Go Quest Young Man

Hello, and welcome to episode 249 of Effect. Go quest, young man. I'm Dave.

And I'm Matthew. And as usual, we have a packed but slightly changed program.

As usual, do we do we usually have a slightly changed program?

Well, as usual, the program is packed. Unusually, it is slightly changed.

That's better. Thank you very much.

We have no new patrons, to say thank you today, but thank you to all our existing patrons. You keep this podcast going. And, we've got plenty to talk about in the world of gaming, including one bit of news that affects what we were gonna talk about. You may remember that at the end of last episode, I said I was gonna do a comparison of Western and tales of the old west, And that is considerably written. But we heard the news in the latter part of the week, that is gonna be the world of gaming that made us say, let's postpone it for a little while.

Yeah. So, yeah. So so, stay tuned in. Stay tuned if you wanna hear Craig talking all about some, lots of great things coming up on the Zinequest. But what else? So what else is in the game? What else is in the game of worlding?

The game of worlding is is cracking full today.

It's Sunday morning. I'm not really firing on all cylinders. I have had 2 cups of tea.

You did have a late night. I I saw you up watching American football in the early hours of the morning. So,

I did stay up a lot later than I intended to and should have.

And that was after a lovely evening at the theater as well. So when you packed it in.

I had a great day at the theater seeing Rocky Horror Show with Jason Donovan as Frankie, Frank N Furter. It was very good. But I won't bore people

It was very good. You saw it, in some sort of preview mode, south Southend, but it is going on tour. Check out the we may as well put a link in the show notes.

It was. If

you're UK based, then, given I've just found the website, we might as well put a put a link in the show notes as well. If you fancy seeing Jason Donovan as Frank N Furter.

He was good. He was very good. I mean, the whole performance was excellent. So, yeah. I recommend it, heartily.

Cool. And you were just saying somewhat racier than you, previously remembered.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I haven't seen it live for probably 20 years, if not a bit longer, in fact. Probably more like 30 years maybe. And yeah. So I think they've changed some of the, some of the some of the direction for some of the scenes, which made it a little bit saucier. But that was fine. That's fine. It's all good.

Excellent. Saucy is the name of the game. Isn't it?

It is. Very much so.

So yeah. So we are kicking off though as you as you struggle to, enunciate with the world of gaming.

Thank you.

That's how to say it, David.

Thanks.

David. And When did you

last call me David? Bloody hell.

Whenever I turn you off, David.

Anyway, yes. World of gaming. Finally, let's talk about the world of gaming.

The sinking tower, which is the brilliant adventure that I emceed at UK Games Expo last year. A brilliant tournament adventure, the likes of which we haven't seen really since the eighties.

Mhmm.

Is released for free as the newest quick start for Dragonbane.

Okay. They're they're doing a new quick start. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.

So it's quite in yeah. So the adventure itself was timed. So in theory, it only takes 2 hours to play. But I've got to say, it's got a lot it feels to me like it's got a lot more content in the adventure than the older quick start that they had, the the one with the mounds and the fairy. Do you remember when we played it, we felt there wasn't very much for the elf to do because it was all kind of dungeon based. It was it was just a couple of rooms.

The elf the elf's special abilities were were not really relevant to that scenario. Yeah. I remember Yeah. Because Mohammed was playing the elf, wasn't he? And was kind of like, I I can't really do anything, which is a bit a bit unfortunate.

Yeah. And so that was a relatively small adventure. And in comparison, this is massive. It's got some outside bits, some proper outside bits. So, I'm sure the elf can do well, I don't remember in any of these games the elves, but it's the same set of characters, the the sort of classic quick start characters.

Cool. They're

The candor, the duck.

They're good characters. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, it it's got, as I say, lots of rooms to get through. It's got this sort of timing mechanism that means you've got to get through them or you'll drown as well because clue's in the name. It's a sinking tower. I don't think that's a spoiler.

Yeah. I mean, I haven't played I haven't played, the Sinking Towers. I I wasn't I was busy working whilst you were enjoying yourself during the tournament. Mhmm.

So I

didn't I

was working too and seeing the tournament.

But I think the ad, you know, having it having a a quick start scenario that you can use in various modes is is is very sensible. You know, having it so there's plenty of stuff to do, but but actually, you know, if you're gonna run it in a convention in 2 hours, your players have got some choices to make. You know, do we stop and try and, you know, empty that chest of all its goodies because we're here as treasure hunters? Or, you know, and take the risk that that's gonna put us behind? Or do we do we leave it?

Yeah. I'm remembering tactically as well. I think I can't remember whether Luke was the winning team, but one of the highest scoring teams just raced through the adventure, went all the way through to to get the final thing, and then had time to go back and get some of the treasure. Right. Yeah. Which is interesting because you do get you get points for treasure as well as points for various other things. So

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They they were wise to do that. Having having slammed right through in, I don't know, let's say an hour and a half, They they then went back to get treasure to earn them a few extra points.

Yeah. Yeah. Secure secure the place. Yeah. Exactly. Securing your escape first before you then go back and grab what you can. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Good tactic. Well done them.

Well done them. Exactly. So, that is so, you know, in a way, it is also worth possibly mentioning that discussions are on with UK Games Expo and Free League. And although we don't yet know the name of the adventure, there will be another, Dragon Bay tournament at UK Games Expo, this coming year. And I think, actually, the word has gone out to the League of Free Agents that if you're UK based or you're planning on coming to UK Games Expo, and you wanna run a game for free league in UK Games Expo, put in your applications now to become Dragonbane DMs, GMs one more time.

