Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. I am the father of cats.
And I'm Jared. And we are back for not Cat
Chats, I think episode 20. I think that's what we're on.
Yeah, I think we're on. That's right, 20 is right. 20
episodes of not talking about cats and then talking about cats
every fucking episode. But here we are.
It feels like it's been a while. Did we do one last month?
Or maybe it was the beginning of that month and the end of this
one. We missed out on last month
because I was travelling and. Thinking and then I Yeah.
And then I had a. You had a show the week after
that or that same weekend or something?
Yeah. I did a bunch of stuff too.
Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Yeah, look at look at the busiest one of us all but was
surprising though realistically since we started not cat chats,
I think we've only missed like two or three months.
Right. Because we've been doing it for
now almost two years, and I think we've only missed like two
or three, which is crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's been fun.
I mean, it's great to do this every.
It's the only recurring thing we have on the show because I feel
like sometimes it's more consistent than our reviews.
When's the last time we fucking do one of those?
But, but yeah, Oh yeah, we did. Before that was April 3rd, but
today we're talking about. So we're talking about new
releases from last month and we're talking about new releases
for this month on Space Penguin Inc.
Do you want to start with? Do you want to start with last
month's new new? Yeah, let's talk about Dungeons
of Galora. Dungeons of Galora, look at that
cover. Yeah, Gustavo is a hell of an
artist. Gustavo did everything in this
book. So aside from the logo design,
so. Yeah, there's only a couple of
monsters in here that I'm like, huh, that's weirdly upsetting.
Yes, yes, there are some really solid ones in here.
So I just pulled up this is the solo RPG inspired by Latin
America Dungeons of Glory. Like you said, Gustavo Filetto.
So what? So what the heck is Dungeons of
Glory? What's a pitch for for this nice
little perfect them? So Mesoamerica like like South
American like history and trappings and culture and things
like that and a dungeon exploration setting.
It's super straightforward, simple system like you have your
character and they have it's like other RPG systems, you have
your stats, but a lot of the gameplay comes down to dice
rolls. So it's, but everything is
outlined. There's, it's more like you're
playing through like a game book almost as you're playing.
Although each dungeon is different.
I think there's going to be some expansions for it in the future
detailing more dungeons and more monsters and enemies and stuff
like that and more treasures. So.
Very cool. Yeah, so, so the game is all
more guided as opposed to using an Oracle and solo play for this
one. Yes, yes, definitely,
definitely, yes, definitely combat focused, which is I don't
I don't solo game myself that often, aside from some games
like Charlotte's and K devs Rose Thorn keep that we publish that
one is more domain game type stuff.
That's the solos that I do aside from like video games and things
like that. So I don't know how well it.
I know it definitely doesn't rely on an Oracle, so you don't
have to have that do it, which is nice.
Yeah, but this is great. I mean, in that I also, I like
solo. We said this bunch of thing on
the show. I like solo adventure games more
than solo journaling games. Solo journaling games are fine,
but they just don't tickle my brain in the same way when I
have the time to do the solo stuff.
And this one definitely leans more like into like just solo
dungeon delving in the veins of like Kala Roth and the games of
like, oh God, what's that one? That's like 4-4 or dungeons deep
or 4, Four against darkness. Yeah, no, four against darkness
is, is another like solo journaling one or even, or even
12 years. So this one definitely was super
interesting to me because those are the solo games that I enjoy
playing. And this one really, really
scratches that dungeon delving itch because like you said, it
is straight up just a like combat dungeon simulator.
And I love the art too. This kind of like doom esque
like hands out in front of you. I'm looking at the playing the
game screen here and you can see like the walls around you and
the and this orc boss in front of you too.
And it looks sick as hell. Yeah, the art in this is like
really fantastic. We were talking about before we
started, but there's definitely some creatures on here.
I'm like, that actually is kind of a scary creature, you know?
I think there's a, there's a cyclop kind of looking monster
on page 43 that I'm like, oh, if I came across that thing, it
would kind of fuck me up a little bit, you know?
Yeah, definitely. Page 43.
Are you talking about the snake thing or the thing that's a
little bit? It's a giant sloth.
I think you're in. You're on a different 43 in the
PDF. I must be.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Corner and the little guy's
fighting. No, yeah, no, I see him.
