0:00

Welcome to Prose

0:02

& Cons, a

0:04

Ludology podcast where

0:06

I interview board

0:08

game professionals at

0:17

board game conventions. Let's

0:20

go! All right,

0:23

everybody. We

0:34

are back with live Ludologies,

0:37

which is kind of fun. So for those

0:39

of you who don't know, when we

0:41

record Ludology, we're obviously not in the same

0:43

room because you've heard us interview people from

0:45

all around the world. But when

0:48

we're at conventions, we can be in the same

0:50

room. I'm sitting across the table

0:52

from the one and only Patrick

0:54

Leader right now, live and in

0:57

person, and it's weird. It is weird. It's

0:59

weird because I can hear myself. Well, yeah. But

1:03

it wouldn't help you if I sat in

1:05

the hall that's right here. No.

1:07

Okay, good. No. You

1:10

know what happens? Every time they go behind that, because it's

1:12

just like the secret passageway. It's the service. Yeah,

1:14

yeah. And it's like jangly bits and

1:16

like ups rattling. It's pretty funny because

1:18

some people are like, what's going on?

1:21

They don't know that that's what that is. But

1:23

it is weird seeing Patrick like this because normally I

1:25

see him across like a Zoom call or something. Yeah.

1:29

And it's lovely. I mean, you are

1:31

even more spectacular in person, sir. And

1:35

it's great to see you. It's good to

1:37

be back on the circuit, going to the

1:39

conventions. And for all of

1:41

the patrons out there who support Ludology and helped

1:43

us to afford this, they have this lovely little

1:45

recording rig that we've got going on. We thank

1:47

you. So we're going to talk to Patrick

1:50

today about I don't know what we're going to talk

1:52

about Patrick. But

1:54

let's talk about my

1:57

creative practice. How's that sound? That sounds

1:59

great. And

6:00

so during that time, for

6:02

me, there was a lot of work being

6:04

spent on making sure the operations

6:07

of the company went well and

6:09

ran well and that as

6:11

something started to consume too much of my

6:13

time, I would then turn that

6:15

into a full-time position and move it over to somebody

6:18

else and train them how to do it. Yeah, I

6:20

think if people need

6:22

to know anything about Patrick, it's that

6:24

Patrick can figure out when

6:26

something becomes a unit. Yes,

6:31

that is my power. Patrick's

6:34

superpower is that he

6:36

can make something into a unit and

6:38

parcel it off from his life or

6:40

from whatever else it's part of and

6:42

make that unit work for itself or

6:44

assign a team to do just that

6:47

unit or whatever it is. He's

6:49

really good at it. It's

6:51

ridiculous. It's really interesting. Thank

6:53

you. Thank you. So,

6:55

I – and that was

6:57

the time during Root was I was

6:59

– I was helping creatively and I

7:02

did run some of the playtesting or

7:04

I hosted playtesting for Root, but

7:06

it was a lot of like, okay, now, office is

7:08

growing. Now we need someone to take the checks, take

7:10

the bills, pay stuff. Now

7:13

sales is growing. We need someone to do this. And

7:15

it just kept parsing off the – and my

7:17

joke around the office until like two years ago

7:19

was like, I've done every job in

7:21

this office. At some point, I've had

7:23

to do all of this except for the graphic

7:26

design. It was probably the only one I've never

7:28

really touched because I do graphic design now, but

7:31

it's not what we would publish. It's not

7:33

very good. It's functional. It's

7:35

functional. Yep. It's what I

7:37

need to do to make prototypes. And so, like, during

7:39

that time, you know,

7:42

and I, like, frankly, like, fast with

7:44

my third game. So, it

7:46

wasn't like I was a real solid designer yet myself

7:48

anyway. It was, you know, my first two games,

7:50

no one knows what they are, and we'll leave it

7:53

that way. And so,

7:55

when Vast hit, you know, like, I did –

7:57

I got to focus really hard on it and

7:59

get really good at making vast. And

8:02

then I wasn't doing a lot of creative work

8:04

anymore because I was moving, I was moving through

8:06

these operation rules. And so as

8:08

I got back to during COVID, trying

8:10

to work on creative

8:13

projects, and just with my own,

8:17

whatever is going on with my brain,

8:19

I was having, especially during COVID,

8:21

it was very frustrating for me to

8:24

sit down and start a project, and

8:27

then maybe not get 100% buy

8:29

in or not be able to sell it to the studio

8:32

effectively. And then I would,

8:35

I was crashing a lot of products during

8:37

that time. And so it was a very

8:39

frustrating time for me. And I got a

8:41

little wrapped up in, in

8:43

how that was going for me. And so

8:46

yeah, it's been frustrating. And now in

8:50

the last year, I would say is we come

8:52

out of COVID, as the operation staff has kind

8:54

of come into their own. I mean, they've always

8:56

been on their own. But like

8:58

now they really are independent of my management,

9:01

you know, I just, I still,

9:03

I still weigh in on the big decisions. But

9:05

a lot of things are being taken care of

9:07

by the operations team without my input. And,

9:10

and now I'm, you know,

9:12

and I and of course, I did, you know,

9:14

as lead design on, I did design on

9:16

unrolled, and I did, I did some design

9:18

of Marauder. So I was

9:21

there designing, but I still needing someone to

9:23

finish things for me while I was getting

9:25

things done. And I like, it's

9:28

weird, there's some like, there's

9:30

some negativity in me about that. Like, I still

9:32

like, think about like,

9:34

you know, like I failed, but like, we

9:36

succeeded because we got the project done. And

9:38

that was how the project was going to

9:40

get done. So like, the

9:43

company's fine, people in the company are fine with me.

9:45

It's just in my head, I was like, Oh, my

9:48

God, like, what if I can't finish

9:50

a project again. And like the way that I got

9:52

vast to the end, you know, and of course, vast,

9:54

I still had to turn over developer because that's the

9:56

process, you need to turn over developer to get it

9:58

done. And

10:01

so now, as I am

10:04

working my way through PATH, which is the game I'm working on

10:06

in studio right now, I've

10:09

acknowledged it and I don't know what's different, but

10:11

I've been able to pull myself back enough and

10:13

assert, you know, this is what I want the

10:15

game to be, this is how I want to

10:18

do it, this is why I'm doing it to

10:20

the staff in a way that communicates to them

10:22

that my intention is serious and I'm going to

10:24

finish the project. And

10:26

then they're able to work with me to get

10:28

the project done. And so it's been

10:31

kind of a time of redevelopment for me and I've

10:33

really been enjoying it. I've heard

10:35

that quite a few times this week

10:37

about COVID really just throwing everything for

10:39

a loop. Yeah. And especially

10:41

when you have a team like you do, but it's

10:44

not even like a solo designer, a

10:46

lot of the people who design fairly in isolation,

10:49

they're like, I just couldn't do anything

10:51

with this because there was no people to work

10:54

with, I couldn't bounce ideas off anybody. And

10:56

then you have a team behind you, but you're like still

10:58

with a team, it was just a

11:00

weird time and like you might've been remote from

11:02

them and I just couldn't communicate the right idea

11:04

because they couldn't touch the piece of wood

11:07

that I was playing with and whatever. Yeah.

