Hey guys, and welcome to episode 123 of Meeple to Meeple
Publishing on hard Mode. As always, I'm PJ.
And So what we're going to do is today we're going to talk about
trying to publish your first game in this period of Division
and Discord and all of the grossness that's around.
But we're going to have a positive message for you.
I've got Sean and Michael from Glasshouse Games.
Sean, Mike, how are you guys doing?
We are. Well, I can't speak from you,
but I am. Well, I'm great.
I'm great. I'm happy to be here.
Thank you, PJ for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us.
This is. Great.
Yeah, thanks for being on. I'm really interested to just
talk to you guys. I've got so many questions about
y'all, so many questions. But I guess we should let's get
get it out of the way. Why did I invite you guys on?
Right. So y'all really like Launch a
game called Whisker Wars on May 13th, correct?
Excellent. So I thought it was really
interesting because everything that's happening right now, you
are entering, you're entering both the game community and the
game industry. So you know you're seeing it
from you've got 2 lenses that you're looking at this from 1 as
a business and another as a gamer, right?
So who wants to start off and talk a little bit about that?
I I'm happy to. You want to pop into it?
Yeah. So.
Yeah. So Sean and I and Logan, who's
not here, our third, our brain behind the operation, we're all
gamers at heart. So we've been a part of the
gaming community for as long as we can remember.
Start of the video games, then got at the tabletop.
So we are super happy to be here.
It's the best community I think I've ever been a part of.
And now we get to hopefully one day make games for that same
community we've got to enjoy for so long.
Yeah. So it's a huge motivating factor
for us to go forward to your sort of question.
It is a unfortunately volatile moment in the industry with the
sort of state of the worldwide economy and everything that's
kind of going on, it's hard to avoid.
So there is a big sort of question mark on how we are
proceeding forward. Why now is a big one.
We kind of get a lot, a lot of people don't think it's like,
oh, why are you choosing right now?
We've chosen this sort of time frame a long time ago.
Sure. We've been building up to this
moment and thankfully the ramp has been great.
We've had this kind of really motivating snowball effect of
just like growing community around us and people were really
supportive. So the moment feels right for
us. Can't say this is the same for
everyone across the board. And Sean, I can, I can see
you're itching for. Yeah, I do.
I mean, I, this always happens where you say something happens.
I want to piggyback off that. I was gonna like add to this
just, and I think we can talk about more of this later, but
the community itself. And yes, grew up in games, but
like intentionally participating in the community, right, right.
Has led to interactions and relationships that are so
uplifting and positive that I think it would take a lot more
than what's going on right now for us to be deterred from
participating in the industry. The support we've gotten, the
feedback back, the encouragement, Yeah, it's gonna
take a lot. I think it's gonna take a lot
more than. And this is not to discount.
Yeah, the industry, absolutely, absolutely.
But like, we want in and and it's for the like the people.
Like I love games. There's a million great games
out there. I'm never gonna play them all,
but I would like to meet everybody and like, play games
with those people. So like if right now that means
fighting through an uncomfortable situation with our
launch, then I'm still happy to do it.
I love it. Sean, tell me, did you also like
Michael start in video games or how did how did your journey
begin? My parents hated video games.
They're like no video games, Never, ever.
And then my uncle brought home APS 2 and that was the answer.
Little bit of yes, a little bit. I don't know if my mic is too
loud, but a little bit of yes, a little bit of no.
My dad was a big chess player, so he taught, He taught.
I have two younger brothers, so he taught me chess and then I
taught them chess from a really young age.
I'm still not great at it. It's the cruel mistress.
Yeah, I love playing, but it's not always, it doesn't always
love me back. So I started early with logic
games and stuff like that. And then like also diving early
the into fantasy, like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars were
huge. I grew up on those.
So it was always in the lexicon of my upbringing.
I played Magic the gaping before I knew how to play.
I would just look at the cards and then be like, my dragon is
obviously bigger than your dragon.
And there we go. I win and my brothers be like,
that's not fair. I won so so it was all there and
then yes and then like video games came in and just the love
of play was huge, big deal. Like the love of play.
And it still remains something I hold very dearly because it's
that one moment where you and I can relate and we can relate
outside of reality and still in a healthy way, right, right.
Without it being like, you know, there are unhealthy ways to
relate outside of reality where you just kind of absolutely off
on the range. But then.
Absolutely. This can be something healthy we
do together and something that actually contributes to our in
real life relationship, right. That has no real stakes other
than the king is missing who shall claim the the throne kind
of thing, Yeah. I love this.
That is, that is great. And I have a follow up question.
But before that, before that, I'm not going to disappoint
everyone. I have a quote from an ancient
philosopher that's relevant to what you just said.
You were talking about play has always been in your life and you
love play and everything. So this is an amazing quote from
the Greek philosopher Plato. He said that you can discover
more about a person from an hour of play than you can from a year
of conversation. I love.
That. Right, could not be more true.
Play any campaign of D&D or any TTRPG ever.
You are going to peel back so many layers of someones persona
so much faster than. Actually.
Friends in the. That is why.
That is why I'm maintain that you can't just approach the
hobby and separate the people from it, right?
I think it was couple, couple conversations episodes ago with
Laura. We were talking about community
unity and we talked about our world views and forming how we
approach games. With that in mind.
Sean's world view was defined by the game of chess and other
logic games. So I'm really curious about
that. I'm curious about that
relationship, what either soft skills or any critical thinking
that you've developed through from childhood to now that you
have found useful in trying to publish your first game in this
period. That's, I really appreciate that
question cuz it's fascinating to me.
I hadn't ever thought about that.
Like, I guess our upbringings are very much shaped by what we,
well, obviously what we consume, but then like how we play, where
we watch video games, board games, whatever, movies, books.
It's funny, I'm caught by this question because Mike's our
logic guy. Mike does the game mechanics.
I was gonna say I have a This is a great question and I, without
even ever thinking about it before the question was asked,
know the answer to what mine is. I was.
Are you gonna guess?
No, I'm. Not gonna get this for you.
I was gonna relate. I was gonna say go ahead and
then I'll follow. Up I I was raised competitively
100% of the youngest of five siblings.
I played a bunch of sports growing up.
So my competitive nature seeps into my very persona regardless
of the type of game I play. Friendly competition, of course,
nothing too, too crazy. But as sort of Sean is saying,
as being the sort of logic scheme, mechanic, brain behind
the operation, in a way we all are.
But like, I like to take that as like my slice of priority that
definitely fuels my portion of what I do.
Or just like us pushing forward as a company or as a business or
as a game publishing in an unknown time.
It's like I see the challenge and just cannot help but want to
overcome it no matter how hard it seems like.
So yeah, I'm gonna interrupt you for a second because Mike is.
Mike is like, hey, yeah, I'm your friend.
