How to make the best miniature Games in the world: Alessio Cavatore

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ask them what their favorite cheese is or potentially did you really die at the Battle of Peno field speaking of which
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hello ales cetor hello thank you for coming on the show thank you for having me that that was obviously a random part
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of your career the cheese the cheese I'm dying at pelo field but that for anyone
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uh who I'll be surprised but for anyone that doesn't know who you are brief description of who alesio is if you have
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sure a paragraph or two to describe your many many years of career yeah I mean it started in 96 1996 I think I moved to to
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the UK uh to be a translator for gings workship uh from Italy uh we were
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starting to translate Warhammer fourth fifth edition fourth
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going to fifth um into Italian so I joined the studio came up and uh
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suddenly I was in the middle of like you know all the people that used to look at books and he like oh my God Andy
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Chambers was a SC player like Jer John Rick Priestley oh my God so yeah I kind
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of went to heaven a little bit a little bit when I was yeah so I I started working in the studio as a
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translator I was definitely a competitive tournament player um I crash
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mercilessly a few people in St tournaments won a couple of stuff tournaments and annoyed the gam
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developers a lot on rules and stuff while I was translating yeah so I got this
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job I got this job as a that was a position of a games Development coming up and I got it and started designing
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games instead lating that which was great um and that was quite a long St
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from 98 something like7 to 2010 that makes it what 13 years
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something like that yeah of well starting with army books Warhammer then
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eventually I was given the the honor of uh actually being the lead writer on on one edition of Warhammer I think it was
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six perhaps yeah and um so done that then again 40K live writer a fth six
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that and then uh Rings the best Edition going to put that out there I
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guess it depends who you ask I was going to say if you name specific editions someone will be like okay this is the man that I blame
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everything well recently I went to a tournament a sixth edition tournament and it was hilarious because people assume Warhammer one people assumed that
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I knew everything because my name on the book my name on a lot of the army books and stuff so I Brak my scaven and the
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people are playing sixth edition and like well you know everything right he like H the last time I played this was like 30 years ago so I remember
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nothing that's fair that's fair yeah there was a great moment when break test
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double one I go I only only double one can save me double one yes I stand I go
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double one yes the whole room goes they will look at me and go what's he on
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about like they were once and they go that's seventh
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edition not such thing sixth edition oh of course yeah oh that I suppose you
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when you've done so much stuff it's easy to just all merge into one yes apprciate that there is a lot of that yeah and
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then after after 4K then lot of the Rings yeah which was the I think the the
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peak of my career there really the when I became the ring bearer and your M and
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I was running that system for quite a few years and done all the additions got to be in the movie as mentioned it
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before a few times and oh so that was the death on pel comb that it's an important role
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very very important H yeah so that until 2010 when that came to an end so more
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gang worship left worship and started River horse my own company my own business which was um a big step step
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yeah and we since then since 2010 so it's been going for now 13 years game oh
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wow yeah doing the idea was to make our own games uh my games designing the
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board game particular war games uh but ended up doing quite a lot of that but
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also quite a lot of uh services for other companies so I've written because being kind of have a lot of experience
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in war games a lot of companies that do that kind of stuff recruited as as a you know as writers designers so yes I've
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ended up doing I don't know a bolt action perhaps the biggest one bolt action for for games uh I've done Kings
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of War romantic I worked on Conquest I worked on Draco games stuff a lot of lot
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of the battles of Valera games so yeah know been busy yeah all the game systems out there they regarded as quite good
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game systems it says a lot about your your writing skills um I like how you
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just DED over the Lord of the Rings B so I mean my my and it's well regarded as
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like one of the best rule systems written uh certainly from my point of view and a lot of the our viewers agree
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with that as well it's like as a as a skirmish rule system it stood the test of time for a long long time and I mean
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you know when you wrote that and made it did you expect people to still be playing that game system using pretty
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much the same rule system that is because it's only been tweaked a little bit since its first development yeah it
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was actually again at a at a tournament recently and in in Leong yes and again
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it was fun to see people still playing it and enjoying it was really good and let's but before before I take all all
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the Merit I to be honest there's a lot of Rick yeah sure when we made a game uh
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basically on on the first edition on the fellowship Rick was in charged Rick was the lead writer so it's Rick's game
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really not my game originally we worked together on it of course at the time the all the team actually pulled together so
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there Jervis and Andy Chambers gav Thorp you know all those people together we worked on the first edition but I think
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because I'm so incredibly passionate about talking I mean it's I always say the same thing is I'm not
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religious but if there is one thing in my life that is closest to a religion it would be the Lord of the Rings the book
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you always read that you can quote from you always it's a big thing of your life and so because I was so passionate about
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it uh Rick eventually during the the first one and then suddenly from the second on was from to just went yours
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you carry on and basically I inherited so I cannot really claim it's my system I worked heavily on it and I definitely
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develop it to what became and that would the expansion were going to be so yeah it's a lot of me but it's not all me
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yeah Rick Rick deserves a lot of credit on that I mean you called yourself and it was a good good name you known as the
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ring paer would you say that Rick was saon then he kind of like just pass that to you there you go
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yeah we did a lot of that metaphors and yes yes it was quite a common things like there you go the ring I mean it was
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it was used for a lot of things it was used for um old west then uh we I
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remember there was like a great War Edition um for because there was war histoical for time um headed by Rob room
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yeah there was lot lots of games you've done some obviously over than b action you've done quite a expansive stuff as well like historical based stuff is that
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right I've done a waterl uh water board game design by myself which was great
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great to actually do all the research all the say [ __ ] the process I mean I don't know
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whether the game is [ __ ] or not I've heard good things about it but but actually the process was great the the learning going on the field going on the
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battlefield Museum under the field reading lots of books and kind of I had
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luckily I have friends with big libraries you know the the per twins John stalard so I just went all right
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books lots of books so I I did a lot of research and brought down the my version
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of the battle has been portrayed a few times but that was fun it was good yeah historical gaming yeah done I worked on
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black powder I worked on Hil Caesar so yeah quite a lot of the war system I worked with the little photo at the
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front of of the first edition of black powder where they put all like the writers faces on is it the Crimean and
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Generals I don't remember if I'm in that picture was I don't know if you ever saw it at the front of black there's an old
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photo of like a bunch of the British Crimean generals they put like jervis's face on one and like peris face and
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stalard and they're just like superimposed yes I don't know if I was already because that might have been when I was still at work might have been
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yeah cuz I was playing black powder um um quite early on into my Studio crate
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when you probably still there I think hell Cesar is the one that I actually contributed the most of I've
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R some scenarios and stuff it was all Roman jokes about you know kind of like the Romans go home kind of thing lot of
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that was fun yeah being a Roman yourself EXA Roman is eat
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what um if you can go back to to to Middle Earth for for a minute um I've
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never played it I don't know the r set at all but all I hear constantly is it's
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the best R system ever um right from loads of different people well from Peach from from loads of patrons I've L
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loads of fun with it over the years yeah like what what's different about it what
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do you think like the secret sources like in that game that makes it so good in comparison to like is it people
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looking back with a bit of nostalgia as well maybe or like is say like you of war cry yeah like is it how is it
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different to that is it better like I don't know I'm I'm intrigued to to know like the