11:10

So I think COVID was a real big, I

11:12

don't know, poke

11:15

in the eye for everybody. And

11:17

I mean, we had talked just before we went

11:19

on air about the big bubble in terms

11:21

of production pipeline and

11:24

why Origins 2023

11:26

may not be a financial success for a

11:28

lot of publishers here is because they don't

11:30

have new product. Right, right, right. Because it's

11:32

still 2020, 2021 stuff hasn't arrived yet. It's

11:37

not off the boat in some cases. So yeah,

11:39

it's interesting. And how

11:42

has your process changed

11:45

from when you did Vast

11:48

and then Root and then Oath and

11:53

all the other games in between that Fort

11:55

Ahoy, how does

11:57

it advance to where you are now?

14:00

how to facilitate that difference within the

14:02

structure of the company, I think was very important

14:04

for us. I think to

14:06

be a co-designer is to understand

14:08

your own strengths and limitations and

14:10

understand the strengths and limitations of

14:12

the people you're designing with and

14:15

to insert yourself when

14:18

you're needed and to pull back

14:20

when you're not necessarily the strongest

14:23

person in the room for that particular role.

14:26

When you're when you design with like

14:28

design powerhouses like coal and everybody

14:30

else, like sometimes

14:33

you're going to have that little bit of, I don't

14:35

know, lack of confidence or some that is

14:37

some some imposter syndrome you've been right. I

14:39

don't get hit by that a lot. I

14:41

don't know. I almost never do. And

14:44

I don't think I am in terms of working

14:46

with coal, but it sounds like sometimes you question

14:49

the mojo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:52

But now but now I'm there

14:55

again. I'm confident about

14:58

how it kind of

15:00

for a moment there's a starting. So

15:03

now I'm confident again about the about the process

15:05

that what I'm doing and he keeps

15:07

reinforcing when if I get too far into like

15:10

what do you guys think I should do here?

15:12

It's like, well, what do you

15:14

want? Go back to that. What

15:17

and you know, who you designing it for? I'm designing for

15:19

you. Maybe I'm designing for my

15:21

Saturday night friends. You know, like I know that the game

15:23

I'm working right now is going to fit really well with

15:25

my gaming group. And

15:28

so like, yeah, I think

15:30

I think just the just the reminder of that of

15:32

who I'm making it for, which is me or

15:35

our audience is has been very

15:37

helpful. So yeah, now I'm really excited about it.

15:39

I'm having a lot of fun with it. I

15:42

also recently brought

15:44

on temporarily. I brought

15:47

on a production assistant who's just

15:49

great at I don't

15:51

have to do like I don't have to

15:53

lay out cards anymore, which

15:56

like I should I shouldn't you

15:58

know, I should be able to do. Yeah,

26:00

you do not have like a male to

26:02

glove Shake

26:05

at them and say my way the highway

26:07

I mean there was some like when they

26:09

said like when they when they came to

26:11

me so recently people

26:13

have come to me in the staff and said You

26:16

got a lot of cool ideas here and and

26:18

there's clearly we're clearly moving But

26:21

like it's time to like kind of pitch like it's kind

26:23

of it's time to create your vision of the game It's

26:25

time to write this down. It's time to write down a

26:27

plan so that We have

26:29

a document to go to when development starts that we

26:31

have something to go to and say well Can't make

26:33

this decision this way because of X because Patrick said

26:35

it's got to be three hour game Can't

26:39

imagine writing that but let's say I did write that

26:44

Has to be and Where

26:49

am I oh yeah, so but there was a little

26:51

bit in that meeting like like Someone

26:54

said this is a really cool project And

26:57

I'd be like I'm excited to work

26:59

on it like I want to I do bonding design

27:01

this and it is There is

27:03

a little bit of what you just said where

27:05

like maybe if someone else came with

27:07

an open-world adventure game We'd be like But

27:10

since you're pitching it here, and it's your

27:12

project, and you're doing it correctly now. We're

27:15

now we're invested in this so yeah,

27:18

so there was a little bit that and That

27:21

is it. I think that's a good going back to

27:23

where we started. That's I think that's a good point

27:25

that Like

27:27

Ted our director of finance We

27:29

were talking over lunch about these things that have not

27:31

worked out one time and he said but

27:33

to your credit As a leader

27:35

you didn't come in and say

27:38

this game has to be published here And

27:40

we have to make this game. That's not gonna work

27:43

right yeah, and and so like like

27:46

so He was like in a way.

27:49

That's a success because you didn't you didn't come in

27:51

and force us to In

27:56

terms of teaching because I

27:58

teach first-year psych right yeah all these

28:00

students who's, you know, it's

28:02

like, my mom told me to take

28:04

this course. They don't wanna be there.

28:07

They're not interested in the program that I teach in.

28:10

Some of them are, you know, people that come from different

28:12

countries and they're just looking to immigrate to Canada. And

28:14

so in the end, it's like, do you really wanna

28:17

be here? And I actually feel

28:19

successful when they choose not to be there. Oh,

28:21

sure, yeah. Right, because it's like you found something

28:23

better that suits you

28:25

better and that's okay. That this

28:28

game is a great idea. It

28:30

just isn't a leader game idea. Or it's, yep,

28:32

yep. It's not for us, yep, absolutely. And I

28:34

think that's fine too. So it's

28:36

really quite interesting. So you

28:39

don't seem like the kind of person who

28:41

surrounds yourself with yes people. No,

28:43

absolutely not, yeah. You seem like the

28:45

kind of person who surrounds yourself with

28:47

people who challenge actually your authority. Challenge

28:51

authority and Clay

28:53

was one of our first employees. He said,

28:55

what I like about you is that whenever

28:58

you don't know what

29:00

to do about your decision, you go and ask a lot of

29:02

people. You go and consult with a lot of people. I talk

29:04

to people. I don't talk to people outside of the company as

29:06

much as I used to. Not

29:08

out of some weird hubris, but just because veterans

29:11

see has taken over, like replaced a lot of

29:13

need to talk to people outside the company. But I

29:16

still do. And I talked, I do

29:18

make sure and talk to everybody about the decision

29:20

that's gonna be impacted about decision and what their

29:22

knowledge of the situation is and trying to figure

29:24

out how to make a decision based on that.

29:29

The Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek.

