Episode 242: Love, But Make it Monstrous: A Conversation with Amanda Gardner About Romancelvania

This week Sam and Jordyn sit down with Amanda Gardner from The Deep End Games to talk about their upcoming game (March 7, 2023!), Romancelvania.

What We're Playing
Potionomics
Pokemon Violet
Fire Emblem Engage
Octopath Traveler II
Destiny 2: Lightfall*
Majora's Mask

What We're Reading
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour
Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson

What We're Drinking
Black Cherry Sparkling Water
Stone Imperial Stout
Widow Jane Decadence Bourbon

Episode Transcript

(00:33):
Hello, and welcome to the twohundred and forty second episode of the Not
Your Mama's Gamer podcast, a podcastwhere we talk about living, working,
playing in an around the games industry, and we talked about doing that from
a feminist perspective. My name isSamantha Blackman, and I'm an associate professor
at Purdue University in West Slafiette,Indiana, and i am joined tonight by

(00:59):
the am raising Amanda Gardener from DeepEnd Games, and we'll talk more about
We'll talk more about Amanda in justa second, and Jordan Lukomski, how
are y'all doing tonight? Fabulous?Good? Excited? I am too,
So Amanda, we'll start with you. Thank you. Tell us a little

(01:22):
bit about yourself. Well, Iam the narrative director at the Deep End
Games and I wrote a game calledroman Sylvania that launches a week from today
on March seventh, and yeah,I'm just over the moon excited about it.
We like to sort of pitch itas it's The Bachelor, but make

(01:44):
it Dracula. So it's a realityTV dating show starring starring Dracula, and
it is an action platform or meetsdating game, and it's super silly,
super fun and yeah, so Icannot tell you all the ways that I

(02:05):
am excited for this game. Ilove games that do genre blending. And
I learned I learned about myself inthe last decade or so, no less
than that. Yeah, you knowwhat, I like dating SIMS. I
always used to, you know,kind of kind of giggle when people would

(02:28):
talk about playing dating SIMS. Andthen I picked up like my first dating
sim, and I was completely hooked. What wasn't I'm curious it was?
It was dream Daddy, Yeah daddy, indeed, yes, yes, it's
funny. My My really entrance tothat genre was the buyer ware games in

(02:53):
a way, because I found myselfwhen I was playing Mass Effect and when
I was playing Dragon Age, Iwould kind of just like blast through the
missions so that I could get tothe ship or the campfire and talk to
people. And I found that mostof the time I was pursuing people,
and I really just got so investedin the relationships that that was sort of

(03:14):
my gateway drug to the dating gameworld. And yeah, I I romanced
Garis hard Man. Like Garis,I got a special special place in my
heart for Garis so and I alwayswhenever we talked about this, always tell
people Leara named a star after me. Oh yes, yeah, yes,

(03:36):
I think I romanced her in oneof the games. I feel like Garris
was one. Leara was one Ireally wanted to date Samara? Was it
Samara? She was also an Asari? Yeah, but I couldn't because she
wasn't an option. I think Iwas playing as femship and they wouldn't let

(03:57):
me date her, and that mademe really mad. And it also would
be mad and dragon age when Icouldn't date more. Again, I think
I'm trying to remember, but like, yeah, part of the reason why
in roman Sylvania you can date anybodyis because of my frustration, Like I
want to date everybody and anybody.Oh, don't restrict me. Yeah,
there you go, that makes perfectsense. There you go. All right,

(04:23):
An Jordan, Who are you?I am a developer in Los Angeles
where I have a slide update.Um. Still working on things and stuff
that hasn't changed, um, butI'm working on things and stuff as a
senior environment outsourced artist. Oh congrats, a whole promotion. I am so

(04:46):
excited and so happy for you.I was Tom Sam before this. I
cried. I cried on my promotion. Y. All right, so we'll
start with our usual what we're playing, what we're reading, what we're drinking,
and then we're gonna make sure weget into talking to Amanda about Romannsylvania.

(05:11):
Um and uh, like I saidthat, we'll start with you because
we like to pretend we have mannersaround here. Um, Amanda, what
have you've been playing lately? Iknow you have. You have all this
free time. You have a gamelatching next week, you have nothing but
time. Oh god, I missedthe days where I could just play a
game and turn off my mind.So when I'm in that mode, when

(05:33):
I'm in turn off my brain,play a game and immerse myself. It's
Persona five. It's like I Ilove Persona five like it's another like person
in my life. I love itso much. And then like I got
you know, I sunk like onehundred and twenty or so hours into it.
And then my husband bought me Royaland I was like, do you

(05:53):
really want to do this? Sowhen I when I can, I play
that. But right now it's reallyfun. My family, so I have
four children. They've been playing Acarinaof Time. No not Acarina Majora's mask
constantly and I'm like, whoa,whoa, whoa, Like this is an
old game, I know. Andwhat I found out was my fourteen year
old told me that over February vacationwhen he was seven, he beat the

(06:16):
game and he wanted to do itnow that he was fourteen, and I
was like, oh, that's soweird, but I love it. And
so all four of my kids saton the couch during February vacation and just
played Ocarina. And I was obviouslylike working and like doing stuff for the
launch, but I would watch themplay and just feel utter joy because I
remember playing Akarina Acarina he said itagain, Majora, and just feeling that

(06:42):
sense of wonder but also sheer terrorbecause that moon was so scary. It
is very scary, oh my gosh. And the sense of time like dawn
of the second day, ah,you know like that that sort of like
panicked feeling about time passing and watchingthat same anxiety in my aldren was weird
and awesome and surreal. So yeah, I would say Acarina has been um,

(07:06):
oh my god, third time Majorais now ja, Yes, that
is what has been on heavy rotationin my house. Nice, All right,
what about you joining what you're playin. I have not started anything
new, so I'm going with mypast month regulars, Pokemon Violet. Still

(07:30):
making my way through that, butI love it so much. Still my
first Pokemon game, but really enjoyingjust traversing the lens, finding all the
Pokemon, doing the gym battles,making all the sandwiches, giving all my
Pokemon pets and baths, and Ijust love every aspect of it so much.

