Jay Cormier Interview - Corps of Discovery from Off The Page Games

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[00:00:54] Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo. I have a returning guest, which I've been saying a lot on this podcast. I love when guests come back to the podcast so we can talk about more stuff. It always makes me feel like they had a nice time the first time. Also, I've been lucky enough to meet this individual in person at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia.

[00:01:18] And I am just such a huge fan. We're going to talk about comic books, but really we're going to talk about board games today. He is from Off The Page Games and they have a new Kickstarter. We're going to talk all about it. And maybe he'll be able to give us a little tease of some of the other projects that I know they have coming out. But please welcome back to the podcast, Jay Cormier. Jay, how are you doing today?

[00:01:44] Great. I mean, you know, how else can a publisher be, you know, three days before their Kickstarter launches? Yeah, yeah. Just no nerves. Just doing okay. For listeners who may not have listened to the last time that you were on. So with Off The Page Games, you take comic books, you turn those properties into board games. I have played Harrow County, which is a fantastic comic book.

[00:02:11] Cullen Bunn, Tyler Crook. I absolutely love the game. I'm a huge fan of it. Dan Nixon and I, who covers board game stuff for Comic Book Yeti and has gone to PAX Unplugged for a bunch of years now. He's like, you know, the guy that has all the games and introduced me to it. The other huge surprise for me was the game Mind Management. And I had never, first time I ever played a hidden movement game.

[00:02:40] And I was blown away by it. Love the mechanics of it. Our friend Kevin on one side. So it was Kevin and I kind of playing together and Dan on the other side. And I just hadn't played anything like that before. And it was so much fun. Loved all the artwork. I was lucky enough in the episode where a recent podcast episode where I interviewed Matt Kent about stuff he had coming out.

[00:03:07] And then Matt and I got to talk about the game and like kind of his role in the development of it. And yeah. Without him, off the page games wouldn't exist. Really? Yeah. Well, we had signed Mind Management to another publisher. And so we and we're like sitting back, you know, waiting for that sweet, sweet board game money to come rolling in. And it didn't because that company went under. They filed for bankruptcy and went under. So we're like, oh, shoot.

[00:03:35] So we met and we're like, well, what do we do now? Who are we going to pitch it to? Do you remember who else liked the game that we could pitch it to? And it was Matt is like, why don't we just do it ourselves? He's like, I'll do all the art. I got graphic design background. I'll do that, too. And you publish it. And so I'm like, I guess I'm a publisher now. Wow. But it is. Listeners, if you haven't checked it out yet, it really is a lot of fun. And it's a great way, if you haven't read the comic yet, to get into the comic or, you know, vice versa.

[00:04:05] If you're a fan of the comic, the game is a lot of fun. It's some of the most fun I've had. It took us five years to find that game because we kept creating other types of games and testing them. And while they had the elements of the Mind Management comic book in the game, the locations, the characters, the powers, it didn't feel like a Mind Management game. It felt like a ripoff of Pandemic or something or just moving pieces around a board. And it didn't feel like Mind Management.

[00:04:34] And so what's interesting about Mind Management game is that the feeling, the experience you get playing it isn't picking up from any specific story point in the comic. But it feels like you're playing a Mind Management comic. You know what I mean? Like the emotion you have. Yeah, I know exactly. You know, not necessarily that it's not like it's not like a playthrough video game. You know, if you have a property and you're like, oh, I am the character.

[00:05:02] I have now been inserted into the comic book storyline and I am playing through as that character. And I would say similar to Harrow County is the same thing. In Harrow County, there's no one story where, you know, Emmy and her friends battle the, you know, all of the family or like they have skirmishes here and there, but it's not like that's not what the whole story is about. But again, it feels like the comic.

[00:05:27] And then that I think juxtaposes a bit with Core of Discovery, our third game, which we can get into. But in that one, it really does actually follow the storyline. There are six chapters and each chapter is literally one of the graphic novels following the, you know, flora, the fauna, the insectus, you know, all the all of the storylines. And it actually does follow it. So sometimes we can adhere more to the the plot beats of a comic. And sometimes we're more going for the vibe and the experience of of the comic.

[00:05:55] And that's what I really like about the stuff that you do for for off the off the page games. And it's that you're not just taking a comic book property and saying, all right, we have these game mechanics. Let's let's just do the art and let's do this. You're really either finding a comic book property and figuring out a game that will work to serve this the comic book property and fans of it well.

