Site icon Indie Board Game Designers Podcast

#164 – Reed Mascola

Reed Mascola

Patrick Rauland
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Indie Board Game Designers podcast, where I sit down with a different independent game designer most weeks to talk about the experience of game design and the lessons they've learned along the way. My name is Patrick Rauland and today I'm going to be talking with Reed Mascola, who designed Vigilante, which is live on Kickstarter as we're recording and will probably have just finished by the time this episode comes out. Reed welcome to the show.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Introduction

Patrick Rauland
So I like to introduce you to the audience with The Lightning Round. You ready? All right. What would your superpower be?

Reed Mascola
Fog manipulation.

Patrick Rauland
Fog manipulation. Now, can you create fog or like there has to be existing fog?

Reed Mascola
I have I can create fog particles in the air.

Patrick Rauland
OK, so. So this is where, like, I get snooty, like, wouldn't you rather be Storm? Because she can create fog and wind and lightning.

Reed Mascola
This is true. But but so actually I created a character in my game called Fog whose power is basically this. And he can also push particles together to create solid objects. So yeah. So that's where you can create fog so nobody can see it all. So you can he's got a he's got a pretty cool scimitar.

Patrick Rauland
I take it. Take it. What is your favorite comic if you have one.

Reed Mascola
Absolutely. Civil War.

Patrick Rauland
OK, so I'm reading through that right now. And so correct me, I'm just getting into like actual comics. I've never really read them before, but as far as I can tell, it's like there's like main comics (story arcs) and lots of other individual comics tie into it. Is that correct?

Reed Mascola
That's correct. Yeah. But I actually have the big graphic novel that's kind of all civil war from the journalist's perspective or the reporter's perspective. Yes, amazing and amazing.

Patrick Rauland
I'm like, yeah. So I'm reading it on the Marvel Unlimited app. I forgot what that's called. And they have the thing and it's. Yeah, and I'm reading through it. It's great. It's super cool. Great. Although I do say sorry. We're going to go on a little tangent here. Everyone is really eager to fight people. They're like, you not bumped me in the hall, I'm going to kill you like everyone seems very I feel like they could have a therapist or something they should talk to and that would solve problems.

Reed Mascola
And civil war tension is very high.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah. OK, what and then what's it like if you're at a con? You know, when we have comes again, what is a game you play with with someone every single time?

Reed Mascola
I try to play dead of winter whenever I can.

Patrick Rauland
So social deductions are your jam?

Reed Mascola
Definitely, yeah. I do like other, I do like other types of games, but absolutely. Social deductions are my jam.

How Did You Get Into Board Game Design?

Patrick Rauland
So so first real question. How do you get to board games and board game design?

Reed Mascola
So I actually got into board games when my brother started bringing euros home and we played Catan, we played can't remember the name Zooloretto and a bunch of those games back in the nineties. So that's what kind of got me into it originally. And then I got into collectible card games, trading card games and yeah. Back, back in the board games after that.

Patrick Rauland
Awesome. And what about, like board game design?

Reed Mascola
So board game design, it really all say it started. About 10 years ago, but seriously, more started about six or seven years ago, just because I had games that I wanted to play that didn't exist.

Patrick Rauland
Got it right. So you saw an opening in the market?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, exactly. Cool.

Patrick Rauland
Love it. So there was. I want to talk about a game Vigilante for numerous (reasons), first of all, social deduction, just in case. I didn't pick that up yet. And I actually wanted to start with this is the second time running it. So you had a previous Kickstarter campaign a couple of months ago and then you relaunched. And right now, hold on. I haven't checked. I wrote this question a day or two ago. I wanted the last I checked. You were close to finding out enough. You've since moved on to writing off your closer moved on to funding since then.

Reed Mascola
Eighty eight percent right now.