Yeah. Cool.

Talking of conventions, Chaosium's 50th anniversary, they've they've got rather generous offer to anybody that holds a convention.

Okay. Cool.

You want me to tell you about it, don't you?

I I

think you might just

I I do. I'm just I'm just Okay. I I've I've I've not looked into Chaosium's 50th anniversary at all until now, this very moment. And I'm so I'm not getting much information. So tell me all so I can act surprised and gaffer. Go ahead, mate.

Excellent. I was hoping you'd you'd be able to do that. So it's our 50th anniversary.

Not that I'm still a bit fucking bitter about that comment.

It is our trailer and has been for well over a year now.

Busted.

So 50th anniversary. Chaosium was around, started in 1975. Mostly are board games to begin with until they released Runequest. And they've got a special gift for any conventions happening in countries that they can easily ship to, which I'm just trying to read because this could be an important thing. This year, if you are running a convention this year, it doesn't matter who you are.

It's quite generous, isn't

it? Prizes or giveaways, gifts of appreciation to special guests, or for volunteers, or GMs, or add them to your conventions game library entirely up to you, they say. And they're gonna include in that their 2,025 convention demo adventures, which are gonna be for Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Pendragon, and Rivers of London. We got some more news about that

Oh, yeah.

Later on. So, they will ship convention support packs free of charge to shipping addresses in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union. And, if you live outside one of those areas, get together with somebody in those areas, so they can ship it there. And they will ship that to you, to your friend in one of those areas too. So that you can you can somehow get it off them, and enjoy it.

Yeah. No. That's a great idea. They're also holding 3 Chaosium cons this year.

Yes.

So there's 1 in the

So the

1 in the UK, 1 in the US, and 1 in Australia.

Mhmm.

All looking good. So in the USA, it's in April. In the UK, it's in May in Cranfield. And then it's in Melbourne in Australia in June.

Is that at Cranfield University? Yeah. I went to I did a training program, a fabulous training program, I remember, for work at Cranfield University. And that would be a lovely venue to run games. I should check that one out. Maybe I should go.

So well, it says it's at the Cranfield Management Development Centre. So whether that's part of

the Oh, that sounds a lot like the place that I'm

Yeah. Yeah. That might well be part of the university perhaps.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a it's a stately home style place. And, yeah. Very nice venue. That looks I recommend you. I'm just

looking at the website. That front that front looks very familiar. I wonder if I've been there in my old incarnation as a civil servant.

You might have been there for some management training as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that's that's cool. So I don't know how big these conventions are. How many people are getting ready to go? You can get your tickets. So if you go on to the, if you look if you look it up, there's a website, all about it and they've got links there to get,

to

get your badge, which is a a nice looking little pin. But I think that might be your active registration. So, if

you're interested

in those, go and have a look. They've obviously gone all in for their 50th anniversary, which is a good thing. I think, you know, well well well done then.

Yeah. No. I think I I think I think that's great. I think that's absolutely great. Oh, yeah. And, also, I noticed as part of that package, they give you a code so that all your attendees can get 10% off products at chaoship.com. Right. What's next on our list of things?

You had mentioned Rivers of London. I'm saying there was some more news. Now Rivers of London is a game that has never really appealed to me. I've never read any of the books, and the the game itself hasn't hasn't reached out and grabbed me. So, so what's what's the news?

Right. So, again, this is actually a game that has grabbed me. I bought it. I have one autograph by Ben Aronovich. I I I'd ordered it from Chaos Shield, delivered, and then I took it to a convention. Can't remember if it's UK Games Expo or Dragon Meat, whichever one it was, first thing in the morning. Soon as I saw Ben and Ron sitting me down at the calcium stand, I rushed over with 2 copies. I think I think one yeah. I think it was UK Games Expo because I think Yeah. Bruce was there as well.

You want to play

a game?

To yeah.

To run a game for me to play in.

What's the, what's the mechanics for the game?

It's it's basic role

playing. Right. Yeah.

But it uses some of the basic role playing mechanics that make it, to my mind, a 1000000 times better than Call of Cthulhu. You know, I have problems with there being too many skills in Call of Cthulhu. And arguably, I mean, I I think it's right they do this. There's too much chance of failure in Call of Cthulhu, which is right because you're meant to be totally incompetent against the outer dark. Yeah.

Yeah.

But then they decided, I guess, probably, there's lots of stuff to go in this book anyway. Let's split it out and do it as a separate book. And that separate book is coming and is going to, I think, be a little bit less police procedurally as far as I can gather.

Okay.

Partly because well, for reasons to do with perceptions of our individual police forces, in in in public gamers' minds, I think. And also because the literature, I you don't you won't know the literature here, but in in in the world of Rivers of London, the Metropolitan Police have a special unit Mhmm. Yeah. To investigate magical crimes. But also, effectively, that special unit has got Britain's chief wizard in it without making too many spoilers.

type unit

that that that does it. But the the people that run Magic in America is actually the Library of Congress. If I'm no. I'm not the most in-depth reader, so I'm sure there are people there that might shout, no. You're wrong, Matthew. But as far as I can remember, there's this there's this, the division or subsection within the Library of Congress who are the guys who are the real Oh,

alright. Okay.