(07:53):
And then continuing Dying Light two withmy partner. We're still making our
way through that. Again. Theyhad their huge yearly up date recently,
so they added a ton of fixesas well as a ton of content.
And I don't know why we feellike we have to do all the content
because we keep not finishing the game, but we're having fun with it,

(08:15):
so we're getting through that. Andthen it's a lot of A newer one
but not one that I just startedrecently is Postion Nomics, So I'm still
playing through that one. That soundsfun. Can you tell me about that?
Yeah? So that one is agame where it's a mix of a
card deck building game and a socialsimulator, so you're getting to know people

(08:37):
and you can unlock cards that way. But basically you inherit a potion shop
from your uncle and you're making thesepotions for different patrons, but also for
the Heroes guild. So instead ofyou playing the warrior, you're playing this
shop warner that's helping them on theiradventures. There's so many aspects to it,
but it is delightful. I thinkI played that at packs last year,

(09:01):
and I think that that's why Isounded so intrigued. Yeah, I
think I played that demo and I'mfreaking loved it. So are you enjoying
it? I love it and it'sall thanks to Sam because I saw Sam
streaming it and I immediately bought it. Hey, it is amazing. It
really is so much fun. Uhyeah, I'm I'm I'm always glad when

(09:24):
when people like pick up a gamebecause you know, I like it,
and then they like it, becauseotherwise I'm like, oh, oh,
um, so I guess it's myturn. Um so I've been playing.
Um so Accapath Traveler came out onFriday. Yeah too, Accapath Traveler too,
which I've really been waiting for.But I was playing Fire Emblem Engage

(09:50):
UM before I was I was playingthat was like my big um switch game
that I was playing. UM,and so I was like, I have
to feel Engage before I Traveler becauseI can't played two big games at the
same time. This is what Iwas telling myself. UM. But I
was like, it's fine, I'mmore than halfway there because I knew how

(10:11):
many chapters were in it, umand so on and so forth. So
I'm like, I'm more than halfwaydone. I'm gonna go ahead and power
through this and I'll be done byFriday. Oh my god. Can I
tell you that each chapter, whichis like one battle scene, like one
battle got longer and longer as wegot to the end of the game.

(10:31):
So it was literally taking me liketwo hours to finish each chapter. Wow.
Yeah, And which is weird becauseand I and then I like,
I like peaked at a couple ofreviews, not to see like what not
to see, you know, anyspoilers, but just to see if if
this was just me or maybe Iwas like messing up right. And there

(10:56):
were other people that said the samething. They were like, yeah,
those last chapters were taking me liketwo and three hours and I was like,
Okay, that's kind of ridiculous becauseI love like tactical games and strategy
games, but I don't want tobe in one battle for two and three
hours and that's absolutely ludicrous. Ilove being able to save frequently and like

(11:18):
take little breaks, and that wouldhave driven me mad. Yeah. I
mean because when you're playing tactical gamesbecause you have a strategy, right,
and it's almost like you can't stopbecause you'll forget, like what your train
of thought absolutely and you'll go backand you'll be like, oh, who
was that going to a tache?I already done. Yeah. So it's

(11:41):
like, once you start a battle, you have to finish it, at
least I do. No, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right,
you do. So I like,I kept playing it. I kept playing,
and then finally on Saturday, Iwas like, you know what,
screw this, I'm starting not thePath Traveler. I think that's the right.

(12:07):
So I'm playing Fired Emblem Engage OxBad Traveler too. And then um,
the new DLC for Destiny Too Lightfallcame out today. Um, and
I back in the day when whenthe first Destiny came out, I was
I played Destiny all the time Iwas playing Destiny, all time I was
rating, I was doing all thisother stuff. I played Destiny too,

(12:30):
um and it didn't hit me thesame way. But I keep coming back
for DLC UM. So when newDLC drops, I'll like come in and
I'll play the campaign and then i'lllike do strikes and stuff with people that
I know or whatever for a while, and then I'll drop off of it.
Um so um. They had somelike new kind of progression like battle

(12:52):
progression mechanics that they had dropped inUM that were elemental and like changed like
the intensity of your weapon and yourspeed and all this other stuff as you
do more kills. And I waslike, that's pretty cool. So I
decided to check it out. Andyeah, I actually got a clode for
that. There we go for streaminga review purposes. So yeah, I'm

(13:15):
playing light Ball. I started playingLightball today. I was lucky because other
people were like I had to waitthree hours to get in, and I
was like, I just want toplay for like an hour or two after
work before I have to make dinner. And apparently the video game game God's
heard me, because I got rightin perfect perfect yep. So that's what

(13:43):
I'm playing. And again, Amanda, are you reading anything interesting? See?
I know I can ask you thisbecause yes, yes, I'm such
a book nerd. So I actuallyhave something to say about something that I've
been reading or I should say listeningtoo. So all right, So I'm
a huge Brandon Sanderson fan. Ilove the storm Light Archive. That's really

(14:07):
his magnum opus. It's the bestworld building I've ever, ever ever experienced.
But he writes in something called thecosmir where all of his series are
related, but they're not. Youdon't, like, you can read them
kind of in whatever order, butthey're all connected in the same universe.
So I realized I had to goread the Mistborn books, and those were

(14:28):
early books of his, and soI found them really dull. And when
you're listening to a forty six hourbook and a little bit dull, I
put it on like one point two, I mean one point eight speeds so
I can get through it faster,so that I can at least understand what's
going on in this universe. Evenif I'm not understanding, like not loving

(14:50):
the story. Well, people kepttelling me in the fandom, wait for
the sander Lanch, wait for thesander Lanch and I was like, slow
down, what is the sander Lanch? And what they said was the books
are slow, but the way itcomes together at the very end is an
absolute avalanche of incredible plot revelations thatyou never saw coming but that make perfect

(15:11):
sense and you just it's like transcendentgenius. And I was like, um
wow, that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but we'll see. So I blasted
through these giant books and finally peoplewere like, okay, you're at the
Sandra Lanche, like like hold ontoyour box, like it's happening. And

(15:31):
I have to admit it was incrediblyimpressive. World building that I thought was
completely arbitrary came together in such abrilliant way that I was like, oh
my god, he really did planall this all along, and it was
it was like like my soul leftmy body kind of moment when it all
came together, and it was trulya masterful, masterful plot in world building,

(16:00):
you know, you know, momentsingularity. You could even say,
but does that justify three relatively slowbooks. I don't know, you know
what I mean, So, like, like was it worth it? I'm
like, the jury is still outbut I've never experienced anything that came together

(16:22):
the way this came together. Itwas almost like the opposite of Lost,
Like Lost was so good and thenin the end you're just like, what
what the heck? What have youdone? Um? And kind of like
the last season of a Game ofThrones, like like the sander Lanch is
the opposite of that. So jury'sstill out. I know that wasn't much
longer answer than you wanted, butthat's no, that's fine. It's interesting,

(16:47):
Yeah, because I've never I've neverread and um, and everybody and
everybody that I know, like,even if they're like everyone that I know
really enjoys them, even if they'renot, like, dare the best books
I've ever read, they really enjoyedthem. So I was like, and
it's one of those things where there'sjust so many books that take place in

(17:10):
the universe you don't know where tostart. It's kind of like Terry Pratchett,
right, Yes, yes, thatis a very similar comparison. But
I would say that the storm LightArchive, which starts with the Wave of
Kings, which, like I said, it's it's really his magnum opus um.
It's it's unparalleled fantasy, and I'vebeen reading fantasy like my uncle who's

(17:32):
a professor, he's a physics professorat BC. He started reading me Lord
of the Rings when I was threeor four. He was a college kid
who didn't know how to babysit hisniece, so he would just sit sitting
on his lap and read Lord ofthe Rings again. Like that was really
like foundational to who I became.I'm reading fantasy forever, and my main

(17:53):
series is The Wheel of Time.I love The Wheel of Time by Robert
Jordan and Brandon Sanderson finished The Wheelof Time after Robert Jordan passed, so
that was my introduction to Sanderson.And I was so impressed with the way
he was able to finish and honorsomebody else's work so well that I ultimately
became a fan of his. Andwhat's really cool is that he's a professor

