Hi Everyone! Mrs. Skippy here. I interviewed Skippy for my business blog, and to help his Kickstarter campaign. Wanna learn more about Skippy and about making games? Then you’re gonna love this post!
Enjoy!
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
An Interview with Skippy
Sunday, February 22nd, 2015
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Day 1
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012Thirty backers, and just shy of 25% of the total goal. I think that qualifies as a good first day. All we need to do is make sure that we keep up this level of interest, the WeaselPants Production Crew will be sitting on a giant pile of money. But instead of rolling around in this large money pile we will instead convert it into a smaller pile of games, some of which will be sent to you. So thanks for the strong start out of the gate, and keep showing us off to your friends.
Captain’s Log
Space Date 20120110
The GSC Incautious engaged on a routine patrol of the Alpha Centauri system. No major events transpired during the voyage. Just a calm peaceful cruise with no surprises. Naturally there were some unavoidable casualties.
Casualty Report
CPO Kadolph: Attempted to execute a standard external repair. Forgot space suit.
CPO Kowalczeski: Testing a new mine detection system. It worked. Sort of.
CPO Systems: Was found <redacted for security purposes> and a 14 gallon drum of rum.
CPO Covington: Beaten to death. With his own Fayzor.
CPO Lorenzen: Eaten by cats in her cabin. We have no idea why she had so many.
Crewman Sean: Control panel exploded for no discernible reason.
CPO Braley: Well now we know what happens when you press that big red button.
CPO Dusty: Was teleported down to a holographic planet. Our bad.
CPO Brigdon: We don’t know what that thing was, but we’re pretty sure it’s in the air ducts now.
Crewman Sullivan: Legs found dangling out of an air duct. Torso not yet located.
CPO Wood: Explaining to subordinates what a cautionary tale is. Ironically as it turns out.
CPO Cassiday: Played Orc Barbarian on the Simu-deck, which malfunctioned.
CPO John: Played Space Ninja Racer on the Simu-deck, which malfunctioned.
CPO Tipton: Played Fuzzy Bunny Time on the Simu-deck. Why do we have that thing again?
CPO Trader: Surprise birthday party went horribly awry.
CPO Buxtion: Was rather unfortunately in between the cake and the device at said party.
CPO Sands: Found a pile of ash in his boots.
CPO Jackson: All witnesses swear he launched himself out of a torpedo tube.
CPO Quin: Nobody knew his species wasn’t supposed to be that color until it was too late.
Ensign Kent: Conjugated a verb improperly in front of a Klang’on. Klang’ons love grammar.
CPO ChrisS: Accidentally beaten to death with Ensign Kent.
CPO Ben-Orr: Burned as a witch. Long story. Don’t ask.
CPO JaredK: Robots don’t understand sarcasm.
CPO CH: Nerve pinches don’t work on carnivorous plants. Well now we know.
CPO Smallwood: Look, we told him not to play with the creepy alien child.
CPO Darling: Crush by the safety grating of the plasma thrust intake during maintenance.
Space Trader Overstreet: Sucked into a plasma thrust intake during cargo inspection.
CPO Frank: Incinerated after being sent to see “What’s that clonking noise in the plasma intake.”
CPO Ruskin: Dove through one of those blast doors that iris closed. Made it halfway.
CPO Roberts: Was attack by a sparkly space vampire. Died of embarrassment.
CPO Gibbs: Blood seeped out from under his door and frankly, nobody wanted to go look.
CPO Bampton: “It’s a shark! how did a shark get he–” Then a sort of wet crunchy noise over his communicator.
GenCon
Monday, August 27th, 2012So GenCon was cool.
I got to hang with several notables in the field of nerdom. I went to dinner with Howard Taylor and Michael Williamson.
The crew of Smirk and Dagger Games invited me to hang out. They didn’t even get mad when we came up with the most horrible Run For Your Life Candyman supplement ever.
The guy that invented Killer Bunnies came to my booth to tell me how much he like Redshirts, and I managed to avoid squealing like my daughter when she gets a new stuffed animal. But just barely.
