Transcription - Social Links - Links to projects
In this interview we chatted with Andreas Walters of Metal Weave Games about the Hyperlight Drifter RPG, Owlbear Plushies, and Kickstarters.
You can find Hyper Light Drifter on Backerit and you can signup to be notified about the Owlbear Plushie when it goes live.
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devin: [00:00:00] Welcome to the first episode of the Bardic Babbel Podcast. My name is Devin and I am going to be your host. Today we have the father of the owl bear plushy and the owner of Metal Weave Games. Joining us on her inaugural interview is Andreas Walters.
andreas: [00:00:31] Yeah, actually that was the one question is like, is it machine washable?
And it's like, huh, I haven't gotten there yet. Let me get a few more of them and I'll throw one in and see what happens.
devin: [00:00:40] But stay with us. We're going to learn a little bit about Kickstarters, successes and failures, what it takes to take an existing IP and convert it over into a tabletop RPG. And first going to learn a little bit more about Andreas. [ad break]
Welcome back listeners. Joining me I have, Andreas Walters of Metal Weave Games. And I'm going to let you take the wheel there. Andreas and tell us a little bit about yourself and the products we might see your name attached to.
andreas: [00:01:31] Yeah, sure. Um, I am as mentioned Andreas Walters. Um, I am the founder creator of Metal Weave Games, and I create a lot of things.
Um, I guess most notably known for the Hyperlight Drifter tabletop role playing game and the Baby Bestiary, um, amongst other things, um, from system list products to systems supporting products to eventually apply. So. A lot of stuff.
devin: [00:01:59] I'm very excited for the, uh, the owl bear plush. That's been filling up my feed lately and I'm excited.
andreas: [00:02:08] I I've, I've had the prototype for over a year now and it's like, yes, I will kickstart you. I know I need to do you, but like timing the world. Hasn't let me do it yet.
devin: [00:02:18] It's staring you in the face.
andreas: [00:02:20] Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. It's on my shelf looking at me.
devin: [00:02:23] Do it now do it.
Yeah. I imagine that's going to do. Uh, do pretty well. Um, is that a difficult thing? Plushes.
andreas: [00:02:33] Sort of, I think the hardest part with doing plushes, at least through my experience has been getting a design that works. Um, Al bears are unique, um, in that they're a bear. And so when you show art or you talk to any plush manufacturer, they're gonna make you a toy bear.
devin: [00:02:55] Right. A Teddy bear
andreas: [00:02:57] and yeah, they're going to give you a Teddy bear and it's going to have a little beak and it's going to look terrifying. Um, I, I actually did a post recently that showed off, um, it's iterations of like my five phases of owl bear, um, with I think, three different menu, three different developed three different manufacturers that did prototypes.
devin: [00:03:18] Oh geez.
andreas: [00:03:18] Um, the first one was the, the most terrifying. The second one just looked like a fuzzy sitting bear with just a beak nose. And I'm like, okay, that's not quite what I wanted. Right. It doesn't scream owl bear to me. Um, especially like after, you know, having the Baby Beastiary and everything like it, wasn't screaming Owlbear.
And then for the final version, that was when I got. So essentially, like, it was a couple, like I'd pick up this project, I'd try something thing and then it would kind of fall off. So it's like, okay, I lost $500 deposit slash prototype fee, whatever. A couple of years later, try it again. Um, with a different company to see if my results would end up differently.
Um, and then finally, after that point, I got inspired. Uh, essentially like we were in Japan town and like in one of the like plushy shops and that's when I was able to, like, it kinda clicked in me and like direction the design should go in. Okay. And so I had one of my artists to do a, like a mockup design of, Hey, if we did a plush in like these toys styles, these plush styles, what would that look like?
And so that's when I got the ball rolling with, um, the final design, which came out really well. Um, originally they actually had the head separate from the body, or like there was a gap which looked really weird. Um, and then we were able to get them to like connect it.
devin: [00:04:42] Okay.
I see. I see. So was it like a planned trip to go seek out inspiration for the owl bear? Or did you just stumbled upon it?
andreas: [00:04:50] Yeah, not at all. That was just kind of, we were there getting Boba, eating food, and going downtown kind of thing. It was just a night out.
Lo and behold, man. You just, you find inspiration in the funniest places.
Oh yeah. And it's funny because it's like, we've been to these shops before and like me having, being grown up in like Cupertino, which is a very high asian population community. Like, I've definitely seen all these things before, but it never just like dawned on me. That was the design I should go for or like the inspiration route.
Yeah, I mean, good thing is you are, you're in a pretty good position to pivot and the new design looks great. I'm a big fan of itand so it was my, my kid.
Yeah. Yeah. Actually that was the one question is like, is it machine washable? And it's like, huh, I haven't gotten there yet. Let me get a few more of them. I'll throw one in and see what happens.
devin: [00:05:42] Or slobber proof as I've been told.
Right. Right. So, so how did you get into the, uh, the, the tabletop space in, in general? Do you have the classic in someone's basement story or like, how'd you how'd you get involved in tabletop?
andreas: [00:06:01] It wasn't in a basement, but so in middle, middle school, like my friends, I obviously like everyone called before they showed up. Um, but like, back then when you actually had to call before you drove off to someone's house, um, or have your parents drive you to their house?
Like my friends showed up and I was like, we're going to play D&D or whatever. They pull up in, you know, their mom's minivan, you know, and like we go back to their house and I created it, my first character, a fighter. And then I was really confused why I got attacked and got hit when I had the Dodge feet.
