While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . Heat, eboys, and the sun. Key rings and zines that are maps. And character sheets. And even more. Adam and Will get ever closer to the illusive game island while also evading the Ring Fit strong dragon. What’s a good heart rate? I’m asking hypothetically, as I keep mine as low as possible. I’m talking voting-age BPM. We whip up a rightly weird dungeon crawler and then explore our mo...
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 7 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . It’s been a year since we funded, so we take a look at the episode where we melted down. So, let’s melt down again! Inside this special director’s cut DVD Blu-Ray commentary we realize the Brain Trust’s Adam and Will have the same conversations over and over and over and over again. About nothing. Maybe, and this is just a thought, our patterns of politeness are so consistent that w...
Sep 04, 2020•1 hr 2 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . It is it Harry Potter or Dragon Ball? How would you end a campaign? What if it’s all a simulation? How can we hang out? These are not questions to consider, they are questions that would be answered in synaptic moments. The answer is available and it’s about dedicating the correct amount of brain electricity to divine it. It’s a microtransaction for your amygdala. We’re still on the...
Aug 25, 2020•57 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . The direct midpoint. You’re there and we’re on the way. What’s the direct midpoint of this podcast and you? The space between your thumb and a screen? The headphone cable or static air? The bones in your ear? The little bones playing blacksmith? We’re talking trailers, we’re talking schlock, we’re talking double features. Once I went to go see a grindhouse movie at the Brattle and I...
Aug 20, 2020•1 hr 7 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . It’s us again. We’re here at Gen Con, week four, this time the convention center is empty. In this sonic and physical playground we have fun, and escape the spectre of one gaping golem. Also, accounts. Also, we look at battle royale aspects inside of tabletop games. Adam finished the Sopranos and discusses nostalgia while Will brags and brags. We chat about creating in deep quaranti...
Aug 11, 2020•57 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . Week three at Gen Con. We haven't any cares. We’re celebrating Adam’s successful Kickstarter and the death of TikTok. They say you die twice, the first time is when your heart stops beating, and the second time is when the video of your death is lost when TikTok is deleted. Ben Franklin said that. You think he really did the key thing? I’m skeptical. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgamec...
Aug 05, 2020•1 hr 11 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . Take a little break with the Brain Trust. We’re talking week two of Gen Con, Necronautilus playtest, and random generation. Beans by Highlite and Fazenda. Burr and blade. That’s us: the Brain Trust. We're still doing this, we've carved a niche. We've poured a cup. Adam has a Kickstarter going, check it out right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamxvass/necronautilus . Fi...
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr 13 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . Great to be back in beautiful Indiana, the home of Cattail Wheatseed. What else? Necronautilus funded day one. No big. What else? We talk safety mechanics, modes of play, and table tools. Also haircuts, the ren faire unicorn, and more. Adam has a Kickstarter going, check it out right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamxvass/necronautilus . Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgame...
Jul 21, 2020•1 hr 5 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . This is a podcast with two corners, at least. Beach towels have four corners. Adam has a Kickstarter going, check it out right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamxvass/necronautilus . We are railing and derailing. We are oscillating. Thanks for being here. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/w...
Jul 14, 2020•1 hr 1 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . Adam Gandolfini and Vin Jobst are back. This podcast has it all: tips, tricks, strategies, hints, hacks, insider info, options, and more. Featuring an interview with Quincy, the auteur. This whole thing features a lot of feverishness to be honest. We spend $20 on a game. Come check out Adam’s upcoming Kickstarter, Necronautalis, here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamxvass/n...
Jul 07, 2020•1 hr 5 min
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . We revisit A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution ( https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/guide ) and the results may shock you (we still love it). In this episode Adam dials it in, Will goes Mads, and we both talk about games that let you do mean things. With a return to setpiece gaming, we chat about experiencing big worlds as an amusement park. And Sid Meier’s big amusement par...