And then you play and he looks, he moves into, he moves your
friend, and then he says you sit down at any game.
It could be Uno, it could be Twilight Imperium.
He's gonna want to destroy you on a molecular level for sure.
And then and then, and then if he doesn't win, no offense,
Mike, if you don't win, you get upset.
It's like. It's all in good taste.
We'll play a game that we made
ourselves and he's like, this game's terrible.
I lost. This game's horrible.
Who made this game? I have a feeling, I have a
feeling that if Michael and I are at a game table together,
I'm going to frustrate Mike so much because I find a way of
taking a competitive game and turning it into a cooperative
game. CJ, you and I would get along so
well. I want to see this in action
because there's nothing that makes me happier than watching
Steam come out next ears. But I will say, to bring this
back around to your question, I was like, whoa, what is it
'cause I did. I grew up on chess and I grew up
on MTG. But I think for me, what drives
my love of game design, and this is a big question, I guess, is
that, and I talk about this quite a bit, Mike, you'll
recognize this, the beautiful enmeshment between mechanics and
thematics. Chess as an example, is an
awesome example. And I hadn't actually ever
thought about it until you asked me this question, what the
blending of mechanics and thematics are.
And and I'll for anyone who doesn't understand what I'm
saying, is like, there's this moment where when a piece or a
piece of a game, I guess that's what the same thing when a piece
is mechanics match, it's thematics.
There is like a beautiful harmony, yes, makes sense and it
feels good. For example, the night in chess,
it's a horse for anyone who doesn't play and it's the only
piece that can leap over other pieces and has this very
sporadic kind of movement style. It's not sporadic at all, but
for the first time player they'll be like what?
Right. But it's the only piece that can
leap and it's it's great because it's a horse.
Why wouldn't it be able to jump over things there are?
Pawns and pawns can only move one, can only move one.
Feels like the weakest type 1 so.
Exactly. So the queen, did you know the
queen? I think it was Queen Isabella.
The queen is based off of Queen Isabella of Spain because she
was so powerful. Yeah.
She had so much influence in Europe that they were like, this
piece needs to be stronger. She only used to be able to move
one at a time. And then Queen Isabella
dominated the Europe and the Americas.
Was she the, I believe Europe. And they were like, this piece
is now stronger. We're gonna we're gonna make her
superior. Yeah.
And I just think that's one. That's a great little history
fun thing. But two, That's another.
Blending of yeah, of the of the mechanics.
And so anytime Mike and I are coming up with things and he
comes up with a brilliant mechanic, I'm like, that's
great. Who does that belong to in terms
of like Whisker Wars, for example?
Yes, which character does that go to?
Because thematically that doesn't work or thematically
that's perfect over here because OK, you're pulling from the
graveyard. The Gekromancer is a necromancer
type character. A pull from the graveyard
mechanic fits beautifully with the Gekromancer because of that
harmony. And that's where I love to.
That's like where I love to sit in terms of game design.
That's like my favorite spy. So Mike is the game mechanics
when you're working on a game and then you're the theme guy
trying to match it if you can. Yeah.
And it's not always in that order.
Sometimes it sure, sometimes it ebbs and flows and but yeah, a
lot of the time it'll be me being it'll be me being like,
what about this? And Mike's like, no, that's
broken. If you were to boil down our
game design process to the list forum, Sean texting the group
chat with like, what if we had a game that was this set in this
crazy world and all of them did this and we're like, great, 20%
of that's awesome. Get rid of the 80% and let's
work on that 20%. And then he's like, yeah, OK,
fine. Yeah, but then every time you
get rid of the 80%, that 80% just happens to include giant
robots, and it makes me upset. Get.
The Max out of here he.
Always. He always axe the Max.
What do you have against Max? What's?
Yeah, what do you have against Max?
Mike, I love Max, I love Max, but Whisker Wars just would not
have been as good if there were Max in it.
Maybe an expansion 18? So, so I only know what I've
seen on your Instagram through all the reels, right and
everything. And I want to talk about the art
in a minute. Oh yeah.
But why couldn't a cute, whimsical animal not operate a
mech of some sort? That is a good point.
Right. I mean, I feel like that's a
possibility. There's certainly if the way
that we put it to a swage, A swage Sean's fears of not being
able to play and have the cool things he wants in the future of
his scores. We say if we get to a certain
point, you can have whatever you want, but.
You're making me out to be like the kid who wants candy.
And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll get candy later, Yeah. You know the kid wants candy.
Let's be honest. Candy.
So let's talk about. So in Whisker Wars, it's I
forgot the name of the the the realm.
What is? Supetra.
Yeah, but let's say if we took
Supatra and put it in a historical context of Earth,
what time period is it? Would you say it parallels I'm?
Looking like because I have an answer.
Well, answer for me. For me it is.
Oh man, I'm gonna this is gonna show my total history nerd to
me. It is after 1110.
It's right after 1066. Battle of Hastings.
Battle of Hastings and the pushing of the the Norwegians
out of England at the OK Battle of Stamford Bridge I believe.
So, OK, so we're talking about the following 11th, 12th
century. All right, so here we here's my
follow up question to get back to next.
Would it not then be possible, Michael?
Would it not be possible? I don't know how this ended up
being me putting you on the spot, but.
I love it. Here's your future expansions,
right? You could then take your
fictional realm forward in the future, right?
As technology develops. So you could do gunpowder and
then you could introduce that type of weaponry and then
eventually air power, sea power, and then ultimately the kids
going to get his candy and you can have a mech expansion,
right? So, so cool.
That's. 4 expansions right there that you could release in the
future when your trade board might be over.
Let's hope. I we can't wait for both of
those things. One, expand to the Hazmat X and
two, for this trade war to be over because then all of us will
be happy. Yes, Yeah.
I am with you, PJ. That sounds like exactly the
trajectory we should be on. And yeah, they always have to
poke fun at my anytime I see a mech or something, it's just
kind of a big Titanfall fan, like OG Titanfall and Titanfall
2 and then Armored Core and all that stuff.
And so, yeah, that's a good point.
They could have a mech. There should be mechs.
So my next question is for the both of you.
So here's one where I'm actually, this is more of a
formal question where I would expect both of you to answer.
But I'm serious. What what games are you?
What board games are you outside of Whisker wars, obviously,
because you're probably are you enjoying playing right now, like
what's on your table recently? Great.
I'm not going to ask you what your what your favorite game.
Pick one. Yeah.
Yeah, but what are you enjoying right now?
What's inspiring you today? So I, what was it?
Saxon plug? This past year picked up Kelp
and I've been playing kelp a lot with my partner.
I love that freaking game. It is such a unique blend of a
couple different fun thematics in a way that at first I thought
it would be more overwhelming, but after the first game you're
like, Nah, I get it. I like this.
