D&D is For Nerds - Jarren's Development Blog #2 - Adapting Characters

Episode Date: February 8, 2025

This week Adam, Jackson and Zammit talk about adapting the characters from the campaign of Jarren's Outpost into board game characters. All the missteps along the way, their individual approach to game design and the stages of grief when dealing with their beloved Nok Nok.You can play the tabletop sim version of Jarren's Outpost here, Follow us on Kickstarter and if you're a SP+ member, you can navigate to the member's discord via your account menu or join the public Sanspants Radio discord. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Ugh. The ScoreBet. Trusted sports content, seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 Plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to ConnixOntario.ca. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's episode

of the Jaren's Outpost development blog. I'm Joel. I'm Joe. I'm Jackson. I'm Adam. And today we're talking about adapting characters. Yes, we're talking about taking the characters from the Jaren's Outpost campaign, which hopefully you're also listening to, the remastered version, and trying to turn them from funny D&D characters that we played into, you know, a set of rules in a board game.

Which was like both extremely easy and extremely difficult at the same time, I think. I know where you can kind of like look at me like, well, they are already characters in D&D that have their own class abilities and that kind of stuff. Just do that. Just do that guys, duh. You're like, well, yeah.

But. That's a starting point. It's not even the same genre of board game. You can't do that, yeah. But... That's a starting point, I guess. It's not even the same genre of board game. You can't do that. What's happened is, and I think this is very interesting, is there is a set of rules in D&D that informed a character creation, and then that character creation was used to create a set of rules. That's very true.

You work backwards to do it. But what's also tricky, and we talked about this I think a bit in the last one, is that when you're making a character, because of the rules of the game, you have a couple of areas where you can make them feel different, and that's the movement, the special ability, and the stats.

And so what you have to do is you have to take the D&D character and synthesize it into using, you gotta be like a Greg Pierce, he's a slippery big cocktail, but what does that mean in terms of like, you know, when he moves forward? What does that look like and how does that play? Yeah, so like I remember it very initially,

we were playing around with, I think alignment was an issue. Yes, that's very true. Yeah. Cause like, you know, we played D&D a lot. Alex, who did the like the very first iteration of the game had never really know, we played D&D a lot. Alex, who did the, like the very first iteration of the game had never really played a lot of D&D. And so it was kind of, trying to understand like,

like, you know, knew a little bit of it here and there and getting some of the aspects of D&D and then to put in the board game and to see if that really worked or not. And there's some stuff that I'm like, D&D is complicated. Like there is so many like rules and you know, there's a whole, there's a stuff that I'm like D&D is complicated. There's so many rules and there's a whole book about, I want to say, just on grappling.

Yeah, exactly. And also the thing with D&D is that it's a set of rules to tell a story, which is not what a board game is. Like D&D is, in this game you're going to want to assassinate someone, but we want to make it kind of feel fair when you do it whereas a board game You're trying to achieve a very specific set of outcomes And then it's like the rules of the board game is what allows you to do that So but yeah one of the initial things in the very first like foundational version of the game And it stuck around for a little bit too was the idea of alignment so some of the NPCs were good aligned Some were evil aligned and some were evil aligned, and some were neutral.

And that we realized, I don't know, I wanna say maybe six months, it was a pretty early time. I was gonna say, I think maybe by two plays of the thing, we were like, we should nix this. We were like, I don't know what it's doing really. We shouldn't do alignments. It was just one of those things because it added more symbols as well

in terms of when you're doing the whole board game. Like, you know, you're trying to create your own symbols to mean certain things. And so I was like, well, if you're a good align and you end on a hostile or a bad alignment, then they're going to take damage. But if it's neutral, like it's fine. If it's the... And they just kind of added to this. It came from a design principle, I think, which made, which was trying to turn Dungeons and Dragons

into a board game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. Which is funny, because I've played board games that basically have that promise. And I'll be honest, I've never really loved it. To me, those feel like such completely different worlds. Whenever I'm playing a board game, and I think I talked about this back years ago, Zama,

when we had a- Like a board game? Board cast? Cramps this back years ago Zama when we had a Board game podcast? sort of what we call it Brain cramps Brain cramps Which is a board game podcast. I always find that there are these board games that try to do like the fantasy D&D thing and every time I play them I'm like why am I not just playing D&D? I think I've said it before I'll say it again. Gloomhaven does combat like a board game and does combat so really well.

And it does feel like, I think it, honestly I think does like combat better than like even just regular D&D. But I don't understand why it's a board game. It's incredible feat. It's such an impressive game. I'm so like impressed by what the creators did with it. And I'm'm just like I don't understand though. Like I think why yeah, I think some people find D&D and role-playing games I think they find them very intimidating because there's a very huge

Self-directed aspect to it You can get like a pre-written module, but that I mean not to say the gloom haven is cheap But that is an extra cost and then it also requires a dungeon master to read through it, understand it, and then, even then, there is still a lot of self-directed stuff where a pre-written module might explain a character's motivations and what they want to do, but it's then still hugely up to- I think it does that thing of reducing the, it's just, it's D&D, but you're removing that element of like improvisation and of like,

I guess the role playing part of it. Which I get, it is intimidating for some people to be like, it's like performing, you know what I mean? And some people, that's just not what they're into. But I agree, to me, from a personal perspective, I'm like, I love that part of D&D. But anyway, I think, yeah, when we initially gave the pitch to Alex, Alex tried to part of D&D. But anyway, I think, yeah, when we initially gave the pitch to Alex,

Alex tried to incorporate that D&D into it. And I think over time, we've not removed the influences, obviously, still there. But a lot of those mechanics, we were like, well, it's actually not relevant to the kind of game we want to make. I think the design document, if you will, not that there was ever a very standardized design document, but I think the idea swapped from trying to make a Dungeons and Dragons board game

with the Jaren's Outpost characters and making a Jaren's Outpost board game. Absolutely, 100%, 100%. So it kind of went from this idea of like, okay, get rid of alignment and then it was like, okay, what characters do we have and how can we make them different from each other because you want to make them all feel a little bit different.

Yeah, absolutely. And we also then want to kind of like, you know, then, alright, then we really hone in. Yeah. And so I was like, alright, cool. Everyone's got your base movement and that's kind of just like, you know, forward, left, right, back. And then I was like, okay, cool. And then we're going to have, you know, seven playing cards or seven movement cards all up. So from that, you have three extra cards to kind of move around with. Yeah, to do some, have some fun with, you know. playing cards or seven movement cards all up. So from that you have three extra cards to kind of move around with.

To have some fun with. Kind of like, you know, cause again we know, well, why isn't there eight? Why isn't there nine? Why isn't there 10 different movement cards? And like, well, I guess, you know, we're doing like this whole seven days. You have these kinds of options.

It does mean you can kind of like double up, but does have those limitations. I think as well, and I don't know if this is just, and like this is a weird thing as well. Maybe one day we'll talk about this more in depth, but we've been playing this game for so long that I'm so intimately familiar with it. But I feel like, and again maybe this is not true, but I feel like having fewer cards means

you learn to understand the cards that you, you know what I mean? You're like, okay, I got my basic cards, but then these three, if I play this character enough, I'm going gonna get very comfortable using. I don't know, I think there's some value there. Yeah, and so it's like that, health, and health has always been connected to your bag slots, and it was like how healthy you are means how more you can pick up.

Yeah, if you lose a certain amount of health, you lose one of your bag slots, going down into your dead. And then there was initially three different stats, skill, attack, and defense. Defense stayed around for a long time. A lot longer than it should have. It survived several iterations.

It survived, it went away, then it came back. Yeah, yeah. And then it went again. Because obviously the game does have like a dice rolling component, where you would need to roll a dice to pass a skill check or to pass like a combat check and Those you want them as low as possible because you need to hit that number or lower, right?

I remember I remember that being a whole thing because of defense. We wanted your defense higher Yeah, and whatever you would explain it in the in the you know that this element stayed around long enough that we were showing people the game and like like playing it with people who weren't familiar with it And every time they play it you would be like you want these low But these high. So what you want to do is on a d6 you want to roll your dice And then on your on your character sheet you basically or your character board You'll have your target number so you need to hit that target number or higher Yeah, it's like you know if it's a target number or higher. So it's like, if the target number is three, you gotta do four, five, or six, right?

So you got a good chance. Now you've got an item which adds to that as well. And so you're like, okay, well I rolled a two and then can I plus that? So that's a four. And it just became this weird kind of thing of like, okay, how do you explain that? And then this and then also like the damages.

So like, you get it because it means if you if you roll the The number on the thing which is adding to that is it means that your target number is actually lower not higher Yeah, and so I'm so sorry there were items as well. If you recall, I'm sure you do there were items as well that could Worsen. Yeah, something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Also made things really bad. Yeah. So it just ended up being like,

all right, you roll on the dice and then you add your modifiers. It's also kind of like, you know, can be this sort of ham holdover of that D&D aspect as well. For sure. But yeah, it was definitely one of those things, like last episode we talked about like desire paths and that was definitely one of those things

where every time we would play it with somebody who wasn't familiar with it They would be like I'm annoyed by this and obviously I think you know That's the thing too when you're making something and you're putting so much effort and so much of like your heart and soul into it When people are annoyed you kind of bristle at that But then what you got to do is be like, you know what they're right Just like swallow my ego here and be like, you know what, good point.

How do you explain this in a visual language? Because you really have not a lot of space to tell this. I think one thing we ended up doing was on the character board, as opposed to having numbers, you just did the dice face with an arrow kind of pointing up. So it was like, okay, so your target number is also on the dice, so cool, there's the dice face, and then up, and So it was like, okay, so your target number is on the dice. So cool, there's like the dice space and then up.

