Check out Yaruki Zero Podcast#11, where Ewen Clueny has me on to talk about designing games for anime fans, anime conventions (specifically our recent experiences at Kumoricon) and more! Thanks Ewen!

Also, Guy has posted the 2nd half of our interview on his site Geekorner. You can also read it on Figure.fm. In this part we talk about Classroom Deathmatch and The Magical Land of Yeld. Thanks Guy!

Guy posted this interview with me on both his own Geekorner and Figure.FM. Awesome! The first part is all about Panty Explosion, what the game is about, why we chose that name and how Matt and I work. The second part, which I guess will get posted at some point, is all about Classroom Deathmatch and The Magical Land of Yeld. Thanks Guy!

The Pulp Gamer podcast had a nice review of Sea Dracula in their September episode. They also said some nice things about Ocean and Panty Explosion.*

You can hear the whole thing here. They start talking about sea Dracula and the other games around 18:05.

The Screaming Alpha did a nice review on Left Hand Miniatures fantastic Japanese school girl figures. Remember those? The ones that were made to go with Panty Explosion and Classroom Deathmatch. It’s a very flattering review (which is good, becausethese are really great figures), and they say some nice things about Panty explosion and Classroom deathmatch toward the end of the article. Cool!

*Something that did bother me about the podcast, one of the participants (the female one) compared Panty Explosions Japanese school girl subject matter to a game about necrophilia that they had talked about at some earlier point. One of the participants clearly new what the game was about and defended it, but the others were pretty obviously just taken by the name (which I’m used to, and is somewhat forgivable I think). Still, the comment was less about the game (which, again,  I’m used to) and more  “Japanese school girls, eh? Nudge, nudge. wink, wink”.  I’m starting to feel bad for Japanese high school students. They haven’t  done anything to deserve this awful reputation they’ve gotten. Overall, I think the comment reflected poorly on the person who said it.

Here’s a link to a new online Classroom Deathmatch game that is just getting started. this is pretty much the best organized and presented CDM game I’ve ever seen, and it looks like the GM is still looking for players. So check it out, even if all you want to do is watch or read the GMs excellent write up!

Here we go.

Matt, Nick, Ben, Alexis and I were invited to come to Kumoricon and run our games, as well as Maid RPG. This was a very last minute thing, and we barely had any communication with anyone at  the con prior to showing up on Saturday. Kumoricon is huge, crowded, messy and exhausting. It SEEMS to be much more disorganized then other large shows I’ve been to over the last few years, but there also seems to be a greater willingness among the attendees to just hang out and try whatever was in front of them. We ended up being stationed in a small room for the entire weekend, where we ran 7 or 8 packed games.  We were the only people to use the room for most of the weekend, so traffic was largely limited to people coming in to see what we were doing. There were a lot of neat things that happened:

- The ONLY advertising we had was a single sheet schedule posted to the door of the room we were using. Still, we had to turn away players from every game we ran, and most games were full with 7-9 players (Yeld was lightest at just 6, but that was because we put a cap on it early).

- People wanted to play our games. As Ben said over at his blog, we didn’t experience the normal reaction we get at game cons where people get weirded out by what our games are. Instead, people were ready to sit down and play our games without any kind of reassurances or convincing! Panty Explosion, Maid and Bliss Stage were all big hits BECAUSE of their sexiness, implied weirdness and appeal to a niche market, not despite of these things!

- Most of the people who played with us signed on for multiple games, and a few hung out for almost every game we ran. We had to sneak out of the hotel on Sunday night to avoid running even more games!

- Unfortunately we didn’t have any books to sell, but if we had we could have sold quite a bit. After every single game we ran players were asking to buy our books, often with cash in hand. We all came away feeling like we could have sold 5-10 copies of anything we ran just at the table. The dealers room was as packed as any I’ve ever seen, and the attendees seemed willing to buy anything. Next year I’ll plan to have a table, and expect to sell 20 copies of any game I care to bring. As a sales venue for MY games, I feel like Kumoricon trumps any con I’ve ever been to, including Gencon.

- The number of missed opportunities were staggering. We were invited to the show pretty late, but if we had been on board earlier we would have been able to organize many more games and a dealers booth. I feel like that would have just been the beginning of what we could do. Next year I’d like to host a panel, sponsor a contest, participate in the art show and the creative studio and take a whole lot more pictures.