Patrick Rauland
Oh, awesome. So I guess two questions. Number one, how do you feel the campaign is going? I haven't talked to too many people in the middle of the campaign and. No, and then I'll follow question after that will be what did you change?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, so I actually feel the campaign's going really well, happy with the progress we've made. Really I mean, I am a first-time creator, so it is it is definitely a tough road putting out your first game, but very happy with where I am, I think. The biggest thing that has changed from the last campaign, which actually launched just over a year ago, was the graphic design. I completely overhauled graphic design, so I had originally done it all myself.

Reed Mascola
And I'm not a pro. I'm an amateur graphic designer. So I went with a professional. And you can see it in the difference between the two campaigns that the new game, it just looks so much better. Also streamlined the ruleset there is basically on your turn. You normally take four actions and then it would be the next player's turn. But with a lot of feedback that I got from playtesters, I ended up switching that to one action, then to the next player, just so it's a little bit quicker, like a lot of the Stonemaier games and it really, really moves the game out and gets people more engaged.

How Did You Relaunch Your Kickstarter?

Patrick Rauland
Cool. How do you let me go back to the graphic design. How did you know that was a problem? Because you I mean, you launched the game on Kickstarter. Did you get feedback from Kickstarter people or was it just like do you just assume that that was the problem? If you didn't raise enough money, how did you discover that that was the issue?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, it's a little bit of both, actually. So part of it was kind of my own kind of coming to my own conclusions. But also I got a lot of great feedback from from a lot of backers that, hey, this would have this would have really helped you. So you had the graphic design. I also went with a lower minimum order quantity. So originally I quoted with fifteen hundred. So my goal was super high for first time creator.

Reed Mascola
So that that's helped me a lot too.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah. Did you also do we'll talk about illustrations a little bit later, but you also get new illustrations for this version, or was it mostly just the graphic design part of it?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, so I kept all of the art from the from the previous campaign, but I did add kind of throughout the year. So there's more content.

Patrick Rauland
Cool. Got it. I want to get into some of the game things here, so social deduction game, and when I think of social deduction games, I think of there's usually like the good guy team and then there's usually like one or two people on like the bad guy team and they try to mess it up and it's either the good guys win or the bad guys win, but you have good, bad and neutral. And then and then a lot of the good guys have one goal and a lot of the bad guys have one goal.

How Did You Create Special Rules for Social Deduction Games?

Patrick Rauland
But there's also special rules. And the guys who have different win conditions, special bad guys have different win conditions. And I want to say most of the neutral people also have their own unique win conditions. So that sounds like hard to keep it all in my brain. Like but but also really challenging in a game context. How did you come up with that?

Reed Mascola
So, I mean, first of all, I'm pretty I'm a pretty chaotic person when it comes to social deduction games, so I needed neutral just to throw chaos in there. And I find that's what's missing in a lot of these social deduction games. I mean, they're all great. But I just really like that aspect of having somebody who's just kind of out for themselves and they can they can share a win with a good player or an evil player, but their own win condition might mess up a good player or an evil player.

Reed Mascola
Right. So I started kind of with a core a core good role and a core evil role where the evil role is basically just that the good player needs to lose and and they need to stop the good player from being objective. The good players objective is to fight and defeat or seven villains combined total of seven villains for every good player in the game. So you might have team teammates out there that you're going to be working with, but you don't know who they are at the beginning of the game.

Reed Mascola
And you always need to be mindful of how many villains are in your jail and they could also get freed through the game. So evil players might or if you're really unlucky, you might you might have to free villains anyways. So it creates a little bit of a challenge. Now, what I did with the advance good rules and the advanced evil roles is I took that same win condition, but I spice it up a little bit. So you've got the recruiter on the evil team who basically subtracts from the good players while in total for every every amounts to mercenaries and the discard pile.

Reed Mascola
So if you hire like these one time mercenaries that go and beat up people and then run away, then then you'll you'll make it more challenging for the good players. And then on the good side, I had wind conditions like that where like one of them might might get more bonuses for fighting stronger villains, for instance. Got it.

Patrick Rauland
So, OK, so I was going to ask you this question, but I think you just I think you just clarified it so. But let me make sure so it's not possible. Is it possible for someone like the good guy team to win and other people in the team to lose? It doesn't sound like that's possible.