Power in US magic. Anyway, where there's organized government centered magic, obviously, there's a bunch of heads of wizards and shaman and stuff like that all over the place. But in terms of nationalized magic, I think it happens in the Library of Congress, which I really like that idea. So I think the American settlement's gonna be a little less police focused and a bit more, dare I say it, Wild West because, I dare say it because we're doing a Wild West game. There's gonna be no crossover between our Wild West game and the world of Rivers of London, though, because we don't have magic in our game.

Right. Okay.

I'm gonna probably,

Is this a Kickstarter or, or is it?

No. I think there may be a preorder. I don't think they're gonna Kickstarter with it. Right. So we shall wait and see on that regard. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably enough shit battering on about that. You talk next. Oh, no. You can't talk next because you know nothing about the next news item like that.

No. So, you know, diamond distribution goes bust is on our notes. So I don't I don't explain. Tell me all about diamond distribution.

Okay. Well, so this has

Well, this is good because this is a this this is a podcast where I'm actually having to do almost none of the work. So that that suits me fine. Crack on.

But all the guffawing and acting surprise.

That's fine. That's easy. I'll do that anyway.

So back when I were a lad, and collected comics, diamond distribution was one of the 2 big players in comic distribution.

Right. Okay.

And I think in a way they became the one big player in comic distribution. They used to a thing that you could buy at comic shops, in fact, was Diamond Distribution's, you know, catalog of upcoming comics, which is really, you know, published for comic shop managers, but then started getting interest for for a while as well. So they were a huge power in comic distribution. And, obviously, they're in tabletop gaming as well, because there's a big crossover between comic shops and game shops. And in fact, they have a sort of, what they had, I should say, a subsidiary called Alliance Games, which which specialize in the tabletop market.

Right.

So part of this is me going, oh, crikey. That's, you know, that's a distributors, you kind of feel as a sort of power behind the throne, the middleman, they just make money. They can't they, you know, they don't they don't particularly invest in in art and, you know, making comics and stuff. All they do is take a cut of pretty much every comic you buy. Mhmm. Yeah. So I kind of thought their role in the world was, you know, relatively safe,

low risk.

But they've they've gone bust. They they owe a bunch of money to, you know, people like Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and, quite a few gaming companies. And it's, you know, reasonably large amounts of money. You know, we're talking 100 of 1,000 of dollars, which doesn't mean it's lost forever to forever to those game companies. They may get some portion of that back because it's chapter 11, and that's how bankruptcy works in

In the States.

In the States. So, you know, they may well survive. They're selling off assets. They they may offer, you know, 90¢ to the dollar or 50¢ a dollar or something. So they'll probably not lose all that money, whatever the worst situation is.

Okay. I guess that's the the key thing for for customers.

Yeah. Yes. For customers in the UK, but yeah. And they there's release statements saying there will be no disruption to service. Everybody's getting their games and stuff like that. Yeah. But I do look at some of those big money, big money, creditors. They they may be facing some sort of financial risk. Yeah. So, yeah, that is the last bit of well, that's not the very last bit of world of gaming news.

For speedy recovery. Yeah. Indeed. So, yeah. I mean, not much else to say really other than, good luck Anders and, get well very soon. And as a as a result, we we decided that we'd postpone our western conversation to another day, and just, you know, let's not focus on focus on Anders and sending him all our best wishes for a quick recovery.

Yeah. Oh, although one of the things I realized now that I forgot to mention when I was saying what was coming in the next episode is we do have some old west news, don't we, Dave? Here's a chance for you to talk.

We always have some old west news. Yeah. Old west news. So, what's the what's the update today? So we have been working round the clock, to get the the layout finished for the, initially to get the PDF, out to, out to our backers.

But,

yeah. So I'm about halfway through. I will have finished that, early next week, or by middle of next week. How long it'll take?

And the important thing about what you're doing, I mean, hoping hoping that we can just replace that bit of text with a little picture we've got. You know, we haven't we haven't quite used all our art in this because, frankly, there hasn't been room for it. So if if a paragraph opens up a bit more space for a bit of art, then we will happily fill that with that.

Yeah. But the other thing

you're doing, of course, hopefully, is marking now which when it says see page x Oh, yeah. We're gonna know which page to that be linked to.

Yeah. So part of part of the thing that is really slowing this down is all is doing all those cross cross references. Because, actually, there's a lot more in the book than you'd really realized. Although, actually, I'm mostly through the rules bit. So until I hit the campaign chapter, I'm thinking that we won't have many of those now. So it should speed

up a little bit. There'll be fewer of those. Yeah.

The other thing I'm doing whilst I'm doing this is building up the index as well. Well.

So

that that those two things on top of the proofread are obviously slowing, making it up a slower, a slower task than I would have liked. But we're getting there. We're getting there. I I I did kind of think it might take me a week, and, I I'm gonna be right. It will have taken me a week of work to do that.

I think we will. I think we'll hit on target for that first PDF. And if

and if we don't, it'll only be a few days. So we're not we are we are very, very nearly there. And then, you know, hopefully, in the beginning of 4 months for our delivery target of May. You know, at the moment, that feels entirely doable. So Yeah. Yeah. So it's good. It's all good. It's, yeah. And it's it's actually it's been because I worked on this text so much over the last however many years.

I thought something that, Stefan said was very reassuring. Because, of course, he is coming cold to this Yeah. As a layout guy. He hasn't been like our patrons who've, you know, followed us from early work in progress versions, because it was a reward for our patrons to to see us build this game. So he's coming to it cold and new and knowing nothing about it.