[00:06:24] Or you're taking a game that you are already developing and looking for the right comic book to then pair with with that type of game. And it allows for a really different, you know, experience. It's not like it's not like, oh, we've taken Monopoly and we've just slapped Star Wars stuff into it. You really have a different game experience for every comic book.

[00:06:48] And the time, the care and attention and the artwork really makes for like a wonderful playing experience. Yeah. Our goal is to make it such that people who've never read the comic can have a great time with this game because it's a great game is the is the goal is like this. And then maybe they learn like there's a comic based on this and then they're excited. Like I want to read that. And then also for the fans of the comic, when they play the game, they're like, yes, of course. Yes, this is the this is exactly the comic.

[00:07:18] I'm playing the comic. This is great. So the new the new Kickstarter that you have is for Core of Discovery, which is based off of a Manifest Destiny, which is an image cut for anyone that doesn't know. Manifest Destiny is a comic book. It's image comics. It's Chris Dingus, I believe, and Matthew Roberts. It is basically a take on Lewis and Clark and their expedition with Sacagawea traveling, traveling west.

[00:07:46] But there are crazy monsters and they run into all sorts of trouble. I love Manifest Destiny. I think it's a great comic. And now you've created a core of discovery. Discovery. And can you just tell a little bit before we get into the Kickstarter for the new edition and duo, the basic concept of the core of discovery game? Yeah. So to clarify, for those that aren't familiar with this, we did a Kickstarter two years ago for this game and it was released last year.

[00:08:15] And so the game's been out for a whole year now and you can go and get it in a store, for example, now. And the game is such that it has this really cool contraption where you slide a map into this contraption and it has 49, a seven by seven grid, 49 holes. And you fill them all up with these dual layered tokens that kind of nest in the holes and they kind of, they sit in these holes. And you do that by, by having a concealer page in first. So you don't see the map that you're sliding in and then you slide the concealer page out.

[00:08:44] And now you're literally exploring America. You're literally exploring. You're like, what's under here? What's under here? But you're not kind of going willy nilly and just randomly just going wherever you want. Every single resource has a logic rule of where it exists. Wood is always orthogonally adjacent to water. But there's only one wood in every row and column. So once you find a wood, you know, there's no more wood in that row and column. And rocks are all connected, et cetera, et cetera. There's all these rules.

[00:09:10] And so you have these challenge cards that are randomly flipped up that need you to find and pay certain resources to overcome these challenges. And if you pass them, good things happens. And if you fail them, bad things happen like losing water. And if you lose too much water, you die. It's a cooperative game. So you would all lose the game. And all of that is just to survive. And that's true for every chapter. Each chapter has its own objective.

[00:09:35] The core game, if you buy it in a store, it comes with two chapters, the fauna and the flora, which if you read the comic, you're like, yeah, that's the two names of the first two graphic novels. And each of those have different objectives you're trying to do. Like in a fauna, you're trying to kill three minotaurs. And in flora, you try to defeat this giant plant. And there's all these flora zombies that are all over the board that you have to deal with. And there's, then the field's very different.

[00:09:59] And then there's four expansions available for the game, like Insecta, where you're trying to first distract this frog-like ranaday creature in the water so that you can shuttle resources back to your boat because you need to create insecticide to kill all the insects that are on the board. And then in the vameter, there's this winged headless monster that flies around and steals other people's heads and puts it on them. And you're trying to line up your crew and trying to shoot them while you're trying to still do all these other deduction things.

[00:10:28] Maldonado has a traitor element. So now the game is not just quadrant, but somebody could be the traitor and having Maldonado whisper in his ear, having him do different things. And then the final expansion is fog. And in fog, all of the rules are mixed up. So you've been playing the game for a long time and your wood is always next to water. Well, now you don't know what something's next to water, but you know what it is. So you have all the rules are mixed up and you have to actually determine what the rules are. Right.

[00:10:55] And so what I like about the game is you're, it is cooperative. And I love the nature of a cooperative game because I mean, I've certainly played plenty of, you know, worker placement games and things along those lines where you're just trying to gather resources and whoever has the most victory points at the end. And I've played a bunch of those games. I've had like a ton of fun with all of those.

[00:11:20] I really am finding that I have a, I love cooperative games though. I love kind of like working together. So it's like us against the game. I really enjoy that experience. And yeah, so you're kind of the things that I like that really remind me of manifest destiny other than the artwork. And I think you did work with the artist, Matthew Roberts, who a little bit. He's just in demand, I guess, and very busy.