I don't know what there has to be said that I only get to play
the octopus, so my fiance only gets to play the shark, but I
love it and it's too much. It's a lot of fun just trying to
skedaddle my way through different bushes away from her.
So that is. And the thematic, it's, yeah,
it's another game where it's like the like, to Sean's point
earlier, where the thematic matches the mechanics of the
game. Absolutely.
Perfectly. Perfectly.
Yeah, so welcome a quick. A quick shout out to Carl, the
designer of the game who we had on here before we in fact
launched on Kickstarter. We had him on because y'all are
new to the show. You have to go back to the audio
only episodes. Yeah, right on.
OK, which you can all find on YouTube, but but yeah, because
we only started doing video with episode 100, which was October
of last year. Oh, very calm.
Right on. Yeah, but I know that Carl
listens regularly, so he's going to enjoy the shout outs of Kelp.
That's a good one. Awesome.
That's really good and ties in with everything we've just
talked about in terms of trying to marry theme and mechanics.
What about you, Sean? What are you?
What are you enjoying right now? Another where beautiful marriage
of human mechanics. We play this.
We actually played it recently, Mike, he knows what I'm gonna
say. And it's unmanaged by
Restoration Games and Rob Dabio, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's them in Restoration games.
Unmatched is awesome. So Unmatched is great and my
love of it comes from that Thematics, mechanics, synergy.
So it's asymmetrical characters. Everyone gets their own short
deck. It's an arena battler, so
someone who grew up like playing Halo 2 or Halo three in a small
arena, a force to fight each other.
And then the characters are awesome.
So it's all like open IP. So it's like Red Riding Hood.
This is my favorite matchup is Red Riding Hood versus Beowulf
cuz it's Red Riding Hood versus the Wolf, but it's not the wolf,
it's Beowulf. I think it's really cool.
Wow. And then each each character has
their own kind of like play style.
So the set that I have is the Shakespearean set.
OK. So you have Shakespeare versus
the three Fates versus Hamlet versus Titania.
And for a great example is Hamlet.
At the beginning of your turn, you can either to be or not to
be. And if you to be, you draw extra
cards. And if you're not to be, you
deal extra damage. So it's like very simple
mechanics like that that are perfect for the character.
Yeah, we just played recently and I think Mike had a good
time. Right, Mike. .9% one I'm pretty
sure as the three. The three are great, a lot of
fun, love that game, love winning a game.
Have I said that maybe? You have you have made that
very. Clear, Very clear.
Yeah, Yeah. What?
Again, another question for the two of you.
What games, if any? I'm sure they're a list inspired
you in the development of Whisker Wars.
Like, you played a game and you're like, Oh my God, yeah,
yeah. So we are definitely at least
for a lot of like abilities and sort of there's a couple
different games. The short list is like MTG,
Magic the Gathering. We're all all three of us are
Magic the gathering players. We love weekly semi weekly
commander. And we wanted the whole sort of
intention of Whisker Wars was to create this sort of entry level,
almost scaffolding like game that can take newer players to
the genre and give them that sort of brain, scratch that itch
for more of those complex battlers like MTG, Yu-gi-oh,
Lucana, Pokémon. So there's definitely a lot of
inspiration from MTG in that sense.
And there's another simpler sense.
There's also the inspiration from D&D, which is one of our
favorite games. Sean and I are in a campaign
together. 2 campaigns together, hilariously.
Three, dude, I run you through Lancer.
Well, that's right, DNDDN. DD2 DND campaigns together where
we took the Super easy to understand initiative system of
just, you know, and we made that sort of the core loop of how the
actual cards play and the timing of the cards themselves.
So it's just super easy. Look for the highest number on
the table, that card goes so on and so forth.
So we sort of took that idea from DND and then I think
there's probably other inspirations too, but I think
those are the two quick biggest ones that come to mind.
Sean, is there anything you want to add to that in terms of,
yeah, there was a. Game Well, one.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you I'm just like
my brain's reeling. Yeah, you mentioned D&D mic and
I was like what? And I was like yeah, that is
like we talk about this all the time that yeah.
And I love that idea of like the game engine, right.
The core loop. This was something that I think
JB Stegmire. Talked about.
Probably. Yeah, the core loop of like,
what's the core of your game? Why is it fun?
Why do I want to keep playing? These are really important
questions. And that being like a simple
mechanic of like an engine that simply drives a game from
whatever's next. And then the other thing has to
go and it has to go and you have to continue playing the game.
So it's like it kind of cuts down on analysis paralysis and
all these other things like drag games out.
It's like the game is forcing you to play it at a certain
speed, which I think is really. Fun.
OK. The other game that I was gonna
bring up was it was a game that I played a while ago, which we
had some inspiration from it. They do a nice job with their
health trackers and that we were like, this is great.
This is a really, we can get into this later, too.
But it's a really great, from a manufacturing standpoint, a
really smart way to do this. And it was a game called Battle
Wizards. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Battle Wizards, Yeah. And for all those who haven't
played, it's a very adult game. Careful around kids, but just a
fun anecdote. Fun anecdote with that.
I played with a bunch of my first time I ever played.
I played with a bunch of actors and they had they had they had
the most rule where if you didn't cast your spell in your
wizard's voice, it didn't count. So you had all these like very
passive actors, right, with doing hilarious voices and full
bore casting spells at you across the table.
It was it was very fun. But yeah.
That's awesome. That's interesting.
So what any recent challenges outside of things we've already
talked about, talk about the challenges in the process that
you had and how you overcame them well.
I think there are a lot of challenges that so to preface,
Sean Logan and I, the Glass House team, we've been very
fortunate to have made a lot of industry connections over the
past two years, going to Packs Unplugged, talking to people at
Kickstarter. We joined the Unpub tabletop
mentorship program where we got put with who's essentially like
our Big Brother now, Ross Thompson and he many of our
friends and connections we made like to say friends cuz it
doesn't ever feel like a connection in this industry.
It's just friends and peers, but all of these friends and peers
have giving us really good advice at each sort of turning
point in the sort of journey of this process.
With all of that being said, there are so many challenges
that come up that you can never even anticipate.
And they say that and they've been saying that's like, don't
think just because you feel like you're done and you're ready
that you're just going to coast through this.
There's always going to be things that come up and I can't
think of any specific challenges right now.
I feel like every day there's challenges that we got it.
You taught yourself 2D animation because we're like like we were
like like that. That was the example I was gonna
bring up is like, we have found that we've had to learn.
We've had to learn things very quickly because of one budget
constraints and 2:00 because of timing constraints.
So we're like, OK, we could even if we had the budget, we realize
we need XYZ assets that are, for example, Blender or 2D animation
for our video. And it's like straight up, we
don't have the funds. We're a small company.
We spent most of our money on art and advertising and then
we're like OK, we need some 2D animation.
It might goes, yeah I guess I'll figure that out.