Absolutely. Yeah. Which is good. Because I think, you know, it feels to me that it's quite a hard job doing the layout. And it feels to me that there's a lot of, you know, finickity going backwards and forwards over what might seem like very, very minor points. And it feels to me it would be quite easy for a layout artist to get fed up with a particular job. Yeah.

Or client.

Or or client. Yeah. Yeah. I mean he hates you. And he loves me, but he hates you. But, you know, the fact that he's he's been so enthusiastic and and energetic, and maybe the fact that he is liking what he's seeing, has helped helped maintain his enthusiasm for the project. Yeah. But, yeah, we we only we only

need more budget, more hours, and more money for layout, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. Cool. What else? So yeah.

Anyway What else?

The final book is gonna be about 300 pages now. We're that's where it's gonna land roughly. So it's a it's a significantly bigger book than we sort of originally anticipated going on on some sort of industry standard.

Yeah. It's it's

half as per page. Yeah.

Half as much again.

Nearly. Yeah.

And it isn't like we've done a layout that is particularly word light, actually.

No. No. Not at all. I think it's not. I think it's all the tables.

Yeah. I think it's the tables too.

A lot of the tables. And also, not every book. We we we've got 20 pages of chapter openings. Yeah. That's 20 pages of nothing but chapter, you know, chapter double spread.

Double page spread.

With a nice picture. So there's 20 pages straight off that we kind of perhaps haven't factored into our calculation. But yeah.

I think we did factor those in. I seem to remember. But anyway, yes. It but then still, I think even we factored it in, it was like it was gonna be 220 pages. Now I think the tables have taken up a lot more space than we imagined.

Yeah. But I'm, you know, I'm fine with that, actually. I mean, it's a good lesson for next time.

Mhmm.

But also, for this being our first product, I don't mind us going a bit going the extra mile. Getting a book that's a bit meatier and a bit bigger. Hopefully, when people get it in their hands, it will feel substantial. Yeah. And it'll it'll add to the to the woah. This is alright. This is good. Kind of, I feel that I want people to have when they open the box when they finally get it and get the book in their hands. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

So, that's okay. What else? We we the the other news is oh, we had to create a talking of chapter spreads, we felt we had to create another chapter spread, which we've done for the for the appendix.

Yeah.

More on that when you see it.

Yes.

When And also, I

It'll be interesting to see what was what we what response we get to to that to that image. It's a good image. It's one that we talked about that you you are advocated for a long time ago. I I don't know. I I I guess I'd I'd thought you'd forgotten about it and, you know, it wasn't gonna appear, and then it appeared.

Well, I have forgotten about it because we'd we'd changed the chapters around. We thought we weren't gonna need that one. Yeah. And then we decided the appendix does need it. So, so but I hadn't actually forgotten about it. It just stopped talking about it. I think we need another double page spread. I went, I know exactly what's going there.

It's a good image. But it's, yeah. It's, it's I don't know what's the right word. It's it's not it's not a it's not a courageous image. It's just may maybe not every maybe not every publisher would have thought to put an image like that in the book. But it's

I I'm a bit disappointed actually. I I I said to, I said to Stefan, I bet you've never seen another role playing game.

Yeah.

That content in it. And he went, actually, yeah. That's in, that's in Cult.

Cult. Yeah. But then I I suspect in cult, it's significantly more bloody

in the world. I'm sure it's I'm sure it's an entirely

Our picture is a very, very sanitized image. Wholesome. Wholesome. Yes. That's the word. Yep.

And, I don't imagine that the the one in, anyway, wait and see wait and see for that one. And the other thing, I've I've seen a picture back of our new dice trays, the proof of our new dice trays. So I'm about to press the go button on that. I just

wanted to

do another picture. It's looking a bit pale to me.

And I

wonder whether that's them, the lighting Yeah. Yeah. Or whether I need to say, no. We need it. We need we need to bring out the color a little bit more. Yeah. But,

That does look very good though. The image we've chosen for that, for the dye straight is

really Chef's kiss, that image.

Superb image. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely superb.

Cool. I think everybody would be very pleased with it. We've shown it to our patrons. And our patrons one of our patrons said, well, the only problem with that image is it's not in my house. Yeah. So, where are we? Yeah. That's the end of, I guess,

Yeah. That's probably the end

of manager coming soon. You've already said that, haven't you? Yeah. So let's, click over to our interview with Craig Duffy.

Zoom quest. Exactly. Yes. And yes. And let's let's go over to our to our correspondent at Zinequest for the for the latest news.

Well, we're very excited to welcome into the hammam this evening the marvelous Craig or as you know him on the interwebs, hoodoo voodoo. You've been on before, Craig, but you're always welcome back.

You are.

Well, I mean, it's a pleasure to be back, and thank you once again. It's always fun to come and talk about Zinequest and Zinequest small games because not everything can be a massive 300 pages view at the moment.

300 page. Page.

For toto, which I just also want to say a massive congratulations to the both of you on that one. That was a fantastic campaign.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. We've got a new sporter ones. Dave Dave needs a regular income going into the future. And, actually, I think if Dave were to churn out something kind of Zinequest size every month, he could probably get something approaching a regular income.

Would be yeah. Would be nice. Yeah.

But but that's what you gotta do. I mean, it's taken us 6 years to get this one. We can't wait for another 6 years for you to get what? Another I don't know what our profit's gonna be out of this. Maybe you'll get a £1,000?

