The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Picture Books and Board Games - with Pratchat and David Brashaw

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, we’re joined by Ben and Liz from Pratchat to discuss Where’s My Cow? And Discworld board games. We also have a wonderful interview with David Brashaw of Backspindle Games!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Guest projectsPratchat Guild of Recappers & Podcasters Backspindle GamesWhere’s My Cow?Where's My Cow? - Pratchat #Pratchat61 – What Terry Wrote – Pratchat #PratchatPlaysThud – The Troll’s Gambit - Pratchat The Ankh-Morpork Archives: Volume One - Discworld.com Melvyn Grant Vimes illustrations comparedDiscworld board games (most links BoardGameGeek)Thud [fictional version] - Discworld & Terry Pratchett WikiStealth Chess [fictional] - Discworld Wiki Cripple Mr. Onion [largely fictional]Thud Guards! Guards!ClacksThe WitchesAnkh-Morpork Other board gamesGood Omens: An Ineffable GameQwirkleRootNanty NarkingArboretumIllimatFanorona - Wikipedia   Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Hello and welcome to the Treeshamaki Fret, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discord series at one of Simon Chronological Order. I'm Joanna Hagen. I'm Branting Carol. And we've got two very special guests with us today. Welcome to the podcast. Ben and Liz off of Pratchat. Hello. Listeners will hopefully be familiar with Ben and Liz and their wonderful podcast Pratchett already They very kindly had us on Pratchett for I think with Pratchett 62 last year to talk about where's my counts And we're very kindly having them on our podcast to talk about where's my Kindly having them on our way Green's come on I think would be the flight way to say that one

Now I'm gonna be honest guys it. These guys go sideways. And we're all very kind. Oh, just the kindest. Niceest group of podcasters. We're also going to talk to you today about Thud and other board games and later on we've got a special interview with David Brasew of Backspindle Games. No, spoilers before we crack on.

We're a spoiler light podcast, Heavy spoilers for where's my cow? Probably sad to you. Oh my god, you will learn where the cow is. And for the book third, we won't be spoiling any major events past third and we'll be saving any and all mention of the Shepherd's Ground until we get there. So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. There's many squares as you want in a straight line as long as you play the dwarves. Yes, Francine, would you like to introduce us to the book Where's My Cow? I will. Every day, Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch would be home at six o'clock sharp to read to young Sam, he was one year old. Six o'clock, no matter what. Or who? Or why? Because some things are important.

And the book he reads is Where's My Cow. Where's My Cow is a supplemental book to the Disqueal Novel Sud. Published in 2005, it was illustrated by Melvin Grant, who specialises in fantasy and sci-fi artwork. Well linked to his website, I will warn you some of it is not safe for work. It's good to pay. A first glance, a simple picture book wears my cow flagrantly disregards the internal fourth walls, appears in its own illustrations and some kind of recursive nightmare, and features brawling dwarfs and foul-oal ron alongside the more traditional soft and cuddly inhabitants of a book for toddlers. Now, it's said I'm not sure which is scarier. Amazing. You know, I don't think I mentioned the plot. Oh, yeah, that's normally my job.

So, Fimes steps in to read, Where's My Cow, to Young Sam? And we see it from a third person perspective. And then we go into the book, Where's My Cow, within the book, Where's My Cow? And we see the book, Where's My Cow. And then Fimes goes off an attention into the streets of Anke Moorepork to look for his daddy and we look for foul-ol Ron even Lord Vettinari pops in and then civil interrupts with her hands on the hip her hip speakers

Why this must spoil fun and young Sam goes to bed happy also. There's some horrific elderich toys. Yes The end. Sort of floating about. I think that's a good summary. Brief helicopter and loincloth watch. It's been a while since we've had one. I'm going for helicopter, the terrifying flying book with teeth. Oh, yes. Which haunts my nightmares. And his friends. And his friends.

There are plenty of terrifying flying books with teeth. But I feel like the listener who've read, where's wears my cow will know exactly which one I'm talking about. I've not thought about this, but this exact moment. But what kind of noise do you think they make when they're flying? Is it like a cicada that horrible like the mid-nate noise or more like a helicopter? And I said that. Lottery with the pages. Yeah, that's better. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to not think about the teeth noises. Yeah, good. For loincloth, I'm going with Vimes' fantastic little pleated mini-scar. And the other strip situation. It's very good loincloth.

And it is clothed in a real loin. Yeah, I noted that debtors also wears one, and he only has shorts on underneath. Oh, shocking. So I feel like that's even more loinclothy. I'm trying to move away from ascribing loincloth to trolls on the basis that I feel like I ever did it early in the podcast. So obviously as Francine said this is sort of a little spin-off supplemental book to go along with Thud which we just talked about last month and you've got to talk about last year. Obviously you've already discussed this at length on your own podcast

but thoughts on Thud as a disc world novel. Oh, it's good. Yeah. It's very good, isn't it? There's a lot going on in it. And I think it will remain one of my favorites. I mean, I feel like we've said so much about it because it's pretty much one of the only two books we've done more than one episode about.

But I think it will forever be in my top-patchet books because largely because of the troll stuff that's in it. So you just don't get any troll, forever be in my top-patchet books because, largely because of the troll stuff that's in it, because you just don't get any troll, you know, with any depth about troll society and any other book, which is quite amazing. But also, it's just a, it's just really good. It's a good spooky crime one as well.

Like the bigger themes done very well, but also just on a story basis, like it changes from what you think it's gonna be into what it actually is. So yeah, I like it on a crime basis, like it changes from what you think it's going to be into what it actually is. So yeah, I like it on a crime spooky horror novel level as well. No, I don't know, dark going on to the battlefield, going into the case that yeah, and good new characters. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Sally. I just the, it's just some really cool ideas. I love the cube. I mean,

perhaps it's got a thing for like cubes that are hyper-advanced technology for some reason. That was just the shape of advanced technology for him, was the cube. But also just, yeah, the mind sign. I mean, there's a few other books that as many people have a tattoo reference to. I mean, there's Lord of the Rings, obviously. Yeah. Discworld terms, I think the other one that's a contender would be words in the Hark cannot be taken from feed of clay, but most people have Discworld tattoo that's abstract and not like an illustration. They've got the sum of the ink dark. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a what a great concept that is. So we have all talked about side really at great lengths, I think, and I will link to the relevant episodes. What we haven't talked about about massively is the supplemental works. Yeah, and I think where's my cow's and interesting ones? There've been a lot of supplemental books before that, but it was, it was like, discontent of companions and folklore and science off in the Atlas and the Pratchett portfolio, which was obviously like Paul Kibbe's debut.

and the Pratchett portfolio, which was obviously like Paul Kibbe's debut. And then after Wes, my cow, you get tie-in books that are more in-world, so things like Mrs. Bradshaw's Hamburg and the World of Pooh. Yeah, it was an interesting transition, because they started the diaries a lot earlier than that, like back in 1999 with the University one, was the first one. But they were always like a diary with little extra bits of stuff in it. I've never even looked at those. They did these great compilations a couple years ago. There's two volumes of them, which compile all of the fiction bits from the diaries, and they're really great.

And there's some cool stuff in them. A lot of it ends up in the discord companions as well. But yeah, this was like the first time they go, let's do an actual book. That's this stuff. Apart, well, Nanny Augs' cookbook, I think, predates this as well, but this is something else. Yeah, and they really do go full-matter with it. They don't just go like, oh, yeah, we're just going to do it in the universe. They go like, it's going to be in the universe. We're going to have an Angmore pork sticker on the front of this. We're going to have a picture of the book in the book We're going to we're going to have quotes from ant more pork press people. I mean, I know I said this on our arrow so too But I still I still find this so weird and amazing that they have this book which is a book from the universe of the disc world

But then in but then it's not that book because in this book is the character reading that book to his son. And also that book is written by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld version, which is very, yeah. And the picture of him in there, like it just, it's layers. It's a really great Easter egg right at the end having the portrait of Terry Pratchett in the nursery. I'm not sure why Vimes chose to have that portrait in the nursery, but I respect his choice. Well, yeah, well, why an outside phrase. Yeah, who do we imagine that it is in universe? Like, we know it's Terry Pratchett, but in the vimes, if we assume that that's real,

in the vimes household, that's not Terry Pratchett. Because if he does exist in the discord universe, he exists on Round World, as we recently discussed when discussing the science of discord on four, but I won't, no spoilers. But, uh, but yeah, so I, but who do we think it is? Is it like an ancestor? I'm going to get, I'm going to guess it's an ancestor of cybles, and that's why that, like, for an in-be universe reason, that's why the portrait's in-house. An ancestor of cybles, she doesn't know who, but she can't throw it out because it must be an ancestor of hers. Yeah, I'm seeing it.

You can't lock out who it is. So it lives in the night and then I really think about it every now and then, like, the ice skims over it and I go, who is that? But the brain just kind of flickers away from it in an odd way. I feel like maybe that portrait is responsible for the books. You know what I mean? As in like, it's a presence that's forcing or like inspiring vimes to actually go off book and create this book.

Well, I was more thinking that the presence in the painting is what's bringing the books to life in the room as he's talking. But I like we're going though as well. Well, because there's the point that in the scene where you see that portrait, I think everything has gone back to normal. Is that correct? Like, you know, how it slowly blurs more and more of the three different modes together, but that one thing's gone back to normal, including the previous one where you only see the shadow of it,

does suggest that maybe he's the author of all of the other stuff. I mean, because he's dressed all in black wearing his signature black hat, I feel like in university must be like an assassin. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Who else would trust that way? Well, a veterinary type. Yeah. And the assassin.

I know, but like maybe a previous good patrician. Yeah. It's good patrician. Like an ancestral of that nine. But having said, I mean, I know I said earlier that Terry Pratchett doesn't exist in the disc world. But if we accept the contents of this book as some sort of canon in some universe, then he absolutely does or at least an author with the name Terry Pratchett does. Yes. I like the fact he was never overly consistent with these things. Oh, yeah, my consistency is highly overrated when it comes to disclosures.

The enemy of creativity. Exactly. Have you guys covered the reference seedings like the folklore of this girl, too? No, no, we haven't done that. We kind of decided we'd leave the folklore one till right near the end, because it's been revised all the way up to raising steam, so we don't feel like we can talk about its contents until we've read that far.

And we haven't done the Discord companions either, which I think I own like four different editions of. You know what I should do? I should look up where's my cow in here. That's a good idea. There is not an entry for where's my cow. I have found the entry for Young Sam, which does mention where's my cow. I've got it. Does it have a section about how he's confusing sizes?

Like we discussed last time, like how sometimes he's like a 40-year-old man in like a two-inch body, and also sometimes how he's tiny but also huge. The art style on this book is incredible. Yeah, I think we went into huge depth about it on on Pratchat because I think it really did disconsert us. Sam is the scariest part of this to me. No, the scariest part of it to me is that weird toy. It's like a little jester thing on a ball that's just staring at you. Yeah. Yeah, it breaks the fourth wall aggressively. Are you?

Well, I do. Look, I won't show a lot of pictures from this, but I'll just quickly show these because they're relevant here, because we're talking, because one of the things that I really love about this, and I just want to recognize which I listen, you might want to listen to the Pratchett episode. I feel like we're making this very much as sequel to that. But this is the vimes in this book in the, oh, okay. I love it. Let me scroll.