Um, cause I was like, I put, I dodged. Um, so that was my first experience. Um, but yeah, I stayed with that group for a long time. That was like through middle school, up into early high school. Um, the DM then dropped out, um, mostly for personal reasons. And then from there I took over the group and so I became the GM and became the GM for my group for up through high school until college.
And then college, everyone kind of went their own ways and I fell out of the industry. Um, then new Minera surprisingly brought me back into the industry, um, money cooks Kickstarter for Newman era. Um, And that's what really dragged me back in and what, when they released their fan license. When I started, like, there was a tight knit community of like Cipher of Numenera, um, on ninthworldhub was the website.
Um, and so we were all talking about systems. We had, there was like a chat feature, so we could actually chat with each other. And we were, it was just a small knit community and we were creating supplements and that's how I started learning, making PDFs. And then when the fan license came out, it was me and Ryan Chaddick. We were kind of the first two creators in the Cipher space.
devin: [00:07:51] Okay.
andreas: [00:07:52] And then just. Grew from there. Um, and so I created a couple of like six, six or seven supplements from there under the cipher system fan license. And then from there I launched my own Kickstarter, um, leveraging that community and the people I built up from that for like my first generic product, which was non-player cards.
So I assume this was long before a drive through RPG and the DMS Guild. Uh, where were you, where were you hosting your process?
So this was actually DrivethruRPG. DrivethruRPG have been around for a long time.
devin: [00:08:28] Oh,Okay.
andreas: [00:08:28] Um, so yeah, so I think my earliest titles are like 2015. Oh, okay. Um, and then I believe Numenera was 2014.
Yeah. Because yeah, it took them a year to build the game and release it. And then, uh, from there then they created the fan license and then it took another like eight months to build my first product. Um, probably not eight months, but it felt like it. Right, right. It always does. Um, yeah, God, um, that was an interesting time and God, I went back into the InDesign file and I'm like, Oh my God, this is terrible.
What did I do?
devin: [00:09:01] I hate going back to projects, especially with that big of a time gap, you know, years. And you know, you've accumulated so much more. You know, technical wealth and knowledge, and you just, you just stare at the screen for, for minutes to try and to get your head around where you were at.
andreas: [00:09:16] It's like, it's not even continuous text box.
It's all individual text boxes. Formatting is manually done not using styles.
devin: [00:09:24] Oh yeah.
andreas: [00:09:24] Like I was. I mean, I was doing some cool stuff, but like, Holy shit. Like if I knew how to do like the stuff that I did now, wow. It would have been a much better book, but right.
devin: [00:09:34] So where along the way did you put down the flag for a Metal Weave?
So Metal Weave kind of, it's funny because I think my first company name was like Knowledge of the Ninth, um, which was like sort of my hobby name. Cause it was like Cipher system supplements. Um, so that was where I was going at first. And then I switched to Metal Weave Games. When did I do that? Um, I made the switch actually relatively early on.
andreas: [00:10:10] It was probably before I did the Baby Beastiary or definitely before I did the Baby Beastiary. Um, so it was probably after a couple of supplements I was publishing and then I started changing names because I was like, I need to figure out like a consistent brand name and Metal Weave Designs was my old jewelry title, um, or jewelry company.
Um, and that's actually what the logo is based off of is a chain mail, um, a chain mail link. Um, that's like in, turned into, so when you do a box weave or a Byzantine weave, Um, you can do it where you have three, um, uh, three rings instead of the basic two, uh, and have it folded over. And that's where the kind of the three-prong at the top is.
And then the folded rings is where you have like the, uh, the under the lower part of the amulet with its two over parts. So it's kinda just turn, I just kind of pivoted that into, um, from my jewelry into my tabletop. Cause it was. And I, it's an interesting name and it's a unique design that could stand out on its own.
devin: [00:11:18] Interesting too, that, you know, the, the jewelry making, you know, without even really knowing it, you know, some of the styles and techniques were pretty adjacent to, to what you'd be working in, in tabletop.
andreas: [00:11:30] Y eah, exactly.
Um, and yeah, so we kinda just, um, I had an artist do a, like a graphical version of that, of that knot.
And that's what pretty much stuck with me for most of the years, until like two years ago where I finally, maybe last year, where I finally got like a flat file of just like the silhouette and that logo is still on like the Baby Beastiary books, like the illustrated logo.
devin: [00:11:55] So now was Baby Beastiary, the first, uh, the first big Kickstarter you did other than Non-Player Cards or what, what followed?
andreas: [00:12:04] Yes. So, so following Non-Player I believe, um, Baby Bestiary was the one right after that. So let me self check myself. [Sounds of keyboard] So of course I need, uh, uh, uh, embers. Oh, well, yeah, whatever. Um, yeah, I believe that was the case. So right after non-player cards, I launched, um, the Baby Beastiary, yup. It was the Baby Beastiary.
And Baby Beastiary was a very interesting evolution as well, because I was originally doing like, posters and a calendar. It wasn't really thinking much of a book. Right. Um, and so that completely evolved in that Kickstarter. Oh. And I went back and I found like some old mockup files and like how I originally was thinking of doing a third panel design and having like the text on the outside with the image on the inside edge.
And it's like, Whoa, this changed a lot. Um, and then like the old cover, which was like solid purple with like a scar through it and like a broken egg. It it's it's wonky, but it's definitely changed.
devin: [00:13:14] Uh, so what's set you on the path of the Baby Beastiary?
andreas: [00:13:19] Uh, there was it's funny because it was actually just like a tweet that kind of triggered me onto the idea.
