Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I'm Hunter and I Bust Bugs.
And joining us today is a very special guest.
This is Gary Snow of Daiku Podcast.
How are you doing this morning, Gary?
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the
show. I watch it all the time, so it's
one of my favorite channels and podcast.
Thanks for being here. I We also watch your show, so
this is great. It's nice.
It's a big problem podcast. Hey, listen.
Corporate synergy, guys. We got to, we got to start
getting more like the podcast people together to do more
stuff, you know? But you know, yeah, let's see an
anchor fight. That's what we got to do.
But so Gary, so for those who might not watch your show as
much as we do, who? Who the heck are you?
Who is Who is Gary Snow? Well, I'm Gary Snow.
I run the Die Coup podcast, which we feature indie game
designers primarily, and give them an opportunity to talk
about their new games. There's like a little sub
channel of the Die Coup podcast where I offered out to like
maybe new designers that just have a game that they want to
pitch and I call it Game pitch and.
People are welcome to come on and share their game and try to
get some traction because as you know, indie game design is very
tough business to be in. There's not a lot of money in
it, if any money that is. And so my goal of the channel is
just to give a voice to indie game designers and to also have
some, like really experienced designers on the show that could
provide advice for up and coming designers.
We. Respect that mission.
Absolutely. And you, you have.
Here's the thing, when we first started the podcast, I did not
expect, like, we never thought we were doing interviews ever.
And then randomly we got Johan Nora to come on because he was
like, hey, somebody interview me.
And then suddenly we started doing it.
But till this day, I still have this, like, deep fear in me of
like reaching out to these people that I see as celebrities
being like, hey, want to come talk to me?
So like, I get to watch your podcast and actually hear them
like talk about the stuff they have going on.
So it's really great to to be able to actually see those
conversations. I still have imposter syndrome.
Like some of the guests that I have on there, I'm like, you
know, I talk to them and I'm like a big fan.
I have to kind of tone it down how big of a fan I am of their
work and but for the most part I just like I, you know, I at
first I kind of was very shy about reaching out and then
after a while I went like, I just like enjoy it so much and I
enjoy the aspect of like talking.
Game design and talk in the TTPRG space, and especially
indie games. I just kind of got over that,
but I still have imposter syndrome.
Yeah. So you see, I just accept that
I'm bad at this and have no business doing this and the
imposter syndrome is just gone. Now, there you go.
That works. I, you know, I know I'm bad at
it. But you know, I try.
I try not to be so. We're just happy to be here,
frankly. That's what it is.
So talking about all these people that you talk to, how,
how did that start? Like, you know, first of all, I
guess let's go all the way back. You know, what got you into
tabletop role-playing games in the 1st place?
And then how did that transition into the podcast you have now
and and actually being able to talk to people and and bring
them on. Sure, yeah.
Let's go in the way back machine.
I discovered Dungeons and Dragons through a red box.
Some kid brought it to school one day.
And I was like immediately hooked.
And this was like in 19, probably 8586 for me where they
brought it. And then it was like, instead of
playing sports at recess, I was like, let's play D&D.
And I was just like totally into it.
And it just kind of kept growing as far as what I enjoy doing it.
But. You know, it's funny.
You kind of like, you know, growing up in the 80s, you see
those like 80s genre teen movies and stuff like that, and there's
the jocks and all that kind of stuff.
So I happen to be like a good hockey player.
And it was always a little bit odd because like as I got older,
I still love playing Dungeons and Dragons.
And you know where the whole city would come watch the hockey
game and then immediately after the hockey game, I'd like get
dressed really quickly and run over to my friend's place to
roll D 20s. Where all the other players were
going out to meet girls and, you know, do cool things.
And I was just like, no, no, I want to play D&D.
Hey man, rolling dice is cool, you know?
Hey, D&D is great now. It's all a lifestyle brand.
You know, it is in the it's, it's in the social smart word is
escaping me, but it's the fabric of everything now.
It's on a TV show, you know, so. Yeah, well, when I grew up, you
spoke of it in hush tones. You did not kind of let people
know that you did it. I remember like sneaking out on
road trips to go to a game store in a big city and like.
Sneak back a Champions game like and sneak it into my luggage
because it just was that kind of like at the time.
But over the years, I've just been like so happy that, like
you said, kind of nerd culture, so to speak has kind of grown.
And, you know, periodically I would kind of dip my toes back
into the TTRPG space because I I kind of hit my wall when I was
like playing Palladium riffs, which is I always say riffs.
Palladium Riffs is like the best setting I think has ever been
made. For role-playing games, however,
the rules in the system were so cumbersome and so clunky.
I just like it was a pain to GM. Now there's a Savage World's
Rift. So like, I actually haven't
given that a shot yet, but I hope maybe sometime soon.
But anyways, I kind of hit the wall and then life catches up
with you and you get married and you have kids and you have a
career. And you know, every now and
again I would dip my toes in like during the D20 Modern.
Era. I was like, oh, maybe I should
finally design that game because I was always I have a game that
I printed out on a dot matrix paper with the perforated edges.
Like that's how long ago I've been designing games.
I just, I've got so much stuff from the like that era of me
making my own games and and trying different things and I
would dip my toes back in and but you know life gets busy and
then finally probably about, you know, five or six years ago.
