and PDF on
Space Penguin Inc. The PDF is free on Logan Dean.
It's not free, it is pay what you want to pay for it.
It's worth it from the Logan Dean's Itch page, which is mega
Dash, Corp dot itch dot IO/P SYKERS, Cycers, but grab all the
mega core stuff. We've already reviewed the
company from Logan Dean here on the show.
We've talked about Wuhan Baxter, so this does take place in the
Wuhan Baxter universe. Super excited to have this.
Can't wait for a reprint of the company.
Super excited that I have Cycers already, which is great.
Yeah also like what a great concept that I think people
should do more and it's like the establishing a game universe and
just keep making new like games within your same universe.
I'm like the moment I first page because it talked about Wuhan
Baxter first page we'll get to I was like oh dude this is it's
still set in in universe. I really enjoyed that.
Yeah, it's really great. Let's, let's kick over to it
real quick. And so you immediately start
with that WB Wuhan Baxter logo, which is dope.
Oh no, we start with this, Yeah, which is the cover of the book.
So I'm actually gonna read the description off the Itch page
because it's fucking dope. It says behold the future, You
are a test subject. Is this in the game?
Uh huh. Now you are a test subject in an
experiment that has unlocked the hidden power of your mind.
You have escaped and they are chasing you.
You will never go back and you will never give up.
The only choice is to fight. Cycers is a sci-fi action
role-playing game of Psychic Misfits run amok for one of four
players inspired by Scanners and Fire Starter.
Or players betray escape test subjects with incredible powers
on the run from the powerful mega corporation Wuhan Baxter.
This game can be played solo or one player or one player could
take on the role the game manager, controlling non player
characters and enemies and steering the narrative.
The game is meant to be played in a single session with minimal
time passing between encounters, so it definitely gives you that
little bit of bottle episode feel.
But I feel like you could easily adapt it into more of like, not
necessarily here open world Here's encounter.
Here encounter more of just like oh you were in a building, they
all got to you get out of this building again kind of thing
like a series of really shitty encounters and you could also
slow down the progression. But anyway, so front cover as we
said for the front cover of this, once you remove the the
strap banner situation has it on there it is WB Project 0917894,
code name Babel Serum Teslot 13. I love that right off the bat.
Yeah, and again, love the WB internal use only I love.
It is a really funny detail. It's like no internal use, only
like very holds up this motif of like, this horrifying corporate
entity. Yeah, yeah.
Much like how the company was written.
It's written as like a game guide, but also with enough of
this, like this is for internal employee Handbook Manager
Manual. That's what they're called.
So I love that. So Psychers.
Written and developed by Logan Dean.
Art by Alex Mitchell. Content warning it is intended
for mature audience. Explore themes of violence, mind
control, body mutilation, violence against animals,
psychological abuse, torture, captivity, suicide and self
harm. Yeah, and then like you said,
that great shot of L Dean head of research.
So welcome test subject introduction.
On behalf of everyone at Novarium Pharma and our parent
company Wuhan Baxter, we are so excited to welcome you as a
clinical test subject in Project Babel.
We are pushing the limits of the human mind and body and are
confident that you are incredible test subjects of Lot
13 will lead us to a new frontier of discovery and
possibility. Please report to your
administrator to begin your trial.
So yeah, another little breakthrough in the beginning
here. Talks about like what it is.
You know, it's a game of awesome power and over the top violence.
Big play, play Big play loud, play Dangerous and keep while
still keeping other players boundaries in mind.
Love that. Yeah, yeah, there is like there
there is this propensity or like this possibility, these like
massively violent moments in this game.
And I and I genuinely think that they're like very, like
potentially hilarious or like very anime esque moments, you
know? Yeah, seriously, you should just
watch the first episode of Elfin Lead and you're gonna be like,
Oh yeah, Oh yeah. I will.
I'll watch her. I'll watch her right now.
Keep going. I'll watch it.
I'll start. It.
Yeah. Cool.
All right, well, the game's only 7 pages long, so we'll be done
with it before you finish the episode.
So yeah, Trial program, Lot 13 report, table of contents.
You have a welcome. You have the procedure, subject
intake, the three types of abilities you have and then the
demonstration module, which I really like and I still I love
that at the bottom of each there's like the WB project
report footer at the everything like they did a really good job
of throwing that in. So we hit the procedure and I
when I was reading this, I brought up the company too,
because even though it takes place in the same world and I
would say it's similar but different and I really like
that. I expect, honestly, when I
picked it up the first time I read it, I expected it to just
be the company, like dice rolls with maybe something added and
it's not. It's similar, but it's
different. It's similar.
