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Can you fix 40k?! Chatting to a Games Designer (James Hewitt!)
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Feb 20, 2023
Get 50% off James' video series on how to design miniature wargames using code: PAINTINGPHASE https://www.needycatgames.com/tickets (ending march 2023). We chat to Ex Games Workshop games designer James Hewitt, he talks about his experiences designing games such as Betrayal at Calth, Silver tower, Gorechosen, Necromunda, Titanicus, & Blood bowl. We even get his take on how to "fix" 40k and if enough playtesting is taking place. Follow James: http://www.twitter.com/james_m_hewitt http://www.instagram.com/needycatgames http://www.needycatgames.com Join our Patreon: https://patreon.com/thepaintingphase Help Support the channel with our affiliate links: UK: https://elementgames.co.uk/?d=10835 EUROPE: https://taschengelddieb.de/?affiliate=tpp US: use code paintingphase to get 10% off at https://www.goblinshut.com/ We Print Miniatures: https://weprintminiatures.com/thepaintingphase THEPAINTINGPHASE for 10% off Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/thepaintingphase/
View Video Transcript
0:00
hi I'm PG hello I'm Patrick hi I'm Jeff and with us today we have the man the myth the
0:06
legend my twin James Hewitt hello falling out the hairdos today it's why
0:12
I'm wearing the glasses yeah because Jeff's not working I've took mine off oh we'll be really awkward I'll guess who
0:18
wouldn't we oh this would be like next level someone needs to like gamer guess who is
0:25
difficult you know that's really hard which of the three builds does he have so we thought we'll get you on the show
0:31
and talk about you well your experiences your probably a bit of Workshop because we work together for a time as well yeah
0:37
those are the days yeah I was thinking the other night we back in the day back in the day you most of my favorite games
0:43
in Workshop you've made that's right it is a lovely thing to hear they're all good good solid games so uh because I
0:51
had a theory which ones it were and I was like it's definitely silver Tower definitely gorgeous and best games
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um and then I was like I think he did some one of the Horus heresy box sets but I come here because try to count from being in a Prospero yeah
1:04
um and there was a couple others I didn't know you did Blood bowl or no Commander yeah and it was yeah
1:11
so yeah that was the first game I did and that was my first TV um visuals because I did a game with Amy
1:18
Amy yeah with Phil running it yes Phil was running it yeah I didn't get asked him never played it oh well that's weird
1:26
who knows but he did a great job he did yeah yeah it feels good he's got lots of
1:31
good words he thinks of all the big words so let's talk about you James here where did your hobby Journey begin my
1:37
Hopper Journey where did hobby Journey again uh so as and this is true of a lot of people of a certain age it was hero Quest let's
1:43
face it I think a lot of people will say this it was so I was about five or six I think it was my dad got it for me for my birthday
1:50
nice and I was an only child I didn't have many friends who were into geeky stuff I was in a little tiny village in Norfolk my dad had no interest in
1:56
playing it with me so I just spent the next few years just so low just picking through it and you know badly painting
2:02
barbarians with poster paint and all that sort of stuff and you lost every game which was like what are the chances
2:07
I mean I've continued that round of luck to this day that's a story later on about
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one of James's games but we'll get to that oh nice um so yes I hear a quest got just a
2:19
space Crusade because that came out as well I mean great TV adverts of both so yeah yeah never did Battle Masters yes I
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I want to get Battle Masters because you could get it from Argos it was in the Argos catalog and ask it for Christmas but then they just couldn't get it the
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laminated Book of Dreams yeah was it like regiments on leave it trades
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what they were Empire Knights Empire versus Orcs And you had like big hexes with unit bases that's right yeah yeah
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and they were awesome I never saw it until I was randomly on a French exchange with school and the guy who was
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my exchange partner had the French version it was called like senior de girl or something that's my
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perfect French accent um and and I was like how have I never heard of this because it was it was
3:02
awesome but it was huge like the the gaming man because it was like a hex grid wall yeah yeah I remember it's never had to follow to remember it it
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was flipping massive and um but I never had that but I then once I'd got into
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school a mate brought in a white dwarf magazine one day and I was like I recognized those for a space Crusade they're Space Marines yes and then you
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know the lifelong addiction began yeah the only the only problem with white wolf magazines as a kid is unlike
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um softcore pornography you can't find it in certain Railway sightings and bushes you have to literally go and buy
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it yeah it's true the weird thing is people get pornography and they have the white dwarf in the middle of it yeah
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yeah during those days I'll tell you a quick quick either a customer a really nice guy who watches occasionally a guy
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called Craig and Craig plays is the token one of the couple of token
3:50
straight men on a football team that is for gay guys and um but because of
3:56
diversity the other have a couple of straights on you know and one of the guys that he is friends with who who is
4:02
who's gay is seven in the Army and he said it was he said I came out as being
4:09
gay in the Army and he said and I didn't feel it was a problem to do so he said but I have kept being a Warhammer player
4:17
because we came out the closet in the arm for being as a soldier which is a
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big big deal yeah the
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um there was some news recently the most suddenly played Warhammer game oh yes yeah um two Chaps in the Navy playing in
4:34
on time yeah the Royal Navy put it out on Facebook the Royal Navy Facebook page mentioned Warhammer oh yeah we've turned
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the corner haven't we yeah oh is that there's that famous Superman guy he likes that let's do a ghost yeah well
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did you see um uh David Harbor who was painting um like Templars yes so he is
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um in stranger things he's the the cop yeah yeah we all like Hopper oh yes of course yes there's a signed copy of the
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Hellboy board game in Mantic because he was Hellboy in the movie yeah he saw them at a convention and I think he's
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got a copy of the game and he signed a copy that's now that's brilliant or somebody was mean about him someone put
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it up and he went real friends don't let their friends play uh paint Games Workshop and I went oh so do you know
5:18
him and he went no and I said well we'll leave them to it then shall we you're not a real friend stupid comments
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yeah I know obviously but it's it's interesting like watching the stigma like degrade yeah oh yeah I mean when I
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think like when I was at school there were three or four of us it was a little secret society you know chess was
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accepted chess chess club was fine you didn't get your head flushed down the toilet cheers you never went to my school
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but like now you see like you know with the schools leagues I love it when I was in the shops I worked in games at retail
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stores for about 10 years similar time you did yeah and that was when the school stuff was really coming up and I loved it because we had like School
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groups had come in and I was like I wish I'd had this but it has been we we are
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if we put ourselves onto the general term of being Geeks if we go that way we're taking over aren't we because at
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one point in time you had to come yeah you certainly read a comic you're a snake attack you know what I mean
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because you're reading that and as I said as opposed to reading shoot or one of the other football related ones because coming from merseyside obviously
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football's math but then you just got to the point that obviously when Marvel started to gain
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and the next thing you know you've got the the you know the the normalist of men saying to me you know but you be
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Comics so why does he why is he there why is that happened well what will happen in the next film with you yeah
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yeah when it comes to the fact that franchises are now very much tapping into the geek Universe we're slowly
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taken over it's normalizing absolutely which is great you know good so geek show them how at the earth
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I like that just the the meek Geeks the meekest geek will inherit the most
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yeah yeah so you worked in retail I did yeah talk about that so um it's like
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it's where you get like a building and you put stuff in it and you sell stuff I just give it away yeah you didn't
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realize it to sell it um that's what I worked in um it's like one of my first jobs I worked in Games
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Workshop Maidstone uh many moons ago um and I'd been there as a kid loads of times
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and weirdly the same manager Gary he's still there now he was there when I was a kid he was there he gave me a job he's still there now I'm pretty sure was
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built around him flat top here yes yeah yeah rockabilly Gary yeah uh psycho Billy Gary Hill he'll be upset if I say
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rockabilly okay yeah yeah um no but he um he gave me a job and I I went in and
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I loved it I was there part-time at first and then kind of went into full-time stuff when I dropped out of University it's the cool career route
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you know um and then ended up uh bouncing around I did a load of shops in the Southeast so the reading maidenhead Oxford Swindon
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uh ended up running GW Windsor and then into London with Kensington and then all
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the fancy places yeah like everywhere I went all the runs were a royal might pop up exactly all the customers were way
8:02
more like affluent than I was it was it was brilliant they saw me as the Charming like Cockney Chimney Sweep soil
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you know yeah um let's go give that poor boys we literally in the store in Kensington
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it's gone it's the whole place has been bulldozed now um but they it was right by where all of the ambassadors live and you'd get these
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kids coming in like with their Nanny and their 50 Quid pocket money for the day I just I'll buy a Battle Force thank you very much I don't know what that'd get
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you these days but this is like 2009 no um one box of Space Marines yeah but
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like you still all sorts of stuff with that it was it was grateful I really enjoyed it but like one of the things I really loved especially when I was in
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Reading where we look a big remember battle bunker stores yes I used to run loads of like custom
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campaigns and this sort of thing and so it really got me into coming up with new rules for stuff and I'd always been like
8:49
a tinkerer with games I mean from as a little kid hero Quest there are bits I didn't understand that's why I just made up my own rules for it I've found like
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sheaths of paper with my like scrawly handwriting with new rules for stuff so it was always there I think and then my
9:02
mind was pretty lame mine was four plus Peach Hammer I do that now with Charlie Malad this is like yeah I think that's
9:09
funny my daughter's seven now we've been playing a bit of Warhammer quest uh the original one because she was always
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curious about the Box on the Shelf yeah not the one you've done weirdly
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[Laughter]
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but like she loved it and I was like well let's just do it and it is roll roll fours fours is what you need and it
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comes back I think from intro games right in the shops when you're doing your first intro game for someone it doesn't matter what the numbers are just roll some dice and you'll get the joy of
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rolling a handful of dice and getting some sixes you know that's it um and so yes from there I ended up
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bouncing around a bit work for Mantic Games for a while I did a bit of game design for them did some Community Management and then got a job in the GW
9:54
Studio designing stuff there because I remember when you came in um kicked the door in swaggerated but I
10:00
