#654; In which Cheese vintages

Comic Transcripts

JACK: ‘Aged cheddar.’ So apparently there’s crates of cheddar sitting around somewhere, just aging. What if society ends and no new cheddar is crated away to age? How would we remnants of humanity decide when to eat what limited supply remains?

LOIS: Actually, philosophers call that the Oenophile’s Quandary! Presented with something that, over time, increases in quality (like wine) or in value (like money in a savings account), when’s the right time to use it? If you’re saving for a rainy day, how hard does it have to rain before that’s it? And as the item gains worth, wouldn’t it have to rain harder and harder before it makes sense to pop that cork?

LOIS: And isn’t it good to exercise a healthy discipline of delayed gratification? If in doubt, save it? After all, you never know when you’ll need that cheddar! Like you said – the world ends, and now you’re king! Won’t you be glad you showed restraint?

[[LATER:]]
JACK: I talked to some philosophers, and none of them had heard of the ‘Oenophile’s Quandary’!
LOIS: Oh, did I say philosophers? I meant my grandparents

{{alt-text: He ended up looking QUITE the fool at that philosophers’ cocktail party.}}

#654; In which Cheese vintages transcribed by in

[[LATER:]]
JACK: I talked to some philosophers, and none of them had heard of the ‘Oenophile’s Quandary’!
LOIS: Oh, did I say philosophers? I meant my grandparents

{{alt-text: He ended up looking QUITE the fool at that philosophers’ cocktail party.}}

#654; In which Cheese vintages 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!