And then it was, all right, cool. So if I'm picking up a plus two item, that is a plus two after the roll. Yes, yeah, exactly. Then it kind of makes a bit more sense in a very quick visual language kind of way. For sure, for sure. So going back to the characters we had,

the initial three, which were the three player characters of the campaign. So it was Periwinkle, Greg Piss, and Leo Shadow. And so we had this, Leo was an assassin of all sorts. You then had Greg Piss, who was the bard. And then you had Periwinkle, who was a bruiser. And so it's like, okay, how do you change these characters enough to kind of like really pare it down to kind of like, how do we want them to be? And I think it was for me that really helped was going right. If I am walking down the streets of Jaren's outpost, how do I want each one of these to feel? Yeah, okay. Yes, for sure.

So for Leo, it was like, right. I want to be able to go quick. Yeah. Also I want to be able to sneak So I want to be able to kind of like move left right Yeah, yeah And not take damage and sort of be able to like set up an attack move and so like, you know maybe hit and run so I can like attack someone and keep going and I think it was the combination of The the movement cards which is hit and hit and run, which is a dash, so you can kind of move two spaces,

but you do a little bit of damage in the middle, like in the first move, and then you go forward, and then it was a backstab, which was you attack behind you, and you don't take any sort of retaliation. And so it was like once it was getting those two moves kind of paired together, that he fell into place. For me, at least, when it was like once it was getting those two moves kind of paired together that he fell into place Yeah, this is me at least when it was like no, I agree

It's a really weird thing and it's like one of those things where you just kind of I suppose you vibe it out But there does hit a point where you're when you're doing something like this where you're just like, ah Yeah, the character works and like it's not for me. I don't know that just how my brain works But it's not this thing that I'm like consciously, I don't have it all in my head. And then I'm like putting the pieces together. It's like, you kind of feel it out. And then, but then you hit that moment

and you're like, oh, this is perfect. This is kind of how the character always was meant to be. So yeah, you know, I don't know. It's a weird thing. I'm terrible at that. I, I'm either my mode is it's always needs to be iterated on or it needs to stop changing now, lock it in. Well, that's, I mean, that's- I'm one my mode is it's always needs to be iterated on or it needs to stop changing now lock it in.

Well that's I mean that's one of two modes. I'd absolutely I mean both of those are right like there's definitely and it's very useful I think that's what it's been a very useful role that you've had here where you're like stop. Stop messing with it. Hey hey hey hey chicken's done. Chicken's done. Chicken's done.

Take it out of the goddamn oven boys. I don't know about that I feel like every. I feel like every time I've ever come at it with that sort of perspective, I feel like the two of you have been... I think my always iter... And maybe this is a dangerous lesson to learn, but I feel like my keep iterating side is always correct, and my lock it in has always been, the two of you have been like, well, what if we fiddled with a little bit more? And I've never been like, oh, go back.

So I don't know, maybe my own reiterate is correct. I think it is just so useful to have somebody who's like, hey, guys, take your fingers out of the pie. Stop messing with it. It's very interesting though, Joel, to hear you talking about how you saw it as a... thinking about how the character walks down the street. I always took it as more of a... maybe a more mechanical look.

I always thought of the skill and attack as two sides of a coin, or maybe not a coin, but as two kind of ends of a spectrum. And I always thought every character I peg as being at one end or the other or in the middle where, like for example, Greg Pierce he's pegged heavily at the skill end, a periwinkle is pegged at the combat end, Greg Pierce is in the middle and then I think sometimes what we've done- Leo's in the middle. Oh Leo, oh so sorry.

Fake fan. You confused me. I'll say it. Don't even know Leo's full name. Leo, I'm so sorry. Fake fan. You confused me. I'll say it. Don't even know Leo's full name. Leo Mario? Close enough, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and then anytime we've discussed

or thought about subsequent characters, if they're not in one of those three positions, I'm always thinking, oh right, so it's a combat character, but. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, yeah. For example, previous iterations are, oh sorry, like previous iterations of Periwinkle, I believe, had different like powers and abilities.

And I saw that anytime my brain is like iterate, it's because of the, it's, Periwinkle either has all of the combat stuff and some cool powers, or it's because he doesn't... it's like some imbalance in my brain. Of between the two sides of the spectrum, yeah. He is combat, but he's like got a bad... he's like got awful damage, but a great attack, and then he's got these powers, or something like that. If that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's sense Interesting way to think about anything about how the character moves. Yeah is kind of almost incidental Okay, my my approach is always narrative Yeah, like everything that we kind of did was trying to be like alright narratively. What is what does this mean? How does this make sense? How does this make sense? You know towards this character as a as like, you know, as a character. And that's where I was like, right with Leo. Cause what's that with Leo? Cause I think he was the one that we sort of nailed pretty quickly. Absolutely. Leo, like I want to say,

you locked in with Leo. Yeah. I think that really helped is that you are because obviously you play Leo in the campaign. I think you just played a lot of Leo and sort of figured him out. Yeah. Cause it was like, okay, cool. We got to have this guy who's like a little little little guy He's like moving around the move around the board not taking too much damage Yeah, or like avoiding a lot of the damage he could take because you wanted him. I want him to be weak Yeah, because you're like, well, he's a he's an assassin. Yeah, let's make his Health low. Mm-hmm. And so I think of the starting characters. He's like one of the most like low

So yeah, let's make him a little bit weaker so that, look, we can set things up so that he's like sneaking around doing some damage, but if he messes up, oh no, things can go really bad for him. And then it came down to like a special ability. And I think I forget initially what they were. And initially like these kind of played around with them and it was like well the special abilities came to be you know passive or active and so We were like well, let's make him because he has this magpie familiar in the story Yeah, so I was like, all right. Well what makes sense here? So he's walking around the city but like oh, maybe his magpie is like swooping around and being like, that's something shiny

Let me let me have a bit of a taste on that. And it was initially, the items have these like small and large. And so like initially it was, oh, well, small items only. That makes sense, the magpie can't lift it. But then I think we started towards the end, like, you know, towards the end, but like lifting restrictions in certain other ways.

We were like, stuff it. Why restrict yourself to that? Any, like any item is on, like our location is on other ways, we were like, stuff it. Yeah, why restrict yourself to that? For sure. Any item is on, like location is on, any item that's there as a free action, just grab it. Just grab it, why not? Have some fun with this. And I think that helped locking that in.

Again, I think one of our biggest, if we have any design philosophy, I think it definitely is like, what is fun? Like what is, because I think in a weird way, sometimes that narrative, I mean not always, but in that instance, it's like it's kind of, it restricted us. Because it was like, well a magpie,

can't pick up a big item. You know what I mean? Think about it, look at that magpie. That's what a magpie was crazy. That's so crazy for me to hear. It's all numbers for me. I want you two to know. It's only ever been numbers for me.

Well I think I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I feel like I'm far more holistic about the whole thing where I'm like, I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I'm far more holistic about the whole thing where I'm like I'm kind of always thinking about the whole game Yeah in terms of like just the sort of like the the the dance Yeah, you know between players in between items between NPCs between what you're capable of doing in a turn But between like this kind of yeah I kind of feel like I take it much more as a whole and see how everything plays against each other, which is good, it's good to come out

of three different sort of philosophies. But yeah, having that idea of like, what's enjoyable? Why are we restricting ourselves? And like another thing, so with that ability, I remember being reluctant early on, I was like, oh, but if Leo can just, cause you know, that's an anytime ability, you can pick up an item. And I was like, oh, but Leo's gonna be picking up

so many items that Greg Pierce or Periwinkle are. That feels like it's gonna be overpowered. But then, and I remember having this discussion, we were like, oh, everyone needs to be overpowered. That's how you make the game fun. Everybody is, don't make anyone weak, make everyone too powerful and then pare back. That's so much easier than starting from this small point and trying to grow

Yeah, then we had something Leo we were like, all right sweet No, you have to change their like his skill was quite I think it was a skill is like attack were quite balanced that I think he was a bit more Better with skill and then his attack wasn't as good But then it's like well his whole point is picking up weapons Absolutely, and Leo had making himself, prepping himself. That was the beauty of the original three for me. The beauty of the original three was... I guess they are that spectrum.

Yeah, I love it so much. Out of the box, coming out of the gate, Periwinkle is good at fighting. He has the good numbers for fighting and Greg Pierce has the good numbers for skill. But Leo didn't have as good at fighting as Perry Winkle. He didn't have as good a skill as Greg Pierce, but that extra item made the difference in either case. Absolutely. And the thing with Leo as well that a lot of his movement, correct me if I'm wrong, is like it's a damage instead of an attack. Yeah. So the hidden run, which is the dash, it is. It's a damage. It's a base damage. You don't have to make any check or anything.

It's fine. It just does one little damage. Harry Wicker just doesn't have... You know what I mean? So it was a little chip damage. I think that was the first time we were like, yeah, that's like almost like a war of attrition. Yeah, exactly. Like somebody was using his around. And so I was like, all right, cool. So we put him away with like sweet and he's largely just being that for like the longest time. And then it was Greg Piss. And for a while, everyone had like four item slots.

And it was eventually was like, all right, you can either have four small items or two large items. And initially you couldn't pick up NPCs. Yes, that's very true. Then it was kind of like trying to figure out what is Greg Piss? And it's like, well, he's a bard. He is this like, you know, silver tongue.

He's this kind of person who is just like, we'll always like, you know, I'll cut a deal. I'll do this kind of stuff. He'll be basically robbing Paul to pay Paul. Yeah. And I think we really wanted because like, you know, this feels like I'm tooting my own horn, but everybody loves Greg Pierce.