mean it was a few people talked about it I was like oh this guy's you know really he's made lots of games you know we need like fresh fresh ideas and stuff because
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I think the problem with workshop at that time I'm not saying it was like everyone was was doing it yeah but they
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were so focused internally on the rule systems that not many people play games externally or did much in the way of
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like different absolutely because whereas you like create lots of different things you came with like different ideas and I think well that's that's the big thing is like when I
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because I mean I'd interviewed for that job so many times I tried to go for it repeatedly I mean the closest I got was
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in like 2008 and it was this massively long recruitment process I think I'd applied in April and it took till
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October to find out I hadn't got the job and off the end of the last two it was me and Robin who ended up getting the job of course yeah and I like in that
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time my tenancy ran out I was living on a mate's sofa oh my God any day now Nottingham who knows
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um and uh so I've been applying all this time but I think when I came in the time when I got it because I've been working
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for Manatee and I'd worked on other games it was like oh actually here's like you say some experience in what
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makes a good game I'm not just someone who knows GW stuff inside out because
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that's important but you've got to have fresh ideas right yeah it's like when the thing I've run over the past years
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running some like game design courses what I always say to people is if you want to design games just get out and play as much as you can in the same way
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if you want to be a novelist don't just go I'm just going to read Stephen King novels yeah yeah go and read whatever you can study storytelling as an art
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well I kind of got that in the eye painting team as well because sometimes you'd get like into historicals World
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War II lots of variety of things and which help to draw in color schemes and like inspiration like those colors work
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really well I want to try those and stuff but you'd get your die-hards going that's poor hobby that's poor hobby I'm
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like because I've I like other things and that's what got me into this hobby was doing something so there is like some Die Hard isn't it just like it has
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to be workshops like fundamentalists yeah there's going to be a relationship
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and they're now called Corridor redemptionist yeah yeah and I've got questions I I can answer
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them there's one question really why they're called quarter Redemption there you go straight in that was easy
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nice and easy uh because they they are part of house Corridor now and what happens is if you build a gank yeah of
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corridor you can go Pious which is more called or related stuff
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depending if how how much of your gang is Zealot and how much is the highest
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will influence if you're an outlaw that's really awesome yeah yeah so your startup is like we're
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Laura Biden Corridor oh five of our Jews just got picked off we're now zealots because it's only those Five Guys in
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charge that's one little like that's really awesome
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I like that a lot it's all about the house of Faith book yeah it's a really good read actually I've not painted my
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Redemption suit but I'll need to get on I'm so far out of the loop I've I've not seen any of the the House books yeah for
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necromanda and I mean I know there's now there's the ash waste stuff yeah yeah even the corpse Grinders and that was like I've not caught up with that I'm so
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far well yeah yeah there's a lot to to get your head around what I need is it could someone do like a maybe like
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player campaign film it like put it on YouTube or something that would be really handy I've heard there's three
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Plucky guys out there who've got that sort of idea well if you meet them let me know yeah well we're definitely
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working on it we've played a couple we've got we're on well I still played a couple we've definitely done one we
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filmed one I was saying I was watching your episode about the way you're gonna do it I love the idea of the format of like you know filming a few doing a very
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narrative heavy because the game suits that yeah yeah absolutely I look forward to watching because you did now come
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under the First new reboot necro to 2016. I just go by dates because like
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people like when blood Bowl came out people were like what audition is it I was like it's 2016. yeah it's probably
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better way yeah so yeah 2016 2017 was necromancers I can work out free hair or post hair exactly that's exactly it yeah
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I've got a poster until recently I was still using the photo I had taken um it was like for a warhead something a
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little headshot that it got done um I was very kind of given the photo and I was using it for my social media I was like such alike because I've got a
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full head of hair yeah yeah you know I need to get rid of this I felt like I was catfishing people obviously for any comments to get
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through and then when I say prehears like when I had hair when I didn't have hair so you don't have hair before you
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lived is that what you're saying oh but yeah so I uh so I worked on necromender that's the core game
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um and that was I mean that was when the specialist games sorry specialist Brands team was uh it was very small it was me
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yeah um Andy was boss Chris he was a sculptor and that that was us and then I think necromonda a few people started coming
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in doing little bits and pieces especially for the sculpting um but like now from what I hear it's
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bigger than Forge World yeah oh yeah yeah um some of mate Steve works at the moment and he was on necomunder for a
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time he's moving over to Horus heresy but yeah I'm not sure if he's like he's like torn because he was like I want to do old world but I want to do horror
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seriously but I also want to do nekamanda but it's like a department now so he has a privilege now I don't don't
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want to come on here and start saying contentious things but it's almost that's why we're here sidetracked it's almost like funneling creative people
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into one specific Lane is a bad idea because I want to do things outside of it maybe that's I don't know maybe I'm
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crazy I I don't I I agree that because when they turned the studio into 40K only and age of Sigma only you had age
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of Sigma run painters and 40K Army painters it was really pallet refreshing and really good for your
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um creative ability to jump between different absolutely I completely agree to do a bit of this do a bit of that I couldn't have done it if I'd been in the
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drawers team and I was told all you can do is educating my battle tomes yeah I'd have been pulling my beard out
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nice yeah yeah because like you need that
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yeah exactly yeah like no one goes I'm just gonna paint ultramarines for oh Nick Bain I'm gonna
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paint Ultra Moon nothing else in my entire life he also right as a Roman sorry Nick um but yeah you know you're not just
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gonna say I'm gonna do one thing and nothing else you you want to jump around and try different things right that's it so why would you do it like as a as a
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job as well yeah so when Bob was here something he chatted about afterwards was um he found some old like artwork of
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his like designing the sculptures and he dropped it off and he said he was chatting to someone in miniature design and they were like
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what would you do Bob and he was like just let creatives be creative yeah because he said he said at the minute in
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so it sounds like it's similar with game design sounds like it's similar with painting yeah the miniature design it's
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like oh that person does the best Goblin hand so he just has to design Goblin
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hands and that's what he does and then that person that's why they're proud to be a part of that team yeah yeah I know
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exactly what you're referring to every every time every time I see that I just keep a gig on there yeah yeah absolutely
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we know what you're saying you did it because you can see though especially if you look at um necromonda there is
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people being allowed to really push and uh the ones for necromondor and that little I can never remember the plumber
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name but the the hexagonal one set in age of Sigma as well them guys seem to be allowed off
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the leash and they're producing some absolutely amazing stuff and then everyone else seems a little it's like
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it's very telling when because you can see when something has been made with like creative Mission you know what I mean and I think
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that was the move when I moved from the main Studio to the specialist Brands studio uh which is part of forger and it
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felt like a very different thing it felt like a creative Studio because all the designers had like I know I've heard
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this is all gone now because they had to shut uh squeeze a bit more people and they had like big areas like their own projects they're working on yeah you
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know there's one guy 3D printing a bolt gun at full scale yeah there's one guy doing a lot of sketches of like ships and things it's just like Games Workshop
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3D print stuff you should do a video on that is Warhammer over yeah it's the future
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yeah but like it feels like there's people have been given the ability to be
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creative and I think I think it's a creative Studio you've got to do it I think an example of this is is that uh I
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play Within necrom under I play um the dalak yeah and in the book The
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top of the Spire group who who obviously are in the same house as them yeah all
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look like um female heavily cybernetic
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um geishas yeah and Japanese and traditional Japanese women I can't wait for them to come up because you know
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that the Necromancer team were building them are going to produce something stunning but if someone said to you
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um there's three Space Marine releases on the way you've got almost before you've even
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seen them you've got a good idea what you're getting haven't you I don't know that I know they're hot I know you're going you're going well you you're
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you're doing bizarre gang versus regimented men but if someone said right
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blood angels will come out and this will happen and any blood angels are gonna come out and you go right that's going to be chest plates that will have mus
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muscular this and this and that and they go and the weapons will probably be a bit this you know the only thing that's I probably think curved balls was the um
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the most mutant the most recent heavy weapons for the space but I think what's interesting is like
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looking at that you think like as a sculptor I mean I'm not a sculpture not this but I think you know in that regard
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you've got people who are being told you've got to make a thing that is new and different yeah and it's got to be
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different from all the different space we have weapons done before it's got to be a thing that is going to be visibly different so it looks different can't be