[00:11:46] And so I worked with, we were able to leverage a lot of the art from the comic and he, but he did do a brand new cover for us or for the game. Oh, nice. Yeah. Um, but it definitely has the feel of the manifest destiny comic. And yeah, when you think about like, what are we really talking about with the comic here? It's this alternate history, Lewis and Clark Sacagawea exploring, and they don't really know what they're going to find around every turn.

[00:12:12] And so you kind of, you learn very quickly in the comic that the president Jefferson knows there's monsters out there and has asked them to get rid of all the monsters. Yeah. But I think like there's, there's moments of it where I, at least as a reader, some of the things they find are still like very surprising. Very creative. Yes. Yeah. And so you've taken that and you know, you're, you're, you're taking the cards that you get. So you're creating your own grid. You're creating the map.

[00:12:41] You're basically figuring out the rules, you know, as you go. And the main purpose of the game cooperatively is really, you're trying to figure out where the fort is and making sure you're obeying all of the rules to get in fauna. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In fauna, like just, just talking about the first chapter. Yeah. The first chapter. Um, yeah. And there's, there's monsters and I just, I, yeah, I just think it's really, it's a really cool game.

[00:13:10] It really is very reminiscent of the comic book and, um, the card art is, is great. All of the different, the, not the, the placement cards, but the, uh, um, the, the, I guess like there's the level up challenge cards, uh, and the hazard cards, like a lot of those are really fun as well. So, so now as we're recording this, we're a few days away from the Kickstarter. That's, uh, and I'll have a link in the show notes as I always do, uh, listeners.

[00:13:38] So you can, you know, follow off the page games and you can go right to check out the core of discovery, the second edition and also duo. So, so what's, what's changed in terms of this, um, sure. This second edition. And then we'll talk about, uh, duo. Yeah. New game. Um, so we, we, we still had a lot of demand for the core discovery ultimate and we were all sold out of that cause that was a Kickstarter exclusive.

[00:14:04] And, um, and then we had a few left over our website and then people keep asking, do you have any more? Can I, where can I get some? I'm like, Oh, there aren't any more. And so it led me to think of like, can we do another Kickstarter for this? Like are people interested in that we can run another Kickstarter for this? And then we finally, you know, it started popping up on, I think over 20 top 10 lists for the year from different content creators, um, around the world. So we're like, wow, yeah, this is pretty good. So maybe we'll do it. So while we're doing that, we're like, well, there's a lot of things we want to tweak. And so maybe we'll call this a second edition. Cause we're like, it's not just a reprint.

[00:14:33] We're like kind of fixing some things. The number one was the storage system, the storage system in the ultimate edition conceptually was a really cool idea, but the manufacturer late in the game that we partnered with couldn't do what we had requested. And it was so late in the game that we either had to redesign the whole thing, start from scratch and maybe in the hindsight, I should have, but it would have delayed it to two, two, three more months of delivery. So that was a decision we had to make and we delivered and it was a sub, it was not a good solution. I didn't like the solution that it was.

[00:15:03] It's a fine thing. It's actually really good storage. If you only ever store your boxes like flat down, but if you ever stand them up, then it's terrible solution. Things start falling out of their holes and stuff like that. So that was a, we're totally redesigning that. And another cool thing that we're doing with the game is that if you play the game, let's say you play fauna and now you want to go and play insecta.

[00:15:25] While you have to go through the challenge cards and get rid of all the fauna specific challenge cards and then go get the insecta ones, put them in and shuffle them up. And then same with the destiny cards. You got to pull out the fauna one and put them in like, and there's all this like minutia of like setup, which is weird. So we're actually in this new version duplicating all those cards. So that if you play insecta, it has all the, the, the, the cards you need. So there's no sorting and unsorting needed. And, uh, and then a few other quality of life improvements.

[00:15:53] If you played the game, like the shelter has a domed roof on it, but sometimes you need to put something on top of it, like a monster or resource on it. And it's like dome. So we're like, okay, let's have a flat shelter top. So small, small little bonus benefits like that, that we're tweaking. And then to make sure that people with first edition don't feel left out. Cause that, that could be very frustrating. We're offering a two different fix-it packs, a card fix-it pack. If you want all the duplicated cards so that you too can have that experience, you can actually get that for free.