He seems, yeah, he's quite upsetting.
Yeah, I would. Be if I saw that, like you know,
if I see regular orc or something, I'm like OK, that
like this one, I'm like, I don't think I can comprehend this
well. No, yeah, it's, it's, it's a
little bit. It's pretty far out there.
And is the so the designer is also the artist about the entire
thing too, right. Flutter did all the art as well
as did you say that already? Yeah, yeah.
And you're talking about possible expansions for this as
well. Do you know if he's working on
them, they might come out or and in what way would they do that?
Would it be like additional dungeon pieces?
Would it be like a new kind of setting for it?
It would probably be like Dungeons of Galora 2 where it'll
it'll have the the basic gameplay reminders and stuff
like that, but it won't have the IT it'll be a true expansion as
opposed like so you'll have to have the first one to do to to
play it, but it'll be like it'll be like way more monsters, more
dungeons to explore, different types of dungeons and stuff like
that. So very cool.
Yeah, I got to face his arm about that.
So yeah, yeah, to to make more or to just get done with the
ones he's working on. To to make more.
That's all. Yeah, like I said, you, you do
you guys has Space Penguin put out a bunch of solo stuff
besides, so there's Rose Thorne Keep, which is kind of like a
another dungeon delving but a little bit different vibe with
the more like pixel stuff. But have you put out a bunch of
solo stuff? We published or printed Young
Gardy and then. A much different kind of solo
game. Right.
And then what was the sorry, I feel like that we had one more
and. You're gonna say I mean.
Riding to go. Oh, we own that you.
Know well we own all of them so. Being an idiot for forgetting
which 10 tarnation which is more of a journaling game you.
See. Yeah.
Right. But it's more of a it's more of
a journaling game, Yeah. It's yeah, it's kind of more of
a journaling game, but Tarnation is fucking tarnation is fucking
great. Not just because I've been super
into Westerns for, for, for reasons, but that one is that
one's really good. So it's cool to add more solo
stuff to your catalog because like every year it seems
whenever they publish, like what games are popular in the world
or whatever, like what genre, solo games keep getting more and
more and more popular across the board.
I don't know if it's just because like we're all getting
older and have less friends or it's just like the world is
burning, but solo games are fun. People like, people like to be
able to pick up stuff to play in between when they're gaming to
scratch that edge of gaming. You know, you know how it is
like when you're when you're new to gaming, you're like, I want
to try everything. And so you fill up a lot of your
time with reading other systems that you dream about playing.
Whereas with the solo RPG you can actually just play that
system or you can play some something similar that that has
underlying dice mechanics that do exactly that.
Very true. And this game, I mean, it's got
some heft to it too. It is a perfect bound.
It is like 90 pages. So there's quite a bit of
adventuring that goes on in this.
So I don't know. I also think that the Lat AM
Teach RBG community is incredible.
Like so much of the stuff that they put out is just so
wonderful. So every time I see more like
Lat AM creators being able to put stuff out like you
definitely just got to grab it. Yeah, absolutely.
So that's Dungeons of Galora. How about the current thing that
you sent us that we were chatting about before thing?
What is the release for what month are we in?
Are we in April? We're in April, We're it's,
we're at the end of April. Yeah, almost May.
So what are we looking at here? This month this new release is
Steven Gitz. Even gitz.
Yeah, so. 28mm skirmish game, as with the other skirmish games
that we Co published and things like that, Definitely Cat Bash,
definitely build your own. You don't have to have anything
other than the minis that you have laying around.
That's what makes these little games like this so handy.
You've already got short minis and you've already got tall
minis, so you get your shortest minis and then you get your
tallest minis because you're playing the gets, which are the
shortest. They're kind of meant to be like
kids, like rat St. kids and stuff like that against tallies,
which is like, what did you say earlier, Ryan?
You were saying like you can see it in like a 40K setting with
like goblins running around against works and stuff.
Like Gobbles or even fucking space marines, like everyone's
battling around Armageddon, You got Space marines fighting orcs
or whatever, and little gobbles run around picking stuff up.