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converted into that because we don't want that anymore I wanted to sell the new kids um and you've got to make it look cool
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it's like well how on Earth yeah when do you think they put so much looking like the silhouette of a model and to make it recognize me a Space Marine part of me
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was thinking about this after we did our video it reminds me a bit of the chaos dwarf hats yeah yeah story the cast wolf
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hat so um at the time that um whoever I think was Brian Ansel was just like um he saw them once and went make the hats
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bigger so the guy was like make the hats bigger so he scooped them bigger and he was like I've made them big I was like make them bigger he's like have you not
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seen them but he's like no but I imagine you're not made them big enough to make him bigger so I imagine something I know
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this I've seen this picture yeah yeah so they like got these massive over the top heads and I just wonder sometimes if it
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was just not malicious compliance but someone just went gotta make the guns big I've got to do this all right I'll just find that box and put these
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going with what James said about about having to try and make the Weaponry for
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these say for these new heavy weapons primaris Marines if I just push into it a little bit with
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regards to it no sounds ridiculous to make a comparison but you know with me being a barber someone said to me once
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when I was training men will come in and tell you what they don't want and you have to try and then sculpt the positive
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yeah after the series of things that they don't want to happen and I think that's exactly the same way I think the
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postcode has gone don't let it be this don't let it be that don't let it be the other don't let it be this right now make be creative and you're going what
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you've just give me nine negatives yeah yeah and then expect a positive mode to the end I think in some ways you
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probably get it and you probably get it in your in your day-to-day work with regards to the probably Brides going well I don't want this and I don't want
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that and if you want to try and find a positive out of it yeah yeah like I had one recently
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um I had some feedback on a film I delivered and I got a shot there was a nice photo of them laughing and smiling
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and they said and I and I got like a some video of that photo just to be like oh look I'm in the house and I'm filming
21:26
preparations and I got the feedback was like we don't like that photo
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like that you'd like them we'd like this this the wedding day to represent how the marriage will be miserable
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you get one that you have to remove the mother-in-law a couple of times wow wow like from the
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photo or like what services do you provide with my next military training yeah yeah
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no um yeah no there's I mean weddings are complicated Affairs like they're happy
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days and people put aside their differences uh for the happy day but stuff happens afterwards and this that
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and the other and then and then as as like a creative and a an undocumentary
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and you know um you you're there trying to um
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kind of like make an augmented version of reality yeah like how they want to remember the day and and and somebody
22:24
like somebody might be like oh we want loads of dance floor shots and loads of images of me like crying because we're
22:30
all going to be super emotional nobody cried nobody danced and you'd be like right what do I do yeah well that's always it I mean anything like where we
22:36
work for clients now I want to use to work for workshop and you know was told by Advantage you got to do this thing it's like it's in so much of any job
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like that is interpreting what they actually want yeah versus what they think they want yeah yeah and like say they might say I don't want this they'll
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say they'll say I want this and they don't actually want that they want something near that yeah I've got to be
22:54
honest I was just in my heads of you trying to work your way out is that I've just setting the camera up on on a tripod and then you just dance like a
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baby tears streaming down your face yeah garlic in guys dancing like a Mania yeah
23:08
we're professional well in your jacket around your head yeah there we go that's that two boxes
23:14
yeah deliver I I had a um I had a DJ once it was um it was during the the
23:21
Euros when England when the men's team got into the finals yeah they did but
23:27
they didn't win so it wasn't it wasn't the final but it was like a couple of weeks before and then during the first
23:32
dance the couple had like choreographed their own first stance and everyone was there filming it and this that and the other and the DJ like they hired the
23:40
wrong guy for the gig basically because because they were still doing it and he was like oh isn't it lovely and if you
23:46
couldn't think of the day could get any better I've just heard it's 2-1
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so I left Workshop in 2017. I remember which was yeah I know I know I came told
24:16
everyone yeah I was uh I I think you you broke down and wept I think yes they weren't tears yeah yeah
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um but I um
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you didn't get the eye contact like that you flinched it's gonna say I'm not I'm
24:36
not going to stand up for five minutes um so yes I left um and set up a little studio called needy cat games named
24:43
after our needy cat um and yeah basically I've been doing freelance game design work for other
24:48
Studios and it's it's been good fun it's been very hard work lockdown has been an
24:54
interesting The Fallout from that has been I've never been busier in my life just trying to keep up with everything
24:59
because um so my partner Sophie can work with me and um
25:04
we were just flat out and then locked that happened and suddenly we lost all our child care so we have to juggle
25:09
Child Care at work yeah and like in the past year all those deadlines have caught up with me so I've not really
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slept much in the past 12 months uh the light at the end of the tunnel nearly yeah I've done various things did like
25:21
um Hellboy the board game femantic which I've got to be honest you can say I really loved it oh thank you at least
25:26
one of my favorite ones we did I mean I really liked it I might uh I I really loved it a little bit too hard but I
25:32
thought yeah a difficulty curve is always a challenging one yeah yeah you
25:37
know uh yeah that was the cave when I felt I was out of breath within about remote comes down to which scenarios
25:45
it was excellent and what I liked about it was someone who's been a long time Hellboy reader yeah
25:50
the feel of it was exactly it felt like it felt like I was playing the comic and that's that was that was like that's
25:55
what it was um there's a thing that I read a while ago I forget who it was it said it was a journalist he said when you're like a journalist when you're
26:01
researching a story for that period of time you become the world expert on that thing and then once you've handed it
26:06
over you forget everything and I was kind of like I mean I've read 25 years of Hellboy coming so I dabbled in Hellboy yeah but I got the link to
26:12
darkworth digital and I had an account with all of the comics on and I went through not just Hellboy of course because he got BBQ yeah Hellboy in the
26:19
bpid and I've read a lot over the course of like six months wow which I mean it became an obsession and so it meant that
26:26
like we and I was saying safe right you're working on the scenario you need to read this issue this issue this issue
26:31
this issue and we were just focusing on how do we make the game feel like
26:37
Hellboy because I mean to me and I think I've always tried to put that in games like autos and you mentioned earlier
26:42
that's a great example how do you feel like you're a bunch of coordinate Warriors scrapping it out in a yeah in
26:49
an arena in Hellboy how do you feel feel like you're a Hellboy comic because Hellboy Comics the pacing is quite specific it's like yeah it's not a big
26:56
fighty dungeon cruel action game no it's kind of it's like a slow burn with a big
27:01
climactic ending and that's what we wanted to kind of achieve with Hellboy because the weather board game works is you have
27:06
uh though you have a little deck of cards that you go through in order and
27:11
you flip over or look at certain one depending on what's happened so it's almost like the game is it's like an evolution of silver Tower really yeah
27:17
because the game's acting like a GM for you yeah yeah and then it all ends with a massive dust up and some big bosses like you flip sections of the board and
27:23
it's a big confrontation and whether you like you'll reach the conversation in one of three ways either you reach it in
27:29
time all is good time runs out or you all get knocked out and either way you still get the big confrontation it's
27:35
just like you might have a slightly tougher time of it if you've gone into a different way and it was like the idea of trying to make it feel like hellboy's
27:41
big thing is it gets knocked down but he gets back up again you're never going to keep him down he drinks a
27:47
whiskey drink yeah he drinks yeah what are we talking about yeah and that was kind of we really want
27:52
to get that theme and it's I think it's it's nothing worse if you play a game that's heavily built with a a strong
27:59
existing law yes and then you play the game and the game doesn't play like yeah yeah it's it's just it's just you you
28:06
feel a little bit closer you feel a bit robbed yeah it feels like lazy game design like the the term is label
28:11
slapping it's like from the licensing industry it's where you just go oh here's the lunch box now it's a Space Marine lunch box yeah it might be okay I
28:17
think like with any because we most of the stuff we do is like IP based game design yeah and so much of it is about
28:23
right you've got to spend the time getting to know the IP yeah um but I mean like betrayal at calf the first game I really worked on as a full
28:29
game that was I was lead designer on um in that I think more than any other GW
28:35
game I think bolt guns feel like bolt guns yeah it's the one where you use bulk guns because they make people keep their heads down because they're firing
28:40
explosives yeah yeah and and again it was like what you know read the horror terminals about that period what is
28:46
happening what is going on titanicus I've read everything that GW had put out about Titans fight and I had like my
28:52
Kindle had loads of highlighted sections in books he can do and I was like I need to think about what happens when a Titan dies yeah go and read that section oh
28:59
sometimes they fall over sometimes they just stand very still because the crew are dead yeah all that went into the game because I think with the one I did
29:05
as the game of cows it was you had to get to an escape room because um exterminist was gonna happen so you
29:11
just get turned into a puddles they've made the sun go kablooey and you're
29:16
trying to all get underground into the arcologies yes and so it's the opening scenario and that all came out of my
29:22
um it was about when when spacehog came out were you in retail when it's baseball okay uh no I was in the studio
29:28
so I was there and I ran that first spacehog mission so many times for customers yeah it's
29:34
set up on the show on the on the shop floor and it's the first one is called suicide mission it's where you get your
29:39
five five terminators trying to get to a room and flavor it yeah oh I know that one this is a classic yeah but I've
29:44
played that to death I was like well people are going to play the first mission of betrayal at calf over and over again yeah so let's make it
29:51
interesting let's not make it the boring tutorial yeah make it interesting so it's simple and you've only got like a squad each yeah but it's a race yeah
29:58
you've got a long long uh board set up at the other end there are three blast doors yeah so you both start at the same
30:03
end there's a few bits between you yeah yeah but those doors are I think one of them closed at the end of turn two yeah
30:09
at the end of turn three one of them to turn four and you've got to get as many people through those doors as possible yeah and so what it means is that the
30:15
game is immediately you've got a thing you're supposed to do yeah you tell the player you need to
30:21
move over there yeah because that's like great I mean I've played a lot of games where the first round you're like what
30:26
do I do what's the right thing to be doing yeah yeah yeah so giving that very clear um Direction
30:32
through the game design does that but it also makes it feel like you're reading that amazing part of the story where
30:38
they're kind of you know trying to get through and whilst fighting each other so you've got this kind of
30:43
um leap frogging thing you know that you have one little unit laying down covering fire or the other one makes a
30:48
break for covering it feels really tense and I'm again I'm really proud of that scenario in particular yeah it really
30:54
yeah it was I remember we played it and I was just like this is good fun this is like the kind of thing that you you could show like like if your brother's
30:59
not playing for a while or yeah I just want to have a bit of fun with mates you know that's a great thing I think with baseball because it's a really good game
31:05
for being able to get people to play it yeah get people to play who've never played yeah yeah I think especially the leg timer he's like stress
31:12