It's true. I mean, you know mean I can deny all I want but Greg Pierce is a fan favorite so he's a fun character he's a really good character it's that moment where it's that like cuz you are um I guess renowned Jackson of a buffoon yes yes I am a clown and so with Greg Pierce it was like it's buffoon but a locked- in buffoon who knows what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it was like you locking in as it were.

Yeah, people like, oh, holy shit. So I think there was this like, for me at least, I was like, we gotta nail Greg Pierce. Greg Pierce needs to be, you know, cause people talk about, oh, he's pulling all this amazing shit out of his ass. We need to give him, you know, we need that. He needs to be able to do that in this game.

Because I can imagine, if you're a big fan of the Indies, who knows, you open up the game and Greg Piss is like boring to play, or it doesn't feel like the Greg Piss in the story, you might be disappointed. So in my head I was always like, this we have to nail. So we were like, all right, let's, what, and you, I think it was, yeah, I think it was you, like why can't I just pick up like one of the NPCs?

I wanna pick up a guy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, all right, okay, fine think it was you. Like, why can't I just pick up like one of the NPCs? I wanna pick up a guy. And you're like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, all right, okay, fine. Let's, let's, you know, handle it. Let's try that out, yeah. Let's try that out. And so we have like an interact as an action, which is like, lets you interact with an NPC,

the location or the item that's under that location. And so I was like, okay, cool. Well, a lot of Greg Pierce's moves, let's have as interacts. Yeah. And so we made, you know, it's again to be like, all right, let's try and like, you know, not too overpowered, like cool. For him, every NPC is gonna be small.

So he can like, he can fit three NPCs at any one time in his backpack as it were. Whereas everyone else, maximum is two. And like, sure, he can't pick up as many big items or as many items, but he can always have as many guys as he needs. Yeah. Oh, absolutely So it's like cool. Let's give him like three slots in the backpack And then for his move set we're like, well, he needs to be slippy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely constantly moving

Yeah, yeah, so we had like I think he's got like, you know a dash that he can kind of like dash interact So you can kind of move Move interact for the space and then move to the next Like kind of move around absolutely You got a move where you interact at the location you're on and then get out of there I think which is very useful those interactions I think the the plethora of interactions that he gets are I think the the plethora of interactions that he gets are

It unlocked kind of like the most Greg Pierce option that exists in the game right now I think is which is rather. Oh, well, sorry It was once back with a previous iteration of picking up NPCs But there was the feeling of I think the I think I've remembered the first time Jackson you were playing Greg Pierce And you moved to a space with an interact there was an enemy there You knew you were gonna take damage and you were like, oh wait, I just pick them up Yeah, yeah, I have the interact. I'm not doing anything. I just put them in my backpack and then I don't get attacked by them Yeah, and it was picking up NPCs works a little differently now, but it does still have that kind of bad energy Yes, yeah, absolutely definitely has that feeling of like

Because so, you know the way the game works is that if you remain on a location that has a hostile NPC on it? If you're there at the end of the turn you will take damage from the NPC, but you can instead Chuck the sucker in your backpack exactly and you're okay You might take a little damage at the beginning, but then rather you're home safe You used that to just you didn't even want the NPC. You'd use it all the time and all of us would. Anyone who's playing Greg Pierce would use that to just avoid damage. And it does a wonderful, this is extremely,

I think there's a real lovely synergy here where Greg Pierce is annoying to play against because not only are you picking someone up so you don't have to deal with them, you can just take them off the board. Yeah. And the other players that are like, oh, I was really trying to get Puppalittle- oh, but Jackson just put him back in the NPC deck. Okay, cool. Awesome

Loving that literally. I mean, we're still you know Playtesting some new stuff. We were doing that today literally today as Greg Pierce I managed to screw you over monumentally Yeah experimenting with new characters and stuff like that So I it was very fun to get back into it and be like a Greg Piss could be annoying It was like it was it was I think it was like a one-two punch Yeah, just absolutely ruining my day. It's like you were really having a wrong one It was like a realization of like oh wait Zammat wants this character

But I am in such a position where I can use Greg Piss's movements to steal him from Zammat. Yeah, okay Oh, but while I'm here I can also where I can use Greg Pess's movements to steal him from Xamet. Yeah. Okay. Oh, well while I'm here I can also think Xamet's sword. It's it's yeah, you stole like an item that I was using and then you got that and I was like that really sucks because well I needed that for this other thing. Yeah. And then you then stole Papa Little or Aph from underneath. Yeah.

I was like that also sucks because I was setting that up for this other thing in one fell in one in one go. In one go. You go you just ruin my Day, and I just need to step into the location next to me and just drop him off, and I got a victim. It was great Beautiful. Thank you so much. I love it. I love this for me good. Yay. Love this game. We made together But yes, it was a good it was just a good like it'll like oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. That's a great piss He's very annoying to play against, but so much fun. Yeah.

So it was trying to be like, all right, so he doesn't really do a lot of the combat stuff. No. So he's trying to be like, all right, cool. So he's picking people up, he's dropping them out, he's grabbing items, he's doing this. But what I also like about the game that we've made is that, well, if you wanted to,

you can still do some combat stuff. Like you can pick up some items, help him hit, you can pick up some items, which when you discard, do damage. And so like you can gear yourself up to do those little quests that like you need to do. Again, literally the game we played when we were play testing this morning was there was a section where I had that move forward and interact and on the location that I moved forward to interact was some daggers. The way daggers work in the game is that you don't,

you can discard them to do damage to an NPC. The NPC I needed to kill was there with two health, daggers did two damage, and it's not an attack so I don't need to roll my attack. So we just move forward, interact, pick them up, throw them, bada-bing, bada-boom, quest on. Like, yeah, you can still, you know, every player or every player character is competitive in some way across every quest. You just have to think about it.

Yeah, you just have to be clever about it, I was gonna say. All the combat characters can do the skill-based things, they just need to be clever about it. The skill characters can do the... the numbers can be balanced. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. The characters are all individual and have their own individual ways of playing, but the items allow you to kind of play any way you want, which I think is great. I'm very proud of that fact. Yeah, so with Greg Pierce, that was this idea of, for me, going down the streets and like zipping along and like running around and maybe getting a couple of licks in from other people because you know done some terrible things to their wives. And then you're like, well, at the same time you can get out of it.

And that's sort of like, you know, he's like the idea of like, just running down a street and then just like quickly grabbing something and then just keep going. Yeah. And the ability of like grabbing something and then just chuffing off at any direction, like is really nice of having that mobility of what you could do there, which is where I really like how what we did with Greg Pierce. And then moving on to Periwinkle. Periwinkle was...

Which, uh, little... The problem child. No, not the problem. Not the, actually the child of the problem child. Of the initials. Yeah, yeah, the initials. Oh, I'm aware of the problem problem child. That was, for me, one of the hardest ones to give up

because the numbers felt so good. Actually, before we even get to, because again, I think before maybe we even get to Periwinkle, there was the other character that we introduced, which was Claren Norman. Yeah. As like a fourth character who was in like played, I guess by you, like all the other NPCs. Yeah. And- Whoa, I played every character except three.

Dude, you're busy. And so, uh, so Claren Norman was a priestess of Pannier. Uh, and it was just kind of like a warrior priest. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say sort of a, yeah. Uh, so, and so for me again, this whole idea of like, what are we doing with this person, how are they in the city?

Yeah. And it was like, right. I want initially was like, I want them to be walking down the street and just like marching down the street, as opposed to running, as opposed to slinking, marching down the street and being able to like cop the damage and then just dish it out. And so initially, and this was when defense was a thing,

cause everyone was like, I think it was like, everyone mostly have like a defense of six. So I, on a die, you had to roll six only six and if you rolled six no damage and so for Clara we were like wait let's make it like a four or five yeah yeah and so it was this kind of thing of like cool maybe she's very high in defense and then she can kind of like as she's moving along she can heal herself she's doing this she could take no damage that kind of stuff and for a long time I was like,

let's make Clara Norman the Mario. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. We wanted her to be like your beginner character. Which doesn't actually make sense in retrospect because you're not playing by yourself. So even if it's your first time playing, somebody's gotta be not the beginner character. But anyway, yeah, that was our idea.

But we wanted it to be easy to play, basically. Not like, almost like, not too many frills. It was very much hard to take a lot of damage. So you weren't worried about taking, being defeated or anything like that. It was this kind of thing of like, yeah, you're just there, you're very tanky, and you're plotting along.

And I think I hated playing her the most. I just was like, I am slow, I am boring, I am tanky, nothing, I'm always behind everyone and I'm doing nothing. I'm bored and stumbling. I think it's very interesting because from the description that you're giving of someone just kind of like marching down the street,

I feel like several characters have gone through that iteration. Yeah, yeah. There have been several characters that we've tried to put the... and in different ways. Yeah, yeah. They've not all played the same like Clara was the high defense, but we've had other characters who were like, I'm gonna slowly make a long way through, and I'm doing what I'm doing, but I'm doing it slowly. Yeah, and so for Clara it was like I am doing what I'm doing and I'm doing it slowly, but what she was doing wasn't anything.

Yeah. And that's the kind of because we were like, oh, let it be like a bit of a jack of all. Like, you know, no one is, she's fine with this and fine with that. She's average at both skill and attack. And it was like, sure, we've had other characters that we'll get to, whereas like, yes, they are also plodding along, but they are very, say for example, we'll get to Knock Knock, yes, very plodding along, but very violent. Very strong. Plodding along, but leaving like absolute carnage in a way. I think that's the trick, the tricky thing of trying to take a support character and

making them interesting to play in a game where everyone... Yeah, absolutely. Where everyone... where it's not actually a team game. No. Yeah, you're fighting each other the whole time. You are in competition. And so I was like, okay, to me this character is very boring. Yes.

