Transcription - Social Links - Links to projects
Each week on Bardic Babble our host Devin chats with creatives about the things they create. Season 1 dives into Game Design, Tabletop RPGs, and supporting those spaces.
In this episode, we are joined by Doug Levandowski and Jon Gilmour, the creators of the Kids on Bikes RPG. We chat about safety tools, feeling welcomed at the table, and the duo's origin story!
If you enjoyed the show please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and on Podchaser! Be sure to head on over to www.thebardpodcast.com to check out our other shows, tabletop products, and some sweet merch!
Guest Links:
https://twitter.com/JonGilmour
https://twitter.com/Levzilla
https://www.huntersentertainment.com/kidsonbikesrpg
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/68719/doug-levandowski https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/12679/jonathan-gilmour
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/117819/Kids-on-Bikes--FREE-RPG-DAY-Edition https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/231938/Kids-on-Bikes-Core-Rulebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/314452/Kids-on-Brooms-Core-Rulebook
TRANSCRIPTION
devin: [00:00:00] Hey friends, Devin again for the Bardic Babel podcast, the show where we interview creators about the things that they create on today's episode, we are diving into the Kids on Bikes, RPG with creators, Jonathon Gilmore, and Doug . It was a great conversation. We really just kind of peel back the layers of independent game design. These guys' origin stories and a little bit about the product series, what's to come and what the future holds for it . But before we get into it today, I just wanted to see if you had the opportunity today to go to your preferred pod catcher and leave the show a rating or review. It helps us to be seen by more folks and really spreads the show around as best as possible, thats the power of the listener.
If you get that. The opportunity, head on over drop rating drop. Without further ado, let's dive into it with John and Doug.
On today's episode of Bardic Babble. I have John Gilmore. And I'm going to butcher your last name. I'm sorry, Doug. Is it Levandowski.
That's it
Doug: [00:01:13] did it.
devin: [00:01:13] The creators of Kids on Brooms, Kids on Bikes, Teens in Space. So can you guys just go ahead and just give a elevator pitch of yourselves? The products you've worked on?
Doug: [00:01:23] Sure. I am the freelance game designer out of New Jersey. I have worked on. And like you said, Kids on Bikes, Teens in Space, kids on brooms, and a couple other things. One that I think we're going to start talking about very soon, but until then, Those are the major published ones. Right.
devin: [00:01:44] Right. And Jon?
Jon: [00:01:45] So I'm Jonathan Gilmore, I'm freelance a gasme designer out of Northwestern, Ohio. I've worked on probably about 25 games that have hit the market between RPGs and board games. Some of the bigger ones have been Dead of a Winter, Dinosaur Island. Kids on Bikes and yeah, I've got a few upcoming things, but nothing, uh, Apollo just came out. But if I think we'll do plugs later.
devin: [00:02:05] Nice. So how did the two of you meet?
Doug: [00:02:08] Probably Metatopia?
Jon: [00:02:10] I think my Metopia.
Doug: [00:02:12] Yeah, so there's a local convention focused on playtesting. Uh, and we met there, hit it off, chatting online a bit and, uh, play test each other, stuff like that. And, uh, eventually decided to work together on some stuff.
Jon: [00:02:24] Yeah, I think it was probably late night, Metatopia hanging out. And that's where we meet a lot of different people as a late night and convention.
Doug: [00:02:31] Lobby con.
Jon: [00:02:32] Yeah, and I think we just hit it off and started talking.
devin: [00:02:35] Nice. So a, you know, in a little bit of brevity, how did you guys wind up at Kids on Bikes?
Jon: [00:02:42] Uh, so that was because, um, Doug and I had both just watched separately, uh, season one of stranger things. And I was already talking to another designer about doing a board game and doug posted, "Hey, does anybody want to work on a stranger thing board game?"
And I was like, Hey. Uh, I'm already working on board game , but what if we did an RPG and his, I know I've never done one of those. That sounds awesome.
devin: [00:03:05] Nice, so for those who haven't played Kids on Bikes, what sets it aside from other RPGs?
Doug: [00:03:11] We worked really hard to make sure that the narrative was the focus rather than, you know, a bunch of confusing tables, all that sort of stuff.
