Transcription - Social Links - Links to projects

In this interview we are joined by Ivan Van Norman of Hunters Entertainment to talk about the Alice is Missing RPG, Being a good person, and the Pirates of Dark Water television show.

The Pirates of Dark Water Theme can be found here for your own visual nostalgia.

Guest Social Links: 

https://twitter.com/Hydra_Lord
https://www.facebook.com/IvanBarronVanNorman/

Ivan Van Norman transcription

Dev: [00:00:00] Today. I have one of the busiest people that I think I have ever met in my entire life. And I'm excited to hear about all of his endeavors. So I'm just going to throw the ball right over to you, Ivan. How are you? How are you today?

Ivan: [00:02:15] Yeah, I'm fine it's so it's so interesting. To hear "the busiest man."

Cause it's such a thing I hear all the time. It's like, Oh, it's okay. You're so busy. And things are like that. This is a hundred percent my fault. Devin and it's, I am so sorry. And I think maybe I over over-hype my busy-ness so much, but it's just, it's just a lot going on. And I don't, I don't. I don't know. It's okay though. Okay. I'm telling myself that

Dev: [00:02:44] Yea, it's I've, I've always heard the saying, it's not that you're, you're busy. You just have a full plate.

Ivan: [00:02:51] Yes. Yeah. And it's weird because I mean, I feel really fortunate because there's a lot of people who, you know, don't have a lot on their plate right now and they're being forced into inproductivity.

And, um, and I empathize with that. So in many ways, I'm, I'm very fortunate that I can have things to do. Um, And I just, all I, all I really want to do is just make sure that they're all done well, frankly. Um, right.

Dev: [00:03:23] So that's, uh, you know, I was gonna skirt around the, you know, how'd, you get into gaming and everything like that, but I kinda just want to dive right into, into those projects, your process and everything like that.

Um, so Alice is missing. I want to start there.

Ivan: [00:03:39] Yes. Yes. Uh, so we're actually. The very moment. We're just going through the last little bits of prepress on it before it goes off to the printers, but, um, where we're doing a whole bunch to it right now, Alice's missing. I should probably back up. Alice is missing is a little indie RPG.

That is the sophomore project of Spencer stark, who got a chance to make, um, Icarus how great civilizations fall with us back. Uh, last year and it Gris is, is a pretty awesome little dice stacking RPG in which you basically, yeah. Build up a civilization in order to watch it fall. And as you generate failures in the game, you slowly, each failure represent the dice that you stack on a dice tower.

And when the dice tower falls thus does the civilization. So Alice is missing his second project, um, in which you're basically. Uh, using a small deck of cards in order to generate a mystery around this town of Silent Falls up in Northern California. In which your best friend, Alice, or maybe not your best friend.

It could be your ex girlfriend. It could be your, um, your, your friend from out of town. There's a lot of different relationships in the game, to Alice, and you're trying to find out why she's missing. But the unique hook on it is, is that all of the communication in the RPG is done just through texting, like messaging services.

I mean, phone text is classically the best way to do it, but it could be through any kind of text service imaginable. So we like to call it it's the silent role playing game

Dev: [00:05:23] and see, that's it it's, it's interesting that in the same, in the same breath, you talked about Icarus and Alice, which both have.

Insanely unique components, but they're components that have already been, been at the table. I I've built a dice tower myself. And, you know, we've all sent the DM, the secret, Oh, I want this to happen for my character in the middle of a session

Ivan: [00:05:45] in the middle of it. It's true. And it's taking those kinds of unique immersive elements and just focusing a game around it.

And Spencer's been very excellent kind of taking that. Um, I love this story, so I don't mind continuing to tell it, but I met Spencer through mutual friends, um, way back then, but we were, we were in a we're like. In the same gate, flying out from GenCon back to Los Angeles. Cause he's LA based as well too.

And he kind of just approached me at the, um, like at my bench, like when I was just sitting with my, with my, uh, at my gate and he's like, Hey, you know, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Spencer, you know, we. We have, like, we know we have friends who know each other and at that point, like I was kind of used to just being approached.

Um, even if it was just for, Hey, you know, I loved your work on Geek and Sundry or Hey, you know, love you on King of the Nerds or whatever. So, um, but I had been a long week at GenCon, so I was kind of having to say, okay, yeah, no, hi, nice to meet you. You know, situation. He wanted me to pitch him his game and I was like, Oh, okay.

All right. Breathe. Let's look at this, you know, you never know. Right. Um, so I go and sit with his game and we talk about it and, um, it, it was very generic. It was basically just like a little bathtub game that was supposed to encompass all these different. Um, genres, uh, and I was like, okay, well, that's fine.

You're not doing a whole lot of things that are new though. And so we just kind of started talking about like, what makes for immersive game design? How can you take emotions and convert them into mechanics? And some of the things I was citing were games like Dread or a 10 candles, or even like, Um, you know, Monster Hearts, which has that thread mechanic, which isn't physical.

My, you mean you can, you can literally lay threads out if you want to, but still that just visceral idea of tying people together, um, was very immersive. So, and I said, you know, I'm not really interested in this, but you know, if you have anything else, let me know, um, uh, you know, good luck. And so he got on the plane, he told me later and started like, doing things with cards and dice, like on his tray table, in his flight, and just like started duping around with it.