It still revolves around D10, and I think there's a couple of
similes as well. But yeah, it is different.
It's its own thing. Yeah, so the dice roll is it's a
detail like you just said. If a subject has a relevant
trait, that may add plus one per trait level to the role.
So in this one, it's never going to not bother me that that's a
zero at the top instead of a 10, but four levels there is 0 or
10, which is it all say 10. It's a success and you and you
can reduce stress by 1/6 to 9 is a success, three to four is a
fail, and you take one stress and 1:00 to 2:00 is a fail and
you take two stress. Now compare that to the company,
which is again similar but different.
So in the company there's a critical failure possibility, so
there isn't one in cycers. So there's a fail at 1:00 and
then two stress and a burnout, right?
So there's no burnout in Cycers, right?
Two to seven? Well, if you fail, they're the
kind of like burnout in this one is things go wildly crazy bad
for your character Through its own power, Through its own
power, so. So it's two to seven is a
failure with plus one stress. 8 to 9 is a success, and then 10
is a success with -1 stress. So it's the windows for success
I think are bigger in Cycers in that it's pretty much just 8-9
and ten in the company, but it is 678910 in Cycers.
And that kind of makes sense because this has much more of
that like I don't want to say action movie type vibe and this
is like a you were like a volatile, like powerful, like
psychic essentially test subject.
So yeah, it makes sense that success is more likely.
Well, yeah, because also it's pretty much your only ability
for the most part is your mental ability versus the other one
that has like multiple stats and things and stuff like that.
So and more ways to kind of like add points to it.
So I do like what? Yeah, like you just said, I like
that you have these powers, You get to use these powers and
you're you're using them allows more free form success.
Well, especially because it leans into the fact that it
could be a solo game, so failure is less fun, I guess.
So powers. So there are three powers,
right? You can utilize the powers at
any time. When a power is used, the
subject takes stress equal to the power level.
So we'll get to that. So there's ways to you get
stress even when you succeed, right?
Like so it's and when you fail. So I think that's the other part
of it too, is that you gain stress all the time, pretty much
losing control after using a power subject rolls 2D10.
If they roll below their current stress level, they lose control
dealing that much damage to the nearest person or destructible
object. And if no one's present, they
deal it to themselves. And power levels 4 through 5
always deal damage to the subject, so we'll get to the
power levels on the abilities there in a second.
And then subjects always act first, followed by enemies,
attacks, always hit and subject damage determined by power
level, which is D 10. So depending on what your power
level is, you pretty much only have one thing that you can do,
which is use your power at the current level that it's at, and
you do damage equal to D 10 times that current power level.
So that's the other thing about having a bigger success pool is
like it always hits, and you always do pretty much just like
one thing. Like at least when you need to
roll dice versus like a narrative.
And then enemy damage is determined by attack plus the
number of detent. So we'll get to that, and then
death, if reduced to 0, body trigger power level 5 before
vaporizing. And that's pretty much the
entire rules of the game right there.
Mm hmm. That's it.
We're done. Yeah.
I mean, we're 2 pages into 7 pages.
Yeah, we're just about. So subject intake, you create a
subject, basically you are part of lot 13, these test subjects.
And you can manifest one of three variant abilities,
telekinesis, powerkinesis or telepathy.
And we'll get to those. Which would you take?
Oh, I don't know. They're all very cool.
I would probably take telekinesis, but this is the
kind of game where I'd sit down if I was playing and not running
it, because I I would probably be the one running this.
But if I was going to play, I would live one, else pick their
power powers first. Also, I'd play with a like a
four person, you know, like one person running and three people
playing. I would just let everyone else
pick first because I don't care. They're all cool, so.
Yeah, they are cool. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't play
more than like one of each. Well, it's.
One to four players. So you really can't.
Yeah. And it's like yeah you get you
have two what you have two time. I mean, you could, but.
You have 30 if you want. Yeah, but you're lame if you do
that. Play the game.
Yeah, Rules is great, bro. But yeah, I mean, I would, I
would do the same thing as you. And if you took tackling, you
said I would take telepathy, but yeah, I like them all.
Next subjects determine 2 traits and mark 20 body points.
So that's basically your health. Yeah, 20 points.
And so the thing that's crazy about that too is like you could
instantly die. Mm hmm, like you have to roll
2D10 for your and then go under stress and then when you do no.