Let me scroll. I'm not just a new one for this edition. I think it might be on the screen at the same time if I bring up. Yeah, because the one in Where's my cow is very much the young Pete Possilth weight that Terry Pratchett Described the Sam's have real like photos. I take of myself versus photos my friends take of me energy. Yeah Very much. Do you think it's captain carrot taking the nice one? I don't care. It's taking the nice one. Yeah I think it's Captain Carrot taking the nice one. I don't care it's taking the nice one. Yeah, but still goofy because he thinks everything is nice.

So he's like, oh, it's lovely because it captures your spirit, even if you've like got one eye half closed or what not. That's true. You're beautiful no matter how you look. So you go with that. I'm glad we have that love say. You don't think he'd be one of those good Instagram boy friends who takes all of the photos.

Oh, yes, he would, but he'd have to take like a lot of them so she can choose. Yeah yeah I don't think she'd be very patient with posing for them though that's the thing. Yeah we invented this on one of our bonus episodes that the the Discord equivalent of Instagram. Oh nice like that. This was this was Liz's pun. So I don't want to take credit for that, but I will take credit for remembering it. But I've forgotten. But I do, yeah, I wonder if, because iconographs are painted by imps.

Does that mean that each iconograph has a particular style? So if you had an iconograph of Sam Vimes, one of them looked like the where's my cow Sam Vimes, and one of them looked like the poorograph of Sam Vimes, one of them looked like the where's my cow Sam Vimes and one of them looked like the poor kid be Sam Vimes because each imp paints in it, they don't necessarily paint it for a realistic style. Are you saying poor kid be is an imp? I'm not saying he's not. I'm jumping back for a second now.

I think perhaps if we're looking for an Instagram boyfriend dynamic, that would be nobby and tawny. Yes, that would be not be in Tony. Yes. That's a very Instagram boyfriend dynamic. Yeah. It didn't last one. That's a shame, but he'll always be there for a lot of pictures. They can't was banned almost immediately.

Yeah. And then sued by the Guild of Seamstresses. No, I do think the, the Vimes Mikeow looks a lot more animated compared to any of the Paul Kippie Vimes, which is quite a nice touch considering even in the dark Grittybix, it still is a kid's book and like Vimes and Young Sam are still having fun together. Yeah. There's a lot of in motion. Yeah.

That's smile in that first picture of him with the, when he's reading the book of the sheep in the background. I mean, I mean, I'm just happy to think of the actual Pete Possilth white being that happy. So often had to play really miserable people. I was expecting some, the last time I looked at Wes McHale is when we came on Pratch Out last year

and obviously then we were you very kindly let us talk about it kind of without the context of third because we hadn't got there on our podcast yet. So I was fully expecting picking it up this time to be very heart-wommed by it because rereading third I got so emotional in the FIME's reading to young Sanbits and the bit where he doesn't turn up and then he shelves in the book like I was genuinely welling up and No, it does not make me emotional. It still makes me laugh slash terrified of the And I'm not criticizing the artwork. I think the artwork is lovely It's just that some of the toys are really quite hot terrifying. Okay, but hear me out

Okay, a sequel or maybe a remaster of When he's yelling it from the comfort, like a horrific version of this, where with all the narrative of him like falling to his knees screaming like a mad man and the dwarves around him has led to covered and echoes across the miles and and civil sitting there with a head in the hands that's that you know, I mean it would be a shit children's book. sitting there with a head in her hands, but you know, I mean, it would be a shit. Children's book. But I want the hallucination that he's having

while he's slaughtering Dwarf or something. Yeah, I think maybe a more comic book style, just a stop any confusion. Now I'd buy that for children, and that's why I don't have children, and very rarely am asked to babysit. Just to say the thing though, is that a lot of these things that we look at,

that are kids things that we think are terrifying. I just not terrifying to kids. No, that's enough. We mentioned this on our episode, but there's this, there's a Australian TV show called Lift Off for kids. Oh my god. In 1990s. And it had this doll called EC and the doll was called EC because it was meant to stand for every child. And it had a very blank, very, very, like, minimalistic face. I always thought it was great. I was faced in the target audience, but older kids and kids looking back on it now are like, this doll is horrifying. But I still think it's really cute. It is not cute. You are incorrect. I watched it as a child. And it scared me. And the thing

is like, it was, liftoff was sort of about these kids who were lived in a building and there was a magical lift as well, but it was all different skits and they had this dirty, grubby, ac doll that they found somewhere in an early episode and they were played with it but then they'd leave the shot and it would be sitting there and then it would suddenly be like, oh yeah, we were on its own. And it was very, very scary. So let me just find a picture of it. Oh, no, that's cursed. That's definitely cursed. I had no face. It just has a nose and like grooves where the eyes should be. And I wrote a column about it for my my university, like magazine at the time about how terrifying it was and things. And I go off my year-level camp, me and she was like, oh, I read your call.

I'm like, oh, thank you for reading it. And she was like, my dad designed that doll and I'm like, oh, God, she's like, I found it scary. So I think she said that. Or maybe I've just added that in for comfort like 10 years later. But that's fine. Very unlikely. She'll hear this and get back in touch. But it's very scary. And I disagree profoundly with it, not being scary. Okay, that's fair.

I do agree that it's hard to predict what's scary to kids, because there's things that I didn't find scary that I would have thought now I should, and then things that I did find scary that I wouldn't have expected in the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of my biggest fears when I was a child was the very bad, basically eight bit spiders from Tomb Raider 2, like scared hiding under the computer desk terrified. I learned a fact recently, and I haven't sourced this fact. It was in a podcast that I was working on as an editor, but that one of the reasons that spiders are scary is because the way they move has this sort of weird kind of stop motion animated jerkiness to it that alerts your brain to something's not quite right here. And I think yeah, those

8-bit spiders definitely captured that. I was real scared of the long green bugs from that episode of X-Men where they'd come down and then they'd wrap someone in a cocoon. Oh, the X-Files ones, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was terrified of those. I guess a lot of people might be like, what if the bugs come? I never watched that when I was a kid, luckily, because I had definitely found some nightmare for you all in that. Wolves generally was mine, just wolves outside my bedroom door.

And the mask, Jim carries the mask. My sister's doing great things. My sister used to be and still is really, really terrified of wolves because she got shown an animation of Peter and the wolf when she was still in. I love that. No, no, she saw Peter and the wolf and still there's a wolf enclosure in a zoo nearby that I've gone to with her a few times because she's got a lot of. Why do you keep taking her to see the wolves? You can't help but walk near it. Like it's a big like cut through for the zoo. It kind of connects to big areas of it. But yeah, no, she will, you know, if tigers are getting

bad and you can see them tearing apart bloody meat, she will run in there to see it, but she will not walk past the New Yorkshire. I've just been listening to something about Lord Aspenald, do not run in with the tigers. You're making me think now what was I afraid of when I was a kid and I think it was mostly genuine horror things that I saw when I wasn't ready for them. So I had a lot of friends growing up who were really into horror films, they watched a lot of horror films that they probably shouldn't have when they were like 12. But I remember seeing when I would have been like seven or eight or possibly, no, I would have been seven right. They showed Alien on TV.

Oh, no. I loved sci-fi, so I watched it. And I got up to the scene that you would expect. And then I had to stop watching it. I was physically ill. I had nightmares for like two weeks. I still occasionally, when I have nightmares, they're about aliens, but I love that film now. Yeah.

And Jaws was the other one that got me. And I was a kid. I saw that and I had a blue blanket at the time. And I had to get rid of it. So it's like, oh, every time I wake up, it's like the ocean is a shark coming to get me. Oh. It wasn't afraid of the actual ocean though. It's amazing. Just to get the blanket there.

No, that doesn't make the bed. Ideally, yeah. The location of the cow, which was sent to Ben after Pratchad 62 and you passed it on. So this is a L space entry. Yes. Someone approached Terry Pratchad in response to some questions from a child worried about the missing cow. Terry's fly the answers. The cow is not lost because she was found wandering and brought into the watch house by Nobby Nobs. She's okay. Watch him and affect her chips from the canteen. Nobi is very attached to the cow and they will club together to buy her hay.

And the cow's name, it's mostly called cow because copper's not a imaginative, but copper on nobs calls her maize after a result. Oh, Oh, I can't feel like, and I probably said this in the Pratch episode, but this is basically a children's book retelling of a scene from Thad, which is a flashback in my edition on about page 160. The first time Vimes is reading the book in the book, he recalls the time he went off script and got in trouble

from CB. Oh yeah. And that's what happens in this book. So I feel like this is that scene, but as a children's picture book of him reading the picture book and going off script. Yeah. It's kind of fun. It is. Oh, and as we discussed last time, it's fun also because you know how it goes through three different sort of realities. There's the real world. There's

the illustrated world of like the realities are matched by the illustration style. There's the world of the book as it's written, then the book as it is rewritten by Vimes for the streets and then back into the real world again. A fun thing to do is to watch the eye lines of all the characters and who or what they're looking at whether they're looking at you, the reader, whether they're looking at the intruders into their world from a different drawing style or if they're just oblivious to it., whether they're looking at the intruders into their world from a different drawing style or if they're just oblivious to it. So I think that's interesting comment

on different types of characters because the dogs look at the intruders, which is fascinating. I think at one point, Gaspod breaks the fourth wall and looks out as well, doesn't he? And veterinary looks out and so does Dibbler, I think. Yeah, he's looking sort of at you, but also slightly past you as well.

Dead list, definitely. Yeah, he's like, you want to say something, say you. Yeah, and he's correct. Does that know? He's similar, similar side eye into the camera there, but not right? Yeah. But look at his dog. What like Waffles is looking. Oh, he's looking up at the book. Yeah. Yeah. Waffles. But he can see it. And earlier, when you see Caspar, he's looking, I think, at one of the intruders. Caspar has got like a very like thousand-yod stare and it looks like they're like shining in his eyes.

Yeah. I don't know. Fun journey on their own. There's, there's mostly this seems like it would all fit in the disc world, but there are a couple of little anacridisms that I think, like one of which is that there's a teddy bear on the Lord of the Naari page who's clearly part of the imaginary world of the playroom intruding into the story. But it's a way of sunglasses which we know do exist in the disc world. There's also a way to roll the skates which I'm pretty sure I do not exist. Just because we haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist in the disc world.

I think they've probably existed briefly. The Dean ruined it for everybody, another band. Oh yeah. Yeah, okay, now I'll pay that. Leg warmers happened. Oh. I have, the Dean is one of those characters. Despite the fact he's been like brought to screen in various adaptations, I have no mental image for the Dean whatsoever. It's just kind of amorphous mass of Dean. Yeah, I can imagine like details like like his born to the real jacket. I love it community. This is a problem is that he is as far away from the Dean in community as a character can possibly be, but if I try and picture it, it is it is kind of just that. I don't have the same zest for novelty, isn't he? Yeah, I mean, I physically. Yeah, true. Yeah. The Dean from community sort of lacks beer. It is funny if you just superimpose them in to those scenes. Yeah, absolutely. Let's start doing that for now. They do have the same level of impressionability.

