TWIG Fan Service Interview - SHIFT Role Playing Game Interview 2 (Jordan From Hit Point Press) - ThisWeekInGeek

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Greetings.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is John Delancy and you are listening to this
week in deep dot that.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Everyone has been destroyed because it's freak.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I won't allow it, these babies to.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Say this sleep that's fine, don't do Ali coming with me?

Speaker 4 (00:45):
One stand, one fall?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
We go?

Speaker 4 (00:48):
You guys so reckless? One stand, one fall?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Wait day got me dum?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hey, guys, what's going on?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You are listening to this weekend geek dot Net and
I'm your host, Mike the Birdman, and I hope everybody
is doing well as we round out this last month
of October. And well, if you've been on the site recently,
you know it's been busy. We got a lot of
Halloween content going up, we got review shows coming up
from myself and Alex and of course it wouldn't be

(01:36):
Twig if one of us isn't working ourselves to the bone.
And I wanted to check in on a project we
actually checked in on earlier this year and I promise
we would do some follow up, and well, fortunately the
time is now. So earlier this year, we spoke with
Jordan from hit Point Press when we talked about Shift
the RPG, which is this all ages collaborative role playing game,

(01:58):
and I said, we check in when the Kickstarter was live,
and well, surprise, it is now live. As at this recording,
there are about eight nine days to go. Right now,
these guys were hoping to only raise about seven thousand dollars.
As of this recording, they are over one hundred thousand
dollars Canadian with just about a weekend change to go.

(02:22):
And I wanted to get Jordan back on the show
to kind of update us what's been going on with Shift,
what things have been changed, what has happened during some
of the playtesting over the summer, and what are some
of the cool stretch goals that have been unlocked, and
what is still potentially to come. So, without any further ado, Jordan,
welcome back to the show.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me back.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, this is a pretty cool project. And I remember
I was talking with Ricardo saying, Hey, what is going
on and what's kind of happening in the world of
hit Point Press, and he was mentioning, hey, Shift is
going live on Kickstarter, and I was like, oh, yeah, shit,
I was really excited about this.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
So tell me what.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Has happened since June that brings us up to this
current day, which as of this recording is Tuesday, October
twenty eighth.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
What is going on, Well, as you mentioned, it's live
on Kickstarter right now. It launched on October fourth, i
want to say, early October, and it's doing quite well. Yeah,
we've hit We just passed the seventy five k us
stretch goal, which unlocks the kind of it's kind of

(03:37):
like a romantic world spark as micro setting for the game,
written by Alex Roberts, who actually has made some pretty
cool indie games, including Starcross and for the Queen, and
very excited that that's out there. Sometime shortly after we

(03:59):
had our conversation, Mike, I did wrap like the first
draft of the book, So it's going to be going
into editing soon and anyone who back to the Kickstarter
will be getting like a beta version of the rules,
just like raw unedited text, so that we can kind
of get feedback from everybody, and that will be coming
out hopefully less than a month after the Kickstarter ends,

(04:22):
so before the end of the year. Yeah, and then
we've had a few events. We were at cankon a
couple of weekends ago in Ottawa, which is a kind
of a fun literary con and I was they want
to add more gaming stuff to the to their schedule,
and so I was running some games of shit there.
It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
So since June when we last had this conversation, when
you set up a kickstarter, because honestly, this is something
that is well beyond the scope of my ability to do.
So what does it look like when you start to
get stuff ready for something like a kickstarter? Like how
do you prep I mean, obviously Shift has been in

(05:00):
pre alpha for a while, but now like you've got
the beta test getting ready to get done, how do
you get something ready for kickstarters? As I said, you
went live in early October, Your thing is just about
over what.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Has what have you guys learned?

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Because I know hit Point Press has done more than
a couple of kickstarters to wild success are.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
Our biggest The biggest change in how we like worked
on how we prepared for our kickstarter since we started
was getting more of it done in advance. Early our
earliest kickstarters were really you know, in the spirit of kickstarter,
which was like a fundraiser basically to get the money
together so that we could work on the projects. But

(05:43):
now we have enough, We have enough incomon things that
we can prepare the project, work on the project first,
and then launch the Kickstarter. So our main goal now
is to get it to about eighty percent done before
eighty five percne before the Kickstar launches. So oh yeah, yeah,