So at least two turns you could so subject damage it's power
level times D 10. But like if you use a third
level power roll, a 3D ten, you could just die on your first one
like you like the odds of dying. The odds of getting out seems
small in this. I do like the the rules as
simple as they are, really reinforce the narrative of like
you're an experiment subject that is like the like even we'll
get to enhancement talks about like oh, Lot 13 is not done with
you yet. Like it's still you're still
gaining control but you're still evolving essentially.
So yeah, you can just fucking hurt yourself.
Or if you die, like you're just gonna blow up everything around
you because you're a walking, volatile bomb essentially.
Yeah, I yeah, I love that you. It feels like it's supposed to
feel like when you think of that and you're like fuck, like I
could I could literally use my power once and just fucking die
or twice and die. And when I die I like so like
the fire one when we get to it. Like their level 5 power is like
all metal and like 100 meters melts and.
You're like you're. Fucking nopa bomb.
Like so it's just like you get to a point where it's like man
do I use my powers? Do I just, you know what?
Like what do you do, you know? So I love that the the, the how,
however light the mechanics are and their ultra light still
reinforced. Just like how fucked you really
are and like how powerful you really are, but also how
dangerous. It's neat.
I really like it. So traits.
Traits are behaviors and which the subject is well practiced or
versed. They are broad descriptors that
can be applied to many situations to confer plus one.
Traits can be advanced through enhancement.
So a subject has to trait, for example cool under pressure,
which can apply to plus one bonus to sneaking right or
lighten the mood. Or they can make a valid
argument. So traits are determined by the
players can be anything at all. So this is very super wide open.
There's not like a huge list of traits here that you have to
choose from. You just pick something cool
that you're or something that you are well versed in.
It could be literally anything. Juggling, whatever.
Yeah, but if I pick juggling, that could be not only
physically juggling something, but I could also be juggling
multiple like. Or yeah, absolutely.
So it's interesting. I like that.
And I think that I like the way it's written as well because you
could easily have this be too broad that people are like,
wait, I don't understand, but like I feel like this is written
in such a way that it's like, no, I totally get like what this
means. Like the three lines that are
there, enhancement, which is basically advancement.
So lot 13 isn't done with you, just like you said earlier and
your gifts grow stronger and they grow stronger fast as fuck.
So yeah, after an encounter. So, so not even at the end of
like the session, after every time you have an any encounter
at all, right, you recover six health and remove 6 stress and
you advance a trait plus one or add a new plus one trait and
reduce the stress cost of a power by 1.
So that's the one that I was like what is stress cost?
And we'll get to that I guess, because when I look at powers,
it says when a power is used, the subject stress takes stress
equal to power level. So my assumption is when you use
a level through power, you take 3 stress right?
But every time you have an encounter you instead of three
stress, you would take two stress instead.
That's how I read it as well. So if you live long enough at
your power level, you could like be using it without taking all
of that extra stress. Yeah, yeah, you could.
You could get to towards the end of this, like because it is like
like an encapsulated, like bottle adventure, you know, like
the the adventure in the book is all of it.
So yeah, by the end of it you could just be fucking blasting
shit with your mind and totally OK.
Yeah, yeah, I dig it. All right.
So, I mean, this game is so light.
Like do you want to just read through the three, the three
things? I don't want to take
telekinesis. Also, First off, the art in this
really very good. They're.
Fantastic. It's funny, 'cause they're so
little and like, there's so few pages in this and all of the
art, and I'm like, oh, this is really good art.
Yeah, so TK, telekinesis, push, pull objects and people.
The day you pushed a nurse against the wall with your mind
as they tried to take your blood, you knew something was
different. After they cleaned up the blood
and teeth. I forgot about that part.
After they cleaned up the blood and teeth, they put you on an IV
drip that made you drowsy. You can make the blind shift or
change the channel, but nothing beyond that.
Then you thought to stop the drip.
It took a while, but eventually you came back to life.
They never knew what hit them when you tore the door off the
room and threw it down the hall. Now you're out and you'll tear
them limb from limb before they take you back.
Great writing in this too. Like what is like an evocative
scene. It's like and that's one of the
cool ideas like, yeah, you're telekinetic and they try to like
put you under, but you've just enough to do something small and
you're like, oh, I'll stop the IV drip.
It's a drip you know it's just very slow moving thing.
Yeah. And the powers are so moving
from zero to 50 being move small objects.
So you can just do it. One stop projectile very Neo in
the matrix. Two move large object, three
move a huge object, 4 crush and five shred.
You strip tissue 100 meters in radius.