Like, you think that happens in principle on them and they think it's swept up in it immediately. Yeah, maybe some of the trees on the side. They're going to be puns. It's good. The Discworld Dean, just anything happens. Oh, I hope this doesn't have any kind of impression on me. Yeah. I hope this doesn't wait for nothing or anything of me. Yes. Yes. We I've always thought like the faculty of it was always sort of blurred a little bit to me, but we when we discussed a collegiate casting out of devilish devices, which I won't spoil, because I don't think you've talked about that.

No, we have done that. No, we have actually. That's one of the few short stories we have done. Yeah. When we talked about that, I guess Matt sort of ran through what he thought with the essential personalities of all of the different faculty members. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that doesn't make sense. I can't remember them now.

I feel bad. But yeah, he kind of was able to go, yeah, no, the dean is a really impressionable kind of childish one. And this one's the sort of more academically jealous one. And this is the, and I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, that is impressive. I've got a very clear picture of the personality of the dean. I think I would find it harder without a bit of reminding myself to be able to tell a part, like, lecture and recent runes, uh, uh, chair. Chair of indefinable studies. Um, before we move on to the second half of the Earth's say,

is there anything else we want to say about where's my cow? Now that we know where the cow is, if you had to have one of the cursed toys in your home, which one would it be? Mm hmm. Oh, wait, no, the, oh, no, I know exactly which one, the little dragon flashy. Oh, yeah, that's too. He's adorable. I love him. I want them. Okay. How about you? Well, now I want that one.

I'm just fine. Scary ones. We're like, oh, yeah, that's just to have a sort of like a bit of response in your house that you're like, oh, am I going to have a nice day or is the crossbook going to bite me? So, yeah, or let's carry the little we will mobile fellow that Joanna particularly hates. Yeah, if you could take him, I'd appreciate it. Just what I'm going to roll a blade teddy bear I reckon. He seems like he'd be fun with a little bit of chaos. Yeah, he's cute. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the dragon, though, the dragon's the best. Although I do have a dragon a bit like that.

Oh, I think I'm going to have to go with one of the terrifying flying books. I think if I just feed it post it, yes. It performs some kind of symbiotic relationship. Any other way, as my cow thoughts? I just think it's so wonderful and you can tell this one of those times where you can tell how much Terry was like, if we're going to do a thing, we're going to do it right. Yeah. Because there's so much love and energy poured into what is essentially a gag of a book. Yeah. That you could read to children, but isn't really intended for that.

Yeah. You know, just think that's amazing. Yeah. And it is a nice thing that runs across all of the kind of supplemental discord stuff. There aren't any cheap cash grab, cash grabs. They're all like really wonderfully put together things. I was quite cool that you chose a completely different artist for it as well.

Yeah, I love that about that. Because I love Alton. I love to see professional characters who are not on screen. I love to see other people's impressions of what they look like based on the description of the book. And this is brilliant. As well, like looking at all the foreign like discworld covers. Quite often that depictions that you never expect. The the catalanolous the catalan translation ones are phenomenal. They're my favorites.

Well, not all of them. A lot of the French ones have the same problem where as soon as two flower gets on a cover, they go all 1950s horrible Asian caricature and it's, it's, it's not okay. Yeah, but um, but the, they're covered for equal rights and they're one for the amazing marise, are to have probably my favorite disco covers of all time. So speaking of wonderful disc world supplemental materials that are clearly very well cared about, Thud and other ball games, a brief history of the disc world ball games. Thud was actually the first ever disc world ball game created. It was designed by Professor Travertur and who Pratchett describes in a blink, there's a piece in a blink of the screen, about the sort of a treatise on it that he wrote for the game.

And in the intro, I'm looking at the screen, he describes Professor Travertur and as someone who designs games the way other people breathe. And the game is actually released in 2002, three years before the book, that and two before going postal, which is the book that introduces Nathel, Snaffel, Biffel, Taffel. By the person obviously had a big hand in creating the look of the game. So Pratchett wrote this brief historical

treatise and it was the design of the game itself that gave Pratchett the idea for a germ of a plot, which is a quote from his link to the screen and show, which eventually became the book Thud. So the book kind of grew out of the game. And um, if you're meditating art, if you're thinking art, yeah, there it is. And if you read the theory, yeah. If you read the little Thud treaties, you can actually see some inklings of the book in there. So they did a second front of the game to tie in with the book release that had special cum valley rules also designed by Trevature and...

That would be this one. Oh. Hey, there we go. Hmm. See, I still don't have an OG one. I've only got the one that's sort of travel set, the Discord and Poryam currently has, which is lovely. I love it, yeah.

That's got the cum valley rules in the back there. Yes. Yeah. But I really, the collection in me once the original game, the realist that can see no more space on top of my bookshelves is very happy this one came a little lag. The next world discord ball games came in 2011. We had guards guards from backspinal games designed by Lena Boyden, David Brasior and discord and more port from tree frog Games designed by Martin Wallace. Then in 2013 we got the Witches, a Discworld Ball Game, which was also from Martin, Wallace and Treefrog. In 2015, Backspinal Games brought up Clacks, a ballgame inspired by going postal.

And there was a third game planned from Martin, Wallace, called the Gods. But it never got as far as printing or release due to some licensing and IP issues. So unfortunately, all of these games are now out of print and other printing of claxes possible. I had a fifth anniversary edition, like, re-release last year later than the re-release was meant to happen because of the pandemic, but the rest are all very tied up in IP things and rights. It turns out. Though worth mentioning that Hank Morepork has been sort of reincarnated as another game with basically the same rules, but completely re-skinned, called nanti-narcing, set in Victorian London with a whole bunch of fictional Victorian London characters in it,

instead of the Discworld characters. OK. But it is effectively the same game and you can kind of spot which Victoria London character has went to be, which Discworld character character if you squint at it a little bit. Yeah. Just more generally. What are your, like, board game tastes like? Oh, man, this is so...

So it's like, you get a cine file on a movie podcast and go, so, what kind of movie steel? I really like a big fan of co-op games. I also like campaign games because, so games where you have scenarios that kind of string together, including legacy games, which are games where one game has permanent changes that affect the next one and not all subsequent games. I like those because they can tell you to play the same game multiple times, which I think is something that in the modern board game hobby is is being lost a bit because there's so many games coming out all the time and

there's this real pressure to like play the hot thing whereas a few people have been talking about recently and this really resonated with me, the joy of just playing the same thing over and over and again and good at it and being comfortable with the rules and just enjoying it rather than going, how does this guy move that again? What do I do with these points? That kind of stuff. But I really also like thematic games. So I like games where there's a strong theme and the rules kind of evoke that theme as well as the art and the story behind the game. I'm not such a big fan of abstract games, which third kind of is a bit, but I feel like because it's so mord in Discworld sort of ideas of dwarfs and trolls. It gets around that a lot and it feels like a game

from the Discworld. So yeah, it's one of the very few abstract games that I own and really enjoy. And when you talk about board games and an abstract game is one that doesn't follow a storyline, right? Yeah, it's sort of, it's like a puzzle game. Like chess has the pieces have names,

but you're not really acting out a scenario of any kind of recognizable battle. And know something like Scrabble you know you're making words on a board it's not representing something else it's an abstract thing and I really only have I brought a couple of games that I thought were relevant and the only other really fully abstract game that I own is this one Quircle which is kind kind of like scravelled but with symbols and it's kind of a logic puzzle game, which is fun. But I find that I get that edge scratched by like mobile puzzle games. So when I come to board games, I want something a bit more thematic and story-based. Yeah. So that's kind of, that's where a lot of my tastes lie. But I like everything within

those sort of gamets. I like very simple games. I like party games. I like complicated, you know, very long involved games. Yeah. What do you really enter the moment? Enjoyment. I'm currently that's good question. I'm currently playing through for the third time the legacy game pandemic legacy season one. Oh, I played it several times with different other groups of people. So the other people that I'm playing with is not the same group of people I played it with before. And this is a, yeah, again, a game where each time you play,

there's a specific scenario and the things that happen during that game permanently alter the game. So you in pandemic, you put like stickers on the board and you, you might destroy certain cards or have to throw them away or that kind of thing. Yeah, it's great. I love it. Very cool. Liz, do you play board games much? Not as much as Ben. I play them sometimes. And I was trying to think how to categorize them. I generally follow the same sort of arc and a very approach. New one, which is this is going to be too hard. I'm never going to understand these rules. Okay, let's play a practice game. All right, let's play it five more times. I'm really into this. What do you mean I have to go home? That's kind of the arc for me.

One that I come back to quite regularly is castles of Mad King Ludwig, which I really enjoy. The idea is, because the goals change every time for you, because you sort of draw cards at the beginning to sort of see if you get extra points for round rooms or like particular kinds of things. So your strategy, there's a consistent strategy

that you can get better at over time but you're not always going for the same thing every time you play. So there's a lot of enjoyable ability in different ways each time. And at the end of it, you've built like a weird castle as well like out of like room, which is just satisfying in its own way

and they have fun names and you can get expansions and things and it's rooted in a real story of a real guy which also like appeals to me and overall I think I like games that don't sort of tap into the worst parts of my personality because I can get very competitive with board games and when I was younger so things like this one where like you get satisfaction from just the playing, not the winning, is good. Yeah. As well. I find I enjoy that more if I'm so like, well, I've had a good time.

And if I didn't grind all my friendships into the dust at the end of it, then great. I do also really enjoy Scabble, which again, tapped into the worst competitive parts of my nature when I got really into it for a period of time in my 20s. I had memorized all of the two letter words so that you could play some. It wasn't fun to play with me, but it was fun to win. So I played Flux recently because you know how they have different, different themed ones and I quite enjoy this. It's a great party game because if even people who don't like ball games, the rules constantly changing means that you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining it.

But we played space flux for the first time recently. And there's one copy because you know how every so often there's a thing that will open up a loophole in the game accidentally. And so you spend like 40 minutes doing something ridiculous. And this one, you had to go around and for every paper someone had on the out there, you had to ask them a question about space history and The answer was always a year and you didn't say earlier or later You just had to keep going around the circles with someone got the year rise and then doing the next one and next one

And because you had to keep drawing cards during this more keepers came out so he spent ages doing this and like Yeah, and I can't remember any of the dates so I can't even say it was educational. Yeah, I think that's where you go. I think it's out. Yeah, next round we're like no, yeah, just not doing it. That doesn't remind me my brother sent me the flux dice Liz. So we should we should give those a bill. You can add dice.

Yeah, yeah. So if you're not familiar with flux, you literally have cards with the rules on them and you can play cards to add or change the basic rules of the game. And the basic rules are very, very simple. And the dice, basically, you have a card that says, instead of having the basic rules,

roll the dice each turn. And that's what the basic rules are, whatever it comes up on the dice. So it's very silly. It's even more random. I don't think there's always chaos, never to win. It's just to introduce more chaos. What I was trying to do today, because I wanted to have a couple of practice games before I played my husband, and I couldn't, because I couldn't find anywhere online to play, Sud. But I did learn that there's a lot more online board gaming than I thought.