I mean, there is a line in here that says in the grim darkness
of war, which is very similar to in the grim darkness of the 41st
century or whatever. Like so it kind of leans into
that a little bit right from the beginning, but but no, it's
great. Like I was reading when I read
through it and then I read through it again this morning.
I was like, this is just so fun. The idea that and and and
anytime a game is just like you got shorties and tollies and
humans are then like people are just tollies.
Like scum does the thing too, where you're like your kids and
like adults are very much like the like I imagined hook with
all like a Peter Pan kids being like adults kind of thing.
And it just cracks me up. But even just the loop of the
game basically is 11 games are a little bit goofy but are still
like deep and fun. Like they're not just like
simple. On top of that, the idea of
because like the core, tell me if I'm wrong, but the core of
the game basically is like you have groups of of your shorties
and then there's tollies that are kind of like trolling around
and there's coins all over the board.
And it's basically an extraction cheater quote UN quote kind of
ish where the the you just go in, get the coins and get out.
But the way the Tali AI works where they literally have like
areas that they can see or area of line of sight.
And as you do stuff like they move and it's literally like I
was just imagining the whole thing dark and just like a beam
of light, like coming out and like you're tracking the the the
sight line. And if you cross the sight line,
you just get shot and die. Like that's the whole fucking
thing. So I don't know it it's it seems
incredibly fun. It's definitely a game that I
think me and hunter are going to play sooner than later because
this is one that is also super easy terrain wise.
Like you literally can just throw anything small and tall
out there and and do it. So it's definitely one that I
think is super easy to pick up and play is like even just like
your first or, or like a quick game to run.
You don't need to build a board. You don't need a like like you
said, buy specific minis. I don't know, it seems it seems
incredibly, incredibly fun. I really want to dig in the
campaign. That's the part I didn't read
like super heavy, but I'm curious how that's going to
work. So how does a campaign work?
You're asking me to refresh myself really quick so.
See edited by. Right.
So you, and so instead of just, instead of fielding a squad like
you would for a one-on-one game, you got, you got 12 coins that
you can use to, to build your squad.
And then it's just best of four. OK.
Yeah. And four.
Games and there's and there's four scenarios set up.
So there's stealing, there's Bog Town which is the Weather 1,
then there's the trenches, and then there's the headquarters
when you're trying to steal from the from the big bads and stuff
like that. Gotcha.
So it's also got some solo rules in here and Co-op rules.
Yeah, that's something. It's running a full campaign,
but also I thought the the way it's designed with the Tolly AI
because basically, you know, it kind of actually kind of reminds
me a little bit of Snack 28, which we just did because it's
basically like your guy, my guy, Tolly goes, your guy, my guy,
Tolly goes. And like you're basically
rolling AI for which direction the Tolly moves in and like how
it angles its, its field of view and stuff.
That AI is really well geared towards playing like a solo game
where you could just basically roll for your own too.
So that's really neat that you could set this up.
I like the Co-op version too, because the in the rule by
themselves kind of set that up too where they could just be
like, hey, we can both agree to to just try to get all the coins
off the board and just win. But that there's a whole
separate setup for for Co-op too.
Or or more beyond the two players just by adding more more
tallies and more coins. I don't know, it seems.
And also, I mean this, this is a hysterical page in the back.
You you, you wouldn't steal a git.
You would steal a git. Like if you stole this book, you
get an extra git. Crack me the fuck up.
Yes. And it's it's definitely for
those that aren't seeing visually what we're seeing.
It's indefinitely in that like you wouldn't steal a car font,
which is definitely a font that someone stole at some point.
But no, I was super excited reading this one because
obviously, you know, we've been doing a lot more skirmish stuff
on the show. So it was really cool to get
another skirmish game from you guys at Space Penguin, but it
just seems fucking awesome. Like, I'm so excited to play
this game. Cool.
I'm glad, yeah. Yeah, this is a good one for us
right now. This is really in the vibe that
we're in currently. You know something like super
light, you know you don't. The other thing too, I know you
said your favorite page was the dork Hunter, but the different,
the different git types are great too.
Because like, I really like the way that it's not just everyone
can be anything, but like you actually get like big bonuses
for like your grabbers being grabbers and your sneakers being
sneakers and stuff. And I can really imagine once
like all of your sneakers get shot or, or like all your
grabbers get shot, how much harder the game is going to be
to try to get the coins off the board.