(18:14):
and he puts his writing lectures onYouTube, and so I can sit there
and watch his writing lectures and takenotes from this incredible, you know,
luminary and apply them to my ownworks. And yeah, I'm just I'm
a big sent Sanderson fan. Youknow, we break children that way,
right by reading, because it's funnybecause I tell people this. I tell

(18:37):
people this all the time. Likewhen my daughter was little, because all
she wanted to do was hear myvoice. Right, So when when and
when she was like a baby baby, you know, when she got to
when she got to be like threeor four, she wanted like real stories
because she understood, right. Butwhen she was an infant, um uh,
because she also had like really badad acid reflux, so she had

(19:00):
to like be she had to situp a lot of the times, and
she didn't like to sit by herself. So I was a baby wearer,
so I would I would pull outthe book mobi rap strapper on and I
had to I had to work,and you know, I had to research,
so I would read out loud toher right. So I'm reading like

(19:21):
you know, history and cultural studiesand critical race theory. So I'm reading
all this stuff out loud to myto my infant right like my newborn um
and to this day, like history, and like she wouldn't when I asked
her, like what her favorite kindsof books, Like, yes, like

(19:41):
anime, visual novels, light novelsshe likes, right, But if if
it's stuff that she wants to readthat's more serious. She goes history and
social studies love it, and I'mlike, I broke you, I broke
way. Let's let's just be clear. Yeah, that's a legacy right there.

(20:04):
I'm like, okay, okay,never mine. It just happened,
all right, Jordan, what doyou what are you reading? Um?
Well, currently I'm looking at mylone Missborn book on the shelf and maybe
maybe I buy way too many booksat once and so make it through and

(20:30):
some don't. Um. Yeah,currently, on in that note, I'm
not reading anything. I thought Iwas going to be reading a lot because
I was on a road trip withmy sister. Um, so I packed
a bunch of books and then wejust ended up talking the whole time.
So I I am currently not readinganything. There are plans hopefully for next
time, but as of now.I mean, but that's good too though,

(20:52):
just to talk and yeah, itsounds like it was time well spend
anyway, it was great yep.Um so, um, I will say
what I'm reading. Um, Iam reading, and this is I've been
reading this book forever, but I'mreading other books in between because it's a
it's a heavy book. It's RebeccaKuang's babble. Oh I've heard of this.

(21:19):
It's a it's a really good book, but it is heavy. Um
So I can like read a coupleof chapters and then I'm like, I
need to break from this, Ineed to read something else. So I'll
go and read something else and thenI'll come back and read a couple more
chapters. Um. So I've beenum reading that and it's a it's a
pretty it's a pretty healthy sized booktoo. Um. I think it's got

(21:41):
like thirty eight or forty chapters init. Um. But it's a really
good book. And you know,I don't I think if I were to
read it's like straight through it wouldit would put me in a bad headspace.
No. Yeah, so I'm tellingget it little by little. Um.

(22:02):
So I'm reading that and then,um, Barnes and Noble had like
this huge I don't know I toldI think I told everybody about it.
They had a huge like um umhardcover book sale at the ginning of the
year. Yes, bought so manybooks and they're sitting in the bag over
next to my bookshelf right now becauseI'm like, I'm gonna read all these

(22:26):
books. They were books that Iwas dying to read. It's a bottom.
I bottom because they were as theywere like on sale. Yeah,
they're nice hardcovers, but they werecheap. Like I did the same thing.
I was like, oh, Ihave to take advantage of the sale,
like it's a good sale. Yes, yes, right, so,
UM, but I keep reading allthese other books that are not in that

(22:47):
bag. I keep buying um likeuh, like last week I went and
I bought um Black Book, andwhich is uh kind of a sit tyrcal
novel about the young black man wholikes working at Starbucks. UM, but
UH goes into um this company bylike a that's owned by like a young

(23:11):
millennial, like white venture capitalist UM. And he's like the only black dude
in there. So it's kind ofsatirical about you know, growing up,
education, UM, privilege and business. UM. So it's it's pretty interesting.
UM. I started that one forkind of a um uh kind of

(23:34):
a buffer for babble. And thenI also picked up another one, UM
Black Cake, that I've been dyingto read for a long time. It's
uh it's a book about UM twosiblings, UM, one who who's got
kind of gone away from the familyfor a long time, um, but
comes back when their mother passes,um, and she the only thing that

(23:59):
she leaves in her will is thatthere's a black cake. Um. It's
a kind of cake. Um,it's actually it's actually like a real kind
of cake. Um. And sheonly asked that they sit and eat the
cake together when the time is right. That it's kind of right right.
Um. So it's it's about again. It's about like siblings who are like
dealing with like like past histories andrecommencing all this other stuff. So I

(24:25):
hadn't started that when yet I didstart black books. But then I took
my daughter to the bookstore Friday,um, because um, she's like,
I need new She like, Ineed new books. And I'm like okay.
So we went and she picked upa light novel and the latest to
uh support Car Captor um uh mangaum. And I was like, I'm

(24:52):
not buying more books. I'm notbuying more books. I got enough books.
I just bought. Right. Andthen I walked by and I saw
Samantha Shi and him's Priory of theRagna. Oh but yeah, probably the
Orange Tree, right. It isthe most beautiful cover. And every time
I go to the store. I'mlike, I'm gonna buy that next time,

(25:12):
and I never have. And I'vebeen looking at that book four months
and I'm like, that is ahuge book. It's like six hundred pages
long. And I and finally Iwas like, you know, I said
no, I said I wasn't gonnabuy anything, but I'm gonna buy one
book. And that's gonna be it. I'm gonna buy one book, right.
So um PE's like looking around andshe's getting stuff and she comes back

(25:37):
and I was like, you're allready. She goes, yeah, So
she picks up she picks up thisbook and she goes, wait, that's
one book. Nah. It's likeshe's like, I thought that was like
three books. It's huge. Thatbook. Doorstop fantasy. Like when I
ever heard that term doorstop fantasy,because the books are so thick that you
can use them to stop a door. I was like, Oh, that's
my genre, that's my thing.That is exactly what it is. Yeah,

(26:00):
yep. So when I finish umblack Buck as my UM as my
filler between the the heaviness, Yeah, I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start
the Priority of the Orange Tree becausethere's no way now I'm gonna finish that.
Before I finished, You're gonna haveto update me on how you like

(26:23):
that, because, like I said, that cover, it just gets my
attention every time. Every time,I'm like, I love that cover and
I love that title. And it'snot a blank of blank and blank,
you know like those titles, youknow, Ship of Foam and Fools or
you know blank. Yeah, yeah, it's it's absolutely beautiful, right.