(06:04):
go ahead, Oh no, iyah, go ahead and ask questions.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
It's yeah, I was gonna say.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
So.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
When you started getting things ready for the Kickser, you
said you're about eighty percent done. What were some of
the things that you guys learned over the course of
the play testing and community feedback before you launched in October.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
I think our discord is very active with people who
are playing the game and talking about the game, and
it's been interesting following along with that. I've been getting
a lot of feedback and and just trying to try
and understand the vibes just from people just talking about it,

(06:46):
because often when I run, when I run a session,
the feedback is not always it's always very polite, you know,
when your handout, when you had hand out a feedback
form after a game where someone has had it seems
to have had a good time, and you know you're
the creator of the game. I found a lot of
the feedback that people give at the ad events is

(07:08):
very much like love the experience, you know, you know,
would love to play again, and not a lot of
like actual constructive, useful stuff. So what people will say
in a discord forum is more accurate to maybe how
they're feeling about certain aspects of the rules. As far
as changes that we've made. The biggest difference, I think

(07:31):
from what has been shown in playtest material that we've
shared on Discord or elsewhere is just a lot more examples,
like player examples of how different parts of the game work,
following that kind of conversation that you know, written out
as a conversation between players at a table, to give

(07:52):
real world, actual play kind of examples. And I think
that's that was the biggest demand, and Jimmy Hanson maybe
the strong word, but that was sort of the biggest
piece of feedback that I was seeing picked up. Is
just people people needing just a little bit of extra clarification.
And I'm hoping that my co designer Graham, he stepped

(08:15):
in to help write some of those examples, and I'm
really hoping that that will flesh out the book and
make sure that everything is crystal clear once we get it.
Because teaching the game has been has gone really well,
people with me at the helm teaching the game. But
the hurdle, of course now is to get the book
into people's hands and then have them be able to
learn it without me. Without me there, I can't be

(08:35):
at everyone's table.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
So one of the things that I've I'm just kind
of looking at your Kickstarter right now, looking at the
rewards that are available, and I love the fact that
you guys do a starter box set. If anything, I've
noticed by working with Hip Point Press over the course
of the last year, you guys do phenomenal box sets.
So what are some of the things people can get?

(08:59):
And tell me a little bit more about the hardcovered
Deluxe Edition, because as soon as I see the word deluxe,
I gotta have that.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
So tell me more.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah, So the box that comes with it, it isn't
a necessity to play, but it comes with some extra gear.
It'll have GM screen, a smaller gam screen, and also
it comes with some notepads that are because of the
nature of Shift being a very kind of straightforward game,

(09:35):
the character sheets are they fit on a six by
nine kind of thing. So we decided we were going
to do a character sheet notepad, but there's also a notepad.
There's two other notepads, one that allows you to write
up adversary stab blocks and another that is sort of
keeping track of vehicles which are kind of built like

(09:55):
a character on their own and Shift. So the box
that comes with those three notepads and and a jam
screen and then a copy copy of the book hardcover
copy of the book, the Deluxe edition, the only we
try not to do any exclusive content as far as
the into like what's inside the book, but the the

(10:20):
the deluxe the Deluxe book comes with its own unique
cover that has a special foiling on it and has
this really amazing piece of art. I'm gonna butcher their name,
but I think Elliott Bourio Bourial is the artist, and hey,
they did an amazing job of sort of representing. It's

(10:42):
a the cover looks like a shattered mirror basically, and
it's showing all the different worlds that you can pop
you can visit visit in the Shift game. So it's
a really really cool cover art piece.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, that's kind of what got my attention, Like how
it was like very much this like Shift in the
multiverse of playfulness. I guess yeah, I really kind of
dig the vibe there, and I'm thinking, yo, because that's
something that really attracted me to the Shift game system.
Like sometimes you see a book on a shelf, You're like, oh, cool,

(11:16):
that's Traveler, that's path Under, it's whatever. But with Shift,
it's so like, I don't know, wholesome yet adventuresome, if
that makes any kind of sense, and it just it
really kind of pulls you in. And the fact that
your system is so easy to learn. And I know
we talked about last time, you were talking about getting

(11:37):
Shift into interesting places. Has there been any development on that?

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah? Actually that that weekend at can Con two weekends
ago was was quite fun because it's that the convention
is really like a liter literary sci fi fantasy kind
of writer's convention, where you know, they were booths of
people selling their books, and I was pitching Shift to

(12:04):
them as a marketing tool. Like earlier or was it
last year that Brandon Sanderson did his massive Kickstarter for
the RPGE that takes place in his world Light It
was twenty twenty four, and that what hits like twelve
million dollars or something wow wild like that. Yeah, but
I are the world spark, the concept of the world spark.