And we really wanted it to capture that feeling of those pieces of media that we really loved, you know, where the younger characters telling the story together. Um, and it's about all of them. Yeah. They grow as a group, how they change as a group, how they fall apart and come back together, all that sort of stuff, rather than, you know, an 18 round combat that takes two hours.
We wanted it to be fast, like, um, at one of our. Design philosophies that we share. I think one of the reasons we work so well together is we're both of the attitude that the rules in your game should get the hell out of the way and let the game play, whether it's a board game or an RPG. So we always want to keep things as rules, light as possible.
While still providing the constraints that are so much fun. And that's what we love about games. Right? There's voluntary constraints.
devin: [00:04:05] I am actually pretty new to Kids on Bikes. Just picked up kids on brooms. You guys have an entire right in the, you know, the start of the book, a entire chapter of inclusivity and. You know, making sure everybody feels welcome at the table recently in the Twitter sphere, there's been a lot of moving towards that. A lot of designers and systems that haven't necessarily focused on that are now moving to that. What was your guys's foresight into that? Was it just personal philosophy or did you see the industry eventually moving that way?
Jon: [00:04:37] Yeah. A lot of that comes from our personal philosophy and the games were playing. We both realized earlier yeah. That, you know, safety tools, tools are super important and end up making for a better role playing experience. Um, obviously if you're playing with people that you trust. You might need them a little bit less, but even then just having some guidelines and tools to help set boundaries and you know, where the story's going to go and where you don't want it to go.
Isn't boring. Cause even with your friends, sometimes it's hard to talk about that. And we're, we're looking at ways to like, even drive that further in the, in the game and try to make things a little bit more.
devin: [00:05:15] okay, I see.
Doug: [00:05:17] And while we were working on it, after we had sent it out to play testers, we got an email from somebody who, um, we'd only interacted really briefly with online and he said, And I got his permission to share the story.
I've shared it on Facebook. So just because I think what he says, it's important for people to know that sharing his story with his permission. He sent both of us an email that said, "Hey, I really dig the game. I love playing in it. Role playing games have always been this great escape for me because I've been physically disabled since birth.
And I was just wondering since this is such a realistic setting, would it be possible to play as someone with a pretty profound physical disability. What would that count as would that count as a flaw?" That just like gutted me, right? The idea that somebody felt like to play our game, the way they are, that our system might suggest that who they are is flawed in some way.
And that just really reinforced it. We need to do the best job we possibly can to make sure that everybody knows that. Who you are in the game is wonderful and awesome. And be you.
Jon: [00:06:24] Yeah. I mean that, that really put a hard stop on the development. We, I think that day we had a phone call and really re-evaluated a lot of things and decided to really make that an important part of it.
Doug: [00:06:37] Yeah. But if you want to know what it takes to make me cry in a hotel room in Chicago, that's what. Yeah.
devin: [00:06:44] Well, it's nice getting that kind of feedback. Yeah. Especially in, in development so that you guys can, you can make those nice pivots at that time. Instead of having to like wizards of coast is right now having to make hard pivots and reassess language and products that are 20 years old.
Doug: [00:07:02] And I'm also sure that, you know, 20 years from now people, I mean, hopefully people are still looking at Kids on Bikes, but you know, I think 20 years from now, people will look back on the games that are coming out in 2020 and say, wow, they're doing these really cool things. And I see how that's a step forward, but wow.
Look at this problematic thing. Look at that problematic thing, which is great, right? As I think as people get more comfortable saying these are boundaries for me, this is something that's bothering me. Games are just going to get like Jon said better and better at ratcheting up what's fun for people and making it fun for everybody at the table.
Um, I mean, I know in the last 10 years I've gone so far from, Oh, it's just a game. Like not, this is all funny. Have a sense of humor to like, actually understand that things that don't cause . I mean, this is going to sound like a totally ridiculous revelation, but like, Things that don't cause me harm may cause harm to other people.
Right. Which like actually putting it into words. So unbelievably narcissistic, like if that really occurred to me in the past eight years. But, uh, and I think so much of the discussion around games is moving towards that in such a wonderful direction that, um, I think it's going to continue. Um, and I. Like, honestly, look forward to the day when we're, you know, making a list of like, okay, when we do the next edition, we've got to make sure that we get this, this and this, you know, rock solid.