(26:45):
Um. Yeah, So I'm superexcited. I'm super excited to uh to
to dive into that one. SoI have to get I've got to finish
black Buck first. So um sothat I'm not reading three books at a
time, because I would not beable to keep all those stories. Two
games and three books. I know, two big games and three I'd just

(27:07):
be lost. I wouldn't know whatwas going on in anything. It was
weird because I was I was readingBabbel yesterday and then I stopped and I
was like, I'm gonna play someOxtopath Traveler and I was playing thrown as
Um timeline in Octopath Traveler, andI'm not gonna give any spoilers, but
I was like, wait, theseare really too close to be in parallel

(27:30):
for some reason, and it's it'spretty interesting, um that they were in
some in some interesting ways. AndI was like, oh, I'm gonna
get this mixed up. Oh yeah, so yeah that's what that's what I'm
reading. What don't we drinking?What are you drinking? Amanda? Okay,

(27:51):
So I picked up a weird pandemichabit over. You know, like
like early days three years ago,my husband and I started to like chase
down rare bourbons. Our friends introducedus to this kind of ridiculous concept of
like you can get really excellent bourbonon the primary market if you know what

(28:15):
questions to ask of liquor store peoplelike where are your alley? Like do
you have any allocated bottles out back? And they'll kind of look at you,
and you'll kind of look at them, and you'll have this like secret
negotiation and you might be able toget a bottle of something that's really rare
for a cheap price. So,for example, like I went to Wegments,
which is just a supermarket, andI asked the special question and I

(28:37):
got the right person and they gaveme a bottle of Weller Green and it
was thirty five dollars and on thesecondary market it's three hundred and fifty.
So yeah, So we started collectingthese rare bourbons and I'm drinking my favorite,
which is called Widow Jane Decadence,and it's my favorite bourbon ever because

(28:59):
it is aged in maple syrup bottles, so it is sweet and delicious and
I don't know, Widow Jane Decadencejust has a great, great ring to
it. So that's that's my um. That's my bourbon of choice. Oh
that sounds good though. It's great. If you're ever up in Boston,
we will have some Decadence. Ohokay, Jordan, what about you?

(29:25):
What are you drinking? I amdrinking one of my lots more recent but
one of my go tos and comforts, which is Stones Imperial Stouts because I
love stouts um, and this isjust a solid stout, solid stout,
solid stout, and it's not anipa. So now I was still take

(29:49):
an ipa over that one drink thatyou had. Oh my god, and
the the wine that was essence ofwhat was it rocks and ghasoly, Yeah,
it was it was. I SoI was trying new wines um and
this one sounded really good. ButI didn't read the flavor profile up there,

(30:11):
oh god, because it said rockand petrol. Oh god. And
I didn't notice it. Like Ibrought it home, I chilled it.
I'm like, this is gonna beour wine for like podcast tonight is something
new because you know, I'm aI'm a creature of Hobbit and I like
and I and I like, Ilike, I like whiskeys. Right,

(30:34):
So, and I've been on alike a real Uncle Nearest kick Uncle Nearest
is awesome. Yeah, I lovethe story behind Uncle Nearest. Sorry continue,
yeah, no, no, that'sfine. Right, So I've been
on the real So I was like, I'm gonna try something different. And
I got this wine and I pouredit into glass and I sat down and
we were getting ready to start,and I took a sip and I was

(30:56):
like, what did I just putit my mouth? Oh no? So
I had to look it up andI was like what. I was like,
I didn't read this. It washorrible. I was like, I
can't drink this. No. No, I wouldn't even cook with it either,

(31:18):
like I would be this is justgoing down the drain. I'm not
going to turn it into a spritzer. I'm not going. I tried to
make it a sprintzer. We Idid. I tried. We were we
were sitting there and I tried tomake it a sprintzer. I was like,
now it's just a nasty sprintzer.Yep, it's like rock sprints.
No. No, And I waslike, after the podcast is over,
I'm pouring the whole thing down todrain. I was like, I don't

(31:41):
care. Yeah, oh yep,so tonight, because like I said,
I haven't been feeling the best.I am actually drinking just black cherry sparkling
water. Yeah, and regular waterbecause I always have multiple beverages. Black
cherry's my go to HM. Ifeel like we have similar flavor profiles between
the whiskey and bourbon and the blackcherry. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

(32:07):
So I'm drinking black cherry sparkling waterand that's the sparkling water that is safe
in my house. Because my daughterwon't drink anything cherry flavored. Does it
taste like medicine? She will shewill do a cherry limemate. That's not
true. So she'll say everything elsethat I bring in a house tastes like
medicine. But she'll drink a cherrylimaid from Sonic. We'll eat their food,
but we'll drink their cherry limates.Fair enough. Your cherry limaid is

(32:30):
very good. It is, andI feel like Sonic if you if you've
ever had Sonic, Sonic is onlygood below the Mason Dixon line. Okay,
good because it's terrible here. Anduh yeah, it's terrible here.
It's terrible here too. The onlyplace I have ever had like good food
from Sonic has been in the South. Okay, yeah, but the cherry

(32:54):
limemates are always good. Cherry limaid, anything is good. I of them.
When I was growing up, Iused to love raspberry lime rickeys.
Have you ever had those? Yep? So tart and good anything like um
and then I UM. I usedto be able to find it all time.
I can't find it anymore. Butit was a sparkling water that was

(33:16):
strawberry mint and lime. Oh,how we're refreshing, and it was really
good. I can't ever find anymore. Oh that makes me sad, but
that sounds so good. I justfound a drink close to us recently.
That's blueberry mint lemonade. Oh,it's one of the best things I've ever
had. Yeah, you start mixingberries and lime and or lemon and mint.

(33:42):
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So my one of my favorite
teas is by Republic of Tea andit's BlackBerry sage and it's awesome. Oh
so we're apparently we just gonna talkabout drink right now. But since you
said tea, my favorite tea rightnow is from dry At Tea, which
is it's like a indie woman ownedtea company. Um, and they only

(34:06):
saw it. They saw it online. It's called Sulky and it is a
ginger lemon. Uh, it's aginger lemon herbal tea and it is so
blooming good. Oh man, thatsounds amazing. I've got to check that
as Dryad Tea. Huh. Andit's called sulky Sulky Okay. Yeah,
they had gone um TikTok viral umduring the pandemic and uh they've they've even

(34:32):
doubt now they had gone TikTok viralduring the pandemic somehow, and it was
like a five week wait for orders. Oh wow, but that's great.
That's like, that's so amazing.I love that. It's amazing. It's
great for them. Um. Butthen I had to wait five weeks for
tea. Uh yeah, and mydaughter was like, see that's another reason

(34:59):
they hey TikTok right, Oh god, all right, well that's what we're
reading, playing and drinking. Let'stalk about Romansylvania because I'm excited for this.
Um. So for those who arenewer to the show or may not
remember, um, this is Amanda'sthird time on. I think you m.