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why if there is one maybe there isn't then that's fine yeah I mean that's a tough question how technical do you want
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me to go well obviously I am biased because I
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obviously being heavily involved with it and uh um and also the setting for me is obviously magic so there is that so it
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just puts your mind in a certain mindset and just so there is that but if I stick to the game system just try to analyze
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the game system purely as a game um I
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think we are used to play games with lots of with units so where an element
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that you control is made of a unit models there's several models on in a unit and so you control four five six 10
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elements each element is normally a mix of is like several models sometimes a
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single model is big heroes tanks whatever but normally it's a bunch of guys when it's a bunch of guys the complexity of the system goes over the
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is complet is so much more complicated to design and right and tight rules particular on on a war game where you
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know it's the terrain and all of that so it's heavier much comers some you have
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more rules interactions between models becomes a lot more difficult the Lord of the Rings is a game where each model is
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individual each model is stand on his own and works moves around on his own yeah and the interaction between models
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is actually something that we manag to make people want to do as opposed to these guys have to stay within an inch
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of each other and keep formation so you have a lot of rules like that in 4k B
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action where you all right some guys get shot killed well then all you have to move get back into so there's a lot of
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stuff you have to do while in lot of the Rings uh you have the this guys here and
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oh there's a guy with a a spear if he goes behind him can fight that through
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him into base contact so you want to be next to the guy if you have a shield wall that basically doesn't let people
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surround and trap your models then you're you're you're more effective so you actually want to Bunch up not to let
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your formation be but you want to do that you don't have to do that there's no rules for that there's no rules
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forcing you to do that there's some rules that invite you to do that which I think is the strength of it you have this formation happen naturally because
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you want to because almost like more realistic in a way because again is the if we stay next to each other with
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shields like that You Know The Enemy doesn't get all around each one of us so there's a lot of that going on which is
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I think yeah cool it I certainly since
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then I think I favor uh systems where you have single models moving around I find them so much easier to write for
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and you can get a lot of detail like that I've done that with the Terminator yeah Terminator we have a license for a
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Terminator game so I made a Min war game Genesis Genesis yeah and I've heard that that's wonderful well try I tried to
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apply those those lessons and improving it a lot better than it's film I what have thought I can possibly
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[Laughter] comment um so yeah I I did that and yes
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it's still popular system people play even though we stopped supporting it years ago but there's still groups playing that and I think I'm going to
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definitely take that and use it for my new license little plug here a Ghost in the Shell uh like
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licensed recently the ghes in the Shell by by shirro so the actual graphic novel The Original and I'm super excited about
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it and again the the terminat system is a good starting point for be the same
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but that kind of game if I can ask alesio when you have um you have to write a game system for an IP that you
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as you've previously said utterly love how hard's the balance of making
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the the character or the unit work in a game versus what you know they
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actually are how how how how much is that how difficult that
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tradeoff because you know if you You' you've got to when you love characters you really want to portray them as
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exactly as you read them don't you but obviously the game will have other ideas out how hard's that yeah it is very
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difficult uh keeping your biases out of out of the system but of course you you try because you want the game to be
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reasonably balanced right and one thing that working with IP is what we found starting from lot of the Rings but then
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also any other access work like Terminator is that often you're helped by the fact that the um you don't get to
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do too much with the core characters as in you know you you don't normally go right this is the the most powerful guys
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and I do a lot with them because the license Holder will often be a bit nervous of you doing too much stuff with
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the core characters so you tend to focus maybe on secondary characters or even characters that are not the in the main
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story but plausibly could be around an example we can focus on Rangers of the
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north which are not named but of course there are more ranges around like these guys were you know around weather top
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delaying some of the N gol in this scenario ET which is not portrayed but you're not going aror always dead oops
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you know which of course which of course you can do and you you have to do of course they have to be in the game but
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uh uh you tend to focus the development on other bits around not the core and
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that helps with that because like in G in the Shell I would make the major mcoi she's so cool and she's so powerful
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and but on the other hand she's also fragile I mean in the film in the in the anime in the in the cartoon in the the
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Manga she gets eventually killed and yeah spoilers well her body gets
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destroyed she doesn't get killed right s differ but um her Android body is a
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fantastic cyber body is destroyed but um again the temptation of making her Uber
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is very strong and you kind of go right yeah well maybe we'll concentrate on you know traine agents that work in the same
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agency in the same section n instead of you know the main characters they will have to be there they will have to be
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there of course because that's iconic but yeah so does that then help inform how you add rules to those bigger
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characters so like doing the range of the north analogy you You' get them working in a game system then you go right now I know what Aragon stats need
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to be like and how he would work in the game is is that is that why you start with the the peripheral stuff you start
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normally when you balance a game you start with the you kind of identify a benchmark was I guess in Lord of the
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Rings would have been ran or or Gondor normal Warrior level and and from there
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you go increase decrease and trying to you know make it proportionally good but
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obviously there are some characters some creatures like the bog or saon and you kind of go yes how many points is that
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you like oh um well all the rules yes and that those are clearly a bit more of
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a scenario thing because they so at the top you know you put down Prim marks and stuff you kind of
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go should we even go there should we even go there maybe that just just leave them in the background as I've heard
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that sort of argument people are saying oh I like I lost a bit of interest in like or they thought that the Primark
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shouldn't have returned cuz it's more exciting that they're not there but then
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when you have them on the table top and it's like oh this primark's dead like I guess like angron is like oh he comes
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back and he just keeps coming back but like Gillman or what have you and then who cares about cgar anymore CU you've
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got Gillman like like cgar oh yeah he's been demoted it makes sense like it is a
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scenario based thing cuz I always thought like when I was in retail people like oh when are they going to make a
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model of the emperor I was like if they do that I mean that's like a huge game you need him like taking on like a
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Primark and it just becomes like that should be a separate game in its own right which is Horus versus the Emperor as opposed to the emperor rocking up
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with some custodes and it just seems a bit too one-sided I think for me it always feels
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like they knew that they would be a problem that's why they made them all disappear in the first place you know
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what I'm saying and then you go you got rid of them purposely so that they weren't going to be an issue in the game
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and the game went on for so long without there being a Primark in and then to start bringing them back he just think
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you know you've got to be careful how you how you approach on you because you think next cuz eventually it's going to
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be at the moment it's like oh Gilman came back and in the game in the idea of the story that he he helps sort to try
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to get the the the terror back on a bit of an even Keel and and one thing or
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another but then the problem being is eventually you do two or three and then everyone's then just waiting on their one coming back aren't they you know and
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then you must be really annoying if you're the blood Angel player and you everyone go oh I
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got mine and I got mine go well I be asking when's mind coming back cuz know that's not happening so unless they
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rewrite the rules to make it come out which then and and then you go yeah and you rewrite the rules and then the next
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thing you know you go you got you know of the 789 books on the Horus heresy that black library's already written
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it's like you go all just sort of dilutes it a bit doesn't it know I personally think they should have just
