#1577; The Objective Oracle

Comic Transcripts

[[PEMSBREY sits, glum and dejected, at his favorite table. ROBOTECCA, his automaton assistant with huge naturals, stands waiting to give her sage advice.]]

PEMSBREY: Robotecca, I ain’t feeling too good.
ROBOTECCA: My programmed response is to say words that express a sympathy I can not truly feel.
PEMSBREY: I get it. Ain’t too different from people in that way.

PEMSBREY: Everyone’s out to shut me up or shut me down. And I mean, EVERYONE! I live the most PERSECUTED life IMAGINABLE!
ROBOTECCA: This information is noted and added to memory.

PEMSBREY: Why are things so HARD. Why can’t I just be HAPPY?
ROBOTECCA: It’s a good question—one worthy of serious contemplation. It seems like your feelings are quite justified.

ROBOTECCA: After all, everyone is out to shut you up or shut you down. Astonishing as it may sound, you live the most persecuted life imaginable.
PEMSBREY (agitated): I KNEW IT!

#1577; The Objective Oracle 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!