29:31

Yeah, Cole and I joke about

29:33

it a lot because there's

29:36

been so many business development decisions where

29:39

there's been a disagreement and I'll walk

29:41

in and I'll say, I

29:44

wanna know what both sides of this we're

29:47

trying to accomplish and figure out how

29:49

we can win here. And

29:51

so like Cole or

29:53

I will say to the other, it looks like

29:56

you're Kobayashi Maru in this situation because

29:58

there's just been so many times. were

30:01

just allowing myself to stop

30:03

and communicate and figure out what both

30:05

parties need has allowed us to both

30:08

win and prosper instead of just being

30:10

competitive about it. And especially

30:12

for business development, especially for business partners,

30:14

there is no reason to try and

30:16

rip off. To

30:19

push our printer to the lowest price

30:22

would be silly. Because you're going to end up

30:24

with a bad product. You end up with a

30:26

bad product, they're not going to give us preference

30:29

in situations. If

30:31

something goes wrong, they're like, well, whatever, that's what

30:34

they ask for. And just publish it instead of

30:36

coming to us and saying, hey, is

30:38

this actually what you want? And we need to

30:40

re-talk this. So that's always

30:42

been my philosophy. And I

30:44

try and treat the employee, the

30:47

people who work at leader games that way, that I want

30:50

to listen to what they have to say. To

30:52

the point that sometimes

30:54

I think, wow, did I advocate too much

30:57

authority? But it's just

30:59

a stressful line, you got

31:01

to walk. Sure. And I

31:03

think if we can

31:05

use the past as a good predictor of

31:07

the future, I'm just going

31:09

to look at the ratings of Root and

31:11

Oath and just

31:13

tell you that. I think you made a

31:16

lot of good decisions. So this is really

31:18

fascinating because a lot of times, most

31:21

of the publishers that we end up talking to

31:25

get out of design and you

31:27

decided not to do that. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

31:29

No, I decided not to. No, I'm still

31:31

going to do this design stuff. I've been

31:33

asked a dozen times today if we're taking

31:35

prototypes and I'm just like, no, sorry, I'm

31:37

doing my own thing still. And I think

31:40

it's really, really interesting to learn

31:42

about how you design within the

31:44

ecosystem of a company

31:48

as the person who's also head

31:50

of said company and the titular

31:52

name on the company logo. If

31:55

it all goes down, it's like, sorry,

31:57

there goes your kid's legacy. Oh,

32:00

I don't know. I just added

32:02

to the existential dread that Patrick already feels. Every

32:05

day. Boy,

32:07

did you see my tweet about my kid? Which

32:09

one? Yesterday, I'll

32:12

show it to you afterwards. It

32:14

was bizarre. He

32:16

just started talking about how he was born. And my

32:19

wife and I were both like, what is it? What

32:22

made him think that? So it was

32:24

pretty amazing. I didn't see that. I normally

32:27

sleep in my home. I'm not afraid to

32:29

sleep in my own home, everybody. And

32:31

he's three. If Patrick is sleeping at leader

32:34

games headquarters, you know why. You know why. So

32:36

yeah, so getting back to it, yeah,

32:38

I think, yeah. So

32:41

it's just important for me that

32:44

we come in with a version of

32:46

Path that, I mean, of

32:48

course, it's my project. And I think

32:50

they're doing a really good job of staying out of my way in terms

32:53

of giving me the vision and

32:55

the creative control of it. But

32:57

also, there's just been really good

32:59

feedback that some of which can

33:01

be constructed is negative. And

33:04

that's OK. I mean, that makes the 8s.

33:06

Yeah. And that's why the games are probably

33:08

as good as they are. Because there is

33:10

constructive feedback given. It's not just a bunch

33:12

of yes people saying, yes, Patrick, yes, Patrick,

33:15

yes, Patrick. It's like some people are actually

33:17

in their foot and say, Patrick, you

33:19

got to open your eyes. We've got to do it

33:21

this way. It's not going to fly. Yeah. You know,

33:23

Marauder to some extent was just me saying, it's the

33:25

end of COVID. Josh,

33:28

go ahead. Do whatever you

33:30

need to do. I think

33:32

we're going to get a few of those dialed in products

33:36

coming out soon. I know

33:39

we are because that's just

33:41

human, right? So do you want to hear about the

33:43

others, the night ones? Yeah,

33:46

I mean, I do. I just want to ask you another

33:48

question about Path. OK, absolutely. So

33:50

Path being like this adventure path

33:52

game where you have like three

33:55

or four storylines set up

33:57

that are driving the whole

34:00

game process. and those storylines

34:02

interact with each other and with you as

34:04

the characters, the players. Is

34:09

it kind of like these

34:15

three things are that they

34:17

set the tone of the world? Yes, absolutely.

34:19

Okay. And then the

34:21

rest of the mechanism is what?

34:24

Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So,

34:28

it's my, you

34:30

know, it's the iterative loop, which you're aware of, I'm sure,

34:32

where we're going to set down

34:34

something and try it every day and come

34:37

up with what we like. It's

34:40

gone through a few phases, but now where we're

34:42

at is you start

34:44

as a hero, you get a little ID card. The

34:47

ID card is your starting story. There's

34:50

no adventure on it. It's just, you know,

34:52

like where you start, what equipment you start with and things

34:55

like that. And then

34:58

currently you are rolling

35:01

dice every turn to move to

35:04

see where you can move to. So, the map has... You're making

35:06

a roll and move? Yeah,

35:08

I guess I guess. Yes, you are. I guess

35:11

I am, yeah. You are, though. And

35:13

so, like, well, I mean, but the dice are

35:15

pretty simple because it's like they have two mountains,

35:17

two forests, two plains on them. Okay. But

35:19

you can always trade down. Okay. So,

35:22

you can always use to move across anything. And

35:24

then you have an endurance score and the endurance score can

35:26

be used to move a little bit further. If

35:29

you're carrying something heavy, which is a lot of the game,

35:31

a lot of game is about weight.

35:34

Are you serious? Yeah, then you lose

35:36

endurance faster and so

35:38

on. Okay. Because encumbrance is like

35:40

the worst part of Dungeons and Dragons, right? Well,

35:43

this is very simple. This is very... Okay. So,

35:46

if you... If you made it fun, I will absolutely adore it. Literally,

35:49

all encumbrances is if you go to

35:51

a ruin and you

35:53

find a treasure, you're encumbered. Okay. Yeah,

35:56

that's it. That's the whole system. If you're

35:58

help... If you... as

36:00

you're helping settlers move from one side of the

36:02

map to the other. There are

36:04

two encumbrance, yeah, as you move your baggage

36:06

across the planet. And then you can have

36:09

hirelings come in and one of

36:11

the roles hirelings can take is to be a

36:13

cart, which I'm still trying to figure out, loot

36:15

a narratively. You get

36:17

an animal with a cart and then that can

36:19

help you avoid that. They're transformers. They transform

36:22

into carts. It's actually pretty

36:24

grisly and you don't want Kyle to

36:26

drop. Oh, yeah. Like,

36:30

I don't know if you watch anime, but

36:32

I have. I've been known to

36:35

have you have you watched Attack on Titan? You

36:38

know, like that was like the last

36:41

series I've seen trailers for

36:43

that. I was like, I need to watch that. And

36:45

we still have much. It's like 10 years old now,

36:47

isn't it? That's not that old, but it is old.