Reed Mascola
No, not anymore. That I got that out and testing.

Patrick Rauland
OK, I was going to ask if like, because that's got to feel bad if, like, one good guy wins and then the rest of the good guy team loses, that's got to feel pretty chaotic.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Actually it is possible though. And this is the well not anymore, but it used to be possible because I actually have one evil rule that is a win stealing evil role called the mastermind. And if the mastermind has nine or more villains in their jail at the end of the game, they win and good players automatically lose even if they met their win condition. Huh? So and by doing that, of course, you're helping the other evil players, if there are any, because now the good players have lost.

Reed Mascola
So at that point it would be a combined team with, OK, got it.

Patrick Rauland
So how do players react to those? Right. Because so and those roles are random. Right. So, like, I wouldn't know there's a mastermind in my game, is that correct?

Reed Mascola
That's correct. There's different scenarios that you can play in the game. So there's the basic scenario where it's a set number of good roles, evil roles and neutrals depending on player count. But there's also one called shifting allegiances, which is one guaranteed good rule, and the rest are random. Mm hmm. So you could end up in a fully co-op game and not know it, OK. There's still that tension, right?

How Do You Work With Multiple Illustrators?

Patrick Rauland
Yeah, cool. I so I haven't played those games and I know, I know like Dead of Winter has games like that where it's like there may be a traitor or maybe not. I haven't played those, those sounds super interesting where they could exist but they may not. I but I also haven't played them so I don't know. But they that's not stressful. Like I'm on edge right now just talking with you about it. So thing I want to talk about with your with the new version is you have four illustrator's.

Number one how did that happen? And the number two, how did you how do you work with so many illustrators? Because I, I've only ever worked with one illustrator per project. So I'd love I'd love to know how that happened and also how you manage it.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, for sure, one thing that actually has changed from my first campaign to the new one is I have completely different cover art, so I completely redid the cover art. So I still kept the old cover art. And that was actually one of the artists I was working with, one of the illustrators. His style is more 3-D. It was really I mean, really well done piece. But probably like if you look at the game, that's probably the artwork that's most disconnected with the rest.

Patrick Rauland
Right.

But, yeah, I basically I mean, I posted in a number of places to look for artists. I scanned Art Station looking to see kind of who who has a style that really matches what I want, which is more kind of a more realistic, kind of darker, gritty kind of thing. Dark Knight series style look versus kind of the classic like a dot matrix pattern, like old comic books. And so two of my artists, I so actually three of my artists and so the three artists and the other two I found on board game geek and the other one I found through Art Station.

Reed Mascola
And he's done a lot of really cool Star Wars stuff for Fantasy Flight. And really they all do amazing work. And the three the other three artists, their styles are very similar. So really just having a good look at their portfolio and seeing if that matches the style you're looking for that standard up pretty cohesive. I find so.

Patrick Rauland
But what was the what was the impetus to do so? Like a good one illustrator does not work fast enough or what?

Reed Mascola
Why do that in the first place?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, I definitely I have had a lot of art that I needed to get done and it would be hard it would be hard to kind of just work with one artist, especially because they're they're working on I mean, all these kind of by contract on all these different projects simultaneously. It does kind of create some efficiency there. It also gives you some flexibility. If one artist gets wrapped like wrapped up in a big project and can't get you out for a month or two, it gives you other options.

Reed Mascola
Cool. And what I really liked I mean, I used to play a lot of the different card games, so I started with Star Wars from DECIPHER and I played Lord of the Rings and then I got into Pokemon for a bit. And what I kind of liked about the Pokemon trading card game back in the day is every every card had had the artist's name on the card. So I kind of want and I do that actually and vigilante to it just kind of cool.

Reed Mascola
And I would be open down the road for expansions or standalone expansions or whichever way I go to even have other artists that have a similar style just so it's a little bit more varied.

