David Malki !

The Machine of Death card game is GOING NUTS

My heart has been racing at about 200 beats per minute nonstop for the last four days and I can’t get it to quiet down. Why? Because our Machine of Death card game Kickstarter hit its funding goal in its first 16 hours, doubled its funding the next day, tripled it the next day, and just hit $90K a few minutes ago. It’s…intense.

If you’re curious about the game, check out our first gameplay video (above or here). There are lots of different ways to play the game, depending on your preferences, but this is a good example round.

I’ve been posting video updates every day as I increasingly try to process what’s happening. Already we’ve smashed through tons of stretch goals and have approximately doubled the number of game cards going to every backer. (These include free bonuses that will only be included with Kickstarter orders! The retail version of the game, when it goes up for sale this summer, will come with fewer cards.)

Pledgers have also unlocked THREE FREE PREVIEW STORIES from the upcoming Machine of Death sequel, This is How You Die! You can go read them right now for free:

“OLD AGE, SURROUNDED BY LOVED ONES” by ’Nathan Burgoine
“ROCK AND ROLL” by Toby W. Rush
“DROWNING BURNING FALLING FLYING” by Grace Seybold

I’m thrilled and humbled by the incredible response to the campaign and I apologize if it’s all I’m able to talk about for a little while. Ryan warned me, after his own campaign blasted into the stratosphere, that I wouldn’t be able to get anything else done while this was going on. “Pshaw,” I thought to myself. “Surely I can continue all other things apace while answering dozens of backer questions per hour, crunching data to try and track the campaign’s progress, corresponding with artists and game manufacturers, and making video updates!”

It’s a challenge I’m up for! LET’S DO IT, LET’S ROCK THIS THING

The Machine of Death card game is here!

I’m so pleased to announce that the Machine of Death card game I’ve been working on for over a year is now live on Kickstarter!

It’s a collaborative storytelling game where you and your fellow players have to come up with absurd, Rube-Goldberg-type scenarios to kill fictional targets. Sort of like a Road Runner cartoon, except instead of a hungry coyote it’s YOU, and instead of the desert, you could be in SPACE or ON A ZEPPELIN or UNDERWATER or IN A MACY’S or AT GRANDMA’S HOUSE. (The Acme catalog is basically the same though.)

I’m super proud of this game and I hope you like it too! I’m also really proud of the video we made, which I think is a lot of fun. (Posted above, or, if you’re on a feed, here it is on Kickstarter.) Hooray!

Machine of Death Volume 2 updates

For those keeping score at home, our second volume in the Machine of Death series, This is How You Die, is still scheduled to come out in July, premiering at the San Diego Comic-Con! We’re really excited for it. But in the interim, while we wait, Kris Straub and I have been working on something else: a Machine of Death card game!

It’s called Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination and it’s as wacky and ridiculous as the book is serious and reflective. I’ve been developing this game for over a year now, and I’m thrilled to announce that we’ll be launching a Kickstarter for it this week! It’s finally done and I’m excited for you to see it.

Also, over at the MOD site, I’ve just posted an interview that Kris conducted with Ryan North and me on the subject of This is How You Die. We talk a little about how we chose stories for the second book, as well as some of what we’re looking forward to about it. Here’s the link!

Check out: ‘Carrier’ documentary series

Recently I was poking around the PBS channel on my Roku and found the 2008 documentary series Carrier. I like airplanes, and I wanted to be a Navy pilot when I was a kid, so my wife and I checked out the show out of curiosity.

I was expecting some cool stuff about fighter planes, but it turned out to be much more than that — in a great way. For six months, a documentary crew traveled on an entire deployment with the USS Nimitz as it went from San Diego to Iraq, as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The filmmakers have what seems like total access to the ship, and they follow the fortunes of several dozen individual sailors, from hotshot pilots to mess cooks, missile technicians to office jockeys, throughout the entire voyage.

It’s got lots of airplanes flying around, but it’s a very human show, about the people — from all walks of life, of diverse political leanings, and with very different personalities — who all have to live and work together in a hunk of metal in the middle of the ocean.

Here’s an LA Times article from a few years back:

The American public can watch what may be one of the riskier and more unconventional public relations strategies in U.S. naval history unfold on PBS’ Carrier, a 10-hour documentary series about life aboard an aircraft carrier during wartime….

Unlike with its one-dimensional recruitment ads that invite young Americans to “Accelerate Your Life,” the Navy did not pay for a camera crew to chronicle the warship’s six-month deployment that began and ended in Coronado, and covered 57,000 ocean miles including a combat mission into the Persian Gulf. The Navy paid instead by surrendering almost total editorial control to the filmmakers, who promised military officials they were out to capture the human stories inside the nuclear-powered ship’s massive steel hulls.

It’s super interesting, and I highly recommend the show, whether you’re usually interested in military-type stuff or not.

Carrier on YouTube / Carrier on Netflix

It’s 10 hours long, and since it’s a PBS show, there’s no commercial breaks, so it’s ten full hours. Make a weekend of it.

BONUS LINK: Woody Allen on Candid Camera, circa 1960. Guys I just love this video so much.