Maybe.

Yeah. We'll see.

I mean, 5 to 10000 words a month should be no problem for a pro.

Yeah. That's that's entirely doable, frankly. Yeah. Anyway, we're not here to talk about me. We're talking about Craig and Zine Zine.

Right. So, yeah, you predicted what we wanna talk about. Zinequest is coming up. You've got a new game that's going to be, what do you call it? Crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

Yep. I'm back on Kickstarter this year for the words we leave behind, which is another 2 player duet game about time travel, changing histories, and the butterfly effect inspired by the novella, this is how you lose the time war.

Oh.

Cool. So does this fit in with your whole, rock hoppers? Is this part of that same big narrative that, allegations And even with the time war?

Yes and no. I'm trying not to give away too much on that answer, but I have been using it. Actually, one of the things I've been using it for is to develop some of the history for that setting. So some of the bits that came before, I thought why not use my own games to to develop it?

Okay. And so so you're you're making use of all your your nice bit of sort of Canon backstory creation by making a game that takes you back there?

I mean, essentially. Yeah. So

Yeah. Cool.

The game is all about having 2 agents to 2 players fighting over time by jumping to different bits and changing the flow of history

and Oh, so it's not only a duet game, but it's PVP, is it?

I mean, it's PVP but collaborative in the same way. So they're both fighting against one another, but as players, you're building the shared narrative. But there's also mechanics where you change what the other person has written.

Oh. Right. Dude, tiny wimey stuff.

Exactly. That's one of the bits that I really wanted to emphasize, that time travel has consequences. And Are

you We all know Sorry. Karen?

We wanna you obviously heard of the butterfly effect that one small change step on a butterfly during the dinosaur period and all of history changes, and that's what the game really embraces.

Are you, are you are you tackling are you tackling paradoxes? Or how are you tackling paradoxes? Or are you just type are you just hand waving them like most most time, like, media?

I'm not really tackling paradoxes because you're not interacting with your own history in that regards. Right. And so that's the big paradox that everyone always comes. If you go and kill your grandfather, what happens to you? I'm not really exploring that side of things.

Right. Okay.

I just wanted to, you know, promote my nerd credentials by saying, of course, the butterflies fact is named after the short story, A Sound of Thunder, isn't it, by, Ray Bradbury, I believe?

It's something like that. I will have to take your word on it.

My I'm

drawing a blank, unfortunately.

That swap Matthew was just looking up on his iPad to try and

No. No. No. No. No. No. That is a story. I was a big Bradbury fan in my early teens, and I remember that story so well. And, yeah. Anyway sorry. But I believe it's called the sound of thunder. Anyway, moving on, can you give us a little hint about any interesting game mechanics?

So it adapts the mechanics that I developed for signal to noise, which would be my 2 player game of loss and distance as one person is on Earth and the other leaves the solar system forever.

Yeah.

So you have cards that you're playing that give you prompts, and each card tells you where in history you're gonna go to. And then the suit tells you what sort of mission or how to approach the mission that your your bosses have told you. So if you play a harp, for example, you might have been told go back in time and seduce this person that historically didn't fall in love. You write your event, but then the butterfly event effect comes into play because if you've been sent, say, in the middle of the established time period, every event that comes after it, you go and change one sentence. So Right.

So the person of the mission has the is the person in control of the changing of everything that happens afterwards?

Yes. Yeah. But then the next turn, the other person might go even further back in time

Yeah.

And change what you've just wrote in, or they might go into the future and only change one event.

Right. Okay.

So how much do you expect people so people write a response to the prompt. How how many words or substances or what how long is that response meant to be?

I mean, I say in the guidance, I think it's at least 10 sentences. So it can be short.

Right. Right.

Or you can go long. I say I think it's 10 sentences up to a page in the current draft. So it doesn't have to be an entire chapter describing your year long mission into the Roman period. You could just cut to the action. Talk about how you save Caesar.

Say Andrew Gasco are playing this game together, they'd have, you know, 3 or 4 volumes by the end of their first mission, wouldn't they? Well, I

mean, if if that's the way you wanna play it, you could, but then the changes you make are gonna be much more subtle, much smaller.

Well, obviously, they are good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Whereas if you keep them to a page, you feel the impact of each change when it comes in.

I can see.

Right. I can

see it. Yeah. Yeah. And, so what sort of format is it gonna be in when you when you go to the Kickstarter? What what what do you I mean, obviously, it's a zine format, but have you got any interesting, fix you you've got planned for the presentation of it?

I mean, it's it's gonna be a zine format. I'm working with a new artist, Carly AF, that's going to be doing the art for it. She's already done a few pieces, and the Kickstarter will add to that.

Cool.

But it's gonna be very much a standard zine format.

Mhmm. Okay. And what glossy covers or anything?

Nope. No. I'm keeping it simple unless we if it goes really well, I've got a few plans to maybe upgrade it to a slightly fancier, but at its core, it's a standard zine. This is what I'm learning is that I don't have the patience to write longer, big, hardback games. I like small focused stories.

Are you are you saying that we're not focused?

I'm saying you have big imaginations.

That was very cleverly done. Well done. Saved yourself there.

So, Dave, you're going out to dinner after this interview. What paid you up to with the proofing of the layout of our game?

A 133.

You see, that is a lack of focus, Dave.

It's fucking hard work, I tell you. It really is.