So if you die, you do that and everything around you is just
torn to shreds. Yeah, Crazy.
So good. And I love the art.
And it also is like, that's definitely like a kid.
Like a kid. Kid, yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah, the next one is Para
Kinesis again another great piece of art.
I like how even within this there's like the file photo like
on the side it says like file photo.
Subject. Just the again, like the
commitment to the to the bit, which I I really love.
So pyrokinesis, PK creates control, heat and flame.
You know immediately. You knew immediately that first
injection burns something way inside you.
All your worry and pain, all your mistakes and imperfections,
senders. Your old self is gone and now
you burn. And you burn hot.
Being your captivity, the company had you in special
chambers designed to douse you at a moment's notice.
They thought this protected them, but you knew better.
Nothing can extinguish your flame, least of all a fancy
sprinkler. Now you're out and they can try,
but before, but they'll all burn before they take you back.
It looks like that you've actually bumped up a little bit.
Great piece of art, this person clearly on fire and then the the
power matrix for them. So zero heat objects slowly.
One is ignite small object, slash heat object fast 2 ignite
large object, 3 stream flame from hands 4 flash incinerate
organic material and five supernova so it melts metal in
100m radius. That's great, Yeah.
Yeah, next one's gonna be TP telepathy.
Let's communicate and control other minds.
The noise started after they injected you with Lot 13.
You heard their thoughts as they walked by the room and they were
so loud. When you asked the nurse to be
quiet, they tiptoed out of the room and never spoke to you
again. Yet the noise persisted.
When it finally got to be too much, you screamed and blacked
out. When you woke up, you were
groggy and there were people scrubbing blood off the walls.
It was hard to form basic thoughts, but at least it was
quiet. Recently they started letting
you surface from the void and asked you to do things.
Find this person, make them do this.
It was humiliating. You're glad you lashed out
again. Now you're out and you'll watch
all their of their heads pop back before they take you back.
Oh, sorry. All their heads pop before they
take you back. You little sleepy boy.
You know power matrix for this. Here.
Thoughts is 01. Send thoughts.
Two control animals, 3 control people, single command 4.
Explode head yeah heads just explode and A5 entropic wave
destroys mines 100 meters in radius.
So like the way I interpret these is if one person dies,
it's essentially a TPK. Yeah, I mean, I guess.
And you're all gonna be within 100 minutes of each other and
you're not. No one's surviving any of these
things, so. That's very true.
I didn't even think about it
that way. I guess.
I don't know why. I think in like the if this was
a movie, maybe it would center around the group as opposed to
them individually. But I guess I would just it,
would I? Would run as AI, would run as a
TPK and be like, cool, we'll try again.
Or, you know, whatever. I mean, that's very true.
That's very true. Especially, well, you know it.
It is. You do have the option for solo
and or 1G and one player. I don't know how I would really,
with what's written here, run it solo because there's not really
like a like an Oracle. There's nothing to roll on, you
know what I mean? Like you'd be, I mean.
There is like the adventure's all laid out, all the enemies
are laid out. I would just roll for both, you
know? Like I would just be the
character I mean, and I'd write it as I went.
And yeah, yeah. I guess so.
No one referred to be Sillo. I guess without you.
Like, yeah, writing and then doing the thing you're doing.
I guess it would need to be more adventurous for it.
But for I think this would be ideal.
I think this would be ideal as one player, one GM.
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I feel like that would be
the ideal way. So I kind of want to at least
like walk through the. I know we don't do the
adventures, but I really like so they did practical application.
This is the following scenario is intended for demonstration
purposes. So it is like an encapsulated
adventure. So this is the escape.
But the other thing too is that like the this isn't the entire
game. Like you could have multiple,
like, I feel like whatever is happening, the way the game is,
rules is written. Like the scenario it even says
at the end like it's it's or on the itch page.
It's designed to be like one session and you're done.
But I like that there's a possibility of multiple
scenarios in that like in this scenario specifically tell me if
I'm wrong. You're you're escaping the lab.
You're like you're getting out right.
So I like that that's the initial one.
But you could have also just escaped already and been like
hiding in like an apartment building and then all of a
sudden like, you know, windows break, flash bomb jumps in and
now it's like get out of the apartment building.
You know what I mean? It could also be a scenario
where it starts to trigger your powers to go higher and higher.
So there's multiple scenarios, but I do like that it's a very
kind of like almost like like raid kind of thing.
You know what I mean? Where like, and I mean that like
the movie, it's like it's it's just one location if you like,
and that's the entire of the game.
