#558; In which a Camel is merely ordinary

Comic Transcripts

IQBAL: Hello sir for order a camel?
REGINALD: Capital! Thank you! Just one question before I set off. How HIGH can this beast fly?
Are we talking MOUNTAIN-VAULTING altitudes or is it more a GRAZE-THE-STEEPLES type of affair?

IQBAL: Fly?
REGINALD: You know, SOAR. Flappity-flap like a bird, or however it does it.
I admit to being a bit foggy on the KINESIOLOGY.
IQBAL: This camel is NEVER fly. Can not even JUMP good.
REGINALD: Ah. I SEE. The brochure was misleading.
Very well. How deep can it DIVE? And will I breathe INSIDE the hump, or…?

IQBAL: No! NOT for swim! This camel is DROWNING if you swim. Weak legs! You lose your deposit!
REGINALD: POGO, then. CAN the camel POGO.
IQBAL: Po-
POGO, sir?
REGINALD: You know! SPROING SPROING HOPPITY-HOP! CAN the camel POGO!

IQBAL: Sir this camel is TOTALLY incapable of any pogo. Its feet is NEVER fit on a human pogo, and QUADRUPED CAMEL POGOS is a thing science does NOT invented yet.
REGINALD: Hang it all! Then WHAT is this blasted camel GOOD for?
CAMEL (thinking): Geez that’s what I’M starting to wonder.

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{{Alt-text: We put temporary authorization on your credit card in case camel comes back drowned}}

#558; In which a Camel is merely ordinary transcribed by in

The past few weeks have been a frenzy of assembling the very laborious, very bespoke first print run of NOODLE BATTLE, the puzzle game I am releasing this weekend at PAX West in Seattle!

PAX has an event called the PNW Tabletop Game Market (Saturday night ONLY), which is a curated selection of short-run games from local designers. As I’ve mentioned in this space before, I applied for a space in this fall’s event mainly as a way to force myself to finish a new game. And here it is!

The drawings are all by Jason Poland, good pal and cartoonist of My Dad Is Dracula. Jason played an early version of this game at Alaska Robotics Comics Camp this spring, and really liked it!

So I said, “Do you want to help me make it?” And so he has! It was his idea to make all the characters fun little animals, and I think it adds a ton of charm.

Because this edition is limited-run, it has been incredibly labor-intensive to make! The boxes and cards were made by a game factory in the usual fashion, but separately. The blank tiles were made by a woodworker dude out of Connecticut. For each game, we have had to:

Cut a piece of plastic and install the box window
Paint all the tiles, hundreds at a time
Apply a sticker to both sides of every tile
Apply stickers to the box (we couldn’t get the box back printed in time, so the whole back side of the box is a sticker too)
Apply the “Nutrition Facts” sticker, which was a late suggestion by my kid that I just had to run with
Fold up the rule sheet (they come from the printer as big strips of paper)
Put all the components into the box and seal it all up

I knew it would be a lot of work and would require some inefficient, expensive compromises AND I WAS RIGHT. But the final product is turning out great, which is the important thing!!

I will have 50 copies with me (if all goes well) at PAX, and then between now and the holidays we will be putting together additional copies to round out this first edition.

I will announce additional copies on Patreon first, once they are available online!! And here too, naturally, before long.

You can also sign up here if you’d like me to email you once the game is available online!