And it was essentially someone saying that, "Oh, a Displacerbeast isn't a magical beast. It's an aberration. Um, and like the following was like, well then the kittens, definitely not going to be as cute essentially. Um, because it's an aberration, which is like Eldritch horror.
devin: [00:13:46] Right.
andreas: [00:13:47] Um, and that was kind of where it was like, hell yeah, that'll be cute.
Why not? And so that's kind of where I started on like, Oh, damn. It would be cute to see the baby of this monster, um, or these monsters. And so that's where it kind of started the inspiration of, okay, let me get a few of these adorable beasts and. ee what they look like. Um, and see if I can get like a book of
them.
So when you were reaching out to, uh, to artists, I imagine the, the hype was probably pretty high when you're like, Hey, I need a baby Griffin and have baby owl bear.
Yeah. Um, actually it's funny because what my strategy was was you needed like professional level art quality. And so, so for that, I actually went out to, I started digging into like wizards of the coast to used for their artists or for their art, for the DMG and stuff like that for old books and stuff like that and their new stuff.
And that led me to finding concept of Apolis, which is like an art outsourcing studio. Um, which is sort of my first experience working with that. And so they had a relationship with artists in India. It's, it's very weird or outsourcing companies. Um, so they have a studio, they have relationships with a bunch of artists and art studios internationally, and they can get various people to work.
And so the artist that ended up a couple artists that ended up working on it, um, that I've actually connected with personally, like Rudy, Rudy, S a Mecca to try saying his last name. He's Indonesian. Um, and a fantastic artist that now works for riot games actually. Um, he, uh, did some of these first pieces and just absolutely nail it.
And so we pretty much had him booked to do the rest of the, not to do the rest of the book, but in that style aesthetic, cause he just nailed the, I want an image, acute image of, you know, a baby creature. And from that point they kind of just nailed the. Um, design and the aesthetic. And so I would only like input things like, Oh, I need this kind of background.
Like when they would give me the sketches or like this needs to be in a Savanna or we need different details to the ecology around them.
Um, When you were planning this all out, was the owl bear high up on your list of, of mascots or did it like just eventually emerge its way into
that role? Um, originally I probably knew I was going to do it, but at the time I wasn't really.
Al bear. Wasn't the mascot in mind, like the first three pieces I think was Kymera, Phoenix and displacer kit or sorry, um, phase kitten. Um, and those were my first three. Um, now I've sort of defaulted over the years to, uh, Griffin, Phoenix, owl, bear, and dragon turtle as my defacto. Champions of the baby best URI.
devin: [00:16:46] Good, good swath of creatures to represent the product. So now once you, you know, you, you got through, you know, the initial, getting the Kickstarter out there and, you know, starting to piece it together, working with artists, um, I can imagine there was probably a good amount of, uh, Failure and learning that went along with the success. Um, anything that
andreas: [00:17:12] Shipping costs
devin: [00:17:13] I can only imagine.
andreas: [00:17:15] Yeah. So part of it was, I got, I don't even want to look back to see what my initial numbers were. Um, but essentially, like I got lucky in the sense that, uh, when I did the project. Yeah. I don't even know if I can even look at shipping costs on these anymore.
Cause it's so old. Um, But with how the project was fundraised and how income was. It was very interesting that I could offset shipping costs. Right. Like I think I did. Yeah. For the first book, I actually shipped it through Amazon, I believe. Um, so I put the products up on Amazon shipped through Amazon, which is actually fairly affordable.
Um, I would have to go back and, and see what the actual costs were. And then in addition, because Amazon had the inventory, you could do FBA fulfilled by Amazon, which also worked out really nicely because then they moved inventory really fast.
devin: [00:18:09] Right. And they've got the, because they have inventory and everything like that.
andreas: [00:18:14] Yeah, they have a whole marketing engine that they can put to it. Um, whereas fulfilled by merchant, they don't apply any of that. So you'll notice your sales dip quite a bit, but it's like, ah, do I want to give the machine, you know, some money or do I want to get the most dollar I can for each product.
devin: [00:18:30] Right.
andreas: [00:18:32] But most of, most of the Kickstarter learnings that I really come out to is like administration costs. Uh, and a lot of that comes down to just like, Not managing the business, but managing shipping shipping is the hardest part. I think, of any Kickstarter production in shipping, um, the hardest part of any Kickstarter and making sure everyone gets their books.
Because like shipping a book to Australia is like 30 bucks. And that can honestly like mess you up really bad. Um, if you don't. And especially when I made a bunch of friends with Australians on the teacher DTRPG the group, so I had an exceptionally higher number of Australian backers, which of course, you know, doesn't help, um, in terms of cost.
So later on, I would have developed like relationships with. Australian warehouse, like an Australian warehouse Aethership, um, which helps a little bit, it's still expensive, but it's not as expensive as sending each individual book to Austria.
devin: [00:19:34] Right. Right.
andreas: [00:19:35] Um, now was there ever a time where you just, you kind of sat there, head in your hands and, uh, you know, have that, that low key panic of, well we'll shoot, you know, X, you know, country or continent. Isn't going to get these on time and you know, how, how you're going to handle that or were ya pretty safe in those waters?
On one time with Kickstarter on time is never a thing. I mean, I mean, it's, it's night. It is Kickstarter would allow you to update delivery dates. Like that would be amazing because then you can, I mean, obviously you don't want a Kickstarter that constantly constantly updates their delivery date, but at a point it's like, okay, like, Shit hit the fan.