My two daughters are a little bit older and I had a little bit
more free time and between like thinking about designing games
all after all these years and my backgrounds in like multimedia,
marketing, communications. So I always, even when I took my
courses and maybe sorry for this aside, when I went to university
I at the time the Internet was fairly new.
And I went into this Community College because I was like a
deadbeat tree planter. That's a Canadian thing that you
probably like. It was a summer job.
I was hippie dippie. I had a 69 Volkswagen van.
And I I spend my summers tree planting with all the other kind
of bums out there. And that was.
And then I snowboarded in the winter and that was kind of my
thing. And then finally I I met my
future wife and I said, oh, I better get a career.
So I went into this Community College and on the board.
Had a multimedia program. I didn't understand anything
about the Internet or anything like that but there's one
program for graphic design and I went.
I always wanted to make role-playing games and if I can
learn how to be graphic designer maybe this program is for me.
And from that, my career just kind of like grew and grew and
grew to the point where now I'm like a communications
professional and. I don't know if I got off track
there, but anyways, I've always wanted to design games as the
moral of the story and now I'm able to do it.
Very cool. There is no track on the show.
We kind of just it's kind of just a very free form thing.
Yeah. Well, so it's interesting too
'cause we you know, I was like hey do you have a a logo or
anything And then I get this folder and it's more assets than
I've ever seen for anything we've ever reviewed.
So you can definitely see the the multimedia aspect and it's
and it's great. I mean it helps us a ton to get
so much information and so much help beginning as part of the
show. And you know for for those
watching the, the slideshow above is like half of a document
explaining you know like a pitch document explaining the game and
it's just so well put together. So I mean, you could definitely
tell you brought, you know work into this and it's, it's it's
cool to see. Well, even on my channel, when I
do the game pitch, I ask designers, like new designers
like give me a slide deck that we can talk to during the game.
And sometimes I get like a whole wall of text on a PowerPoint
slide and I was going, no, no, like I want the vibes, like just
put a few words or a couple sentences on there.
I want the vibe of the game, like that's what sells it.
And I often refer back to there's a Stranger Things Bible
and there's a link on my website to it where I always tell people
go check that out. Like the Duffer Brothers for
Stranger Things basically made APDF.
Referring back to popular culture and media that they were
building the world of Stranger Things based upon.
And that's what sold the the concept to Netflix and that's
what God had made. And that's the same thing with
your games. Like you should be able to like
put together a deck that like really just like is oozing with
reference and using with like vibes that people want to know
about. Well, not only that, I don't
know how you feel since we're in a similar space.
What's really helpful if you want people to review your games
too, Something that I have to do a lot of times is having P&G in
multiple colors of your logo that you can give to people to
post on things and having a one to two line.
Just this is a TTRPG that does XY and Z and like that's it.
Cause a lot of times I go to like an itch page or something
and I have to like pull from three paragraphs and then just
to get a pitch. And so having so one or two line
pitch and having you know logos and one or two assets that you
know so you can send to somebody will make people.
It'll make it a lot easier for people to review your game,
which will make it a lot easier to get your game out there for
people to see, so. Yeah, there's progress to talk
about it. So you can, you know, get more
people looking at your game. That's probably from my film
background too. Is the log line.
You've got like you know, the 60 word log line and 120 word log
line and you just kind of have it so that the media can kind of
just copy paste because media is busy.
Like they don't have time to actually like delve right into
the guts of your game. They just want the highlights
and be able to copy paste it in it.
Does make sense, Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you the
number of times I've taken a document and had to like export
it at like 12,000 Dpis so I can rip it out on Illustrator for a
logo. I mean I'm good at it now, but
you know it is helpful to to just have like a PNG.
So tabletop gaming, that's what we were just talking about in
your history and it how did that transition, you know, from your
marketing multimedia and from Dungeons and Dragons as a kid
into the the Daiku Podcast itself And like why did you
choose specifically like the long form kind of interview to
to start with and then and from there?
I've always loved like long form interviews like and with
podcasts I would just absolutely love them and.
One of my I used to watch Charlie Rose, which now he's
kind of a disgraced figure. But I used to love watching his
interviews and just like he would sit there and delve into
areas that you just don't get in that kind of five minute like
highlight and just I think you'd be authentic person generally
comes out after about an hour of like talking and people get a
better sense of it. And so when you don't start
delving into somebody's background and their history and
kind of what makes them tick. And then you can see how their
decision making process happens. And I just find it fascinating
because you get all these interesting people that come on
the show, they're all from different backgrounds and and
they share their process and it just, I don't know, it's what a
way to connect with the author or the designer and just kind of
really get a better sense of what they're trying to achieve.
And I guess as far as timing went, you know, much like
everybody else, it's like during the pandemic and I was like.
Hey, maybe this is an opportunity to do everything
that I've always wanted to do but just never had that chance.
And so it kind of grew out of that pandemic era and finally
having that opportunity. Yeah, You know, there's not,
yeah. There's not like a there's not
like a way to say this. Like the pandemic is awful.
It's still happening for a lot of people out there, especially
those that are immunocompromised.