[00:16:19] If you back the original, uh, uh, uh, ultimate first edition and you're getting this core discovery duo, which we'll talk about in a minute. So you can get that free or you can buy it if you don't want to get duo for a second, very nominal, like five bucks or something. And then there's a, okay. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And then there's another fix-it pack that lets you get the new storage system and all the new shelter and all the new little token things that we've changed. Um, uh, you can get that as well, including the new rule book.

[00:16:45] We've definitely been raked over the coals, uh, and, and rightfully so for not a great rule book. Uh, the original core discovery, you had a lot of things left to be desired. And we're, uh, changing a lot of that. In fact, there used to be a training mission in it. We're taking that out entirely. We were spending so much time trying to fix and answer and solve and, and patch the training mission. And it just, in hindsight is like, well, it's just adding too much. It's like a whole new mode you have to play and you have to learn before playing the real game. And it's like, it's not worth it. It wasn't worth the, the, what we're doing.

[00:17:15] So that's all gone. Um, and I think that's, those are the most, yeah, those are the biggest, uh, improvements. Okay. Well, um, before we talk about duo, I wanted to ask in terms of like, when you have, when you, you have a game and you're like, okay, I think we got it. And, you know, we're ready to, to, we do the Kickstarter. We're ready to ship it out. But, um, in terms of like some of the tweaks or you said you were, you were raked over the coals for the rule book.

[00:17:42] Um, are you, is it because you're still like working on the game to try and make it the best it is afterwards? Or is it like social media, like board game geek? Like, how are you getting that feedback from? Oh yeah. Just ton. The question on board game geek is that what does it mean in the rule book when you say this? You know, we never noticed that. So it's because we didn't do what's called like a rules test where we give the game and the rules to somebody to test it.

[00:18:09] Uh, we had hired a rules editor to, to go through it. And so I thought I did my due diligence by hiring a rules editor, but, um, it wasn't, it wasn't enough. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, look, I will say that I have played games where I know for a fact they did like a rules, not, not any of the, of your guys' games, but other ones where I know for a fact that they did like a rules test and had a rules editor.

[00:18:32] And there, there are still times that we, me and Dan, you know, have questions and go on a site like board game geek. It's like, yeah, I got this card and the rules say this, but can I, can I do that? And so that stuff, it does happen, but it is nice that you have the, um, the, that for fans who back the ultimate edition, the first time, basically there's, you know, a nominal way for them to get what it is they need.

[00:18:59] If they don't want to back do, uh, but you're also offering a new game as well. And, um, I mean, it seems so far, I mean, you're, you're, you know, I always look to see on Kickstarter, you can see like how many people are following this game. And I can tell you it's a pretty healthy number, Jay. So that's exciting. 4,000. Yeah. Yeah. Close to 4,000. So let's talk about this new game duo.

[00:19:24] Cause we have the, the, some of the, some of the little tweaks and improvements for the core discovery game. And I'm sure for a lot of folks that didn't have a chance to get that ultimate edition, they're going to be able to get it now. So let's talk about duo. What is, what is this new duo? What does this have been? So when I was creating core discovery, the core game with send, but when I was, I was the one that had to create manually the maps that we were using to play test the game at the very beginning. Eventually we hired someone to make an app for us.

[00:19:54] Um, so that we could, to make the maps for us, uh, with all the logic rules, but I had to make them. Um, and I remember it was really challenging, but I remember it was like a fun puzzle. It was like a, a solo little thing of like, oh, this is fun making this puzzle. And like, oh, I can't fit that there. How can I erase that and try to make it over here? And it was, I just had that in my back of my memory. That was a fun creating the maps. And it led me to kind of think, is there, is there a game in that? Is there a game in creating the maps?

[00:20:19] And we ended up coming, turning it into a, uh, two player only game in which you are playing cards down together, creating the map instead of exploring the map that exists in core discovery. You're creating a map based on a few common communal rules that you both know. And then behind the screen, you each have some extra logic rules behind the screen of how things have to be placed.

[00:20:43] And so you're trying to give information to your partner, not with words, but only by how you, where you place your cards. And you're trying to say, this is next to this. That's my rule, but you can't say anything. It's like, kind of like sky team where you have limited communication and, um, uh, you have to try to deduce what your partner's rules are.

[00:21:02] And eventually as the, um, grid gets bigger and bigger, uh, you start to learn where the fort is located and the, the game ends once they're a, all of the terrain exists on the board, all 10, there's 10 different terrain types. All of them exist on the board. And then B somebody places the fort. Once the fort is placed in the, in the, the logical rule defining way that you've learned, cause it takes a while to learn that rule. Uh, then you check every single tiles, every single tile adhere to all the logic rules.