Whereas, I think my biggest game today is 52 pages, I think it is. Something like that.

In in my defense, I'm also building an index and doing all the cross referencing that's in the book. So

Yeah. All the c page x x x. Yeah. Yeah.

And that is taken up. That's kind of doubling the amount of time it takes really. That's But it's

We're working very hard, Dave. But then so am I, but I'm getting paid for my work. That's Exactly.

Oh, no. Sorry. What is going I've I've done something seriously wrong here, haven't I? Yeah.

Yeah. You retired from a job you hated. That's what you did.

Well, that's true. That is true.

Now and this is a little unusual. As you said, this

is about Yeah. Completely digressing you.

Well, obviously, what we, the other thing I've noticed you doing on the social medias is you are publishing short interviews with other Zinequest creators, and, thus, a rising tide lifts all the ships. But before we get onto all those other guys, and you are gonna be our, Zinequest correspondents. But before we get onto them, let's just talk a little bit about you, Lunar Shadow Designs as a business, because you've been touting your games around, the conventions and stuff like that. So, you know, you are building on the success of previous Kickstarters. You're reprinting some stuff, are you, and selling that at conventions?

Yeah. No. I I've been fortunate enough. I think, I'm just looking down at my shelf. I think almost everything that I've done a print run has had at least one one extra print run. Cool. And I've this this year, last year, I was fortunate to exhibit UK Games Expo as part of the Tin Stand Tabletop Scotland, as part of the indie connection stand, and my own stand at Dragon Meat. So, yeah, conventions are a big part of outside of Kickstarter, how I get my games in front of people.

But I'm sensing there your sentence structure there is about getting people yeah. Getting the game in front of people. It's not about making your first £1,000,000. Mhmm.

I mean, I take the first million and I take the second. Yeah. I'm unlike Dave, I have not been brave enough to just take the dive into full time or even part time. So it's just

crazy stupid.

You said that, not me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I no. I deliberately said that. Anyway, yeah, carry on. Yeah.

Yeah. No. I'm a hobbyist. I do this because I enjoy it. I don't have to make money in paying my living wage. The money that I make goes back into it. Most most of the money I make gets me to conventions because they're expensive. Tabling Yeah. Accommodation, especially in London and Edinburgh, is expensive. Yeah. So selling these games means I pay my way to the conventions and have a fun weekend selling more games.

And I can

do your next convention. Yeah.

And saving the money for your next convention. Yeah. But not not yet getting rich. Okay. So, oh, the other thing I just wanna briefly mention is your blog. You do kind of unpack the financial, impact of each of your Kickstarters and your convention stuff. So if people wanna find out more about the finances of small press, you're very honest and open with, you know, what you're spending and what you're earning out of everything, aren't you, Craig?

Yeah. No. I I think it's really important because there's other people that do it, but the majority of people that do it are the ones that have made it in some sense. They're the ones they've had that 50,000, £100,000 Kickstarter. They've gone viral.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, actually, just

as a

as a brief summary, so my profit for the year is currently sitting at £200 because I This

is not what I was getting to, actually, Craig. This is where I was stewing the questions.

It it's still a profit, I guess.

It's a profit. Is

a profit. Yeah.

But that that money that I've earned, that's taken me to Edinburgh, paid for 3 nights in Edinburgh and travel and table costs. It's paid for London travel to Dragon Meat, paid to expo. And I'm in the lucky position I could have afforded that on my own, but if I can get my games to do it, it's much better for my bank balance.

Yeah.

Excellent. Right. Okay. Now switch hats, Craig. Put on your, effects, Zinequest correspondence hat, and tell me what else in the world of Zinequest has caught your eye, in Zinequest 2025?

So I'm gonna start with another time travel game.

Oh, yeah?

So we've got against time and death by Nick Bate who anyone that knows Nick knows I share a store with him at Dragon Meat. Mhmm. And this is also inspired by the how you lose the time war.

That where Oh, great. 2 competing inspirations here.

And I will be open. Nick started working on his game long before I did. But Nick

And you've watched in and nicked his idea and published something first. Is that what

you're saying?

Nope. No. You got out there first. His his game got me to read the book. And then I Right. But where my game focuses on changing history and the records of history, His really focuses on the interpersonal drama that's at the heart of that novella. So you've got your 2 agents, but it's all about the relationship that they build as they're trying to fight against one another. So it's same inspiration spinning off in a different direction.

Is this a kind of mister and missus Smith one where, they fall in love as well?

I mean, it you can play it that way. One of the actual plays that he's recorded of it went that direction. You can play it the complete opposite that they end up hating one another. And I'm a big fan of Nick's games in general. He did stealing the throne that you might know. He's got this way of just tight, concise writing that's also really evocative.

Mhmm.

So I think that's gonna be great. That's launching on the 11th February.

Cool.

Actually, yeah, let's talk a little bit about the mechanics of Zinequest because I'm suddenly thinking we didn't have a Zinequest last year. Am I right? The the

No. We had one last year. The They changed the

dates of it. Yeah.

Yeah. So Zinequest for anyone that doesn't know it, you might have heard of Zine Month. It started as a Kickstarter initiative in 2019, I think, to promote small people, smaller publishers.

Just promote small people.