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left them well alone myself though but especially because and if you play the game it's always got to be well he's
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just injured and carried back to the ship isn't it it's not dead is it you know what I mean yeah I because there's
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that criticism in in Star Wars a bit isn't it and was it in the Han Solo movie where you were like oh that's why
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the Millennium Falcon's computer is like a Bit Sassy cuz it used to be a Droid like I didn't need to know that yeah
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well it's constantly trying to well like when you write inside things you've got to when your bck end and stuff it's yeah
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you and you know this because when you try and you you with Lords of Rings you're writing inside a pre-existent
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thing aren't you so your ability to start adjusting it can only go so far right another reason to stick to not
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well-known characters because they have more freedom yeah yeah Aragon cast a spell and alyso has been
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assassinated no I agree I think leaving the the big things the biggest things out is probably the best thing because
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also allows people to just you know fantasize about oh what would be the stating game of you know don't know the
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thear you know if if man came down and force what would it be like kind of I think the funniest thing we've done with
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that was Tom Bombadil that was me going right how about we make a profile which
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is all question marks yes I remember that not possible yes it's possible
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let's do it I forgot about that yeah cuz um I forget which book set it was in there
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cuz it's one of those little extra books yeah I've got I've actually brought a bunch of the original um Lord of the
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Rings books with me I've left them in my bag like a fool but I one of the things I was going to say there cuz I was like
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looking through it go oh I'll just double check cuz I'm sure Alesia would part of lord of rings when it first started opened up no credits at
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all in the new books in in any of the lord of rings books and I is that a new line Cinema related thing that you
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couldn't credit anyone even the the original one yeah the original one zero credits it wasn't until like War the
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ring and then later on that like Matt Ward or such and such was it like Jeremy
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like War the ring which was like The Big Unit Style version as Matt Ward and Jeremy VTO is like the rules writers but
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all the previous things just didn't have surely the the books that the cor r book has credit probably the bigger chunky
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one I think it does remember you remember the little on not the little ones it was like the A4 size ones that
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came in the box set so like the fellowship when that first came out you'd have like the black book with the ring race on it and then there was The
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Two Towers had no credits at all in it really yeah I could zip off and get I
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could show after to be fair but yeah I always really interesting thing with that as well was
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like those books came out probably or the rules came out probably a couple of months before the movie came out so I
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remember when we got the sets for the fellowship it was like October time because we're doing intro gameing in the
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stores and I really like the scenarios were doing their best to try and work out how the it played out in the
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movies there was like the am on hen bit I was just like oh this is cool let's play that and you watch the movie like it's nothing like the
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movie but that's because you had to work blind right yes it's quite funny there's a story there we
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we were doing the the to version and we're like is the FB then or not because
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in the book there is this scene where flies overhead but it is not seen it's just heard and Sh in but he not so is it
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being the movie and we kind of went to P Jackson like are you put here is it can we see the F beast in in the second
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movie like NOP no no no no right no no no F be so we didn't put it in the in the game season all right we put it in
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the in third in the third version in the of the king because clearly so we were sitting there in the C watching the the
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towers of the Premier kind of going and suddenly you know in the de Mark is
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like what and then at the end of skill as well around the ruins damn you Peter
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Jackson Reas f is this F and then the worst of it is then is all the fans go why isn't it in the game
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you should have put it like I mean that aside I mean like looking back at the old um scenarios that you even though
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you had no sort of concept of how that story played out in the movie the scenario still played quite
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true even though the setup was slightly different and stuff like that so it it's Testament to like the team's knowledge
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of the stories knowledge of the story and a lot of play testing and a lot of play testing a lot of play testing my my
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favorite thing I think from doing all the Lord the ring stuff and um and I've done it a lot was we used to and white
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dwarf certainly had a h what was it called now now it was like your own Fellowship you basically created your
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own Fellowship um so you you basically picked like your Aragon equivalent so it
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could be Aragon or it could be I think it was like Amma or someone there was like other characters around like glor
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findle and stuff like you have like your your Aragon equivalent your gandal equivalent your Legas gimly Bor me
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equivalent and then your Hobbit equivalent you can make your own I think it was the fantasy Fellowship I think it was called right um and that was fun but
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I also like the idea of playing the fellowship through the scenarios but never like regenerating the m points and
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will points in their wounds so if they die they die and then you carry on to the next one it's like he's only got one
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fate Point left so let's see how he gets on Aragon died at um morio of mine I
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could never get my fellowship past Mario it was it was hard challenging it was
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good it was good it was one of those things that's really good for especially when you get to like am1 hen or something like that and you've got Bilbo left not Bilbo sorry like Pippin or like
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Mary like great Pippin's got the ring he's got like no no stats that of any use fighting
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against 30y Kai this is going to be fun nice me was back on the soft sweet
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meat I'm sure Hobbits taste nice I'm sure they do probably it's because of all you know the fatty foods they eat
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yeah all the beer and flavors and all yeah so what was the first thing you wrote after leaving games work
25:52
shop o um I think uh we
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I got sidetracked straight away kidnapped by by Ronnie for kings of war
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and also B action I think those were definitely you know I'll start making my own games and get drags like no wait
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wait before you do that so I actually went into yeah double
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Mantic warlord period of kings of war and and baction I think that was the the first thing for myself I think the first
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the thing that started the the model of Licensing was actually we started with Terminator
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we did a Terminator Genesis war game which led to the big biggest success
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though River horse today which is the Labyrinth basically starting the relationship with the Jim Hanson company and starting the Labyrinth that Crystal
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that side of things which is the the biggest thing done today it's still going oh Labyrinth is great and it's
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nice to see a game system uh following that cuz have you seen the wetter Workshop um yeah the way recreated like
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the Goblin Town and like the Labyrinth scenery set itself Johnny frer Allen
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doing yes all like modular and moves around it's like insane I've always
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fancied playing a war game on that and you can feel free to like the on the b a
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prop conveniently yes yeah johnland is the the sculptor that in new New Zealand
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that used to work for waa and sculpt the the models for these for the expansions so yes this is the the best
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seller definitely the thing that is kept the light on a river horse and keeps going there's so much love for this IP
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in the world it just it keeps going it's good fun what I like about this is that
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is doesn't take itself seriously is that kind of humor that goes with it which is yeah it's Jens just yeah lovely like the
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movie doesn't take itself seriously you got David bow with a massive Cod piece that was actually part of the
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design is is Brian froud's kind of you know when they were doing the design of the film it was a specific thing because
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it's all you know is Sarah growing from from a girl into a woman and kind of getting there is a subtext there that
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intentionally by Design oh right well I had no idea about that do you surp do
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you get surprised by the the fact that IPS of this age is still loved and is it surprising to you
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do you think well I mean a lot of the stuff I do is from the ' 80s and stuff that I've done games that I've done are
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all pretty much based on ' 80s movies because that's I guess when I was a a teenager and I a lot of the cool stuff
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for me was you know so we've done Terminator yeah uh we've done Highlander we've done a Highlander game
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yeah please tell me the rule is there can only be one at the end there's a lot of that there's a lot of that the heads
28:54
magnetized there's a lot of of jobs part of it is those jobs is I mean you do a Terminator game there's so many quotes
29:00
you you start to speak like Ary the rules are you know like literally is like there is no fate but
29:07
will be me you know I'll be back all the rules are like that and and here you
29:12
have magic dance and all the all the fun things the singing and the nonsense of
29:17
Jon um so uh what else we do the Hunger Games that's not 8s I guess yeah but I
29:23
tend to pick on an IP that I love and and do things with it and yeah like my little py as well yeah yes oh
29:29
please show that as well cuz I I I was surprised to see this it's a at a younger generation as well as the