yeah off you go down yeah that's just really I do I do like games I mean I
31:17
play a lot of like uh 10 based computer games and like XCOM you know go on about a lot but there's a couple of like
31:23
um not mods but games or at least things where you have timers and you've got to do a thing in a set time so like XCOM 2
31:28
you have to risk this person gets you Evac in a set amount if you don't those people get stayed behind dead yeah and I
31:36
love stuff like that in game where you have to do a thing in a set amount of time because it stops you from making those sort of like because we've all
31:42
been there we had that guy in like warmer fantasy battle yeah yeah
31:49
come on just do your turn I want to go home at some point today I had an interesting little one with regards
31:55
showing good game design but then good good knowledge is um buy pal Tim has
32:01
been playing spacehawk for many many years many many years and his
32:07
um son-in-law is a major uh just about to leave draw Marines oh well and um he
32:14
was a bit of a loose end and he went come around one night he said his his stepdaughter was away and he said come
32:19
around one night and he says well would you want to fancy play in a game he went yeah okay yeah never played baseball before gave him the Terminators nailed
32:27
it in his face nice just his understanding yeah yeah and where to go and I think in that show as you know I
32:33
think I chose good game designs if you're smart enough you can lean into it yeah I think the best sort of War Games
32:39
to me are ones where the mechanics are fairly invisible like they they what the mechanics do is let you translate your
32:46
thoughts and strategies into what happens on the tabletop and if like in an Ideal World you don't think you don't
32:52
spend too much time thinking about what the rules actually do you're thinking about what you want to achieve and then the rules are just providing that yeah
33:00
absolutely fantastic I mean silver Tower I always think is a really I mean I've played through a lot of scenarios of
33:06
silver town we did like some live streaming back like ages ago yeah um but I also remember them being really good fun and you could forget the rules
33:12
between like we're not doing it for a couple of weeks but you can easily miss it yeah I think it's fairly intuitive and it was dead simple I mean actual the
33:18
core mechanics were simple I mean the game designing the game I lost sleep over that it was great fun but it was no
33:27
one at no point was I ever told make it as complex as I did but it was a dream because I mean I'd like loved Warhammer
33:34
question yeah and even when it was in in development I don't remember this but they they it wasn't going to be called Warhammer Quest at first they weren't
33:40
sure if they had the ability to do it because of the video game yeah um so it's gonna be like in a dungeon or
33:46
something but I was like well it's gonna be people are going to see it as warmer Quest whatever we do so it's got to live up to that and
33:53
I didn't want to make it just like forgettable I wanted it to be a memorable experience to me the big
33:58
thing with Warhead request was well it's your randomized dungeons you know things with your drawing cards and all that so that's gotta go in there but also
34:05
it's the stories that come out of that and the random little moments that emerge in a game that's the things that creates the cool stories and so I wanted
34:12
to make it like this game that told a story but in a non-linear fashion yeah and I mean there are several board games
34:18
that do that and I think that's like you're saying earlier it's one of the things that I've I sort of brought in was I play a lot of games in different
34:23
sorts and even you know fighting Fantasy game books that sort of thing there are all these things where you have like
34:28
chunks of text and go to this paragraph and do that and I thought well surely we can do that in in Warhammer Quest I had
34:35
a spreadsheet like nothing else with like these are the numbers these are the pages that Andy Clark is one of those
34:40
writers I mean we go we we worked in retail together years ago um but he was like right I was like Andy
34:46
I need four lines of text to fit on this page about this particular thing and he did a great job of it yeah
34:51
um but it it was like it was a headache to do but I think it really worked so I mean when you meet someone who's played
34:57
silver Tower and I I meet a lot of people that played still together I really enjoyed silver Tower um I can say to him oh did you see this
35:03
thing because there's no guarantees they might a different path yes of course yeah yeah and I love that because it
35:08
means there's replayability you can play it again and discover new things and I like that they brought out the deck of cards which you could use other
35:15
characters other baddies yeah absolutely and they did the I know it was like a GM version which was the Shadows over here
35:21
but you could still use those same cards in that because the designs yeah and that's something I know a few people make comments ago why is Blackstone
35:27
photocards uh one requests it became a brand after a while didn't it was yeah dungeon crawling yeah the titles on care
35:33
city as well yeah because it's a Dungeon Crawler um Style game where let's say it's randomized or whatever but you can have
35:38
futuristic ones or yeah absolutely yeah and I think like the core engine is fairly similar across all the different games and I think that's that's really
35:44
cool I love the idea of taking that sort of DNA of a game and saying well how can you stretch it yeah oh it's good if you
35:49
play one and then you're going through the go oh I've got a basic idea yeah we're going to be exactly I always used to say silver Tower just reminded me of
35:55
something where um when coming up with a name you have a placeholder name for a project yeah um to do the pawn test on
36:03
the internet for the search engines or like you know her fake things that you might type in like yeah silver Tower suddenly becomes like because silver
36:09
they they didn't yeah they didn't really do that with Toy Story did they no no or
36:15
or a previous name for glorious homes down in Stapleford was called the glory
36:21
hole for a long time well there is um there's a there's a mini golf place in uh called glory holes yeah yeah yeah but
36:30
yeah I remember they they came up with a placehold name like because you had like project yellow and yeah whatever this was called Silver Tower hot dog yeah of
36:37
course hot dogs that was silver Tower I was it I thought it was silver Tower then just went um actually we'll just keep it silver Tower because we've done
36:43
the search unless it's another one because it was um to do with there was a tower in
36:49
Frankfurt which is a big silver Tower and it's called hot dog um oh cool I remember age of Sigma was
36:56
Stanley okay yeah and then yes yes yes because that was MC Hammer's first name wasn't
37:02
it I I always wonder what that was yeah yeah I think that's the the way they used to call it names Sometimes some
37:08
people just didn't get it and go this is Project green cool yeah yeah why is it called Green I still do it now like
37:14
every project I work on I'll give it a code it could basically it means like if I'm emailing people or if I share my screen I was like I don't want to give
37:20
stuff away yeah so all my Project's got a little code and they're all little puns they're all based on things in my mind now though MC Hammer's name is
37:25
established I think it's standing here I can't remember I love the idea
37:33
it's actually his initial it's Michael cravenhammer [Laughter]
37:45
there was a couple of things I was going to ask before um before we jump into the patreon questions
37:51
um were you credited for any of the game designs that you did no of course not yeah so well which is why I don't
37:56
remember anything does anyone film just your hands right like Agatha Christie start of a type
38:03
right yeah I'd like to begin the Murder She Wrote yeah yeah stay for the Saucy comments what was weird I was I was I
38:09
was there when Community became a thing yeah yeah of that weird transition period and what's that happening was he
38:14
started seeing interviews in white dwarf again yeah yeah um and there was a couple of days where
38:19
we all got brought in and had our headshots taken you remember that yes you had to go in and have like um photos take the red backdrop yeah photo and
38:28
um that was like they started saying oh here's so-and-so who designed whatever
38:33
his he was the lead writer on this thing and so it was like soft crediting I suppose like yeah yeah what dwarf had
38:39
said you'd done it but you weren't allowed to say it yes um and then someone on Twitter asked me hey did you
38:46
design core Chosen and what I said of course as well I was part of the team that created you know
38:52
um and I got I got a a little um little note through through the the
38:58
channels you can't do that you can't oh of course yeah yeah but but it's yeah
39:04
it's a white dwarf article here saying James here designer of God show yeah yeah yeah okay yeah fine yeah yeah I
39:09
remember a bunch of people wrote some social media policies and never followed them themselves
39:15
I have no opinions on that subject we won't go into that yeah
39:21
um but yeah I mean from a like my point of view seeing like this this transition of and you know we
39:28
talked in previous shows about like the Matt War situation I mean you were obviously part of a team and you were
39:33
like you would have like someone that was creating or like the brains behind it other people like like Andy Clark would be like doing some works yeah but
39:41
um most of the time you'd have like the lead yeah I mean generally you know you have your project lead the person who's like doing the majority of the work I
39:47
mean in the rules team there are four of us and everything got passed around yeah absolutely yeah but there's still one person who's guiding it yeah so it is
39:53
absolutely 100 of team effort yeah yeah I mean every one of the games I did there would be a point at which I'd go
39:58
like this doesn't work anymore I'd go to Jervis and go Jervis help yeah and he'd look into it like you'd see in The Matrix and go change that one thing
40:04
there because he's an absolute genius since he left uh I fear for narrative gaming uh since
40:10
sergiovis left I really yeah because there was a lot of people in the studio has gone on to do anything they just retired fantastic he's probably doing
40:18
his own stuff maybe like you know things he wants to he's allowed to do now without yeah I'm a room calling him and
40:23
Roads as well saying do you guys do so do you guys do a few minutes
40:29
um and I was and we were like yeah but this was the time where they stopped us from doing freelance paint jobs in her own time for like people around the
40:36
studios because I used to do stuff for Dave Andrews I paint some World War One Scots and stuff like that for him and we
40:41
were going to do some stuff for for Jervis because he wanted to learn the things painting and then we got told not to do that but then other people are
40:47
allowed to do it which is always the weird thing some people were allowed to do depends who you knew and who you
40:52
spoke to but four legs good two legs better and so on and so forth yeah absolutely so my second question I was
40:59
going to ask um let's put you in a hypothetical situation uh because a few a few
41:04
patreons have kind of asked this thing and it'll make a great click bait title
41:11
yeah yeah yeah so your your yourself in you get you get the phone call yep James
41:16
Workshop is on the other side of it and and he's like fix 40K
41:22
um because there's some that I I I don't know it's not necessarily the general
41:28
consensus but a lot of people as we discussed before the camera started rolling
41:33
um like eighth and Ninth marked some big sort of shifts in in like uh in in 40K
41:40
if you were given the Reigns to it you know maybe what are some of the issues that it currently has do you think and
41:46
how would you resolve them oh interesting so first of all I would I would have a word with James Workshop because I was I was doing that joke many
41:52
moons before him before he came around I used to answer the phone by mistake occasionally in the shops at James Workshop games no wait hang on so people
41:58
used to call me James Workshop occasionally and then then this Pretender turns up who apparently is a
42:04
paid actor it's not even his real name because you're both redhead clearly it's exactly the same thing
42:10
um so yeah um the so yeah what I would say is I'm not the best positioned person because I've
42:16
not played 40K eighth or ninth same apart from I played a little bit when I've worked on necrom under like uh we
42:22
had some demo games of it because the aim was to make it as close as possible to that rule set as we could but then
42:28
adding a lot of extra stuff into it um but from what I've seen of it
42:33
I think the biggest issue with it and it's so easy to say these things when you're not on the team right when you have of course five
42:40
different opinions telling you what it needs to be yeah but like it feels like it doesn't know what it wants to be
42:46
um and of course the problem is that as a game produced as the flagship Game of Games Workshop it's got to be everything for everyone right it's got to be yeah
42:52
appealing to young people so you've got all your different styles to play what I love is the fact that there is now this acknowledgment there are different ways
42:58
to play yeah and this is I mean for me personally I would much rather go for
43:03
the little games that are geared towards a particular thing so uh underworlds is
43:08
your quick fire competitive thing I know that they've brought out is it in the Nemesis thing or Rivals recently where it's like okay yeah try any more
43:15
narrative yeah but whatever the case that is very much written as a competitive short Fire game that you
43:20
play you know in a tournament whatever you've got your necrom under which is much more of a narrative thing whereas
43:25
40K has got to be everything all at once and I thought the challenge is that when you've got a game that is trying to be
43:31
everything you've got an ever-expanding range of Miniatures that's never going to stop getting bigger because that is
43:36
the business model that's just how it works yeah you kind of have to accept that it's never going to be
43:44
a great game and I don't mean that without any sort of disrespect to it but like it's always going to be held back
43:49
by all these constraints yeah and the big thing is it's never been going to be designed to be a great game that's not
43:56
the the business requirement of it it's designed to be a vehicle for selling loads of Miniatures
44:02
we are a miniature company yeah we make plastic Miniatures and we will sell them
44:08
at a profit forever yeah exactly I I think the main problem with 40K and it
44:13
and it's something that you'll never be able to fix until Games Workshop except drop on the business model of releasing
44:18