Small people. Smaller publishers with a month of celebrating zines, encouraged to do a 2 week campaign, small goals, keep it simple, got really big, and then they decided in 2022, I think it was, let's move it to August during GenCon. And everyone went, no. No. Yeah.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

So, your game is gonna be on Kickstarter. Nyx is also gonna be on Kickstarter. So all the time wars that we are aware of are on Kickstarter. Yep. Have you got any from the other side of zine month from any of the other

So on BakaKit, fear of a daily planet, and this is a module for the wildly popular mothership. Mhmm. And I think it's great. I've got a couple of actually interviews of different adventures for different systems up on the blog at the moment, but it's great that we're seeing more adventures for systems.

As opposed to, inclusive zine whole games, you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, I write whole games, but adventures because we we want these games to be played. So adventures are a fantastic way of encouraging people to do that. Mothership has done a great, building that community and ecosystem.

Cool. Cool. Cool. And we will liaise with you and make sure that we have links in the show notes to all of these games.

Yeah.

But, got any more?

So we're gonna jump to one that I know that you're interested in as soon as the page reloads. I'm sorry about this. So this is a

This is a tail end Charlie?

This is tail end Charlie. Typically, my page has just so this is coming from Alex White who you might know did A Cool and Lonely Courage and Love and Barbed Wire. It's all about, tail end gunners in World War 2 bomber command. Mhmm. And Alex has done this is his 3rd war in historical war inspired game. He writes lovely games that just touch on really emotional time periods that we we hear a lot about, but you don't think about what was it actually like to live through that period.

Mhmm.

So Love and Barbed Wire, for example, is all about a soldier in World War 1 writing to their partner from the trenches and telling that story.

Yeah.

This one is World War 2. You're the tail end gunner, which was one of the most dangerous positions in one of the most dangerous parts of the forces to be in. And it's about the contrast between the terror of being in a bomber command and then letting off steam when you're back home, the dancers, the people you see, the relationships you build. So that is coming on the 11th February on Kickstarter as well.

And the reason I'm particularly interested in this, of course, is, few episodes ago, I we talked about, masters of the air and war stories day, didn't we?

Yep.

We did. You know, I was saying the difficulty of doing this, you know, a campaign based around the banality of and safety and comfort of life at home waiting to go on a mission and that well, even then on a mission, even though it was terrifying, it's kind of very mundane, like driving a bus in a way. You know, you're not a you're not flying an x wing when you're flying one of these Lancaster bombers.

And a

tail end gunner, obviously, all he's doing basically is being a passenger until and a bit of an observer sometimes, but, you know, until there's enemy fighters in its sights, you know, it's it's I think must be almost a dullest job in the world. And I'm intrigued about how we're gonna capture that and

see

what it does. But, I pointed out to Alex that we'd had this article, and he did the decency and listened to it and, thought it was very good. So I think I'll I'll at least, back his back his zine.

Yeah. No. It's it's one that I'm really intro I mean, I like historical games. I'm more a bit later focused on the cold war, a lot of my focus, but this is something that if it works, it's gonna invoke that emotional response, and I think that's what small games can be really good at doing is evoking a single focused

emotion. And that is a

Yeah.

Solo game, isn't it? Not a not a duet game.

Yep. That's a solo, although he has written duet and, multiplayer games in the past.

Cool. Excellent. Looking forward to that one. We've got time for some more, haven't we, Dave, before you go to rush off? What else have you got?

A few more minutes.

So something a bit different. Growing thylacine. Do you know what a thylacine is

or was? No. No. I'm vaguely remembering that from science classes, biology, and stuff, I think. What remind me.

So it was the Tasmanian tiger that's now extinct. So it

was a Yeah. Yeah.

A native species of, Australia.

There's there's a that yeah. Okay. Yep.

So there's photos you might have seen from the early 20 late 19th century, early 20th century of the last one in Zoom.

Yeah. It's thylacine, isn't it? T h y l a c. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So this is a small game about, cloning a thylacine and imagining as you clone it, the life that it had, the instincts as it comes back and finds itself again, and then eventually, hopefully, escapes. It's by an Australian creator called Pitch. It's gonna be on Kickstarter and, again, on the popular date of 11th February, and it's a small sort

of

I mean, the tone from what I Petrol just told me could lean into a few different areas, but it's about embodying the idea of this Philistine and its half remembered life and thinking about the impact that people have had on the planet and animals in general.

Sounds like a cheerful experience, that one.

But, again, it's a it's about that specific focus story.

Emotion. Yeah.

Yeah. And immersion. Yeah.

Excellent. And that's coming for Australia. Of course, the last, the last scene I got from Australia was one from our patron Thomas's family about gangster octopi doing various claims. Yeah.

I remember that one. I think I only backed out a PDF, but I remember that one and some lovely art in that.

Yeah. Yeah. And and just like a bonkers idea, frankly.

A bonkers idea? Someone like a really fun.

Well, absolutely. I wasn't a criticism in the slightest. That was that was a that was a compliment. Yeah.

Yeah. But also that great idea because you can think about, you know, animals escaping from a an aquarium or a zoo. And then it's just that step again that games are so great at of going, well, if you've got this idea, what if I add in a bit of gangster

and

just give an octopus a gun?

Yeah. Alright. Alright.

8 guns. Yeah. Exactly.

Right. We're we're running close on time, but we've probably got time for 1 or 2 more. Have you got any more?

So I'm gonna jump to something related, actually. It's not an actual game. It's a website to promote zenemonth games at the moment called I want to play dot games.

Oh. Okay.

So

We will put a link in the show notes, obviously.