Um, I mean, even now at some conversations about like, if we do another edition, what are we going to be focusing on? Right. What are we going to be changing to make it more collaborative or inclusive? Better?
devin: [00:08:40] Can you share any of those?
Jon: [00:08:42] Well, yeah, I think so. Go ahead Doug.
Doug: [00:08:44] Okay. Um, yeah. So one of the things that, uh, came up recently in a conversation with a friend of ours was the notion of violence.
And so one of the things that when John and I were working on Kids on Bikes, one of the things we said was we don't want this to be a game where violence is the solution. Right? Sure. There are going to be times when somebody throws a punch or they're going to be times when somebody gets tackled. But we don't want it to be that like murder hobo philosophy of, okay, well, we solve our problems by punching it or shooting it or cutting it because that's not that doesn't make for interesting stories or as interesting stories most of the time.
And so we baked in game that combat is always unbelievably dangerous, right. That, uh, the way that roles go could result in a character being killed, um, And that's always been a bit of a surprise to players, but we had a really long and really great conversation with a friend of ours who said, you know, why not?
You do such a great job with setting some of these boundaries. Why not also use some of that boundary work mid game to set boundaries for the violence? Right? Like my character, um, the example that we kept going back to was like, you know, your character steals my characters Gameboy, I'm not going to try to kill you for that.
I don't want to like. Roll a 20, get a lucky break and then roll another like 16, have you rolled a four and be like, yeah, uh, you punch him in the heart and he's dead. Right? Like we want to set the boundaries for here's what I am risking. Here's what I am trying to do to the other person. You know, I'm going after John's character that like he says, I'm comfortable with that, but I'm not comfortable with, with that.
I want to put the lines here. Um, and then we go into it, right? And then we're more collaboratively telling the story instead of whoever rolls higher tells the story. So that's one thing that's been on our minds lately.
devin: [00:10:40] And that's, I, I really liked in, in Kids on brooms, you guys have the, you know, especially when two casters go at each other, the, the repercussions of becoming an NPC, losing the character.
That was, that was really cool. And as I was explaining that to my playgroup, we just, we tried it out on Sunday. And, uh, they were like, wait, we, you get our character. Like, we're, we're very rooted in Pathfinder in D&D. So, you know, the go straight to the heart kind of a mentality is it's there. And we've really been liking Kids on Bikes and now kids on brooms. to kind of break away from that and, and tell the story together. Instead of, you know, me just marching down the street with a flag, right. Now do you guys get, uh, outreach from other developers and game designers as to how to incorporate these philosophies and language into their games?
Jon: [00:11:29] Hmm, that's a good question. I don't think we've gotten, I mean, we've always reached out to other people from the start, um, but just, we're very much about, you know, working with people that are super knowledgeable about these kinds of things. Um, but we haven't really had much outreach to us about it.
Doug: [00:11:45] Yeah. I think there's a lot of people in the industry who are. Who we've learned so much from that, like, they're the ones who would be better able to answer other people's questions than us. We'd be happy to, but it's like, you know, uh, we're like the fifth graders helping there, you know, if somebody asks like they're however old kid's sibling with their homework, rather than like going to talk to the teacher, right.
Jon: [00:12:11] Yeah. I think a lot of times when people reach out to us about any of that stuff, like I know for me, I'm like, Oh, well you should really talk to like Kate Bullic and pay her to do this because she's a better asset than I could be. Yeah. I'm, I'm happy to know.
Doug: [00:12:24] Or Mendez, who did the safety work for Kids on Brooms also. Great.
Jon: [00:12:27] Yeah. Yup.
devin: [00:12:29] You guys are through Hunter's Entertainment. Did you guys reach out to them or was it, you know, they found you guys?
Jon: [00:12:35] Kind of, it was, it was a little bit of happenstance. It was GenCon. And I was rushing to a meeting and I ran into Ivan who I had interacted with a bunch online. And like, we talked all the time, but we'd never met in person.
And I saw him like standing around talking to somebody and I stopped real quicklly, even though I was run a little bit late and I was like, Hey, I just want to stop and introduce myself. And he's like, "Oh, what are you working on?" And, you know, I kind of showed him a couple of projects and as like, Oh, well, I've got this RPG because Doug and I were just doing a kid started at the time, even though we don't really want to self publish, we were like, this is going to date, you know, we'll print a couple hundred copies and be done with it.