[00:21:30] And if so, you win, if anything is wrong, you lose. So by placing that fort, you are thinking, I think everything's good. And it's one of those things in the game. You can't even ask your partner, should we place the fort now? Because obviously you're asking, is everything good? You gotta, you just gotta place it. The, the, your partner has an opportunity to before going to the final end game state to say like, Nope, we're going to discard that fort, put it back. And we're going to pay a penalty price. That penalty price increases as the game progresses. And, and you're like, what? It's not ready.

[00:21:59] And now what's wrong. And you have to try to deduce. So he's all, it's another game of, of deduction using the, uh, the core concept and foundations that makes up core discovery. The game is now in this new game. And so I think Alex from Morgan co said it best where he's like, this is exactly what he wants in a two, two player game. Like it's, it's, it's deduction and everything. And it feels like core discovery, but it's a whole new thing. Oh, cool. So instead of, so you're really creating the map is, is one piece of it.

[00:22:26] I like the idea that you have your own rules and your partner has rules, but you can't talk about them. So for example, what you just mentioned, if you and I are playing and I'm like, all right, I know my rules. I, I, I see the communal rules. I think I'm ready to place the fort. But if you know that that's wrong, cause it doesn't adhere to your rule that I don't know about, you can't tell me that you just have to pull it. We can't talk about it. You just pull it, pay the penalty price, put down another card to create a different part of the map.

[00:22:56] And I just have to realize that, Oh, something, yeah, just, yeah, something is wrong here. So then I have to try and figure out. And as we go to try and continue to place the fort. So it's very satisfying, clean and fast. And then it has this nice little upgrade system at the end. So if you, when you win the game, whatever character, there's four characters to choose from whatever characters you're using, you each get to choose an upgrade card to use in the next game you play. And you put that in a separate section in the, in the box.

[00:23:22] And when you play each of the upgrade cards has a, a sun token icon in it, one or two sun token icons. And so then you add up how many sun token icons you're using on all the upgrade cards you're using. If you know, just one or two, and you flip over these hazards cards until you get to the total of, of that number of sun tokens. So one, two or three or whatever it is. And those hazards add new challenges and concepts for, to make the game harder.

[00:23:49] And so the game level increases, the, the better you get at it, they, it starts to get through more and more stuff at you. Okay. Yeah. So, so in terms of like replayability, the more you play it, the, the more complicated the game, you know, will get. So, oh, that's a lot of fun too. And also I like the idea of like, you're going to sit down and look some, I mean, sometimes when we have a game night and, and Dan will come over, Kevin, like all, you know, our friends, whoever spouses.

[00:24:17] Some, every once in a while, my wife will, will sit down or, and sometimes, you know, we're trying to plot out what it is we're going to play. And depending on how much time we have. So it is nice for some, if you have like, you're like, well, I don't know if we have enough time to play, you know, core of discovery right now, but we really like it. So you can, oh, duo is a faster game. We can still kind of get a feel for it. And that's always nice to, to have a game that can be a little bit of a faster play, but kind of still put you in that world.

[00:24:45] And I also like the fact that a lot of people would, no, some people say that core discovery at its heart is a puzzle. That is a solo gamers dream. Like it's great for solo gamers and the adding more players. Some people say they don't want to play with more players with core, uh, on core discovery, the core game, cause it's just a solo puzzle where you're all working on the solo puzzle. I would contest that when you add more players in core discovery, you also add another element to the puzzle of timing because you can only use your own characters, power and gear on your turn.

[00:25:14] So you're trying to figure out, wait, wait, before your term is over, use your Morgan Pestle because we won't have time before it's, you know, so there's an extra element to it. So that's interesting. But I understand that it's a puzzle. Whereas core discovery duo is a mandatory only two player game. So this is, if you have a partner or a friend or a spouse that you play with all the time, well, this is now even better to play a two player version of the game. Oh, I think that's really cool. Yeah. I, I, I like that. Uh, the concept of it. Um, all righty, everybody, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

[00:25:43] Y'all Jimmy, the chaos goblin strikes again. I should have known better than to mention. I was working on my DC universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D and D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators. We know, and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we could start playing. Another friend chimes in. Are you going to make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together. So I guess question mark. It was then that I discovered Arkham Forge.