And like 2 weeks later we had like a fully functioning like
intro video. Very rudimentary, but very good.
Yeah. It's Adobe has become very a
very familiar friend of mine over the past year and change at
this point, Adobe Anime, Adobe Indesign, Logan's Virtuoso at
this point with the Photoshop and Blender.
So it's just a lot of different putting on new hats we never
knew how to wear before. These are all to my point.
These are all things that it wasn't like we came in like I
know Blender and I know Indesign let's make a game.
It was like what do we I have to learn that now, right?
They, they, they have to learn that now.
Tom's over there like I'm just gonna write stories.
So. Yeah, that was, to their credit,
like putting on a hat that had maybe never been on before and
like running with it. Right.
This is like when people, we go to game conventions all the time
and people are like, yeah, I'm a designer, like cool with who?
And they go just me. And it blows my mind.
It blows my mind. One person teams that are just
like you must be a genius. Yeah, and the.
Hardest working person I know in order to do certain like because
it doesn't even matter the weight of a game, just a
publishing process. Period is an arduous long
process. Our game is light, our game is
pretty light and the the To Do List that we put together in the
last two months before launch, I was stressed and I had the
easiest part of the list. It's like 174 action items for
like 2 calendar months just just to get before Kickstarter
launch. So any do I met my my hat is off
to anybody that does this by themselves or we have 3 and.
Still feels like a lot. Still feels like a lot.
It is a lot. So the challenge is the
obstacles are all of them. Yeah.
And I think Mike said it, which is we just didn't know.
We didn't know how much writing there'd be for, you know, this
like the social media aspect alone is just like tripping days
and days and days of launch materials.
The assets, like having to have visual assets to accompany text,
those have to be built. The video has to be built.
Outreach to media has to be done.
Like the velocity at which you travel when you're launching a
game is it's a lot for one person.
It's a lot for three people. So have you found that that
velocity because you've you're like a week, you're a week out.
We could change. Guys, has the velocity, has the
velocity going up or has there kind of been a lull?
It's going up, it's gone up. That's.
Everyone kind of said it would too.
Like as you get closer to launch, it's not going to get
easier, it's only going to get busier.
But we're also sort of hats off to all of the great people that
have given us so much advice over the past couple of months
is that we've been able to learn from these people months ago to
have this stuff done ahead of time.
So it's like we are crunching so hard to get all of these things
done a week and change out. We've been doing it for the past
month, for like a week and change out from our Kickstart
launch so that it's ready so that we're not everyday when we
get home from our normal jobs and then come home and sit at
our computers, we're doing hours of work to keep up with it every
single day. So it's like we're taking as
smart and efficient of an approach to it as possible,
which cannot be said for everyone.
And some people just don't know how much it, you know, is
involved in making a game or just launching periods.
So I'm just very fortunate that we've had that in our corner.
And to just make a last point here is like we also have A to
our to our credit, we are not afraid of asking for help.
And to their credit, we have an awesome network of people who
have said like one of Mike and Logan's friends works their full
time job is BD 3D design. So they designed our blister
tray something that like we. Would have never been able.
To we'd have never been able to do that.
And and we have one of Logan's friends is like big in graphic
design. So she's helping us with our
Kickstarter page. And this is all just people who
are just like down to help us because we're coming to them
open and honestly being like hell.
We need a hand here. Yeah.
And and that's coming from three, three of us.
So I can imagine how yeah, how doing it alone you need a lot of
help are. All three of you in Brooklyn?
No. So the.
Two of us are and then Logan's based out of Austin.
OK. That's got to be a little bit of
a challenge too, right? It's yeah.
Yeah, in a way I think the pros outweigh the cons on that one
because then we get an even sort of wider net in terms of because
like we love play to, I personally love play testing
events. I love like when we just get to
get together with the community, host an event at a local game
store or a cafe or something like that and then just bring
other designers or just like friends, family together.
So like we get to do that now out of two hubs, Boston and New
York. So I love that.
Yes, it does involve a four hour trip up to up to Boston after
work, but you know, it's all in the love of the game.
Right. Yeah, OK.
And there's a chance that Logan even we're gonna.
Manifest that on this we're. Gonna go back to that.
We're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna.
He's gonna relocate to Brooklyn. It's potentially in the worst.
We say that as he is currently on vacation.
Right now we'll not see this. He will.
He'll be like guys. So I want to talk about the art
for a minute. I'm I'm trying to remember some
of the descriptions. The keyword that I saw in your
social media to describe the art for Whisker Wars was whimsy or
whimsical. Here you hear that a lot, so I
don't know if you've noticed. So my question is 2 parts,
right? One, it's specific about your
game. And then a larger question.
There has been a trend, there's so many games where the theme in
the artwork is very could be defined as whimsical.
We're seeing a whole lot of that.
So my first question to you or the first part is, what do you
think's going on? What do you think's motivating
that? And then secondly, why did you
choose a more whimsical art? Uvra, if you will, and Michael,
maybe he's ready. So.
That's it. Yeah.
That's your question. Great question.
So I think we we knew specifically when we were going
to market with Whisker words that we needed a digestible
theme and we did not make a brand new unique theme.
It is anthropomorphic warriors in the fantasy world.
It's been done hundreds of times over.
We have no problem with that, but we love it and people love
it and it's just a great medium. It's digestible, It's cute.
And then it's not just cute. Sometimes it's, you know, super
cool. Like we've made some really cool
characters in there that are not cute and they're super.
I can I curse on here. It's bad ASS.
So guys better do it. Yeah, you're very welcome.
The so I love the sort of duality of what we've created in
the world of it being both super cool and cute.
But to answer your question, I think there is like generally
across the industry making something look more digestible
is makes it an easier to market product period.
Like if it just looks cuter and simpler then someone is more
likely to purchase it without even knowing what the contents
of the game are or the skill level or how long the play time
is. If you have a, you know, super
heavy box that's full with sci-fi themes and it's in space,
you're seeing this massive board on it, people are going to be
into that. I am into games like that.
Sean is into games like that. But your average everyday
consumer might look at that and think, oh, that's too heavy.
Oh, that's a little scary. That's a daunting theme.
I'm going to pick up this thing that's got a cat in a catapult
on the box and I'm like, cool, yeah.
Yeah, That, I think is Mike, touches on a really important
thing, which is like, if I'm looking for a new game, I would
like to have a first impression of the game that matches the
game after I've bought it. Sure.
I'm not going to new names, but there are games that that kind
of trick you where it looks approachable in light and you
open the game and it's an asymmetrical doom battler and
you're like, what is I have to reread these directions tenfold.
Like, so we wanted to make sure that like if we're, if our game
is intending to bring in new players, then we want to make
sure that art catches new players eyes and and tells them,
Hey, I'm accessible to you. I'm I'm a safe place for you new
player to come in and play this game.