36:49

Yeah. Well, you know what? It might

36:51

actually be 10. It's it's weird. It's

36:53

it's a good anime. Like some people

36:55

really like it. I only mildly adore

36:57

it. But

37:00

there is a very specific Titan,

37:03

the cart to Titan. Oh, boy. So you should look

37:05

it up. OK, I will. It's fascinating. And then show

37:07

it to Kyle and then get Kyle to draw it

37:09

for me and I'll put it on a shirt. So

37:14

in four months, it'll be 10 years old. Oh,

37:16

yeah. September 20th, 2013. Awesome.

37:21

Time. Time. Yeah, it's

37:23

all it's all been messed up.

37:25

That disc, whatever. Wow.

37:27

Wow. That's amazing. So,

37:29

yeah. So then you also start out with the basic set

37:32

of equipment when you go into a battle.

37:35

You have three rounds to defeat whatever it is, except for the

37:37

race, which is one of the paths. Wraiths,

37:39

you have to beat in one round. You get three chances.

37:42

We got to do it. They have to

37:44

kill them completely. Right. Right. And

37:46

then I actually came up with this part and

37:49

I really, really been enjoying it. There there was

37:51

this ring with equipment around it and you draw

37:53

a card and there was arrows pointing off like

37:55

there's a square card. There was an arrow pointing

37:57

off each edge of the card. And

37:59

then you turn. And you'd set it down, and then whatever

38:01

symbol it was pointing at on the equipment is how much

38:03

damage you did and how much you blocked on

38:06

that turn. And then the enemy would just do a certain amount

38:08

of damage to you every turn. I

38:11

just took that card out and made

38:13

it. It was like, you can

38:15

just do this with dice. So it's just, yeah.

38:17

A die that's one, two, three. Then

38:20

you just assign it to the slots as

38:22

you get on the board. Because there's three slots in

38:24

each piece of equipment. It's pretty cool, but I like

38:27

about it is that I'm getting pretty nerdy here. So

38:29

I'm getting away from the theory. So

38:33

then as you gear up, you have

38:35

a blue slot. So if you pick up a blue item, you

38:37

can put it over the blue slot, and then that changes how

38:39

hard your character hits or how

38:41

well they block the character. The blue slot's your left

38:43

hand, so it sometimes is blocking, sometimes it's damage. And

38:47

yeah, so that's the gist

38:49

of moving and fighting. And

38:53

then everything else is just pieces. So

38:56

every turn, then you either move, you fight, or

38:58

you steal something. Stealing is a big part of

39:00

the game. And then you

39:03

get one, what do I call a crown action? Again,

39:05

looted narratively as we get closer to a setting, I'll

39:07

decide if crown's the appropriate term. Of course, you'll see

39:09

me in a convention two years from now, and I'll

39:12

still say crown because even if

39:14

it's not. Yeah, yeah. My brain is hard and

39:16

around crown at this point. I still say it's

39:18

wrong terms and best all the time. Yeah,

39:21

and so then you get one of those. And so then

39:23

it's like, you can either drop off an item, pick up

39:25

an item. So it's all very hydraulic.

39:31

And what a lot of the prompt of this

39:33

version of it is because I was struggling with

39:36

getting the story to tell the way that

39:38

I wanted to. And Ted, our director of

39:40

finance came to me and said, here is

39:42

a bunch of meeples hiding

39:45

to tell the story with just what I have in my hand.

39:48

I love how your team challenges you, like you're

39:51

the director of finance. Finance, because he's been doing

39:53

a lot of my testing. He's been my testing

39:55

while they're working on ARX. And

39:57

that was, I know, of course, it's not

39:59

just those people. pieces anymore. But that was

40:01

a good focusing point of like, what

40:04

if we could tell the story where like, if

40:06

there's a meeple on the table, that's

40:08

a soldier for this faction. What does

40:10

that mean for that faction to have

40:12

a soldier there? And that's how the

40:14

world's been building. That's really interesting. So

40:16

you're actually working from sort

40:19

of component first, but abstraction, like

40:21

really deep levels of abstraction to

40:24

say, what is the story that this can

40:27

tell us little narratively, just

40:29

by knowing the world that's it in the

40:31

context that it's in. And where it's sitting.

40:33

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Very cool. And so and

40:36

before anybody goes, like accuses that process of

40:38

being very official. I mean, basically,

40:40

I took everything we were

40:42

doing before then, and moved it into that framework.

40:44

And it just fits so well that I'm really,

40:46

really happy that. That's very cool. So

40:49

yeah, so beyond your character, then yes, it is

40:51

all about the path cards that are all about

40:53

like, they will put pieces

40:55

on the table, they'll take pieces away from the

40:58

table. And that is that is where the player

41:00

will then interact with the world. So

41:02

like, for instance, it's the star empire, which is

41:04

the current. So we did

41:06

start in the root universe. So you they used

41:09

to be the cats, the root of verse, the

41:11

root of verse. Yeah. So actually, it's funny

41:14

because the one

41:16

of the offshoots of that original design that led

41:18

to path. Kyle,

41:22

I was talking about making it. And I said,

41:24

we do it in a fantasy world. He said,

41:26

I'm tired of fantasy. So we just got out

41:28

of vast. Yeah. So he did all these animal

41:30

characters for it. Right. And then that's when,

41:33

like, eventually, like that, like we were

41:35

talking about styles for how to do

41:37

route and Cole

41:40

Cole, so the Cole saw those drawings and was

41:42

like, but let's let's let's go with this. And

41:44

you know, I'm not trying to deny what Cole

41:46

did, like Cole, like Cole was like, I'm feeling

41:49

kind of like Redwall. I feel kind of like

41:51

I want to do anthropomorphic animals. And

41:53

he saw those and then he was like, okay, here's

41:55

my pitch for how we're going to do. And that's

41:57

how those two work a lot. Yeah. So

42:01

there's a little bit of, you know,

42:03

like path kind of

42:06

led a little bit to, like again,

42:08

not going to diminish what

42:10

Cole contributed to the project. I think

42:12

Cole really was already on it thinking

42:14

about anthropomorphic animals, but then he saw

42:16

these drawings for Path. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

42:18

That's the style right there. Right. That's

42:20

a weird idea. That's like the manifestation

42:22

of the idea. So originally when I

42:24

said I'm like when I was crashing

42:26

Dark, which was the game I was

42:28

working on last summer. Right. And

42:31

I said, I'm going to like, there's some ideas here

42:34

from Dark that I want to move, you know, so

42:36

we harpsed some ideas and we moved them into Path

42:38

and Alita and I started working on it.