So yeah. Yeah, definitely team
composition when you're building your squad definitely has a lot
of has a lot to do with whether you win or not.
I like that. I like the ability to like, you
know, whenever there's different types of units, like how you
finagle your unit to like work, you know, I really like the
Malagasy play Malagasy too. It's like you can really dial
into like supporting your own, like, you know, and this one
gets in between like with each other.
I love that. Not just a bunch of soldiers,
you know. Right, Yeah.
Another thing too is it doesn't seem like the game would be
super long either. I'm really curious.
I was, I mean, how it's going to play.
There's also been a lot of like, I mean we're on Twitch so I
watch a lot of, I end up watching a lot of Twitch and a
lot of the most popular games over the past like year or two
on Twitch have not been like big AAA whatever games.
A lot of them have been like stream games of like 4 people
getting on stream together and playing some game.
And a lot of them have been like these looter games where it's
like little robots trying to like go through a portal and
steal a bunch of stuff from some guy's house who's got like a
shotgun and like walking around like shotgunning anyone he hears
or theirs game dude. The gnome game with like, yeah,
no, that too. The gnome game is what made me
think of this one. But it's literally where you 4
gnomes go into this dude's house and try to steal stuff and he'll
literally like just murder the shit out.
Of. Him yeah.
And that made me think of this like super, super hard as that
kind of like group game that's been going around.
So it's, I don't know, this is 1 to always stick in them in the
mini's bag and be able to pop up anyway, really.
Yeah, yeah, it's super, super light, super easy rules.
So love that. You know, us over at Space
Penguin, we like, we like the lighter, simpler side of life.
So too much crunch makes me go insane.
Yeah, me too. I don't remember the.
Picture crunch to something. I'll just add it, you know what
I mean? Like, I'd rather, I'd rather
have a system that just lets me know how to think about how to
do things within the system, and I can iterate on that from my
own table, you know? Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I can't remember the last time I reviewed something over like 150
pages. Yeah.
Literally months at this point, I think.
So that's last month's releases and that's this month's release.
Is there a preview for what's coming out next?
Like what are we? What are we talking?
About next, the official release, excuse me, of bombs
bursting in air. Our Mothership Month product,
those who'll actually be going. Debbie's working right now in
the other room, packing up Wills run from the dark.
We got, we got, we had cascading fulfillments that put everything
behind. And then plus with me being sick
and Debbie working a bunch more at her day job and me working
some at a day job, we've been pretty much behind on
fulfillments for the entire calendar year of 2026.
So what you get when you take time off?
Yeah, how dare. You get behind.
How dare you? Yeah.
So she's working on fulfilling Run from the dark right now.
Those are all going to get out this week.
And then she's going to work on bombs bursting in air, which is
our mothership murder, murder, whodunit scenario situation that
Christian Kessler wrote in Bosa now illustrated.
So that's pretty cool. And Seamus Brad did the
soundtrack for so that's that's exciting.
Those are going to be fulfilling next week.
Cool. And.
Then that'll be our general release for the month.
And then we've got a couple of months of no new releases just
because we've been working on behind the scenes, getting
Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition knocked out, getting the new the
new Mork Borg Ink vein book that we just finished crowdfunding
for. Luke's working on that one and
so and all of the stuff that goes into taking care of of a
crowdfund. So yeah.
And then planning out the fall crowdfund if we're going to do
one or not and see like that. And so I'm planning out the rest
of this year's convention schedules like we're probably
doing Gen. Con and we're discussing doing
page, which is Philly Area Gaming Expo and also discussing
doing packs so. I really, I mean, I really hope
you do PAX, because you know, I'll be at PAX.
Right. Yes, Yeah.
It would be nice to see you in the flesh again.
Are you coming to Gen. Con or either?
Nice to see your flesh, no? No skipping Gen.
Con this year. I yeah, I used to Gen.
Con was one that was like, it was fun and interesting.
I don't know if I'll ever do it again.
It was just so big. It was just like it was a lot.
But I mean, it was really fun and Indianapolis is gorgeous,
but no, I'm not doing that. I'm doing like 5 or 6
conventions this year. So even if I wanted to, I'm like
scraping by for PTO and trades at this point to get some stuff
done. So but but Inkvane is the
Kickstarter. Well, it was over on backer kit,
wasn't it? Yes, it's over on backer kit.