(12:25):
It's such that is what we call the mini settings,
and Shift is a very accessible way to kind of
adapt your a world that you're interested in. And in
the case of these writers, I was pitching it as
you know, the world of their novels, to turn it
into something that they could use to like, you know,
market their game. Say hey, you can use the shift

(12:46):
siftem system to to start playing in the settings of
my sci fi novels. And I'm hoping to make some connections,
make some connections, starting with the you know, the Ottawak,
the Ontario crowd, and moving outward to start getting writers
creating shift settings for their for their books so that

(13:07):
tim I don't know if you ever read like Dungeons
Dragons books from the eighties and nineties and they would
come with you know, uh RPG content at the back
like a new class or a new some new monsters
or whatever. And I kind of see that Shift as
being the new the new way to do that. You know,
you can send a PDF out to someone everyone who

(13:27):
buys your book and they can be playing in the
in their world. Great marketing for us and great marketing
for them.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
When you said that, I'm thinking a shift zine And
I'm not gonna lie to like I am a fledgling
writer in this industry and I'm just thinking you just
sparked the most insane creative thing. I'm totally gonna go
vibe on for the rest of the afternoon. We are
talking after this interview is over. But it's really exciting

(13:55):
just to see what, once again, what you guys are
able to create with such a rules light system, setting agnostic,
which means you can bring anything to life. But you
have got some pretty cool world sparks that have been
unlocked via your stretch goals. What are some of the
cooler ones that have had that have been unlocked so
far and what is potentially on the horizon.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
So before the Kickstarter even launched, we were doing we
were doing some unlocks based on follows on the Kickstarter
and that unlocked the fantasy setting. And then we which
is the dragon Knights of Ilgara kind of think Game

(14:37):
of Thrones meets Walking Dead. It's opposed to apocalyptic kind
of fantasy world where you can actually play as a dragon.
There's an actual playlist running that should be coming out
or isn't out. I think it's linked in the Kickstarter
or at least in one of the things. It was
a lot of fun. Then we unlocked the horror setting,

(14:58):
which was written by my co designer Graham. It's called
Welcome to Bliss, Phil and it's sort of a nineteen
fifties B movie kind of horror where you're trapped in
like the perfect leave it to beaver Town and at
night everyone turns into monsters. Kind of fun, kind of goosebumpsy.

(15:18):
And then the one that just unlocked recently is the
that romance setting that I was explaining very excited for,
that kind of a Bridgerton Hope punk kind of vibe,
very kind of light and fluffy. And then and pushing
sort of the idea of what shifts can do a

(15:38):
little bit to including counters with things like one of
the one of the adversaries in it is the is
the rumor mill, So you have to like actually fight
against the rumor mill to to stomp out rumors. And
then we're trending well towards the final stretch goal, or
at least the final announced stretch goal, which is the

(16:00):
superhero setting called the Second World created created by Gail
Simote comic creator Gail Simone who's been a friend of
ours for a long time. She's written a Humblewoo comic
and been involved in some other stuff with us. So
I'm lots of feel excited for that one. I'm excited
for it to be out there too, So hopefully, hopefully

(16:22):
the next time we talk, it'll have been back been completed.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, Like when I saw Gail simonima, I mean, obviously
she's a very prolific writer across multiple titles. I'm actually reading,
I want to say, I think I'm reading her X
Men Run right now actually, and that's really exciting and
just to see again there's all these different world spark ideas,
And I guess this is just kind of a very

(16:48):
much a personal question that I'm very curious about.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
How does it work?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Like have you guys approached people who have licensed pardon me,
licensed ips for like kind of stuff like that, Because
I was just kind of thinking, I was like, I
wonder what type of game I'd like to play, And
I was wondering, could something like shift I'm almost positive
could could you do something with I don't know, I'm

(17:15):
just gonna name an IP because I thought this was
really cool and I was just thinking about this last night.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
What about something like.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Animorphs or sliders, Like, how like can you approach IP
holders to say, hey, we have this, can we do something?

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Or what does that process look like like?