Um, and I ran into Ivan and showed him the cover and he immediately was like, Oh, don't show this to anybody. Well, um, I want to talk to you about it. And, um, we kind of just went from there.
Doug: [00:13:30] Yeah.
Jon: [00:13:30] Um, and I think, I think we just had a call with him next week and he was like, yeah, we want to do this.
devin: [00:13:35] That's awesome. Who does the artwork for the books?
Doug: [00:13:38] Heather Vaughan. She's a Philly based artist. Well, illustrator and yeah, she was suggested to us. I think two of our friends who were looking for an artist, both suggested her portfolio online and said like, Oh man, this is like really cool. And we thought it was going to go in a very different direction based on what we saw there sort of gave her the loose prompt of like, we want a kid, but a couple of kids on a bicycle.
One of them like kind of, I don't know, like looking surprised or startled at something. She just ran, right? Like the, over the shoulder, like it was, I mean, we saw it, we were like, Oh my God. Yes. And so, yeah, we've worked with her on every project we possibly can. Basically.
devin: [00:14:22] I love her art. She does-
Jon: [00:14:24] that cover was the first piece we had specked out. Right? Like that was the test.
Doug: [00:14:28] Mhm, That was first one. Yup.
Jon: [00:14:31] You've seen it done, but I just, uh, finally got to hang up. I've got poster size prints of a few of the kids on by phone right in front of my desk.
Doug: [00:14:42] Oh, so nice. Yeah. I'm really excited for the posters off of the Renegade puzzle. Yes. Kickstarter. So that's definitely gone up probably soon.
devin: [00:14:53] Nice. And then that's the, the other arm of it is, you know, is Renegade, how's it been working with them?
Jon: [00:14:59] Oh, it's been fantastic. I mean, they have such a huge reach at hobby and retail that, um, you know, they can just take the, in their marketing is so good. They can just take a project and, you know, elevate it and really do it to reach people like those, the huge banners at GenCon.
And, and that's not something that's small, you know, Hunter's is growing fast, but I mean, they've got so much reach that it's been great.
Doug: [00:15:23] Yeah. Yeah. And they're like just such wonderful people to work with. And like for both companies, the design, at least as far as I can tell is like forefront for them.
Right. You know, there's the marketability aspect as well, but there hasn't been any argument about like, well, sure. This will make it a better game, but here's why from a marketing reason or here's why from a, you know, You want to add 20 pages to this book? Cut it out. That's gonna cut our costs by this much.
And we'll still be able to charge since there's been none of that. Right. So like it it's been phenomenal. Uh, yeah, just phenomenal.
Jon: [00:16:03] Yeah. And it's, it's always been really important. Like, you know, even just discussing like what we want to handle and what we want to hand off and you know, where we want to keep control with like the art and stuff.
Like they've let us really keep artistic control cause we did all the art direction for the original budget and we kept doing that for everything because that vision is important to us. And a lot of companies would try to step in, but they've been awesome about letting us do our thing and even like what we do next.
Um, we want to do teens in space and they kind of pushed us to, they suggested kids on brooms as the followup product. We're like, Oh, we really want to do space and they let us, which was great.
devin: [00:16:45] You guys mentioned, you were originally looking at kick-starting maybe pushing a couple of hundred books. Did you ever foresee the future in which there were giant banners at GenCon and coming on podcasts and talking about the products?
Jon: [00:16:58] No, it's been insane.
Doug: [00:16:59] Um, yeah.
Jon: [00:17:00] Way more than I ever expected.
Doug: [00:17:02] Yeah, I guess it was two summers ago. I was at my wife and I were taking like a little like mini vacation and as part of our drive to it, she scheduled us to drive through the small town with like a little game store. That's supposed to be one of the best on the East coast.
So we go and we're looking around and I'm looking at a game and she starts laughing and I'm like, yeah, it's funny that I'm checking out these right. She's like, look up, I look up, there's a, you know, yay big. Uh, you know, about the size of like my torso hanging poster of Kids on Bikes. She's just stand there, takes a picture.