42:41

And that,

42:43

that to me was, that

42:46

was very pure to move through that

42:48

through line. But then

42:50

it was so easy to go, okay, well, how

42:52

about Path just be set in the universe? You

42:55

know, like that's how we started it. So all the

42:57

heroes were the Vagabonds, all the, you know, the factions

42:59

were the, in

43:01

the game. Yeah. And then, but at one point we

43:04

said, I think it's going to be easier

43:06

for it to stand on its own if we, if we make

43:08

a new setting for it. So we started to move away from

43:10

that. But it was a nice

43:12

easy crib to get started. But it's, but it's

43:14

not in the vast averse. It's well,

43:19

I do have one of the dungeons is called the

43:21

Crystal Caverns. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I do have another

43:23

question just because you sort of alluded to it. Would

43:27

you can have you played 504? I have

43:29

not yet. Okay. Yeah. It's

43:31

your kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm very,

43:33

I really liked, I like, I even like a

43:36

bad Friedman Freeze game. So this is exactly that.

43:38

Yeah. Right. Because I mean, there are no bad

43:40

ones. Well, it doesn't, it

43:42

doesn't, and Friedman, you know, we're friends,

43:45

it just doesn't hold together the

43:47

way it's like an art project

43:50

that somebody decided to publish. The 504. Yeah.

43:52

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like it's a

43:54

brain exercise. That somehow somebody

43:56

said, maybe you should make this into a product. Maybe

44:00

it should never have been a product except

44:02

for parts, right? But the concept

44:04

of the killer... Like there's so many good will,

44:06

I've known so many people use the parts from

44:08

them. But the

44:11

concept is like a

44:14

killer app, it's just nobody

44:16

wants to do that. Right. I was

44:18

genuinely terrified when it was in production.

44:20

I think we talked about this one

44:22

day. Because I was like, what if

44:24

this does work? And what if this

44:26

doesn't necessarily wipe out Euro design? But

44:29

what if it took out half the market with it? What

44:31

if people are like, no, I

44:33

don't need to play your flavor of Euro.

44:36

I'm gonna... I'll just pick the elements I

44:38

want to play inside of 504 and

44:41

then I'll... Right?

44:44

And then I don't need to learn a new

44:46

system because I already know 504 essentially. But this

44:48

is before it was released. And

44:50

then I was like, I mean, even if it

44:52

took out half and then someone else

44:54

is like, well, what if

44:57

1080 finished the job? So

44:59

what if someone was like, oh, that works

45:01

so well. We only have to apply these

45:04

remaining five principles and we have all of

45:06

Euro design captured in one design space. I

45:08

was legit concerned about that for all of

45:10

your livelihoods. And

45:13

then it turned out the way it did. And

45:15

no diss on them, I think it's an

45:17

amazing art project. It's a strong hold.

45:19

I just don't think it landed well.

45:22

But I was wondering, is

45:26

the path system kind

45:29

of similar to the 504 book?

45:32

Where it's like... Yeah, I can see that. But

45:34

curated. Yeah, a little bit more curated, a little

45:36

bit tighter. And it's automatically integrated, right? Which is

45:38

what we're missing from 504, why

45:41

it doesn't necessarily feel right for some

45:44

people. What might not have landed well,

45:46

for people who aren't into abstracts. And

45:49

the challenge for me for mission, like if you

45:51

look at MMO design, World

45:53

of Warcraft, is that essentially

45:56

you have a mission, like

45:58

all the quests and... You know, like

46:01

when the game came out, they're like just 10,000 quests. But

46:04

yeah, but there's, there's three quests. There

46:07

really are. There's three goals. How's that?

46:09

There's go kill something. Yes, that's what

46:11

I mean. Go, go get something or

46:14

move this thing from the, from this place to

46:16

this place. Right. And that was,

46:18

that's pretty much all the wow. That's

46:21

all the expression of wow can give you for all the

46:24

probably billions of hours. Wow has been played by all

46:27

human beings on the planet. I'm sure I've played it

46:29

500 hours. Yeah. Um,

46:31

and so like that is to

46:34

me, that is as complex as

46:37

I wanted to make the path cards. Right.

46:39

So they are go kill the dragon. They

46:41

are the settlers are picking up

46:43

something and moving across the board. And

46:46

there is a very robust way to

46:48

penalize your movement system or to penalize

46:50

your movement because of encumbrance because of

46:52

encumbrance. And I think I

46:55

agree with Ted and Cole's feedback that it

46:57

might have to be a little bit more

47:00

nuanced before I'm done. But we're,

47:03

it's good enough to get us to get us to the next step.

47:06

Um, and then there's,

47:08

yeah, go, go, go steal something, go, go

47:10

fetch something. Yeah. And, uh,

47:12

and so that like all the path cards will

47:14

eventually boil down to this. And so like

47:17

that sounds limiting, but also

47:19

I don't want to head into a

47:21

504 situation. Right. Exactly. Okay, cool.

47:24

Yeah. All right. So I also

47:27

had a question about dark because you and I had

47:29

talked about dark in the past, which is like shooting shit

47:31

and there's dark and what are you working on? Bad

47:33

if you're a developer listening right now and you want

47:35

to finish dark, tell me let's go

47:37

ahead. I mean, sure.

47:41

Um, but when you

47:43

quote unquote crash a game, what

47:46

actually happens? Um,

47:48

so I had, I had a play

47:50

test where, um, like

47:53

we had a play test where, um,

47:55

you know,

47:57

the creative. We all sat down

47:59

and we played it and we

48:01

said, there

48:04

isn't the

48:08

problem with Dark was that I was trying

48:10

to make the kind of old school, like

48:13

not Axis and allies, but like the sort of

48:15

like build up and attack each other style game

48:18

system. And that's a very

48:20

long game. And so the combat was a

48:22

little bit more the I think

48:25

what works for Axis and allies. First of all, you

48:27

got to be willing to play it for four or

48:29

five hours. There's also two teams. So there's no like

48:31

it's not everyone for himself, which are

48:33

every person for themselves, which creates a lot of ability

48:36

to get away with every person

48:38

for yourself is very difficult to

48:40

do with Axis and allies style combat because in

48:42

Axis and allies, you can lose more pieces in

48:44

a turn than you can build in

48:46

a turn, which is a very important part of. But

48:49

if it's every person for themselves, you

48:51

have to be able to reset faster than that.

48:53

Because three people could just attack you. And then

48:55

that'd be the end of the game. Yep. And

48:58

I just wasn't landing the way that

49:02

the theme and the pieces and everything were

49:04

fitting together. I just wasn't landing a compelling

49:07

game experience inside of that loop. And

49:10

that was the feedback I was getting, was

49:12

I just wasn't landing. And

49:15

I kept throwing time at it. And

49:18

what I wasn't doing was sitting

49:20

down. And partially because my schedule

49:22

was constructed, partially just because my

49:24

own practice was wrong, I

49:28

wasn't sitting down and saying, let's revision what we're

49:30

doing here and actually start over. Instead of just throwing,

49:32

oh, OK, well, these mechanical tweaks will get us

49:34

where we need it. Yeah, you kept throwing stuff at

49:36

the walls. No, no mechanical tweak was going to fix

49:38

the game. And with a year out,

49:43

there could be, now that I'm learning

49:45

a process, maybe I could sit down and figure that out.