Jun 30, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 31
While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . The Brain Trust podcast is a foley-centric soundscape for those invested or interested in the heard world. Also, we explore different styles of campaign play, focused around living worlds with multiple groups playing in a shared space or time. Kill Dick Dastardly. Save the world. We don't talk about solitaire on this episode, but it's a game in which you read old letters. The Brain ...
Jun 23, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 30
We’re back, we’ve been back. While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . In this episode, we’re talking all about hexes, inspired by Adam’s hex jam ( https://itch.io/jam/hexjam ) and his hex pack ( https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/world-champ-hex-kit )! Hexes are a type of gon. Gon is math for shapes. Different gons mean different things. We’re going to get pretty technical here, so buckle up. Will gets caught in a roll and A...
Jun 16, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 29
In this new sort of game, everyone in the world is a target. Or an opportunity. The only thing you have are your devices, a personal code, and a lifelong commitment and understanding of the trifold axis of our new world. Seek the mysteries of the forebears, extract your pound of flesh, get points in exchange for advanced techniques, and choose your path. Savior or scourge? Do you walk alone or do you work with other for your ends? For solitaire, I believe it’s an old game played by trees. Grow h...
May 27, 2020•59 min
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are random entries. We’re in a treasure appendix and you always fudge the numbers a little bit to get us. In this episode, we generate an episode of the Brain Trust podcast. Will chats about their new game, shipwrights, available today at https://willjobst.itch.io/shipwrights . Adam propagates some mechanics from his strategy game draft Ossuary. I think this is how you play solitaire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuJiUscfjQw . Want to generate your own episode of the ...
May 19, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are a weird hand gesture. We are sundials on your walk. We are apples and milk, but worse. In this episode, we talk about layout, failure, and building a relationship with your work. Will might still be in an infinity library of their own design. Adam chats his new game, Aurora, available today at https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/aurora . What fruits do lizards like? We don’t talk about solitaire, but here’s how I’d describe it: the goal solitaire is to build a canon of ...
May 12, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are your drive-time DJs on 69.3 AM, your home for funny number bands. We are again apologizing to the gamers, recollecting radio stations past, and definitely specifically not at all trying to say anything on the Brain Trust bingo board. We make three games involving other games, experiences on top of experiences, like a double decker bus but for games. Do you understand? Adam remembers the bill of a lifetime and Will debuts some impressions from fucking 50 years ago. In...
May 05, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are two big fangs. We’re Weezer now. Life’s going to be a little different, out here in the g’rage and Beverly Hills. Adam unveils 500 years of vegan secrets and outlines new editions of Babes in the Wood and Protest Singer. Will recounts a citrus meltdown and makes an enemy of Frank. We made a game on this episode that really asks: what that mouth do? This is our Green Album. This is our Vampire RPG. (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ) Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst...
Apr 28, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are Hollywood again. This is the beginning of a new era of Brain Trusting. A computerized world. For art and likes. And Dew. In this episode we dramatize game design, ask: what is owlbear?, and get into your innards. Adam dives into ForeverDex: a game about monster and mail at https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/foreverdex , and Will talks about just getting your head right and taking it easy and saying “fuck it” it’s okay to not do anything and also to do anything, I don’t...
Apr 21, 2020•54 min•Ep. 23
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are against the owlbears. Not "against" so much as "attempting to coexist". They induct a new Pokemon into the Brain Trust-Certified Favorite Pokemon club, talk about the playtest of THIS DISCORD HAS GHOSTS IN IT (available now: https://willjobst.itch.io/ghosts ), dive into what early access means to us, and remember the name of the music website. Spin? Stereogum? We plot out an open development release for the mapmaking game TOTAL STATION. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgam...
Apr 14, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 22
Adam Vass and Will Jobst brainstorm and brainproduce three games using online. What kind of games lean into the crosstalk and overspeaking of voice chat, the private space around your computer, or the haunted house that is Discord? We got you. Adam unveil a very good impression of our favorite LOST character, Will doesn’t analyze the significance of twos, and we both consider what makes a flakey, fresh, homemade brain crust. Bazinga count for this episode: 1. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco an...