We're updating our delivery date because you know, the project grew unexpectedly. The distribution has changed or the book is bigger now. Um,
devin: [00:20:25] a worldwide pandemic hit.
andreas: [00:20:27] Yeah, exactly. So like for drifter, it's like, Hey, I know like August was the initial, like. Delivery date. That's not happening for a lot of reasons and you know, one it'll be better for the game anyways, so let's just push it.
devin: [00:20:41] Right.
Uh, so I was actually gonna gonna pivot, um, because, uh, Hyperlight's actually where, you know, I initially found you and, and metal weave.
andreas: [00:20:52] How, how did you find out if I may ask or where did you find out?
devin: [00:20:57] So just kind of a long story short, I have a friend who is very into, uh, like vapor wave, synth wave, kind of music making.
And then, you know, just one day I was, you know, just perusing the internet and I found a hyperlight drifter, showed it to him. We both, you know, kind of geeked out over it. And then, you know, it was probably. You know, six, seven months later. And I started working in the video game space itself, and I was like the resident D&D guy, so everyone would bring that to my table
andreas: [00:21:33] You got to get notified of everything
devin: [00:21:35] everything. Oh, man. It was like, Hey, do you see this Kickstarter? No, I haven't even walked in the door yet. Um, and, and one of the ones that it was like three or four people in the same day. Sent it on, over to me was, was hyperlight. So it was, uh, a neat little find.
Um, the, the biggest question that I have is how do you go about licensing that? Cause it's a preexisting IP, like, do you, do you just reach out and be like, Hey, I want to make this into a board game. I mean, it's a tabletop.
andreas: [00:22:06] Yes. Um, so licensing is very weird just in general. So like one of the people I ended up working with is Ivan van Norman.
Um, who's over at Hunters books, Kids on Bikes, and I've worked with him for a little bit as well. And so he's worked on some IP, um, as well from like, uh, right now he's working on Altered Carbon.
devin: [00:22:28] Yeah.
andreas: [00:22:30] Um, and so for them, so IP acquisitions kind of come in a variety of ways. One way is obviously it depends on the size and scale of the IP, um, is to actually get a firm to assist you with IP acquisition.
There are companies that will essentially be like, Oh, you want to get this Marvel property, you know, or, you know, universal studios property. Like you'll need to go through someone else. To go through that process.
devin: [00:23:01] Just all that red tape.
andreas: [00:23:02] Yup. Exactly. So like they're dedicated to acquiring IP either they have the contacts or they have.
I'm not sure exactly. Even how that works. Like it's magic to me is sometimes another thing is like one is just reaching out and figuring out who their marketing or licensing director is if they have one. Um, this was, I actually reached out to Activision, um, Activision blizzard, uh, to reach out for.
Well Diablo. And at the time, Destiny, um, as a licensed and I actually got through to someone because, um, I cold called email or cold emails. Um, I emailed, I you'd look up on press, um, look up like Blizzard or Activision or whatever company, and look up like, um, IP or licensing director or licensing.
And you can probably find like a press release about some person being. Uh, talking about some products that they're releasing or partnering with. Um, and that's how you can find the name and usually the email of the individual. Um, that's the director of that. And so usually with that, you do like, Hey I'm so, and so we may, I work with, you know, Metal Weave have games or founder of, and we make notable products or award winning products, and we're interested in licensing X property.
Um, and whether you include your pitch deck, Um, or not is something else entirely. Um, this is something else. So you'd have to look at with, um, IP acquisitions is having a pitch deck kind of like a fountain. Like if you're doing a startup, like here's what we can do. Here's what we do. Good. Here's our social media metrics.
Here's our expected growth. Here's our timeline. Here's our team, you know, how are we expecting to do this? What is our vision for the product kind of high level? Start up, be bullshit. In a sense while looking pretty at the same time. And so I did actually one of the, uh, I do have a pitch deck for Metal Weave games, um, that I haven't used that often, but for hyperlight I got, so my plan was to, okay, maybe I can't, like, maybe I'm not big enough to land like a AAA title, which, you know, I'm okay with that.
Like, I'll accept that. Um, and so it's like, alright, well, let's try smaller devs. I make games for, you know, like ShovelKnight or Hollow Knight or Hyper Light Drifter. Um, and I think there are a couple of other too, like Darkest Dungeon. You know, this is all, these are like high on my list on, I want to make a game with.
devin: [00:25:31] All great games
andreas: [00:25:33] And I reached out to Alex, founder of Hyper Light Drifter and Heart Machine, and he just said, sure, let's do it. You know? And that I call that pure luck because one, no one else has tried it before. Um, I guess.
devin: [00:25:47] Right.
andreas: [00:25:48] Um, or that I came off with the confidence that I can actually deliver this thing.
devin: [00:25:54] I mean so far, you're doing a good job.
andreas: [00:25:56] Thank you. Um, I, I hope I am too. Um, so part of it in, in that, um, just upon that acceptance was like a year of negotiations essentially. Um, part of it was. Alex was dealing with health condition, his, um, his health. Um, and so him responding to emails was inner, uh, inner and not interstitial inter spaced out of it.
Um, but in addition, just going back and forth on contract terms and like how payments will work and how, what access I will have, or they will have, um, if I develop pixel art assets, can he use it for a tabletop game? Can I use assets? He gives me for a video game, yada, yada, yada. Um, and who owns what? So you go through all the rounds on like licensing and schedule and stuff like that.