(35:22):
Bill came on and talked about Perception, right. I loved that game,
you um, and I'm and andI'm not a scary game person and
I still to this day talk aboutthe murder babies. Oh yeah, they're
dolls, they're not actual babies.Okay, those people are listening, and

(35:46):
I was like, the murder babies, they just want to do it.
Yeah, um, and I absolutelylove that game. And then you came
on last time and it was justwhen the Romansylvania kickstarter was kicking off and
how the game's coming out. Oh, it's so crazy to finally be at
this point. But I'm I'm soexcited and I'm just so proud, Like

(36:09):
this game is so much fun.It's so much fun, Like it's just
a little slice of joy and Ican't wait to share with people. I'm
so excited for this. So um, let's we'll get it. Just look
at have a conversation. We'll aska couple of questions. We'll just kind
of because we always have a goodconversation, so i'n't always always. We'll

(36:30):
start with you, Jordan, howabout that you can ask the first question?
Yeah, I mean yeah, Samsaid, so excited for the game,
thank you looking forward to it?So, yeah, in the vein
of excitement and celebration, what isone of your favorite aspects of the game,
something you're really proud of, oreven just a small detail you hope

(36:51):
players notice. So one of thethings that I love so much about the
game is the ability to really havethe kinds of relationships you want and you
choose. So one of the thingsthat I mentioned earlier in this episode was
that, like as much as Ilove Mass Effect and dragon Age, there
were people I couldn't romance and therewere things that I couldn't do. And

(37:13):
so one of our core pillars isplayer choice. So in Romennsylvania, you
can there are seventy five different datesyou can go on, right, Like,
that's a lot of different dates.So, like say you get to
like the seafood restaurant date, youreally have to think about who you're going
to take because we only let youtake three people total, and there are

(37:35):
like twelve datables, so you haveto really be like who is the right
person for this, or like whoam I feeling right now? And a
lot. So that's like one oflike the player choice things. Another player
choice things is you can choose howyou flirt with people, Like there are
some conversations where it branches off intosweet or sexy, like if you feel
like, you know, I'm goingto kind of like play it cool with
this one, you can or like, no, she seems to really respond,

(38:00):
like when I get a little kitgay, I'm gonna get a little
crazy with this conversation. And finally, you don't have to do romance everybody.
In fact, you can eliminate peopleyou're not feeling, and you can
befriend people like there have been somany games where I'm like, listen,
I don't want to do you.I just want to be your best friend.
And so the ability to befriend charactersin games and not have to make

(38:23):
it sexual or you know, likefor example, one of our characters is
this. We call him the fancyman Wolf Fenton. Fenton for me,
he's very sexy, but like,I just want to talk about cheese and
books with him, Like that's thatis what I want to do. So
that's what we do when I'm talkingto Fenton, Like we talk about cheese,
we talk about books, we talkabout his journey in life. I

(38:44):
never flirt with him. He neverflirts with me. And that's like how
I do it with Fenton. Andyou know, I think that that's like
something that I'm really proud of isthat these these characters, you can really
choose how you interact with them,and I like, I just think that
that choice is powerful and it makesfor really great replayability because you know,

(39:07):
characters who you voted off or youknow, befriended can be characters that you
eventually kind of romance in the nexttime time you play through. So I
wrote a five hundred page script forthis game. Five pages. So yes,
there are many, many, manychoices, and there are many roads
you can go down. Can Itell you I'm excited to talk about cheese

(39:30):
and books with character Like You're gonnalove Fenton. He's great, But I
do have to say, a lotof people, like I have found on
the Internet, there are a lotof people who have very sexy feelings for
Fenton. So like people can goin either direction with that wall, and
I'm like cheese and books, yes, yes, okay, So I'm gonna

(39:58):
ask. I'm gonna and this isthis is something I'm always interested in,
right because I like I talked whenevery time whenever I talk to folks and
they tell me there was like somethingthat they really wanted to add to their
game and they couldn't because they ranout of time or it just was doable
or just never worked right kind ofthing. So I'm gonna ask this question.

(40:19):
If there was one thing that youcould finger snap and add to the
game and have it work perfectly,what would it be? Okay? So,
something I have found while watching peopleplay the game and then they talk
to me after is so many peoplestart to ship the cast mates, you
know, so like it's not aboutlike, oh, who Drac is going

(40:40):
to choose or who I Am goingto choose as Drac. It's oh my
god, I would love to seeFenton and Robert hook up, or like,
oh my god, I really thinkthat like Vess and so and so
would make such a great couple,which is funny to me because I wrote
them all to be, you know, desirable, but I wrote it with

(41:00):
with drack in mind and to havepeople kind of be like, oh my
god, I ship PSL in alessa so hard that I would snap my
fingers and make, you know,make a way for the castmates to date.
Oh nice. Yeah, that's that'salways That's always interesting, right because
I I do the same thing whenI played, Like, for example,

(41:23):
I played a lot of Dating simsbut the one that I probably have played
the most, and we were talkingabout this earlier was Dream Daddy. And
it's funny because the year Dream Daddycame out on the switch, when I
got my Nintendo Year in Review,that was my most play game yea,

(41:44):
and that it was me who didn'tlike Dating sims U and so it was
I did a lot of that andDream Daddy. I was like, oh,
so these two would be really curetogether. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I can see that. I candefinitely see that. Yeah. Now
I'm gonna have to Now I'm goingto think about this the whole time I'm

(42:04):
play. I know, like,like I think about it all the time
now that people have pointed it out, are Jordan, Um gosh, I'm
just getting so excited hearing all this. Um. But from a developers perspective,
or get into the release of thegame, what is one thing that

(42:28):
you wish you knew or could goback and tell yourself near the beginning of
the project? Um, So that'sa great question. Um. You know,
games are very risk versus reward,right, Like playing a game like
am I gonna take this risk?It's a big risk, but hey,
look at the big reward. OrI'm gonna do something that's kind of like

(42:49):
low risks and I can guarantee likea small reward. I would say to
apply that to my writing early on, because I kind of played it a
little safe early on, and Ilook at early drafts and I look at
early demos and you know, thejokes are landing, and you know,
the concepts are there. But Ifound that as I gained confidence while writing

(43:14):
this game. I don't know ifprofanity is okay here, but I gave
fewer focks and then I started gettingcrazy and then I just started letting it
all hang out, and I justcompletely, like they say, like right
drunk edit sober. I was rightand drunk and editing high, like I
just let it all hang out,and that confidence and that you know,

(43:38):
absolutely carefree way of writing made forI took so many risks that paid off,
do you know what I mean?And obviously, like when you can
choose what you put in, youknow, if the jokes didn't land,
they didn't make it. So onlythe ones that that did made it into
the game at least, you know, among the team, everybody's get different
senses of humor. But you know, um, but I feel like my

(44:00):
writing really improved when I started tobe more carefree and confident and let it
all hang out, like I didn'tcensor myself. You know, m hm.
That's yeah, I'm I'm that's goodadvice. Thank you as good an

(44:24):
I said, I think you knowthat you can go back and tell like
past Amanda. Yeah, travel backat time would be like just just go
with it, just go with it, just get crazy. It's gonna pay
off. I feel like that trackstwo is so post racing, no no,
go ahead. The tracks with somany things like just your answer in

(44:45):
general resonates I know with me,but probably with some other people that I
know as well, Um, believein yourself. Yeah is if you don't
think well it is. Yeah.All right, So okay, I feel