[00:26:12] If you don't know who Arkenforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive. Allowing you to build play and export animated maps, including in-person fog of war capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture. Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign. That's a win every day in my book.

[00:26:40] Check them out at arkhamforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off. I'll drop a link in the show notes for you. And big thanks to Arkham Forge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a Goblin Gorlock just to get even. Welcome back. Have you guys ever done a second Kickstarter for a game? Is this the first time? No, no. We did it for my management and it was kind of funny.

[00:27:07] Again, we were sold out of the game and then it was actually because Shut Up and Sit Down put a review out, called it a masterpiece. It was really nice. And the demand was immediately through the roof. And within five days of that review launching, we threw up another Kickstarter. We're like, wow, we're doing it again. And it was huge. It did like $780,000. That was the second. Yeah, it was crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, you're right. I had forgotten about that. But yeah. And it is.

[00:27:37] It is. It is a masterpiece. I sang its praises earlier, but yeah. And that's the only problem with having you on, Jay. Every time you're on, then all I want to do is bug Dan and be like, can you bring Mind Management over? I haven't played it a while. So Dan's going to get a phone call today or maybe a couple of texts. I know it's Valentine's Day as we record this, but what are you doing, Dan? We play Mind Management. And we still have our next game actually is Grendel.

[00:28:06] It's our next game that is launching. I mean, the Kickstarter launched and the pledge manager is closing at the end of February. So there's still a chance for people to jump in and grab Grendel as well as the creeps. So we have like our next two games already announced with Grendel, which is this asymmetric one to four player game where everybody's playing a different type of game. You know, like somebody who's playing a bag builder game, somebody who's playing a, you know, a dice allocation game. Everyone's playing a different game.

[00:28:34] But on the board, it's an area control fighting for control of the different boroughs of New York City. And it's really, really a clever design by Senfeng Lim, who helped design Core Discovery and Alara Cameron designed that game. And then the creeps is based on a Chris Schweitzer comic. And that's a one to two to five player card game of betting on which monsters are going to be the ones invading your town and trying to trap them. Yeah. And I'm a huge Chris Schweitzer fan.

[00:29:01] Listeners, if you're I'm sure, you know, being into comics, you're familiar with Chris's work. But he did a great comic with Kyle Starks that I really liked called The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton. Yeah. Which is I it's came out in 2022. It's a fantastic comic. I really love it. But yeah, Chris has done the creeps like The Night of the Frankenfrogs.

[00:29:30] And yeah, a bunch of these these books. So so with the game, the creeps, is it is it, you know, more geared towards being family? Yeah, because I think the comic is, yeah, family friendly. And it's the first family. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. And especially having Chris involved with Chris's artwork. All new artwork. The whole thing is all new art. Every single aspect of it. Oh, that's fantastic. Oh, I love that. And just what are in terms of the card game again? What is the like the mechanics of it? Like, what's the goal?

[00:29:59] You have these monster cards that are dual monsters, different monster on each side of the monster. And on your turn, you have to assign it to one of the eight monster kind of clipboards that you're studying. And the monsters at the end of a round that had the four monsters that have the most cards assigned to them are the only ones that are going to score. And you score based on what's left in your hand. So it's one of those games where I want to play this to help this monster score. But I also want to keep it in my hand because I want it to score it.

[00:30:26] And so you're trying to make sure all both sides of all of your cards left in your hand at the end of a round are scoring. And so it becomes this interesting game of alliances of like, are you going to help me out with this one and make this one score? And like, I'll help you over here. Like, it's an interesting because you don't own them up here. They're just all communal. And it's and the shift, the the whatever ones are the top four kind of shifts throughout the game of like, now this one is one of the top four.

[00:30:49] And then on top of that, you have these trap cards that you can play that give you chaos and add some fun shenanigans to the game. Oh, nice. Is there a particular like, like age, age range? Like, we say not for that one. Okay. Oh, perfect. Oh, that's that's great. But it is thinkier than the art would make you think it is. There's nothing wrong with that. I love that. That's great.

[00:31:12] Doing all the things that you do for for off the page games, like, do you still get a chance to to play for fun? Are you just like immersed in board games and yeah, I do something else to to pass the time if you have any free time play testing games, even other people's games to me is even more fun than playing games because I still get the fun of playing a game.