And then, from there, you start working on it product. Um, and what's ironic is the time I got the license was like a couple months before GenCon.
devin: [00:26:55] Okay.
andreas: [00:26:55] Um, and so it was like, originally my schedule was like, Oh, we're going to have a demo for gen con. And it's like, well, crap. Um, now I need to run something for gen con.
And so I put together a pretty rough playtest an alpha, a very rough alpha, and the games essentially just evolved from that.
devin: [00:27:14] It's been really interesting watching the, uh, the progress and it's, it's equally interesting that you you stream the process, I actually caught the, uh, The Twitch stream the other day just kind of popped in and, and, and watched, um, Like what, what led to the decision of, of streaming that, and especially the community involvement.
That was one of the things that struck me in, in your, in your PDF is, you know, there's a lot of community involvement.
andreas: [00:27:40] Yeah. And so part of well streaming, it is, you know, not very many people watch because I have a tiny stream, so I'm cool with that. Um, so my exposure is not that high, which I'm fine with.
Um, But even then, if it was higher, I think it's fine because it opens the door to what game design looks like or the thoughts of game design. So what's interesting with HyperLight Drifter is that it is very interpretive game and I'm not saying I, I don't, I have a pulse on what that interpretation is.
But I want to make sure I stay on it. Um, as well as applying, like modern game design techniques to it, um, or trying out crazy things with game design. So part of it is that community involvement and ensures that I still have a pulse on what the community is looking for and what's what they like. About, you know, the game, like, you know, do I need a more in depth crafting system?
Um, or does the name of his ability because it relates to something in the game or outside of the game, does that matter, or to what degree does it make sense? Um, so like, uh, corruption was one of those interesting things where, or the use of dashes, uh, corruption is a mechanism in the game that will slowly kill your character.
Um, lead to the end of your character.
devin: [00:29:13] Right.
andreas: [00:29:14] And it's fascinating because it is my interpretation of how the drifter sickness works in the game. And from, I also have like, you know, an NDA lore dump of knowledge as well. And so I need to make sure that I apply my knowledge in a way that resonates with what the community understands.
devin: [00:29:37] So now when you're, when you're, you know, you're developing new new classes or you're, you know, you're implementing your takes on, on the corruption system, on the dash system, are these things that you're like, you know, shooting over to Alex and just being like, Hey, does this still fall within the lore set or are you just kind of given a little bit of Liberty within your guys's contract?
andreas: [00:29:57] So he actually. He gives us a, quite a bit of Liberty. He trusts us quite a bit. Um, I have, I do have review sessions where I'm like, I'll bring up. Uh, like a couple feels like months ago now, um, where we did like rule set review map review, um, just to go over, like, here's our pitches for the world and the continent we're building here.
Let's go through the introduction and through the basic mechanisms of the game and just like, you know, do a check in and see how these feel. If anything looks out of line or feels out of line, you know, just let me know. And. There's only been one or two small points here and there about like, you know, the map or the contents of the world too.
I'm just like, Oh, maybe we should rename this because this could be problematic. Um, so there hasn't been many changes, but it's definitely, it's just keeping him informed. And if anything looks off, you know, he'll, he'll let us know.
devin: [00:30:57] Okay. That's cool. That's neat. What led you to the. To the, the, the grid battlefield,
andreas: [00:31:04] what did lead to that?
So part of it was part of, it was me thinking about how to do combat in a way that is it can be done theater of the mind, but can also be done at the table. And part of that was how do I do. Like originally Cypher system was actually going to be, um, I was originally when I first got the license, I was thinking I was going to hack cipher system.
Um, and I would, if that ended up happening, I would have had someone many hacks to it. It probably wouldn't have been cipher system anymore. But, you know, um, that just didn't end up going that way. So, which I actually like that worked out for the better for me. Um, and so with the changes, so like the thing that I was trying to envision was like for safer system it's narrative, but it's not tactical and, and something like D&D fourth edition it's tactical, but it's too much.
And so like looking at where Ryuutama. So Ryuutama has a system where you have a front line and a back line, and you have like, it's like a JRPG where you have like the attackers and the enemies.
devin: [00:32:18] Right.
andreas: [00:32:19] And you have a front line and a back line. And I liked that, but it wasn't deep enough. And so my system one, this system they sort of came up with was how do I do combat in a restricted space?
Where you have the flexibility to do what you want, but you can still narrate that combat if you didn't want to use the grid. And that's kind of where I ended up with the combat grid with, because like, A two by two is obvious or, you know, a two by two grid is just way too small to have anything tactical, but a four by four is almost too many squares.
devin: [00:32:56] Right. Very overwhelming. I could see that.
andreas: [00:32:58] Yeah. And also, even if you do that, then you're not isometric anymore. You'd have to do it in square.
devin: [00:33:04] And that's interesting. That's, you know, the, there's this, the small thoughts, you know, is it isometric still, you know, as a, as a consumer, those are the things that are, you know, baked in into that, that we just, we don't, we don't seem to think.
And it's, it's cool.
andreas: [00:33:17] Yeah, it's been very interesting. Yeah. Go about it. Cause it's like, okay, I've come up with this idea. I think it works. Um, and so a lot of that has been just like my internal play testing and play testing with the concept and. Uh, experimenting with how that would work.
devin: [00:33:34] That's my next question was going to be, when you do play tests, is it, do you just do it all on your own or do you have like a core team that you work with or
andreas: [00:33:42] now I don't have a core team.