Patrick Rauland
Is this something you would recommend to other game designers or is it more trouble than it's worth?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, definitely I would. The only thing to be mindful of, of course, is art is very expensive. Yeah. So if if you're if it's your first project, I mean, that's the one thing I think that probably I should have started with something a little bit smaller scale. It can get quite expensive, and if you're doing it all at once with like three or four different artists, at least for me personally, my bank account dropped very quickly.

Reed Mascola
I get that.

Completing Art Before the Kickstarter Campaign

Patrick Rauland
Is that you know, so this was advice I heard a lot years ago, and I did a little bit in my campaign a while ago where I want to say I had two thirds of the done half of the year. I don't remember the exact ratio. Is that something you did here? It also feels like that's not what the market does now. It feels like most Kickstarter have 90 to 95 percent of the art done, if not 100 percent.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, it's 100 percent done for me. And it was actually 100 percent done when I launched my last campaign. Got it was just now it's more complete. There's more content, more replayability.

Patrick Rauland
Very cool. I love hearing this, I'm excited. I'm excited for you. Yeah, so. So what happens after this? Like, are you, like, ready to go and you're ready to send the files to the manufacturer? You have a manufacturer lined up. Are you ready to send the files to them or is that still a work in progress?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, I mean, I've got the files all in a structure, so I still need to for some of the files, still need to confirm it's the right file format. Right. Coloring all that. Yeah, but yeah, everything's I mean, everything's ready to go definitely. And a lot of that I mean in preparing the prototypes The Game Crafter I had to do a lot of that already.

Patrick Rauland
Nice. I am. So one of things that I like hearing is that you're really prepared for the step. That was the one downside where because I let's say had two-thirds of the art done or seventy-five percent of the done. I don't remember the exact ratio, but it took like several months to finish, which I wasn't like I wasn't excited about. Right. Like it felt like I was just waiting on like ten illustrations and it's holding back, you know.

Patrick Rauland
Fifteen hundred games. Yeah. It's it's nice to think that you can basically be buttoned up through the through the campaign and just have the files mostly ready, mostly ready. And as soon as the campaign ends you just send them in.

Reed Mascola
Yeah. But I think it's pretty common that designers are in that stage when they're when they're launching a game on Kickstarter. And I mean, honestly, a lot of a lot of times people need that, that Kickstarter funding to help fund the rest of the year because it is very expensive. Yeah.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah, I know. Yeah, cool, so how so I want to get into actually I want to go back to the campaign for a second. How did you know that this was still an idea worth pursuing and you should just change the idea versus I should try a different idea.

Reed Mascola
I think for me, it was. I knew the product was good, so I knew I knew that the game was in a really good place and you learn that through play testing when you stop getting oh, maybe maybe if you made the game work this way and you start getting oh, you know what this is this was a lot of fun. Maybe this character was a little bit too powerful like that. That's when you know that you're really close.

Reed Mascola
And I, I know that there's not another game in the market that is like Vigilante. It's not replicating something that's out there and even dead of winter and dark moon, which are really strong inspirations for for vigilante. They kind of it's really nothing like them anymore. Right. So I mean, I'm driven by that fact also, I mean, all the all the money, everything I've put into the game all my time, and even especially for the artists that I'm working with and everyone else that's been involved in the project, I really feel almost an obligation to deliver that. Now.

How Long Do You Work on a Crowdfunding Campaign?

Patrick Rauland
Sure. Love it, so I'm also curious. And maybe I'm trying to think of, you know, should we add both campaigns together, but how much how much time do you spend working on the campaign? Like, is it are you going in there every day? Are you having live stream videos? Are you and and how much preparation have you done for the campaign? So, yeah, just give me all the thoughts on marketing and running a campaign.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, the first campaign I did all the I did all the design for the campaign myself this time around, actually, so I worked with the graphic designer who is who's also one of my artists, one of the lead illustrators, and had him design every section. So I gave him kind of everything, all the content I wanted to look at to get my gifts in order, gifts or so somebody is going to be mad at me for pronouncing that wrong.

Reed Mascola
And I also my video took a very long time to get set up. But it's a place that I'm really happy with what the video editor had done. It's been months, I would say probably. I've been working on the page since. September, October.