I spent time chatting with Randy Milholland of Something Positive, and Lar Desiuza of Least I Can Do and Looking For Group.
I had a booth right across from Slugfest Games. Years ago one of their bigwigs graciously allowed me to pitch one of my board games to them. And then in a polite, professional, and not unkind manner they ripped it apart. I used the advice they gave me to improve how I went about game design. I would quite literally not have my company today if it wasn’t for them. I told them so too.
I met a lot of folks who retail my game, and sold a lot of product. Like a ridiculous amount. We sold through all of the promo cards we had in stock and our artist, David Reddick was there to make custom Redshirts. We actually turned a profit going to GenCon, and I have been informed that doesn’t happen very often.
And managed to trade copies of my game for a few hundred dollars of other peoples games.
I only had one person say that the rules were so badly written that they practically ruin the game. Granted they were a famous cartoonist, but hey, you can’t win them all.
There are days when it sucks to be Skippy. Those four days in Indianapolis where not among them.
Dallas Comic Con
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012This weekend I get to try out my first convention since Redshirts has arrived. And so off I go spend the weekend selling as many copies as I possibly can. I’ve never actually worked at a con where I was selling directly to the public before, so this should be interesting, to say the least.
So if you are in the DFW area, be sure to check out Dallas Comic Con. And buy several copies of the game.
Redshirts Demo
Monday, March 26th, 2012If you are in the DFW area there will be a Redshirts Demo at Lonestar Comics in Plano. You can show up and play a game or two, and we even have some promotional cards available that will not be included in the core set. This is your chance to play the game before anybody else, and score some extra goodies.
Be sure to stop by and say hi.
That’s Lonestar Comics
3100 Independence Parkway #318
Plano, TX
(972) 985-1593
This next Saturday, March 31st.
GAMA Trip: Part 2
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012I arrived in Vegas on Sunday morning. My first impression? Bad location for the zombie apocalypse. I’m staying at the Excalibur which is sort of like living inside the bastard step-child of a Dave & Buster’s and a Medieval Times, that was raised by chain smoking carnies I’m here to work however, so I am forced to ignore most of it, although I did allow myself a small gambling budget.
During the afternoon I wandered around a few Casinos and discovered there is a Star Wars slot machine.
Star Wars. Plus gambling. If there is one thing I have learned it’s that, ignoring 50% of the movies, Star Wars never lets me down.
My entire gambling budget later I was forced to conclude that Star Wars had indeed let me down.
While walking on the strip I learned that while prostitution is still illegal, that particular law is evidently not well enforced. Periodically you find small packs of people handing out what I can only describe as “hooker trading cards”. These cards are photos, along with vital statistics and phone numbers. The people handing them out are wearing t-shirts with QR codes on them. For those unfamiliar with QR codes, they are squarish black and white nonsense looking images that can be scanned by a smart phone and direct you to a website. So it’s basically like checking out at a grocery store but instead of eggs and milk, you get a painful STD and and awkward conversation with your wife.
GAMA Trip: Day 1
Monday, March 12th, 2012Yesterday I hopped on a plane to fly over to Las Vegas to spend a week picking the brains of game industry veterans and trying to find distributors and retailers for Redshirts. Here are my impressions of the trip thus far:
Air travel: Spirit Airlines has a economy based entirely on baggage fees. There was a fee for every bag, including carry on. A fee based on bag weight. I’m pretty sure there was also a fee for paying the fees.
Once on the plane: I was seated behind a family with two infants, and in front of a group of sorority girls. Guess who was more annoying?
I’ll give you a hint. The soroity girls had managed to turn “whoo!” into a form of punctuation. “We’re going to Vegas! Whoo!” “Brittany isn’t pregnant!” “Whoo!” “I’ve decided to become a vegan!” “Whoo!”. For the record, from their conversation it appears that vegan means “I will only eat animals that aren’t cute.”