Is that something that either of you have been into any of you? Yeah, a bit. Yeah. So there's, there's a few, like there's quite a few portals for it now and obviously it was big, it was big. A few years ago for some reason when people weren't just playing in person. But because of that,

a lot of the platforms that already existed did get a bit of a boost and more attention. And there's probably three or four notable ones, like board game arena. There's the tabletop simulator, which is the three-dimensional one that you can get on a new computer. It runs like a video game, but simulates a board game on a table. And I've done a bit of that.

I prefer playing board games in person, because I find the tact as a leave of picking up a thing, because I also play video games. I'm like, well, I don't want to play a board. Yeah, but I have done it. And for some complicated games, it's just so much easier, like then having to organize to get together and set up a whole board. So I, um, that's how I learned to play root, which is this great ace, ace of metric war game, which means that each player has different rules for how they play the game and different goals. And it looks very cute. It's got this beautiful art. It's like this little woodland area in your little woodland creatures like one faction is birds, one faction is cats, and then one faction is all that you know the animals

that natively live in the woodland are rabbits and mice and things. But then you are trying to murder each other to take over the woods. And it's very complicated because each person's faction has completely different rules. So to learn the game, you have to learn, not one set of rules, but you have to learn sort of four different sets of rules because you also have to understand how the other players are playing in order to beat them.

And that's way easier to learn on the computer. But I think I prefer the standalone digital versions of games to things like board game arena or tabletop simulator, because then they can go, okay, well, how do we make the best of this experience of a board game on its own as a digital version? Yeah, you try and keep the feel of it with the UI and the graphics and the definitely. I've also played like actual physical board games over the internet as well, like during the lockdowns. We were playing pandemic and a couple other,

like collaborative board games are really good for that because you don't have hidden information from the other players. So for all the cards are in one house, it doesn't matter. So yeah, I do enjoy it. Apart from that, which of the Discord board games have you guys played? We've played the witches one,

we've talked about it on the podcast. I've also played, Hank Mulpork, a few times. We've played the witches one. We've talked about it on the podcast. I've also played, um, Hank Mollpork a few times. Um, we've got all of them. We've collected them so we can talk about them. And we've got, um, clacks. We haven't played clacks yet. So and guards guards, which is when we played that,

we followed the exact arc that I described earlier where I was like, this is too hard. And now, um, we have to spend the rest of the day playing this until it was time to leave Ben Touse. Sorry. and now we have to spend the rest of the day playing this until it's time to leave Ben Touse. It is for the back again. It's some…

Thank you for coming. Yeah, I was really pleasantly surprised by the witches because it is a semi-cooperative game. So you're kind of working together in that all of the players can get into a state of the game where you all lose, but it's also competitive in that you do get points and one of you wins at the end. And I found that a lot of those games don't quite work because, you know, the tension between having to work together and having your own goals kind of tears the game a part of it. And it's a very tricky balance. But, you know, I mean, it's made by very

talented game designer and the I think balance is just right. And I think it's a really nice level of complexity too. Like it's not as complicated as other co-op games that I've played, but it's got enough in there that it is really fun. I'll play it again right now coming over. What is such this world game where What is that this world game where there's something to do with the aristocracy? And is it a veterinarian or something? Oh, you're thinking of like more pork, which we have been together, but it was once a long time ago. That is pretty good. It's not super complicated. And I can totally see how you could reflavor it as an anti-narcane. Like it does, like it does, this world theme is not pasted on,

which is, you know, the phrase that we use when a theme doesn't really have anything to do with the rules and the way the game works. It's not like that, but we can also see how you could risk in it fairly easily, because it's about trying to control the city. So it's about a part of life in Ainkmore Park that is not often a big part of the books, it's kind of always in the background of the books really. It's a fun game, it's got the sort of the hidden nature of you don't quite know what everyone's in condition is. I like that sort of sneakingness in games that's very fun for me. I don't win often in those kind of games, but I enjoy the

sneakingness nonetheless. And the art is gorgeous. Same artist for the witches and, um, and inkmore pork. And again, it's the chance to see an alternate take on these characters that you love. And yeah, the eyes wonderful. I particularly love the art in the witches of the, of all the witch characters. They're really good, but they're not quite how you might. But in the books, since I've started playing more board games and by more board games, I mean, something other than Scrabbleham and Offerley. Like, yeah, there's this whole side of it that, like, I hadn't appreciated which is the artwork. I mean, I love it, actually. It's like the, the one

we play a couple times, I've drawn it up, Arboretum, something. Yeah. Arboretum, yeah. Yes, just my gorgeous, fine. I will say of the Discworld ones, I really recommend Clax. It's a very fun play. And especially with the new edition, they've again, like we're talking about patch updates for board games, but they've added a lot of detail and new ways to play it. So there's like a very fun little mini game in there. There's like a full cow up mode that works really nicely.

Well, now I'm sad I've got the original edition. I might have to see if I can track down the anniversary one. Because it's got the nice little, well, the original ones got a little miniature of moist fondant wig. Because if you just listen to like your clacks, what do they call them? Do they call them? I think they call them clacks men, don't they, which is a very gendered form of address. But your clacks operators basically trying to send a message.

And the premise of the game is that you're doing the challenge between Moist from LePwig and the Clax Company. It's like he's racing around the board. Yes, and he's on his way. The suffix of posty, Claxy could work, but it doesn't. Claxy. Oh, that sounds... That sounds like someone's about to get it in the valley and yeah oh yeah but no that's that sounds great I'm very

keen to play it but we have been holding off because I want to play it with Liz first so we'll have to make a night to play these games will be good yeah there's one there's a new Terry Pratchett affiliated board game that I haven't been able to get a hold on because it's Good Owens, it's a Good Owens game. It's called Good Owens, the ineffable game. But it seems to be a fairly simple card game with some dice that they then include

seven different rules sets for, which is a bit of a red flag to me. It's like you couldn't decide on one that was really good. So you just put a bunch in and they hope that one of them sticks, which I hope is nice. The marketing. I haven't, I meant to pre-order it and just completely forgot. So we haven't picked up a copy yet, but I haven't made much of a splash in

board game circles like it's kind of, yeah, and it's not, it's not widely available outside of Amazon, which is annoying. Yeah, so I've been trying to get a copy, not through Amazon, and it's quite difficult. So I might just have to give it six months. It'll be on eBay. Yeah, it's probably on eBay now. Yeah, fun. Interesting. It hasn't had a big splash in ball game circles, but it hasn't had a big splash in fandom circles either. Yeah, what's really abstract, isn't it, because it's just cards. And I think that art in the game is photos from the TV show, because it's based on the TV show, it's not based on the TV show. So I don't think it's got anything, it's doesn't really have anything for fans, like fans already

have photos of the characters that don't want the cards for that. It's not fancy new art, fans, like fans already have photos of the characters that don't want the cards for that. It's not fancy new art. And it doesn't tell a new story because the scenario is in it seemed to be based around preventing the apocalypse. From what I understand, like each of the seven rules of games is like you try to stop death, you try to stop war, you try to stop famine, you try to stop the devil, you know, and each one is a slightly different version of the scenario, but a lot of the basic rules are the same. That's why I understand anyway, I don't know if that's true.

I mean, I'm assuming that I've done quite a big initial print run because the fandom's quite feral. I mean, that in a very loving way about the fandom. I'm saying that as a member of it. I say incredibly disparagingly as a member of it. It is a glorious thing. Okay, so I want to ask a question about Thud here. Have you played it? Yes. You haven't yet this, but you two have played it.

How did you find it? Have you played a lot of games like this? Do you have you played chess or any other kind of those abstract kind of games? I played chess. I played a reasonable amount of chess., like do you have you played chess or any other kind of those abstract kind of games? I played chess. I played a reasonable amount of chess. I've never been great at it. I was better at it when I was at school and used to play regularly. But my husband beats me every time at chess pretty much because I'm not very good at thinking more than one step ahead. Yeah, yeah, it is. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I at the moment can't win as a dwarf. It's quite hard. Although I think I have lost as a trance, so you know, maybe I've got a special talent

for losing thought. I don't know. Aren't you supposed to play it as both and then average out hard? Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah you get points based on how many of your pieces are left um how many of you took of the opponents yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah actually um I mean I've I've played I'm not great with chess uh I forget what the pieces do I know the horsey does n' owl and then my mind goes blank I've spent a bit of time playing this I've also played a lot of tack which is which is another book tie-in. It's from the name of the Wimbledon books by Patrick Ruffus. All two of them.

But it's actually an abstract game that's not into a book. It is. He's just brought out another novella for an abstract game that ties into a book. It's a very good game. It's really satisfying. And it's a very good game, it's really satisfying and it's when I can quite happily simply over and over again, especially if you're playing with someone who's open-minded enough to go, okay, so this is the point where you lost the game and I won, so let's go back to that move and see what happens if you do it differently and

actually explore the mechanics of it. I like to play a tack with you at some point. We must have played it at some point. I don't think we have. I usually put up a tack with you at some point. We must have played it at some point. I don't think we have. I usually put up a bit of resistance to board games. I better now, but when we live together, I think my answer is usually... And then I disappear out the room. Is she here's the dice rattle? Back into her head. Yeah, very home-assisted. like, do you think he caught? Because he came in, TAC came in the books first.

If I know, remember rightly, I haven't read the books. I don't know them very well, but my understanding is they were first, it was first mentioned in the books and then it was created as a game. Yeah. Rather than the weird other way around that Thudwood.

Yeah, yeah, this got to be almost unique. Yeah. But do you think that's an on-purpose reference because TAC is like the creator of the dwarfs in this world, which means he sort of, you know, second hand also had a hand in creating the game's fad. And then Patrick Rothfuss has called it the board game in his fantasy world. TAC. I honestly don't think it was a reference. I think it's a really good fantasy syllable. And it's very, um, on a matter of a board game. Yeah, it was Stephen King, I think, also has a

thing called tack, which is actually not dissimilar to the summoning dark, if I remember rightly. I might be getting my name wrong, but he definitely has an entity that seems very similar to the summoning dark. And it's just, you know, inter-practice term, it's fishing from the same well. I don't think practice explicitly referencing this, but I think that thing is also called tack. So, I wonder what the root is. I mean, there is also a B from Tic Tac Toe, right? That's maybe where he got it from.