a new addition every three years you'll never get 40K away yeah I mean I from my
44:23
experience I wanted to play some 40K never got around to I think I played one or two games of eighth um oh so I lied earlier but I never
44:30
played it but I mean I yeah it was that song I can't remember how it works I
44:35
played one game of Ninth and that was on uh warmer TV uh warmer plus sorry yeah um that was my first game of nights
44:47
but I built so many armies for 40K and never got to use them just because I've never found the time or yeah it was such
44:54
a chill to have all these different like things going off I'm just like that's why my life is Skirmish based games yeah it's
45:01
self-contained well I've and that's just personal choice I think the product don't shout at me in the
45:06
comments if they're liking the things I'm going to shout with you now yeah
45:13
um why why don't they why can't there be
45:19
two versions of it where you go the one version where you go do you know if you want to play it and you know you haven't
45:26
got and I don't mean size because having big armies is more fun and it looks more dramatic and it gives you more options
45:31
of them models you spent ages getting paintable are massively great in The Meta you're never going to put them on a
45:38
board but why isn't the why isn't the game designed where you can have low rule yeah more fun yeah yeah and then
45:45
that's the brilliant and what games are actually missing there to some degree that's the brilliant way to drive 12
45:50
year olds in yeah so because if you swamp them should still be doing that because they
45:55
did sorry no no sorry what do they say because they they did the four page rules yeah which was so accessible yeah
46:02
so is everything you need to know what's on your card Legion Stars Legion do this all your information's on your card yeah you can build points sometimes when I'm
46:08
playing with mates we don't worry about points we just like go I want to use this you don't want to use that unit you have like three units for and a character three units and a character it
46:14
doesn't matter if it's some bands no one cares because they're having fun so age of Sigma was that and it was really well done and everything you need to know was
46:20
on the um the card I remember a couple of guys were like it should be like Fantasy Flight like Star Wars Legion
46:27
where you have a set card size yeah and the information doesn't get any bigger than that you have to fit within this
46:32
parameter but then it became like well one day she was that so they were all written for like a one page one page of a book and then translated to cards yeah
46:38
the little teeny weeny text yeah exactly if it's better now well you know well you know look in um a game I I loved and
46:45
broke my heart when it was when it was adjusted but I loved um for many a moon was a big big fan of Confrontation yeah
46:52
French game and it came with the blumen rule book was in the blister yeah yeah
46:58
you could buy the robot separately right yeah yeah yeah by the rule books you always had the rules the rules when
47:03
constantly changing and they couldn't constantly change because to some degree there was a little rule book already in a blister yeah and they kept quite I
47:10
know I just think why you can't go look here's the easy version here's the competitor yeah
47:16
tournament Players version and also if you've got more background there's books as well is that you know with your kids
47:23
you know because I'm I'm I haven't been a man who's tried to teach a child it you're gonna go and we'll go what we'll
47:29
do we'll you know we'll play it this way yeah and then you go well tell you what let's go into there and now we'll bring
47:35
in this Rule and then allow you to bolt yeah the rules on until eventually go oh
47:41
guess what we're now we're playing it like grown-ups yeah I mean it's how I like to design going to titanicus um have you
47:47
played Titanic no no so the book for that and the book is horribly written I look back at it and I cringe because it
47:52
was I was just giving free Reigns to whatever I like yeah and it was a big uh you know it was a 10 000 Word document I'd handed over and
47:59
it all got put in and I I would love love to see someone who is more a competent rules writing than I was at
48:05
that point rewrite the rule book because multiple tangents here roles writing and game design two completely different
48:10
skill sets yes the design of the game then there's the putting it into words I think the Titanic is game design really happy with that the rules writing not so
48:16
much but what I do like about it is something I've carried on since is you've got the basic rules and then
48:23
there's a section of advanced rules and then there's a section of optional rules and what that's basically doing is saying the basic rules let you play the
48:29
game you can get your Titans out you play the game Dead straightforward play it for your first few games or if you
48:35
want to just stick with that yeah yeah yeah the optional rules sorry the advanced rule sorry that completes the
48:40
core rules of the game so that is like uh your reactor overloading different types of special weapon rules that sort
48:46
of stuff the optional rules if you want to go really narrative and it's things like buildings blowing up yeah straight shots hitting you long time for that
48:52
sort of thing which is the if you're an experienced hobbyist you can do this one and I really like that as a as a way of
48:58
doing it and um so I'm currently working on a uh Skirmish game for modifias which
49:04
is based on Fallout the video games oh yeah yeah so it's Fallout factions uh Nuka World which is based off one of the
49:11
Fallout 4 yeah expansions essentially set in an abandoned theme park it's amazing
49:16
um it's got lovely hard plastic miniatures by Colin Grayson oh Colin yes yeah yeah
49:24
um he's in Scotland now I think I'll put you in touch with the uh the studio baby
49:31
brilliant yeah I mean I love Fallout so it's been so much fun because I love the Fallout games for you yeah it's been so
49:37
much fun playing in that world but like um in that same thing I've got here's your basic rules your first game the
49:42
rule but literally holds your hand into your first game don't worry about all the details here's the basics yeah after a couple here's the next bit then once
49:49
you've done that here's Quest mode which is basically it's a necromanda campaign right and you're playing for trying to grab the territory of the park and that
49:56
kind of thing and but it's doing that thing of going here are different level not just saying and paying lipsticks and
50:02
going oh there are three ways to play it's like actually here are some different levels yeah that's the right one for you yeah not saying one of them necessarily the correct one no they're
50:09
all different levels I love modular games have they tried to simplify 4K with boarding actions is that like no I
50:16
don't think they will okay I haven't read it but I do want to simplified it it's all of justice is like The Kill
50:22
team scenery like the the walls and you take like a 500 point force you can't
50:28
you can't take vehicles on monsters that was a white dwarf article yes it's a bit like 40K or 40 minutes it feels yeah
50:34
there was definitely like I'm thinking late 90s early 90s there was a white dwarf article about because remember it was no no vehicles No Monsters yeah
50:41
yeah it does ring bells yeah so I guess it's yeah because I think there's two things in
50:46
there we want to stop it's never gonna do stop releasing it every three years and stop stop people stop having books
50:55
because if you get it online when when you then go look we've looked at this and we're going in there for it and you go like well there you go well that's
51:01
fine and well it's not fine it's never fine to not get it right straight away for but then be able to do it in such a way
51:08
to go well look instead of you then having to go and look all over the place for it going your rule book is you're
51:14
always got the real buckets online that's what you're working on now if you go into it now it will be adjusted and
51:20
that will be in there as opposed to going here's a series of FAQs and you go although you're always at game until go
51:26
but I want a book you know what yeah really funny thing is James that's me
51:32
I always want a book yeah but I'm also enough of an adult to know the Games Workshop aren't going to come Central
51:37
around to me how to go give us your codex Jeff that's not hey Joe's next thing you know yeah
51:46
codexes should come with a ring coming a ring binder shouldn't it you could just download a page because I mean it's so
51:54
frequent I've always been like that was like I like a physical thing in my hands my phone obviously you know I might forget to charge it you're like oh sure
52:00
yeah I can't find the rules I need um but as a biker not having to carry
52:05
lots of rules around
52:11
you know plastic Miniatures unlike the metal Miniatures yeah books are better than books yeah yeah you're minimizing
52:17
your weight somebody uh using public transport yeah it would be similar oh you get loads going on on the trams get
52:23
to load and they have to like cut all these kids how would you fix 40K make it lighter to
52:30
carry it there you go aim it for motorcyclists everything else will fall in place yeah yeah there you
52:37
go you're burning with questions I can say I think so yes I think I can I've seen that we've ticked over an hour
52:44
wow we should uh we should ask some patreon questions uh what is your favorite game and why
52:50
so keep it simple shall we yeah favorite game and why oh my God what is my favorite game and why it's a very
52:57
difficult questions do I play games anymore um So lately I've so I've not been doing
53:03
any Miniatures games for a while because um I I've got pretty bad carpal tunnel in my hands oh no
53:09
um also I wanted some medication for the old ADHD which makes my hand my fingers go a bit numb so I can't hold a paintbrush properly anymore oh it sucks
53:14
but also the painting world doesn't miss me I mean I was never exactly a sterling
53:20
Talent you know what I mean just color plastic that's all you need yeah spray painting and yeah a little bit of that is kind of that's what I tend to do for
53:25
a lot of my stuff especially if it's like um like for if I'm doing play testing or if they're like yeah board game Miniatures and that it's a little
53:31
bit of spray color you know but um also I've been so busy so I've not really done much in the way of Miniatures games
53:38
lately I've been playing a lot of board games uh and quite a few role-playing games and games not role-playing games there's a game called blades in the dark
53:43
which is oh it's just fantastic it's a your d d style RPG
53:49
um but you're basically playing uh a bunch of criminals in it's like peaky
53:54
blinders meets Dishonored the video game okay yeah yeah that's that's it enough two things I both like and it's it's
54:00
fantastic it's like I don't know if you've ever played many role-playing games but the big thing with it is you you have like Heist the uncle scores
54:07
it's a bit very Oceans 11 you have flashbacks so you know oh God comes around the corner flashback because
54:12
actually I bribed that guard earlier actually the guard is Julia Roberts or whatever it might be you know oh amazing
54:17
so but what's great is there's so much stuff in it that has informed my game design elsewhere
54:23
um whenever dice get rolled in it um like because with I've played a lot of DnD over the years and a lot of the time
54:29
you're rolling Dyson DND nothing really happens like either you I've done three points of damage or similar I've done nothing at all next thing happens
54:35
whereas like blade in the dark there's a thing of every dice roll has consequences of some kind it changes oh
54:40
great of the game in some way by either you get the thing you want or you don't there are consequences and I like I've
54:46
been bringing more of that into the tabletop games I've been doing so like with um Fallout factions there's things
54:52
where you give the players a lot of power to do things that everything they do has consequences and costs in there and it's
54:59
yeah it's really interesting I mean what I would again what I was I can't remember if I said this earlier on camera or off camera but if you want to
55:06
design games just play as many different games as possible because it all feeds in even if you're not looking to design stuff but you want to do your own
55:11
campaign system yeah yeah no agreed looking at how other things do it yeah blade in the dark lovely uh I need to
55:18
preface this one by saying um our patreon community is as silly as we are I'm immediately concerned
55:25
two questions mashed potato what's your recipe okay you know absolutely so
55:30
replicate reputators you want good reputator from Ash I would say uh so boil them about 15-20 minutes so you can
55:36
put a fork in without too much yeah drain it off and then just let them Steam for a minute let them dry out you
55:42
don't want to put them back in too wet back in the pan off the heat a little bit of butter proper butter please a
55:47
little bit of milk although you can eat a pack no no yeah exactly I mean all right Mr Fancy
55:54
Pants over here Patriot money's going um but yeah no so you if you want I have
55:59
to try this a few times a little bit of mayonnaise instead of milk and butter actually surprising Works quite well and uh mix it up with the mash and none of
56:06
this rice stuff prefer old-fashioned Masher yeah and uh a bit of salt and pepper and if you really want did this
56:11
last night actually a bit of cheese mix that in as well yeah that's so much better than I thought
56:17
that was gonna go yeah oh well you might not think you look at me I like my food and I wish this should have recorded
56:25
luckily I have recorded it
56:36
what's really funny is that I've got a little tub in my fridge of last night's match I could have brought it with me I could have just like how do I do it well
56:42
let me show you I should I should have sent you these questions
56:52
[Laughter] thanks Phil for that one
56:57
um and he also says and if you could go back to one of the games you've written
57:03
um what like what like differently yeah um
57:08
yeah all right so uh two answers I'm gonna do two rather than one because I'm a rebel do I like um so in betrayal at
57:13
calf yep um I think the system where you allocate wounds to model is a little bit too complicated it's the one bit of the
57:18
rules it feels a little bit more complicated than other things it's like you make it simpler but also in that uh
57:25
Space Marines have combat knives yeah yeah and they're the one weapon the game doesn't have any rules it's like we'll give a combat knife yes mate rather
57:31
having a melee attack it's an attack with that with a combat knife which has its own rules there you go easy one of
57:36
the wonderful hindsight moments like five years later I was like I should have done that um and then in Blitzball which was the
57:42