And I'm like, Oh God, this is so weird and embarrassing. Like I start laughing and then everybody in the store is looking at us like, yeah, it was just, it was really awkward, but also wonderful. Right. Um, but no, like never, never, never expected anything like this.
Jon: [00:17:53] Yeah. And like now it's, it's not even further. It's getting translated into different languages and yeah.
Doug: [00:17:58] Yeah.
Jon: [00:17:58] We're just seeing so much growth up in it. It's great.
devin: [00:18:02] That's awesome. Do you guys have plans to continue building in the kids on teens on-
Doug: [00:18:08] We Do.
devin: [00:18:08] A nice, are you doing like supplemental products or just continuing to do different themes? Like space, like brooms.
Doug: [00:18:17] Yeah. So we have a couple supplemental products that we can talk about. Um, and then the other stuff is, is the secret stuff for now, but we did the strange adventures volume one and volume two for Kids on Bikes, which have additional adventure prompts, right? Prebuilt towns to kind of for GMs who want a little bit more to sink their teeth into at the start, we're doing a space adventures volume, one with a two, four part adventures written by folks we've worked with in the past.
Kristen and Tim divine from Dice Up Games, who did some work for strange adventures two. And did some work for teens, they're putting together an adventure, that's more sandboxy and then Cleo Young Sue Davis, who also did work for SA2. Um, and also did work for Teens in Space. They're also creating a four part adventure.
That's a bit more linear. And so. That that supplement will have both of those things for people to latch onto. Yeah. That's been really cool to work on.
devin: [00:19:19] Are you guys looking at doing, I don't know, themed dice, cards, Beastiaries, anything of that nature?
Doug: [00:19:26] Yeah. I mean, we have the, we have the dice, um, those came out with the original release, right?
Jon: [00:19:33] Yep.
Doug: [00:19:34] Um, and then we have a deck of cards or the powered character, uh, in kids on bikes. So the GM doesn't have to write stuff on note cards and hand it out. They have a pre-generated deck. Um, and as far as that goes, that's everything we can talk about now.
devin: [00:19:53] Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.
Doug: [00:19:54] But we are very happy with how the dice and the, uh, the cards went. So, uh, shrug.
devin: [00:20:02] Sure. You both. You do independent, uh, you know, that's how you start a conversation. You're independent game designers has the success of the kids series helped you stay on that track. Were you ever looking at joining, you know, a large studio or production house or anything like that?
Jon: [00:20:20] So I, I, my, my aspect is probably a little bit different than dougs because I've been. You know, releasing stuff for awhile and had a lot of different options. I mean, there's been some talk I was with, you know, Panasaurs Games for a while doing their head of development and stuff, but I don't know if the right offer came around and as long as it wasn't. You know, creatively restrictive. Definitely.
Doug: [00:20:44] And for me, I've been doing this as a hobby and I plan to keep doing this as a hobby. It's nice that it's now a hobby that pays for itself when I was starting to get into it. That was like, yeah. Cause I think it's good to go into stuff with a goal. Like my wife and I had a conversation about what the goal is.
I said, well, the goal is not for me to quit my job. The goal is for hopefully this hobby to pay for itself. And here we are. So that's been awesome. I'm a teacher. I love teaching and I want to keep teaching, you know, if this allowed me to teach a couple fewer classes so I could give more time and energy, both to the classes I have and to some of the game design stuff, that'd be great.
But yeah, I'm not interested in doing this, doing this full time or anything like that.
devin: [00:21:24] Do you find that any of your students play the games?
Doug: [00:21:27] That's been happening a little bit more and that's really awkward. You know, like, can we buy one of your games? You could. Will you sign it for us? That's we're approaching the line there. Well, do you have copies? You could sell it to us. And that passed the line.
devin: [00:21:44] Right.
Doug: [00:21:47] But yeah, I haven't the thing that I'm looking forward to is one, when one of my students says I played your game and I have questions. Why did you do this? Why didn't you do this? That's the part I'm really looking forward to.
So hopefully soon on that.
devin: [00:22:00] So then outside of your partnership, you both, you know, you work on your own individual projects. Do you guys want to take a couple of minutes and talk about those?