Patrick Rauland
Wow, that's a long time.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure I got everything kind of all the details logged in. I get it and it's got to look good.

Patrick Rauland
So I thought I was ahead of the curve with I want to say to to I want to say I had my Kickstarter page ready to go sorry. Ready to for content about two to three months ahead of time. And then I just you know, I got 80 percent of it in and tweaking and adding these images and creating these little gifs and and stuff. But six months is like it's a good amount of time.

Reed Mascola
Yeah. For sure.

Patrick Rauland
Is there anything in the game that you wanted to get in? You just couldn't.

Reed Mascola
Oh, yeah, definitely, and this is more of a kind of look and feel thing, it's nothing to do with the way the game plays. I would really like to upgrade my first player to a first player, miniature of Fog. Oh, one of the stretch goals. But it's got to make quite a bit of progress to get there because, as you know, tooling and costs drives the price up quite a bit.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah, but it'd be so cool.

Reed Mascola
It would be so cool. And if I can't get it in this one, maybe I'll provide the STL files so people can 3D print at home.

Patrick Rauland
I love that. I want I actually want more Kickstarter creators to do that because like not everyone needs the upgrade of this and the upgrade of that. And some people are fine with the first player. People like it's totally fine. And if people like I think 3D printers are becoming much more common, I'm a big fan of like of digital things that we can give backers right. So like the soundtrack for the game or in STL file for miniature I, I love that.

Patrick Rauland
Do you already have the STL created?

Reed Mascola
I do, yeah. And it's actually already in Tabletop Simulator. So if you check out the tabletop simulator game it's already there.

Patrick Rauland
There we go. Do you have one printed out yourself? That's the real question.

Reed Mascola
I don't yet. And actually my my game is sadly outdated. I've added so much content since I got this prototype, but tabletop simulator is updated.

What Types of Games Do You Like to Design?

Patrick Rauland
Good. Cool. So what do you know what type of games, what type of games do you like to design besides social deduction?

Reed Mascola
So the follow up that I'm planning for this is actually it's a vigilante story mode, a stand standalone expansion of this fully cooperative, so same core mechanics, but it's a cooperative legacy style game with reliability. So the scenarios you'll be like to at least two of the scenarios would be able to replay. Awesome. Yeah, so I love that I enjoy good co-op game, I love a good four-X or Civ game. Definitely anything social deduction is interesting to me, but what I wanted to do with Vigilante and what I would like to do with other games is bring social deduction into games where it's not necessarily the forefront, it's just a mechanic that adds some interesting dynamics.

Reed Mascola
Versus the pure social deduction game, because I feel like that's been done so well by Avalon Ultimate Werewolve, all those games that are out there really not much more to do there.

Patrick Rauland
What is a game? So I have so I agree with you. If a game is a social deduction game, it's like that's the main thing. Once you have an example of a game or what does it look like when social deduction is like a minor role in the game?

Reed Mascola
Well, definitely. So that winter is a great example of that. I haven't played it yet, but I think Nemesis and I have it back there waiting to play it. Nemesis, Dark Moon, Battlestar Galactica, because it's ultimately it's just a survival game. But there's there's a traitor or there might be a traitor. Yeah, I mean, we've got almost two shelves back there, just social destruction games that I want to say about half of them are are like.

Reed Mascola
Bowl games with social deduction is a mechanic, nice,

Patrick Rauland
Awesome, but very cool I'll have to try some of those because I think I would like that more than a game where social deduction is the game.

Reed Mascola
And that's what I've found is a lot of people playing, playing vigilante that I've gotten to play test the game that really dislikes social deduction, actually enjoy vigilante, because really you're just you're building up a team. There is some player interaction, but you can also get perfect information in the game. So it's not completely reliant on social deduction.

What Resource Would You Recommend to Another Indie Game Designer?

Patrick Rauland
Yep. Cool. So what is a resource you would recommend for another indie game designer?