29:35
parents I suppose as well yeah yeah basically I was I had a daughter and when she was six she was watching this
29:42
show and uh I was I Remember My Little Pony from the ' 80s you know the was
29:47
piece of plastic with main comb the main I was like not for me not interested
29:52
much more of a care be man no it was more like Fist of the
29:58
North Star you start playing Fist of the North Star with with My Little Pony that's
30:06
going to well is it speaking of characters that a bit too good I mean we designing a war game for fist star so
30:11
you have Ken Shiro and 16,000 thugs
30:18
attacking how you B that um so yeah
30:23
basically my daughter watches this cartoon and uh and I was like wow wait a second what Forest dragons manticor
30:31
spells what what's this so and great humor again very good fun very good fun
30:37
the kind of humor that you know kids get and or grownups get there's different levels there for everybody it's a very
30:42
good show it's a very good show and it's very wholesome the the message is all about friendship is all about solving conflict through not through fighting
30:50
you know so friendship is Magic is the thing is about becoming friends and all the main arch villain of every series
30:56
that like seven eight n series and they always have this big enemy and very
31:02
often in the next series they would be allies they they kind of work their differences together and become friends
31:08
so it's a very good message and uh yeah encourages kids in this case of like you know my daughter her friends playing
31:14
games and you're trying to encourage a good behavior like like being together
31:20
being friends working together so yeah very very good fun this D and D with ponies basically D and with I mean
31:26
that's wonderful did you say that you approached them yeah yeah we um after I
31:31
mean with licensing often my experience is that the first ones are the more difficult ones to get because you don't
31:37
have you they want to see that you have done that you you know the business you know how to exploit license Etc so I
31:44
started with Terminator which most difficult then then I already had the uh Labyrinth but having works on Lord of
31:50
the Rings with was again was something that I could say I worked on licensing before it wasn't my license but I worked
31:56
on the process I know the process and uh so yeah then you tend to approach them
32:02
uh occasionally it happens that they approach you because again is the agents the people that you work with the people
32:08
in licensing inside a a Lor maybe sometimes move jobs and go to another company and suddenly the people that was
32:15
we work on Terminator went to work for I think was from was it oh I don't
32:20
remember Sky Dan went to work for legendary and so basically we got
32:26
approached by Li actually U from the The Hunger Games was actually them coming to us like would you like to do a Hunger
32:31
Games game like yes yes yes yes I would that's great and
32:39
did um did your daughter appreciate that you uh you approached them and we're like hey can I make a My Little Pony
32:44
game and then you like this is for you darling she I don't want to play you know you know
32:52
just when she was six and we started yes she was involved lovely of course then now she would be playing a sorcerer
33:00
tling sorcerer things have changed she is obviously older now she's 15 so it was a
33:05
yeah quite a long time ago but yeah it's she liked the fact it was fun it was fun together of course if I use My Little
33:12
Pony as a Segway what's your um what's your unicorn IP what one would you like
33:17
to chase down and get a hold of that you haven't had but I would have said go in the Shell but
33:23
hey that's that's on the cards good good good uh obviously you know there are the
33:29
big ones would be nice to find stuff for for Star Wars but you know Game of Thrones you kind of oh W the big shows
33:35
but Niche stuff which is where I normally live is like yeah I think the the G the show for me was a big win was
33:42
a big you probably tell I'm quite excited oh yeah abely but it's iconic
33:47
isn't it co the show that's for me it really is you know I remember when I I remember I remember going to the cinema
33:52
to see it and being utterly blown away cuz it was the first Japanese manger I'd seen on a big screen and doing utterly
34:00
just for me as much as I think with the film I think was the music for me really the music is very absolutely yeah I I
34:07
started with the novel The Graphic novel uh the first time it came out oh I hoovered that up quickly after see the
34:12
film that is great yes so my favorite is the Scarlet Johansson interpretation
34:19
I've only seen a bit I need to finished watching that cuz I started watching it and never got around to pushing buttons there
34:24
where I I tried to weirdly my I we got old of Akira and I
34:31
never got around to watching Ghost and shell until like much later on so I wasn't really I didn't experience it oh
34:38
yeah absolutely they're very different very yeah yeah so that was my first interaction with manga and I really loved it we got like the graphic novels
34:44
for that and then we moved on to other stuff and eventually I got around to like going to Forbidden Planet or HMV
34:50
and finding like other manga movies and cartoons and stuff um but yeah it was
34:55
like that that was my first interaction how do you do a an Aira game it's
35:01
just impossible stay well away story yeah the drugs stff to come in the box
35:07
with them yeah some some stories are very cool but they don't land them so very e
35:13
to to games which was going to be my other question is like is is there some like companies that have approached you with like game ideas you're just like I
35:20
can't right rules for this this this is just too ambiguous there were situations
35:26
where you maybe explored a some IPS maybe I shouldn't mention which ones but
35:31
we did explore some IPS and uh eventually decided to turn them down because uh you have to ask yourself
35:38
where's the game in this in this IP right there is there a game a good example is the The Hunger Games yeah
35:44
where actually we thought okay well what you obviously do is you do a survival game in the arena like you know
35:51
classic and you can right so and the characters have to survive and and the the author um call the what's her name
35:59
oh suzan Collings yeah she she she was she said no you cannot do a game on The
36:06
Hunger Games that's not a subject for fun in her head was feel like we doing a
36:13
game on the Holocaust it's like this is horrible this is kids taken from their families and made to kill each other for
36:20
sport what what's wrong what was wrong with you we want to make a game out of that I'm like yeah fair enough I get it
36:29
yeah H so we ended up doing a uh concentrating on the McKing J the second
36:34
part of the the movies on the film and the books and so it portrays the resistance against the capital and War
36:41
so it turns out effectively to be a a war game yeah and I think there we lost a lot of customers because of course a
36:47
lot of the customers like why did you do a game on the younger games why big war because the fans of that IP are into the
36:53
characters that are in the arena not so much into the old Wars side of things so you kind of have the IP but you're not
37:00
portraying what people want and expect and so you're kind of putting yourself out of the your customer base so it was
37:06
an interesting experience yeah yeah kind of like defies expectations in a way but
37:11
not necessarily like oh it defies it like yeah like it's not what people expected that's right maybe maybe see
37:18
how precious the the writer of The Maze Runner is and go and see is that one that does The Scorch
37:23
Trials and whatever the other is yeah never actually watched those I've heard yeah I quite I quite yeah they're teen
37:30
film but they I think they're quite enjoyable they might go yeah just kill teenagers we don't mind
37:39
yeah so um you've done a whole manner of War games from obviously Middle Earth
37:45
Workshop related codexes Army books you've even am thinking you did stuff for more time quite early I worked on
37:52
more them yeah yeah withas yeah yeah I did a scaven list and yeah yeah amazing yeah yes invol with that was that before
38:00
or during the Thomas pan in with thas yeah thas Thomas was my line manager
38:06
supervisor whatever call he was basically I was working for him when I started working there I mean I turned up
38:11
the first day like hello I'm here from from Italian Studio I'm supposed to start today and they're like oh we
38:17
forgot about that um um where's my desk there's a chair there uh here's a
38:24
notepad there my computer oh yeah well in now yeah that has never changed by the way that has never changed when I
38:30
when I turn I had no desk I had to Source my it's like literally like your first job is turn up to Studio is one
38:37
find a desk a chair the equipment you need and it's Shop Hunger Games it's mad
38:43
and it's like it's never changed it almost became a wrer passage so when like I started out to go through that when Duncan start was like well he had I
38:49
had to suffer so why why can't he yeah and then the cycle continues cycle
38:55
continues write a passage if you're not proactive enough to get yourself a desk and a computer and stuff you're you're
39:02
not welcome here you start on a Monday morning in the corner room and the aim of the game is by Friday you've got a desk and a
39:08
computer but yes I Bally twas was like all right write me some uh abilities for
39:13
these vampire families that we was just starting to you know we splitting the the vampires and and the wet and the dry
39:20
and dead into two books and it was the vampire counts and it was like write me abilities vampire power for the family I
39:27
was like okay so I'm s sat on my chair with my writing that's how it began
39:32
amazing that's brilliant have you um kept up to date with sort of 40K at all
39:38
and and bit and Bobs no since 2010 when I left worship I actually had not have
39:44
not played Uh current uh games warship games because mostly I wasn't I am still
39:51
very busy with with Bol action that takes my War gaming time going to events tournaments and stuff that's where I am
39:57
and maybe because I'm older I guess you move from typically you move from fantasy science fiction into into
40:02
historical don't you you get older traditional before you know it it will be model
40:07
trains war game model trains stamps I started off at stamp so
40:13
you know I've done that that's fine so no I have played bizarrely older versions sixth edition and and they
40:20
invited me to this L of the Rings one I probably will join next year uh but yeah it's that would be a current one I suppose yeah yeah I had hold of the
40:27
first edition book the other day I was very very tempted to buy it the CU it was on the Shelf in Warhammer world oh
40:33
right the reprint and I was thinking just more our curiosity than anything else you know that's really interesting
40:39
I do play B sector on online as in the the computer game so I play that and
40:44
there's tournaments of it and stuff so I'm actually playing in the tournaments you crush your enemies in that as [Music]
40:49
well not often yeah yeah I had no I didn't realize you you done B action it's obvious now when I think back cuz
40:56
it's like yeah of course you did what what is really interesting um and you probably were not aware of this but
41:01
during the move from sth Edition 40K to eth Edition when they were doing a lot of play testing they were looking at the bolt action
41:07
mechanic obviously like well you know alesio is quite good at writing rules that's let's see what say some magic
41:13
about this one because there was a time when they were like play testing doing the whole kind of like putting your your tokens in in the bag and then pulling
41:20
them out wow and doing like in yeah I'm getting a big head here yeah
41:26
it's it's a good system I mean I've not played it but I'm well aware of how well I've played it once or twice but that
41:32
was a long time back um but I'm well aware of how like the mechanic works and it's very clever and it it did make a
41:38
lot of sense for 40K weirdly designed to the same scale you know same type of number of models
41:44
number of I go back to the elements on the table so they're not you know there are I can see that the systems being
41:51
used for both yeah yeah amazing interesting has there ever been a like a rule
41:56
um so obviously you You' made games that have been very public and parts of big companies like Warhammer and and bolt
42:04
action and stuff like that is there ever like there must be quite a lot of comments and critique on the rules that
42:10
he's made and stuff like that which which must come with no they're perfect um like has there ever been a rule where
42:17
someone's gone like I don't like this one it doesn't make sense but and you're like well maybe I agree with you but it
42:23
has to happen because of this like I guess what I'm trying to say were there any limitations to your rule writing
42:29
like enforced On You by writing in these big sort of ips and stuff like all the
42:35
time all the time I mean that happens all the time you you write to a brief you write for a customer and the
42:41
customer obviously has opinions and limits and maybe they have license lur or you know other parties involved like
42:49
in the case of B would be allspray publishing which is part of working with warlord and stuff so so there's there's
42:55
always influences and limitations and factors that influence your your design and if you are a good game designer I
43:02
think you part of being a good designer is actually interacting listening and
43:08
flexing and adapting and being flexible flexing is the wrong thing be