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Because obviously there are other games that are based upon IPS,
like I work as a freelancer on Star Trek, but
I'm just wondering, how does an RPG system developer, how
does that process work to approach someone who has a
really cool world.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Well, I'm I'm not as much in the publishing arm
of the company, but that's that's sort of what where
that would land. But we do have connections in different
places and and people who work sort of as We've
got a couple of consultants, I guess is the best
way to put it. That work has sort of brokers

(18:12):
between brands and and creators, you know, and uh, and
so a lot of it, from my from my understanding
of what I've seen and from a little bit where
I've I've reached out to people myself, is literally cold calling.
For the most part. It's just a lot of I

(18:34):
think a lot of IPS don't think immediately of an
RPG system for their for their world or whatever. And uh,
and I think as big as say Dungeons Dragons has
gotten and even to a lesser degree, like like indie
RPGs like Shifts Space has gotten. They've gotten more recognition
and a little and bigger in in the past decade.

(18:58):
I think that you know, the big mainstream media, the
big mainstream media, I think still doesn't necessarily see the
benefit of people telling stories in their world. So really
it comes down to I think a lot of cold
calling and trying to find the right fit and and

(19:18):
how you make that pitch right. For me, making the
pitch to the writers, for example, is as a marketing tool,
and I'd probably do the same whether we were approached
by if we Yeah, I like something like Goosebump specifically,
I don't know. I guess I'd have to find r.
Al Stein's phone number, but yeah, it would be most

(19:41):
of it is cold calling to pitch the idea to
them because they they're not They're probably not thinking about
it in the first place.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, because like I'm always super interesting because like my
big my introduction to role playing games wasn't I would
love to say, I was brought in because of sto Wars,
like that's the that was the role playing game I
connected the most with. But I started in a D
and D second edition. But I found my love for

(20:09):
RPGs and storytelling via licensed RPGs like Star Wars, And
now that I work on Star Trek as a freelancer,
I'm always curious to see, like why more people don't
do this, because like there are so many ips. I
feel like that they've had game story and they're just
left there. Like I know West End Games did Ghostbusters,

(20:29):
and I'm pretty sure I saw Ghostbusters reference in one
of your marketing beers was like, hey, do you want
to fight the supernatural? You can do that? And I'm
just like a man, why has nobody done this? This
would be so badass? Ghost COREP call these guys and
again it's just it's so I love when people use
rule systems and they create hacks for games, like I

(20:52):
remember as a kid one of the first games we hacked,
me and my friend Brad and Ben is before my
Goose Publishing came along. We developed our own Starship Troopers
game and we were game developing in high school and
it kind of makes me really excited to see again
a system like Shift. Here's the rules set, you create

(21:15):
whatever you want. And I'm because I know when we
talked in our last conversation, games with this inspire game developers,
and a system like Shift is so easy to learn,
and you can add as much complexity to it or
as less as you want. It can really bring up
that next generation of game developers who's going to go

(21:37):
to a gen Con or a CANCN and say, Hey,
I'm ready to pay, I'm ready to play, let's do something.
And I think that's really exciting because I've never I've
never been involved on the ground floor with a company
like hit Point Press and just watching a game like
this develop, I mean like I love your Humble your
Humble wood setting, for example, and I've even told Ricardo,

(21:58):
the owner of the company, like there's some of the
artwork in there I've seriously thought about getting a tattoo
of because it's so inspiring, it's so badass. But when
I look at something like Shift, this might be because
I know, the last time we chatted, we were talking
about bringing younger people into this and at the friendly
local game store that I work with, one of the

(22:21):
kids it's going to be playing at my table is
an eleven year old, and it's exciting to think about
his first game. His first gaming experience is going to
be D and D and that's just the way it is.
But helping him understand there's other games out there. It's
not just swords and sorcery. You can do anything. And

(22:42):
I don't know, it's something about we're in a different
age of RPGs now where I think game development is
getting more of a spotlight because there's so many indie
games or so many indie companies the conversation, at least
from my observation, and this may sound really stupid, but
it sounds like so many people are interested in not

(23:03):
just what we're playing in, but it's how games are developed,
how games function, how games work, And I think that's
really kind of cool. So I guess this we begin
to close things out. Jordan, what is what is about
the coolest lesson or piece of feedback you've gotten over
the course of this entire Kickstarter experience with Shift or

(23:24):
what is a peak behind the Shift curtain that has
really inspired you to really say, you know what, this
is going to go somewhere and I'm going to make
sure that that it does.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah. We I think, I think just the coolest thing,
And I think think the thing that I would pass
along to anyone who's looking to build up, build their
own game, publish their own game, like I I did not.
I'm not like a I'm not a social media guy.