I mean, I have a team of contributors and stuff, um, for the setting and game material, uh, I have been working with a few individuals that I've been starting to play tests. Specific aspects more with. Okay. Um, but a lot of it has been and simulation, um, self simulations. Um, I usually, so this is something I did with a lot of game design, is that I will do, I, I guess I'll run.
I run simulations both in my head on paper. Um, so I'll just like pull up a combat board, drop down a bunch of characters and be like, what if I want to do this? Or let's run through a simulation. Yeah. Combat enemies, do this. Yes. Attackers do this, you know, and just kind of go through the motions and see how it feels and looks okay.
But recently I have been starting to do it with more groups, um, one to get different feedback, um, and to see what people get hung up on.
devin: [00:34:36] Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I'm just, sorry, I'm just sitting here looking at the, uh, the Backerit. I love the, the design, the SNES box design.
andreas: [00:34:47] Oh, I know I did that super early on too.
I need to, I need to start working on what box stuff once I figure out everything that goes into it.
devin: [00:34:56] Oh man. I keep it. I love it. I love it. Uh, um, so then the last real thing that I, I wanted to touch on with, with hyperlight is what has been your, your, your favorite aspect of, of building it? Mechanic the art working with Alex, like what just, what just gets you up every morning and just keeps you digging away at it.
andreas: [00:35:18] I think right now it's almost been just working on the system itself. Um, so there's so many like nuances problems to fix. So like, as I, I come up, you know, like version 4.2 was a big change and it addressed a lot of things, but there's like more to be done, um, in that system and more to be fixed, kind of like, you know, In, in development game.
devin: [00:35:43] Sure, Right.
andreas: [00:35:44] Uh, and so it's like, okay, we're in beta phase or whatever. And we have, you know, a bunch of features that, you know, the game is usable as is, um, or as of current, but I want to make it better or make it more obvious how to play, how to run, how, how people engage with it. And so like also want to change up a few things.
Um, not like, um, a rework, but it kind of is a rework because it's like, okay, now we have a, I liked the design method of starting small and building onto it.
devin: [00:36:18] Right.
andreas: [00:36:18] I mean, it usually is a good way for most people. It's a good way to work with elements and then improve elements as you grow. And so we had is originally was a list of, you know, abilities that you picked from.
And each class had their own lists and that made it nice and easy and nice and contained, but it felt too much like cypher system. Uh, to me and part of that too, was that like, once you get a cool ability, like once I have to do content, build out, the problem is, you know, old abilities become useless.
devin: [00:36:50] Sure.
andreas: [00:36:51] Uh, like why would I use the basic one energy ability when I can use the two energy ability that deals clearly way more damage. And I already have efficiency in using that ability score. So, or like I have Edge and Effort. So I can just like use that all the time. And so I wanted to build around that and then reoverhaul a couple of things.
So E5. Is a major overhaul that's coming up with changes to abilities and the slotting abilities.
devin: [00:37:20] Okay.
andreas: [00:37:20] Like a league of legends, almost characters have ability slots.
devin: [00:37:24] Whoa, I like that. That sounds cool. And you, you mentioned
andreas: [00:37:28] that it's fun.
devin: [00:37:30] You mentioned building onto it, and I'm sitting here on the back of that right now.
And it's, it's not just a book. You don't just have a book I'm seeing, I'm seeing a soundboard. I'm seeing EPs. What else are you looking to or wanting to, without spoiling anything too big? What else are you wanting to add to this as a, as a whole project?
So Drifter as the whole project, one thing is that. Well, obviously I want to make it a larger and successful game.
Um, I want people to play it. Um, and so part of that is one creating well, creating great starting products, um, that people can get into and access. Um, yeah. And then with that. So we're, I want one is like the soundboard and stuff like that, which we sort of have implemented, um, at least at a basic level.
But with that, I want to see more. I want to see more online tools in the sense that. People can create characters. Like I want a character generator, which we're sort of working on. I'm not, not yet as we nailed down all the other stuff.
Right.
andreas: [00:38:38] Um, but I want a solid character generator as well as I want to.
I want to combat board where I can see how people use it. Okay. Um, as someone who's, you know, watches the video game industry closely and like game development, I, I am really curious at seeing the data behind games. And something that, you know, D&D doesn't really D&D doesn't have access to, or even Roll20, to an extent is seeing the intricate detail on how people use, use the program, use the game, um, how a drifter is set up.
You can track those things fairly easily because it's an action based economy. And do you have pretty, the combat board is fairly trackable as well, if set up properly. And with that, you know, you can move forward and make a better, you know, continue to make the game better or create more interesting options based on that.
Uh, so one thing that I do want to do is one, like provide tools. So like we have one person that's working on a discord bot, um, to run drifter and even pulls up the combat board. Um, but I would love to see more of how people play the game. Um, and so what I'm hoping to do with like HLD dash RPG, the website is one, create a place where people can create content, but also create a place where people can share their stories.
Um, and the things that they create for the game, because drifter is already a pretty active community, um, or there is a community behind it. Um, that's fairly large. And one thing I want to do is bring more of that community into one place so people can discover and share things about the game. Um, be it the video game or their own characters.