But you could also, if you wanted to stretch this out into
like more of an adventure, where like at the end of the adventure
you're like you have an enhancement too.
Like there's multiple ways you could run this, but I did kind
of want to walk through like not read the adventure entirely, but
like kind of just hit on the points and talk about like how
the enhancement works throughout the thing.
What are your thoughts on that? Let's see it.
So it kicks off with the variable.
So basically there's an, there's an arc team and then there's the
enemy subject, which is you. So because I love that, it's
written that you are the enemy in this practical obligation
demonstration. And then there's a director, and
that's the entire thing. So the point of this is to
escape the lab. So you are the subject of Lot
13. You're getting out of the lab
after you've been injected with the substance and you're, you're
gaining these powers, right. So an alarm has sounded, an
escape is happening, and you have to free yourself.
So I dig that. So there is a level like level
B3, the holding corridor. There's an encounter with the
ARC team, right? And then after the encounter you
get an enhancement right? So things happen, you encounter
the arc team. If you defeat the arc team, we
go back to enhancement right? And then as soon as you
encounter them in the stairs, you can recover six health after
that encounter, remove 6 stress after that encounter and advance
a trait or add a new trait right right off the bat.
And now you're now you're at power level 2, right?
Right now you have the part about enhancement.
Wait a minute, Wait a minute. Where does it talk about
increasing power level? Enhancement.
You increase a trait and you reduce the cost of a power by
one. But.
Where does it talk about increasing the power level?
I'm sure when power is used as a fatigue stress, Yeah.
Oh, did I miss? Did we dismiss where it talked
about when you actually get to increase your power level or do
you have all of these? Things.
You can always use all of the powers.
Yeah, you don't. Start being able to use all of
the powers. It's just it's mostly the
detractor is the stress cost. Right, right, right and.
As you like lower stress cost, like if you start out and use
low 5 power, whatever and need low 5D tens or whatever and you
take the damage. Like you're dead.
You're fucked. Yeah, totally.
So it it self limits immediately by that and the stress cost so.
Yeah, I will. So my brain, I don't know why my
brain just wrote this into it in a way that it didn't exist, but
my brain had it being every time you get an enhancement, you go
from like 0 to one and then 1:00 to 2:00 and 2:00 to 3:00.
So as you escape, you're actually gaining power
throughout your escape. No, I think it's more that's
easier to use. But I think narratively it looks
like it would look like you're gaining power because there's
your powers you're just not going to use at first.
But you know, it's like 00 you can always use essentially for
free, right, Because it has it cost a zero, so.
Right, So yeah, so that's where my brain went immediately.
So you're right, you can use all of them, but technically you
could just burn out immediately. Yeah, so encounter 1
enhancement, you get to level 2, encounter 2, enhancement counter
2 1/2, whatever. So the reason I was gonna read
through this is that so you could see the power increasing,
but that's not how my brain works.
So we're not gonna read the adventure.
They don't do the adventures. But I do really enjoy that.
The way this is written is technically an adventure, but it
is written as like a demonstration where it's a
walkthrough of every encounter, what you do as you go through
the encounters. So encounter one and it
literally says enhancement page three, do that now and then this
next thing happens, you know on encounter 2 enhancement do that.
Now you know. I love just like if we're if we
check out one page of the encounter.
Other than that the level 1, the top level, the lobby, when you
encounter the director, the director can use all variance
powers from level zeros to three.
He can use all of them and when you fight the director who I
just imagine it's like this very like anime esque villain who has
all the powers. You know after you give like
deal them 20 damage, they don't die and our team throws a flash
bang and enters and like they then they then they attack and
it has this really great final room feeling to it, you know And
at one point in time it says in there and we don't read through
the venture, but like the director kind of I think maybe
once or maybe more than once talks to the player characters
over the intercom. I remember seeing it somewhere
and I can't. Remember where?
Yeah, there's there's an area after There's an area after
encounter 3 where it says the director in a very serious
tones, warns you that you will not escape this place as
property Wuhan Baxter. You will be destroyed before
being able to disseminate proprietary company knowledge.
I think it's a really great, like a building that, like
villain moment, you know, like the whole time there's like, I
know you can hear me, you're not going to escape here.
Please return to your cells before we have to take drastic
action. And you're just like, oh fuck.
And then you meet the person behind the voice at the end and
you're like, oh fuck yeah, very, very cool.
And just the fact, I mean, if you think about the way that the
adventure is written, spoilers for those out there too.