So that was a lot of our motivating.
But and then and then also like there's a history of like animal
anthropomorphic stories, absolutely inaccessibility to
kids. You talk about Zootopia, you go
all the way back to Disney's Robin Hood.
Like these are stories where anthropomorphic characters are
intended for kids. So it already leans that way it.
Would be remiss of us not to mention Redwall, as well as a
big thematic sort of inspiration for us as a game.
We grew up with Red Wall, a lot of people grew up with Red Wall.
We wanted to give that sort of Red Wall inspired battling
sensation into a cute sort of little box.
So that was sort of one of our many goals.
With Whisker worst, so that means that your target audience
is Jack and Jill off the street and entering this community and
this industry we. Yeah, there's like, so it's
like, that's like a that's interesting because that's two,
there's two sides to that coin. Our target it yes.
The answer, short answer, yes. We want it to be available to to
new players, players that aren't hardcore gamers, players that
that MTG is too much for them. It also is supposed to be a nice
point for their friends to be like, hey, oh, maybe MTG is too
complicated. Want to try this?
And then you can drag people into the mire of games.
Yeah. And and then all of a sudden
they're like, oh, I understand these mechanics.
What's that MTG about? Right.
Draw your friends in. It's supposed to be accessible
to new players and have enough depth and fun and mechanics to
scratch the itch of veteran players.
I've heard some talk, both of you, both of you have mentioned
a lot of a lot about kids, right?
So is part of your target audience a family oriented and a
children's accessible? I'm making this game that way.
So I think we took a lot of effort in the creative process
of the game to make it approachable to, I'm not gonna
say all Angel agents, cuz I don't.
Think a three or. 4 year old's gonna be able to pick up this
game, right? But like 8 and up, 100%.
Like thematically wise, mechanics wise, we tried to keep
it as simple and digestible as possible so that you can play
with your family. I mean, let's all be real, we're
all at conventions. We see 9 year olds whipping out
their commander deck, an absolutely trucking 39 year old
players at the game table. So that level of intellect is
already skyrocketing in that younger generation, which is
super scary and awesome and awesome at the same time.
But we wanted to make sure we created a game that was
accessible to everyone. We didn't want it to feel like
there was just a specific niche this was going towards.
Don't get me wrong, we know our super fan for the most part.
Like they talk a lot about a super fan when you're building a
game for the first time. It's like if you were to choose
one sort of pocket, one sort of slice of gamer that you would
market this to, who would it be? So ours is typically the card
battler MTG sort of player. So that's our super fan.
And if you play at MTG before and you pick up the scores,
you're going to enjoy it because it's made by a bunch of MTG
nerds that wanted a more digestible medium.
To answer your question, yeah, why not?
Why can't it be a family game? You know, we kept it light.
We don't use things like attack. We don't use like, health or
like life or like killing players in the game.
Like, we use all digestible language.
Like morale, for instance, is our health.
So we use it more from a standpoint of like, your
warriors will only follow you if you have morale.
Your morale hit zero, they all run away.
So we tried to keep the thematics very, again,
intertwined into the mechanics of the game, and I think we did
a pretty good job with it. Yeah, we took, we did, we
actually did intentionally do that because we there were.
I love Vittoria. She's awesome.
She's she's awesome. To our artist.
Yeah, our artist Vittoria, and she kept putting in like really
gruesome stuff. And we're like, dude, please
pull back on that. It's awesome.
But like, we're also trying to not scare away.
And, you know, maybe like, you know, you want like I, I, my mom
doesn't play a lot of board games, like magic is way over
her head. But like I could see a World War
like she would play this. So like it's all to say like
it's supposed to bring people together and there are some
themes that are too much for some people, so or too harsh or
too one way or the other. But if you can find them, if you
can find a common ground and you have a table to sit at together
and it's it's it fulfills one of the pillars of glass house,
which is make games that genuinely bring people together.
Right, So right. I love that that.
Mission, I totally support what what was it like on a personal
level that you've talked about? You got a lot of support from
the designer community and everything, but what about what
about like any emotional content, emotional obstacles you
had to overcome either internally or maybe you've got
some resistance from a few personalities?
Because the thing that's interesting about this community
is that we're not all the same, right, right.
You know, so there's some good personalities, there's some
neutral, and then there's, you know.
There's chaotic evil, yeah. Yeah.
Anything, anything that stood out for you that that's that was
a refining moment. And how did you get past it?
Or something like that? Yeah, that's a good question.
Great question. We like to say a lot like we've
had a lot of feed, like great feedback and positive
affirmations in our sort of journey.
It has not all been positive. It is not all been great.
Be hunky Dory. There has been a handful
handfuls of people. It hasn't been a large, you
know, majority, but handfuls of people won't say names or
anything that we've met with. And we've showcased the game
too. And we play tested with a cross
play testing event, play testing events, conventions, personal
one on ones on lines, whatever. Some people do not like the game
and right, some people are very vocal about it and that's fine.
Like I, I think ultimately we are trying to make a game that's
approachable to all, but that is just unrealistic because of what
you just said. Everyone is different, first and
foremost, gamers are also very different amongst each other and
their play styles and what they're looking for in a game or
how they want to approach an objective of a game.
And it's it's like that's the the beauty of games is that what
there's a million and one games on the market for you to choose
from. This might not be yours and
that's totally fine. But that definitely persevere
like pushes us to make the game as better and great as possible.
So we like to flip any challenge into a thing that we can use to
motivate. Us yeah, I think that's a really
good point, Mike. Like like that's the beauty of
the industry is like even if you are one of the most competitive
aggressive dudes on the table, there's still a game for you out
there. Like there's still a, there's
still a table that playing your favorite game.
There's a there's a mono blue commander deck waiting for you
somewhere. Even if you're not my friend.
Yeah, exactly. Jesus.
So my boy was like, even if I'm not going to be your friend, you
will find friends here because there'll be people that will
want to play the games you want to play and play it your style.
Like everyone has a place. And that is what I think is the
beauty of the industry is 1 everyone for the most part, like
99.9% of people have been open arms, welcoming.
Yeah. And, and, and, and that goes
across the board, whether it's who you are, where you're from,
your orientation, whatever, how you like a dress, it doesn't
matter. You have a community that
welcomes you. You have space to play and a
space to be who you are and space to be honest.
And I think it's an it's, it's refreshing.
I think that was my emotional bit about it was like, wow, what
a what an arena where you can find such a diverse crowd and
they all want to be here. They all have.
And they and like the like the conventions that I've been to,
the judgement's been at an all time low across the board.