But the so much of the TTRPG space, there was like a like a
pandemic renaissance in a lot of different directions, both in
like podcast reviews, like a lot of people starting channels and
a lot of people making games. Like I would say like probably
half the games we've talked about came about because someone
was like, all right, I'm stuck in the pandemic, like let's make
you know, XY and Z. So it's, you know, if there is
any silver lining to, you know, how awful that time was, at the
very least we have stuff to talk about now and we're talking now
kind of because of it, because I would have never, never started
this if not for the pandemic. So yeah, it's at least
interesting, yeah. So, oh, so, so no.
What's up? So, so no.
Go for it on. There we go.
So bug Busters. Yeah, bug Busters.
What is Bug Busters? Tell us about Bug Busters.
Well, and we talked a little bit about this before we got on the
air, they. Of all the designers that I've
kind of talked to, one of the common things that has come up
is like, you know, get your first game out of the way and
just do it. It's going to be trash.
It's going to be garbage. Just get it over and done with.
And so I kind of had that experience, but I just never
published it. I just kind of realized as I was
interviewing all these great designers, I was just like,
yeah, this is trash, but why waste any more time getting it
done? I'm just going to do it.
And I used to have like a long list, and I still do have a like
a long list of notes of. Here's a concept for a game, and
Bug Busters was a tiny little one where I was like, what if
there's like alien Exterminators or Exterminators Exterminators
fighting an alien invasion, the secret Alien invasion, and call
them Bug Busters? And that was just one sentence
that I had there. And eventually I kind of went
maybe there's got some meat on the bones of that compared to
some of these other ideas. And it just kept getting more
fun to kind of think about and make.
And then, like, you know, you most design is like spent just
thinking, right? So I'd go for walks and after
about an hour I'd have all these ideas and I'd come back and jot
them down and jot them down. And then eventually it just kind
of had some life to it. And as I kind of started in on
it and I went, you know, what if there's just like these scrappy
exterminators in the 90s? Just like they're down and out.
This is like, not the job that they wanted to have.
Like, they're they all have failed careers of like maybe
they've been downsized, or they're arcade closed or the
video store closed and now they're stuck being bug Busters.
But they get thrown into this unique situation where they're
fighting a supernatural alien invasion and nobody cares about
them, but they're saving the world.
Great, great entry pitch. You know, one question I had
because it says their secret alien invasion is happening.
Does the world know that this invasion is happening?
Or the bug Buster is like literally like no one cares and
no one cares, you know? One of the conceits of it, and
it's kind of like one of those things I try to implement.
There's like a bug Buster code where?
You, you don't try to involve the authorities because you have
like these secret experimental weapons.
So like you don't want the cops to be around.
You don't you don't go for help. You are the help.
And so nobody knows really what's going on and nobody but
would believe you. Like, it's kind of like Men in
Black in a way, where like, it's happening and you're accepting
of it and there's like a whole lore of where Doug.
The founder of the Bug Buster franchises.
He's started this battle in the 80s and now you're running a
franchise and there's like a whole lore of background story
where he was fighting in the swarm wars in the 80s and but
you know he's dug and he busts bugs and he's he's now giving
you a franchise in the sketchy part of town.
And so you're in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
There's tumbleweeds, there's like stray cats, There's you
sitting there and you drink beer, play poker, and.
Fix your Bugmobile and crank that music up to 11 it.
I'm not gonna lie I fucking I love Doug it's such a good the
whole like I'm Doug and I bust bugs like stamp tag is just such
a good it's on the screen right now for anyone watching at the
top of that page. It's such a good piece of
marketing and one of the things that's not in the slideshow,
like one of my favorite things is the the Yellow Pages ad
that's in the in the bug. The ads where people see on the
Kickstarter, oh, it's so good. Again, it's very clear that you
do this and you did a really fucking good job with it.
And I'm excited to see it all over Twitter and the social
medias and stuff. But I can't wait to actually get
to the Kickstarter page and just see it all laid out for
everybody. I'm really excited for that.
I should probably note that I didn't do it on my own, cuz I've
got three incredible artists working for me.
Who? And Bazooko on Instagram.
Gareth Little. And he did a lot of the logos
and that kind of stuff in the patches for me.
And then there's Mac tag art, who does the weapons, which I
love his weapon design and that kind of thing.
And then there's also Kyle Burrells, Kyle Hazzard on
Instagram. Who does a lot of the bugs for
me and a lot of the the background stuff.
So the three of those just like they're they're so instrumental
in bringing the vision together and I'm just kind of helping
make sure it happens. The art for this is like, I mean
we were talking before the show started about like how
impressive this like packet of stuff that you sent us was like
it's it's so above and beyond, but other people usually send
out before when we were reviewing their game.
Like how early on in the process did you like start like OK,
we're going to start accruing assets immediately to be able to
sent out? It's been about a year since
like the original, kind of like making sure that the art was
lined up and making sure that everything was coming, and I've
been sitting on it for like a long time.
Of going OK, like when do we launch how much do I trickle out
and that kind of thing and I just kind of felt the timing was
right to OK, it just makes sense now I've got so much art and
there's actually so much it's not even shared.
So and we've and also the benefit, we've talked about it a
little bit before where to launch your Kickstarter, but
have it done as much as possible.
And so that's like, you know, I take that to heart where I've,
I've already got stuff going for the first kind of splat book as
I call it, you know, playing on the the bug Buster theme where
it's called Connor's corn Maze. And you might see it behind me
in the background where that's the kind of the first Splat book
where it's called the Connor's Corn Maze, where there's some
strange happenings in the local corn maze and you are sent there
to investigate. That's the way.
