#596; Stanley the Trader

Comic Transcripts

PRUDENCE: Let me get this straight.
I sent you off with MAGIC BEANS that can access the world of the GIANTS.
And you TRADED them? For a COW?!

PRUDENCE: Do you know how LONG it took me to CULTIVATE those magic beans?
They had to be spliced. And selected. And bred. And enchanted.
We had a PLAN, Stanley. We were going to go to the LAND OF THE GIANTS and PLUNDER their kingdom!

STANLEY: B-but I thought with a COW we could maybe–
PRUDENCE: Could WHAT, Stanley?
WHAT could we have done with a MANGY OLD COW that we couldn’t have done a HUNDRED TIMES OVER with a giant’s GIANT COW?

PRUDENCE: I swear! You and your THOUGHTS!
…Where IS that old cow, anyway?
STANLEY: That’s what I’ve been trying to SAY!
I TRADED it. For a MAGIC ANTHILL.
PRUDENCE: …A MAGIC anthill?
STANLEY: The ANTS
NEVER STOP

{{header: swap for WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{Alt-text: They form a long red line anchoring nightmares to the core of the Earth. I thought it would be a good trade}}

#596; Stanley the Trader 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!