(23:59):
I'm not very good at that stuff. But and like
Discord gets me overwhelmed sometimes, yeah, yeah, but the importance
that the importance to me personally that our Discord has
has made, like has become is is wild. The building

(24:20):
up your community, encouraging them to experiment and create with stuff,
providing them places safe places to play as well, has really,
like I think, been the game changer for us, especially
over the past like past four or five months, really
pushing to get people into the Discord and cultivating a
good environment there. So I mean, I think that's the

(24:41):
biggest lesson that I've learned, really is how important it
is to kind of cultivate, cultivate a good spot where
people can come and understand the game. Because people who
the people who love the game are doing my work
in the Discord by making sure that new people who
should show up know the rules or good question answers

(25:02):
to questions. I'm in there too, as much as I
can be. But uh, yeah, I think I think that's
the biggest That's been the biggest revelation to us. We
have a hip hooin press Discord. It works similarly, it's
also gotten quite big and so we're not able to
be as involved in it, and a lot of times
it's mostly answering questions about things like the you know,

(25:26):
Kickstarter packages and that kind of stuff, whereas Shifts Discord
is really about the game and really about people playing
and learning and building new things with the game. And
so I think the biggest lesson that the yeap that
I would pass on is like, work on that community,
really really build that up, because honestly, seeing people's ideas
come in there is it lights the fire under me

(25:50):
to keep working on new things for Shifts. So yeah,
I think that's been my That's really been the highlight
is the community growing and building.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
So yeah, I gotta say, I am really excited to
see how your game develops. I'm really excited to see
because I know that Gail Simone Kickstarter World Spark is
going to get in luck and if it doesn't I
swear to god.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
It's exciting.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
So, guys, you've got just a little over a week
to go here. I am literally getting ready to back
this thing for the hardcover deluxe edition.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
So be like me and support this because you should so.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Anyway, Jordan, once again, I really look forward to speaking
with with uh with you again, I wish you and
hip Point Press all the success in the world by
Canadian because you should so anyway. Guys, again, Jordan, thank
you so much, buddy. I'm so excited to speak with
you again and looking forward to following up on this
when you go to print.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Thanks again, Mike.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
All right, guys, that was my interview with Jordan from
hit Point Press. No, I'm seriously not kidding. I'm getting
ready to back this thing. I just gotta get my
credit cardon I don't know where it is, so we're
going to do that after the show. But seriously, guys,
please follow the link below. Please check the earlier interview
I did with Jordan earlier in the year on this
we can geek dot net and check out their discord,
check out all their their social social media channels. I

(27:16):
wouldn't hype this company up so much if I didn't
genuinely believe in it, and looking at a game like Shift,
and looking at all their stuff they're doing with world sparks,
and just how they're willing to reach out to creators
to do stuff, and just seeing all the different varieties
of stuff. That's why I believe in stuff like this,
because I really see this as the new stepping stone

(27:36):
for people to get involved in the game industry because
I didn't. It wasn't until I published my second book
with Modiffius that I realized how important stories are and
how important it is to create and keep that spark
of creativity alive because we are storytelling people as humanity
as a whole. And I like the fact that we

(27:59):
can have things like this, So I really want these
guys to succeed so much. So, like I said, guys,
I hype it because I believe in it. So anyway, guys, that's.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Gonna do it for me. On this edition of This
Week in geek dot Net.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Coming up on the show this week a lot more
spooky Halloween content. Please go check out the show I'm
doing with my friend Damien. You can find links for
that on my social media. This week, we talked about
spooky game settings and different scenarios you can run with that.
It's a lot of fun conversation I do with him
and that show we do about one to every two weeks.
You can find links for that on my Blue Sky.

(28:34):
So anyway, guys, I'm gonna get out of here. So
once again I've been Mike the Birdman saying, be excellent
to each other. Please have a safe and happy Halloween.
Back this Kickstarter or I don't know, I'll kick your.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Ass or something. Anyway, guys, I'm out here.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'll catch you guys next time, right here on this
week in geek dot Net.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
At no point in your rambling incoherent response were you
even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this Weekend
geek dot net. You can subscribe to the podcast, browse
our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on today's topics.

(29:15):
If you'd like to give us some feedback, send us
an email at Feedback at this Weekend geek dot Net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and
surrender your listenership.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
We would be on AED if you would join us.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Thank you for your cooperation. Good Night,

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TWIG Fan Service Interview - SHIFT Role Playing Game Interview 2 (Jordan From Hit Point Press)

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