It's almost like Scooby-doo Ish, you know?
It's a little bit Ghostbusters, a little bit scooby-doo and it's
like, you know, a fun and fun and gun game.
Like, I mean, usually there's some a lot of hijinks in all the
play testing we've done. Like, you know, you try not to
involve the police, but really the police should be called
because the stuff that happens usually something, don't worry,
usually something explodes at some point.
Hey, never call the police. That's what we've learned.
So as far as the the game itself, the core system of the
game, is this a, is this a hack of a system or is this something
that you've devised, you know, from playing for a long time And
like kind of what is, what is the core of the game?
Like how do how are we gonna actually play this?
I'll start by saying like it's got OSR sensibilities.
And when I say that, it's like there's no, there's no
attributes for intelligence, there's no in tributes for
Wisdom or there's no perception checks like you go in there and
it's the player curiosity and the cunning that really comes to
the forefront. So, but with that said one of
the. The easiest games that I've ever
had the pleasure of playing is Ghostbusters by Sandy Peterson
and and crew, but the he came up with the D6 system which is kind
of like AI think fallen out of flavor.
It was used in the Star Wars D6, the West End Games version.
Is it like it's like a dice pool?
It kind of like a dice pool. Like kind of.
Early days of dice pool didn't quite act like most dice pools.
Now what happened in the old days is you just count the
number of pips on the dice. So you might roll 6 dice and
you'd count them up and you'd be exhausted by the end of the
session. Because it was always like, I
don't like counting, I don't like the math, I don't like
having to roll and then count to see if I win.
So I took that core concept that Sandy came up with with and they
had a scale going for like, you know, 6 to 30 or something like
that. It was just like, big, right?
And I went, there's got to be a way to simplify that core
concept because everybody says it's such an easy system to
learn, the Ghostbuster system T6.
And I said, well, why don't we just take the top two of all the
dice and put it onto a scale of 12?
And so now when you roll 5 dice and you see the top two dice,
you go, OK, it's like a six and a five, it's 11 and that's.
Very quick. I found people do that and then
like almost any other hack, like it starts like that and then you
go, well, what can we do to like make it work even more?
And so that we implemented the lock dice so that you can
replace any of your failed rolls with another dice.
So you know, I've got like these red lock dice that you can then
you get 6 to start the session and then you use them
throughout. But then it kind of evolved into
doom dice. Where hey, you could actually
take on doom and replace some of your action dice with black
dice. And then if as soon as you use
them on that roll, so if you're desperate, you go, OK, I'm going
to use a couple doom dice and I'll take the trauma and then it
goes into your doom pool. Which eventually evolved into
this idea of a doom stack where you stack the black dice up and
then when that dice tower tumbles over, you're
unconscious, or the equivalent of 0 hit points.
And it might sound complicated. It's kind of tough to explain.
But when you see it kind of play out, I find most players can
kind of pick it up and like like literally a minute where they
go, OK, I get it, let's start playing.
And so with that simple core mechanic and the way the dice
work and then the trauma is all that those black dice and
damages received and those black dice, that's basically the whole
system and unto itself. So it's super, I think, minimal.
You know, it's kind of rules. Light flavor, heavy.
Yeah, I mean it's just like, I mean that makes total sense.
Just switching dice in as like a form of currency essentially
that you're spending and one is just has the potential to really
mess you up. I was interested in the Doom
stack. I'm glad you brought up because
I was looking at obviously the asset packs you sent over, it
mentions the Doom stack like in playing.
Does that do people's Doom stacks like fall over like quite
a bit? How often does that happen
within like a regular session? Well, it kind of depends on the
situation. It's kind of a nice add on.
You certainly don't have to do it.
It's like a kind of a tactile Jen Jenga tower if you want to
implement it. But there's kind of some
criteria You got to be on a stable playing surface because,
you know, somebody gets up to go to get a drink and they knock
everybody's dice over and all that kind of stuff.
You know, some people also just go, yeah, it's kind of gimmicky,
which it is, but that's part of the fun and gun aspect of it.
But the character. There's nothing wrong with that,
that's. Like a fun thing.
It's fun. Yeah.
Well, so it's, you know. It's designed to be fine, but if
for some reason you don't want to do it, maybe you don't have
the motor skills to do it or whatever.
There's also on your character sheet a tracking system that
works perfectly fine in the exact same system, and it looks
like a real life Doom stack where you're building up Doom
and then once you hit that certain threshold you go over
and depending upon what's happening at the moment, that's
the repercussions of that. Nice.
Well, that sounds like a wild. Yeah.
Well, because D6 you would be like, oh, you can stack D sixes,
right? But like in the core system
graphic here, it says when you roll under you receive the
amount of doom by the difference in the risk roll.
So if you are under by like 7 or something are you, you're
stacking like 7D sixes so your stack can get really, really
high. It's not like it falls over at
like 5D6 like you're talking like 15, you know, plus D sixes,
that's. Well, in the play testing,
generally speaking, I would say the average that somebody can
get to is 7 or 8. But I've had, but I've had some
people get to like my one daughter that was playing can
get to like 16 or 17. So yeah, your mileage may vary,
but that's kind of the variability of it.
And that's kind of like the unknown, like you never know if
that one die could be the difference between the falling
over. Or not.