So, I don't know. And it is a very good noise for playing pieces on a board. Yeah, it's a putting pieces down. It's a very clicking noise. But yeah, so that's most of my familiarity with like this style of board game. I've had fun playing that I get like Fran say, and I struggle with it because I've also got a partner who just picks up strategic games very quickly. Which I found interesting because he's not read the book, Thud. But the strategy of playing dwarfs, right, you just get all the bastards in a huddle. He had figured out by the second go round. Yeah. And the first go round, we were playing having forgotten that trolls could shove. So we

weren't playing the proper rules. Yeah, I think it's deceptively, it is simple. Like there's not that many rules. And you only have to remember how one piece moves, well, two pieces, because you need to know how your opponent can move in a game. Then of course, you've got to swap over and play the other one way around. But yeah, there's a slightly more to remember than in chess, in most instances. It's like, the only have two pieces, but those two pieces are the ones with the special extra moves like the King and the whatever else in chess. There's also, there's a lot of directions to watch for at the same time, whereas chess, obviously, you can be caught out with something happening in the part of the board you aren't paying attention to and I have to now,

but with, with that, you've got to guard, you're little huddles on both sides, and there were trolls coming at you from many there, I'm very easily overwhelmed. With that, I found you had to really watch for the diagonals, I kept forgetting diagonals and getting caught out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they get you every time. You've got the current edition, Joe, that's right. Yeah. That comes in the cloth bag with the slightly updated, I think they're very similar to the original ones, but I think they slightly changed the pieces. But does the cloth board, is it actually octagonal,

or is it square with an octagonal board printed on it? It's square with an octagonal board printed on it. It's nice, it's good quality. I'm actually tempted to get another search, just have one to use as a tea towel. That's an expensive tea towel. I did. I've already played more than I've painted. I do like that the little figurines they're putting out now, the official Discworld ones are kind of, they kind of look a bit like the

third pieces in the current edition because in the old edition, they're resin, they're cast resin and they're painted to look like stone and they're all the same color. And they do look like weathered stone. It's kind of nice, but the new ones are that sort of white. I think they're meant to look a bit like marble. I'm not really sure, but they kind of have that look to them. And the new figurines that they're putting out now kind of look the same. I feel like they'd all look nice next to each other.

It was so quietly, I'd like the idea of getting the new figurines and using them to just make up some very batshit tack rules. Like throwing. Side, get some vines. The other side gets a knobby. Yeah. Do you have, is that your favorite? Because I really love like an in-universe thing.

I'm a sucker for this. I like the in-universe books, like, where's my cow? I like in-universe games are great. I've just been playing, um, the latest video game I'm playing is called Sea of Stars, which is this sort of little retro kind of, it's like a 16-bit era role-playing game, but it's modern. It's nice. But like a lot of these games now, it has a game within the game, but the, and often they're not very good, but the one in this game is quite good. It's called, I think it's called wheels, and it's like this sort of weird clockwork board where you put your little piece in and you spin these wheels to get symbols that you then decide which ones you're keeping. So it's kind of like a pusher like dice game, but with little

rotating clockwork wheels. And it's, it's pretty cool. It's really good. And I really like that. And it made me think about, well, I really like that about the game. Like it tells me something about the world. Like this world has clockwork and it has magic because some of the pieces represent wizards and, and I think Thad does that. So brilliantly in sort of saying, this is the relationship and history between dwarfs and trolls. Yeah. But do you have other ones that you really like, like games from fiction that you played. Is it Caravan in Fallout New Vegas? That was always quite fun. That's when you play in-game. Jack really loves, I think it's Phanorama.

Is that from a distance creed, but I think it's actually, it was one of the four in the world game. Yeah, we used to play that in the pub quite a lot. I'm not great at that one either, but it's a very, it's sort of like a big nine-men's moris. Oh, okay. It's like a very long nine-men's moris. I think it's the best way to describe it. Yeah. But it's a fan of Ron.

Fan of Ron. Fan of Ron. Fan of Ron. Fan of Ron. I think I was mixing it. Funerona. Funerona. Funerona. Funerona. Funerona. I think I was mixing it up with Futurama a bit there. Yeah, I didn't know that one. Have you played any games that are like from a fictional world?

No, I mean, I haven't played a lot of board games. So the closest of come is the different themes of flux, which is the other way around to what you're saying. I'd say like the in-universe games in video games I'm generally not a big fan. Oh, I'm a big fan of them as a storytelling device that tells you something about the game that you were saying Horizon for bit and west has a really interesting game in it and you can travel around and collect pieces and There's like a sort of mini culture around the game that I really enjoyed But actually playing I have such limited time to play video games though I don't want to spend an hour of my video game

time like say trying to remember the rules to Gwent or playing another game. Yeah, I'm going to play this game. That's fair, that's fair. Yeah, my partner's big horizon fan and she, what's that came called? It's called a Zero Dawn is I can't remember the end game game. Yeah, I can't remember what it is, but she kind of liked it But it was only a sort of second playthrough that she was like I'm gonna try and beat it and collect all the pieces Um Because the first time I was just like this is annoying. I think a really one of my favorite ones is actually not from a game or a book It's from a it's from a band.

Have you heard of the Illumat? No. This is a great card game, which was invented for the decemberists, because the way that it came about is they were doing a photo shoot for the cover of an album, and they wanted something that looked like a weird old board game, but like something quite traditional. So they sort of mocked something up and they set up like a cloth

and they had a few little playing pieces and then they had these big weird cards, they were like tarot card sized and then they went, this looks really cool. I wonder if we could make a real game like this and then they hired a game designer and they made it and it's actually a pretty great game with this weird lore around it that kind of matches it.

And yeah, so that's like a weird, I do really enjoy that. I don't have a copy of myself, a friend of mine has got a copy. And it's, yeah, it's a lot better to play. Built from Fibes. Start with Fibes and sort of work your way outwards. Yeah. Which is kind of what happened with Th third a little bit, like it was

this game designer kind of going, yeah, so this is the vibe between between trolls and dwarfs. What if you turn that into a game and it's somewhat based on like the early the taffles. Yeah, yeah, we've got the root and north ridiculous word that Fractit put in as a one of his, you know, many two jokes and the line jokes, which is great. And then some guys like, yeah, I'm going to make a whole game. Yeah. I love like nerds that go the extra mile. I think it's fantastic.

Yeah, he did design another, uh, disc world game that never got published, which was, um, about Watchman chasing thieves in Ainkmore Park. And it was similarly a bit meant to be like a game that you might play in the Discworld. It was like had sort of, because it was based on kind of, or it meant to feel like an old-fashioned board game. But yeah, I never ended up getting published. I think, I think they never quite got it to a point where they were happy with it. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah, It was never quite disc-worldly enough. The disc-world felt like kind of tax-orn afterwards.

I think I remember seeing somewhere. Yeah. You did get announced. And I got shown off at a couple of conventions, I think, in a very early prototype. But yeah, didn't get it finished. The only other one is Crystal Mysteronian, which I don't think is a facial, but at least one set of rules floating around there. But you need like eight suits to adapt or something, don't you?

Yeah, so you can do it a few different ways. You can combine an Italian and French playing card decks because they do have different suits or there was a company. I think they're closed now, but I bought a couple who used to make a thing called the Fat Pack, which was a deck of playing cards that had the four standard suits and then four extra ones with the same backs. And it was partly because they wanted

or something they could play. It was time to think. Oh wow, okay, all right. And but annoyingly, the extra suits, and I don't know if this is for copyright reasons or just because they didn't look it up, but they're not disc-worldly ones. They're called they're like dubs and I can't even what they are now, but out there, I just buy two packs of cards. I can just use a Sharpie, right? Like, you could do that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The print some like just design some. I think it's someone who used to live with a magician.

There's plenty of ways to make your own custom playing card decks. Yeah. Now we are used to traditional decks and do magic with them. Yeah, no, that's what happens and no playing cards are allowed in my house. Yeah, so I know I give you a nice Creple Mr onion deck. I think it's total recalled the the previous addition to the current one of the the discord companion, which has one of the sets of Crepa Mr onion rules. Oh, cool. Yeah. But you can also find it online like there's there's there's various. Yeah. So I felt a bit stupid for not realizing that the the game had been designed before the book. But if you read the book with that in mind, I think it is quite noticeable because the rules are very well thought out in the book. And like obviously Terry Pratchett was a very intelligent man

But I don't think he was a game designer. He could have been if he decided to be for an afternoon there, you know? Yeah, yeah, I think he would have he would have called the next game designer on yeah on speed down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is a great. Hi. As someone who's fielded those sorts of calls about games, I feel like that would be more than one phone call worth. I'd be like, yeah, okay, sure. But like, do you need all of the rules for him or just the vibes of the thing? And how much force would you need to remove his head?

How long would it take to to organically grow a thud set out of Stullock tightspan? We're shooting you know this as a as a geology book game professor. It's not really a game design question, is it? I mean I had geologists on my speed dial I could ask but yeah a long time. Because my phone by like just dripping one bit of

out of the time so be 100 to years, thousands of years but yeah a long time. Because my form by just dripping one bit of at a time, so it'll be 100 to years, thousands of years, spending on how big your pieces are. I don't know, some Starwag might say they form pretty quick, don't they? There's that place in, oh, I can't remember where somewhere in England where you can hang, run the mob jacks up under this extremely calcified water and they turn to stone in a matter of months. Well, that's where we should probably go to grow our panic board game sets. Yes. I think there's a business here. You remember the difference between sag mites and stalagmites,

because for me, my mum taught me that mites is like myest on the floor and tights as like a pair of tights. And a similar rhythm that it's tights up to ceiling. Oh, tights up down. They don't know. They don't. They don't. don't know. They hold on tight. That's the stylish tight. That's what I've got. They hold on tight to the ceiling and Stalegmites might reach the ceiling. But probably. Yeah. I remember Stalegkite. I'm usually all right with the with the other one. I don't think it was Terry Pratchett, but there is a book I read. And it's one of those stupid lines that stopped me since I was a child, which is, what's the difference between Stalekta and Stalek

Mike? Stalek Mike's got an M in it. Very good. So it's quite interesting playing, that watching the Ways of Story could actually build out from just these pieces on a board together, which is something I know we've seen and our other friend and I definitely do in things like Katan. We will start building up an entire narrative while we're sort of gently trash talking each other. There's a lot of goodness. I've got so many sheep and many fields of wheat, but it's very easy to start building up a narrative over something so simple. Fuck your forests.

But yeah, no, it's cool. Yeah, even playing with Doug who's not just well-finished at all, but because it's a cleverly designed game and you know, there's the lumbering trolls and the quick-witted little dwarves. You can start trash talking without much fact knowledge. And then of course, you have the off-June T to fill one partner in on the back story. Well, they can't really escape without being very rude. So I'll tell you about this diamond fella. Hahaha. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if it has made it like a,

a third set that has like one troll that's like a sparkly crystalline diamond. I was just going to ask one last third question, which is, you know, none of us have tried the Coom Valley rules, but I've read them. Do you think they feel like the Battle of Coom Valley? Like because it's like get the dwarfs have to get, is it? Maybe we've got the round them away, but like one side's got to get the stone from their

side, past the other side. Yeah. I don't know how I'm like, that doesn't feel like the Battle of Coom Valley to me. No, the Battle of Coom Valley was both side, downbushed each other and there was a brawl and then they got washed into the cave Because I like when you're just about to win at one point a third player comes in just pours a bucket on everything Yeah, we should make modified Coom Valley rules, but with like trap doors I think it's a funnel turn machine. Yes, Get the old, do you remember that marble run game?

Get that out. Oh no. No. Maustrend probably see. We're going to make him on Strathlete do it. Oh, that does remind me of that. You can't see where you're moving them. That would be great as well.