little spin-off of blood Bowl it's only available in Germany and America yeah possibly Canada okay it's part of their
57:49
kind of trying to get into markets they haven't already I want to say Barnes and Noble yeah yeah yeah and then the German
57:54
equivalent balance under Noble um but like uh you yeah it's in in there
58:00
again very simple game and it's it's kind of it's it's it's very Loosely based on blood Bowl but it's it's very
58:06
much not it plays in half an hour which as we all know it's not what blood bowl is yeah and uh but it's all very
58:12
simplified but again I there's one mechanic and it's the mechanic for throwing and it uses a range ruler and
58:17
there's modifiers and it's so unlike the rest of the game yeah the fiber type I just simplify that message yeah yeah so
58:23
there you go nice perfect um okay wonderful next one uh I
58:30
I'll read this to you if it doesn't apply to your career at GW or what have you then that's fine because this seems
58:36
quite like a because we said hey this guy does rules um and people have asked quite a lot of
58:42
um quite broad questions or pointed questions they're quite a poor person so I can take it okay why does Games
58:48
Workshop not invest as much into rules balance Place testing proofreading
58:53
compared to other companies because I have no idea of what their budget is so
58:58
it's a very interesting question I think that's question makes some assumptions yeah um first of all I would say there is no other company I think pretty safe
59:04
to say this putting out the same quantity of content that Games Workshop does yeah um there is there's just not I mean I've
59:10
worked for most of the bigger template games companies out there and no one puts out as much stuff as as regularly
59:17
as games slow down guys yeah yeah you know um yeah and I think the thing is that
59:25
when you get to a company the size of Games Workshop when everything is kind of profit-led I said that's in their business statement yeah you get
59:31
diminishing returns with play testing and proofreading yeah because it is very rare that a well play tested book will
59:39
sell more than one that has been you know play tested so that it's not broken yeah the thing that I often say
59:45
to people that are learning game design is that balance is kind of an illusion
59:51
what is better than balance is a lack of complete imbalance yeah so like players
59:57
will see immediately if something is broken yeah if something doesn't work that's that the Nuance of it of how
1:00:02
balanced the thing is for example the number of points I think is worth it'll come out over time but the amount of play testing it would
1:00:07
take to get to the point of it being perfect yeah it's never worth the money yeah um which is why I mean if so I thought
1:00:13
you can't really so when I was writing codexes and things um sort of the the first skitary codex for example we had we weren't didn't
1:00:20
know a play testing budget the play testing was I had a bunch of regulars I'd buy a pizza or on a Tuesday night
1:00:26
from around the office of course yeah I remember that pizza nice yep yep little little canteen pizza so we've got boards
1:00:32
done as well yeah there you go this is the behind the scenes actions and
1:00:37
um because at this point there was a big rule no external play testing because that's how leaks happen yeah yeah yeah to a degree I I agree with that but also
1:00:44
you need to play Test games um and the problem is that you know I
1:00:50
would do the Codex and you would play ah best a dozen games you get no useful
1:00:56
data in a dozen games what you'll find out is oh that that should be a six not a two like we get big things that are
1:01:03
wrong yeah you won't get that should be a three not a four yeah yeah and as soon as it hits the public in the first day
1:01:10
you have waited however many tens of thousand people read it and immediately give you all their opinions yeah it's like well yeah it would have been lovely
1:01:17
if we could have had that you know there what you see is interesting is that some companies I mean Ford used to it they put a a beta version of all set up and
1:01:24
get feedback on it I think Privateer Press used to do a similar sort of thing they put out like work in progress rules the way GW operates they'll never do
1:01:30
that I remember um so I might go on a slight segue here um um firstly there's two rule systems
1:01:37
um that I'm going to mention the first one is war cry yeah I've only ever seen one rule Amendment with that game so I don't know how well play test that was
1:01:43
because I wasn't in the studio at the time when that was being made it is a tight game it is a very tight game but also very fun and very enjoyable but the
1:01:49
only one rule thing was just like a slight word change to go really instead of three inch weapon yeah
1:01:56
um that was obviously I've not really nailed on the newer rules at the moment for the the newer sets that have come out but there was something else I
1:02:02
remember when I was working it was when underworld was coming out yeah and Dave Sanders was on it yep and love Dave yeah
1:02:08
I love Dave he's a very clever guy and he was given what felt like a Monumental task and it made it made sense now but
1:02:14
that guy was so stressed he was asked to play test in two weeks 150 games
1:02:20
so if you put that down so if you break that down to like probably like 20 15
1:02:25
games a day right but you're only doing that during lunch times because you're trying to get a variety of people yeah and there's only six tables or four
1:02:31
tables in that play test room so you could probably get eight people in there at a time so he was stressed as heck and
1:02:37
he won't be getting paid he'll be having to do it yeah so and I remember having a
1:02:43
word with the boss at the time and I was like why why are you stressing out to use to get so many games played tested
1:02:49
he was like if I said go and play test it you'll probably get 20 games played if I give him this really tight amount
1:02:55
I'm not expecting to it and eventually I'm gonna have a conversation with him so to eat ease is is concerns but
1:03:01
already he's on 50. so that is like over double what I expected from normal play tests what's the quality of those tests
1:03:08
well this is this is the thing it's like I I don't know much about underworlds but yeah from what I understand it's a
1:03:13
very well written yeah absolutely so I don't know if that's down to the play test in those 120 I think you managed In
1:03:19
the End Kelly here it is underworlds now I don't know I don't know does it um but I know day Dave's he's got a great mind
1:03:26
for games but he actually he was right he was my replacement in the team yeah yeah and I was like I couldn't think of
1:03:31
anyone better because we used to play a lot of games and he's got a very incisive mindset sort of stuff so I wouldn't be surprised if it had just come out yeah really well done but um
1:03:38
yeah I think the problem is when you play test the the the the the real like the meat of it is you play the game but
1:03:44
beforehand you have a chat just a briefly testers and after you have a chat to debrief them and I guarantee if
1:03:50
you speed it up you lose the before and the after you just get the actual we're gonna sit and play a game and if
1:03:56
anything comes out that is massively broken I'll note that down yeah yeah you're not gonna get much more feedback than that if you're zipping through
1:04:01
stuff yeah yeah yeah but at least at least by testing was happening at that point yeah I mean I mean I played that weirdly that when the
1:04:08
game was finalized it was very different to the games I played at lunch really yeah very very different oh well not I
1:04:13
mean there's still like the different sort of uh yeah yeah yeah but just some of the way that the rules operate it was like well this is a very different game
1:04:19
I mean the difference between the way our design games now to what I did when I was at Workshop is so different because I mean play testing to me is
1:04:25
game design like you you can't work on a game without just testing it constantly yeah you make the thing and that first
1:04:32
draft is what you think it should be and it'll be wrong yeah and what happens you'll play a lot of games and each time you play you'll refine it and you'll test it whatever else and those
1:04:38
refinements become more and more gradual it's like ice sculpting right you start with a chainsaw and you end up with a little tiny yeah
1:04:44
yeah and you don't get that Nuance unless you really put the time in and it's like me now I will spend
1:04:51
um six to nine months working on a game that I'd have had three months for at Workshop because you want to give it that time to breathe and develop yeah
1:04:56
that's fascinating yeah because they like with the the votan Codex that came out I've had things it was broken to the
1:05:03
extent that they did their first ever apology video yeah and I think
1:05:09
yeah to do that I bet some heads rolled I bet they didn't no I'm sorry but that
1:05:16
was um and I imagine that was due to time and they said they play tested it against two of the newer codexes that
1:05:23
had since been nerfed right so it was like doubly powered um so and I think
1:05:28
that is like a time thing yeah but they need to get the models out the big the big enemy is time for anything
1:05:34
absolutely having that freedom to properly spend as much time quality cost
1:05:39
all three yes yes there's a great gift where there's a scale and you're like I want that I want that and then the other
1:05:45
one goes and you just spend the whole time getting two is great in it sometimes well yeah sometimes if you're lucky to
1:05:51
get two yeah most of the time uh okay uh someone called August says
1:05:57
it's uh the armies I guess you could change him interchange them especially uh especially when trying to make them
1:06:03
feel like their law how do you start coming up with rules to make something like Gene Steel occults versus custodies
1:06:10
a fair game while still having custodies feel like they're near unkillable yeah
1:06:15
interesting because I mean again you look at that different different games they have different abstraction levels right yeah so I mean you think that's
1:06:21
like an Inquisitor which is a game 2019 I think maybe it came out which was
1:06:26
yeah 54 mil scale model and it was Ultra detailed and in that Space Marines you
1:06:31
didn't see them in games generally because they were so overpowered because that game was trying to stick really closely to the established lore and
1:06:38
background you come to 40K and you've got a game where everything is more or
1:06:43
less kind of the same within a couple of numbers of each other necromanders kind of the middle ground right
1:06:48
um and so it comes down to kind of which game you're writing for so if you're right for 40K your custodies need to be
1:06:54
a bit tougher than Space Marines because that's what the law says but not as tough as say I don't know a tyranid
1:06:59
warrior or whatever the next thing up might be so you kind of be fitting it into those gaps right yeah the tricky part is the more abstract you go the
1:07:06
more difficult it is to make things feel distinct and so that's why you get
1:07:11
things like your army specific stratums and special rules and all that sort of stuff because the numbers
1:07:18
like Europe with with the 40K a engine you've only got a few different numbers
1:07:24
that can be weapons globalistic skill right like a six plus is well this is awful yeah yeah a two pluses this is
1:07:31
overpowered yeah so it's three four five for most of your stuff yeah so where is how do you define what each of those
1:07:38
things is right yeah uh you know what is a Guardsman I'm assuming a Guardsman is still a four plus I would assume but
1:07:43
sometimes if you're veterans it becomes a three four if you're lucky um it's basement territory there yeah but you think within a space brains a
1:07:49
three plus there yeah so the custodians is that a two or is it a three because it's a two that's like well what do you make your custodians captain or whatever
1:07:55
yeah yeah and so you've got this little tiny wiggle room and so you have to bring in special rules scenarios things
1:08:01
that make the flavor come in yeah I think that's part of the reason why you see so much extra stuff with the Codex
1:08:07
yeah you know you see so many different things coming in yeah I suppose that feels a bit like a lot of our gangers
1:08:12
have silver stat lines yeah yeah little tweak here and there yeah weapons make a difference but then you get the gang tactics that allow you to do more
1:08:18
vicious
1:08:25
the core one isn't it is it's got to be always the better you are the fewer of
1:08:30
you there is yeah absolutely yeah and if you look at Gene Steeler calls for somebody who owns jeans for the course
1:08:35
army they they should be just coming out of London holes in the ground they
1:08:40
should be absolutely like like dregs but coming at you like have you seen uh what's the video game dark tide
1:08:46
yes yeah I've played a bit of that and it feels like you've got this horde coming at you and it's like yeah that's
1:08:52
how it should feel they're horde like pox walks right yes flowing actually absolutely yeah that's what it should be fantastic
1:08:59
um what has been the most surprising tactic that has evolved from a rule set you wrote slash had experience with I.E
1:09:06
you wrote the rules for an army or a character to play one way and then once people started using it they found it
1:09:12
completely different way to you oh wow that's a great question oh no see I'm Wrecking my brains now
1:09:18
because it's been a while since I've worked in any of this stuff um I mean not necessarily GW no no
1:09:24
um so I'm going to answer a tangent right
1:09:29
okay so silver Tower so it's not not good but silver Tower so silver tower has got a thing where you have the the destiny dice yeah the way stuff how it
1:09:36
works is on your turn you roll four dice and you you then spend those in your turn to do stuff but the group as a
1:09:43
whole rolls five dice you get rid of any duplicates and the ones that are left are like dice that people can use anyone
1:09:49
in the group can use them and when I was designing the game in my mind everyone is on the same side your Cooperative
1:09:55
you're all buddies your workout between you how you're going to share them no so one particular plate one of the first
1:10:01
factors outside the rules team because everyone in the rules team was kind of playing it with the way I intended it yeah and I got
1:10:07
um it was a few people it was like Marcus Yeah Tim Malloy a few people from the studio and they came in and each
1:10:14
round the first person who went first went thank you all have those and I was like oh okay and and I asked them afterwards
1:10:22
I'd like to hear the little debrief what was are you on the same side yeah but I want to win
1:10:27
interesting and it was and so then we ended up putting a role in where whenever you use a dice the one that's left with the highest number is locked
1:10:33
and you can't use it yeah remember that so we did that on the live stream and I'll just go I'm taking that oh you're