To me, I'm like, we need something. Because it was like, I think it was like a turn and heal, or like, you know, you could move and attack or something. And so it was this idea of like, well, they're very- They have a lot of move and heal abilities, but the problem was, because we'd given her such high health, It didn't matter.

It didn't matter. You were never losing enough health for the turn and heal. I mean, the beauty of this game, I think, are those like magic moments where you've figured something out where you're like well I'm gonna take a step here, but I'm gonna take three damage But on this location is something I can use to heal myself because I've got that thing in my back You know what I mean you're doing this this crazy

Strategizing or whatever but Clara would be like well. I just need to move forward. I guess I heal you know what I mean Like it doesn't move forward. I heal, but I'm already full health. Yeah exactly. What do this gonna take no damage Yeah, I'm great, and there's an enticing nature to the character who moves slowly But is never really is never really challenged by the by the World around them. There's a an enticing nature. Yeah, absolutely Yes and but for me at least it was this this idea of like but she's not, because she's kind of very a bit beige

and like not to be- Well, she wasn't specialized. She wasn't specialized. And so it was like, well, she's not good at combat. So sure, like, you know, when it's like, you know, a one V one game and it's about versing someone who isn't a combat character. Okay, well then she's gonna do combat.

She's probably gonna, yeah. And so, but then the moment you had like Perry Winkle, who's much better at combat in, or Knock Knock, you were like, well, Clara's always going to come last. Yeah, she's gonna be beat out by one of the skill-based characters and she's gonna be beat out by the combat character. And so it was, I think, once again, Jack, I think it was you.

It was just like, what if we, her special ability was just like to be able to pick up as a- Reactions with picking up people. You are. You really are. It was like picking up someone. And again, from like the narrative thing was like, oh, okay, we'll like a congregation.

Yeah, yeah. Because again, she's a warrior priest. Maybe she's trying to get people to- Another thing that other characters have had. Yeah, that's true. It's one of those things. But it's funny, again, that you're going from the narrative, but I think for me, that was like a holistic thing

where I was like, what's a thing that I can't do in the game that I wish I could do? Yes. And I wish I could just, without having to spend a turn, you know, or a movement, that I could just, in addition, grab someone and chuck them in my backpack. I think it's, and you know, and then that, Clara's probably would be one of my favorite characters

to play, I would say these days. Yeah, so with that, I'm like, Clara is now competitive because then she becomes competitive against, say, a Greg Pierce. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Greg Pierce, who's mostly going to be moving and grabbing because now it's like, well, initially, when it was just like, you know, those other...

That's the numbers, but... See the numbers, right? That's the numbers, but... And so it was like, cool, you know, Leo, sure, he can dash around and move around and like zip around or whatever But he's never gonna be able to move around and grab a person as much as like say Greg Pierce Yeah, and so it was like well to counter Pierce. Well here we have

The thing of Pierce is that you're moving forward It's part of your movement you are spending your movement to go somewhere and pick someone up But Clara you could go and attack someone, and then also just pick up an item, and also be like, well, while I'm here, getting the backpack. I never saw Clara's competition with Greg Pierce. I see Clara's competition with Perry Winkle. Because Clara doesn't have Perry Winkle's combat capability.

She's not as good in a fight as he is. But she's got that extra edge of I'll pick someone up and then I can do things that you can't do. Well again, the beauty of Clara is that theoretically you could be on your way to dropping somebody off, you're also attacking people, because you've not used up your movement to pick up an NPC. But like genuinely, I would say Clara,

probably is maybe, I would say is maybe my favorite character to play. I really like playing Clara. Once we got that idea of like yes, as a free action to pick someone up, that really did change it completely. It's crazy, one tiny change, but it just made her so much more competitive

and so much more fun to play. It's the numbers, what? And they also combined that when we got rid of the defense as well. Absolutely. So it was like, well you really need something to do for her. And so I was like, okay, cool. So she doesn't have a giant dash. She can't move around the board as well as like Piss and Leo, but well, she's still very

much competitive in that, you know, well, while you're off there gallivanting around, you've missed someone over here. I'm going to grab them and I'm going gonna go over here and do these kind of things. And that's what I like. Something we were talking about actually today again, Adam you were saying that when the way you tend to play if you're playing a combat character specifically is that if you complete a quest, because some quests do require you to defeat X amount of people or X amount of you know specific kinds of people, you're like oh great I completed a quest I didn't

even realize. And I think Klaue is like that for skill quests or for dropping off quests where you're like oh great I completed a quest I didn't even realize and I think Klaue is like that for skill quests or for dropping off quests where you're like well yeah I can go do a combat I can go fight the surgeon but if on the way I see someone that's gonna be relevant to a location it's relevant to a quest oh I'll just pick them up because it's easy to do and there's something so much fun about that there's something fun about seeing a new quest come out and being like is it a drop-off? Alright, I can do it. You know what I mean? That's funny.

Yeah. I love that about it. It's fun. Yeah, I also kind of like Clara in that regard. So that day, when we locked off Clara as well, that was like, great, fantastic. This is, she's great, sorted. And then, I guess, for the four original characters, Periwinkle. Yeah. And we're like, sweet. Okay, for me, I'm like, we're gonna make this man the Kool-Aid man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right. Walls! Once again, here we are with walls. So again, as we mentioned last week's episode, we have this mechanic in the game of walls, and they were there for the longest time, and they were there for the longest time to the point we built Periwinkle around him. Because we were like, okay, Periwinkle is this, yes, he's a wrecking ball. He is going around, he is fast. So he has the dashing abilities like say,

you piss and you're Leo. He's fast, but he's violent. So sure, he's zipping around, but he's also punching. Here's the whole point with him, we had the B-armor and he was just going to town. And so like, okay, cool. Well, let's make some of his movements that he can kind of, yeah, literally burst through a wall and come out the other side

and just punch someone in the face. And that was like, it felt good. It felt great to do. It felt great when you were doing that. So we had that as one of the moves. We had one of the moves, which was like, you know, I think it was like, you know, even just scaling the wall. So we had that as one of the moves. We had one of the moves which was like, I think it was like, even just scaling the wall. So you used to be like, well, if it's a wall,

then don't worry about it, you just jump over it, it's fine. That was all the grappling hook did once. Yeah, yeah. That was all it did. I'm pretty sure one of Perry's original moves was smash through two walls. Which is funny because these days, I think with our current,

with what we've learned and our skills, if walls were somehow madly still in the game, walls. Which is funny because these days I think with our current like you know with what we've learned and our skills if walls were somehow madly still in the game I would be like he should just be able to break through walls he should not need a movement to do it. That's crazy that's how we thought back then you know what I mean. That we were like he needs to smash through two walls as though theoretically he could smash through one wall and be blocked by the next one. That's crazy but that's you know. I think half of that reason is like you know when So theoretically he could smash through one wall and be blocked by the next one. That's crazy. But that's, you know.

I think half of that reason is like, you know, when you're writing them a card and so it was, if someone had put a wall on one edge and the wall on the other, and but you're like, well, I want him to be able to dash through everything. So on the card, it'll be like dash through a break of the wall, break of the wall. And so like, are you trying to get this idea of like, yes, what am I visually, like the visual language that I'm using with symbols and how can we get that across oh yeah yeah he was like full on wall based guy made it so hard to get rid of walls he's his special ability I think as a passive was like at the start

of the game he gets two walls you can get three what he gets an extra wall an extra wall oh my god you love wall you love wall. Perry loves wall so much. How good is wall? We talked about this a bit last time, but it's so hard when you've have this established foundation of walls, you've built a character on walls,

and the gameplay is starting to build around the idea of walls, and somebody says, hey, walls don't work. Why are you doing this? You know in your heart they're right You're like if we get rid of walls We have to change Perry if we change Perry that means what it feels like a step backwards Yes, and that's how much you you could move through the walls that you placed to remember that Yeah, absolutely walls were possible for you, but for no one else except obviously Perry

We we'd constructed be that existed because when Perry was the only one who could move through walls Why would you put walls? Yeah, you had a wall the place it's stopped at the start of the game, but why are you doing that? Yeah, like why would you make this game harder? Yeah? Last week was like Alex was like why would you make this harder for yourself? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, like why would you make this game harder for yourself? Yeah, last week it was like, yeah, Alex was like, why would you make this harder for yourself? And we're like, yeah, good point. It's funny.

I guess it's pretty good. It was harder for Ash, maybe it made this like a neat thing, I guess. It's just like a phone, it seemed like such a genius. God, I hope there's nothing like that left in the game right now. We put it in because it's funny. God, I hope so.

I don't know. I'd say, yeah, so then it was like, yes, you could move through your own walls. And then it became, well, Perry's less. I don't know. I'd say yes, I would. Then it was like, yes, you could move through your own walls. And then it became, well, Perry's less special. Yeah, exactly. Because Perry can't move through walls. So I don't know. So we had to just scale him back and make him a combat character, which is kind of what

he was initially, but we had to really emphasize that. And then I think that led to another mechanic that exists in the game now. I'm pretty sure it was Perry that led to this, where some NPCs had to become notable NPCs that defeating them outside of a quest would still net you victory points, prestige points. Yeah, yeah. Because if like, well, if Perry, you know, what's the point of defeating them?

And like, the way it works is you have quests that are active at all times, and some of those are like either delivering a quest. It's just random, so yeah, you never know what you're gonna get. Delivering an item to an NPC, delivering an NPC to a location, or item or items location or it's defeating someone or so I'd be yeah defeat three town guards defeat for hostile enemies or something like that

And then it was like well, what happens if though they aren't active Yeah, what's very the parry is so heavily weighted in this direction. Yeah without those quests And again, I think this was at the beginning as well, where you might not have that many quests on the board, because I think this was before we decided on the, the number of players plus one is the amount of quests that you have. Yeah, I think this was when you were sharing quests

with the other, the person you're right at. So you could be locked in to two quests that you could theory. And again, this was also before we'd added the kind of balancing with the items where you could, again, it would still be pretty hard for Perry, but like at least these days maybe he could make it competitive. But back then it was like, it's just not happening for you. So we were like, okay, well, what if just some NPCs are very difficult to defeat, but they are worth a certain small amount of prestige.