And so that's one thing, reason why like solo play is something that I really want to support moving the game out of development. Is because I want ways for people to create their own drifters, get their own art and then share the story of their drifter.
devin: [00:40:42] Neat. Okay. Yeah. It's the, uh, the question I had was were you looking at something more, more browser-based or like something on Steam and it sounds like browser based is a little more,
andreas: [00:40:52] I mean, steam would be awesome because then you get visibility outside of tabletop.
devin: [00:40:58] Right.
andreas: [00:40:59] But that's. A skill set. Like I would have to figure out how to, I mean, I could probably figure out how to do it in Unity, but like, I am not the person that would do it efficiently. And so it'd probably be easier if someone else does built in whole experience from the ground up elsewhere.
devin: [00:41:14] Which I mean, who knows that might be your next Kickstarter?
andreas: [00:41:18] I mean, that would be for cool.
devin: [00:41:19] Other than the Owlbear, of course.
andreas: [00:41:21] Yeah. One thing at a time.
devin: [00:41:23] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So just to kind of, round us out and bring us back, I wanted to bring up a tweet thread that you actually just put out, yesterday, July 6th, about breaking down, cost income profits costs the whole nine.
I was, it was actually kind of fascinating to see, to see the numbers. It's. I mean, I'll be honest. You're the first one I've ever seen. That's just like, you know, here's the receipts. Um, was there anything that prompted you to do that or just, you know, just giving some visibility on the space.
andreas: [00:42:01] So in the past, I've sort of done a post like that.
Um, I'd have to go back and find them. Um, but I have done in the past some posts about like where our expenses are, um, and what our expenses look like. Um, and what I I've done a couple of, uh, yeah, so in the past years I've done a couple posts like it, but it's, uh, I don't think I started doing it until I incorporated and started using QuickBooks.
Um, mostly because it was a lot easier to track things. Uh, so like things on like how much I spent on the baby best year one, um, is difficult to go back and uncover because it was muddled in with my own income and it was very messy. Um, but as I incorporated. Back, I think two years ago now it's been a lot clearer in terms of like, you know, where the money's going, what goes, where, how much is getting spent on what, um, the hardest, I think it helps in terms of a visibility for the industry.
Um, I think I'm in the weird position or I am a big small guy. I'm the biggest little guy or whatever. It's...
I mean
devin: [00:43:11] three successful Kickstarters in a year.
andreas: [00:43:14] Well, I've run 14 Kickstarters, total.
devin: [00:43:17] oh, wow.
andreas: [00:43:19] Yeah. Between the Metal Weave Games and the Baby Beastiary Kickstarter. There's about 14 in there from Scavengers to annual calendars to Baby Bestiary reprints.
There's a, quite a few in there. And I think it's, I mean, there's nothing that, like, I'm not running away with money, so it's not like, right. And actually for drifter, that was actually something accused me of. It was like some random, you know, of course, Reddit, um, someone's like, Oh, what's stopping him from, you know, making a book for $6,000 and then running away with $10,000 or whatever.
And it's like, what the, what are you thinking? Like, that's not how this works.
devin: [00:44:00] Yeah, sorry. And even then $10,000, like, are you going to do,
andreas: [00:44:04] I mean, that'd be nice, but
devin: [00:44:07] yes, yes, it would.
andreas: [00:44:09] But like at the end of the day, like for me, how I positioned myself and the company, like everything gets reinvested and on one hand, it's I think, worthwhile to show the costs of business.
Um, I think it mislead, it might be, um, based on some of the reactions I'm seeing it sort of misleads people to see that there's no profit in tabletop RPGs, which isn't necessarily true. Um, it's just, I don't pay myself.
devin: [00:44:39] Right , that's always, always the hidden cost that everybody, uh, tends to. Uh, misrepresent to use the word.
andreas: [00:44:47] Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so like in that yeah, exactly. People misrepresent it. So on one hand, like I don't charge, I don't charge myself money. So like there's $26,000 of me paying contractors, um, and you know, paying contributors to help make my products. And then there's another, you know, $16,000 of me making, uh, paying for the production of goods.
Um, and then the rest of it is just, you know, production and management of business. And I think part of it is insightful because on one hand it shows how, not, how little money there is, but how risky it can be at even at a high level. Like I know, uh, Evil Hat, youknow, had a big scare a couple last year, I think, or two years ago.
Um, where they had to move a bunch of things around and slow down progress because they just weren't there cash flow. Wasn't good.
devin: [00:45:42] So then, uh, what, what do you do by, uh, by day? What are your not RPG, self? What do you do?
andreas: [00:45:50] I am a business analyst. I'm an it business analyst that, that improves it. Business processes, workflows and connections from departments and processes to the organizational unit, also a data analyst.
devin: [00:46:05] So you find that that one string and you just follow it all the way back until you're like, Oh, here's this
andreas: [00:46:10] More often than not. It's. Uh, this, the DBA is, want to do something or want to do something crazy. Uh, and they want to somehow sell it to the rest of the organization. What's the best way of making that process work or getting them the information they need, or they need certain access or need to be able to deliver a certain access.
Um, so it's a lot of. Business processes or like, you know, Oh, it department wants to set up its own catalog and have its own catalog items that members of IT can request, what are those items? How should they be set up? Who's doing the work and, you know, figuring out what that support chain looks like. And so usually it involves.
Investigating what that department does, who's doing, what work where's the work coming from and then how to incorporate tools that are existing or create tools that fit that flow.
devin: [00:47:05] So you literally have the best possible foundation to translate from your day to your night job, essentially.
andreas: [00:47:14] Maybe
devin: [00:47:14] It sounds like there's a lot of parallels
andreas: [00:47:16] It would be nice to to have other skills too.
devin: [00:47:17] Yeah. I feel that I feel that.
andreas: [00:47:19] Yeah. It's interesting. Um, It's it doesn't help on the business administration side, but it definitely helps. Um, as for design, I think it helps a ton because, you know, it comes into like the me running simulations kind of thing. How are people interacting? What is their flow or what would be their process?