1:10:38
not gonna ask the rest of it no but that's the thing where like when you design a thing you've got your
1:10:44
assumptions right you think well it's obviously going to play this way and then you know that happens I mean yeah I'm sure they're very countless ones if
1:10:51
I think of anywhere I'll put them in the comments yeah yeah brilliant uh so someone I think I think we kind of
1:10:57
covered this do you think games like 4K need to be made simplified uh yes depends on who the audience is yeah have
1:11:04
a few different sort of rule sets and things what would you do if they let you loose on more time
1:11:10
so I'd get a fish you need to have a fish yeah you need fish yep yeah exactly apparently this is anecdotal
1:11:17
I've heard this but like apparently there was meant to be a thing like codified in the narrative that fish were
1:11:22
meant to ward off it was a room in the fish but it never actually made it in there so all the Miniatures yeah the
1:11:29
reference got cut yeah so there was like was it witch Hunter's one of the guys who's holding a fish there's all sorts
1:11:34
of videos yeah maybe the shadowlord LED like an allergy yeah exactly yeah sorry the Dunkel Meister
1:11:41
I mean I would love that I mean Necromancer and more time with my games they were the two that left and I actually I think more time was the
1:11:47
better of the two yeah you know I think it was the one that was the stronger game I I think just it's gritty
1:11:54
and more so with the way the tweets are but yeah there's something about more time I think necromondo always hadn't
1:11:59
this is not the case with the current version but it was always a little bit of a Pastiche of the old west yeah it
1:12:04
was a little bit Cowboy sort of thing a little Frontier I think it still has that I think well I know there was a
1:12:10
definite move to remove that in the most recently not the ash Oasis no I think it's probably the Corner's been
1:12:15
terminally the one that I worked on at the start it was like no we're making it much more it's like Cowboys yeah I mean yeah yeah I mean
1:12:24
um I mean there's still got something called shootout and you slowly and I was gonna say this because I thought yeah because I saw your video about it you
1:12:29
were talking about I was like this is really interesting because that is a thing that is taken it's a complete Wild West Trope yeah
1:12:35
and yet the brief had been removed any wild west elements and I can't remember
1:12:40
if that was in the ones that I wrote do I just ignore the brief and put that back okay I mean yeah I know we've got like four
1:12:46
games planned on what we've done one but I do somewhere I want to get the shootouts because it's so fun because you just tested to see who pulls out
1:12:53
first what I remember years ago this is actually working again and also you'll play the game
1:12:59
but years ago I was running around that's how I decided who goes first I'm moving the biscuits
1:13:06
I think tattooing the inch marks on there was a bit a little bit weird but you know whatever whatever works for you
1:13:12
um so yeah I was running a net Commander campaign many years ago and I was one of
1:13:20
the things I wanted to do was like have um one of the characters that got like an architect called or whatever it was that meant he got plasma guns really
1:13:26
easily I forget exactly how it worked out and other he was trying to sell them to other gang so I was like okay let's actually make this a thing so I did a
1:13:32
modification of the shootout scenario which is the the deal yeah and you had one person who's got this that got the
1:13:39
weapon one person's got the bag of money and they've got to come into the middle meet spend the turn and then go away and the whole time you're making the
1:13:45
shootout rolls Twitchy yeah and like and what was great was there was literally a game that we had where two gangs lined
1:13:52
up and they moved in and they exchanged and they moved away not a single shot was fired not single attack was made it
1:13:57
was one of the most tense games I've ever seen just because of that like yeah there's the heavy with the heavy star but who's like you know oh he's he's
1:14:03
nearly failed his role he's gonna let Rick because that's like that um when two gangs meet in a movie yeah
1:14:09
and it's like usually they do the exchange and then someone gets away free
1:14:15
fire yes that's fantastic yeah free fire is basically you know exactly yeah
1:14:21
in a warehouse oh sounds awesome it's meant to be like a weapons buy yeah
1:14:28
goes and it's a fantastic two guys have already uh inadvertently I've had to
1:14:34
beef with each other pre this happening and they don't both don't know they're going to be there and it's like a little
1:14:40
tiny Club one of them is like inside this like the night before one of them's got a bit too drunk and hit on his sister or something yeah
1:14:45
I think I'm gonna if you don't mind steal that idea for a game for a real game yeah do this our game I'm trying to
1:14:52
find like just crappy names yeah but I was gonna call it Spooks because you have ghosty guys mine are called the
1:14:57
workshop ghosts yeah who knows that's right and it could be like an
1:15:04
exchange of tech yes yeah do it and that would be perfect what it's a great film watch it oh yeah absolutely yeah it
1:15:09
really is good and they managed to draw out a fire a firefight for like an hour and a half yeah
1:15:19
you know if you go all the games where no one dies sounds like a terrible thing but one of my favorite games rule
1:15:24
systems was star grunt I never played it and star grunt was really good and stargrounds actually did the thing that
1:15:30
actually can happen a lot of times in combat is in the end someone just just Retreats because the
1:15:38
incoming Firepower is so high they can't get their heads up no one's actually died yeah but it just literally they
1:15:44
just goes you know what we're off because it's and we I played the game against my friend Jake Thornton he
1:15:49
introduced me to it well I was funny enough I bought the real book to bought it yeah as like a little just I was on a
1:15:55
convention but I'll buy this um and I'll enter to him and he come back and we've got to play this it's extraordinarily
1:16:00
good and we've played it and no one no one died but it's naturing I mean I think it's
1:16:07
always worth when you're looking at designing a game or you know working on a campaign thing question your assumptions you know in a war game
1:16:13
models need to die not necessarily yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah did I ask
1:16:18
the question any anyway I forget and the great thing is I'm scrolling through the questions you like
1:16:23
already answered a bunch of other people which is fantastic professional yeah yeah so when writing developing games how do you balance a storytelling with
1:16:30
the Practical elements to move a game forwards and keep the player engaged I just don't
1:16:39
I think it's um a big part of it is like a big part of game design is taking
1:16:45
out rather than putting in it's like a slight bonsai tree right you you it's all about trimming it down and keeping it as streamlined as possible while
1:16:51
still maintaining the core of what makes the game the game um and whether that's a brand new game
1:16:57
you don't know what I feel like when I was doing like I did a lot of what I call games archeology where I'd go here's Warhammer Quest how do I take the
1:17:02
cool bits out of this and put it into a new game or Titanic or whatever it is and it's like boiling it down to what is what is the minimum experience that
1:17:09
still feels like this game and once you kind of pull it all back to that it becomes a lot easier to balance the
1:17:16
different elements together and a lot of the time you might find actually in if you play the game like this this bit
1:17:22
that I thought was really important actually isn't that could be cut away yeah and the experience is still really
1:17:27
interesting at which point the answer is generally get rid of the stuff you don't need and focus on the stuff that's cool well yeah Jake Thornton was the first
1:17:33
person I'd ever had used the expression and you had to explain it to me he was the first person I've had to use the Expression kill on Your Darlings yeah
1:17:40
absolutely I'm here yeah he said that a lot yeah yeah you gotta do it and he
1:17:45
said sometimes he says you write something that is the coolest thing you can think of but when you put it into the game it just feels a bit janky and
1:17:51
out of place and he says and you hate killing it because he said you know you know he was one of them like take the afternoon off right that's I I won't get
1:17:59
any better than that today but then go back and go when you fit it in it doesn't work yeah I do a lot of rules review of people like people give me a
1:18:05
rule set and I'll go through and give them feedback and one of the most common things I'll say is if they're stuck on a game what's your favorite element in
1:18:11
this take it out because usually if it's a thing that you love yeah you're biased you're not taking it out because you
1:18:17
need to go you're keeping it because you want to keep it yeah yeah and uh yeah you've got to take a chainsaw to Your Darlings that is that is fantastic no
1:18:23
it's Savage wanted in five countries
1:18:30
uh what's a uh what's a breakdown of the process that you use to create new games
1:18:35
so let's so I mean let's say uh Hellboy yeah you read loads of the comics read
1:18:41
all the Hellboy and that informed but oh but yeah go for it carry on you're doing good okay
1:18:49
yeah so so Hellboy because we talked about it previously is is what I should have started with and you started off by
1:18:56
familiarizing yourself with the law what were the next steps after that so that's better one of the things that well done
1:19:02
one of the things I've kind of worked on me and Sophie have worked some really hard needy cat is we've tried to codify that like a process for designing games
1:19:08
because we do so much of it it's like we wanted to have a system where we know what stage we're acting a project that
1:19:14
sort of thing yeah so we kind of break it down into four-ish stages we have like a research phase which is like you
1:19:20
say go and read all the comics or like because a lot what we do is IP based it's just going like we're not doing fall out I'm gonna sit and play load of
1:19:26
video games for a while oh no worries me you know because yeah um and but you're doing it you're taking
1:19:32
notes you're going oh actually this this thing here would be a really cool mechanic this is yeah it comes up most this needs to come into it you know so
1:19:38
you have like the Vats yeah yeah so we haven't put them because in factions you're playing as Raiders okay so you
1:19:45
don't have that so this is the big thing I was like oh we need our special we need to not have that so you killed that yeah that's gone exactly yeah
1:19:51
um but like you have um that research phase where you go through and figure out what the game is
1:19:58
going to be and from there I start like writing down ideas and I get like what I call idea boards it's usually like a
1:20:03
little PowerPoint presentation I'll have one which is ideas for movement mechanics ideas for shooting mechanics whatever it might be and it'll be a
1:20:10
bunch of different mechanics and from there we make what's called a test build which is like a they call it a vertical
1:20:15
slice in like video game design which is like one playable round yeah so I'm not worrying about all the big details not
1:20:21
worrying about like the different factions that are available whatever it might be so if it's like a Miniatures game I'm just going what how do I in my
1:20:27
turn get from the start of the turn to the end of the turn so I'm going to move some models gonna do this and roll some dice and again and I'll be going roll
1:20:33
fours yeah the numbers don't matter um and then once and if it doesn't work if that doesn't work I'll go back to
1:20:39
those idea boards and go actually switch in that mechanic instead sometimes I'll use a placeholder mechanic so I'll go like oh there's going to be a system for
1:20:46
for causing injuries for now just assume the model takes an injury okay yeah yeah because what you want by the end of that
1:20:52
is to be able to go right I'm gonna play for 10 minutes and feel like I've played a bit of a game yeah then once that's
1:20:58
kind of okay and if I'm working for a client I'll get their approval on it Point um I'll then go to like the next one
1:21:04
which is mechanical draft which is where we try to make a playable game from start finish again not worrying so if I
1:21:10
do necrom under I would just write here's the rules for ashes here's the rules for goliaths here's the rules of
1:21:16
the weapons those models are carrying five models aside and we're going to do enough that we can play again from start to finish very simple scenario that's it
1:21:23
and then again you test that and you iterate on that and so it's like it's like baking a cake you start you you
1:21:29
start the middle you mix it a little bit and you gradually incorporate more stuff as you go yeah um and by the end of it you get a lovely
1:21:35
buttery mashed potato and you're like this was supposed to be okay exactly so
1:21:40
anyway but yeah and then once that's all done then I'll get onto the full draft which is kind of where I write the
1:21:46
manuscript of the rule book so like I was saying earlier games designer rules writing two different things yeah so once a mechanical like
1:21:52
thing of the game is done in that I'll be writing like a rules document that's like bullet points and it's very
1:21:58
shorthand but it's just codifying all the rules so I keep track of them and then it's the how do I write the rule
1:22:03
book which teaches someone how to play for example yeah that's a good reference yeah and so you gradually you know that but also I'm bringing in like extra
1:22:09
factions or extra special rules that sort of thing so the trick is keep it very small and then gradually kind of
1:22:16
bring in more stuff because I've seen so many new designers and the first thing they do is start thinking about oh what factions will they be here's some
1:22:22
special rules for that or I've I've had people give me a book to look at that's never been play tested and they've
1:22:28
already had it laid out and it's like oh wow bad news for you you've wasted a lot of money on this yeah yeah yeah that's
1:22:34
super interesting how are you time by the way it's 12 37 all right okay cool yeah wonderful uh what you hoped for the
1:22:40
old world oh interesting um I'm curious about it I
1:22:46
mean Warhammer is a game that I played a heck of a lot of um I think it it's gonna find its Niche
1:22:51
I think because it is you know Rank and flank games let's face it they are for the more experienced the hobbyist these
1:22:57
days I mean even just the act of having to paint an entire unit of figures when you know the back ranks are never gonna get properly seen yeah you know
1:23:04
um I would like to see something which takes the best version
1:23:09