So theoretically, you actually have another way of playing the game. You could play the game by beating the quests, but you could also play the game by just fighting enemies. And can I say the numbers feel good on that. Yeah, they do, I agree. The numbers feel incredible. And don't get me wrong, adding this presented a whole bevy of brand new problems, but it certainly, I think it was a necessary step. You know what I mean? Yeah, 100% again

it was this this idea of like well, this is the thing and then then that really kind of Governed how we then did a lot of the other Decision-making and it was just kind of like all right these are notable NPCs So they have to be worth, you know Some points like one two or three depending what, depending who they are and how difficult they are. And then it was like, well, if we're adding quests that are in the game that maybe you use to then also defeat these characters that are worth three. For example, if it's like defeat three hostile NPCs, the surgeon who is worth one prestige

point is a hostile NPC. So if you defeat the surgeon, you are getting like three points. So it's like one of those things where it's like, okay, cool, so I think he's like, we use the surgeon because I think he's worth three. So it's like, well, one that comes up on it as a quest to defeat the surgeon, and it's like, it's a hard quest to do in a sense that if you're not already geared for it

because he does a lot of damage, so if you miss, oh no. It's bad. He's already worth a good amount of points. And then if that quest is also worth a good amount of points, well then you're just getting too many things. Yeah, exactly. And like, was too much. So I was like, okay, we'll need to balance that out as well.

I definitely remember many, like, you know, test games and much where somebody would be like, I'm going full barbarian. Yeah. I remember almost full on spreadsheets of each quest individually, a breakdown of how many things you need to do and how hard each of Those things and then what how does that you know?

Yeah, yeah, what in in victory points? What does that mean? I think it Again, we'll get to the problem child in a second. Yeah, but it was this question of like say for example you are fighting a this question of like, say for example, you are fighting a person who is worth say three prestige. And then it was like you as Greg Pierce are doing three separate quests to get three prestige. Now, how quickly can you do these three quests versus without picking anything up,

this problem child of ours, how can they just defeat that notable NPC without picking up a single item? And it was like, okay, oh yeah, yeah. How can they just defeat that notable NPC without picking up a single item? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like, okay. Oh, yeah. Well, oh no. What a problem child you've become. Yeah The scorebed app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah. Hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? The score bet trusted sports content seamless sports betting download today 19 plus Ontario only if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you

Please go to Connix Ontario. Ca or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to ConnixOntario.ca. But getting back to Perry, so when we got rid of Wolves, we were like, right, we're kind of back to square one. But we liked his movement in a sense of like, well, you know, we like that he's still a violent character, and we like that he's zipping around. He's like, of all the characters, he's the one designed for combo. He is still a wrecking ball. And for that, we do need that speed. We do need that ability to keep going. And do need that ability of like right he's a bit tanky and so like okay well what else is he? Well he's a town guard and so it's like that's basically a cop so why don't we just kind of lean into this you know violent

cop man. Yeah yeah. And so I was like well what can we do here? And so instead of like you know the just running through walls well what if we have like a like a hello hello what do we have here you know what's let me have a quick inspection of this kind of stuff and it's like okay cool then you can kind of maybe left or right and you can interact yeah that makes him you know being able to pick up items or NPC especially I mean that just helped with the action economy of the game because you need to spend an action to pick up. And so we used to, the way it used to work is you would be like a turn left and then you would be on the location so that on your next turn you could pick up the item.

Yeah. And that, I mean sometimes still depending on your movement that might be how it shakes out, but we tried to make it so that you're doing something interesting on every turn. Yeah. Whether that's fighting someone, whether that's looking at using the location, like whatever it was. So it was like, well now you're, you know, in the action economy, Parry can turn left and get a sword,

rather than, you know, waste half of the round setting up to pick up a sword to then later on down the track. Like, you know. Yeah. So I was like, okay, so we can like, maybe he's inspecting something, he's looking for clues as it were.

So we're still that kind of, you know, detective like training as it were. But then he's like, well, what if he's, you know, hot pursuit? So it was like, you know, chasing down, you know, someone that he's trying to like, you know, Nick, as opposed to like, you know, wrecking ball going through walls. And then it was like, okay, he's a big orc or half orc kind of character. And kind of using I think what we did with Greg Pierce, where it was like, well, limit him to only three item slots. Let's do the same thing with Perry, but make it items. So all for Perry, all items are small.

I love that. That's a, like, honestly, it was like such a game. Yeah. And it was nice. Perry makes Perry feel great. Yeah. And so this is, there's a lot of this this game which is like kind of trying to mirror certain abilities and other kind of characters with each other.

I think a lot of the NPCs are basically the hostile version and then the friendly version and they're sort of mirrored in their stats. And so there's a little bit of like mirroring there to be like, well, he's sort of like, he's like pissed but violent. So yeah, let's do that, all right? Okay, he's picking up items and it could be like, you know, so we can carry three very large swords Yeah, why not? Yeah, but then we sort of I think we balance that out by he just doesn't have as many Interacts great piss as he moves through the board in around could theoretically fill up like in three moves could fill up his backpack But Perry because he's more limited and interacts

He's not gonna, you know, and this is the kind of like the minutiae that you end up kind of agonizing over for hours, but he can gear himself up decently, but it will take him, you know, longer than it might take Piss to gear himself up for piss quests. You know what I mean? His quests. Yeah. I love the, yeah, it's, but the numbers feel good. The numbers feel good. It's the, at the end of collecting the items, he's, the quality of items he has is way better

than Greg Pistol. Oh, big time. But he's taking longer to get them. Yeah. It's, oh, sorry, go on. I was gonna say, and with him collecting the items, this was like the very first time we were like, cool, he's picking up so many items that he cannot miss Perry can't miss so who you know the way this works you roll the dice and if you know you can get your target number or higher you get it

but then if you get your target number to one and higher well you never miss yeah and so it was like well I go there I'm moving attacking I move forward and I attack I'm not able to roll yeah I'm doing it was like, well, I go there, because I'm moving and attacking, I move forward and I attack, I'm not able to roll, and I'm doing so much damage, boom, dead, off I go. I remember the specific game where this became a problem. And I remember we got to the end and we were like, whoa, you were killing it, you were doing so good. And you're like, yeah, it wasn't fun.

No, I didn't, yeah, not fun at all. I couldn't, this was, it ended up being boring. And you're like, okay, well then that's why we implemented that. Well, look, hey, a one is a critical fail. You fail no matter what. No matter how good you are, you've tripped over. Yeah, no matter what your stats are going. Whoopsie, that is us.

It's a little susan of D&D. Yeah, exactly. A little bit of flavor, but a D&D flavor in the gumbo. I like that. I'm like, all right, cool, let's do that. I genuinely so much love hearing you talk about, oh yeah, the movement cards make you feel like this. Every movement card has an imaginary number attached to it to me.

And every time I'm thinking about the movement cards, I'm like, do the numbers add up to the same amount? That's so interesting. I don't care what does what. So long as the numbers make rough approximate sense to me. Interesting. Yeah. But I think it's so valuable for us to all come at it with that completely different...

Because there were definitely flaws to each way of looking at the game. Other than, sorry, other than atoms. The numbers don't lie. The imaginary numbers I made up in my head and I couldn't tell you because the numbers aren't real and I don't actually have a number. But they're, you know, that's maths. It's mathematics. So I guess, yeah, we had Perry to be like, well, cool. He's very similar to Pearson that hey, all weapons are, or all items, I think Pearson that hey all weapons are all items I think initially

it was all weapons yeah are small not all items and then the same thing happened we were like why are we shifting ourselves? Why not? It doesn't matter. It's like keep it going like you know why why stop that? Absolutely. And so that's where we'd like you know sweet well now they all feel different you know it's like Clara still feels like she's marching down the down the street but she's like marching down being like oh you yeah yeah, yeah talk to you about penia. Get in. Yeah You know Pierce is there being like whoop. Yeah. Yeah, yeah I'm doing a big run and then you know, Leo is just there slinking around being like over He's gonna do big big damage to me. What if I did what if it didn't what if I just

And then and then yeah Perry felt like he was running around and just like, you know, punching people right in the face. Breaking heads. He feels like an action hero when you're playing Perry. Perry Wickle feels like, you're like, who's that over there? As they're like, huffing towards you. Bam! Punched in the face. It's big, what's his name from Die Hard? John McClane.

John McClane energy of, he's the put upon action hero and he doesn't have the skills necessarily to do everything. He doesn't necessarily have the skills to take down the surgeon on his own or anything like that, but he's gonna wrap some bandages around his feet because he crawled through grass, he crawled through glass.

He's gonna steal, ho ho ho, I have a machine gun now. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's gonna figure it out. And then he rolls in, gear it up, and demolishes. Absolutely. So those are the four characters that we pretty much spent a lot of time developing to kind of really get the feel right. And then comes Knock Knock.

Which was not even called Knock Knock in the campaign. No, in the campaign we say Knock Knock so briefly. Like she has so many, you know, because whatever, a D&D game, especially back then. Very improv-y. It's very improv-y and it takes place over multiple sessions, so you forget shit. But she's called Knock Knock, Grock Grock, Grock Grock, whether it's the grandpa orc or the grandma orc, it's confused quite a few times. But we settled on, for the board game, Knock Knock.