One of the things you said is it uses all variance powers zero to
three, right? OK, so this guy has all of those
abilities and he's the leader of all of this.
Was he a subject or are the serums derived from him?
Right. That's so cool.
That's such a that's such a cool bit of embedded lore with no
explanation, really. That adds such a flavor to
what's happening. And I really love when those
kind of things happen in adventures where you're just
like, here's this cool thing, but like, no explanation needed.
Like, he has the powers. How?
Why? Like what's going on?
Yeah, I love that. So again, we're not gonna read
the adventure even though I said we were going to.
It's fantastic. I love, like I said, in and of
itself it is great adventure. But I love the way it's written
to be a guide through how to play the game because it is
extremely light. The game by itself is extremely
light and having this walkthrough adventure of like
how to do stuff, when to do stuff, when to advance, like
what encounters look like, and like you said, like a really
flavorful final boss room situation for what equates to
like this capsule game is absolutely fantastically done.
The art is great, everything all the way through.
And then when we get to the end as we said before the last two
pages, the subject intake forms, there are three character sheet.
Well this is like a in the in the Zine it's the back cover.
That's one thing I would do differently about the Zine, I
think is that the the way that they printed it, like what you
should be able to do is pair this page out and the pages
would be like back-to-back. But it's actually like the back
cover and the back thing. So it's not like the thing that
you could cut out and actually make the cards for, but you
don't need to because they send you the cards and you could just
print it from the PDF, which you also get in.
Fact, if you do pull out that last page, you pull out the last
page of the adventure. So.
Yeah. And you would tear off the back
cover. So yeah, But yeah, like I think
if they would have, if they had like like a piece of art like on
the next page or something and then like the last page
completely was like the piece that you could actually tear out
and use that would that would make the scene just slightly
more usable, I think in the way that the PDF is meant to be.
But but yeah, and that's it. That's the entire thing.
That's like we we we bullshitted for like 20 minutes to the
beginning and that's the shortest thing we've ever done.
Honestly though I animus, I meant to look this up and I
completely forgot what it meant cuz every one of the the company
things have like a like a Latin quote on them that are just like
worse than the last one. Like in in the context of like,
yeah, like how how fucked up it is.
And this one says the mind imagines the future.
Oh God, I love that so much because it's about it's a game
about like mental powers. Yeah, it's good.
It's good. So kicking to the review scores
of psychers. Obviously this is a scene
review. I mean the whole, the the entire
thing is like what like 16 pages and you know the most of that's
adventure. So for those that don't know how
we do this scenes, we rate on three scores.
Instead of 5 S Max score of 30, we rate them on visuals, rule
set and vibes. So visuals are all the visuals,
how it looks, cover, layout, art inside everything.
Rule set is the rule set. If it's adapted, do we like it,
If it's not adapted, do we like it?
And vibes are the overall vibes in the entire game.
It's a combination of the rule set, the visuals, the the
feeling of the game. Basically when you close that
back cover how hard, how bad you want to play it for a Max score
of 30. So visuals.
Thoughts on visuals? Oh visuals what an amazing like
visually amazing game like the attention to detail like the
like continuation of this theme of like kind of the employee
handbook or like the subject files like the layout is very
easy to read. The art is great.
There's just even if you go to like the last page that has like
the like character sheets essentially where it says like
lot under score, test subject number in in the under score it
says it's written like it's. Written.
Yeah, handwritten. It's such a testament.
It's like, yeah, I mean, what would you say about the bit?
Oh, just committing to the bit. Yeah, committing to the bit.
I was blanking on the term. But yeah, yeah, it's such a
testament to committing to the bit and I think it makes a lot
easier for you to like, get into this game as a like player
character. For sure.
Yeah, this is a pretty high one for me because I think visually
it's amazing. The cover looks great this that
band that wraps around. Oh, band, that's that's the word
I was thinking earlier. And if you get the chase?
Don't. You get the chase, you know.
Yeah, I I don't have that version.
And also almost no one else in the world will either.
So I'm not sure I can hear that. Yeah, shout out dirt.
I mean, I'll always shout out dirt, but yeah, I don't know,
I'm pretty high on this one, man.
I'm like, I'm like 8 plus on this.
Easy. Easy.
I mean, here's the thing too. Like when you look through the
PDF but when you actually flip through the book like it just
reinforces even more So like just like this is a spread of
the book and I just love, I don't know, even just like the
font choice, the way it's laid out.
I love that it has the like I said like the the the look of a
report on it where it has like the WB project report number as
the footer on every page and stuff like that.