(45:06):
like I'm I feel like I'm beinglike Debbie Downer to all Jordan's like positive
questions because so I had a questionlike on our question list that I'm emerged
with another question, right, Okay, So that last question was like,
you know, um, something youwish you could tell your tell your st
your past self, things that youknow, we're your favorite aspects, And

(45:30):
I'm like, what were the badthings? Um, this is gonna be
a merger of a question of it. Was there something that you wanted to
do? Um that like I saidthat that you know, people talk about
all the time the things that theywanted to have in a game but they
couldn't have because they just didn't work, or yeah, they ran out of

(45:50):
time. So is there something likethat that you wanted in the game that
didn't make it for one reason oranother? Or um, if you don't
want to go all Debbie Downer,or was there something that was surprisingly difficult
that you thought was going to beeasy? Well, you know, I
would say that writing the beginning andwriting the ending had to be done a

(46:16):
hundred times. You really need toboth start on the right foot and stick
the landing. So I genuinely believeI wrote the intro. And when I
say rewrote, I mean scrap theentire concept and try something new. Not

(46:37):
just like I don't like the wordingof this, I mean like, how
can we get this done faster,tighter, funnier, ten at least ten
times each like at least and theending, like the ending had, The
ending had the potential to have thisamazing emotional resonance, but every time we
did it, it just wasn't exactlylanding right, or there was something left

(47:00):
on the table or whatever. Andso again, like I would start from
scratch, like okay, let's trythis, Okay, let's try that.
So writing the beginning and writing theending were absolute labors of love. They
were not easy, but we wereso lucky to have we had so many

(47:22):
voice sessions with our actors Drack andGrim that we had the luxury of recording
all of these different endings and allthese different beginnings. So I would definitely
say the beginning in the end absolutelywithout question. We're the hardest from a
narrative perspective, because, like soMy husband was a lead designer on BioShock.

(47:44):
BioShock went through a user testing acouple months before they wrapped, and
people were giving it. I kidyou, not threes and fours. This
is considered one of the best gamesof all time. And I'm not saying
that because it was my husband,you know, he was the leader desenter.
I'm seeing that like from a criticalperspective, like I met a critical

(48:05):
people worth calling it a poor man'shalf life. And what they found,
Yeah, what they found was thatthe beginning didn't hook people. And so
what they did was they added thatplane scene like they you know, like
my parents told me, you know, they take out the photo and then
there's the plane crash. Mh.That tweak of who am I and why

(48:30):
do I care? Changed everything?Uh, And then all of a sudden,
you know, BioShock you know,is catapulted to the success it was.
But but when they did that firstuser testing, people were not having
it. And it's because they werenot invested. And so, you know,
Bill and I made absolutely sure thatwhen we were starting roman Sylvania that

(48:52):
we had that why do people care? Why should you know? Like,
why are we gonna get invested?From very very early on. So again,
can we make it tighter? Canwe make it funnier? Can we
make it more resonant? We're justkind of like boom boom boom, keep
trying, keep trying, keep tryinguntil we got it right. Oh yeah,

(49:13):
that's I'm uh, I don't know. I'm just so excited for this
because the way that you talk about, like the whole writing process, right
and having to rewrite it and andwhere did you know you were funny?

(49:35):
Um, that's a good question.So, um, I wrote urban fantasy.
And I think that like like aboutabout ten years ago, uh,
no longer fourteen years ago. Istarted writing urban fantasy. And urban fantasy
is very cheeky, right, youhave very sarcastic heroines. Um, it's

(49:59):
very snarky. Um. And Ihad the right voice for that, Like
I wasn't ready to write you know, high fantasy or doorstop fantasy like we
talked about, but I was.I did have that sort of Buffy esque
voice in my writing. And youknow, while though those books weren't laugh
out loud funny, they were humorousand they were clever, and you know,

(50:22):
I found myself gravitating towards things thatlike like the show arrested development.
Okay, like it is one ofthe wittiest verbal like puns um and just
like incredibly sharp dialogue, and Ilike that really resonated with me. And
when I was writing Perception, Ididn't really get a chance to be funny.

(50:43):
It was all very dark and veryserious and very horrible. And so
when I got the chance to writeRoman Sylvania, like I said, ultimately,
I let it all hang out.So yeah, yeah, that's just
kind of I was like, howto know, you know, a lot
of people know they're funny, rightbecause like I'll like i'll talk and like

(51:05):
be talking to folks and like talkingabout things, and I'll find things that
I say humors, But I don'tknow that I've ever written a funny thing
in mind. Well, you've mademe laugh a lot on here, so
I think you're funny. Sometimes humoris just saying something that resonates and being

(51:31):
specific about it. So, likeI used to joke, so Bill's one
of Bill's older brothers. He hasolder brothers who are twins. One of
them is hysterically funny. And oneday I cracked the coat on why Jason
was so funny, and I saidto bg. I'm like, it's because
he's so specific, Like it's notlike this, you know, this dinner
smells like garbage. It would belike this dinner smells like a dumpster behind

(51:54):
a red lobster in situate, Likehe like he just gets so in incredibly
detailed about his insults and about likehis data. I don't, I can't
explain it, Like he's so ultraspecific. And I was like, that's the
key to his humor is specificity.And I think that like by extension,

(52:16):
the more specific you can get,I think, the funnier you can get.
But you know it's funny. I'mgiving all I'm going on a speaking
tour for roman Sylvania. I'm talking. I'm giving a talk called trust,
Lust and Ust writing Effective Romance andGames. And I'm very passionate about that
pun intended, But part of mewants to write a talk on writing humor

(52:38):
because I also have a theory onthat and why why Romance Sylvania, I'm
hoping is effective and makes a lotof different kinds of people laugh. And
it's not like in a scattershot way, but when you have such a big
cast, you have opportunities to delveinto different types of humor. So for

(53:00):
example, psl are Pumpkin, whichmakes a lot of dirty jokes, and
she makes a lot of puns,so that like that will get the dirty
joke and pun enthusiasts. Whereas Fentonname drops a lot of fancy things in
a funny way, he can getmore of like the highbrow thing. So
like even Shakespeare, So Shakespeare,I teach English, So Shakespeare used to

(53:22):
incorporate a lot of highbrow humor andname dropping along with absolute filth for the
quote unquote brownlings who were in thefront row, Like he understood that the
penny a cushion crowd was very differentfrom you know, the people who were
up in the balconies. And youknow, I think that that's kind of
like a shitty elitist way to putit. But if you're thinking about the

(53:45):
spectrum of humor, some things resonatewith certain people and some things don't.
But if you have a big enoughcast of characters and it's a diverse enough
field of different personalities that you canreach many, many, many different flavors
of humor if you will, andstill sound cohesive. Like for example,

(54:08):
I love as I mentioned arrested development, but I don't love, which a
lot of people find funny. ButI don't love Big Bang theory, which
a lot of people find funny.I don't find it remotely funny. Right,
But if you had a character thatwas like that, and a character
that was like the type of arresteddevelopment, and you had them have a

(54:28):
conversation together, do you know whatI mean? Like you kind of reach
a broader audience by having different sortof different flavors but all under the same
umbrella. And it's funny you mentionedthat because a lot of people don't recognize
that Shakespeare and Chaucer wrote some ofthe bodies. Oh they're stilthy, absolutely

(54:50):
bithy, like I used to teachMacbeth and like I would get to the
doorman seemed the porter scene and he'sliterally talking about erections while and none of
the students are getting it. I'mlike, does anybody nobody's talking about here?
And they're like no. But thenI showed um, oh my gosh.
It was the most recent version ofMacbeth and it was so freaking good.

