#424; Welcome to College

Comic Transcripts

GIBSON GIRL: …NEXT on our CAMPUS TOUR, we’ll visit the MAVIS P. JOHNSON LEARNING CENTER.

FATHER: “Learning center?”
GIBSON GIRL: It’s like a–what other schools might call a BUILDING, except instead of classrooms, it’s got MODULES.
For example, the JANICE S. BYERTON ARTS & LETTERS MODULE, the LAWRENCE N. SANDERS MODULE FOR MUSIC, the CHESTER & DORIS CODBERG MODULE FOR THE STUDY OF MODULAR EDUCATION.
VERY popular module.

GIBSON GIRL: Do you know your MAJOR HERMAN B. BELKNAPP MAJOR yet?
FATHER: We’re still undecided.
GIBSON GIRL: Great–so let me show you the WILFRED Q. & BARBARA K. WADDLESWORTH-STOATES RETREAT FOR ACADEMIC CONTEMPLATION & PERSONAL SELF-ACTUALIZATION!

[[The “retreat” is a chair perched on top of a stool, with a plaque leaning against it.]]
STUDENT: I want to major in Making Inscribed Plaques.
GIBSON GIRL: VERY big industry right now.

#424; Welcome to College 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!