That reminds me of Assassin's Chess though, which is the other Disco game that I don't think anyone's, because the Assassin's Chess is mentioned in one of the books, I forget which one, but it's basically chess, because the other thing that was weird to me is that after Thud, they always present Thud as the game that everyone plays in the cultural position of chess, but before that, they always talk about chess. And indeed, in Thud, they talk about chess. So I'm like'm like, okay, which one is this? And I guess, you know, the answer is probably

humans play chess and dwarves and trolls have played Thud and now this process. Or maybe it reached provenance as the, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but Assassin's chess is regular chess except there's a piece that is the assassin. And the assassin can go, can disappear off the board and move through these invisible lanes of spaces outside, which I've got a special name that I've forgotten of. It's called the slips or something. It's not called that. And then they can go back on, but you have to kind of keep secret track of what moves you make with the assassin. But that's like the assassin vanishing into the shadows and then jumping out and killing one of your opponents' pieces. And I'm like, that sounds cool, because I do like a good chest variant. I think the slack.

I don't know if I could play that. I can't play regular chest very well. I know I made a joke about a bucket, but I think there is a way you could make it more cum Valley if you had a three player game where two players like each side like the dwarves and the trolls blindfolded third player is the weather and when someone makes a move you whisper to the other player either a truth or a lie about the move they made and they have to decide whether they believe it or not and then do their next move based on that and it goes back and forth because

then there's like the an bushing element and whether you trust the other team and whether you want to play like in a competitive way or thinking the best of the way. That's a really cool way to disrupt all your relationships at the once. I love that. I feel like we should do this on stage of the Dispro convention. This is a genius idea. I think it would be really fun because it's like layers of trust. All destroyed in single afternoon. But then you don't need a fog machine. So it's much more thrift. Yeah. I was thinking the much more chaotic version,

which is just every now and then you sort of sweep all the pieces off the board and then you let them set them up however they want again. That was so good. Amazing. I just want to play as fog. That's just. Yeah, no, I like that. So much like answer for more fit sonification of weather and disc gold as well. I think it would be appropriate.

Yeah, you could be a fog. You can play as that the little thunderstorm that could. Yeah, I have the little little costume. The cut. All right, this is a good game idea. I'm writing this down.

I thought we do it. The convention's coming up. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much.

It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much.

It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much play it more. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I think I'm going to be playing it a lot especially over the next few weeks. Now it's time for an extra treat for our dear little listeners. Please enjoy our chat with David Brasio of Backspindle Games. Dear little listeners, please welcome to the podcast, David Brasio of Backspindle Games. Welcome, David. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here.

So our listeners, especially will mostly be familiar with Backspindle games as the creators of God's Guards, a Discworld Ball game and Clacks, a Discworld Ball game. So if I'm backspindle started with the Guards Guards game, didn't it? Yeah, that was the first one back in 2011. So how did it all start? How did the game first start being designed?

We commissioned to do it. Was it something you come up with yourselves? And that's a long story. My business partner when Terry first brought out the color of magic and the life fantastic, we sort of played games back then, mostly role playing games. And we did a bit of creativity when we were creating role playing games

until he designed a game. That was basically around those books and showed it to Terri when he was doing a book signing in Belfast. Terri at the time said, it was probably the best game he'd ever seen based around his books. Oh, amazing. So he did say that at that stage, then this was like whatever I can remember what year those books were right But it was way back. He said well for you to publish this game. We need you to have a company And you would need to have a publisher distributor So it's actually, you know, does well and gets out to the fans and that was the start of a slow process 2008

Really that we asked around just sometime before that, our I asked around a lot of companies, but there was very old fashioned board gaming in those days. It was Walrington's and MB games. You know, you had them monopoly and triplunk with the things. Yeah, it wasn't quite the big boom. We've got now. It was. Yeah. Nobody really wanted a sort of a fantasy thing game. There were a bit, let's say old-school British, and it's like, you know, we don't do that sort of a fantasy thing game there were a bit. Let's say old school British and it's like, you know, we don't do that sort of thing. That's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's about the other cry, you know, and in 2000, it's somebody suggested to make the board game market and dramatically changed and we should really see if anyone was interested in it. So long story short,

we got a few pointers. We went to Ascent, Germany, Met with a company that were really keen half an hour after the meeting was met the start of started. He met us and he said, you know, I really love the game. I love this. I love that but it's not the sort of game I do. So thanks for coming. Oh, that's such a... So that was the first reaction in Germany. But as I said to my business partner at the time, I said, look, we're in the biggest board game fair in the world. Let's go around and show up to people. And so we did. We got addressed from two companies, Fred Games and Zee-Mong Games. Zee-Mong Games, Dan Chopton, Dores basically said they really liked it, but they'd like it redesigned in terms of a hobby game. It was a little bit of a slap hobby game. It was a little bit of a slapstick game in terms of take that. In fact, like real disc world. And that not really wasn't gaming enough if you know what I mean for the

main stream. So after five redesigns a bit a year and a half later, we went back to them and said, yes, we don't miss. And they get us a license or they basically went, yeah, we liked that. And then they got us a license and the rest is sort of history. Fantastic. I that's a lot of stress to go through, but it must be pretty cool to have Terry practice like it's so much. He's like, yeah, sort of business for me. Come. Yeah, well, the fact that Terry put us to be a certain, you know, two blocs, that really was the essence of what Terry was about, you know, that the

common working class man, you know, and not the big corporate coming to him with, you know, we give you 10 million just to do a board game. Terry's like, oh, but we're up with at least two guys and they're very passionate about this. We're let them do it. Yeah. So, but I was a long process with Terry and obviously Colin was as agent at the time. And he kept us right and the dudes that don't still wear for us. And you know, there was a lot in the game in terms of we had to go to all the different publishers for all the quotes. We had to do I had to do panpectures of 110 or something characters from books because we couldn't afford the character drawings for the 90 cards to be like anybody else had done them. Yeah.

for the character drawings for the 90 cards to be like anybody else at Donham. Yeah. So I had to do the items. I get pen pictures to see them play. So in terms of my speed reading of the scroll books over the design and development time, you know, obviously I knew some of it, but you have to flick through stuff to find stuff.

Yeah, there's so much in it. Yeah, thankfully, Stephen, when he did the 90 character drawings for the cards, there was one of them and I can't remember which one it was. I didn't like her. It was a female character. I was this, this is Stephen player who illustrated the game. Was it the Mrs. Cosmopolite? It could have been, yeah. I'd had mentioned an interview that that was one that had to be redone a couple of times. Yeah, well, there was only one. And he swapped. It wasn't mebihur. I can't remember exactly, but we definitely swapped out one.

I think we brought in Litzsey, which was kind of ironic because that was sort of my pseudonym when I went to Desperol Combs and stuff. Oh, nice. So yeah, so a Terry Street away approved 89 out of 90 and disagreed with the one that I wasn't very happy with. Oh, yeah. The fact that I was sharing Terry's vision of all those characters to that point was just

really very satisfactory in terms of a relief. Yeah. Because Terry could have come back and said, well, there's 50, I don't like. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and he would have done if he didn't. That's the thing, isn't it? He wasn't afraid of. Oh, yeah.

He would be very straight and forthright. I think I got a message through call on something briefly like, I have some good news didn't, that's the thing, isn't it? He wasn't afraid of this. Oh yeah, he would be very straight and forced, right? I think I got a message through call and something briefly like, I have some good news for you, David. And I wasn't good news at all. It was brilliant news, you know, to be fair. But yeah, I mean, to be fair to Terry, I mean, Terry, at that time, obviously, had had this diagnosis and was gone through a lot of changes

and adaptability and the voice recording and all those things. And he was doing the right to die and lots of stuff. And he still made time for the likes of us. So for me that was very much the mark of the man. As he said to us, if the fans like it, he's hopping. So we had to then have the game tested by various people in the closed circle of the Discworld fraternity So people that were close to Terri and close to me and Ray and all that and the discord.com people there They all had to have a wee look. Oh nice. It wasn't just good enough that you know Zima and said we wanted to do it other people had to

Basically says yes, it's Discworld enough and it's back to enough. It's you know, Zima and said we want to do it. Other people had to basically say, yes, it's desk world enough, and it's back too enough. It's, you know, accurate. That's cool. Sent out a bunch of coffees and had people right back. Yep. That's exactly what happened. Yeah, I got, I got, I kind of remember exactly it was feedback. I think Coln's put some of the feedback together,

but I do remember it was written in red pan. Yeah, that's what you like. And back in school, that I was, you know, it was all constructed crevices and helpful pointers. And the only thing that sort of was a spawner in the works was that the day we went to print a certain gentleman who I not mentioned pot. And we basically had a benefit to be at around the sunshine sanctuary for sectoral lost dragons. Pat was quoting the disgruntled companion and I had quoted from guards guards about what when or what it had been mentioned as first, second lost. Obviously the companion had changed to locks,

I think it was. And it was originally referred to us, second dragons. Oh. Who let's just say that was a stressful afternoon in which it still went to print because I was right. I love that. Oh, there's such niche arguments.

Yeah, yeah. Well, pop, pop, I mean, top was great. He was a big founder of all of what we did with the game. Anyway, but that technicality, it wasn't about the companion that didn't exist. I was going brick by brick. Yeah. Garza with the first one, then went with the second one, then went the cards cards and so on and so on. And it really, it really was mostly about those three books in terms of the game. Yeah. I know it was the whole idea of running and getting the spells and things was obviously the first book for whatever, the magic thing and then the guards guards was, well, how you're

gonna do that? Well, let's impart the city watch. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're gonna see of the desk, you're gonna impart people to run about and, you know, do a little quest together. You know, my is in crowd running into the bar, and sharing, I need somebody to help me and everybody's going, maybe, maybe. Yeah. It is very fun. You're effectively playing as one of the special constables of the watch. Yes, exactly. And I mean, we did do that. We had, we, I think we did some gimmick material at the time. We did some study watch badges and bits and bobs for people at Cones. We also did the live game of cards, cards, running run Cones, which I don't know if you ever knew a program called Treasure Hunt without

like a race. Very eddies. Hi, Don, my husband talks about it. Yeah. Well, basically if you can imagine we had, you know, a room where we got people in the groups of posseys and we had a posse later and we had dice, the size hexagonal ship and they doubled as the spells and there were different colors. Amazing. And we put clues around hotel cryptic clues which basically you know they had to run around to try and find these spells and they're a little posse. And the whole essence of the game, one of the game mechanics was that you could plant

the saboteur to intercept your opponent's posse coming back with a spell. Yeah. So basically then when they were playing the game in hotel, they would select one of their team and say, you're a saboteur and hide them sort of as they were calling back into the room. So of course, these ones would all come running in with a a big taster or whatever and go, we bet they are into one of we got the yellow one or whatever it is. And somebody would jump out and go saboteur.

That'd be dice rolls and all the sea with the saboteur. Man, it's the stainless spail off and things like that. So yeah, they were love those those live guards guards, shunt conventions were really an all encompassing from activity for an hour. Did you have someone dressed as the luggage rugby tackling people? There's other aspects of the game that we did. Obviously we had the thing about the dragons and the luggage and the litter addition. That would have been, well, we could have probably done something like that, but I mean, we had a lot of people that say in character. Nice.

Excellent. Do you ever do the cosplay thing? Me. Yeah. I dressed up once for Clacks or twice. And my big coats and my scarf and everything as Richard Gilt. Oh.