(55:13):
Um Denzel plays Macbeth. I'm tryingto remember the Cohen brothers Macbeth and
the person who plays the porter.He's like hysterical actor. He was the
guy from Office Space. He's sodamn funny. He does a really great
job at making it body because ofhis physical humor. That his physicality while
he's delivering the lines that you kindof get that it's dirty. But oh

(55:37):
yeah, I mean Shakespeare wrote absolutefilth and and you know, because not
everybody kind of gets the diction onthat level, you know, a lot
of it goes over the people's heads. Yeah, yeah, all right,
Jordan, your turn. Definitely keepus up to date on those talks.
It sounds so interesting. Yeah,I'm giving it at packs East on Friday

(56:00):
night. Um, I'm giving itat Naroscope in UH in Pittsburgh in June,
and I'm giving it at an onlineconference that I'm not allowed to divulge
yet, so gotcha, gotcha?Are any of them recorded or public?

(56:21):
I don't know. I don't know. I think that the Narroscope one will
have a virtual component, but I'mnot sure. Oh it sounds good,
but also the UH if you everget to the Humor one, I think
that maybe my GDC pit pitch nextyear is writing effective humor for everybody.

(56:42):
Hey, yeah, well we'll definitelylook forward to that, and you can
make Shakespeare and Chaucer jokes and I'llsay in the audience that is my favorite.
Um. But yeah, the game. I know we asked this question
and last time, but I'm justcurious if it's changed or updated since we're

(57:07):
almost close to release. Who isyour favorite character? Oh my god,
it's like picking your favorite child.And I have four children and I have
twelve characters, so it's so hard. But ultimately, and don't tell my
other characters this, I have asweet spot for PSL. I love pumpkin

(57:28):
spice everything, and I love punsand ridiculous jokes. So she is my
baby. She is the easily theweirdest character in the game, but she's
getting such a response from the internetthat I think that like, we made
the right call with her, SoI'm gonna say PSL excellent. I'm also

(57:49):
very excited about a lot of thecharacters, but PSL has caught my eye
for when I first play. Okay, oh oh, that's a good question.
You added that one and I didn'tsee that one. Let's see.
Um, I won't ask Jordan's questioneven though I really want to know.

(58:12):
Now, So talking about like,things that you've learned about your writing process,
things that you've learned about yourself,all of these different things. What
is one of the most surprising thingsyou learned while working on this game.

(58:34):
I'm surprised that I can carry aroundso many characters in my head and be
able to effectively delineate them without bleedinginto each other. You know, I'm
not trying to like pat myself onthe back here, but I kind of
thought that that's how everybody did it. And then I was talking to another
narrative director and she was like,oh my god, I worked on a

(58:55):
dating games and only had like fivecharacters, and we had a different writer
for each one. And I waslike, oh, oh, okay cool.
And then I was like, oh, I wonder if, like you
looked at each of these characters andthey all kind of sound alike or they
all kind of sound like I wrotethem, and then I don't look at
them. I'm like, no,I think I think I managed to really
delineate each of them really clearly andhave very different tropes romantic tropes for each

(59:21):
of them, and have really differentbackstories for each of them, Like there
are some overlapping ideas, but that'sfor thematic reasons, like I had reasons
for having some you know, thematicsimilarities. But yeah, I'm I'm actually
pretty amazed that I was able topull off so many different voices in one
game. Nice. So that's soyou were doing the job of twelve people,

(59:50):
that's what you're saying. Yeah,kind of, I guess. So
I didn't even realize it, Like, I guess this is how people do
it, So I just did it. People like, oh, like,
tell me about your narrative team.I'm like, well, it's me,
myself and I and we were alltogether, so it's fine. Yeah,
but if people don't like it,it's all on me. So no passing,

(01:00:15):
all right, Jordan. So ifsomeone was on the verge of buying
the game, what would you sayto them to spark more of their interests
to make that final purchase? Iwould say, have you ever had a
boss fight where you had to fighta spaghetti and meatball monster at the Olive

(01:00:37):
Garden? Or have you ever hadto fight an octopus with eight arms that
are holding guns called a gloctopus?And we have the absolute most ridiculous boss
fights in any game ever. Like, I don't even know if we've revealed
those two fights, but we havethe silliest, silliest, funniest and best

(01:01:00):
boss fights. So and that's andthat's something I feel like we've kind of
played close to our chest. Um. They're really good and they're really funny.
Um, and they're unique. Soyeah, a clocktopus, a glocktpus.
Yes, yeah, I know.I made myself laugh pretty hard with
that one shooting you in the eightarms. Oh my gosh, oh wow.

(01:01:29):
I know I keep saying it,but I was already excited about the
game, but I just keep gettingmore and more guys are making me smile.
Thank you. It's like, so, yeah, we all know what
we'll be doing next next week andwaiting for our olive garden fights and our
gun fights with the glocktopus. Yes, you're gonna have to update me on

(01:01:52):
how they go, how you're likingit. You know, feel free to
reach out and give me feedback ormy kids gonna be like, I am
so over you, because that's whatI do. Like, if something's really
funny and it's like funny in away that I think that like a fourteen
year old should think it's funny.Yeah, Like come, come, come,

(01:02:14):
look at this, come this,and she's like fourteen going on forty.
So I'm I'm not always the onethat thinks she's that. I'm always
I'm always the one who thinks stuff'sfunny, and she's like, you're a
child, yeah, my fourteen yearold. When he plays this, if
he laughs, I feel like it'sa gift from God, Like like teenagers

(01:02:35):
don't ever think their mom's cool,but like to see him laugh at something
I wrote makes me feel on topof the world. Oh oh yeah,
yeah. I bring her. Ibring her in and I like show her
something that that, you know,I think it's funny, right, something
that I've written or something that I'vedone, and she'll stand there and watch
it, and then she'll just standthere like with like a stone face and

(01:03:00):
thirty for like thirty seconds and thenturn around. Yeah yeah yeah. I
was like, oh God, thatjust crushed my soul. Yeah yeah,
yeah. Uh that's that's probably wherethat how did you know you were funny?
Question came from. Well, Ihave to say one of the reasons
why I rewrote the ending entirely waswatching Liam's reaction to seeing the ending for

(01:03:25):
the first time, and he waslike, I do not believe Drac would
do that. And I was like, wait, what do you mean?
And he was and he just gaveme this really excellent reasoning as to why
the end didn't work for him,and I was like, oh my gosh,
what I thought I was communicating reallyclearly was not clear to him.
How can I clarify that? Sothe ending is a million times better?