43:15
flexible no it's plus three I mean you canc like well Rings what I meant was
43:23
being flexible and being being uh able to change and adapt Your Design to the
43:29
needs of your customer that's part of the part of the you have to learn to do that otherwise you don't go anywhere
43:35
because you you like no has to be like this but no we want it to be like that no it has to be like this you're not
43:41
going to win that no has there ever been like a hill that you that you died
43:46
on yes yes there sometimes that you get to kind of you know the creative
43:53
differences get to the point where you walk away from a project it happens yeah you know I suppose that shows passion as
44:00
well that you care about the projects and stuff um there's a two-way St I mean you have to help and work with them but
44:06
normally there should be a bit of a of a reciprocation there you know a bit of flexibility on both sides when that's
44:11
not the case sometimes it gets difficulty yeah just going to quickly say going give you the opportunity to
44:17
pitch some of the stuff that you're working on at the moment as well um so one of the things that was interesting is obviously you've done stuff for
44:23
Workshop in the past um favorite waram uh Army book and favorite warmer 40,000
44:29
codex that you that you contributed to you got any favorites um well I
44:35
obviously because I'm I'm a scaven fan I I play I play scaven the chambers
44:40
version then I wrote the scaven book as well the next one and uh I think it was a good book except perhaps for the some
44:46
of the things were a bit too good again probably what you were saying about before about you know being really excited about something you you really
44:51
have passion about my normal of you know everything has to be very balanced everything has
44:57
to be very maybe that I was a bit like over the top with this game probably the one that I get most flat
45:02
from a little bit like that currently with whoever's written the lar codex to be fair managed to n it and still leave
45:09
it in the number one spot on the uh on the tournament scene so I know what you mean h so yeah g probably but I do love
45:17
Braton s know you said things that I written my I mean you does have to be if
45:22
you like Brans I mean who doesn't that nice and Shining AR is is the herald that is so cool so yeah and Caven I
45:29
would say for warmer U Fork I think the demons I haven't worked a on a lot of
45:35
codexes to be fair so the demons was definitely a good fun one of doing something different um so that was a big
45:42
challenge of a hill that I almost died on yes yeah and
45:48
um and uh lot of rings well I guess my passion there was Rohan really I had
45:55
have this yeah the that charge of the hero I don't know I don't know if you've seen somebody made a montage where they
46:01
put Tolen reading the part of the book about the charge of hering oh says
46:07
talkin reading and the scenes of the movie and they just match perfectly
46:12
video is you can find it online reading the Char heing with the film underneath there images and I actually sent that
46:20
video to Richard Taylor at WETA saying like you have to show this to Peter he is amazing he was like oh my God
46:28
F it's interesting because I've always liked the aesthetic of Gondor but there's not a single scene where Rohan
46:33
turn up that doesn't give you chills down your down your spine and obviously you got the the I
46:40
guess the privilege of playing a dead Rohan man near a mum cuz you had like was it Brian Nelson the peris and
46:47
yourself they were on that scene such a thing to to tell your grandchildren and your children's grandchildren yes I've
46:54
told the story a few times tell us again I was to say I've never heard it so wow and many of our viewers
47:02
probably wer have as well so somebody who hasn't heard the story yet amazing wow I think on the planet there's more
47:08
people that have heard the story than haven't heard the story so yeah I'm pleased to to tell it again yeah yeah so
47:13
we were um working on Return of the King and so we went to New Zealand uh to get
47:19
kind of like get Peter Jackson involved and get information unlike the F Beast
47:24
that was there wasn't there was like can you tell us what's in and um so on this Mission which was great I mean people
47:30
there lovely Richard Taylor invited to house and the boss of wet is lovely
47:37
lovely person anyway so um we uh as we work there for a couple of weeks and
47:43
then it's time to go back and Peter Jackson says oh what a shame that you're going back because in in two weeks we're starting the pickup so filming a few
47:49
extra scenes and to put into the Return of the King and if you were around you know I why don't you stay ping in the
47:56
movie as came extras and stuff and I were like we spent two weeks away from our families and work and stuff we
48:01
cannot really stay another two weeks but if you put us in a movie we will come back in two
48:07
weeks and he was like yeah sure you're going to go back to England and the antipodes and you know an hour on the
48:12
plane and sorry sorry a day on the plane and then back I like no you're not going to do that like no no we
48:19
will we will we get in a mov so we did and uh
48:26
and then yes we we've got this scene where we had the dead people around the the 11 clock Mary 11 clock and uh is
48:33
looking for it and finds it so yeah that was magical you know getting on set
48:39
meeting all the actors you know me dressed as right rawan and because you're really close to the camera that
48:44
your costume is perfect because the further away you from the camera the more kind of the costume is not as detailed they're just like here's a sack
48:51
well I was watching um Z talk about that and they had like a Rowan outfit and it still looked really nice but it was just
48:58
like it was like machine stitched as opposed to like hand stitched and stuff like that yeah there's different degrees
49:03
of accuracy yeah but so I'm a d then you know film the scene but you're unsettled
49:10
you see everything that goes on and a bit cold let's go to break let's go into this Pavilion get some uh get some
49:16
coffee by making coffee and then Aragorn the king be going complete cin walks in and go he pass the C the sugar
49:26
yes my le the sugar you know stuff like that it's just
49:33
like like I was smiling like this even when I'm I mean the funny thing is that the lady blood lady the lady that
49:39
squirts Blood on the corpses the as you lying down waiting for for the next take and she kind of goes can you stop
49:47
smiling you just died a violent death you be stomped on by a m or something
49:53
stop smiling I can't I can't do the number of times as you went and
50:00
stop smiling I was just so happy to die for Rohan I
50:06
mean yeah yeah that's it you you died A Warrior's death yeah and I'm I'm
50:11
thinking the the base of the m is the four of you that's right as the dead bodies on the base isn't it yeah I was
50:17
actually very funny at the tournament with this F in Lincoln I was uh going around and uh there's people with M and
50:23
uh I wanted to brag and story again so I was just like I pointed one of these guys they're
50:29
playing I go oh that's me there you know he was like yeah yeah sure no no it's me
50:35
was tell [Laughter]
50:41
that's I guess as like a rules writing is quite firmly behind the scenes like
50:46
people might be familiar with your name but not maybe what you look like so if you wonder up someone go that's me like
50:51
I'll be like okay dou check yeah people at
50:57
tournaments going don't make high contact with he's on around point the faes again do you have like do you have
51:03
pictures in a book and you can be like no look here I am here's Aron here's p as well like it is me like
51:10
okay I believe you nowes has their arm arm off at a certain distance which is
51:15
what um Michael was yeah yeah amazing yes he does that Mr Stampy
51:22
Mr Stampy Mr Stampy Mr Stampy has a film career as the pictures of looking at
51:28
Mr eyes on ET he's been in all sorts his b
51:33
Brothers multiple dead bodies film fil film star Mr St yes Mr
51:40
St actor saying about the Riders of Rohan on the big I was reading a thing while
51:46
ago that how many of them were women weren't they oh with beards theed ladies ladies was a yeah different it
51:54
was funny you know dress the r bunch of meet some Orcs in on the
52:02
setting one experience like I think when we had Gary moan and he had such lovely
52:08
experience of it as well like he had he had um sign signatures like from M
52:14
McKellen and he he had pictures of like him like hugging lley not
52:22
ly that's in his own time yeah cuz of what Shar recently then begins with l I do have an
52:30
autograph book which is amazing and actually has a unique autograph that nobody else in the world has I'm pretty sure I have the autograph of Shadow fax
52:37
oh literally I was you know on set again there somebody Handler carrying the
52:42
horse to another scene and I go can I have his autograph and goes what the
52:48
horse is autog Shadow facts like okay so I put the the book on the on the ground
52:53
and they make him stand on the I have still a hoof print my on my
52:59
book still you know k m from New Zealand and God know yeah there's a print I got
53:06
shadowx that's so cool I don't think no one else has that no I don't think so nobody yeah he was looking at me like I
53:12
was completely mad that was just a horse never me never yeah the horse be
53:20
like I better be getting extra hay for this extra hay
53:26
imagine the imine the hor the horse's ego is just shattered when nobody else
53:31
asked for it yeah horse stood there loads of people with autograph books the horse is like when you
53:37
ready when you ready you made that horse's day yeah um so River horse um you've got
53:45
lots of stuff on on on the cards obviously ghost in the show yeah yeah I mean the things I can talk about because
53:51
again we're still working on services for other other companies but no I mean the big thing is go in the
53:57
Shell is Def go in the shell and we still do Bard games me like the latest one uh and Pitch another another plug
54:05
this one is about this is a board game this is not licensed so unusual uh it's a little village in Italy where I have a
54:12
holiday home and it's got a lot of history a lot of medieval stories so we make occasionally board games like these
54:17
which are based on history and not on license but the meat and potato is
54:23
definitely the license and these two are the two big uh IPS we have we have the Jim Hanson
54:29
collection which has Labyrinth got Dark Crystal we recently just now made a fragle
54:34
rock I was going to say that as a joke then and now you just ruined that I to
54:39
go oh be fragle Rock next it's very much a family game f Rock
54:44
but yes so we've got the Hansen Jon collection line and then the My Little Pony uh series of Adventures you know
54:51
those core books best the is Adventures is quite cool and with done something similar oh probably that wouldn't ring a
54:57
bell but there's a character in in M Pony which is called Discord was played by the voice actor is the same actor
55:03
that plays Q in Star Trek and the character is very similar he's super powerful Godlike he's the god of chaos
55:10
effectively so he's got you know completely random fun completely change things just for fun so again we had the
55:17
stats in the book and guess what they're all question marks and he always breaks the fourth wall so he knows he's in a
55:23
role play game so these Pages like him cracking jokes about people's like you know like body Point Body um sometimes
55:31
kind it's yeah is that kind of over the top th M dealers in breaks all the
55:37
rules oh that's cool how many games like excuse I guess
55:44
it's um guess how long it's stream but like how many games would you make a year it varies it
55:52
varies it really depends I mean licensing as um you never quite know particular when you
55:58
start a new license like was in the Shell is because you're starting a new relationship with a new licensor some of
56:03
them are really good at very fast at giving you feedback approvals and you kind of some of them take ages some of
56:10
them are more precise more care so it's very difficult some years we do quite a few some years we do very little you
56:17
know there are some yeah is not being that is a small company
56:22
cottage industry is not like you know you have a big studio with lots of thing where you have to keep so I was mostly
56:28
with Freelancers these days and uh so yeah it sometimes it lows down sometimes
56:33
it picks up on average a couple of games a year I guess but there have been years
56:40
where we've done a lot more the years will be done less it varies I don't yeah
56:45
I find like I'm always I think when I learn about something like new and I'm like okay how does this industry work
56:50
toally every day um so apologies if I'm just like really dumb B questions no
56:56
they're great questions good I've obviously time for a few more from you guys but I've got a big list
57:03
of took the money pay the money let them have sued in some a if you're going to ask a question no no no no I'm just old
57:10
I after taking large amounts of air every now and again keep the bra keep the brain ticken over we we often like to get our patrons to contribute and ask
57:17
questions I've res because I read through a bunch this morning i' I've reserved asking a few things cuz well I'll let them ask it and you can okay
57:24
you don't have to answer him you can just go I answer is there a cheese question in there I think there is a cheese question I would like to think so the man's Italian now cheese question is
57:31
massively important if not we'll ask it um right so we got John Carter uh not
57:40
the warlord of Mars unfortunately or Kata maybe um were there any times when