49:47

I got nothing exactly in a hurry to do that because

49:49

I have a lot of stuff I got other stuff I

49:51

want to work on. That

49:53

was the moment. And then, you know, and

49:55

like Dark had already been born out of

49:58

an attempt. And then

50:00

I had, Kyle pitched a concept to

50:02

me and I was working on that and then, I

50:06

had worked on concepts for dark

50:08

years before, so a lot of

50:10

my stuff comes from older work. And

50:13

I was seeing similarities to what he pitched

50:16

to me, where it was ending up, and

50:18

it was just a very smooth transition into

50:20

dark, and then I was working on that

50:22

and I said, this isn't gonna work, I'm

50:24

just gonna switch over to path. And

50:27

I started working on path right now. But

50:29

you did say that you took some learnings,

50:31

if not whole mechanics, from dark

50:34

and moving them over to

50:36

path. Okay, so I mean, that's another lesson

50:38

learned, right? For designers out there, you put

50:40

something on the shelf, it's okay to rip

50:43

off your own work. You can totally do

50:45

that. Yeah, and even stuff from

50:47

the project Kyle pitched was

50:50

moving, you know. There was

50:52

his version of it and then I kinda

50:54

tried another dueling game, again, something I was

50:57

working on experimenting

50:59

with David at the beginning. So

51:01

there was a couple offshoots and then they all came

51:03

back down into dark and then that didn't work, and

51:05

then I moved to path. Yeah,

51:08

but I think we're further along with path

51:10

than I've ever been with anything, and I

51:12

think this is it. This

51:14

is the way? This is the way this

51:16

is gonna happen. All right, okay, so the

51:18

other projects, what else is going on? Oh,

51:20

yeah, yeah, yeah, so. Patrick

51:24

is now drinking water. Yeah, give me a minute.

51:27

It was funny, I was talking normally all day,

51:29

and then I did

51:31

four hours in the booth this morning. I did from

51:33

10 a.m. to two this morning,

51:35

and someone stepped away from the booth,

51:37

so I took over their Ahoy demo,

51:41

and my

51:43

voice cracked the entire five

51:46

minutes I was talking to the people, and I don't

51:48

know, it's because I was trying to speak up over

51:50

the crowd a little bit, and

51:52

then Ted was like, what's happening? You were

51:54

just talking to me normally, and I'm like, I don't know!

51:57

And then I stopped doing the demo, and went back to talking

51:59

to people. at the register and I was

52:01

fine. And I was like, I don't know

52:03

what's going on here. You hit puberty. I

52:05

apparently, this one five minute period at 48,

52:10

it was my entire puberty and now

52:12

I'm through it. Now

52:14

you can have kids. Good for you. Good for you, Patrick.

52:16

Thank you. Oh no, I should probably talk to my kids

52:18

about this. Sorry, kids, I

52:20

couldn't have you. So

52:24

yeah, so

52:28

other projects that I've been at night, so

52:30

I've been working on. Oh

52:32

yeah, because you're 10 to 11. My 10 to

52:34

11 shift. Yeah, and it's

52:36

great because I've given myself permission

52:39

to go very slow on these

52:41

and very deliberately. And that has

52:43

actually led to better

52:45

productivity than just

52:48

trying to like, I'm going to spend four hours on this

52:50

tonight trying to build.

52:52

And again, just for listeners,

52:55

this is an hour of

52:57

uninterrupted Patrick time, no tweeting

52:59

to send, no looking

53:01

at YouTube. Yeah,

53:04

nothing. Just that project. I mean,

53:06

that sounds way pure than it actually is,

53:08

because I'm still fighting my attention span. And

53:12

so yeah, so I've been working on a game called

53:15

Block, which I think is unpublishable. And

53:17

that was the one I showed you. We

53:21

tried a version of Block again, another project

53:24

during the pandemic. We

53:27

tried a version of Block, and Block

53:30

is, again, derived from.

53:32

See, I just keep moving

53:34

projects through the folder. So

53:37

there was another asymmetric project that was flicking.

53:40

And I remember that project. I remember that. And

53:43

that isn't a bad failure. And in fact,

53:45

I think it could be published. The

53:49

problem is I had no way of testing it,

53:51

because I'm really good at flicking games. And I

53:53

was just destroying everybody. I played in it. And

53:55

I was like, I don't know how we're going

53:58

to test the asymmetry in this flicking game. game

54:01

because there's so much skill involved in flickering. Yeah,

54:03

either you get four people who are equally as

54:05

good or equally as bad. It goes, yeah, and

54:07

then an equally bad sounds miserable, like way to

54:09

pull that. Yeah, because it would just, it would

54:11

just, it would just, just way to wait. If

54:14

you're like playing golf with someone that gets an 80 per

54:16

hole, you know, it'd be like, yeah, I'm not, it's like,

54:18

no, no one wants to watch that. 80 is pretty good.

54:21

Oh, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No

54:24

one wants to watch that. So I, so I

54:26

took all those roles and I moved them into

54:28

a, into kind of

54:30

a more, a more of

54:32

a tactical layer and more

54:35

of a like, again, I have,

54:38

and path is an example of this, I have

54:40

this concept in my head of what's, of what

54:42

I call naturalist design, where if

54:44

there is like chess is, is kind of the

54:46

pinnacle of naturalist design for me, where it's like,

54:50

you know, there's a Bishop on the board

54:53

because there's a Bishop on the board. Right.

54:56

And you don't, the Bishop doesn't attack with

54:58

three dice. You don't need to know that. Yeah. It

55:00

just is what it is. It is what it is.

55:02

It lands on, you know, of course you don't have

55:04

to memorize how the pieces move, but that's, but that's,

55:06

you know, but that's of spectrum

55:08

of, of design. So checkers might actually

55:10

be even more naturalist. Yes, absolutely. And

55:13

I, and for the hobby market, but

55:15

I always hold up for me is,

55:17

uh, owner room, the

55:20

solo game, because even though the cards have

55:22

symbols on them, they're an

55:24

absolute representation of each card represents

55:27

one card and is one step in the maze and you don't

55:29

have to go, Oh, I have 11 steps

55:31

in these four cards and not to add up any numbers.

55:33

I just go, there's 11 cards there. I have 11 steps

55:35

in the maze. And so, uh,

55:37

for me, that was like, I wanted to

55:40

approach a more naturalist approach to, um, kind

55:43

of some of the things I've been doing in

55:45

path with, with pieces on the board representing things.