of Warhammer and you can insert your best one here yeah um I think we went weird for a time we
1:23:15
did The Horde and we had to paint our room yeah units of 14 15. well it's it very much felt like a financially
1:23:21
motivated right but I missed the old days of like five draw Slayers Warriors
1:23:26
the little little movement tray of 10 or 20. I mean that was nice yeah and also I mean considering I'm guessing a lot of
1:23:32
it's gonna be Forge World resins I'm assuming just because it's being done by that sort of part of the company
1:23:37
I don't want to be having to spend 300 quid on each unit you know so like I'd
1:23:42
like to see it where it's a accessible number of models I'd like to see a A good rule set before too much the wacky
1:23:49
stuff came in towards the end I think kind of so what was it was it seventh edition at the end yes I think so was
1:23:54
the last one with like uh storm with magic it might be the big massive chunky rule book yeah yeah because I can't
1:23:59
remember that there was a movement to do in the ninth Edition I think you're right yes yes there must have been people made their own yeah yes you're
1:24:07
the ninth age wasn't it yeah yeah so I'd go back from pre the massive one I'd go to the one before that probably which is
1:24:13
the seventh which was the box set with the it's battle for skull pass yes yeah
1:24:18
yeah almost there yeah no I think you're right whatever the case yeah that sort of time period because I think that was when you it was it was about the game on
1:24:24
the table you weren't worrying so much about crazy random event tables and scenery that'll eat you and all this
1:24:30
yeah I think that's what people want yeah you know yeah I think a lot when people think of Warhammer a lot what they think of is that time period and
1:24:35
also like we'll have a fantasy role play where it was Graham and dark and gripply make it that yeah that's what I'd say no
1:24:41
okay just put a fish in it you know and fish that's a fish amazing wonderful
1:24:46
okay you got any more yeah oh there's so many wow um I've scrolled down to the box I
1:24:52
work I went from top to bottom and then and then now I'm going to be able to answer them all no I I think this might
1:24:59
be the first time that I don't get through everything so there's loads of good questions do a couple more then uh yeah yeah so I'll do one word answers
1:25:05
and then I'll do a few after that I'll do charades yeah yeah yeah especially great for our Audio Only
1:25:11
listeners yeah Dave Dave uh Dave Walker from uh Ms Paints the other week did
1:25:17
some that one only one where his answer so they went nice one words that same person has asked that same
1:25:23
question as well and I'm not gonna read it uh okay while working on adeptice
1:25:29
titanicus was there ever any intention to broaden the range of titans from those we currently have so it was never
1:25:37
an immediate plan but it was always it was designed so that it would be easy
1:25:43
enough to do that so again because it's quite a modular game design titanicus the whole thing of it was like
1:25:49
this set of rules is how Imperial Titans work you've got like a little data card with like you push your reactor and that
1:25:55
sort of thing yeah but hey if you lift that out here's some rules how a gargant might work you know and we I I'm not
1:26:00
saying I I definitely did or didn't but it would have been good of me if I'd maybe scribbled out some rules to how gargans my local Phantom Titans whatever
1:26:07
else yeah so yeah it was definitely it was always done that it would be possible to do that I mean there was
1:26:13
never an immediate plan for it mainly because of the limitations of budget and that's like Logistics yeah sort of thing yeah similarly like people always ask
1:26:19
about was there a plan to add infantry and tanks and things like well again it was designed the night rules are basically because Knights work in whole
1:26:26
different way to Titans and that is basically that's the template for how non-titan units would work yeah so it's all in there it's just a case of yeah if
1:26:33
you want to make Space Marine You've Got to Now create a whole load of new Miniatures you know and that's not cheap
1:26:39
yeah no uh someone says how close is titanicus to Alan I'm going to butcher his name Bly Adam Bligh a rich Alan
1:26:46
bly's original plan and whether plans to release other race is which I guess is more Titans uh yes I mean um I I was
1:26:54
actually never aware that Alan had plans for titanicus I'm I'm sure he was a fantastic Visionary he had always ideas
1:27:00
for everything um I know so all the narrative background side of stuff was done by
1:27:05
Andy Hall who was the manager and he worked with Alan quite closely so I imagine anything that was Alan's vision would have come through Andy into it but
1:27:11
I didn't have any direct contact with that on that specific thing unfortunately cool um another question that I I guess would
1:27:18
be like can you show me the official email that says okay codex creep is the thing
1:27:23
um nope so there is always unconfirmed rumors of codex creep is making the units more powerful something that like
1:27:30
do they do it on purpose to drive sales Etc so appointed uh yeah so I don't
1:27:36
think they do it on purpose I think they probably they they don't avoid it on purpose you know like oh oh no is it a
1:27:42
bit too powerful oh well we'll sell more books you know yeah um the only example I have of it ever
1:27:47
directly happening to me was when I read the L codex for 7th edition which is
1:27:52
when there was a big push it was the age of Sigma years was a big push towards being narrative in things and so we
1:27:57
wanted to make all the weapons and special rules a little bit wacky and really reflect the background and so
1:28:03
Eldar D can there's not D weapons yeah uh were made strength D which was the old version like super deeper Mega you
1:28:09
know um but uh when that got sent up the
1:28:14
chain to be looked at the various higher-ups um the feedback came down of well you've increased the points don't don't
1:28:19
increase points on an updated book because it means people need less models I was like okay we'll bring their strengths and their weapons down don't
1:28:25
do that just leave them leave the points that they are and put the changes in but that's that's not right that's not game
1:28:33
balance and and on that day I my eyes were opened yeah loads of things that's
1:28:39
really interesting um any recommendations reading watching learning if I want to understand rules
1:28:45
design you've already said playlist if you go to nudycatgames.com you can buy videos of my games
1:28:52
so there we go brilliant brilliant do you want discount code yeah when's this going out is it going
1:28:58
out soon yeah not like not in the next like half an hour oh no it'd be like perfect
1:29:04
what's the discount code be oh excuse my boobs there we go
1:29:11
measurements [Laughter]
1:29:30
next Monday so we're into February now aren't we if I say until the end of
1:29:35
March yeah half price there's like there's a bunch of
1:29:41
different ones on there's like a six-week course I did on game Design This one on designing Dungeon Crawlers one of Miniatures games wow fantastic
1:29:47
there you go I don't care why not oh that's very good that's amazing um lots of the quite quite a few of the
1:29:53
questions are um sort of related lots of ones about Place testing which I think we've covered and
1:29:58
all that sort of thing let's have one last amazing question oh God and then loads of little ones talking myself I
1:30:05
need to find the last amazing question I'll tell you what I'll do I'll I'll make the discount code for painting phase nice nice and straightforward and
1:30:13
the secret one will be uh Peach's extendable tape measure so um yeah yes
1:30:18
and that and that gets you 75 and a number of very weird emails
1:30:25
a subscription to my special mailing list oh dear
1:30:30
um it's been a while we used to work together yeah I'd always come in and my my
1:30:37
favorite times when because we used to play tests um you know what I'm gonna say so we used to have to use the the
1:30:43
new Miniatures to play test with we didn't have to in hindsight but the problem is we were being told make sure the rules reflect the model so if you
1:30:49
have extra model there the problem is the only version of those models that existed with a pre-print free pre-production resin
1:30:56
super deeper fragile like you look at them funny and they just I now this will surprise me I'm not a delicate man
1:31:03
on several occasions I'd be like that thing necrons
1:31:10
I did it again but apparently I was better than the ones who would do it and then put them back in the camera oh yeah yeah so Lisa came to you you were always
1:31:17
honest which is what we were and even I used to we used to rip into pieces a bit Chris Merrick was a photographer he always used to put own up when he broke
1:31:22
stuff it was when those that didn't that what was my book there was I didn't mind them being broken because it's natural they're resin that they're going to fall
1:31:28
apart if you don't tell us those bits eventually they scatter move apart from each other and what becomes a two second
1:31:34
fix became like a four-hour job because you have to repaint entire section and I imagine the longer they're sitting on a
1:31:40
bass now just drops around the more paint chips off yeah exactly so what I learned basically is if you like if one in ten you tell him he thinks you're
1:31:46
great it was me all along did I ever tell you
1:31:52
about the um I don't know if you were there we had a new photographer called Mark I'm gonna give Tuesday if he ever watches he'll be like oh and we got
1:31:58
resin custodians yep so I don't know if you're there for the custodians no uh so we had all resin custodians Stephen
1:32:04
Thomas finished the Army and Mark um had gone off to do some photography and it was still quite new and there's a
1:32:10
lot of double doors there was always like this weird sort of sorry moving away there's always this weird sort of like etiquette of the doors and you know
1:32:17
what people always feel like super polite and they'll have to open the door and it's not even some people open the door into you some people open the door I think you told me this oh God anyway
1:32:24
he decided he's going to hold his arm in one hand get the door but someone comes through knocks it it smashes everywhere
1:32:30
right hey tediously wanders back you know like very meekly like I've just
1:32:35
dropped the custody's arm and he picks up this box with just bits in it Stephen tell me a bit like yeah the hell and
1:32:42
Steve doesn't mince his words I think there's a lot of F words got thrown out well we'll fix it we'll get it sort they
1:32:47
fixed it didn't take very long so they found a couple of bits that were scattered still in the uh the bridge of kazaduma used to call it it was like a
1:32:52
bridge from one side of the business to the next and um so they got it fixed they were like Mark it's all fixed just
1:32:58
be careful with it was like yep went to the same door smashed it again oh twice at that point you leap out a window
1:33:04
right yeah but I did it with the silver Tower benches I just I just remember this I had it was when I was doing I'd
1:33:10
done something the whole way through testing I've been using proxy models I had you know random jobs and for the one
1:33:15
where I was showing it to Alan Merritt head of Ip I was going through and I've been given the fresh new just arrived
1:33:22
and I sat down to show it I'll just dropped him off the table got the entire tray and I was
1:33:29
already a little bit nervous you know
1:33:34
so much the amazing but I realized hasn't been
1:33:41
picked up but is that the RAF haven't bought into the stealth
1:33:47
technology that Games Workshop has developed that as soon as apart oh yeah instantly yes yes it worked out now what
1:33:55
it is so it is about bounce and I remember having my teeth done once with
1:34:00
a dentist yeah and she dropped a tool um she obviously wasn't going to use it and she's gonna put it away but she couldn't
1:34:05
find it and I was like don't worry I think it fell down there because you dropped it there but the way that my plastic sprues move is probably going to
1:34:11
be yeah I know whatever light it was there I literally important things together
1:34:16
that goes out yeah and then I got to the point now after 20 years ago to the point I just got and um clip another one
1:34:23
off yeah yeah I don't even have a workshop with boogers because their carpets were pretty because it was like
1:34:28
a blue gray carpet yeah yeah but this was brought up there that managers and the head of Estates was
1:34:35
there any questions I was like why why are the carpets the same color Spruce he was like oh my God and they darken the
1:34:40
time have you got the best question ever well
1:34:46
I was reading through them and and um as much as it would make one patreon
1:34:51
supporter feel great for having the best question ever everyone else might feel really bad so everyone's just equally as
1:34:57
bad now okay okay well there we go then well I think you've covered a lot over there yeah and I'll probably if if anyone has
1:35:05
any more questions pop them in the comments I might come back and talk to him oh that'd be really nice I'm on the internet a lot tweet at me tweet tweet
1:35:12
yeah you're on the Twitter version are you on the Instagram verse as well barely needy cat games or one words on
1:35:17
there anymore yeah but if you go on Twitter it's James underscore M underscore Helix if you don't have the m
1:35:23
in James I'm here everyone thinks you're Prince Harry's does that's the one when I was first at school he was uh he was
1:35:28
an awesome like tank commander in the Gulf War it was great then I turned 11 and things went weird
1:35:36
is it called the major I love that uh but uh but yeah James I just got um
1:35:41
underscore hear it on Twitter um
1:35:51
50 off any of the things till the end of March thank you for coming along I feel like
1:35:57
your Insight it's been uh it's been awesome yeah I feel like I've learned that 40K is never going to be great because it's just a vessel to sell
1:36:03
Miniatures um you've also given us a great idea for another game for him me and Jeff good which is gonna be awesome
1:36:09
and I will get you some factions a bit sort of Fallout oh yes yeah I I have no
1:36:16
I'm a freelance I don't know I can do but you can ask yeah absolutely and I mean yeah have a look at them check them
1:36:21
out play some games absolutely happy to pay this off like that so yeah so thank you very much for watching don't forget to like And subscribe and check out our
1:36:27
district patreon yes you get to watch all the
1:36:32
future guests exactly yeah uh and shall I mention it now favorite online our next guest will be
1:36:41
the man himself coming soon coming in your ear soon baby depends if you're
1:36:46
watching this other podcast or not watching listening
1:36:54
and he's usually becoming an alarming amount of frequency I end the podcast
1:37:00
someone says something stupid and then I go right and on that note bye