So we didn't. So another successful
crowdfunding for you guys. You did more than double the
goal. So.
So how how did all that go? So like quick pitch on what Ink
Vein is and then how was it to get another crowd fund under
your belt? So it's a mega dungeon for more
board that deals with this magical ink that where a vein of
it is found and then all of the stuff that goes that's involved
in that. So I've just been, I know as
much about it as you all know about it from the crowd fund
page because Luke's been writing it as he as he's going and
working on it and illustrating the whole thing.
Again, I'm lucky enough to work with artists, illustrators,
writer illustrators who can do all of that stuff and keep your
vision cohesive. So that's pretty cool.
And that one's going to be a big one that's going to be like 200
plus pages. So we're actually nail nailing
down final page count this week based on stretch goals.
And then we're going to order a sample so we can get weights so
we can get the bagger kit pre-order store up.
Because I know there's been a couple of people who missed the
campaign that wanted to to back it.
So that's pretty cool. Excited for that part, not
excited for the building, the bagger kit part of it.
That part of it sounds. Is it any easier doing the
backer kit part when you actually run the campaign on
backer kit or is it basically all the same amount of work just
in addition? It's about the same.
Yeah. Yeah.
So there's nothing that talks any easier between it at all.
Nope, not really. Once your backers are, once
you're done with the crowdfunding page of it and
things are over in the Bagger Kit pledge manager, then that's
where you're, that's where you live.
From then on out, you don't really go back to the
crowdfunding page on either either Bagger Kit or Kickstarter
very often just to do updates. Right, so.
After. That.
So yeah, that's a project really smashed almost every single one
of its, Yeah. Stretch goals, huh?
Yeah, we got close to the second ribbon, which we might just go
ahead and put a second ribbon in there anyway, so.
Yeah, I'm going to hit a 48K and the second ribbon was at 50K.
Yeah, especially with some like late pledges and stuff like
that. If that pushed you guys over,
that'd be cool to get, right. I mean, the only thing better
than one ribbon is 2 ribbons, so.
Right. So true.
It's double the ribbons. Really.
You know it is. Literally.
Yeah, literally. Double the ribbons.
But yeah, I mean, again, you guys did you know on A20K goal,
you guys did almost $50,000 and hit all your stretch goals with
almost 900 backers, which is which is fantastic.
I'm very excited for that. And you know, more Mark Borg.
But you know the no, not a lot of people have done a lot of
mega stuff in Mark Borg because it's such a lighter system.
Usually see a lot of like short stuff or like shorter campaign.
So I'm really curious to see kind of like what they do to to
really make it feel mega dungeon.
There is a quick start. I I actually pulled up the
background page. You guys can still go to the
background page and download the free quick start.
But yeah, really curious to see how it goes out and and how big.
So in the preview, it's a it's a, it's a book.
Is it gonna be a hardback book? Obviously with two ribbons, not
one ribbons and A and a perfect bound.
But what did you say the page cat was looking like?
We're looking at 2:50 plus I think.
OK, 280 maybe it's gonna depend on where we hit with the stretch
goals, then where Luke feels like he's coming along with the
stuff. So.
Pretty cool. So there's a big boy book, you
know, that's like a, that's definitely like a campaign mega
dungeon, you know? Yeah, well most mega dungeons
are. You don't.
You don't usually watch out a mega dungeon.
Well, usually I, I always like a, we leave it and come back to
it kind of thing, you know? Very true.
I very. Rarely I know people do it, but
I very rarely a few times we've had like a mega dungeon in
setting for something I've run have we like been like we're
doing this for like 3 months, you know?
Yeah, which is why we never finish them so.
And this is. Is this the Is this only the
second thing for Merkborg Space Penguins officially put out?
Because you also did do editing for not for Space Penguin but a
Merkborg project, the to product nightmares.
But is this? Just this.
I was actually on the editorial team for the Morkborg core book
too. Oh yeah.
So is this only this? Is this only the second thing
you guys put up from Merkborg? Because the first one was same
Sorensen's. Empire, which was.