And the cause I am, like, five foot four or whatever, my esteemed colleague, Renient Me me can't quite reach her guilt. Too good to be angry at kind of. Well, it didn't really matter. Once I get into character, I'm slightly different anyway. And I'm stressed out. Let's say for other stage things in my life, I was TV and movie stuff. I don't really mind any of the banter that goes on.

It's all part of the phone. Absolutely. When the game came out in 2011, what was the fan response like? Was it all really broadly positive? Yeah, it was really, really good apart from the real book. Oh, oh, the real book was, wasn't good. The real book was, well, if you can imagine two chaps who had published real playing things and whatever else, I'd actually published regular articles and whatever for a website at that time, believe it or not, the rare Dragon's Guild. My name was Belgaris, actually, but anyway, give it a minute. We haven't published a board game with rules. And we very heavily relied on Zima and Games, Zev.

They're such a lovely chop-up. So I'm self-ransmitter to let her play. To make sure we got the rules right. And he basically came back and said, well, you know what? The rules are great. You just need to change some of these Americans. Need words to like draw card and stuff. Oh, sure.

Yeah. So, and you know, like footpath sidewalk, you know, gas stop type of lingo. Americanized it a little bit, but other than that, he really didn't work through the rules. So, he preserved everything was going to be grits. And then it wasn't. The fans, the fans were able to work at night. But some people, you know, weren't very happy with the rules. And I think that what was really quite good for us was that we got to reprint on reprint as the savior of bad rules, really. Yeah. So when we went on to board game cake, we went to various gaming conventions. Anybody who said something about the rules, that was noted.

anybody who said something about the rules that was noted. So when we republished or reprinted, I think it was two years later, all of those changes were adopted. Well, basically, I restructured the whole rules as a step-by-step guide. Different ways, things were moved from front to back and all the rest of it. The appendix was changed.

And then we introduced the whole thing about the luggage being able to see us off the dragons. We introduced a few new rules. I mean, it became play better as well. So all of that feedback was put into the reprint. And, you know, we had a very renowned board game reviewer look over the rules and he just he just he he acclaimed the rules. He got it was fantastic. Oh fantastic. I mean, there's a lot in the game. It's quite complicated. Once you get into playing it, it's not that complicated, but like all games starts off a little bit complicated. And he came back and a massive thumbs up and said,

absolutely brilliant, best structured rules for a game of that type he read in a long, long time. So I was like two fingers up to all those people that criticized him at first. We got it right. So I think sometimes you you get like rules, warriors and stuff. But in the me and I mean, you know, we took guards guards to Winthekhountain and the game was being played on a pool table down the back and at the pub.

And the side door was open to the pool room and it must have been about 25 yards away from the front of the straits. And I was walking along the strait and it must have been about 25 yards away from the front of the streets and I was walking along the street and I heard this rip roaring laughter coming up the alleyway and I recognized that that somebody said to me what is going on there and I said that's Jason playing guard's cards a board game. And that was the response and we had people people saying, you know, it was the most fun that ever had with by taking their clothes off. So I say, you know, that's that addition, of course, and in the taking the clothes off. Well, there's a lot of loose of these. I mean, Stephen Claire and obi's girlfriend was she had to have a certain castle or bikini top put on her because it actually has drawing

didn't have anything. Oh, it was more accurate. We met. Even it's going to be aimed at like Shelven from 12 or whatever, you know, can you please fit some sort of garment on her breasts, please. Let's only bite that particular backlash, yeah. Yeah, anyway, seriously, do a really half-two. We told Colin about it on the last.

Fantastic. Amazing. So I don't, I honestly don't think it would have been annoying to anybody in the Discworld fraternity at all, who really knew the characters, put on the wider games market. It would have been like, oh, you cut too much. Yeah. And did it reach, did it reach as far as you know,

a market that wasn't made up of discolored fans? Yeah, it did. I mean, probably our biggest challenge back in the host days is a fledgling company was we really didn't know much about marketing distribution channels. And you were relying on other people for, you know, support and trust that they could do a good job. But I mean, in terms of that, I think it was one of the double and comic columns or whatever. And the chap was demoing it for us. We got out to do whatever else.

And he said, he said, you know what happens today? And I what happened today? He said, I had a lovely family in here. There was like six of them. And they all sat down and played guards guards for like an hour and a half. Well, that's, that's nice. He said, but then they came back after lunch with all the Terry Patchet books that bought the amazing.

They played the game. They never heard of Terry Patchet and they went like down to Easton's or whatever and he ended up on and bought the books and came back. And that's amazing. Yeah. Oh, that must feel good. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. And then after the success of this one, was it long before the, the idea for the

going clocks? Yeah, the clock, the clocks on start kicking about. The clocks ideas spawned at the Irish Disp world convention and something like 2011 or 2012, but was almost straight away that idea was spawned because we were sitting, wearing to leave the con with a few other delegates and we're just having a chat about our favorite television adaptations of Terry's work and I just went far and away my favorite one is going postal. That's far it's a very good adaptation. I just thought it was brilliant and you know on the back of that my business partner said there's a game in that game idea and there you know with a semi-four. So he went away and started creating a little board game idea with a semi-four

and the complex language, and that was the start of it, but not wanting to be known as, you know, just disgral publishers, which isn't the bad thing, don't get me wrong. We thought we better do something else in the meantime. Yeah. So we did that to a point. We then did the first edition of Arcadenca game, which was based around the same idea, 16 tile system, a totally different mechanic. And it was quite interesting. We took it to Essen. It cost us 2,000 by locals. It cost us 2,000 by nocle. It cost us 2,000 per pound to put it all together locally. Took it to Essen, sold all 500 copies and made 2,000 pounds. And came home, you know, still like the price of the hotel and the flights. So that was that. And then after that we got dragged into our wrestling game called Nitschador, which was like the best family game in 2014. So that was really something special. And again, trying to jump the balls,

the Clarks game needed more than just the, much as we took it to the Manchester Desk World Convention, which was running it by that time. We left two copies of it in the games room. And this is before it had the whole cooperative thing. And we were tidying up the games room because it was gonna be used for something in the morning. Alan, do we want to put it away?

There was only one copy. Yeah, we're like, I suddenly stole the copy of our game. Well, you know, proof types cost money. So we went to the like the all night bar. And there was four girls who were setting the all night bar, all slugging paints, laying plaques. And I went, there it is. And they would, oh, please, please, please, let us finish our game. We love this. We love this. there it is. And they're, oh, please, please, please, let us finish our game. We love this. We love this. So that was very cool. To be honest, and we did let them finish our game in the game. But so at that point, then we started working on the actual clacks. What up a game in earnest.

And we got onward to do the box cover at that time, which again, you know, looking back was a lovely box cover for desk world people, but it wasn't a great box cover for the wider audience. It probably didn't sell or jump off the shelves to people as quickly, because they do really know what these tar is or in this picture. What is this landscape? Where's everybody in desk world goes exactly what they are. So yeah, we worked on it in earnest earnest and spent a lot of time developing the cooperative and the player versus player challenges.

Because that was what people loved out one up on chip and as Colin Smith rightly said, you know, the fact that we put in a section of the back where you could print your own words and write letters or words for your opponents. It's a Desk Grill found so loved that because they'll give each other swears. Yep, that was my first thought when I first got a copy of Clarks. And that's what has happened, you know. I mean, I really like all aspects of the game. I like the player versus player part.

I like the cooperative part. I like the children's part. And I know I like the Goblin Dory, which I devised for the feather vision. Because all parts of it have just a little intrigue, a little challenge, a little work it out, try to be adaptable because things are constantly changing. And I think if that's what was happening in the going postal recreating the race, that's what you want to feel in the game. Yeah, you want to get that kind of lateral thinking, uh, moist fun, big.

He's on a horse. We got to do this. We got to pull the reverse quickly and stand a ladder. I'll say it's very like mechanically different from God's Gods. There's so many different ways you can play it. Did that just sort of all come about organically? As you realize, there was more you could do with it. Sort of, that's a bit like a question I've been asked a lot of times. All of our games have to feel like they should feel. Right. I am not just a Euro game that slaps a wizard on a card and fires a game out. Yeah.

In the first game we had to feel like we were going into a bar, going into a high show challenge saying, we're on a quest, can you help me? Yeah. And feel like you're a part of that. And Claks, you wanted to feel like a Claks operator. Yeah. You know, when it flips, me people talked about the enemy flipping

on a little on its head. But that's part of the fun because, you know, Clack's operators were just the pawns. They were just doing what they were told. So it had to feel like it should feel. So that's why we made like Trump-y ties. It was being like you were clunking something over. And that's why we made the Jack Cards

because you could visualize, you know, a punch-to-it system of card things that you'd shove in a pillow lever and it would hit four lights or would you post two lights over or whatever that sort of thing. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. It's not. And then obviously, the whole idea with moist moving around the outside of the board in landscape, you've got a visualization of in the Clark's tower, you've got the 16 lights all gone. Meanwhile, on the periphery of your vision, there's this wee guy on a horse on the wall. Yeah. So it's just trying to bring that all together on a board game, which is a challenge because again, it's trying to honor Terry's work. Yeah.

You know, that's very much the biggest pressure in me and all along has always been about making sure you do the very best to honor what was in his books and what the fans love the boaters books. Yeah. That those come down to Nettie Gritty and mechanics. It is kind of a chunk of responsibility, isn't it? Just a chance for a like some of the discolored, yeah. Just a tad. I mean, we've been very lucky. Well, let me lucky, not lucky so much. We don't have a good enough job that you know they've stuck by us for 12 years or something like that and you know I still have a good relationship with you know Rob and the wider circle there. I think it's when he put his trust

in you. You have to like just keep on out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was just recently back from the Irish desk world convention and mean, what a lovely testament that was that they did. Yeah. The people who are in Discworld, whether you're old, when they realize the power of what he did, you know, then really appreciate what people are still doing, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, the whole, it's not even as, it's not even speakers name. It's, it's more than that. It's, it's the essence of his philosophy, his beliefs, his empowerment of people. It's all out and then camaraderie and community as well, I think, a massive one. Yeah. Yeah, the fact that there's still such an active and evolving community around his works, you know, several years now. Yeah. evolving community around his works, you know, several years now. Yeah. At the brilliant escapism for people as well,

to not only escape from the long drum of day to day life and the rap race and all that sort of stuff. And you actually escape to a world which is like recreated from his world, which is a very nice comfort to what I think for many of us. Certainly for me, I think that this, this world convention I've been to of us. Certainly for me, I think that this this world convention I've been to, I just love the atmosphere, but I just love the camaraderie, the people you meet, and I love that the enthusiasm and the effort people put in, the things like the mastery and the events. Even when we did the online one, you know, some of the people that did online stuff, you know, while we were around lockdown and whatever,

it was absolutely superb. Absolutely, yeah. Would the escape isn't side of it then? Is that part of what you enjoy about full games, making, playing? I think all of us need social. And I think we do need, I mean, one of the best things you can do in life,

I think is get paid or make a living in doing something you love. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're doing something that you love, it's fine. But make a living and doing something you love. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're doing something that you love, it's fine. But if you're not doing something you love, but you get to participating, something that you really love or like that escape as a mental well-being of being around like-minded people, the mother, whether it's a board game environment or the Discworld environment or a fantasy or, you know, people and the Marvel movies.