Reed Mascola
So I when I started doing prototypes, I used to do actually when I started, I did it on Microsoft Word, which was it's sweet, but I'm sure there's a lot of others doing word and PowerPoint and whatever. It's fine, whatever works, really, and it works. But when you get to the stage of, like, printing out prototypes with The Game Crafter, I really like Affinity Designer and Affinity photo specifically Affinity Designer. Yep. Because it's basically a clone of Photoshop that costs like I think 50 or 60 bucks, but it's a one time fee and you don't have to pay on a monthly basis.

Reed Mascola
Yep. So really cheap way for a new designer to put files in a format that The Game Crafter can recognize.

Patrick Rauland
So I will quickly add I'm going to Google this and see if I can find the answer quickly, but they during it the start of the pandemic and for like six months after they had like a 50 percent off or something on Affinity Designer. And I want to say they extended that. So Affinity Designer is great period. But it's also might they might still have a promotion on. So I'll Google it quickly enough, but they should still have that. So go ahead.

Patrick Rauland
You know, someone's listening. Go on and check that out.

Reed Mascola
Definitely.

What's the Best Money You've Spent?

Patrick Rauland
And then what is it like the best money you've spent as a game designer?

Reed Mascola
So I did a couple of contests for my game, basically, where, again, a lot of people have done this before, but where where people could basically submit a character and have a chance to be in the game. And I think that's honestly like. The the best way for people to connect to your game is to actually be in your game. So I don't know, I think really for the price of art, which is it is still quite expensive, but for that price, you've got basically somebody who who who's really bought into your game.

Reed Mascola
Right.

Patrick Rauland
Is this are these primary characters or these, like, background characters like are they characters you can play in the game?

Reed Mascola
Yeah, some of them. So actually did a hero contest and I did a villain contest. So some of these characters you fight, some of them you fight with. I did some equipment. I actually did a contest where somebody could get their pet entered in. So. Yeah, sweet. So I've got a cat, a cat, one of the decks that is somebody's cat.

Patrick Rauland
So when I ran my campaign a while ago, two years ago, I had that as like a premium pledge level. Did you have any thoughts on doing it that way instead?

Reed Mascola
I did. And the reason why I didn't do it is because what you mentioned earlier, having to wait for the R after the campaign. Good point. Yeah, but that was I actually trying to think if I even had it my original campaign, I might have had it in my original campaign, but I took it out for that reason. And I figured, you know what, let's let's use this to build up my group. I get that and go, yeah, I get that.

What Does Success Look Like?

Patrick Rauland
Cool. So what does success in the boardgame world look like to you?

Reed Mascola
So for me, it's seeing people play my game and enjoying themselves, and that's all it is I have. This is a side a side thing for me, like I've got a I've got a day job that is also great, but for board games, it's really kind of sparks that creativity for me. And I don't care really so much about the money. Definitely, it would be nice at some point to be profitable, but for me, it's more so about.

Reed Mascola
Designing great games and seeing people enjoy them.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah, and I love hearing that. It's funny, do you think your goalposts will move so because sometimes when I bring people back on the show, they're goalpost to move? Do you think that'll change? Like, let's say this campaign, let's say his campaign funds it does. Well, six months later, whatever it get shipped, backers, people are happy about it, you know, do you think your definition of success will change in nine to nine months to a year?

Reed Mascola
I doubt it, because I don't think I'm I don't think I'm ever going to make as much money in game design as I am in my regular job. And it's all about the fun for me.

Wrap Up

Patrick Rauland
Cool. I love it. So I like to end my show with a game called Overrated Underrated. So I think you've heard the show. So you're probably familiar, but I'll give you a refresher on any new listeners who haven't heard it before. I'm going to give you a word or phrase like webcam, and then you will say if it's overrated or underrated and give me like a sentence, why? So you would be like webcams underrated because zoom zoom meetings or something like that.

Patrick Rauland
Cool.

Reed Mascola
Yeah, sounds good.

Patrick Rauland
All right. So I want to go and I don't know if this is a category, but I think it's a category dice betting games. So an example of that would be like a Liar's Dice. So dice betting games. Overrated or underrated. Underrated.

