#618; We are all Social Creatures

Comic Transcripts

[[A bearded man sits on a bench, holding a cellular phone to his ear]]
Bearded Man: …just checking to see if you guys were going out tonight. Call me!
Bearded Man (internal monologue): They won’t call! I *know* they went out without me! They *never* include me in anything they do!

[[The phone is no longer visible]]
Bearded Man (internal monologue): Like when *George* came to visit. They all went to that club that looks like a submarine.
Bearded Man (internal monologue): George is *my* friend, too! And they *knew* I wanted to go check out *The Dive Bar*!
Bearded Man (internal monologue): But *no*! Stuck home *alone* again like a *chump*! Like a walking, talking *chumpanzee*!

[[A man in a turban appears, kneeling at the bearded man’s side]]
Bearded Man (internal monologue): Now I’m gonna be here *all* night waiting for a call which is *never* going to come. Talk about the *height* of inconsiderate?
Man in Turban: *AN EPIDEMIC HAS KILLED THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE LEAVING ONLY YOU AND ME ALIVE*

Man in Turban: C-can I come in?
Bearded Man: Nnnnnah, I think I got a library book I should be working on.

{{header: go under with WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: Every fifteen minutes it goes AWHOOOOGAA and red lights flash and sprinklers come on}}

#618; We are all Social Creatures transcribed by in

Man in Turban: C-can I come in?
Bearded Man: Nnnnnah, I think I got a library book I should be working on.

{{header: go under with WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: Every fifteen minutes it goes AWHOOOOGAA and red lights flash and sprinklers come on}}

#618; We are all Social Creatures 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!