At one point the girls decided to be profound, or at least what passes for profound within their social circle. “Tiffany just tweeted “not every skinny girl is hot, and not every fat girl is ugly. That sounds like something a fat girl would say!” “Whoo!” Then an old guy in my row said “That sounds like something a ugly skinny girl would say.”
“Whoo!” added his wife.
Look What I Have
Wednesday, March 7th, 2012What’s been going on.
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012So things have been busy over here, and I have really started to let things go on the updating the blog front. I’ve spent a few days staring at the blank “Add New Post” window. Feeling uninspired, I will just update everyone on what’s been going on for the past month or so.
I graduated from college, which is a relief because trying to run a business, start a second business and be the primary caregiver to a pair of rambunctious twins was already a great big pile of work.
During my last quarter I did some math and realized that as long as I just barely passed the course I would still graduate with a decent GPA. I promptly began treating the assignments as my own personal playtime. Strangely, my grades went up.
I have been receiving a terrifying set of lessons about US Import law. I always thought it was “products ship over, paperwork gets filled out, small amount of money is paid to the government, and you get your stuff.” Which is technically true. In the sense that if you get accused of murder it goes “Show up at court, say stuff to the judge, avoid going to jail.” While technically correct, it is just a smidge more complicated than that. And if you fail to enlist the aid of a trained professional there is an excellent chance that horrible things will happen to you.
My game is on track to be released late next month, although the shipping process is dragging out a bit longer than it should have. So far I am committed to GAMA Trade, Origins, Give to Game, and Dallas Comic Con. We’re planning to try for Gen Con, and pretty much any medium-sized cons in Texas that we can find. If you know of any, please let me know.
Last year I worked on a board game that got published called Please Don’t Wake Dagon. The publishers are finally beginning to move again on that, and more news should be available soon.
I went to two conventions recently. I got invited to ConJour in Houston as a guest. This was a very very tiny con, and I think that there were barely more guests than staff. I wound up on several panels with Glen Welch, of the “2000 Things That Mr Welch Can No Longer Do in an RPG”. I was surprised by the invitation because, well, I wrote a viral joke on the Internet something around eleven years ago, which I’m not exactly sure is a current event any more. This was one panel that was supposed to be the two of us disusing the origins of our lists. Nobody showed up.
While in Houston I met the Tully’s, who had the scariest RPG ever. It wasn’t a horror RPG, it’s just that nearly every thing about it was virtually identical to a homebrew table top game I ran last year. It was like they were watching me, taking notes and published it. The game is called Mana Punk and I will be trading a copy of Redshirts for it once my shipment comes in.
Last weekend I went to ConDFW, to schmooze. I found a store that may be carrying my game soon, and a few podcasts that want to interview me for a chance to plug my game. The fun moment was when they took my email address down and they go, “skippyslist .com? You’re not that Skippy are you?”
My children have discovered artistic expression. Right now they are working primarily in the fecal medium. Their masterpieces are called “Poop mural on texture painted wall”, “Poop smeared into carpet”, and the popular “Poop used as hair care product for my little brother.” Do you know how long it takes to get two childrens worth of poop off of a texture painted wall with a combination of spray cleaner and toothbrush? Because I do.
We have replaced cable television with my old desktop PC. Nearly every show I want to watch is on the Internet anyways. The others are on DVD or available to watch at my friends houses. I’m finding this to not only be cheaper, but frankly I prefer my big living room television to be a giant computer monitor. Fun bonus: Infinite free porn in the living room, which is handy as it is the only place the wife and I can fit the Twister mat.
I actually recently wrote something that even I thought might be a little too far. People that regularly read the sort of things I find funny might want to think about that for a bit.
Two if by sea
Monday, February 13th, 2012This Friday 1.5 tons of boardgame will be leaving India, and sailing it’s way to my new warehouse facility. And by that I mean my garage.
The site for WeaselPants Productions will be live soon, and in about a month sales will begin.
School is done. Most of the work for the game is out of the way. I suppose I really should start writing more now that I finally can.