We were like, what a fun character for Perry's grandma You can play as Perry's grandma great or Perry's mom. I feel what it is, but anyway Perry's mom the kids is great. Yes, that's right. Yeah, but brother when I tell you knock knock Destroy us the bane of this company We said it last episode but Sam it was right we had in the slack like the knock knock problem. What do we do with a problem like knock knock? Yeah. So the biggest problem, and the biggest problem.

The sweetest number. The sweetest number. So everyone starts with the base number, like the base damage you do is one. Yeah. And so then we like. And some items that you pick up will add to your damage, you make, oh you know, you stack them, yeah. The knock knock?

Let's make her powerful, a big angry grandmama look. Let's make her base too. You know, and because a lot of that initial figuring out the different characters is like, well, if, if Parry has a high, you know, a high attack, then that's like something we have to mess with. Or it's somebody over there, they can have a high skill

or they can have a high defense, they can have high health. And this is just not, was not something that at this point we had messed around with. So we were like, well, there's a parameter to change to make the character feel different. So we're like, okay, we're gonna make her like, in the campaign, it's like, you know, I think it happens off-cabra, as it were.

But like, she's just like an old, like, you know, battle-worn orc, you know, that has retired, but she's still got a lot of fight in her fight in her. So like let's just make her Extremely violent and extremely slow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah slow and deadly I believe in from memory it was the balance the way the numbers work is she starts with the two damage But she had a really hard to hit wrong. Yes Hard to hit role. Yes, absolutely. She had a hard to hit, was slow, and she had trouble turning.

I don't think we gave her a reverse. And that was intentional because, again, that was trying to get the flavor of the, and being like, okay, so she just keeps moving, marching stolidly forward, and she can, if she wants to get behind, like, oh, I forgot something, you gotta do a right, a left. You're an old woman, you gotta, and then you're she won't you to get like behind like I forgot something You got to do like a right or an old woman You got a and then you're like one of them all right, okay, wait till the next day. I'll do it

We were talking about this earlier. Did she begin with no left turn? I think I honestly think it was no reverse Yeah reverse. Okay. Yeah, because that kind of equivalent that does sound like the same thing yeah, which. Which is and again that's the vibe is right. Yeah. But goddamn was it annoying. It was. Nevertheless because she did two damage we started to notice a trend. And the trend was that Knock Knock was winning every single.

And not just winning, decimating. Yeah she was demolishing the competition. Absolutely demolishing. Because it wasn't justating. Yeah, she was demolishing the competition. Absolutely demolishing. Because it wasn't just the two damage that she was doing. She also had a lovely ability, which was once per day, like a thorn ability. If someone attacks, she will just do one damage. Absolutely.

And she also had a movement card, which was you don't move. You stay in whatever location you're on. But your attack has an extra damage. And that meant you could stack it horrendously. And I don't think it was like, it wasn't even a, oh, you just do one more damage for that turn. It was you do one more damage for the rest of that day.

For the rest of the day, he's right. God damn it, he's right. That number sounds so good, though. So if you look at, like, looking in pure math, in pure math of like, person is going to sit on one square as you start off and I'm going to start wailing away at somebody on day one, I can do maximum four damage. Yeah.

Knock knock can do let's see here, three, six, nine, ten damage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. In one day. But I love that too so much. See, this is both the narratively the old woman can't move anywhere and the numbers give her

as many numbers as humanly possible. A two number for damage is her good at combat fight. It felt so good giving you that too and it was the hardest thing in the world to give off. And then also because we're the world's smartest, cleverest, handsomest boys. We figured it out man. We're smart enough for that. We also gave her a lot of like high health. So because she's like, well she's stocky.

Yeah she's stocky, she's stonky, she's dangerous. And we were like this is balanced out by the fact that she's so annoying to move. Yeah no, no not at all. Because there's a reason why Glass Cannon is so prevalent. Yeah, exactly, exactly. We did forget the rule. We made a ledge cannon. The rule that we learned really early on was you make them too powerful, then you pair them back.

And we did make her too powerful, but we tried to add the pairing back as we were doing this. Which is not what we should have done. No, yeah, I agree, absolutely. And so there was so much of like, okay, well first off, playing Knock Knock, it doesn't feel good. Yeah, it doesn't feel good.

And usually when it was like, you can't move very well, no, I hate it, I hate that I can't move anywhere. I hate that it just takes me so long to get to, to reverse or to do it. Like it just, sure I'm shocky, sure I'm like, you know, can do some damage, but my movement sucks. Like fair enough, let's figure out movement.

So we figured out movement a bit more, so we gave her a bit more mobility. And we were like, okay, so Knock Knock can finally move around the board, and oh God, she can move around the board. Someone stop this woman. Someone captured Knock Knock. Like letting a rabid dog out.

Now this will solve our problem. And the problem again, and we talked about this last time, is because there is so much, every game you play is different, because the board is randomized, the items are randomized, the NPCs, the quests, all of this is randomized, and so it makes it very difficult to find patterns, okay? And that's, you know, like something with the new characters we're developing, occasionally we run into this problem as well. But what it meant is that, and and also it feels good to win. So if your playing is knock knock and you keep winning some part of you wants to be like well... Perfect really.

I'm just a really good player. Knock knock what problem? Especially like when I played it like for the first time with with Cousin-in-law when they were down. They were never very, never really played a lot of board games. And not only did she win, she lapped us. Like, it was just, Oh, I remember that.

It was an insane thing. And I'm like, yeah. We need to fix, knock, hey. We need to fix something else. And part of you is just like, but she just did, she just did real good rolls. Yeah, well there's things. There's a lot of RNG, like she was just lucky

with the way the quests fell, lucky with where the NPCs were. It feels like a pointed attack is happening right now. Exactly. On account of a certain play test we did earlier today and a certain thing I said during that play test. But like, you know, it's like, yeah, whatever. It's like, knock knock is fine.

Like it was just a luck of the draw. That's why, but like, it's just okay. So the problem when you have, it's like, yeah, whatever. It's like, knock, knock is fine. Like it was just, it was just a luck of the draw. That's why. But like, it was just, okay. So the problem when you have every character doing one, and then the next character does two damage, like it's, it's an increase in like a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

So when you're dealing with small integers and then you go from one to two. Okay. That's a lot. That's, that's huge. So the difference is massive. It's like the difference between say if I do 10 damage and someone does 15, you're like, okay, that's a lot. That's huge, the difference is massive. The difference between say if I do 10 damage and someone does 15, you're like, okay cool,

it's a point. 50%. It's a point, not too bad. But going from one to two. And then this is kind of similar to the parry wall problem as well, where it was like, well if we get rid of that, what is special about her?

And so instead of getting rid of that extra Damage we designed a bunch of stuff around Trying to make yeah instead of just being like okay. We just have to accept it There's no way we can reduce her damage. Yeah There was so much time to like look I do feel that the solution is going to be making her damage one I remember I was so against that We just I think we could see it on the horizon We were like don't want to we're like can we change her movement?

What if we get rid of because you know that thought ability yeah, what if we you know we went through the stages of We did it because it was like yeah denial. She's perfectly fine Yeah, and then we're like this is good. Maybe good maybe and they were like what if we just like, you know What if we got hurt less healthy? Yeah, this is the bargaining. Yeah Weak now she's doing heaps of damage, but she's weak Anger. Yeah. I'll kill you! No!

I understand you want to reduce her from 2 to 1, but I just, well if we do that I'm gonna smack you in the mouth. If you do that for some reason you'll wreck my life. Depression. We're gonna make her one damage are we? Oh my god. And then we went to depression of like, hey, even with reduced health, she still decimates. Yeah, the problem here is even with reduced health when you fight someone They don't and you defeat them. They can't fight back. Yeah You did it. Yeah, baby wake up feed it you wake up in the middle of the night screaming. What's wrong? I think we're gonna have to reduce her damage to one So then then depression kicks it of like, I guess you gotta be like, this cool.

Because that's the thing, like, the thing that made her so different, especially was that like, yeah, she's so powerful off the bat. And then... The number feels good. And then, yeah, you have this like, yeah, I guess, whatever. Because not only, it's not actually, the trick is, it's not as simple as like, now she does one damage. The trick is, okay, so now that Knock Knock does one damage, we've got to come in and figure out something new. How we've got to hope that that new thing we come up with

is not also unbalanced. And then we're gonna have to, you know what I mean? So that's- Back to square one, essentially. Yeah, and that's just a horrible thing to do. But you don't wanna, yeah. And then which leads you to acceptance of being like, okay, she's now does one damage,

but how can we at least make her still feel powerful? And so like, look, she's still slow. She did again, doesn't have the dash that the others have, but she is powerful in her own right. So like, I think it's, okay, rather than having Link, I think it's like the reflection was like every time she got hit. It wasn't even just once a day. So it was like, okay, let's remove that

and let's have it, you know, once a day, she can just be like, ah, clap back. And then it was like, okay, let's have her ability to be like one of her movement cards. So like, okay, we'll still make her slow. She can't move from the location she's in. So she has to go somewhere, cop a bit of damage if she's gonna like you know or if they're hostile and then be like okay it's a plus one attack to this turn. Yeah.

Then if you do actually do you know you land that hit because you still might not you know you still land that hit sweet you do some more damage. Yeah. And then it's like you know she's left and right and she can do some damage. Yeah. She attacks so it's like okay she's still attacking damage. She then it's like, you know, she's left and right and she can do some damage. She attacks. So it's like, okay, she's still attacking damage and she's still doing that damage. Did we experiment briefly? I feel like I have a vague memory of this.