[00:31:37] But I'm also using the other side of my brain and analyzing and trying to dissect games and figure out problems. So I get a lot of fun in play testing games because of that. And so it's rare that I actually get to play real games, except for with my two kids. But then we're playing, you know, cozy stickerville or something, which is great. Fun, more family type games with my, you know, different different versions of Uno and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. We're my my youngest Penny and I. She's she's eight.

[00:32:03] And yeah, she's she's sitting down here in the basement while I'm recording this. But we we play quite quite a bit of Uno. But yeah, we have some other games that we like to play. I recommend cozy stickerville. It's a newish game and it's a very, you know, like I don't know, like you're creating this like village or something and you put stickers on the board every time you then comes with like over, I don't know, 200 stickers or something. And and so you play it 10 times and then you flip the board over and play it 10 more times.

[00:32:32] And we tore through that. And it's one of these games that doesn't really have an objective. You're just trying to create a happy town with happy people and solve problems. And and it's just a nice and it had really good. My my boys who are nine were really encouraged to read. And that's something they're challenged with right now is reading. So they wanted to read the next card and they would. So it was everything about the game was just a great hit for that age group and me and our family. Oh, awesome. Well, that's a good that's a good recommendation, Jay.

[00:33:01] Hey, thanks. I'll have to check out to check that one out. I'm not familiar with it. So for gamers, they might not like it because it's like, well, what am I doing? Like, what's the goal here? But it's like a great story. Choose your own adventure type. Just a feeling of like all this. All these guys, we've got to do something. What do you want to do? Like, it's great. Yeah. Oh, cool. No, I like that. The Kickstarter for Grendel already happened. And is there is there going to be a Kickstarter for the creeps or. So what we do with the creeps is in the pledge manager, you know, after a Kickstarter finishes up,

[00:33:29] there's a thing called a pledge manager where people go on and finalize their pledge, pay for shipping stuff. But it's also called a late pledge where people list it can come and get it. We that's when we announce the creeps say, hey, guess what? Our next our new game's here. You can get it if you got Grendel. The shipping for creeps is free. OK, so is it available as an add on? Yes. Or if you didn't get Grendel, you can get creeps just on its own if you want. Oh, OK. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Chris's artwork and it sounds like a really fun game.

[00:33:57] I love the family friendly aspect of it. Is there anything else that you guys are working on that you can talk about? Yes. Lots of stuff that we can talk about. Oh, I see. I was going to say yes up until he said that we can talk about. We're working on like three ish properties that they're not like the they're not like they're verbally agreed upon, but not contractually. So I don't want to mention them in case because they're not something might happen. We're like, oh, now we can't do it because Netflix wants to make a show or something.

[00:34:27] I don't know. So we are working on how much I say it's interesting. We're working on a another title in which it didn't have a comic book for this game that we wanted to do. And so we hired Chris Schweitzer to write a comic about. Oh, and we got a different artist as much as I like Chris's art. We got it in the creeps. And so this is a new comic that he's writing for us.

[00:34:55] So, yeah, that's that's fantastic. Oh, well, I can't wait. So listeners, make sure you're following off the page games for whenever more details about that are announced. I'll have links in the in the show notes, like I said, so you can you can follow them on social media because I'm sure when they're ready to talk about it, they will. And especially if we're getting a new a new Chris Schweitzer written comic book. That sounds that sounds great. I love that.

[00:35:22] And yeah, how's the response been, you know, since the Kickstarter and it's been out in the you know, how's the response been to people, you know, after the Kickstarter of of Grendel? I mean, has that shipped yet? No, it's in late pledge right now. Right. It's finishing late pledge until then. Okay. We we were trying to get all the art files in before Chinese New Year to the manufacturer, but we we weren't able to. There's just there's so much to it. Like, okay. I don't know. People can really understand how much there is to this game.

[00:35:52] Like it's it's a beast of a game in a good way. Like it's there's so much solo content like you can there's four factions. So you can play as any faction against any other faction as the Atoma, like, you know, the automated kind of soul player. And so if you play against the mob and the mob solo player operates like the mob does in the game with dice. And so there's a whole system to run the automated player of a soul player of the mob, but you can play as Grendel versus the mob.

[00:36:21] And that feels different as then if you played as Argent versus the mob or the police versus the mob. And then there's Grendel as a solo player and that uses bag pulling. And so each one was designed separately. And so much testing on that had to do had to begun. And then, of course, there's an expansion called the press, which is a fifth faction. And not only does that press now have to work in all those solo modes, the press have a solo mode. And so you can play any faction against the press is solo mode. And they use polyominoes to create newspaper pages.