57:45
you felt a rule should or shouldn't have been changed but GW insisted on it so I
57:50
guess during your time at Workshop well I mean like we said before there are your customer will influence your rule
57:56
set and sometimes indeed There Are Rules where you kind of go this rule cannot be
58:01
or you know change it so yeah no definitely I mean it happens it's a normal part of the process you don't
58:07
always get you know everything your way you have you have to C for other people's needs and yeah absolutely yeah
58:12
so yeah so yes all the time all the time the answer to that is yes constantly yeah it's part of it uh Trevor Bailey
58:19
which games have impressed you with their rules I guess stuff that you probably haven't made that yeah makes sense isn't
58:25
it just be fun you just listen all your own was very
58:32
good which is what we've been doing until now let's let's get some other games in um okay games that I really
58:40
like I like Ticket to Ride I have to say I just it just does so much with it's
58:46
just I like games where they have very simple rules but the game is amazing you know there's a few Rhino niia one
58:52
there's one called high society which is just a little card bidding game which again is f 10 cards and my favorite one
58:58
of that type was do you remember miichi yesi is a great great great one for trading your way around the board yeah
59:05
there's Kier as well which is a very good card game where you have the map of Renaissance Italy which is just a to
59:11
score points really but the game is a card game with with beautiful tarot like cards and so uh other games that I like
59:19
I mean I I was I was about to quote Another River horse game
59:26
Hunger Games is no um so we what do I play that is
59:32
not uh uh b games we definitely play a lot of a lot of tick to ride recently I
59:40
enjoy tick rise my my girlfriend bought it recently and and we have fun just be like oh my God I got a train from London
59:46
all the way to Russia yeah it's great he's good fun do in the fantasy world we would able to do
59:52
on this one y yeah just got a train from here to Birmingham may be an impressive yeah that could be a game on own I
59:59
played a game recently apologies diversion um called brass Birmingham um
1:00:04
and that's all about all about the Industrial Revolution uh in the black country which is where all all the coal
1:00:09
came from and all that sort of stuff and that's really really complicated but like very good fun yeah apologies
1:00:16
no you introduced you because I haven't done have you introduced your children to settlers uh we did play Settlers but we
1:00:24
don't own settlers so no oh small world speaking of that kind of thing small world is
1:00:29
also very good fun have you tried small world small world is a very cute little game of your fantasy races and the
1:00:35
clever bit there is that You Bic you have races invade and take on territory and stuff and through hisory you kind of
1:00:40
you play a few turns with a race then they you retire them they kind of get extinct and or kind of become a legend
1:00:46
and then more races came in but the clever thing is that uh it gets like um each race you pick a race and a
1:00:53
characteristic which is grandom so you can get you know elves flying flying
1:00:59
elves burrowing trolls Mak sense you go
1:01:05
like riding dwarves like Riders around by their dwars kind of It kind of mixes that
1:01:11
thing around which is kind funny things that' be so hilarious for Middle Earth ages SE like the r of Rohan and the new
1:01:17
yor are like that big trying to get those ankles diplomatic Orcs
1:01:25
you get all this kind suits uh Richard grad if you had to
1:01:32
erase all the games you have worked on from history except one which would you keep oh that's a question but if I want
1:01:39
to get rid of every game ever you've ever if I want to keep having an income
1:01:44
this one fair fair they are Richard that's
1:01:51
answered that question um oh this is interesting Alex spanberg what's your uh what's your
1:01:58
personal favorite implementation of rules flavor or law into a thematic game
1:02:03
mechanic oh they're big words lots of big words I think you use a thesaurus to write that I do have big
1:02:08
words joking Alex I'm sure you didn't okay interesting personal favorite
1:02:14
implementation of rules flavor I think we had it is difficult to pick one of course there's so much one thing we had
1:02:20
a lot of fun with was the Terminator game in The Terminator game we did a lot of that taking a theme and just going
1:02:28
going for it and for example the rolls in in Terminator uh which is again is
1:02:33
very commonly well well- Lov mechanic where basically you have to roll something and the way you do that is you
1:02:40
have to say you shoot and miss you kind go oh I want to roll that and that's you
1:02:46
buy rerolls you can play but before you can roll you have to explain how you send somebody back in the past to change
1:02:53
the this this guy that fired his shot and missed yeah you sent an agent back
1:02:58
in the past to get and and the other guy can actually send their agent to stop you from getting the rear roll so you
1:03:04
get a roll off of agents in the past trying to stop each other like oh yeah I
1:03:10
will get this guy trained better at shooting
1:03:15
because so you have to make up a little story that explains why you're rolling the thing and uh by sending your time
1:03:21
agent your time displaced agent and uh the gu can go oh I don't want you to roll that I'll send a T800 to terminate
1:03:28
your your agent in the past so you roll off between the agents then the one that succeeds actually you can actually get a
1:03:34
r or not kind of thing and there's a lot of that playing on on the core things
1:03:40
sound so you you had good episode about it a while ago cuz em painted a video he did Dave did a whole episode about the
1:03:48
Terminator game it was really cool actually and he he was talking about that having to go back into the past to
1:03:53
Crane correct things in the game I thought it's quite cool cuz my head is immediately going like right okay I'm
1:03:59
going to get his parents I'm going to send some more back in time to get his parents to send him to Scouts so he can
1:04:04
learn to shoot with a bow and arrow and then and then Arie coming back in time and brutally murdering his scout
1:04:12
leader that kind of thing quite funny as well cuz im the news report you know much love scout leader in Mindless kid
1:04:19
mindless murder yeah children traumatized no no longer like shooting bow and
1:04:26
arrow it's like literally there's no badge on the shoulders for it I think it
1:04:31
would be a lot of fun to be had with with G the shell there because you you have so much of that at where she hacks
1:04:38
into other into opponents during a firefight you know where she's kind of for a second she reaches off and you
1:04:43
have you know you can see the other side people that are shooting and then maybe suddenly one of them turns around and shoots his on M because actually she's
1:04:50
him kind of a lot of that I F I always love that in the inity game the ability to hack so it's quite cool cuz the um
1:04:58
with them having like these um like walking drones and like and Mech suits and the ability to be able to either if
1:05:04
the roll's good enough you can sort of get them to shoot at their own If the roll is not quite as good they'll just it'll just stop it for a turn and things
1:05:11
like it was really really quite clever game design I thought with that I like I do like the idea of hacking in games I
1:05:16
think it's quite cool uh gamer Cadets asking favorite dessert favorite dessert go this this
1:05:25
you get this now this will happen favorite dessert oh God I guess you have a CJ out
1:05:31
and about it it buy it right well you have to go to pedmont in Italy for that
1:05:36
and you have to ask for bunet which is like bonut hat that's the bunet is a
1:05:42
traditional uh pones sweet dessert uh which is effectively how to describe it
1:05:48
imagine a panakot kind of that kind of jelly texture with amaretto cacao Coco
1:05:54
and um liquor in it yeah kind of so it's very like maybe a a Christmas pudding
1:06:02
but yeah doesn't have any raisin or anything literally just a panacotta but loaded with interesting stuff and uh
1:06:08
like liquor which makes it yummy uh cooco yeah yeah I have a customer who
1:06:15
comes in he um born in England but his father uh his father's was Italian and
1:06:21
he has the greatest name ever such a lovely name his name is Sergio Canal Lessa and he comes in and every year he
1:06:27
always brings me a panacotta and I always oh goes goes it's not a Christmas if a family hasn't got a panac cot
1:06:38
P the other will not last outs patana always brings one he like
1:06:46
it's like a thing Christmas absolutely yeah it's like it's like he has to you know he's it's not a Christmas Year got
1:06:52
one of these okay they're in the supermarket already yeah I'm the same with Stalin I have to have Stalin at Christmas you should have Pandora rather
1:06:59
I mean I'm sure that some Italians will hate me for saying this but I think P Pandora is so much better than paneton
1:07:04
all right that's a big thing between panon and Pandora christas so try Pandora make a war
1:07:10
game is this a is it is it in all serious is it a regional thing part of
1:07:16
it but actually Pon and pandor are National level things but yes I some regions would eat them maybe with
1:07:22
different sauces and stuff so there is potentially for a conflicted war
1:07:27
game and and there's no Miniatures you just rip off I definitely believe has do more
1:07:33
damage you just eat more of it there definitely needs to be a board game or a war game that talks about different ways
1:07:39
of pronouncing bread in the UK oh yeah gets hectic on here our comment
1:07:45
section go it's not a BAP it's a cob oh you could you could turn that into like is it when they have um like
1:07:52
in in wrestling where they have loads of people in the ring all at once Royal
1:07:58
Rumble break regimen could he like you know fourth fourth like cob regiments
1:08:04
yeah and and you definitely the title has to be roll a dice roll a
1:08:10
dice already you're taking sides you're taking sides already oh I mean you can
1:08:15
tell that's what you do as a job uh so I mean I'm not expecting to
1:08:21
come with anything off the top of your head but I just thought it was quite a funny comment which is from Adam Langford please create a special rule
1:08:26
for each of the painting phase crew for example for Pat I don't know where this is comeing from Pat so I feel offended
1:08:31
on your behalf oh God yourself imp last minute hero apparently this this unit
1:08:37
does uh does everything last minute I don't know who's getting this from you I
1:08:42
it's probably true yeah lud cannot move in the mov phase but moves in the shooting phase instead yeah yeah so
1:08:49
you're always like one one one face behind yeah uh joh how does he how does
1:08:55
he know me so [Laughter] intimately I think in your case but
1:09:01
should be powers of Love loveliness I remember because my of Koko used to work
1:09:08
she was like where are you going I'm going to see these guys and and go P you remember oh yeah the lovely
1:09:14
guy lovely guy yeah I remember when she was still in the translation team actually that was a rough time for the
1:09:20
translation team as well when they were moving on a bit but yeah yeah K was great always friendly I
1:09:27
mared her yeah I agree I agree camera oh
1:09:32
you're literally talking about your wife said I have to
1:09:38
agree I'm legally obligated to hope she's not watching
1:09:48
hi there's a few questions that been asked a few times or similar sort of questions uh so Chris S in the hindsight
1:09:56
is there a game that failed for want of a better word that that with different rules could have been a success for
1:10:02
Games Workshop or I suppose not necessarily Games Workshop maybe for River horse as well potentially so if
1:10:07
you had a game system that didn't do so well um
1:10:13
with uh for want over better reason I I don't know what that is that with different rules could have been a
1:10:19
success but I suppose game a game that didn't work there was
1:10:24
not for you you didn't fail I like this I was trying to well no I don't know any
1:10:30
didn't fail fail what was that 100% successful okay trying to be serious
1:10:36
about that I mean it's difficult to tell whether system or game or something is not successful because of the rules I
1:10:43
think like Rick pleasy always teaches us is a lot of it is the presentation is the marketing is the is what the models
1:10:50
look like I think rules are important but they not definitely not not the most important thing and not the the dominant
1:10:56
part in particular in war gaming and maybe something like a board game is more important because that you know
1:11:01
there's less there but in a hobby like wargaming I wouldn't think I mean I'm
1:11:08
sure there must be situations where rules really destroy a system but I don't I've never
1:11:14
done it's not my experience that's fair the accolades of
1:11:20
rule systems that you've made I think you're fine got quite a lot of good ones under your
1:11:25
Bel uh what we got here Chris uh sorry Keith winquist uh do you follow any
1:11:30
particular design philosophy or do rules just happen through the writing process oh no my philosophy is something that I
1:11:36
rant all the time and I got in trouble with several times it is just the um I
1:11:42
mean the motto of river horse is uh Simplicity uh sorry sophistication for Simplicity and um is for me is the the
1:11:51
task The Grail the the the whole gra of rules writing is to write rules that are
1:11:57
so simple that they disappear they don't exist like the example always uses chess