Or you might have a a few others and you can also like offload
some of yours to a group doom pool.
So if you go hey if I take one more die I am screwed and you
can just put it on the group student pool and it kind of
creates like a a joint effort and then if the group student
pool falls over then bad stuff happens everywhere.
Very cool AI love D6 systems. There's a million.
Like every time you think you figure out every way that people
can use D sixes, there's there's more ways to do it.
But it's really interesting that like, Ghostbusters is one of the
primary inspirations for this, and you're actually using the
Ghostbusters D6 system. Was that just like, oh, I like
this system and this happens to fit?
Or is there any type of like you know pretty much of that?
I am a huge fan of the Ghostbusters system and the
Ghostbusters game, and just kind of the humor aspect of it.
Like I said, it's kind of like a fun and gun type of game.
Sandy Peterson, who's been on my channel and I was that was one
of those moments where I was like, oh wow, like I'm
interviewing Sandy Peterson. I just love the game.
If people people still play it today like at Halloween in
particular and so I always like go every time I would come up
with an idea for a system I go oh you know what it's really
just a rip off at the D6 West End games D6 system.
And so I truly I give credit to that kind of concept So I can't
help it out. It's probably hardwired to me
that anytime I think of the game I'm like OK D6 system, like West
End games. How can I make it work and.
And you know, like anything, like I said, you hack it and it
evolves into its own thing. It's like graphic design, like
you steal inspiration from people and then but by the time
you're done with it, it looks nothing like it did in the
beginning. I feel like all designers like
eventually fall in love with a dice mechanic.
If you are in like RPGs and you play them and you think about
making your own, I think everyone just like finds their
niche dice mechanic that that's the one that they love.
Like I'm a big D20 roll under Guy and Ryan is a massive like
2D6 partial success. So, you know, you might that's
just my that D6 might just be you, you know?
Totally. And it's funny too.
I hate roll under like I I use roll under for saving throws in
this game. But I hate rolling under to
achieve something, and that's partly why I would like I like
you got to roll high. That's cool when you're trying
to do stuff and roll high. Yeah it does confuse my tables a
lot. Just when I pull up some like
hack that I wrote and I'm like yeah it's it's roll under and
they're like Lowe's bad no and. Then go into go into Ryan's
complication thing. There's if you tie and I should
back up and say I tried to make this like you know how hard it
is to GM. Like, my heroes are the GMs, and
I wanted to make this as easy to GM as possible.
So the difficulty of the bugs is based on that scale of 1 to 12.
So if the bug is at a 10, that's what the players are trying to
get, and if they don't get it, that's the damage that they take
from the bug. But if it's a tie, that's what
we call it, Jinx, and that's where it's a success.
And they'll do the weapon damage, but there's no kind of
bonus to it. And then there's a complication.
So, you know, kind of like Powered by the Apocalypse, If
you roll that jinx, there's a complication.
We love comp. We love partial successes here.
You just got to, I mean and double S on 2D6 is well, it's
like a it's like a 2930% chance of like double S So you give
like a one to three chance of getting that anyway.
And I'm I'm still playing with that kind of last little bit,
like the rules are like 95% baked in, but for me like roll
in the box cars. I've got like 3 different paths
that I'm kind of exploring. But one of them is almost like
the the DCC spell where you roll on the weapon table and based
upon whatever you roll on the weapon table.
That's the unique. Effect.
Because as you might have seen in the pack that I sent, there's
a lot of weird, quirky weapons and I want those weapons to kind
of be forefront in the game. And so that would be like a
random table after you get that Boxcar success.
Yeah, I'm excited to see the Insecto Sonic, you know,
Bazooka. Definitely high jinks, I think
is definitely how this feels. I'm very excited to do some
buggy high jinks. So you said the game is 95% done
right now. This is one thing I keep saying
this and I keep coming back to it, so I'm sorry if I'm jumping
around patches for advancement. So first of all graphically
fantastic, but how how does that tie into the the game?
Like are they like the patches that that you wear on your your
jumper or like how does that kind of tie in?
Yeah, there's patches that you get when you encounter different
things. So there's like there's four
saving throws. There's only four attributes, I
should mention one of them being cool.
And so the four attributes are cool, handy, agile, and tough.
And beach, one of those also has a kind of a saving throw
associated with it. And I know common knowledge
would be no just have attributes and, but I really like like the
flavor of saving throws. And so for each one of those
there's like web. So there's if you encounter
where you get stuck in a web, it's an ongoing effect.
And once you finally figure out, you get through those saving
throws of the web to get out. You get a patch for it so every
time you encounter it like your first like beast thing like you
build up immunity and same with web you learn how to get out of
the webs or if you've been in a sprayed by a slug with acid you
learn OK, I need to avoid this. So then you get your patch after
the first time you encounter that.
So those are kind of four patches associated just with the
saving throws, and then the other one.
Great. Advancement mechanic.
Well, I've seen a word like you fail.
And that's why you learn, right? So that's based upon the fact
that you've encountered it, you got through it and you learn.
And then there's also kind of more levelly type patches where
it's the pupa patch, the larva patch and the slug.
What am I trying? I'm trying to can't remember the
name of it slug. Hug.
Grand. Splat Master.
