#887; Further Adventures of the Linguistics Major

Comic Transcripts

[[The MONOCLED LINGUIST returns, in:]]

CAPTION: Further Adventures of THE LINGUISTICS MAJOR WITH A USELESS DEGREE!

MONOCLED LINGUIST: I know the difference between uralic and altaic!

[[A BONNETED DAMSEL observes an offpanel table, the linguist behind her.]]

BONNETED DAMSEL: Oh, man, Cindy just DECIMATED that jello salad.
MONOCLED LINGUIST: Oh? She only ate a TENTH of it?
MONOCLED LINGUIST: ‘Decimate’ is from the Latin ‘decimus’ or ‘tenth.’ Same root as DECIMAL, a system of counting by tens.

MONOCLED LINGUIST: Similarly, a ‘decision’ is a narrowing of your future down to one of ten potential paths.
MONOCLED LINGUIST: METAPHORICALLY speaking.
MONOCLED LINGUIST: A ‘declaration’ is to make clear what was once only TEN PERCENT clear.
MONOCLED LINGUIST: And a ‘decline’ is traditionally a shallow grade of about TEN PERCENT.

BONNETED DAMSEL: Dare I ask about ‘deception’?
MONOCLED LINGUIST: Why THAT’S one word I do NOT know

#887; Further Adventures of the Linguistics Major 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!