Reed Mascola
Underrated. I do enjoy Liar's Dice.

Patrick Rauland
Yeah. So I'm pretty sure now that we've been chatting for a little bit that you'll have an answer to this. So first of all, have you seen The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. I have. All right. So let's go that one. The Falcon & the Winter Soldier, I don't know where I think we were about to the fourth episode's about to come out overrated or underrated.

Reed Mascola
It is perfectly rated perfect. There's a lot of hype and resort to that hype.

Patrick Rauland
It's living up to it. It's it's I feel like one division was like blew my expectations. Just I had low expectations and one division surpassed them. And now I have high expectations. And now I'm like a little disappointed. So I just. Good to know you're hitting it for you.

Reed Mascola
It is. Yeah. Cool. I love it.

Patrick Rauland
So I know. So having just started reading the comics, I know like roughly the story they're going to tell, which is I've never been in that position before where I have an idea of the story they're going to tell.

Reed Mascola
So yeah, that's cool.

Patrick Rauland
I have to keep asking during the pandemic but Tabletop Simulator overrated or underrated?

Reed Mascola
Underrated because I I actually didn't give it a chance until November, December. Yep. And if a game is properly scripted. Yeah, underrated. If it's not overrated and I totally get it. And then I kind of want to go with like so I've recently had experiences like booking like vaccines for this covid thing online. I don't know if you've, if you've had to do that, is that has that online registration scheduling process overrated or underrated, I can say.

Reed Mascola
And because I'm in Toronto. Oh yeah. OK, it is overrated because it is abysmal. You have to you have to basically book at individual pharmacies and hope for the best. I haven't done it because we're still at fifty-five plus in Canada. Yeah. At least where I am, it's, there's a, there's a weird discrepancy with all my, my work friends on Twitter, many not a ton but a significant amount are in Canada and it's crazy how different like the US rollout is compared to Canada's because we have a ton of manufacturers in the US.

Reed Mascola
And so like Colorado where I live recently rolled it out to everyone. Sixteen plus like last week. Now that's going to take weeks and weeks to go through. But like most of the world is behind where you are. So it's just it's chaotic, man.

Reed Mascola
Yeah. I mean that's pretty good in the US though. Definitely. And we've got a lot of friends down there so happy that happy to see them starting to get vaccinated.

Patrick Rauland
Do you think you will get a vaccine by like, you know, within six months?

Reed Mascola
Definitely, yeah. Yeah, good planning, I think, on getting everyone that wants one by September.

Patrick Rauland
Oh, fantastic. Great.

Reed Mascola
Oh, yeah. Fingers crossed.

Patrick Rauland
Fingers. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Reid, thank you so much for being on the show.

Reed Mascola
Yeah. Thanks a lot. Yeah, great questions. And I look forward to watching your next show.

Patrick Rauland
Where can people find you and your games online.

Reed Mascola
So I am live on Kickstarter. So https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paranoiarising/vigilante-1

I have a website. Paranoiarising.com. And I have a Facebook group called Vigilante Heroes and Mercenaries, and that's actually where I am setting up protests all up protests, but games on tabletop simulator. So I'm organizing games there. And that's where a lot of the lots where a lot of the communication is right now. So check it out.

Patrick Rauland
Awesome. Love it. Listeners, if you like the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you hear us. If you leave a review of Reid said that he will tell you if you're destined to be a supervillain. So I would like to know that. So if you want to know that you should leave a review and if you want to support the show, you can do so. https://www.patreon.com/indieboardgamedesigners. You know, it basically helps pay for hosting costs in the show notes that I put on the website.

Patrick Rauland
So if you want to chip in a few bucks, I would super appreciate it. Again, https://www.patreon.com/indieboardgamedesigners. You can visit the site at IndieBoardGameDesigners.Com. You can follow me on Twitter Indie Board Game Designers. @BFTrick on both platforms and board games. Have some fun @BFTrick as a BFTrick taking games until next time. Everyone happy designing bye bye.

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