There's the Splat Master and the
Grand Splat Splat Master. And finally, when you retire
after 20 adventures, if you get that far, you get the Order of
Doug. That's so great.
Like, I'm so excited are now these are in game patches.
Is there ever going to be a time where there's going to be like
physical patches that you'll be able to like pass out or
stickers or? Anything I was going to ask?
I would absolutely. I would absolutely love to get
these patches into people's hands.
But it's like, you know, when you talk about this is kind of
my first game, right? And you keep it simple.
And I would love, love, love like, I mean, if this had like a
mothership, exponential hockey stick growth, then I would like
love to add those on. But realistically, that might be
something that I have to do in the future.
That just means that we have something to look forward to in
the next drop for Bug Busters. So I will Buster. 1 E You know,
Yeah. Since.
We'll just call it 0 E Yeah, game out for years and then call
it 1 E Yeah. Anyway, so as far as the actual
product itself, do you want to talk about like, what people
will be able to get from the Kickstarter?
Is it primarily just going to be the book or or or?
What are you thinking about for actually fulfillment and stuff?
Yeah, it's like I said, just keep it simple.
It's going to be just the book. It's going to be a hardcover
book, about 150 pages. It's kind of what we're shooting
for. If we reach different tiers,
it's just going to improve the quality of the book and whether
it's bookmarks or anything like that, we just, I just want this
to, you know, not everybody makes multiple games like this
might be my only game I ever get to make.
So if I could leave a legacy of like a nice quality book, I'd be
very happy with that. I love a Kickstart project
that's just like, oh, you're just going to get a high quality
book and you don't have to worry about a bunch of like, I have so
much stuff that I've never used or just like waiting on feature
creep, you know? But I have to ask is there's
going to be like a $3000 gold in laid version.
I'm asking for a friend that demands to buy the one of one.
Yeah, the one of one. Probably not.
But I might might be convinced. I don't know.
It's like I said. I would love like, I mean
there's different. I have so many different ideas
of the the future of what Bug Busters could do.
I've got like all sorts of crazy adventures and spot book ideas
going around in my head. So I really hope to support
this. I know one of the things that
people do is they make a game and then they just leave it.
My hope is to really foster a community around this.
Yeah, you know, that's something we've discussed on the show here
a couple of times and now there's people that just like
making games and that's great. Like I love playing a a ton of
games. But it's really nice when
someone makes, you know, like a like a game that has room to
grow and they decides to to stay with that, You know, then you
can get things like UVG and UVG to E you can get, you know into
the odd and electric basheline and mythic basheline.
I mean in a game like that, like one tier, you get like or like
2, you get a PDF, you get a hardback.
We're not doing anything else. And that's so smart for,
especially for Chris McDowell and the amount of fulfillment
he's going to have to do to just be like, Nope, book.
That's all you're going to get. And you know, for your first
project, you know, that's fantastic.
I really do hope that the community does build up around
this and like as things continue to drop, we can get more and
more stuff for it because it'd be really nice to get to fulfill
the original vision is that the kind of help with it is to keep
putting stuff out, keep letting it bigger and bigger, and
eventually be able to do all the things you wanted to do with it.
Yeah, and there's a number of factions and like I said,
Connors coordinates. It's already kind of half done
on play testing it. And that would be kind of the
first Splat book. And then there's like all sorts
of factions, like secret government agencies, There's a
nihilist skateboard gang, there's other rival
exterminators that might be referring back to the swarm wars
in the 80s. And Doug and his partner might
not have gotten along. So I don't want to be too
spoily, but there's all kinds of stuff that we can do with bug
Busters. But ultimately, you know, it is
kind of a beer and pretzels fun and gun game and.
It's meant to be fun and like, I've had play tests where people
are like crying out of the humor of the situation and that's what
you want, right? Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, again, this just looks fun.
I love games that really get gamey, you know, that really
kind of like dig into all the stuff.
But like when you can see a project that's obviously very
clearly, like thought out, well done, been worked on like you
said, like way before, people are going to start to see it.
And then you know like when you sit down at the table that it's
going to be a good time. Like these are exciting
Kickstarters that that I really enjoy backing.
It's just it's great. Like at the end of the day,
like, I when are we going to get this?
That's the real question. Like when is this actually
coming to Kickstarter? And then since most of it's
done, when it does drop, what's the hope for fulfillment time?
Like when? When could we physically get a
hard back of this in our hand? My hope is that Goes to
Kickstarter kind of ended January, early February.
I don't want to interfere with the Zine quest too much, but I'm
like a small potato, so it's not like I'm.
You know some big company coming and I'll probably just fit right
in with all the other, the other folks.
But that's kind of my hope is to do it in and around that time.
And then like I said, my hope is it's like 95% laid out and it's
just that live last people can get the PDFs almost after that
fulfillment cat time frame is over with and then maybe catch
some typos and fix a few things and then send it right to the
printers. So in my head I would love to
have these available for Gen. Con and have them for sale at
some booths or something like that.
If like there's various indie publishing groups I'm part of
and maybe have a have some copies there we got to actually
go to AT TB Con at some point and this is going to go to a
printer, right? We're not doing like drive
through PO DS or anything like that or you going like real.
Yeah, it's got to be offset print for me, other than other
than the PDF delivery might be through drive through, because a
lot of people actually do enjoy having that in their library and
and that kind of thing. But as far as the printing goes,
yeah, it'll be definitely offset printing hardback.