Doug: [00:22:08] Sure. John, do you have anything you're able to talk about yet?
Jon: [00:22:11] Uh, yeah, so I mentioned, um, Apollo, which just came out at a Target.
I designed that with Sarah Addison, who's a local designer. That's based on the, you know, the Apollo missions to the moon and it's a cooperative board game. Um, I'm working on a couple different RPG products they're projects, but not anything that I can announce yet. And I think that's it for board games. That are coming out right now that I can talk.
Doug: [00:22:38] Yeah. Uh, I am working on... so, I just had a game come out a card game called Aunt Agatha's Attic, which is a real time, uh, negotiation set collection game that came out with Chronicle books in May. I think. I'm also working on a game that currently is called home, but we're probably going to change it with Leo, who I mentioned before.
Uh, it's a. Role playing game about surviving the night in a haunted house.
devin: [00:23:05] That's fun with Agatha is, uh, you mentioned Chronicle set, collecting, what can you expand on that a little bit?
Doug: [00:23:13] Oh sure. But so the publishing company is Chronicle books. Um, and so the, the way the game works is you are, uh, feuding cousins who have gotten a bunch of stuff from your aunt's attic.
And, um, as you're getting ready to leave with your pile of stuff, she says, look, I'm tired of you squabbling, you have to learn to get along. And so you're trading in real time with the other players to try to collect these sets of these items that you want. Um, and each time you make a trade, you're able to draw another card. So you're increasing your hand size as you swap cards with each other.
devin: [00:23:49] Gotcha.
Doug: [00:23:50] And all that takes place over three rounds. And I think each round is two minutes, so there's a lot of like fast frantic, shouting over each other. It's been a lot of fun to work on and I'm looking forward to being able to get a group of people together, to play the final product.
devin: [00:24:06] That sounds fun. Outside of paper products. Is there any plans for the kids series? I know, you know, a lot of products are getting picked up for video games for TV shows. You can just give me a few blinks, Yes this is going towards additional media. Is it, has there been talks about any of that yet?
Jon: [00:24:26] I mean, we have, we have a really good relationship with Renegade, which does a lot of board games and non RPG stuff.
So, you know, there's, there's definitely talks about other products.
devin: [00:24:36] Okay. Now just kind of, to just round us out. Uh, what is your personal favorite element, feature, concept, or philosophy about game design.
Jon: [00:24:49] Right. That's it. That's a really good and vague question. Uh, I mean, my, my kind of personal one is that I always, like, if I don't know what decision to make in the design, I always do the fun thing instead of the more balanced.
Um, and I always, I always think the fun thing should be the most important and it doesn't need to be perfectly balanced. It doesn't need to think of every edge or corner case. I know, and I kind of went back and forth on exploding dice at one point. And he was like, well, they should only explode once.
And I was like, what if they just explode forever? And he's like, well, that's ridiculous. And I was like, yeah, but just think how fun that's going to be. Um, so I always push for that. Um, in my designs, just do the fun thing.
Doug: [00:25:34] And everybody always makes them explode infinitely anyway. So yeah, it's just an easily forgotten role, right.
Um, I guess about the design itself. I mean, play testing is one of my big things, but that's, I guess a little different, probably what I said before that ideally the rules should like get out of the way,and let the game be the game, games require rules without delving into like the depth, the pointless discussion of what is a game.
But, you know, the, we accept certain rules when we played most games and. What can we do to make those rules as intuitive, as possible, as easy to remember as possible. And like John was saying as fun as possible so that we're not putting up barriers to, to things rather than like ways to access the fun.
devin: [00:26:29] Now on the, you know, the flip side of the coin, what is the most challenging or. Difficult thing when it comes to game design within your own, within your own spheres and processes.
Doug: [00:26:42] To me, it's exactly the same as the most fun, the best thing. Right. I tend to overdo and overprescribe and over as I'm doing right now, just go over.
Right. And so getting out of. My own way or listening to John when he tells me to get out of my own way or as with the magic system for kids on brooms, John and Spencer, who were both very right about that. So for that one, it was a, we wrote up the system and I was advocating for it to be harder to use magic, then it wound up being in the final rules.
And that was a pretty linked the discussion, not a heated one at all, but like, Very much like going back and forth about design philosophy and stuff. And I was definitely wrong, so.