55:47

But, but beyond that, I

55:49

just wanted to take these four, four

55:51

very asymmetric roles and I, and

55:54

as you know, I like root and I like

55:56

vast, but I wanted to just strip them down

55:58

to the, to the barest. Meple

56:00

moves three spaces left or it moves three spaces

56:02

right. It moves up or it moves down. It

56:04

can move a block. It cannot move a block.

56:06

And that was kind of the approach I took

56:08

for block. BLOK,

56:11

I suppose. I guess. Yeah. Or

56:13

you really want the plural then to be BLOX. Yeah.

56:18

But I'm pretty sure that's probably something on it. That's

56:20

probably, yeah. That's probably something right. Because that's a little

56:22

too cool for school. That's too

56:25

cool. So yeah. And

56:27

so kind of the abstract theme for right

56:29

now is there's this temple. I'm kind of

56:31

seeing a world like Journey, the

56:33

video game where it's just this like there's pilgrims

56:36

moving across this temple. So

56:39

one race is like one faction is this group trying

56:41

to move across the map. One

56:43

group is this group that's greening it. So

56:45

everywhere they walk, they put little green pieces

56:47

around. And then when enough of them are

56:49

together, they can build a tree. They form

56:51

a tree. And then there's

56:53

builders who are coming in and rebuilding the

56:55

temple. And then there is a hunter

56:58

who I haven't seen him play much because I have

57:00

to play alone. And

57:03

I do have a TTS set now. So I

57:05

can do get to try it. But the hunter

57:07

is like playing like

57:10

a single blind with the other players. So they're moving

57:12

dummy pieces around the map. And then eventually the dummy

57:14

piece is going to reveal. And you know where the

57:16

hunter is and the hunter strikes. And

57:19

takes out one of the players, Meeples. And

57:22

so that's been testing pretty well. But again,

57:25

there's no pressure on me right now. This

57:28

is not for any timeline. So

57:30

if I get to test it, I'm going to get to test it. But no,

57:32

no, no. And that's really interesting that you said

57:35

it's probably unproducible. Yes. So yes.

57:37

And so what makes it block

57:40

is because the game, which

57:43

probably talk about what makes it

57:45

beyond the naturalism, is that

57:48

every board is made out of

57:50

a bunch of wood blocks.

57:52

Blocks. Each by each block. Yeah. They're actually

57:54

two inch by two inch. They're massive. Oh,

57:56

wow. And I need to get two by

57:58

two by one. trying to figure out how

58:01

to source that because two by two

58:03

by two blocks, you can't see meeple that's standing

58:05

behind him and I keep losing pieces while I'm

58:07

sitting. So

58:09

I have to make a moment.

58:12

Yeah. A little shorter block. Yeah.

58:15

And, and so the map is made of these blocks

58:17

and every time someone scores a point, they

58:20

have to add blocks to the map. And so the map

58:22

is growing during the game and sprawling out during the game.

58:24

And, um, and

58:27

like whenever you do something to the board,

58:29

like if you plant a tree, you put

58:31

a tree down and that tree is now,

58:33

that space is now inaccessible. You cannot go

58:35

through it. The hunter can like

58:37

as an exception, cause

58:40

he's wicked awesome. He just jumps over it.

58:42

But everyone else has to, has to move around

58:44

the tree. Everyone has the, if a builder

58:46

builds a temple, everyone has to walk around

58:48

the temple from now on except for the one

58:50

builder building that lets the builders go through it.

58:52

And, and, uh, and so that's, so that's,

58:54

so it's unpublishable because I just

58:57

don't know how I'd get past my logistics

58:59

person or my production person. Yeah. I'd like

59:01

to put 60 wooden blocks

59:03

in a gigantic wooden blocks on

59:05

the game. It's probably about 15

59:07

pounds. Yeah. When, when it's a

59:09

symbol, yeah. How do you, how

59:12

do you feel about shipping that around? Um, uh,

59:14

so, so it might be just a better

59:16

art project and then I'll publish the rules

59:18

and people can decide what they want to

59:20

do with it. Right. I mean, or, you

59:22

know, I don't want to put more plastic

59:24

into the world, but STL files and the

59:26

stuff or whatever it is

59:28

a conundrum. And as you know, I make some

59:30

big wooden games. I've played them.

59:33

Yeah. And, uh, we have the same

59:35

logistic puzzles all the time. What are

59:37

we going to do with that? And

59:39

it's really funny because you're right. Players

59:42

kind of want that. They like the

59:44

big pieces. They like the wood.

59:46

They like the table presence,

59:48

all that kind of stuff. But at some

59:50

point there's a cost to all of that.

59:53

Right. If it's not mechanically

59:55

integrated, it's even, you know, worse of a

59:57

cost. Right. Right. Because it's just an art

59:59

piece. need to be there. So yeah,

1:00:01

well, we'll figure it out. But I like that

1:00:03

you're working on games that you know, at the

1:00:05

start, may not be anything.

1:00:08

Right. That makes it like a really

1:00:10

cool thought exercise. Right. And very earnest,

1:00:12

I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's real game

1:00:15

design. So I, as

1:00:17

you know, because I am who I am, and I

1:00:19

design the games that I design, I'm very caught up

1:00:21

in the product phase of, okay, it's

1:00:23

got to meet this IP's product standards, blah, blah, blah,

1:00:25

it's got to look like a mutant Ninja Turtle or

1:00:27

whatever IP I happen to be working on. So it

1:00:30

is hard. It is hard to do. And

1:00:35

I've just picked up a couple

1:00:37

more projects for myself or started

1:00:39

them because I want to get

1:00:42

the passion back. That's what I

1:00:44

found was lacking over COVID. Except

1:00:47

for RPGs. So RPGs, I was writing lots of

1:00:49

my own thoughts and feelings, bug board games, it

1:00:51

was like, okay, there's a movie coming out in

1:00:53

2022, make a game for it, that kind of

1:00:55

thing. Right. And it became very like, just

1:00:59

process oriented and not really fun

1:01:01

anymore. So the

1:01:04

one that I showed you the other day with the big

1:01:06

blocks again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the big blocks, yeah.

1:01:08

The unproducible game. Yeah. And the unproducible game, potentially, we don't

1:01:10

know, is. I think you have a

1:01:12

tighter selection of pieces and because

1:01:14

they can pet, they'll probably come flat. Who

1:01:17

knows? And after it is assembled, I

1:01:20

think you got some options. We got some

1:01:22

options. We were talking to manufacturers today because

1:01:24

one of the publishers said, I love this,

1:01:26

but let's go talk to my manufacturer. Who

1:01:28

just happened to be in the down? Here

1:01:30

we are. Yeah. So, but

1:01:33

anyway, my point being that

1:01:35

I think it's really good

1:01:38

to have passion about something, even

1:01:41

when you're uncertain about its future. Because

1:01:44

the process, the

1:01:46

journey, whether you're encumbered

1:01:48

by one or two points, I don't know. The

1:01:50

journey is the important thing. And

1:01:53

both you and I are talking about this. We kind

1:01:56

of lost our love of

1:01:58

it or some of our thoughts. process

1:02:00

of it or we had to re-examine our

1:02:02

process of it during the pandemic. And

1:02:04

for me, it's coming to shows, getting

1:02:07

ideas, talking with my good friends and

1:02:09

seeing games and touching pieces.