The card was like plus one damage for the rest of the day, but you do nothing this turn. I think, yeah, potentially. I think that was one of those things where then we had to be like, we were like, but it's not, know Yeah, you don't know it's not fun. And even I think that that do damage on the location It's it's in the perfect sweet spot somehow where you still attacking so it still feels good But you aren't moving you know what I mean, so there is still some like restriction to it But the numbers in my head make sense with an interact picking up an item feels the same as dealing one point of damage

100% for sure, for sure. That kind of was like, okay, we've sort of fixed the problem of Knock-Knock. And it was just like, yeah, she had to be nerfed quite a lot. Massively. And she's still like a very powerful character. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Adam was playing her again

in the mythical play test we keep referencing and he won by a significant margin. I rolled a lot of successes. Ah, we're back to... No, I don't think so. I think if anything we need to increase our damage to two. We're back, baby. We'll just make it hard for it to hit.

Okay, okay, okay. Lock in, sounds good. So that was kind of those initial characters and I think it comes down to like, right, how do we make these people, for at least for me? It was how do we make these people? Feel different. It was just kind of like it was that that the the mouse feel but for playing. Yeah well a hundred percent, you know, it's that thing where we committed very early on to having this kind of Sort of semi asymmetrical type of gameplay where every player played differently and was weighted to different sort of ways of playing the game.

But to do that, you need to make them feel unique. When you're playing Greg Piss, it needs to feel very different to playing Leo or playing Perry, but they all need to coexist in the same board game. So it's kind of like an immensely difficult job. And it means a lot of sitting down and balancing and being like, you know, but then also because it's so unscientific, you finish and you go, did that feel good?

Did that feel good? Was that nice? And that's, but for me, it always feels like you kind of, this is probably a very wanky metaphor, but like you have the block of clay and it's already in there what you need to get you just got to chip away Until there it is. It's kind of how it feels. Yeah Another crap. Yeah, it's in there. You can see glints of it. That's kind of how Perry should play hang on a second Yeah, oh there. It's been in front of me the whole time, you know

It's a bit complicated though because with the evidence we need us we need the standard setup You know the standard you put the things it like, you know how there's like a standard cup of tea that they brew Oh, yeah Yeah, it's not actually this is no actual standard killer. Yeah, but yeah, it's Yeah, we need like a we need like a like a standard setup that we can measure all of the characters against. And I had a point. Oh yeah. But then you distracted me with your key load.

I'm so sorry Adam. But yeah, it's, yes I remember. So, with your clay metaphor, it's like you're trying to hue away the different parts to find the statue underneath. But the clay, because the board is ever changing, the clay keeps moving and regrowing itself. It's shifting, absolutely. You'll see a part of Periwinkle, how it's supposed to look, and then you'll start digging at the clay, but that part will kind of zoom back in. For sure. As the board changes on the next playthrough. And also it's this thing that you know you see like we got to balance peri but you don't just have to balance peri against the game you have to balance peri against Greg Piss.

You have to balance peri against Leo Shadow you need to get against Knock Knock. What if the game is Greg Piss and peri and Knock Knock? That's a completely different game to a game that is Leo shadow Greg Pierce and knock-knock Like it's it's like how you're talking earlier with Clara Norman where Clara is not fun to play in certain setups Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, I think she's still fun to play but like no, I mean Adam, Adam, I like playing close. He's getting smoked and I hate it. No, no, I mean the, what were you saying before about earlier? Yeah, in the initial, before we'd done stuff with her, you were like, well sometimes she's okay. If she's, because she can do the combat stuff that Leo and Greg Piss aren't necessarily weighted towards.

So in those games, you're doing all the combat stuff, so you're getting the points. But if you're coming up against, yeah, see what you mean? You're coming up against like, um, Perry or Knock Knock, you're like, oh well I'm significantly, you know, worse at this than them. I feel like that's something that was, it's kind of like a, uh, something that we're still grappling with as well, because we've had characters subsequently where like, oh, this character's only good with this sort of setup, with these sort of characters to bounce off. Mm, absolutely. I mean, that's still the development stuff of these new characters of being like, okay, well, how do they play against, okay, you know, oh, this character is fun. I think

we've got it, but we should do it again with a completely different setup to see if it still works, if it's still fun, if it's still enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. So I think adapting the characters that we had, it was this interesting journey of, like say the three player characters, like of Perry, Leo and Piss, of like, well, we had a lot of framework. And so we were like, okay, so we sort of know a lot more in depth about them. But then the other ones that we sort of had to then develop of like Clara and Knock Knock, and then some of the other ones that we're sort of developing, they could now have already

sort of done, which we'll probably do another episode of like, hey, part two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. There was kind of like, they were either a, they weren't throwaway characters, but they were like characters who were support characters. They didn't get as much screen time. They didn't get much screen time. You know, for sure. So you kind of have to hang a lot off just their kind of general vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're like, okay, yeah, warrior priest, what does that mean? For sure. Okay, cool. Hey, angry grandma or orc grandma, what does that mean? And then it's that thing as well, and it's again, like the different ways we approach it. For me, I'm like, what's not in the game? You know what I mean?

Like, what is there to do that we're not doing that this character could do? You know, and then it's... But that's tricky as well, because then you don't know what you can't do until... I don't know like I think I sorry I think I see a very similar thing once again though like Manipulating those numbers or whatever where I'm like well We've got this this bar graph of the different numbers we've got this bar graph of the different numbers now. Let's try Yeah, imagining all of them is different every little thing like every different move their attack their damage their hit points

every little thing, like every different move, their attack, their damage, their hit points, imagining all of them as little bars and I'm like trying to rearrange into a new pattern. I just don't think about the story. That's very funny. So like I think for this example, I guess, we're making these like extra characters for a deluxe edition. And so the other day we were tooling around with Ralph Moroney, who is the leader of the blood cultists such a funny name for a leader I think it's funny that there's Buster Keaton and Damien Eaton yeah every time I see that they rhyme I'm like hmm that's funny that they rhyme go on so with this this character we were developing and it was like it's already

gone through I think three big changes Yeah, oh, yeah, and so initially it was this kind of like well, he's a part of the blood cult and So he's the leader the blood cult and so I was like, well, what if we make him a bit like a wall locker? Kind of like a vampire. Yeah, and so he's like, yeah every time he's like, let's make him kind of weak So he's got like a lot like doesn't have that much health health. And he's like, but every time he defeats somebody, he like sucks off their energy. He gets some power back. He sucks them off.

Yeah, he gets that health back. And so I was like, yeah, okay, cool. And like, I had like, I was like, okay, cool. So the way you, we do the movement is like, you know, you put the movement cards down and you're in your, you plan it during the day or before the day starts. And then you kind of flip them over.

And I was like, well, what if, what if, what if, he had this idea of like, well, because he's so sneaky, he plays it from his hand. No, boring, boring. That moment of planning, it sucked for you. I never wanted to try that. Let me tell you, it sucked. And it's this funny thing to realize,

because the game is so established, you're like, the game is designed for me to pre-plan my movement. So actually most of the time you are deciding what you're not improvising on the spot necessarily, or if you are it's not something you could have ever predicted. Was that idea a holdover for when there was more competitive player v player sort of stuff? Because I could imagine more competitive player v player sort of stuff. Because I could imagine being able to play from your hand being,

not necessarily because you don't want players to know what you're plotting, but because you're kind of anticipating, expecting to have something, to have to kind of work on the fly of, oh, I've not got this character anymore, but I can still, I could still do this instead. Yeah. And that kind of helps that. It just didn't come up.

It was weird. Oh, I'm saying, did we think And that kinda helps that? It just didn't come up. It was weird. Oh, I'm saying, did we think of that back when there was more of- Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was definitely one of the options we had, one of the versions. And funnily enough, people would play it and be like, I wanna play from my hand. Like that was a thing that people wanted.

And you know, we said this in the first episode where you gotta sometimes allow those desire parts and be like, well, that's what you really want to do in this game, so I'm not gonna restrict you. And then other times you gotta be like, hey pal, you don't know what you're talking about. We're putting this bench next to this bin. You can't just hop onto the bench. Stop whacking the garden.

Go around the bin. The line I've always heard is the general public is right about what is annoying them, but they're wrong about how to fix it. It's the line I've always heard. I think that was the initially when we had like, move forward, move left, move right, move back, and you had no other things. A lot of people wanted to do move forward

and then do a thing. And that was, I think, the solution we came up with, was like, well then, we'll have the move forward interact. Yeah, yeah. To solve the problem. So yeah, so it was like playing from your hand, and then you had like one movement card, which was mimic, and this idea of it's as a blank Card you can play it, you know

And then this kept in there from like the next iteration which was like no you play pre-plan because like you are just sitting there being like Yeah, so it's a mimic card which is like hey cool. Maybe he's like duplicitous He can be like a bit sneaky of like what did you do? I want to do that and so this idea of like well at any time you can use that from your hand And instead of the card You use you mimic somebody else's movement Yeah Which is great if you were playing with like a large pool of characters a lot of players who were then doing things that you wanted

Otherwise you were like well that would have been useful, but you haven't done anything Yeah, yeah, okay fine absolutely and so it was a bit It was just never used so there's like one of his, you know, two extra bonus. Cards, the kind of one that you just never touched. And the other one, and the next one was like, sure, he's got low health. But then it was like, you know, you do damage to yourself and then you move forward and attack

and deal the damage you dealt. But like a lot of characters, you know, cause he could do like five damage. That would kill a lot of NPCs. And then he gets like, you know, I think initially it was like, you get the health you did. Yeah, basically just he just could never die.