1:12:03
in terms of when you play chess you don't think of the rules yeah you're not thinking oh how does how does a bishop
1:12:09
move can I do this how does so you're thinking of the game you're thinking of
1:12:14
the strategy I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do that and then so you're thinking of how to win the battle
1:12:20
in the war game not oh how does the oh so the idea is for me was to boil
1:12:27
down rules to as simple as possible and of course if it's a successful system the last three years I don't know Kings
1:12:33
of War very simple stuff very simple rules and then for the years people keep OB new rules new armies I mean baction
1:12:40
the same new Army books all the time campaign books so it gets progressively more organic and grows and kind of
1:12:46
becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and then when you got next Edition start the game so uh but the ideal Philosophy for
1:12:53
me is always to simplify radically really radically stuff to the point that some people have
1:12:59
accused some of my systems to be simplistic which is a word I love absolutely hate it just makes drives me
1:13:07
mad they all simplistic I just like also apart from the fact that some people use simplistic wrongly thinking is a
1:13:12
positive they think is oh this game is very simplistic and and like you mean it's simple and nice not simplistic and
1:13:18
simplistic is a negative foration too simple or like you know lazy has the
1:13:24
simp just like and I hate that with a passion because sometimes I the
1:13:30
difficult part is taking away stuff I mean Jervis again is very famous for saying this you know good a designer
1:13:36
knows he's done a good job when you there's nothing left to take out not when there's nothing left to add uh so
1:13:41
is is that trying to distill things to boil down to simple simple simple which part of the Lord of the Rings why is
1:13:47
this so good and still to this day I think again because we've done a lot of that and so no I I am going crusade to
1:13:53
always try to make rules smaller and smaller and smaller and uh sometimes uh people don't agree and
1:14:00
things they're simplistic and we have an argument James James said something similar when when we had him on he said
1:14:06
that that kind of like if there's like oh but the whole game revolves around this thing and he was like you probably
1:14:11
have to get rid of it take it out yeah I mean as a firm fan of war cry I think it
1:14:16
does although not written by your it it does follow that that that Mantra of
1:14:22
being a very simple rule set that I often find now because the pages of rules I've read through that might be
1:14:29
the odd rule I have to check every now and again it's something I don't use very often which is climbing or falling down um I have to have a quick I know
1:14:35
where to look and have a quick look and like oh yeah that's I thought it was that but sometimes I have to check so I guess to a certain degree it's not as
1:14:42
simple as as um like would be ideal but I don't read the rules I just enjoy the
1:14:49
game because the rules are already embedded in my head um that's what you want to and we get we get comments about
1:14:54
like war cry is a rubbish game because it's too simple I'm like I don't think it is I think it's the right level of
1:15:00
simp simple don't know oh it's fine it's it's a Warhammer age of Sigma um
1:15:06
Skirmish game um it's still not as good as Lord of the Rings but it's close just
1:15:12
on the subject of uh chess very quickly um did you see Queen scit on Netflix and
1:15:18
then they went oh this has been successful and they made Queen's Gambit the board game and like like is that a
1:15:25
really old game I should been around a long time that game yeah so and I was like he to make it before the the TV
1:15:31
show not not chess so this was my thought but you play it on a chess board
1:15:37
and there's pieces but they move like I I was going to ask if you'd ever seen it um not the game no no cuz um cuz I I
1:15:44
looked at it and I was just like what on Earth it's chess but it's like some weird form of like hybrid chess before
1:15:50
yeah before we went live we were talking about uh your shirro isn't it shro the first game the riveros ever made the
1:15:57
very first game it's called shuro and is uh effectiv chess Hammer
1:16:03
really literally you have pieces lots of pieces pie on a big board with some
1:16:08
cubes that are fa terrain and you terrain is randomly placed on the board and you pick an army so you can go each
1:16:16
piece has a value which is in in chess exchange theory obviously you know like you know a rook is worth five PS
1:16:23
a rook is sorry a bishop is worth three pawns so they have points values based on pawns and therefore he like okay you
1:16:29
have a th000 points or 100 points whatever go pick your army and you all I'll have three queens and two Rooks
1:16:36
very small army very powerful like no I'll have you know 20 pawns and 15 Knights and create night lots lots of
1:16:44
our small guys and knights so so is basically make your own Army of Chess
1:16:49
and play chess s the the the best variant was the four player variant called Tanga which was an expansion and
1:16:55
then we did Loca which is the same thing but in with with the fantasy Miniatures as opposed to chess pieces but yeah yeah
1:17:03
so we did toy with chess yeah chess War gaming never played it but well I watched and observed because um when
1:17:10
early days of my career in the studio lots of like rules writers were able to
1:17:15
make their own games and do their own things and have their own companies of stuff going off and then obviously the contracts changed and stuff but I do
1:17:22
remember seeing that being played a few times in in bugman uh it was good I'm going to what was it called shuro I can
1:17:27
write it down after shuro which means warrior in Sanskrit I have a thing for Sanskrit yes I thought it was like chur
1:17:34
Ros is in the Spanish [Laughter]
1:17:40
chur I mean it's like it's like the name of the company comes from playing worth
1:17:45
in why why is it River horse you were asking and uh well basically it's because in Japanese where because I
1:17:53
marry a Japanese lady and went to Japan and we had to have the stamps made with our my surname Etc so the stamp that
1:18:00
makes my name kabat as he pronounced in Japanese if you were to read my surname kabat in in in Japanese one of the
1:18:08
possible ways to write that is to use this symbol cabba which is the symbol
1:18:14
for I mean it means hippopotamus so it has a hippopotamus and there for Caba T it
1:18:20
sounds like hunt the hippo or catch the hippo in Japanese that's my surname and the hippo became the kind of the totem
1:18:27
animal Etc and what fascinated me was that when I saw the symbol my little po
1:18:32
Japanese I saw that the symbol was actually included that part of it was a river symbol which is like three squiggly lines
1:18:38
kind so hippo has River in it and like hippopotamus in Greek is hippos is a
1:18:45
horse and potamus is a river so is hippopotamus is a river horse in Greek yeah and in Japanese
1:18:53
apparently and then with oh Chinese characters hippopotamus horse rer R horse and then we went to like okay
1:18:58
Sanskrit where you know from ancient India which went into the West into Greece into Greek and into and into
1:19:04
Japanese and into Chinese so the the the Sanskrit roots of raver horse
1:19:09
hippopotamus cabor my surname there you go I love the fact a night ride in the hippo as
1:19:15
well you were describing it all I saw that earlier and I was like what is that and I'm like
1:19:21
okay 4,000 deaths a year at the moment iOS really one of the deadliest animals
1:19:27
in the world compared to 11 shark deaths no a year yeah cows kill more people
1:19:33
than sharks yeah that's right yeah yeah well apparently more people choke on lettuce than they killed by sharks but you know oh wow yeah 4,000 4,000 deaths
1:19:41
a year umos oh wow mad yeah vicious here we go we which is weird when you
1:19:48
consider they're vegetarian so it means they are actually hunting you for sports
1:19:54
that is woring isn't [Laughter] it that got
1:20:01
dark did got dark quick uh barely barely barly what would the one cheese be that
1:20:08
you'd find in all games that you've designed that's
1:20:15
an I mean you could just say what's your favorite cheese but probably easier I I
1:20:21
think that's a dead basic question if you had to put a small trunk of cheese in every box of game what would
1:20:28
they you have to have the mother of all metaphors how can you answer that
1:20:33
question what's your favorite cheese list year fav well I mean many cheeses
1:20:38
obviously gonzala I like blue cheese so gonzala being a probably a good from Italy but I mean one thing that I
1:20:44
learned here an Old English gentleman when I moved to England he took me a side and was like oh Christmas time was
1:20:50
like oh I'll teach you this this tradition and so we started with you know Stilton and port and biscuits and
1:20:56
and since then I was like oh ston and p s s and Port so yes I
1:21:03
never used to be a fan of Stilton I just yeah it's like my cheese of choice now yeah I guess maybe older and blue chees
1:21:10
is tends to be more like an old man's so you're getting old pal always changes doesn't it it's like you know not a lot
1:21:15
of people not a lot of people under 25 particularly like olives do they it's is it really interesting you my my wife
1:21:23
she's Japanese and when with blue cheese they really don't get Blue Cheese it's like it's rotten yeah my wife my wife my
1:21:29
wife's the same my my wife my wife blesses she will
1:21:34
buy it for for me especially for Christmas but she won't she won't need to I I remember like my first like I
1:21:41
love a glass of red wine um but the first time I had it I was just like oh my God it tastes like trees like tastes
1:21:47
like thing right Sur is a good thing you know I always feel I always look really uncult because when lots of my friends
1:21:54
drink it with meals and so on I'm sitting there with something else because I immediately gives I the minute
1:21:59
my first SW of it and I have a headache oh really I just get my hang over straight away I don't need to go to bed
1:22:04
to get my red then you could just have the dog it right well yeah maybe yeah instantly it just like ruins the night
1:22:10
if I have a glass of red wine it's something and it I just don't get on with I don't know what it is that's interesting it was funny cuz like say I
1:22:16
make a joke about oh my God it tastes like trees like I went to a right PS me and my partner we went to
1:22:24
a wine tasting um to likeo yeah and uh and they were like yeah you can really
1:22:29
taste the forest floor and I was just like there you go I was like yeah it tastes like trees I was my first time KN
1:22:36
that I KN that before it took me a long time before you know like proper beo
1:22:41
stop stop tasting like Marmite I do like the description of the back at wine bottle sometimes my
1:22:46
favorite being like Taste of freshly cooked grass I was like I just wanted to taste of wine if that's think I'm a
1:22:55
cow uh we got Nathaniel Westwood um this is news to me but probably not news to
1:23:00
you after doing so much to enrich the history of the mercenary city states Tia and aelia to the old world do you hope
1:23:07
to see the return in the new Old World game I didn't know you did much Foria and AIA I well I wrote definitely not
1:23:14
not austalian not the not the Espanish side of things but I did do some bit about about the the the Tans yes I
1:23:21
remember Nigel was writing the dogs of war book and and one of the first things I think I was still a translator at the
1:23:27
time uh he obviously came and talked to us about it bunch of Italians here and so let's talk and I I got because I I
1:23:33
know my history fairly well we got along very well and I did write um in fact my first bit of background that I ever
1:23:40
written for Warhammer is in the Dogs of War Book it's basically a story of um
1:23:45
it's from history is this um mercenary leader uh that in the in the wars and
1:23:51
the Renaissance there B there was these companies that were hired by the V Lords and to fight for
1:23:56
them and uh there's a fair story where this guy gets a gets um shot in the leg with a kind of arus bigger caliber thing
1:24:06
between a cannon and a handgun but basically they have to amputate his leg
1:24:11
and uh so the the surgeon go like well this is the the captain you know an important guy better get this one right
1:24:17
and go Oh Captain we need to call 15 men to hold you while I amputate your leg
1:24:22
and the guy goes well talking about and takes a candle and goes go cat I'll hold the candle for you to show how manly
1:24:29
this guy was really I'm sure he very accurate but I made the same version with an Empire leader being shot by a
1:24:35
scaven jaelle and things aming yeah I do like the uh Pon scaving there I wonder
1:24:41
how that came around there there's a lot of fun things in the dogs of war book and there's there's the Juan ketto songs uh just Juan ketto to
1:24:51
me a few very very very rude things that Nigel had a very cool sense of humor
1:24:56
yeah but unfortunately not for not to be repeated on live
1:25:01
streaming jokes there yes uh no point answering that one because been answered
1:25:07
what uh so this is from Doc miniature what rule systems feature from another developer have you seen and thought Oh
1:25:13
that's a really good clever way of doing that definitely not the answer to this one I was in Italy I was watching uh
1:25:21
masimo Tani is a a guy that wrote games uh r games I got him to R some part of
1:25:27
volt and so so is a very game designer well an entrepreneur and uh anyway
1:25:33
volcanic guy and I remember watching this game and he's doing this I think it's World War I system where and