- I think there are two notable differences between the attendees of Kumoricon and the game and comic cons I’ve been to, and that’s enthusiasm and age. Every single person I talked to at the show, whether painfully shy or aggressively friendly, was super excited to be there and very enthusiastic about trying… anything. The average age of attendees seemed to be much, much lower then most game and comic cons. Closer to 18.

- The main thing I walked away from ( and I think Nick, Matt, Ben and Alexis all agree) was a certainty that we had found our target audience, and that they were as enthusiastic and eager as we had always suspected they would be. I’ll be seriously reconsidering my interest in traditional gaming cons as a sales and promotion venue in the future.

So we’ll be going back next year, bigger and better.

Jake

Atarashi Games will be at Kumoricon on Saturday the 5th and Sunday the 6th. You’ll find us in the rpg room. Here’s what we’ll be running:

Saturday the 5th: Panty Explosion, Maid RPG, The Magical Land of Yeld

Sunday the 6th: Classroom Deathmatch, Bliss Stage, Ocean, Sea Dracula

We’ll be running these games sequentially, so if you attend and stay for the whole time you can play all 7!

Nick, Matt and I will be  at Kumoricon on September 6th and 7th.  We’ll be running Classroom Deathmatch, Panty Explosion, Sea Dracula, Ocean and The Magical Land of Yeld, as well as Maid RPG and Bliss Stage! Look for us in the rpg room.

I’ll be posting our game schedule sometime next week.

Jake

Sea Dracula won the 2008 Indie RPG Award for Best Free Game.  Sea Dracula was also a runner up in the Indie Game of the Year and Most Innovative Game categories. You can see all the winners here, and get Sea Dracula for free here.

Fuck yeah!

This is the second year in a row that Nick and I have taken this award. We won last year for Classroom Deathmatch. I wonder what we’ll win for next year?

Ocean is now available for order!

An abandoned underwater research station.

A nightmarish creature from the depths of the ocean.

A trapped group of amnesiac survivors.

These are the clues.

Solve the mystery.

A new survival/mystery story engine from the award winning co-creator of Panty Explosion and Sea Dracula.

40 full color pages. Square bound 8×5.5 book.  Just $15.00!

Order at the Atarashi Games store or the un-store!

]]> http://atarashigames.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/ocean-is-now-available-for-sale/feed/ 0 Jake cover1 Ocean01 Ocean02 Ocean03 Ocean04 http://atarashigames.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/the-new-magical-land-of-yeld-play-test-document-is-now-available/ http://atarashigames.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/the-new-magical-land-of-yeld-play-test-document-is-now-available/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:14:57 +0000 Jake http://atarashigames.wordpress.com/?p=284 ]]>

New Yeld is here! Nick and I finished up the new Yeld play test document about a week ago. This new version of the rules takes into account the huge amount of feedback we’ve received over the last year, most especially from our friends up in Seattle.

Big changes to this edition include revisions to reward and adventure dice, an entire new focus on towns and friendly adventures, revised traps and updated monster stuff (and some sample monsters) and more focus on player roles and duties within the game. there are lots of more mundane changes and additions as well, including some new spells, weapons and special dice!

There are a few things we decided to hold out for now, either because we’re not sure if we plan to include them in the game or because we’re still working on them and want to save them for the next update. One of those things, set pieces, is something I’ll be posting about real soon.

Three ways to get Yeld!

Download for free! Download the new document in PDF form for free here!

Buy the PDF at RPGNOW! We’re also offering the PDF for sale at RPGNOW for $2.00. This is the exact same PDF that we’re giving away for free. Selling the PDF through RPGNOW exposes us to a wider audience. This also generates a little cash that helps pay Yeld related expenses. You can buy the PDF here.

Buy the Whitebook! The Whitebook is a 175 page 5.25 x 8 inch square bound book containing the full game text. Last year we had a lot of people ask if they could get print copies of the play test rules, and a few people went out of their way to make copies on their own. I know that personally I find it a lot easier to read a book then a PDF. Copies of the Whitebook (so called because the cover is all white with a simple black logo) are available at the Atarashi Games store for $13. The price includes shipping.

Play Yeld with Nick and Jake!

Nick and I are both running Yeld games at GameStorm this year. My Sunday game has already filled, but Nicks Saturday game still has room. Everyone who plays in eitehr of these games will receive one of the Yeld Whitebooks!