Yeah, which was also something a little bit different from
Merkborg, which is really cool that you guys are doing
different things, because that was like a giant fucking hex
crawl. Yeah, pretty cool.
So you got hex crawl and mega dungeon?
Yeah, which are two of my favorite things.
Yeah, I do love a good point crawl.
I do love hex crawls. I would love a good point crawl
though, I will say. Yeah.
And then you said you're guys are working on getting every
time we come on, we talk more about Liminal Horror Deluxe and
get to see more cool stuff. Where where are we at with that
as far as actually getting it towards people?
'S hands, that's Josh finishing up some maps, they're just a
little bit behind and then doing some test prints and then
sending pressing the actual print button so.
Nice. Getting pretty close.
Kind of feel good. Yeah, I'm excited to get that
one out the door. Yeah.
That too is going to be a big one, almost 400 pages, so can't
wait to see what people think of that.
I had muted myself to cough and then did not mute myself.
And that's the longest game that you guys have ever had in
development, right? Yeah, yeah.
Very excited to get that one in hand.
And then so you're outside of like a month or two, you said
you guys have a couple of months coming up where there's going to
be no new releases. Is that only going to be like
the second time that you guys are going to have a stretch of
memory releases? Yes, yes, because usually we
have a Zine, but we're we're working on a couple more
mothership things. We've got a Luke Gearing book
possibly coming up too, just just waiting on some random
stuff to happen for that one, so.
Cool, Maybe, maybe we can get maybe we can get Luke back on
the show and chat about some upcoming stuff.
Cool. Sounds like.
A good idea? Yeah, I have had a chance to
talk to him recently about some other things and it's been cool.
And and then after a couple months off, do you guys have, is
there anything brewing in the far future that you can hint at
or, or are we, we or, or no? It's all secrets so far.
All secrets which. Is my way of saying that I
haven't quite nailed it down yet, but I'm getting close.
Yeah, you want mystique there, you know.
Right, you know, it'll always be there.
The good thing about having you on every month, though is that
we get to find out early about a lot of things, which is great.
So if you're listening, you also get to find out early about a
lot of things, which is cool. And see everything that comes
out of Space Penguin. Yeah, I think.
And that's the other that's outside of ink fan and and and
liminal horror. Is there anything else that you
guys are currently like still waiting to get pushed out or is
those are the last two kind of we're actually.
Caught up elsewhere? Crazy crazy.
So when is the official? When?
What is your guys anniversary? It varies.
Sometimes it's the day that I left my previous job.
Sometimes it's the it's the first day that we were open for
business. Sometimes it's the beginning of
the calendar year. I think we'll be 4 years old
this year. Yeah.
And then what's what? What was the day that you guys
opened business? I don't recall.
Do you remember sometime it was sometime in March or May?
I think it was May. So, so, so we're basically at
the four year mark right here. Getting close, I think, yeah.
That's. Cool.
Congratulations, Yeah. Four.
Wonderful. Years.
Yeah, we'll probably do some sort of sale or something like
that, help blow out some of the back stock.
Yeah. You should definitely blow out
some of the back stock. Yeah, look at that.
But that's good. That's crazy too, because you
you guys have been basically around as long as we've been
around or vice versa, and for almost half that time we've been
doing this on the show. So that's kind of neat.
Which is pretty cool, yeah. That is pretty cool.
Pretty cool. Time moves forward.
Yeah, we're all still. Yay.
Yeah, yeah. Anything else?
Anything else we got cooking or are we going to let you go?
Because I know you're not feeling super well, so I don't
want to keep you too long on the show today.
Yeah, I'm going to head out and probably sneak myself some early
Sunday afternoon Z's and try to get over this wicked infection
I've been fighting off for a little while now.
So yeah, that's. Real definitely, definitely do
that. I'm also going to catch some Z's
for a different reason, but definitely go grab Dunn to the
galore and even gets both currently up on the shop right
now. Obviously the links below will
be below so that you can just click that and go grab those and
and at some point soon possibly open some ink vein bonus pledges
for those that didn't get a chance to do it.
But you know, go follow Jurt because space Penguin's awesome.
Go buy all the things and Jurt feel better and we will see you
next month talking about other stuff, all right?
Bye. Bye.