#1137; The Earthworm Bucket, Part 2 (of 4)

Comic Transcripts

[[A new challenger is discussing matters with the debater from the previous comic.]]
Storyteller: I GET it. You just want to always have the last word. Be SMARTER than anyone you talk to.
Debater: You’re referring to my advocacy of vigorous debate.
Debater: People should WANT their opinions to be able to withstand challenge!

Storyteller: In ninth grade, my friend and I made a PACT.
Storyteller: We both liked this girl, and we were both going to woo her. But we promised that we’d stay friends, no matter WHICH of us she chose.
Debater: I object to ANY use of the term ‘woo’

Storyteller: She “chose” neither of us. She had NO interest in what we were doing. But WE thought of it as an either/or proposition.
Storyteller: It’s possible for you to poke holes in someone’s arguments and STILL BE WRONG yourself.

Debater: I’m not sure what you were trying to PROVE with your parable of romantic patheticness, but if you’re expecting me to be able to RELATE to it, I have NEWS for you…
Debater: I have NEVER had a FRIEND

{{header: just between us at WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: which terrible poem of ours left anonymously on her desk will she ignore the least???}}

#1137; The Earthworm Bucket, Part 2 (of 4) 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!