Jon: [00:27:32] And I don't even think it's a right or wrong. It's just right for the system, you know, in a different system. I think that would be,
Doug: [00:27:41] yeah, that's true.
Jon: [00:27:42] I mean, I think for me, probably one of the hardest things is being done and thinking that something's good. Yeah. I have that problem. And a lot of artists have where it would have where I see every flaw. And everything that's ever been wrong with it and, you know, compound that into the final measure. So, um, Doug does a great job, keeping me honest with that and pushing me and letting me know that, you know, I need to let things go sometimes.
devin: [00:28:07] So now just to, you know, just edge, one more question in there. Uh, you guys, you mentioned Spencer. You know, I, I really like Icarus it's it's one of my favorites.
Doug: [00:28:18] Oh my God. So, good.
devin: [00:28:19] Brilliant, brilliant game. How was it working with Spencer on, on brooms?
Jon: [00:28:24] Uh, it was fantastic the way that they handle, everything like from the start to the head of a very, you know, detailed slide show of their ideas.
And everything was very professional and, you know, business like and always open to discussion and, you know, really just fit into our dynamic of how we design.
Doug: [00:28:47] Yes. I think Spencer came in expecting this to be more to me more towards that end of things. Then it wound up being less, you know, kids on bikes and teens and spaces.
A lot of like two friends goofing around and creating something. And then. That's what Kids on brooms wound up being two, except there were three dudes and, uh, yeah, he went with, he pitched the idea to us. It was like this very cause he's he's West coast, right. He's from LA he's very much of the, like, all right, I'm going to do a high level pitch.
And then he has like deep, we found out recently he even reached out to Heather about getting some sample art done. So he could include that pitch. And we're like, okay. Dude, like the thing you said on Twitter was enough. So he had been working on this idea independently and when we decided we were going to be working on kids on brooms, a couple of weeks later after we started our brainstorming Google doc, he said, Hey, I just ran this really cool hack at a convention.
And I thought it was really neat. I just, John and Doug, I thought you guys would want to know about. And so then we sent them a message and said like, We do want to know about it. Uh, and we would love to work with you on it, which he interpreted as like pitch it to me. And we meant as like, so let's get let's get here, here, my friend.
Jon: [00:30:06] Yeah. Yeah. Let's just start.
Doug: [00:30:08] Right. Let's let's hop on a, on a Google hangout and like BS around for a little while and figure it out, but it was awesome. Spencer is an unbelievably talented designer, an unbelievably good storyteller, just fantastic.
Jon: [00:30:23] And just one of the best GMs around.
Doug: [00:30:25] Oh, yeah. Oh my God.
devin: [00:30:27] That's awesome. And it was, it was really cool when Kids on Brooms got announced and I saw Spencer's name was, was on there for the credits and I got excited. I smashed the preorder button within seconds of even just seeing your three names on there. I really like kids on bikes. It's very innovative.
It's that push forward that, you know, I think the industry has been needing for a very long time, so thank you both. And then of course, to Spencer. For, for creating these products and for, you know, doing such a good job on that.
Doug: [00:30:56] Thank you.
devin: [00:30:57] Now where amongst the social ether, can we find the, both of you?
Doug: [00:31:03] Oh, I'm on Twitter. I don't tweet all that often, but I'm on there, im @Levzilla which is a joke from one of my students.
Jon: [00:31:13] And, uh, you can find me on Twitter at John Gilmore, J O N G I L M O R E.
devin: [00:31:20] Well, thank you both for taking the time to jump on a call and, and talk about the products and yourselves, and I'm looking forward to everything you guys have coming down the line.
Doug: [00:31:29] Thanks so much.
Jon: [00:31:30] Thank you so much for having me.
Doug: [00:31:31] It's been a blast. Thank you.
Jon: [00:31:33] Anytime.
devin: [00:31:34] I'm gonna hold you to that.
Doug: [00:31:36] Alright, done.
Bri: [00:31:43] Thank you for tuning into this episode of bardic babble. Bardic Babel is a part of the Bard podcast networks, family of shows. You can find bardic Babel and all of our other shows@thebardpodcast.com. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe for updates on new episodes. We can't wait to share the next story with you.