It just continuously reinforces just everything and it looks it
looks even better. The PDF is is great, but it
looks even better when it's physically in your hand and
you're seeing what's going on. The the print quality two of the
Zine is fantastic, I mean. It is.
It's crazy how high quality even printed this for something.
It's like I think all together. What?
Like 14 pages or something? Yeah, it's crazy.
And then like just the the dark blue, is it dark blue or black,
whatever. The threading in the back.
It's not staples, it's threads. Like this is sewn.
You know what I mean? Like, I love that it's a sewn
binding instead of that. And like you said, the band.
I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm in an easy and easy eight.
I mean, I don't know where we put this too, but the the colors
too. I'm almost a nine, honestly.
For this, I I think it might be observing a benign, I mean,
there's just so much going on without it being too much.
It's just so lovely. Yeah, I mean at that point we
just start comparing things to other nines that we've looked
at, you know? And then what, like like look at
something. My thought would immediately
jump to something like 9 lives of Allah, Allah you know.
Would you put this in the same realm as that?
Oh yeah, definitely. I think here's the thing, I do
agree and I think this is one of the reasons why is that.
Like, I think one of the things I love about Nine Life's Bahala
is that like texture on the on the art.
Absolutely. But the paper itself physically
isn't texture like that. And this actually has like well,
especially the Chase version actually has like a texture and
stuff. Yeah, let's go 9 on this.
I I I think it's fantastic. I think this is a perfect
example of like this versus something like we love dwelling
super mutants, We love visually like the art, the pop like that.
Kind of like I don't want to say art punk style, but like so jam
packed with the color and stuff. This is almost the antithesis of
that in that like it's white, black, columned, everything like
that. But for what it's trying to
succeed at, I think it succeeds at perfectly.
And I think that's the point is that we don't need to compare it
to others. It's just succeeds at what it
wants to be doing perfectly. So yeah, nine works for me.
Rule set. Great.
I think it's exactly what it needs to be.
I I think the rules like reinforce this like volatile
human psychic weapons traveling through an underground facility.
I mean, it's so minimal, but I think that I that's obviously a
strength of, I mean do do one thing and do it well.
The like kind of like Fallout Death Rule where it's like you
die and everything around you're going to fucking die too.
There's just a lot of good here. Yeah.
I also like the the moving the metric metric of success to be
wider than like in the company so that you still you get that
feeling of success and also because in this game like
succeeding also like is going to cost you sometimes yes.
Yeah, I think. I think.
I really love that. That.
Like, yeah, that you you get stressed when you fail, but you
get stressed when you succeed too.
Like, stress is what will kill you.
So it's just like, yeah, why not have success be more likely?
Yeah, because you're going to get stressed anyway.
Yeah, I dig it. What are your thoughts?
Oh man, I I honestly don't know. I mean, I I'm still at like a
heavy eight, I think. You know, easy.
I mean, that's where my brain went.
So let's just do it. I again we said this before like
especially I think, I don't know if you think the same way.
I think when books I compare them a lot more to other books.
Yeah. And and when I think of them but
with zines I I think I think of them more as just like what it
what it's trying to do in and of itself.
You know what I mean? And.
With a book, you have so much more space to achieve, like
something. And with Zine's, it's such a
like limited space to achieve like a specific thing.
And a lot of the ones that we look at because we do, the ones
that we like, do those things really, really well.
I I think we have valid criticisms and maybe some
invalid criticisms about all of them.
Yeah, but we're perfect. Yeah, we're perfect in every
way. We're not dumb idiots at all.
Not even a little. Bit I forgot where I was going,
but yeah, I I fuck with this game heavily.
Yeah. Oh, the the Zine thing.
You were saying Like, like, yeah, I think that, yeah.
It's very rare to like compare 2 zines.
I mean also because they just do such like.
Imagine comparing this to acid mages You know, like.
Yeah, wildly different. Like you said, yeah, it's a
smaller space. So, like, it's more about to me,
yeah, I compare books to other books because they have so much
space to try to accomplish what they're doing.
But in a Zine, it's more of just like what do I imagine the
mission statement of this Zine was and does it accomplish it in
these three things? And that's the the thing for me.
So yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think the rule set's an easy
eight. I think I'm trying to imagine
what I would add more. I think if I if there was a
couple extra pages, I would potentially expand the trait
section just a little bit more, maybe some examples, a little
bit more things like that. You know what I mean?