Nice. Any Any chance we're going to
get hyperlinks in that PDF? By chance?
Is that a thing that you're looking at?
Because I'm like a multimedia kind of nerdy guy.
And I see some of the PDFs that people like send and I'm like,
well, yeah, they're just a PDFI actually, I might even go like
crazy and have like a navigation system as part of the PDF, not
just hyperlinked links, but like it's going to be like a video
game. I don't want to over promise.
But in in my world, I'm like, oh, why wouldn't you make the
links within the PDF and have it like navigate, navigate the
wall? I'm not even saying that right?
But you know what I mean? Where people can like jump
around and it's like like almost like a video game where you can
like click on things and go to different pages.
That sounds amazing. I mean obviously you know for
anyone that's listening to the show for any period of time,
that is a hyperlinks and and navigable PDFs are something
that we push a lot. And a lot of it's because of
like post pandemic, a lot of people still aren't playing at
tables. So being able to have APDF, you
know, I can flip through a book relatively quick, I can stick my
finger in a page and go back and forth.
But when you have like 150 page PDF, it's so nice to be able to
hit the bookmark tab or be able to click back and forth.
So it's really great to hear that that's something that's
also going to be part of it as well.
And the other thing too is like I want to provide something for
free so that people you know can get a feel for the game.
And also you know when you're AGM and you go OK, share my book
and like all that kind of stuff. I want to have like a free PDF
called like the employee welcome letter where you're on boarded
and that's your character creation part of it.
That'll be for free and available for anybody.
So you can go to your Kinko's or your staples and do a coil bound
book and print it out and you can have like an extra two or
three of those kicking around for those occasions when you're
playing with a team of people and you just go here.
That's what's up, I notice in the picture of the artists and
maybe like a peek at your shirt. Right now you're wearing a bug
Buster shirt. So those exist in the world
already, are they? Is there going to be a way to
get that? Maybe not through the
Kickstarter, through your website or something?
Or is that a solo project? You can buy them right now on my
Spreadshirt, Spreadshop Spreadshirt website.
You can get the Insecto Sonic. You can get Doug Ibus Bug Shirt.
You can get the Bug Buster logo. You can get the Insecto Sonic
and No Bug Too big. So there's a whole bunch of
shirts like that that you can get right now.
I take no cut in that. That is like I reduced it to I'm
not making money off of it. You're paying whatever the
absolute bare minimum is for those shirts.
I think you can get to that through my YouTube page.
Gotcha. Well, I mean, I just made a post
it note, so I'm definitely gonna snag one of those I.
Get some bug Buster shirts now, so.
Yeah, beginning a couple now I I definitely have way too many
shirts and yet somehow still feel like I don't have enough
TTRPG shirts. There's plenty of people out
there that need to get like a bonfire or a Spreadshirt or
something and just start a sign up.
Cuz I can tell you right now, I would rock it all day.
What else can we say about Bug Busters?
I mean, this is such an exciting, like I said, you know
when you reached out and when I saw this the first time, first
of all, again, blown away by just the media package in
general. But the system, the game, I
mean, it really speaks to what I really enjoy about games.
First of all, 2D6. The art's fantastic.
It just sounds fun at the table. I just I don't really know what
else to say about it. I'm excited to hear about it.
I can't wait for it to to actually drop.
Is there any have we have we. I don't know if I think we
talked about this a little bit. Is there any chance you might
think about coming back and maybe running some bug Busters
if you if you get the time? Yeah for sure.
Like during the Kickstarter. I would absolutely love.
I can run you through the early edition of Connor's Corn Maze
and I. We would.
I think we would love that. Yeah, that's going to be a
really good time. I already know my character.
His name is Chad. He also cleans pools during the
summer. You know, I I should point out
on the character sheet, there's no first names, last names or
anything like that. You get a call sign like Top
Gun, right? So.
And nobody remembers Chad. It's a, you know, X pool
cleaner. Like it's a pool.
Boy. Pool boy, yeah like so whatever
your call sign, you know. Come in, Pool boy.
Like that's going to be it. So there's like a whole name
patch on the character sheet that has the call sign for it.
That's awesome. Is that something you pick at
character creation or is that something that like during the
first session someone does something you're like, oh,
that's you from now on, like or is it mix of both or or how does
that go? No.
You come up with a call sign and as you roll your pasts and you
get your like, whether it's like the pass are like ex.
Arcade manager or xvideos store clerk or RadioShack salesperson
or disbarred lawyer, parolee, Drifter, all these people that
have like kind of been down a note, they've been downsized and
now they're a bug Buster. So you get like also a bit of a
background of people you know and an item or items that can
add a little bit of flavour to your background And then yeah,
based upon that, if you can come up with a cool call sign and
that would be the icing on the cake.
Yeah, well, we're going to we're going to hold you, Hunter.
I think to and Gary remind me because I'm going to forget
about 3 seconds that you are absolutely pool boy.
That is the character you're going to get when Gary comes
back on the show. I'm so OK with that.
I won't forget so. No, We can also ask Ozo because
he'll remember all of it and he's here for every episode.
So yeah, thanks for thanks for being here, so.
Yeah, I mean, this is coming soon.