People are usually very like, oh, everyone's here to play
games. I would love to piggyback off
that for one last point on this. Yes, there's a lot of challenges
and there have been times where people have not had the most
nice things to say. I will say from an emotional
standpoint though, as hoping to bring our first to market brand
new indie publishing company kind words of affirmations
really go a long way. Yeah, like there are some days
where we are absolutely exhausted from just our regular
day jobs, and we're cranking 2 to 4 hours of glass house work a
night every other night. And just one kind comment from
someone. Yeah, just makes the whole week,
the whole month worth it. And there's been a couple of
those pockets where we can feel our emotional morale dipping a
little bit just because of the process.
And it's exhausting. It's a lot of work.
And then one or two nice things will come through and we'll just
skyrocket up the next day. And again, thankfully, we have
three of us. Whenever one of us is down, one
of us is up. So it's a great sort of
balancing to have a trio working together.
But those kind words of affirmation, Yeah, be nice to
gamers, is what I'm trying to say.
Even if you don't, even if you don't like the game, yeah,
there's something about it that's great, I'm sure.
Yeah, you, you are definitely, you guys are definitely blessed
that there's three of you. Just just in the podcast world,
the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to create this
product that you consume at no cost to you.
There's a financial burden, There's a burden of time.
There's so much work. Yeah, I feel you.
I don't put in as quite as many hours, but it's moments of
intent. Dedicated time and emotion and I
think the worst thing for me is just crickets, right I get no
feedback and so I'm like well, I guess I'm yeah OK right so you
know I get a little aggressive with.
Tell me how you what do you think about the podcast?
I feel that. So here's a question and I had
this one to ask you. I was going to ask you this from
the beginning. I always plan to ask this
question. Lately, the concept of
vulnerability has come up on the podcast.
So my question to you is, because I think about this a a
lot for me, how did you prepare yourself or was it easy for you
to be vulnerable and open to criticism, whether constructive
or negative during play testing and the entire process of
development? I would love to start.
I keep feel like I keep taking these shots.
Here, don't. You can do it, you know.
Vulnerability. This is a great question and
almost a great segue off of the last question.
Vulnerability is such a good and necessary portion to creation,
period, regardless of what you're trying to create.
We're trying to create a game, a story, whatever have you.
Vulnerability is so important because there's so many
different avenues I can take off this.
One example is we have a friend of mine who's designing a game
and he's been working on it for five years, and he's only showed
his friends and his close family.
And I'm like, dude, this game is great.
Get this game out there, go to a local game store, play with
random people. People want to play these new
games. And he's just too scared.
And he just, he's not at that moment.
Yeah, where he wants to do that. And that's hard.
It's hard to take something you've worked on for years to
bring to someone who you know nothing about and then have them
potentially tear your game to shreds.
Not everyone has that etiquette, that play testing etiquette that
we've grown to learn over the past two years of like how you
really approach unpub play testing and how do you sort of
give critique back that doesn't feel overwhelmingly negative.
So there's that's one avenue of that vulnerability.
The most important thing that I think for me when I joined, and
I'll say when I joined the community as an entrepreneur
trying to make a game for the first time two years ago, that
first hacks unplug we went to is I think it was 2023 as a trio
was so like eye opening to how open the community is.
Like we I come from film and TV. I've been working on my career
as film and TV for the past seven years.
Not everyone's super nice in this industry.
It's a very cut throat industry. Everyone's trying to get a leg
up on each other, so there's a lot of metaphorical buses coming
around every single corner. Yeah.
In tabletop everyone is so nice and so open.
You can ask anyone a question and assuming they have the time
and they have a moment and they're not super busy cuz
everyone's very busy at conventions, they will tell you,
they will hand you the keys to success and they will not, they
will not withhold any sort of key sort of information or
anything like that. They will just give you
everything that they've learned over their experience and as
much of a medium that you can consume.
And I've never worked in an industry where people are that
open about how to succeed. And we actively strive all of
the time to put that same energy back out into the community.
We, we actively like tell anyone you have any questions, you want
to spit ball an idea and like get some ideas.
We're brand new, but like we'd be happy to have an e-mail
conversation or a phone call or anything with you guys.
Like anything we can do to give back, for those that gave to us,
to get us to where we are now is so crucial to the industry.
I think it's an industry to exactly Mike's point, that this
is an industry that genuinely believes that a rising tide
raises all ships. So like the more help you can
put into the industry, that kind of goodwill is going to come
right back around. And I believe that too.
But it's. We all want to play games.
Everyone wants to play games. We all want to play games.
I really like what you said, Mike, about vulnerability, cuz
at the end of the day, if you're creating something, you are
exposing yourself and you're taking a risk.
And so I'm just really hard. I come from the, I'm a big
screenwriter. I love writing movies and TV and
stuff and it's one of my passions.
And no, you haven't seen anything I wrote because we're
not there yet, but maybe one day.
My point is, is like, to use that as an example.
Like it's hard to show someone a script and say, hey, take a look
at this as you're a lot of people will get like paralysis.
And like, Mike made an example of it and be like, oh, I'm
afraid of being judged. If I never complete something or
if I never put it out there, I don't run the risk of being
judged. And that's a very scary place is
to be vulnerable. Yeah.
I think it's that it's very important to know, to find out
more about yourself by the way you open yourself to others in
the industry. And like you can never control
someone else's reactions or actions.
You can only ever control the way you receive them, the way
you respond. So and that's a big life lesson
that took me a lot of therapy to learn.
But to bring it back into game design, we've, and this is also
something I learned in screen writing, which is what is the
note behind the note is the quote.
So what's the note behind the note?
So if someone comes to you and they go, this game sucked.
I didn't draw enough cards. I didn't have any options for us
to learn to say, instead of going, this person hated our
game. Like whatever, they can go kick
rocks. It's more like, okay, wait, hold
on, stop. How does every note, how can we
use every note to make our game better?
What did I hear? I heard a lot, but the big note
was I didn't draw enough cards. Maybe we need to add more card
draw. That's the note behind the note,
which is frustrated. They were frustrated because
they didn't have enough options. So how do we bring this in?
Like that's a good note. That's a great it was, yeah.
Even if they're not articulating it kindly.
Right. It's a big note, and for us, a
lesson, a big lesson was very. Good.
All right. Yes.
I don't like the way they said it.
Their note was really good. We need to fix some things.
We. Give each other about 10 minutes
of vent time where we vent out how we feel about something and
then we're like never again. And we let it go behind us, and
we take the note behind the note, and then we continue on.
Logan's great at that, at like calming move down being like,
all right, got that out. What was the name?
And I'm like, we need more clear drop.
So yeah, but it is. It's scary to be vulnerable.
Yeah, it's it's very scary. So, interestingly enough, I love
how y'all y'all set this up for me.
So the the Roman orator and philosopher Seneca, he said that
we are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more in
imagination than in reality. What did TJ just say?
What does that mean? It means that we imagine
perceived hurt because of our fear, and then rather than in
reality, you're not hurt at all, but you feel like you're hurt.
