#853; The Cycle of Despair

Comic Transcripts

CAPTION: 2012

Boy in a top hat: Listen, Pops! The comics business is changing! We don’t charge for our comics! Anyone with a computer can read ’em for free! We build the business around books and merchandise.
Fat man: Nooo my precious business model

CAPTION: 2042

Girl: Get with it, grandpa! The comics business is changing! We don’t charge for our merchandise! Anyone with a fabber can 3d-print ’em for free! We build the business around raising custom livestock!
Boy who has now grown to a man in a top hat: Nooo my precious business model

{{header: adapt at WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: 2072: “It’s UNFAIR that a PROFESSIONAL LIVESTOCKER should have to figure out how to gelatinize brainwave cubeforms JUST to make a living these days!”}}

#853; The Cycle of Despair 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!