As you said, it's dropping at the end of January, beginning of
February. I'm just wrapping everything up
as far as like what we've talked about.
So my brain knows 150 page hardcover.
We're pretty much going to get like what I look at PDF and a
hardcover tier. It's going to be pretty much
ready to go. You're going to come on the
show, we're playing with us during the Kickstarter and then
when the Kickstarter ends, we'll get the PDF and it'll drop.
So. I mean, there's just not much
more to say. Like this is just a really
exciting game and and and I'm just, I'm blanking right now
because I just, this is, this is exactly the kind of game I want
to see and exactly the kind of game that we're excited to have
here on the show. So what else?
What's any last words you can say about Buckbuster or anything
that we can do to to help get this you know, more into
people's hands? Well, even you know, aside from
Bug Busters itself, which I appreciate all the kind words
And you know, ultimately what I would love is like people
watching your show I know are into indie games.
People that watch my channel are indie like games enthusiasts and
I just think you know in the world of Wizards of the Coast
and and all the the big players like get out there and support
indie games. And it's a kind of it's a tough
slog if you can get out there and like you know people it
means a lot to people. Any game designers, when you
give them a kind word on social media or just go, yeah, like
good job, keep it up, it's it's not an easy road to go on and so
get out there and support to indie game designers.
Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, and and for
anyone that likes our show, we the things that we do.
Gary does better. So if you like our show, if you
like our interviews, if you like the the game pitches or you know
we we do a creator cuts where where people come on the show
and they'll run the game. We're been doing side quests
where we'll have creators come on and actually kind of teach
the game a little bit. But going through your podcast,
watching the way you do things, I know when you had the outer
rims we were talking about a little bit before and you had a
bunch of the people on flipping through everything.
Part of it it's just really. Great content and as you said,
it's it's really great to see someone who supports the indie
scene. And I know we were talking
before about getting more of these indie podcast people
together, but it's just like we should and it's it's nice to see
people doing the things that we hope for.
Because the reason we even started this was exactly what
you're saying is to get more eyes on the indie space.
So for our listeners, you definitely, if you haven't
checked out The Daiku Podcast, it's Absolutely Fabulous.
And where can people find the Daiku Podcast?
Where can people find any more content or if they have any more
questions? I want to see more about Bug
Busters. Where can people find all those
things? Sure.
Well, Daiku Games is kind of my handle a lot along.
All the social media and Youtubes and everything.
And it's funny like, you know, you you decide on names and you
go daiku games like a die and then KU like a haiku.
I wanted it like simple game design, but people read and go.
Deku is that heist and I'm like, no, it's like it's like a die
daiku, so. That's one of the first things I
wanted to ask too, is like, where did Dico come from?
So, you know, it's it's it's good, it's good, it's good to
know all the way here at the end.
And it's like, I don't know if it's an Easter egg or if it's
just me unwilling to admit that nobody gets it.
At the end of every one of my interviews, I do a haiku based
upon the interview in the game. At the end of it, like, you
know, when you like it trails off.
There's a haiku of each designer that's been on my show about the
game they've made. And so if he really wanted to go
three, he could scroll to the end and look at it each haiku.
And they're usually pretty bad because I'm not a good poet.
But anyways, I tried to kind of it's like the GEICO lizard in
the it's the haiku and the daiku.
So that was my attempt at kind of clarifying that.
And just just more more complications on top of it.
It's great. It's it's just you know the the
space is so big and so broad and so many people like I said Luca
I'm going to say it now wrong too.
Luca rejik A wreckish wrong forever and I'm missing it but
the first time I heard it correctly was when I watched
your episode so and I still don't know how to say Nate
dreams name. So I guess one day we'll we'll
figure that out. Nate Treme.
But I've I've screwed up too. As far as like, I think famously
for I had Yohai Gal on my show and at the time he was like,
well, it's unprinted like I said, can I get it phonetically?
And he was like, no, no, it's like impossible.
And I was like what? How?
And so I went in kind of a bit blind and I like totally
butchered his name and there's this like awkward pause after
like I mean I just like totally butchered it.
But anyways I go, how can you not do it phonetically.
So it was like it can't be that hard to do but now it's now I
know and same with Luke. I did I I think an audio podcast
where I did the exact same thing but you know you you I've
learned or time to their names and as you get into the the
little world but it happens you just.
Got to look at the mirror and say it over and over and over,
you know, there you go. The, the, the insurance and outs
of podcasting here from 2:00, indie podcasters here on the
show. Listen, Gary, seriously, it's
been a pleasure having you on the show again, Big fans of the
show really, really enjoyed having this talk.
Can't wait to have you back on the show.
Absolutely. And just, I mean, it's already
the end of November, so maybe two months from now, we'll have
Gary back on the show, we'll bust some bugs, we'll be able to
see the Kickstarter in action. Seriously, really appreciate you
being here. Well, I appreciate being on and
just keep up the good work cuz I do love your channel and podcast
and you're doing some really good stuff, so keep going.
Thank you. Thank you.
It generally means a lot to you. Yeah, absolutely.
It's a huge it. Means a lot to you, yeah.
So Gary said. All of his socials and stuff,
but everything that you need to know on where to find him.
Where you can find bug Busters, I always point down.
It's not really there right now, but we'll be in the links,
whether it's on podcast or on YouTube, and click all of that
and you can always find us at our link tree.