1:25:39
there's a there's a scatter of of a template involved and just picks a d10 Rolls the d10 and the d10 unlike all the
1:25:47
other polyhedral the other polyhedral are regular regular solid so they actually don't have a it they all kind
1:25:53
of you know the triangles all the faces are the same so there is no the direction in them the d10 is not a
1:25:59
platonic solid is not a regular solid has an arrow is actually shaped like that of course and a number in the arrow
1:26:06
so a d10 is a perfect scatter die because you just roll it and will will give you a direction and the number at
1:26:12
the same time particularly if they are the zero the ones that have zero instead of 10 so Al zero is a hit so you go this
1:26:19
is how much it SCS and that's the direction it's a zero you hit so one in you hit automatically and then you
1:26:24
scatter by you know this Direction one inch which is not a lot so you kind of hit so you just went yeah don't need
1:26:30
scatter dice d10 so small I was like stealing that yeah that totally stealing
1:26:37
that that's pretty cool yeah and it's just one dice as well being rolled not two so yeah direction and distance
1:26:43
yeah what a smart human I do like that uh uh oh my days um zamire skew Adrian
1:26:53
my high I've probably murdered your name I do apologize uh how would you update the more time rules if you had the
1:26:58
chance uh would you like to have the chance well that's that's a question for
1:27:03
twas not for me uh yeah modam is a fantastic system they
1:27:10
all kind of you know see your War band developing and tinkering and changing I think what I do with that I I would
1:27:16
approach Lego you can go oh stick this bit out custom of a Lego in fact I will approach
1:27:24
Lego yes that's what um that's what me and my friends did we were used to play um
1:27:29
sparus the yeah but the problem being was is you could upgrade the Gladiators
1:27:36
but the Miniatures for it were preset as to what they were and then Lego in them
1:27:41
little blind bags started to do Romans and then centurions and then they did a two variant of Gladiators and then you
1:27:49
had kelt and then you had a barbarian and then thing we had a whole range of weaponry and you could go you could give
1:27:55
the Gladiator the small round Shield you could give him a spear you could so in the end we could actually put Lego
1:28:01
figures on and the great thing is as well is that in the game uh in the fight in the arena there was a decapitation so
1:28:07
you could actually the person who owned the game hated me my bestie for this he
1:28:13
went you ruining the game because you've got Lego figures go but it actually does a better job of describing the Weaponry
1:28:19
than than you than this static figure can do yeah I I very similar to well not
1:28:25
quite the arena stuff but I there's a set of rules called brick quest which was hero Quest but with Lego oh genius
1:28:32
um but you could like and I did it with my mates and I literally just gave them like a a box of heads a box of bodies a
1:28:37
box of legs box weapons go make your character so they made the character and give it what they wanted like what he going to be a wizard and stuff and
1:28:42
literally everything was made out of Lego so even like your um your character sheet was Lego so it was like so many
1:28:49
like red like Lego bricks represent health and like like and stuff but I
1:28:55
also made like a little box for inventory so had like a hinge on it so as long as the lid closed flush you
1:29:01
could carry what you want oh that's cool but if it if it had like a bit of a lift on it you you you you had to get rid of
1:29:07
something you had to drop it but I also made like little mechanics cuz Lego is really good having like little mechanics
1:29:12
and things move and do St like almost like a measurement in the the blocks
1:29:18
saying about you know making the stats it's that um when we visited um we visited the uh I don't know if you've
1:29:25
been the the the Lego house which is the big interactive center it's in bindon Denmark where where they're based we
1:29:31
went we you go in and you just spend whole day there but it it they when you eat your dinner they give you your menu
1:29:38
and then there is a pack of lego and you have a board and then you go well I'm
1:29:44
going to have chips so you put yellow a yellow strip on the board and you're going to go and fish which is a blue
1:29:50
strip and then the green to go with it and then you just build your meal and then next to you there is an iPad built
1:29:57
into the the wall and you just take the thing and you just plug it in the bottom of it and then literally goes into
1:30:03
animation and you'll see Lego figures driving a truck a forklift with a big piece of
1:30:10
broccoli on it and then and then you just see them start to build your dinner and then they go go and collect your
1:30:16
dinner and you walk over and at the very top of the ceiling there is a rolling um
1:30:21
rolling sort of like a slide if you will and you stand there and then these large
1:30:27
Lego boxes which are like look like an enormous 6x2 brick just come rolling
1:30:33
down and then when they roll all the way to the bottom there is two robots which are made out of all bits you recognize
1:30:39
but massively oversized if I remember rightly might have Chef hats on and then it drops in front of them and then they
1:30:45
grab your brick and then they push it down more rollers and it ends up with this weird plastic brick and then when you go down and open it all your dinner
1:30:51
is inside it it's really really bizarre and and you know what the Lego house was amazing it was absolutely amazing but if
1:30:58
you say to any of our the four of us that went you know me wife and with two children you say what was the best thing Lego house everyone goes Builder me
1:31:04
dinner build me dinner was the best thing in there yeah I mean that S I was going to ask like because it's going
1:31:09
down this slide thing does it like get no it's like you know um you know you know rollers it's it's so it's very
1:31:16
you know so it's very so it so you know it doesn't come down and it's you all over you know like like that you know
1:31:24
but so it does this so it keeps it you know it's a very very slow and then it rolls down but the idea you just build
1:31:30
it with bricks I think is really cool I've got um a couple more questions on mine I bet yours is a bit more updated for some reason won't update anymore but
1:31:37
um Scott Gray is saying as a player what's your favorite game and favorite Army do you have any favorite games to
1:31:42
play and have any favorite armies are we talking sorry just any game do you have a favorite game and a a favorite Army
1:31:48
within that game that you like to like to play if you stick to work ship definitely love I mean probably in terms
1:31:55
of smaller games I love blood ball I really love bloodb as and I think jeris
1:32:01
did a masterpiece with that it's just great he's got the best bit of wargaming and board gaming into one roll it one
1:32:07
thing just lovely so in blood B I would play scaven
1:32:12
surpris so that I guess in F Army uh in in Bol action I tend to
1:32:21
to use Americans is in US Army it's because as I always said B action for me is a
1:32:26
Hollywood portrays Hollywood movies B of Brothers is you know saving Pro Ryan so
1:32:33
you know I grew up with the you know the Americans are the good guys kind of thing in my head and there there you go
1:32:38
that's that's what I play I tend to play the good guys in in battles which you know I let's not go political I
1:32:44
understand reality is a bit more noan than that but in general I think world war to I like that that P so difficult
1:32:52
so many favorite armies I love Elder in 40K I have a huge Elder Army still have
1:32:58
yeah maybe one day I'll start Play g game so I don't know yeah that would be a good time oh
1:33:05
yeah you got some more questions on there then Pat um or is that all of them I think I think uh well I like that's
1:33:12
right yeah I could I could take your pH I think we might have got through most of them uh I've scroll down to the B oh
1:33:19
yes oh there's only a couple more that are missing that's fine uh is that the same game gamer Cadet
1:33:24
what do Studios look for in rules right uh rules writers SL games designers so
1:33:30
obviously when you're pitching yourself out to to anything they particularly looking for well my advice would be
1:33:36
working your person skills your soft skills because I think that is the most
1:33:41
important thing being a nice guy being somebody that people want to work with and have find it easy to work with and
1:33:48
even you know want to work with because it's fun so it's if you want to work in a company as as as an employee uh
1:33:55
because you spend most of your life there you know five days a week full-time thing you really want to be a
1:34:02
nice person a easygoing friendly person that is fun to work with because your
1:34:07
skills can be trained yeah you can learn yeah I have learned all the game design
1:34:13
I know from Rick prisley Jer Johnson all you know all the the team there and the
1:34:18
chambers and so you can learn skills but if you're not a nice person people don't
1:34:25
want to work with you regardless of how skilled you are uh so that would be my advice is just be a nice guy and learn
1:34:32
and yeah I think the learning attitude is important yeah be a nice guy thinking you know whatever I learned today ask
1:34:39
yourself that every time learn things so that's what I think is most important specifically I mean yes what what do you
1:34:46
want in a game designer well yeah obviously having skills to do with game design is that in play lot of games
1:34:52
would be the other advice knowing a lot of uh other games in the in the same area gives you a knowledge that you can
1:34:59
use but yeah know I think so skills are as important if not more important than your actual skill skills yeah that can
1:35:06
be taught that can be learned well it definitely helps build the environment around you as well doesn't it so it makes things a lot uh a lot easier to to
1:35:13
do stuff I mean I certainly remember like for it was weird there was don't know if you remember this like we used
1:35:18
to get feedback sessions out to give feedback to everybody there was like these forms had to go out around around
1:35:24
the studio and uh someone wrote on mine like oh you need to be more firm cuz you're a bit too laidback and this on
1:35:30
you and I was like okay so I'll try to be more firm and I got another one from the same person saying you're too firm you need to like chill out it I was like
1:35:35
oh my God I don't know what do you want I'm trying so hard right now I think I
1:35:40
think I know the problem I'm the same I I tend to go friendly friendly friendly friendly friendly
1:35:46
aggressive I don't have the midr where you assertive I can do Asser I can go friendly or aggressive I don't think
1:35:52
I've ever seen aggressive Bia I need to see that not often not often but you he's not pretty uh going to lead out
1:35:58
with the last one which is just to you know stoke your ego a bit more uh why are Lord of the Rings rules so good at
1:36:04
20 years after they are still the same is there any unit in that range that you have special love for we know what that is it's going to be Rohan isn't it Rohan
1:36:11
yes Rohan uh I play with the Rohan did you play a Rohan like in the film I I'm
1:36:18
sure I heard that sorry let me let
1:36:24
me you know on the base you know on the base learn I I'll bring the base in so
1:36:31
see that's [Laughter] aesio that was great well um that's all
1:36:37
our questions from the patrons um so thank you guys for checking those through uh lovely humans it's always
1:36:42
nice to see our our patrons usually I'm surprised with the cheese one this this
1:36:48
this time around it was very complicated more left in sens than normally is you can say there's blue
1:36:55
cheese throughout all my game smell blue cheese and blue cheese no
1:37:03
thank you for coming on the show thank you for sharing your stuff as well and obviously what river horse is working on when are we looking at uh what's the
1:37:09
when are we looking at Ghost and the shell what do we think is the next year 24 will start there's old range of
1:37:15
products to be done so we we could go card game roleplay game War game board
1:37:22
game so that we can do them all and we will do them all just in which order still to be worksome and it will all
1:37:27
depend timing will depend on approval we just started so don't know exactly
1:37:33
because yeah depends how fast the the approval goes well with the love for the film I'm massively looking forward to
1:37:39
really am need any play testers that can be a yes yes yes yes up
1:37:46
on my Ghost in the Shell then would it I'll bring I'll um I'll bring me me notebook along give me briefcase the one
1:37:53
that's got the machine gun built into the top of it can you fire it whilst the briefcase is closed no they the they don't in the
1:38:01
cartoon it's like the uh you know like the way you know some uh assault rifles
1:38:06
have a of a you know like the M16 that's a handle well it's the handle is in the
1:38:12
handle you press the button and the the briefcase Falls away in the machine gun side it's just a it's a bit of a just a
1:38:17
really cool scene at the beginning of f smart like that things well thank you very much for for coming on it's been
1:38:23
great great thank you very much and good luck with River horse and obviously Ghost in the
1:38:30
Shell thank you very much may your labyrinth sales forever be strong

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How to make the best miniature Games in the world: Alessio Cavatore

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