1:02:11

And that's what's reinvigorating me to

1:02:14

make games that who knows if

1:02:16

they'll ever get published. And I actually

1:02:18

don't care. Yeah. For

1:02:20

some things, I don't care. And that's weird,

1:02:23

right? When you're trying to think about, oh, you

1:02:25

know, I've got to keep this business going and

1:02:27

I've got to keep all this stuff done. But

1:02:31

you're right, it is more earnest and whole

1:02:33

and wholesome. And it's

1:02:36

just real game design at that point. Game

1:02:39

design for the sake of game design as opposed to the sake

1:02:41

of meeting a production schedule

1:02:43

or meeting an IPs thing or making

1:02:45

a product. So that is

1:02:48

what I'm taking away from your life. Oh,

1:02:50

yay. What do you

1:02:52

take away from it? Alan

1:02:56

Moore, the writer. Yes. And you

1:02:58

talked about it a couple of times this weekend. Very strange. He

1:03:01

did a, I don't even know what group he did

1:03:03

it for. He did a 10 minute speech and you

1:03:05

have to listen to it for a minute and go,

1:03:07

okay, I get it.

1:03:09

And he said, I give you permission to read bad books

1:03:11

as a writer. He was talking to writers. And

1:03:15

you know, so I took that to mean I get to

1:03:17

play bad games. Or make more games. Or make bad games.

1:03:20

Yeah, I think, you know, to some extent, I think that

1:03:22

was Alan Moore was also getting it was, I give you

1:03:24

permission to write something bad too. And

1:03:27

because he's like, if you only read good

1:03:29

things, if you only try and make good things, you're

1:03:32

never going to give yourself the freedom to see.

1:03:35

First of all, you don't you don't know it's

1:03:37

bad yourself. And so if you are comparing yourself

1:03:40

only to good writers as a writer, you're going

1:03:42

to fail because you you're not a good writer

1:03:44

out of the block. No, the good

1:03:46

writers. Nobody is. Nobody is. The

1:03:49

good writers did not did not get there overnight. And

1:03:53

in the same the same goes for writing the same

1:03:55

goes for game design. I've

1:03:58

I've just been I've been enjoying. just

1:04:00

playing whatever I want and enjoying playing again.

1:04:04

I was just thinking this morning how like, I

1:04:07

got really into games, workshop games

1:04:09

during the pandemic. Did you? Yeah.

1:04:12

Really? I did. I got back into it. I

1:04:14

used to play a lot of Warhammer. It was

1:04:16

my early 20s. I was just talking to Chris

1:04:18

Kirkman about Warhammer. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

1:04:20

So, I, yeah, so, Warcry, I played a lot

1:04:22

of Warcry, which is the like Warhammer, like 10

1:04:24

model. I really like

1:04:27

it because over Warhammer, because you have

1:04:29

10 miniatures and they can all move

1:04:31

independently. Yeah, because that's

1:04:33

squad based. So, that is as interesting to

1:04:35

me as having 10 squads, because they're all

1:04:37

doing something. Yes. Yeah, they're all able to

1:04:39

do something, even if they're just contributing weight

1:04:41

to a capture point or whatever. And

1:04:45

then I, as of the

1:04:47

lark, I also picked up Blood Bowl,

1:04:49

their game. And then

1:04:51

they just recently republished Dungeon Bowl. Dungeon

1:04:53

Bowl, I think, is utterly

1:04:55

brilliant and I love playing it. But

1:04:58

it is just a very sloppy 20 page

1:05:02

rule book to do what it does. And

1:05:05

no offense to those designers. I'm saying

1:05:07

I love your game right now, but

1:05:09

it is, I was surprised. So,

1:05:12

are we going to hear about like a leader games?

1:05:15

It's sports games. Dungeon Bowl league. Yeah. Oh, no, no.

1:05:17

Yeah, I am in a league, but

1:05:19

not with people in the studio. Oh, what

1:05:21

a sports game. Hmm. Oh, yeah, yeah, there

1:05:23

you go. Yeah, ball. There you go. Yeah.

1:05:26

Yeah, I do. I'm in a Dungeon

1:05:28

Bowl league. I'm, we've only

1:05:30

met once and I'm undefeated. So,

1:05:33

I'm pretty glad about that.

1:05:35

All right. So, we'll talk to you in a

1:05:37

year. See, you're still undefeated. Okay. All right. So,

1:05:39

if people want to reach out to you, Patrick,

1:05:42

or follow you on anything, or learn about the

1:05:44

next thing coming from leader games, where can they

1:05:46

do that? So, we, leader games

1:05:48

is a pretty good presence on Facebook and Twitter,

1:05:50

at leader games, on

1:05:53

Twitter. I

1:05:55

also am on Twitter as Patrick Leader, which

1:05:57

is a different account run by different people.

1:06:00

a different person. And I

1:06:03

do rant a lot about design. I also just

1:06:06

talk about other weird nonsense all the time. It

1:06:08

is weird nonsense, but it's the good kind of

1:06:10

weird nonsense. It's the good weird kind of

1:06:12

nonsense, but I do that. I used

1:06:14

to try and do an AMA about once

1:06:16

a week. I have probably

1:06:18

done once a season now. I

1:06:21

feel like my metrics,

1:06:24

my visibility is messed up since the

1:06:26

purchase. Something weird has happened,

1:06:29

or maybe people just don't want to ask questions

1:06:31

anymore. But the AMAs aren't hitting as hard as

1:06:33

they used to. So that's a good place to

1:06:35

contact me. And then if you need to

1:06:37

talk to me for some reason, just

1:06:40

send an email to support at Leader Games. And

1:06:43

they will forward it through to me. All

1:06:45

right. And remember, everybody, leader is L-E-D-E-R. Yes,

1:06:47

thank you. I should know

1:06:49

to do that. You don't

1:06:51

know how to spell your last name. No,

1:06:55

I should know. I should know I have to

1:06:57

tell people how to spell it. Whenever I call anywhere, I

1:06:59

say it. And its leaders spelled

1:07:01

L-E-D-E-R. Thank you very much. Excellent.

1:07:03

Thanks so much for coming, Patrick. It was awesome

1:07:05

to see you. I always have a hoot

1:07:08

when we talk. I

1:07:10

like talking to you, too. We'll see

1:07:12

you soon. Thanks. Thanks. Take care. Bye.

1:07:44

Bye.