(01:03:45):
And the next time he played it, he watched like amazed as the ending
came together the way we intended.He was like, that was amazing.
So it was like, wow,you know, like we really did take
his feedback for sure. Oh nice. Yeah, because yeah, like you
said, if you can make it, if you could make a teenager laugh,
yeah, yeah, that's gold becausethey go from they go from like

(01:04:10):
being like, um, like tweenagersand younger, where all the p and
poop jokes are funny to being youknow, fourteen fifteen, where nothing is
funny. Yeah. Yeah, soyeah, I totally get that. I
totally get that. Love it.Yeah all right, Jordan, you can

(01:04:30):
ask your next question and then Iwill do my my my usual question that's
not really a question. Sounds good. Um, So what's next for you
and your team? I saw youtweeted about continuing work on a backstory for
one of the characters. Um,but yeah, what's next. So what's

(01:04:53):
interesting about that is it I startedit about fourteen years ago, So um
years ago, when I had mychild. I found that he could not
sleep while I did housework, andso I would have to sit quietly while
he napped. And I was like, this is not happening. And so
I decided to write a book,because that's what normal people do, right,
They just they write a book whenher child cancel. So I wrote

(01:05:16):
this book about a heartbroken genie calledWicked Spirits. And it took me at
least a year or two to write, a year or two to get an
agent, and then ultimately my agent, who's wonderful, put it on submission.
But at the time, urban fantasywas not selling, and we had
publishers come to us, big publishersbe like, we love this, but

(01:05:38):
we can't even sell our own author'surban fantasy right now. We're so sorry.
So Vess never got published. Shenever became a real girl. And
then when we were working on romanSylvania and we were coming up with characters,
I just my eyes filled up withtears. And I was like,
Bill, can vest be in thegame, and he was like, oh
my god, a genie. Shewould be so great. And then you

(01:05:59):
know, to see the concept artcome out for her, crying my eyes
out to see like to hear thevoice actress bring her to life, crying
my eyes out. I'm like,oh my god, Ess is a real
girl. One of the things thatwe promised to backers was, hey,
if you want to read Vess's backstory, like the book that inspired Vessum,
you know, we'll throw that in, like I've already written it, like
it's ninety five thousand words, likemay as well. So recently Bill was

(01:06:26):
like, hey, you should,you know, put a finishing touch,
like give it a reread and backersare going to get it. And I
was like, oh my god,people are going to actually finally like read
this book so many years after,so many years after I wrote it.
So I gave it a reread andit was so painful to see like the
out of date references. But Iwas like, you know what, like

(01:06:47):
this was the time I wrote itin maybe it's a little bit nostalgic at
this point. That's fine, Likethat was the context. I'm not going
to change it, and we justsent off the prologue to backers just to
wet their whistle little bit get themexcited. And um, it was really
nice to revisit it. But atthe same time, it was my first
book, so it is so roughcompared to how I right now. So

(01:07:11):
mixed feelings, but like overall goodhuh. And as for what's next for
the team, We're gonna sleep,watch streams. Yeah, we're gonna watch
people play the game and smile,and you know, we need a break.
Yeah, I'm sure it's been ait's because how how long ago was

(01:07:35):
the kickstarter? Three years ago?Look at three years ago? I was
gonna say, it's been a coupleof years. It was it was before
the Pepperoni pizza started, right,yeah it was, Um, yeah,
it was it was a while ago. So yeah, pretty crazy. So

(01:07:58):
oh wow. The big question isyes, and this is always I always
ask this question. Is there anythingthat we didn't ask you about which would
have wanted us to ask you about? You know, Um, I don't
think so. I think that likeI painted a pretty clear picture that like

(01:08:20):
this is a silly, wacky,fun game. If you want to have
some silly Wacky Fun with Me,you know, wish list rom Pennsylvania.
You know, it's going to becoming out for PS five Xbox Series,
Steam Epic Game Store. Eventually it'llbe on the other consoles, but not
quite yet. But like basically,just like, if it sounds fun,

(01:08:44):
check it out and spread the love. You know, I think that this
this is so many people have reachedout and then like I feel like you
made this game just for me,Like it's so niche, but it's so
me. And you know, ifyou know anybody who this game resonates with,
like share it. You know,I can't wait to stream this game.
I can't wait to watch you.You'll have to tell me when you're

(01:09:06):
doing it. I will definitely becausemy my community loves like dating sims and
people. They the choices and thefact that that you can choose the kind
of sweet flirty versus the dirty flirty. Yeah, they're gonna have a field

(01:09:26):
day with that. That does comea little bit later, but yeah,
like so early on, it's kindof like, am I even gonna flirt
at all? And then once youget deeper into the relationship, it's like,
Okay, how am I going toflirt? So yeah. Yeah,
I can't wait to see how peopleapproach these characters. Like with some of
the sexier responses, I got alittle bit like got a little steaming in
some places. But yeah, sometimesI just really love the sweet response.

(01:09:51):
I'm like, whoa you know?Oh yeah. And and Finton is gonna
be I can think of like atleast two to three folks in my community
right now. You are gonna loveFenton because the way that they even like
because we we were we played umWildflowers a couple of times, the way

(01:10:11):
that there's a there's this kind ofvery cute, buttoned up um werewolf.
Yeah, and and they are like, yep, yep, yep him.
And I'm like, no, no, he's not the one for me.
And they know him. Oh Ican't wait. I can't wait. So
I'm excited. I'm excited. Ithink folks are gonna have a blast.

(01:10:33):
I think folks are gonna have athank you so much that means it just
means so much when people get whatI'm doing, like you get it,
you get it. I feel seen. That's a good thing. Yeah.
Oh my gosh, Amanda, thankyou so much. Thank you wanting us

(01:10:56):
to talk about ro Mansylvania again.I am super excited. Yeah, I'm
super excited for launch, UM andI can't wait. UM. Thank you.
UM. Make sure y'all you're listening. Make sure that you go and
wish list it because this will thisepisode will come out before the game does.

(01:11:17):
Make sure you wish list it.Make sure you grab your copy on
Tuesday and buy copies for all yourfriends. And buy copies for all your
friends. This is this is whatyou must do, UM, because uh,
I think that I'm super excited forfor all the shenanigans, for all

(01:11:39):
the shenanigans. There are so manyshenanigans to be had, so many,
so many. Again, thanks againand good luck. Thank you. It's
always a blast to be on here. I always love having conversations with you
guys, so I like it's somutual. Thank you so much. All

(01:12:00):
right, y'all, So until nexttime, UM, stet because it's been
raining like you would not believe.I'm here, Stay dry and stay warm.
UM. Pick up Romansylvania on theseventh and as always, friends,
game on Game on Them, MasterName the Age, The Name Them,

(01:13:09):
Master Name the Age Movie Lost theName Them Master Name Needs Masada the master,
Master name needs made game Master,my master name, mag mag man,

(01:13:38):
Master, my master game. Whenthe sho anybody the taste another shot

(01:14:28):
much man, anybody, anybody shotmuch anything at a shot. A church

(01:14:49):
cho much which the church much toomuch unto U