I think that's really important in terms of. Um, the shared energy that people get. Hmm. Because you maybe don't have that shared energy when you're sitting in your office or sitting in your flat or whatever. Yeah. Absolutely. But when you actually go to that physical event and you're only mebi

sitting just even for a coffee with people or beer beer or a whisky or as it gets stronger. There's a certain, I don't know, shared energy. I think that I think Terry recognized that very early on on the first start of the conventions. Yeah, yeah. I think from listening to Rob's book that notes, I think he was actually blown away very early on by that collective

energy that had developed. Kind of taps into the running theme of the power of Believer. His book doesn't it? It's things appear when you believe in them. One of the biggest powers I think that Terry brought to people was happiness and laughter. You know, I could put my hand up and say, I have laughed, I'd lied on a bus. Bars and so to reading a book called Paramount, laughter is very good therapy for people. And again, Terry knew that. And it was like, you know, bugger all else stuff. I'm going to make this funny. You know, that was as as we haven't. And he did, you know, that's

my feeling about it. No matter what, but well, not all books, obviously, there's some books that are a bit more serious, but a lot of us Discworld books are definitely like that. Yeah, even the serious ones, so I think he takes care to not out loud with my limits. Yeah, come try stuff it, isn't it? Yeah. So looking forward to the future, but now you've obviously

recently re-released Clacks, you've had your fifth year edition. Are there any other Discworld books you sort of looked at that the back of your mind you've gone, oh, this would translate to a game? That is interesting question. Personally, I really like Dodger, which isn't Discworld. Yeah. I thought it was great. I do like the Witches, but another one stage, Martin had a license and did the Witches game. Although for me, it didn't have I do like the witches, but another one stage, Martin had a license and did the witches game. Although I, for me, I didn't have the essence of the witches really. And that's coming back to I think games should fail. It should feel like the essence of the witches should feel slightly, you know, like what is going on here? It's just fine darling. It's going to be fine. And then it all works out because it's not magic, but it just worked out anyway.

It's going to be fine. And then it all works out because it's not magic, but it just worked out anyway. So yeah, I mean, I would, I mean, obviously, Rihanna's just blown out of the book there recently as well. Yes. So, you know, the witties is definitely a pale, it's one that it paints. I think there's, in this day and age, especially, pushed lockdown. There's a lot more people are looking at energy and life and that sort of thing isn't fresh air and walks and all water swimming. I think that's probably a good place for somebody to go in terms of again. The other side of it for me is the mean guards guards

if the BBC are open to moving on. I do believe that guards guard our guards guards game will be moving on, I do believe that guards guard our guards guards game would be very happily reprinted. I know a lot of people who would like it to be reprinted. Yeah, I mean, it could probably do the way we upgrade like everything, but certainly for me, if I had the par, that's just say, to go with that again, that would be one that I would definitely do, because that was the one that tower originally really liked the most. And the fact that it's got 90 desk world cards, it's the only board game that I know today still that is the mechanic of the game is driven by the characters you recruit, and it's not a deck builder as such. It's a posse builder, but it's not because periodically your posse gets to fight dragons and you lose some of them,

God love them all. For me, it feels more like I'm more important than any other game because it's you take a risk and you may make, you know, cut me on through a Dibbler and you may get sick because you had a rod on a stick or whatever. Yeah. It's got that on the ground level, discworld sense of humor. Yeah. Because at the end of the game, this guy wins, and your posse comes second and third, and Bimes walks in and goes, I told you so. Mm-hmm.

You know, that's why I liked it so much, I think, in terms of the gameplay, because it felt more like discworld than anything I played. So I mean, ideally, if that was a possibility, and I haven't even mentioned that to anybody yet, just yourself. I'd say to the wider world. I was going to say yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a conversation I would have to have was robbed and the road I guess, but bearing in mind, rob is just slightly busy usually. Yeah, I've had a lot of things on.

Yeah, but just on the back of that, I mean, the whole Maurice thing, you know, Oh, yeah, and the whole food almonds thing. I mean, you've got to look at the job they did on those projects and They're absolutely fantastic. I can see why things like board games are not that important in the scheme of things when you've got You know booked a booked a big screen is very powerful, but equally so as opposed board games are powerful at grassroots level with families and so on, you know. So going into our official general pratchet questions, so what's your first pratchet book slash sort of pratchet origin story? My first book, I mean I started at the beginning with the first books. As a said, Leonard had got the books, and then he lent me the books. And I did find Rinswyn was very amusing. I never saw him as David Jason.

No. I saw him more as Shaggy, or just Scooby Doo. Yeah, that was, yeah. Because that's the sort of era I grew up with. And I pictured it was Shaggy with a pointy heart. I think that the batter story for me was the fact that I think as a teenager I was very much a pizza found I remember buying guards guards and then they sent brother fingers I'd be

get the pizza. Oh yeah. And that was just the icing on the cake really. Yeah amazing. I love that. I really thought you'd those pizza you know it was just so good. I didn't see it coming. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you just get this sudden hint of the real world in this dark room of it. It was the crossover of fantasy and modern, just like one most full, you know, and then obviously he had to be a graphic and our game and we have like all the next five pizza boxers or whatever. And do you have a favourite or couple of favorite disc world novels? We know this answer might change depending on the minute I asked, but my favorite one, well, the one that made me laugh like the Mushrooms pyramids, I thought it was great. I liked all the watchbooks, but probably my favorite book of all was the illustrated edition of the last

hero. You know, it's the one about Cohen and the silver hoard going up to fight the gods. It's just brilliant. It's a super funnily story and I get picture, you know, my grandfather and all of us, it's 10. But guys, let's go and sort this out. You know, and going up to, you know, the local parliament or reverend and come on, bring it on. Yeah. We're going to change the rules. So the last year, it would have been probably one of my absolute favorites, not just because of the book and the

comedy and it, but the illustrations as well. It's so beautiful. And if you found yourself on the disc, whereabouts would you like to be living and what would you be doing for a living? I think it might be in the watch with Anguya. That makes sense. You knew that there's something happening and you just stand behind and let them sort of out?

Yeah, yeah. Although they're not, I would be in a garden somewhere as my pseudonym, Lutzi, ending this large, maybe jump about in time a little bit, you know. Pushing this cigar button to the right place. Just chilling and not really worrying about anything. Having a little quiet life where the old desk goes to pot. Yeah, I like that. I like that. That's good. Well, thank you so very much for joining us.

We'll have links down below to backspinal games. Is there anything else you'd like us to link to or mention? I'm not really. I don't think so. We're sort of planned about the things at the minute, but nothing I can go, yeah, we're doing this. Watch this face. All I know is we pretty much sold out of plaques and all of our other games, literature was the wrestling one we did last year, which is also we have some copies of it left. It's just quite funny because the original literature when I took it to the Isle of the School convention actually sold like double what I sold out of guards guards.

Oh, amazing. Everybody was playing wrestling games in the bar. Oh, that was amazing. Tagging in, tagging in. I smack topping, come on, like, you know, I stuff like this. Got it. So yeah, that was, that was right. So we are a little towards game. I say we brought it out last year. We have little wrestler standys flying out of the ring. If you threw the dice up, they're on a seesaw and stuff like that.

There's a lot of dexterity from them. I'd say they still have the high five. But yes, I have seen the most timid people, both men and women, sit down to play lichador lich wars on the basically sit down like, oh, on the end of it, they're going to come along. So it definitely is a bringer out of personalities. And I think that some of that's probably why I carry trust to looks. Because he wasn't just looking at those two blocs. He was looking at those two blocs who could really

bring energy and life to the products and stuff that we did. Yeah, fantastic. Are you going to be at the next convention in Birmingham? Yeah, it's next year, isn't it? Yeah. So, 24, yeah. I haven't been at my diary yet. All things being equal, I'd love to be there, you know,

because the fun of it's great. And, you know, I can go back and do a bit more goblin glorious people if they want to, I suppose. That's it, it's gonna be my first one. Now I kind of wanna play that. So, yeah, you need to get practicing. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Try not to get it. You wanna be a bit of a Yeah, you need to get practicing. Yeah, absolutely. You want to have a little bit of pricing to practice before you go.

Yes. Well, maybe practice just don't tell anybody for like eight months. It is turn up. Oh, the dark horse. Yeah, I love that. I don't know. I'm just not going to get a montage in training montage for you. Okay.

Well, hopefully we'll see you next year in Birmingham and by your point. But in the meantime, thank you very much for joining us on The Trisha Make You Frat. Yeah, thank you. It's been great. Thank you very much for having me. I wish you both a lovely day and a song once said to me. Enjoy the journey. Thank you very much again, David, for coming on the podcast. I think you did Ben and Liz off of Pratcha for coming on the podcast. Before we go, is there anything you would like to

plug, anything you'd like to tell our listeners about? You could listen to our podcast as well, if you like. You should. In fact, it's compulsory. I should have told everybody this and started the episode, but you are contractually obliged to be a family. But it's not really fun, doesn't it? No, it is fantastic. Organized fun. Exactly think the only other thing I find the next level. I think the only other thing I plug is a little side project I do for Pratchhat, which is the Guild of Recapers and Podcasters, which is basically a website where I try to catalog all of the Discord podcasts, because there's quite a lot of them. So if you've ever just finished reading a Discord book and you're like, oh, I've listened to the,

you know, the truth and it shall make you for an episode about this. Are there any other podcasts about this? The answer is probably yes, and you can look them up on that site. There's a link to that on our website where you can just go straight to guild.pratchuppodcast.com and find your next second or third favorite

Discworld or Terry Pratchett podcast. It's nice to keep track of how far we've gotten ahead of who watched us the watch. Yeah, wasn't it? Yeah. They started. They were much faster than us to start with. We started having the same time.

With their lives. Slower than steady wins the race, Joanna. It's not a race I'm dragging this out. Right. I'm like, yes. I think that's not everything we can say because I'm sure there's still many tangents we could do, but... The tangents on the back.

Thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Two Shell Make You Fract. We are going to have a week off. We will be back the week after with our first episode on Winter Smith, just heads up the episode, may not come on the Monday, but it will definitely be coming that week. In the meantime, until then dear listener, you can join our discord link down below.

Follow us on Instagram at the Trishamaki Fret on Twitter and Blue Sky at Make You Fret part on Facebook at the Trishamaki Fret. Join us on our subreddit, ask that's TTSMYF, email us your thoughts, queries, cast, or snacks, now the Drew Shamaaki Fret. Join our subbritette r-t-t-t-s-m-y-f. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and arbitroses. The Drew Shamaaki Fret.com is on the website. It might be time to start getting those letters to the hog father in. And if you want to support this financially, go to patreon.com. For more slash the Drew Shamaaki Fret, you can exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense if you are a Patreon. Make sure your address is updated. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don't know, let us entertain you. I don, let us entertain know, I don't know why I told that story.

He's randomly, I do want a boiled egg though, that is accurate. I could do the boy, can I boil that at midnight? Yeah, you can eat sure. Anything you want at any time of day. You can, there's no rules. You'll find their social constructs. He's gonna stop me. What are they gonna do?

He's gonna die. Hey, he's gonna die.