One of the great things about zine quest, is the community effort. Mhmm. Everyone really does come together, shares their own games, and this is a website by Luke of Ether Corp Games that is there so you can submit your project. You can search through projects by different tags. And it's not just for zine month.

Yeah.

It's quite hard. But this brings it all back together.

It's a very clean site. I like it. I like its presentation.

Yep. And there's already a number of scene quest games up there. I need to get my own submitted. But I think anyone that's interested in this sort of smaller side of crowdfunding should really go and check it out.

Mhmm. Oh, yeah. It is a nice site. They always will decide. You're quite right.

Very nicely. Cool.

Excellent. Next year, we'll interview Luke from I want to play games, and we'll we'll let Craig off. No. No.

He's he's on the team now.

On the team now. I'm expecting a paycheck. Correspondent.

You're welcome. That's where there might be a problem, Craig.

I mean, it might be a paycheck for 0, but

Can't afford to

pay anything to

write it on. Yeah.

Well, as always, it's been a real pleasure. You're you're launching on the 11th February as well on

Nope. I'm launching on the 4th February. Oh. Early.

4th of February.

Wise. Get in early. Get in ahead of the other ones. Get all the get all the early backers.

Well, that that And how long does the campaign last when you do when you do a a quest one like this?

So they always say it should be 2 weeks, but I'm going 2 in a bit weeks to start on a Tuesday, which supposedly is the best day, and end on a Sunday, which, again, is supposedly the best day. Whether that's just groupthink, I don't know. But I also just wanna get it done and over with. I'm sure you know how stressful these campaigns can be.

No. Yeah. They are. They're all all they're all consuming, aren't they? I mean Yeah. I've I've A

week 3 is worse, so your your accent just, cut that bit out.

I've I've been on Facebook probably less times since the campaign finished than I did on every single day during the campaign. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Kickstarter and all the rest of it. Yeah. It's nice to

have a talking a little bit about that, just because I want to try and make Dave late for dinner. Social media now, we we I'm just noticing, obviously, Facebook was a really good friend to us during the, the campaign, but I'm noticing we're getting less engagement on our Facebook posts in recent months.

Mhmm.

We never had you know, blue sky has always been smaller for us, but that that has stayed consistent. Are you as you're promoting your game on Zquest and and other games, what are you noticing, Craig, about social media and where people should be pushing their message out?

Yeah. I wish I had a a fun answer to this, but it really has imploded in the last year and a half. I'm focusing on Blue Sky because that's where I'm most active. It's where the community seems to be most active. Facebook for the the scale that I'm targeting doesn't make much sense.

Yeah.

I'm not sure how many actual backers we got. We did quite well when with Facebook when we were promoting pre sign ups as it were. I thought we were getting quite good value for money from Facebook, but I don't really think I saw that on the Facebook ads while the campaign was actually going getting converted into real backers.

We got a few, didn't we? But it was We did

get a few. Yeah.

It was a slack handful that we could guarantee. Well, we, you

know, we could assess all

the from them from the

Having talked to other people in the community, Facebook ads are still really effective if you are going for a hardback book. They're probably one of the most cost effective ads out there.

Oh, yeah. I mean, they're cheap, which means cost effectiveness.

Yeah.

They're they're great. Yeah.

I tried Fred's. That became as bad as Facebook. Mhmm. Twitter, I can't remember the last time I opened it because I've my account's still there just out of spite at this point. But the blue sky seems to be where the the most active community is at the moment.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I think we're seeing, we're seeing the community moving to Blue Sky. Cool. Cool. Shall we, let you go, Dave, and say goodbye to Craig?

Yeah. Thanks so much, Craig, for for coming in and talking to us about all of that. That's really interesting.

A pleasure as always.

Excellent.

And good luck to you, Craig, and to everybody who's running a Z month promotion on on BeckerKit or GameFound or or Kickstarter or wherever you're going for your crowdfunding.

Yep. I hope everyone's successful and makes a lot of money.

So, plenty of exciting things. Definitely one that I'm gonna back. Do check out the links to a bit in the show notes. And also the I want to play dot games website. I think it's a lovely looking website that, isn't it?

It is a very it's very clean. It's nicely done. Yeah.

So but I think everything that's been said on Zinequest has been said. Probably. That could be said on Zinequest has been said by Craig. We're really very smooth around this whole Zinequest thing, aren't we?

No one would ever guess it was a last minute filler for, you know, a change of change of attack for the episode. But no. A a great thank you to Craig for coming on the show at very short notice to talk to us about Zinequest, which we wanted to do anyway, but it it obviously came forward a little bit in our in our thinking. Yes.

I mean, we we were gonna be reasons discussed already. Yeah.

So, thank you, Craig. It was it was a pleasure chatting to you as always. And, yeah. Thank you so much.

In the spirit of making promises about what we're gonna offer in our next episode, and then maybe breaking them later on, what are you promising us, Dave, for the next episode?

Well, I was I've been thinking quite a lot about Rome year 0.

Mhmm.

I mean, we're we're obviously we haven't formally decided what we might do for the next

What our next thing might be.

For the next game, line would be. But Rome year 0 is is is on the list of on the shortlist. And anyway, I'm interested in it so I've been doing some thinking. One of the things I wanna get right in that game is is how we manage battles. You know, the to do it to do it properly.

We'll look forward to that.

Cool. Well, it's, so so it's goodbye from me.

And it's goodbye from him.

May the icons bless your adventures.

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