I suffer from this constantly, right?
So do. I, I mean, and what's
interesting is this also ties into some of the motivation
behind FDR when he was inaugurated in 1933 as U.S.
President. He's like, the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning that
paralyzes efforts to take advance from in to retreat.
And it's like I butchered the end of that quote because I'm
always excited. I like.
That one, I'm locked in. I liked it, yeah.
So Sean, you're talking to a guy with a masters in history, so
you can nerd out all day. You're great.
This is good. But I'm just thinking about that
because that is the problem, right?
Everything begins. You've heard me say it.
It begins with me and then us, and then the bigger community.
And the first thing is you got to be willing to be vulnerable.
And I don't know about the two of you.
I'm not always willing. I sometimes fail in being
vulnerable. I get I get scared sometimes
too. You know when you put yourself
out there with. You especially, like, especially
to strangers. Like, it's easier to, yeah, it's
hard to be vulnerable to your friends.
It's hard to be vulnerable to your family.
Some people find it easier to be vulnerable to strangers because
what are the stakes, right? Some actors are like, oh, it's
just an audience of nobodies, so I can be as vulnerable as I
want. But then like, that goes both
ways. It's like, I also don't know
you. So there's a lot there.
Yeah, definitely. I think we're we're very lucky.
Again, we kind of harp on this a lot where it's like we're a
trio. So our first step is being
vulnerable with the like the other two.
And it's always welcome in open arms, even if it's another game
that has a mech in it. And then it's like we will
always just receive an idea, open hopefully, and strive to
then just work on that idea and mold it into something all this
can then work on. Well, Mike, you did.
I want to bring something else. Something else up about this
that is less so about game design, more about us where it's
like, we've also become really, really good friends through this
process. Sure, we were pretty good
friends. Mike and I were pretty good
friends. Mike introduced me to Logan, and
we've all become. My point is this, the ability to
be vulnerable with each other has started to morph into other
places where the example I like and might not even remember
this. I was kind of panicking about a
promise I had made to my family and a promise I had made to
Glass House to be in two places at once.
And I messed up and I was stressed and I was like, I felt
really horrible about having to call Mike and be like, hey, man,
I can't go to this thing that we said we'd go to.
And he goes, Mike, you said to me, you said, dude, I love glass
house and I love you guys. But family will always come
first. And it is those relationships
that like are the most important to us.
And it's those relationships that like make us good human
beings that we can come into this world and then like sit
across the table from a stranger and treat them like family,
right? So I was like, huh, So I've
learned a lot from working with these guys.
Just about one about business sense and two about games and
three about but about being like games.
What I didn't expect to learn is like how to be a better person.
Yeah, through this process, which is really, really eye
opening and leaning into a little bit more, like you said,
vulnerability. So.
I think that's the, I think that gets lost sometimes, right?
Like being a good gamer can help you to be a good person and then
that helps you in dealing with other gamers in the community,
community and nurturing the concept of community also,
especially right now. We need that, right?
We need good gamers. We need good people.
People. Right.
Yeah, to walk out in the world and and deal with all that.
Speaking of the elephant in the room, what has it been like
since the announcement of tariffs, the trade wars?
So, and there's really two components to this.
One is the uncertainty of what's it going to be like a week from
now when you launch, a year from now when you're ready to ship,
right? What is that going to look like?
And then there's the 145% tariff on China and China's so pivotal
to this industry. What has that?
What is it like entering this industry as game designers in
this trade war? What does that been like and how
are you navigating well? Yeah, it's it's nerve wracking,
obviously, just the complete unknown of it all is is
horrifying as a gamer and not a business person, not a company,
as a gamer, I'm angry, I'm upset.
It's an easy emotion to sort of have in this time because it's
like what an industry to get hit so hard.
Like it's not like tabletop. Like, yes, there are some big
name companies in the tabletop sphere, but tabletop is mostly
comprised of smaller companies that bring out these awesome
games and hit it off with their first product.
So it's like what an industry to absolutely like almost capsize
in a way. And we're all seeing it with the
articles we've been reading, the layoffs, the companies that are
going under, the companies that are on indefinite holds for
their next announced project. It's horrifying.
Like how do? And then like, you know, we get,
like I said before, we have a lot of, you know, mentors and
friends we've made in this industry over the past couple of
years who also, you know, air their own caution to us.
Or it's like, Are you sure that you want to move forward?
Which is a totally valid thing to ask us.
And we would be more upset if people weren't asking us that as
we got closer. So that shows that people
actually care. And we, you know, there was a
moment where we weren't sure and we really had to talk it out.
And it was a long call one night and we really talked it out.
We looked at all the numbers, Logan, our big logistics brain,
whipped up a spreadsheet with how this was going to affect us
and our manufacturing costs and how we were going to sort of
proceed. And we decided with all that
being said, the momentum we have right now going into launch is
too great. And frankly we are just running
out of a budget for, for AD spend.
So it's like if we it's risking the loss of that momentum and
going sort of dark and then launching later versus just
launching and crossing all fingers and toes over the next,
you know, six months or so that those sort of tariffs change and
or at least stay where they are. So we can at least adjust and
account for it accordingly. Obviously, hopefully go away
completely or just lower, but you never know.
A tweet at 2:00 AM can change everything.
But it's, it's been scary. Is, is the obvious answer.
Nerve wracking, frightening. But we are persevering.
We are all supporting each other.
We're getting calm, you know, positive affirmation from those
around us and we just can't. It's almost a part of my brain
too. It's like I feel like I can't
wait anymore. It's like I don't, it's almost
as if we're being punished by something so utterly out of our
control for something we've worked so hard for.
And it's like, I can't possibly think about waiting indefinitely
from this thing we've worked for so hard.
That is, that is the sad truth of it is that it's people, we'll
call them at home, companies at home that are suffering and the
players that would be suffering. So my you're talking like the
basis of your question was how does it felt to be in this arena
right now? And yeah, there's been, it's,
it's kicked off with like a huge amount of fear.
Like it has suddenly inundated the industry.
It seemed it in uncertainty and fear.
Something though, that has been a big beacon for us has been we
don't know. We don't know.
And that can be scary to a lot of people.
It can also, it is the foundation of hope.
And like you're religious, you might call it faith.
I'm not, but I still like the word faith.
Like I have faith in that this community supports each other.
And then this industry won't be defined by 4 bumpy years or
hopefully, hopefully way less. Right.
Like, and I don't mean that in any kind of little, just mean
like, like hopefully these tariffs go away, right?
Because they're good. They could.
But we could get to, we could get to launch, we could get to
manufacturing time and cooler heads could prevail.
Absolutely. And, and then all of a sudden
it's we're, we're, we're OK. You know what I mean?
It's not to say that we're not OK, but I think our approach is
faith in that if things could be OK, but also more practical
faith. And if we are transparent and
honest about our process, people will show up.