You know, it kind of me predicting consumer behavior or even player behavior is something I rely on because you know, you have to predict people's movements. Um, so you can generate, or you have to watch what they do.
devin: [00:47:51] Right. And, and, and especially at a, you know, a larger, larger business scale, you're, you're removed from that.
Whereas with, you know, writing the book, you're very involved in the process. So being able to, to flip that switch to, uh, to the business analyst and being able, okay, you know, how does you know, an 18 to 35 year old male? How is he gonna interact with this differently than. You know, a 35 to 40 year old male who has no experience in tabletop kind of a thing
andreas: [00:48:13] they call support.
devin: [00:48:15] Yes. Yes, they do
andreas: [00:48:17] And the stifle the queue. I can't access my, uh, have you tried turning it off and on again or logging? Our support team did grow. And so we did have to build an accommodation to their new department organization and stuff like that, but yeah. A lot of idle, a lot of business process, a lot of data analysis here and there.
devin: [00:48:40] A lot of numbers, a lot of numbers.
andreas: [00:48:42] I love spreadsheets.
devin: [00:48:43] I think you're the first person I've ever met that said that.
andreas: [00:48:48] Well, it's funny because my first job was in finance. Um, not like boring finance. It was, um, what was it called fit? Um, it was a capital, essentially. It was the department that decided, uh, capital financial analysis and shoot, I almost forgot the rest of the term, uh, capital financial planning and analysis.
Uh, and essentially we were the team for the city of San Francisco. Um, MTA to decide how our budget got sent, um, how our grant budget got spent
devin: [00:49:19] Oh, interesting.
andreas: [00:49:21] Which was like $3 billion or something. Like, it was a ridiculous number. So it was like, cool. I mean, includes federal grants, building train lines, um, like the central subway and stuff like that.
And then I'll all of the other smaller grant funds from bike lanes to, um, their clean air grants.
devin: [00:49:37] Okay. That's sounds like a lot. Sounds like you needed a good team.
andreas: [00:49:43] It was a really fun job. I wish it was one of those, like, I'd go back kind of jobs.
devin: [00:49:48] Um, so that's, that's really all I had. Is there anything else that you wanted to cover or chat about?
andreas: [00:49:54] Yeah, something actually I forgot to mention is for drifter that I really want to do is translations getting, um, getting translations up for people to be able to play, whether it's just the basic rules. Um, just so that other people, cause we've had a bunch of, um, international people from like Russia to Brazil wanting to translate it and just that international.
devin: [00:50:16] That's fantastic. It's cool that you have that.
andreas: [00:50:19] Yeah, no, it's, it's like, I want you to start, but don't do it yet. It's not ready. I don't want you to waste your time. Prince. Let me get a change.
devin: [00:50:27] Right.
andreas: [00:50:28] Let alone adding my bad grammar to it. Oh
devin: [00:50:30] gosh, I feel that.
andreas: [00:50:32] That's why it's like, it's got the text has issues.
It's mostly grammar or punctuation, but don't worry. You can get through it. It's not that bad.
devin: [00:50:40] Right. Right. You, you won't even notice that you're going to be so involved in the game.
andreas: [00:50:43] Yeah, exactly. Except for those people who are really a editor. Who are really editors are like, I can't get past it. There's not a period here.
And it's like, just keep going.
devin: [00:50:52] There's there's an uppercase S where there should be a lowercase, like, okay. Okay. I know
andreas: [00:50:56] Oxford commas.
devin: [00:50:57] Oh gosh. Don't even get me started on the commas. Um, Again, it was, it was great speaking with you and yeah. Thank you so much for jumping on the show. And one more time, where can we find you and your amazing projects?
andreas: [00:51:12] Check out Hyperlight Drifter. Um, check out the Owlbear plush. Um, it's on pre notify or on notify on Kickstarter and you can just hashtag search, owlbear plush or go to the Metal Weave dot games website can find it there also for hyperlight drifter. We do have a public play test document outs. That's for free that's the basic rules.
And with version five, we'll probably be closing that soon and moving directly to the Wiki or the, what we call the Codex. Um, so what about public next of basic rules that people can check out and use? Right. And then our rules improvements will stay, um, with, um, Backer only slash preorder only development updates.
From that point on after version five, uh, on Twitter, you can find me specifically at Andreas, a N D R E S underscore N w G. Um, or you can find all our business account sets, um, at, or slash I guess, depending on what platform you're using, um, metal weave games, just spelled out also on our website, we have a social media's link where you can or find all of our links.
To YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, Facebook, all of that. So if you're just curious to just watching Baby Beastiary on Facebook, you can follow.
devin: [00:52:31] Fantastic. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much for jumping on a call with me, but today I really appreciate it. And, uh, I look forward to having you back on the show when. The plush is inaction and hyperlight is circling the world.
andreas: [00:52:47] That would be awesome.
devin: [00:52:51] Thank you for catching this episode or the Bardic Babble Podcast. You can find us on Twitter at Bardic Babble Pod. Also be sure to head on over to www.thebardpodcast.com for sweet swag, other podcasts. And maybe the next blog post you're going to read today. Thanks again, guys. And keep on creating.