[00:36:50] Like it's so everything about it is so cool. And like Merchant Cove was a game that had this, like every player playing a different kind of game, like a different type of game. And then, but we're all, and so a lot of people compare it to that. I'm sure when it comes out. Um, but I think this one, as far as like ease of use, like the, the game you're playing the mini game or whatever you're playing, a mechanic is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complicated. And on the board, it's not like root where it's like, what the heck are you doing?

[00:37:18] Like it's, I don't even know what you're doing. Uh, cause I can, I can just try to understand my own game, not knocking root in any way. Cause obviously that's a hugely popular game. That's one of them. Uh, but it's the, the, the learning curve is very steep on that one where I'm hoping and thinking that the learning curve for Grendel's is not people be able to get in. And like, Oh, roll dice and assign them and do the thing. It's very straightforward. It's how they interact on the board and how you jostle for position and control. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if it packs unplugged.

[00:37:45] If you had like any part of it that you were demoing, but I know that I've seen like a, a digital digital version of it, like to just get a sense of it that you would show Dan and I before. And I, it's just like so much fun. Like I, and I mean the whole concept, the design of it and just the whole Grendel factor, which is such a fantastic, you know, comic book.

[00:38:10] So I, I, I, I'm very excited to see once it is out there in the world, uh, what the response is, because I think it's going to be really great. So. And that out of unbelievably, Matt Wagner emailed me out of the blue. It's like, Hey, can you make a game? I saw my management in Harrow County. Can you make a Grendel game? I'm like, what? Yes, please. Yeah. Unbelievable. That, so that's, that's, uh, that's fantastic. Um, but all right.

[00:38:39] Well, um, Jay, is there anything else you want listeners to know about other than the Kickstarter for the core of discovery is going to launch, uh, February 17th. So I'm going to try and get this episode out shortly thereafter. So the listeners, if you're listening to this within the first week or two or three, probably the, no, it's only a 10 day campaign. Oh really? You're just doing a 10 day. Okay. Well, we're going to get this out then, um, as soon as possible.

[00:39:06] So that when you're listening to this, you're going to be able to click on that link and you're going to be able to go in and back the campaign. And yeah, I, I highly encourage you, especially if you're, you're listening to this podcast, you know, because of the comic aspect of it. If you, you know, I've said before, well, when I've, I've mentioned Dan or whenever I talk about board games, when it comes up with any of my guests, if you haven't played board games in a while, it's a totally different world out there.

[00:39:34] They're going to PAX unplugged. There's so many different games, so many different mechanics. And, um, I mean, I think anyone that plays board games now always jokes about, um, like really in-depth rule books and, and how there can be like a lot, but there have been, I've played a lot of games in the past few years. Um, some with complicated rules, but there are very few, I'd say less than five where I just felt like, you know, the rules were, were a lot.

[00:40:04] Um, usually once you get in and you start playing, I think most modern board games like they click pretty quickly and mind management, Harrow County, uh, and core of discovery. And they said you did tweak the rule book on core of discovery, but there, if you look at the rule book and you're like, oh, this seems daunting. It's not, they are so much fun. They are so easy to pick up. They are one of those games that once you get into it and once you start playing, if

[00:40:32] you're the type of person that feels like, um, that you don't want to play like a real rule heavy game, don't be intimidated by the size of any of these rule milks. They are some of the most fun I have ever had. Uh, and yeah, um, really think check out core discovery. Uh, it really great game. And, um, yeah, especially is the, is the creeps going to be available as an add on to this. That's a good question.

[00:41:00] Maybe because what's happening is we, these might actually deliver at the same time because we could probably, so they might, that's interesting. We might add that to the late pledge for this as well. That's a good idea. I never thought about that. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh, it's only because I, I don't have it and I want to get it. So yeah, it's a good idea. I was all right. Well, Jay, thank you so much. I know you're, you're on the West coast. So this is, uh, you know, you're starting your Saturday, uh, having to talk to me. I really appreciate it.

[00:41:31] No worries. Um, all right. And yeah, links to the show notes, everything core of discovery. Thank you. Take care listeners. Thank you so much for listening. Hey, if you're a, if you're not a board game fan, but you've got, you're going to start playing, let me know what it is you're playing. I'd love to talk about board games as well as comics. All right. So thank you everyone. And I'll see you next time. Right. This is Byron O'Neill. One of your hosts of the cryptic creative corner brought to you by comic book Yeti.

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