Apr 07, 2020•48 min•Ep. 21
Adam Vass and Will Jobst enter online, again. We derail fast to talk about supermarkets, blueboxes, and Will’s friendly upstairs cult. Adam give a Quietus play report, and we both talk about playing games online. Will debuts a brand-new joke and Adam reveals himself to be something of a music guy. Wow! A programming note, in these quarantine-days, we’re going to switch from biweekly to weekly! You’ll get episodes like these, in which we check-in, go wild, and exchange grocery store pincer format...
Mar 31, 2020•47 min•Ep. 20
Adam Vass and Will Jobst tear it up, materially-speaking. We tear it up, generally, too. But today it’s specific. You get it. In this episode, we design three games revolving around the destruction of zines, with at least one of them about LOST. If you love something, sometimes you have to rip it up into 1,000 pieces. This episode is ready-made with everything you need: foley experiment, Adam and Will getting the mind-blown feeling, and minimal references to the reason we’re all inside. Also, th...
Mar 17, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 19
Adam Vass and Will Jobst take it all apart piece by piece and put it back together again. We’re back, baby, in the same zip code. Hell, we’re even in the same room. Locking eyes and bass boosting fives. The California sun is nice, I’m not afraid to say it. In this one we talk about playing A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution (Together! In person!), how screen printing techniques inform game design, and chopping and screwing game systems. Also, there’s a discord! We’d love for you to jo...
Mar 03, 2020•58 min•Ep. 18
Adam Vass and Will Jobst discover that for every thing, there is an anti-thing. Matter. Malls. Games designers. We chat about reinvention, kickstarter peeves, and wonder why you were nodding along in the first place. Adam looks at the katamaris (the game of cousins), the long view of one’s catalog, and gets ready to wrap up the Cobwebs kickstarter (while previewing what’s to come). Will anatomizes the anti-designer, and then becomes it. They also hack up a lung and think about that nice western ...
Feb 18, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 17
Adam Vass and Will Jobst set off fireworks in celebration of Cobwebs funding! We prepare our minds to enter the green realm of Zine Quest 2 by highlighting some of our most anticipated zines. Adam ponders what his own catalog, the bounds between heavy metal fucker shit and kid shit. Will recounts a scary noise from the woods. They both chat about a Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution and hint toward a mysterious break in the episode. Huh. Also, there’s a discord! We’d love for you to joi...
Feb 05, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 16
Adam Vass and Will Jobst bluesky the next actually good corporate game. As with every movement in games, it’s one of two things. Call of Duty or Spiderman. Chipotle or Taco Bell. They talk about the scariest character sheets, zines ahead of ZineQuest 2020, and a deep dive into Adam’s coming-to-Kickstarter game Cobwebs (January 28th, mark it!). For more information, check out Adam’s mailing list right here . Also, there’s a discord! We’d love for you to join! Find the link here: https://discordap...
Jan 21, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 15
Adam Vass and Will Jobst get lit. What does 2020 hold? Will gets grim, fast. Adam explores Doozle and the goblin conundrum. Then they crescendo into music games, with notes and pianos and clapping and that certain TikTok noise. This episode features a playstorm of my car is in the front yard , now available on at willjobst.itch.io/my-car-is-in-the-front-yard . Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/willjobst ....
Jan 07, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 14
Adam Vass and Will Jobst give the definitive ranking of everything, including: best games you haven’t read yet, most questionable lunches, and, well, slaw. They talk about ghosts of episodes’ past, their favorite games of the year, and Pokemon. Who’s Auld Lang Syne anyways? I’m going to look it up and get back to you. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/willjobst . I looked it up. Auld Lang Syne is a type of complicat...
Dec 24, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 13
Adam Vass and Will Jobst are together in the same room! Live and direct for Worcester, MA, Adam and Will reunite! They talk about Pokemon (Shield), the status of A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution, Adam’s upcoming game Cobwebs, and the joy of gaming with new players. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/willjobst.
Nov 26, 2019•25 min•Ep. 12