Like minor stuff, minor there's minor bits, but like an easy
eight, I think for this vibes. Oh.
Pretty high. Yeah, I mean this.
I love this fucking game and I love this fucking team.
Really, really like this game? We.
Have to stop giving every scene we do fucking eights and nines
though we have. To but we only but we only look
at really good scenes. It's.
Very true. It's very true.
Well, yeah. It's not, it's not our fault
that all people that we know that make scenes do a good job
at it, like that's their fault, you know, like, yeah, do worse.
Y'all. Well, and the other thing too is
like we actively like if we look at something we go, we don't
really like this. We just don't do it because we
don't want to be mean on the Internet will be critical of
things that we like because I think that's important.
That's half the reason we do this is because I think a lot of
people end up in an echo chamber and hearing like, hey, you know,
this could be tweaked a bit. It's a good thing.
So eights or eight or nine? What were you going on?
Vibes? Oh I'm at 9 for this I want.
I love this. I like the themes it creates.
I like how the rules reinforce that.
I like how the structure of the Zine itself really like
continues on with that Wuhan Baxter like almost employee
handbook reinforcing where we are like it's this is a this is
a very good one. Yeah.
I'm also just like, I'm a Zine guy, you know?
Like, I like going over books. I like a lot of the books, but
fuck, I love AZI love a minimalist game.
Yeah, every time I get something and it's 300 pages, I just don't
want it, yeah. When we look at the game, it's
like 300 pages like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, so stop making games that have too much shit in them.
Because here's the thing. Almost every game I've read this
300 pages, could be 50 pages and has 100 and has 250 pages of
shit. There is a lot of fluff in a lot
of those, like longer games. I'm like, wow, you really didn't
need all of this. And like, I feel like sometimes
some of the really long games, there's a lot of stuff in there
that I don't feel super necessary.
And then there's stuff that's missing because there's just so
much other stuff. I feel it's almost expanded in
the wrong direction. But with like scenes where you
have one in space, it's like, OK, we have to like, hammer out
the necessities for running this experience.
You know, yeah, I just made like, if a book gives me 12
classes, please get rid of eight and put it in the second book.
Just give me 4. That's actually so valid.
Like, I love a lot of classes, but put it in the extension.
Yeah, give us. Or put it in the subsidiary
stuff and like, yeah, give us a mean lineup.
It's just it's completely different.
Like, I'm of the mindset word, like just give me the minimum of
what I need to run the game, so I can run the game and if I like
it, I'll engage more with it. And then there's people that are
like everything I've ever thought about this concept I
need to put into one giant book all at one time.
You know I. Think it's hard too, because we
are such a it's such a DIY community that when you lay out
every potential eventuality of your game, makes it really hard
to like, hack your game, create custom stuff for.
I mean, think of like 5E custom content like DMS Guild and shit.
Like all of it sucks, right? It always like it's totally
fucked because it's an overdeveloped game.
Mm hmm. But if you want to adapt this
like you could because just so it's so simple.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think while reviewing it, we hacked it
like twice, you know what I mean?
Like, I can imagine doing this in three different ways.
Anyway, yeah, we love it. We love Logan Dean stuff.
The company's fantastic. Definitely go check out the
review of the company. I would love to and we will at
some point be playing. Stop feeling either and or
probably both the company and Cycers here on the stream cuz I
would love to play both and both are really quick that we could
easily do side quests of both of those.
So expect that in the future. Expect anything else that Logan
Dean puts out in the future to be to be seen on the show too.
And Logan Dean is also part of Blister Critters which will be
dropping soon on the Kickstarter.
He is, yeah. Is he project manager?
Is that what he's doing? Yeah, I get a lot of behind the
scenes stuff of of what's going on.
So definitely check out our our interview with the guys from
Blister Critters. Expect to see them sooner than
later. Uh huh.
And check out all the Logan Dean
stuff that is our episode for today.
Back scene quest stuff, Support small creators, buy scenes, go
buy shit from Space Penguin Inc Dirts of shit.
Logan Dean is great. And we'll see you guys 20 more
times in the next month. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I really think that the next, like, it's only Thursday.
We have Friday and Saturday off before another episode and I
think it's the longest break we've had in three weeks.
It is actually the longest break, so.
That's it. That's our episode.
Find us at our link Tree. Slash the Weekly Scroll.
You can find us at Weekly Scroll.
Pretty much everywhere else. Weekly under score.
Do whatever. Subscribe to our YouTube.
Follow all over shit. Have a wonderful day.
We'll talk to you later. Bye.