It was just, it was kind of boring. And so then we had this other kind of iteration where I was like, what about if we played around with like, you know, garrotting and everything. And then it was just like a lot of back and forth the other day with you, Jack, where it was, you were like, I don't like this because it's passive. Well, it took me a long time to realize that too. I was like, something about this just

rubs me the wrong way. I don't know, this idea, basically the idea was that you can pick up an NPC, have them in like a special slot in your backpack, and slowly over the course of playing, they will take like tick damage until they eventually die. Which I like visually and like I get the idea of it, but I was like, something about this just kind of annoys me, and then I was like, oh, it's because I'm not doing anything. It's just happening to the side. And that just with, for my brain,

just from like a personal perspective, I'm like, it's just not for me very fun. Yeah. And so this back and forth, I think it was a lot of like, it was fun for me to be like, okay, what don't you like about this? And it was just kind of like, okay, because I'm coming from a narrative point of being like, well, what don't you like about it? And it was just kind of like, okay, cause I'm coming from a big narrative point of being like,

well, it's kind of like a poison den. Yeah, yeah. Most RPG kind of thing. Yeah, and I was like, yeah, I get that, but something about it just isn't. And then it was this active thing. And then it was another thing. It's the numbers, John.

Yeah, and then we were like this thing. And then you were like, oh, I don't like that either. I'm like, but that's active. You're like, yeah, I don't know why. I'm like, pick a leg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then it just kind of like, you know, back and forth or to eventually like, well,

all right, let's just pair it back. What is he? What is he doing? What does he like to do? And then it was just kind of like, well, because he was on the issue of like, what if we did like a lot of damage, we had low health, we went back,

we learn nothing from lockdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not for us. And so then it was like, well, what if he's doing more damage the weaker he gets? Yeah, yeah. Like the blood is being drained from him at a sense, but that's what he's most violent.

And so I was like, okay, cool. Well, we'll do that. And then we can mix that with, you know, and like this other thing of like, well, what if he's like a strike from the shadow kind of thing? He's kind of like that Leo, but a lot more risky. So what if we started doing these kind of things? And so we kind of eventually was like, all right, cool. Well, like both in terms of, you know, hey, this is we're active. We're doing something. Yeah, it's an active thing. That's a core. But also for me, at least, it's narrative. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we're narratively doing this. And so hopefully, like, you know, we'll I'm sure once we play test that,

we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the current iteration of Ralph Moroney. Who knows what it's gonna look like. It's three iterations down the track. But we did reach some kind of conclusion. I think there's some good numbers in the less health he has, the more damage he has. I like the numbers. There's something that works there.

But it's very funny because that whole concept of that is also like, it's grabbing it from another character that we then change completely. Yeah. Because it was another character like a like a penny which is like a like a sun god. Yeah. So I was like, what if they were more powerful during like, you know, the morning phase? As evening comes, they become weaker. And so but that was not very fun to do. Yeah.

And so then it became... That character, the one you're talking about right now, are we allowed to name them? I don't want to dox them. Buster Keaton. Yeah. And so it was just kind of like, okay, but it wasn't very fun to play.

So then it, because it became like, oh, you have to kind of set everything up the day before and eh. And so it is a weird thing where you kind of, you know, stuff that worked or didn't work for one character. Yeah, you're like, but maybe it'll work for one character. You're like, well, what about- But maybe it'll work for someone else. It'll work over here.

I think that's kind of what happened with Ralph because we were messing around with Buster and it was like, well, what if we did this, this, this? I think it was like a, basically you're putting blood marks down and then you can be able to like move back to that location. I think we were using that for- For Buster kind of.

For Buster in a weird way. Like, you know, you're placing tokens on the board. So what if he had this like, you know, teleport spell and as he's moving around, he was doing this and as we were doing this, I'm like, that sounds more like your blood cult. Like being able to either make a dark ritual or like, you know, I'm using the sewer access to kind of move around the then there in the city. And so from that, that just kind of birthed narratively a little bit more of like what Ralph Moroney can do, which then kind of impacted like his, the other things that he does. Yeah, well, because I think we've reached this funny place with, you know, iterating

on the game and making these new characters. Now that every, because the, you know, Perry, Leo, Pierce, Clara, Knock Knock, they were created at the same time as the game. So just as we were figuring out Clara and Perry, we were figuring out how does the actual game work, you know what I mean? And that's- Greg Pierce's abilities evolved with how do you pick up an NPC. Yeah, exactly.

And that's very different to in this current period where we're like, well, let's you know Play around with some other characters where we're like the game's solid the gameplay is locked in Yeah, how do we then do interesting things with the game as it stands? And that's where these new characters start to come in and it's it's heaps It's sort of sometimes frustrating because you're like you have this feeling of like what else is there? I guess this yeah, I'm like what else is there that's new to like, you have this feeling of like, what else is there, I guess this is again my game, I'm like, what else is there that's new to do? You know what I mean? How do you iterate on picking up guys,

putting down guys, whatever. But then you kind of break through and you're like, oh wait, what about this? Oh wait, you could do this. That's very exciting, yeah. So yeah, it's very fun. It is very fun, yeah, adapting a lot of these NPCs into like a somewhat, a bit more like a fleshed out board game character.

You've got to really pair everything down to kind of like their essence of like what are they? What do they do? What are their kind of movements and how can we kind of, you know, at least tie what they're doing back to narratively, at least for me, back to their, you know, who they are as a character while number being good and they do something new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll make sure the number's good.

You don't need to worry about that. I'll make sure they're doing something no one else does. Don't worry. Yeah, you are, bro. We take care of you. It's a story, it's good. Everything's gonna be all right. Story.

Yeah. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers tell the story. Which is where it's very interesting and like when we talk about like the actual game itself it's like because you're like oh what new kind of cool thing can I do? What can we hackle down?

And I'm very much like the story kind of narrative it's like you know we tend to be like oh those emergent like little stories that happen it's just like you know I think it's like I was playing playtesting like Evelyn Plain and she's like a very good like on a horse feels like she's on a horse charging around she's on a horse Yeah, yeah charging around the town and Greg Pierce is like in one move. I'm just gonna ruin your day Yeah, I just felt like you you just you just insulted the horse. Yeah Absolutely, and I did it from halfway across the board and it was a beautiful moment. It was a beautiful moment I just felt like you know, is there someone is like, you know about like, you know gallop down

It just felt like, you know, someone is about to gallop down a cobblestone street to fight the monster that's over there. You were there, popping up your head, with a looping like, hey dickhead! How about you come over to me? What about that for an idea? And then it was just this beautiful moment. The rest of your turn, you're like, what the hell am I going to do now? And it muted me completely. It was like, hey, hell am I going to do now? And it just, and it, and it muted me completely. Yeah. It was like, Hey, it felt bad, but that felt good. Yeah, absolutely.

Oh yeah. Big time. Big time. I mean, what a journey it has been to take these characters from this, you know, just like D and D characters we played in a campaign from so long ago too. And then to turn them into very functional, very fun characters to play in a board game. Leo is like the first D&D character I played.

Yeah, that's true. That's crazy. What the hell? I haven't forgotten about that one. Yeah, me too. That's crazy. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's crazy.

The problems that we've had, it does like... It's a noodle-tick. I want to fix them. I want to like, how do you solve this? It's fun and it can be so frustrating as well. Oh, and they're... Looking at the... because you play a whole game and you see knock-knock slapped everybody and you go... What? Yeah. That's fine. I just rolled really well.

What do I need to change? Or like it's those moments when you're like... We it out. Yeah, you feel like you cockled them Oh, everything feels great. And the next time you play you're like that was a bad This is you terrible awful So many things that can happen in the game you balance it for like everything and then that one Scenario pops up and you're like he's broken And then that one scenario pops up and you're like, he's broken. Greg Pierce is broken when this happens. And then it's a, you know...

When every quest is one, is two items which are already on the same place, and Greg Pierce, because he's just a bit quicker, can do six quests in one go. Yeah. Like we gotta figure it out. It's Greg Pierce that's broken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, so it's Greg Pierce that's broken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

Absolutely, it's been a great time. Also, yeah, just a quick update on the Kickstarter. God damn. Congratulations, all of us. Everybody, yeah, we were asked, like, oh, we've seen a thousand, and then that's like, you know, and yeah, well done, everyone who followed.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it so much. I was hoping to come on today to be like, oh hey, and we're gonna launch on this date. Something has come up with like a graphic designer that we were like, oh, we're gonna work with, but then something's happened, so we just have to figure that out.

And it's like, you know, we can't lock in the date, but it is going to be March at some time. Yes, yeah, yeah. I'll lock in the date. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no.

So yeah, so it was all locked in, but then like, yes, okay, but so, unfortunately we're like, hopefully next week, we'll have a date for you. We'll have a date all locked in. But it should be sometime in March, we'll actually launch the game. Which is just unimaginably exciting.

Again, thank you everybody, everybody who followed us, people who are, you know, some people are playing it on the board game simulator. People are getting an idea of it. Like it's electrifying. Like you cannot, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the people. And I think, yeah, so if you are wanting to play it

on a tabletop simulator, a new version will be up fairly soon soon which will include one of my, once again, stages of grief. A redesign of the the basic cards where we got rid of the city silhouette. That hurt me like you would not believe, but some things had to get done. That one did hurt. But yeah, I'll be there and some new rules that we've played around with as well. And if you've got any questions about those rules, you can jump into the Sam Smiths Radio Discord. You can check them in the board game channel.

Or if you're a subscriber to Imagination Adventures, I believe there's a Jaren's Outpost channel. If there's not, we should make one. I think there is. I think I was looking today. But either way, if you've got any questions or any comments, we'd love to hear them So please check them in there presumably all links will be in the notes Sure Otherwise just type in Sam's pants sure

Sure surely sure I gotta imagine Sure. Okay. Surely. Surely. I gotta imagine. On that note, I've been Joe. I've been Jackson. I've been Adam. We'll see you next week. See ya. ["Bet Mode Aggravated"]

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