So if we say, hey, this is exactly how it will affect you.
Here's the tipping, here's the tariff.
We're gonna tell you straight up, right?
This is what this it's costing right now.
And if it goes down, then we will make sure that it goes
down. We're not gonna, we're never
gonna pull you pull over your eyes.
Yeah, this. Extra cost only exists because
of the 1:45 we're seeing and it's like and ideally in a
perfect world it goes back to utterly normal.
Like it's been 4 years and that just goes away and never
existed. Yeah, I think there's been a lot
of like, do we do this? Do we wrap it in?
Do we, How do we, how do? And it's like, you know what?
I don't want to. I'm never gonna want to trick
anybody. I want to come to you like
another human and being like, this is our product.
This is what the times are like. Please support us and we will
show you exactly where your money is going.
And, and hopefully just by that relationship, you know, and if
not like, and if not like, if you're like, you know what?
I, I hate the way of the world right now.
I don't want to spend money on this.
I'm not gonna put any more money towards there.
Like we, yeah, we get it. Yeah, Yeah, we get it.
But it's not transparency and that honesty that like, we would
rather do that. I'd rather be here.
I'll put it this way. I'd rather be honest and fail,
which I don't think we will. But I'd rather be honest and
fail than succeed by manipulating people.
Sure, absolutely. And I asked the question not to
be a downer. I asked because this, this was
something I thought about a lot before the two of you came on.
I y'all, y'all have such a unique perspective and an
interesting story to tell and it's worthy of being told coming
in as a new game designer at this time, right?
Because there are so many game designers who have mentored you
and helped you and everything like that that you were
describing in the last hour that they have been in it for a
while. So they've got some strategies
and some resources that they can lean on to see them through the
next six months, nine months, a year.
What I don't know what their plans are, but to be coming at
it, you know, rather than asking you, why are you releasing your
game right now like you're being asked all the time.
I'm I think you bring this unique perspective because
you're doing it despite the tariffs.
I feel like you were the perfect example of what I'm trying to
tell people about. Stop being afraid and angry.
I mean, you could be afraid and angry, but channel this in a
positive way. You guys are saying no, despite
all this, we're going going forward because we got a
product. I love that.
Whether this game is for you or not, how can no one, anyone not
applaud you for excuse me for going forward in such a
tumultuous time? And I applaud both of you.
And I thank you both for coming on and and sharing that with us.
I love you. Yeah, really.
Appreciate you saying that. Yeah, that's yeah, that means a
lot to us because it is nerve wracking and maybe it's it could
just be a practical lesson to be like, OK, why is it?
Why do we we believe this? It's because we have a couple of
practical things in line for us. Our game is relatively light and
we're crowdfunding. We don't crowdfunding, you know.
A warehouse filled with product that's already been made that
needs to get shipped over here. It's we have a little bit of a
timeline where we are as a small indie publishing company versus
Hasbro or any of these massive companies.
I mean, like, I know Stonemeyer games like put out an article or
a release statement a little while ago where they're like,
we're gonna cover the cost of the tariff for the games that
have been ordered from our last sort of run to come out to the
States. But they can afford that.
They're still minor games, right?
And it's probably still taking a massive hit on them.
Absolutely. Who knows what the actual
numbers are on the back end, but we can't play that
realistically. I guess it's like the big less
The big take away is the storm is not the end.
It is there's a path. There's always a path through
any storm. So like even if you have to
adjust the way you approach games for a little bit, a game
design for a little bit and games manufacturing for a little
bit like it's not the end. It's it's an uncomfortable
adjustment that is temporary. Yes, and I'm not gonna, I would
like, I'm not gonna speak for the other guys at Glass House,
but I believe we, well, we aren't.
We're launching. Oh, it's like it's too late.
We're doing this. So we're not going to, you know,
an uncomfortable situation deter us from doing something that we
genuinely love. Yeah.
So thank you for saying that,
PJ. Yeah.
I think my last sort of note on that is that we saw what's going
on in our industry right now to sort of take it and channel it
into a more positive reinforcement of everything
going on. We know that sort of, I mean,
crowdfunding is in the name, but we know that the crowd, the
community is such a like it's, dare I say, the most important
aspect of our industry. So we know when we see all these
other projects that are lined up for this year, other
kickstarters are things coming out.
We're going to help. Oh, it's going to cost me an
extra 10 dollars, $15.00 to like support another small company
that'll be there for us. And like we'll be for other
small companies and we'll all be there for each other.
I can't, I can't say that everyone can afford it, but
like, I will choose to be as supportive as I can in this time
to other people because I know that they need it just as much
as we do, just as much as the next person.
And I'm not going to let you know the unfortunate reactions
of certain people in our government going to stop me from
that sort of feeling of community with the rest of my
peers. Right, absolutely.
So once again, I want to thank you both for being on the game
is Whisker Wars. It's coming to Kickstarter on
May 13th, which is when you're listening to this episode
because very cool. It's almost as if we planned it
that way. So for anyone who has not heard
about your game or Glass house, tell the listeners, viewers
where they can find you on socials, websites, all the fun
stuff. Yeah, so you can.
Well, we are live on Kickstarter right now.
So if you you know Google Kickstarter Whisker Wars, you'll
will be the one that pops up for socials.
We have an awesome Discord channel going.
You'll be able to find a link to that through our like through a
lot of places through our website, which is Glass House
Games Co. We could not afford the so just
so through that, you can find our link to the discord,
Instagram. We have a lot of fun stuff on
there. The point is, I think Discord is
where it's at really, really awesome, helpful, excited
community that it's like a lot of like lore chats are going on
and putting lore in there. People are talking about fun
punting animal names, how we run online play tests.
So if you want to check the game out ahead of time, we run them
through Tabletop Simulator is the big one that's been.
Later in the moment, top dot GTA.
Yeah, those are two online mediums right now, so.
If you're on the fence, there are options to check out the
game ahead of time, see if you even like it.
So and if you don't know hard feelings, but that's where you
can find us. And then like if you want to
reach out to us directly, we will answer your emails.
Our e-mail is hello@glasshousegames.co.
So if you want to reach out to us directly and have anything to
say, please reach out. We're we're our open door
policy. Yeah, that's us.
Well. Again, guys, thank you, Michael,
Sean, and please extend my gratitude to Logan as well as
well. Whisker Wars.
Please guys, remember to like and subscribe to the YouTube
channel. The goal right now, in October
of this year, we will be on YouTube for one year.
We would love to have 100 followers subscribers.
We could get more. That would be great.
Come on, you could find us on Spotify and all other streaming
services. Make sure you like.
Please leave comments either for myself or for Sean and Mike
about the game. They'll be able to see that on
YouTube. And thanks again for watching.
Super. Thank you.