And he just started stacking dice randomly. And he's like, okay, that feels good. And then he built Icarus and I saw two weeks later and we signed him for a deal. So,

and, and so when he obviously told me later when we were doing a play test or not a play test, but when we were doing like, um, An event with Alamo Draft House, uh, with Icarus. Um, and he told me he had something else he was working on and I was like, yeah, dude, like, show me what you got. Uh, and that ended up being Alice is Missing.

And so we're very, uh, we're very very, very proud of him. And, and we did not have a huge expectations because it's such an indie game. That's an original concept. And this idea of like texting, we knew people were either going to love it or they are going to hate it. Um, so you know, so far, at least as if the Kickstarter shows any interest, um, you know, we've got at least.

Almost 5,000 people who are very interested in this concept, it

Dev: [00:09:16] It feels very reminiscent of 10 candles. And that's, that's what I really, you know, it caught my eye in that that's, what's

Ivan: [00:09:22] so funny too. Cause um, Spencer added a voicemail, um, element that happens at, uh, that has a similar play from 10 candles where, you know, usually you record like the message and then you play it afterwards, right?

Dev: [00:09:35] Right.

Ivan: [00:09:35] As part of 10 candles, we have, Alice is missing, does a similar thing where you record a voicemail, um, to Alice. And at the end of the game, you get to, you get to play the voicemails over again. Um, to it's like the it's like, basically it's the last time you called Alice. What's the voicemail that you left her kind of a situation.

So, um, so trust me,

Dev: [00:09:56] it's, it's amazing how, how truly emotional and how almost perfect tabletop is for. For conveying emotion, because even with that, the voicemail where you as a player are at the beginning of the story. And at the end of the story is it's oceans of difference.

Ivan: [00:10:16] Oh, I love the contrast. Like that's the, that's my favorite part about that specific mechanic where you get to have something at the beginning that you, that put that kind of as a snapshot of where you are emotionally in the session.

Right. And then being able to contrast that with the very end where you get to now, narratively, look at that. And it's so like the reason that 10 candles does it and it does it so well is because it's Horror, right. You, you always know you're at the best part of the session at the top of the. At the top of the game.

And so having that contrast after everyone has died is just so it's, it's powerful. It's, it's exactly it does exactly the job it's supposed to, which is show you where you were at the beginning of the session.

Dev: [00:11:00] So, so now what is your specific role with, with hunters entertainment?

Ivan: [00:11:07] So my official title is I'm the.

Partner partner, head of publishing in media. So, and what that basically means is, is that I basically oversee most of the things that aren't direct development, um, who is oversee that, and that part's overseeing by business partner, Crystala Rosa. So we kind of started this company almost 10 years ago.

Um, well, yeah, actually that will be nine years as as of this GenCon. So. I said the 10 year, Oh God, it was a 2010 or 2011 that we did our GenCon for the first time. Um, but yeah, we, uh, we started this company almost 10 years ago, if not 10 years ago. Um, just with a little, you know, we basically, my buddy had created a Resident Evil like RPG, um, because we've all played role playing games in college and he was kind of like our resident DM.

And at the time we were all super obsessed with like Max's Brooks, zombie survival plan or the zombie survival guide, excuse me, the remake of 28 days later, and like Dawn of the Dead, the remake of a Dawn of the Dead. Um, I'm sorry, not the remake of 28 days later, just 28 days later and the remake of Dawn the dead. Uh, and so we were just immersed in zombie culture at that time.

Um, and so we wanted to make a game that like truly tested your zombie survival plan, the same way that max Brooks made you rethink your zombie survival plan in his book. And we came up with this game and we were like, okay, all right, well, let's, let's do this. Let's make it. And so we started into it and I remember specifically meeting with, uh, all the people who were involved in that at the time.

Um, it was the three of us. Again, we all went to college together. And being like, okay guys, I paid our deposit to go to GenCon, we're going to go to GenCon. So we have to have a book done by that. So, so we rushed

Dev: [00:13:09] no pressure

Ivan: [00:13:10] thing. We got it all done. And I kid you not, the books arrived in a pallet and Indianapolis from the printers by the skin of their teeth.

And we, uh, we made it, but this was pre Kickstarter. This was pre anything else. So we took out a bank loan to do this base basically, and

Dev: [00:13:29] that's scary

Ivan: [00:13:29] and terrifying. Right. Um, but thankfully that first year we're like, we'd sold half of what we brought. You know. And for a, for a first time publisher who had no ideas, numbers, quantity, anything like that?

I think. I think we S and this was also, you know, we are literally just taking cash. We didn't even have card, really. Like we had limited card functionality, but we were primarily like a cash booth. And in 2010, 2011, and we were in entrepreneurs alley, which I think was like one of the first years entrepreneur alleys was existing in gen con.

So, um, and we were, and another fun fact, we were right next to stone blade. Who also started for the first time that year. So we were right next to them as well too. And they had the food was the first year Ascension was, so we were like, it was like outbreak on dead and Ascension right next to each other.

Dev: [00:14:21] Oh man. That's

Ivan: [00:14:23] very, different  time

Dev: [00:14:24] and then you blink and, and you're raising hundreds of thousands. This is a dollars for, for altered carbon.

Ivan: [00:14:30] Yeah. Yeah, no. Um, with, with, uh, with backer kit, including shipping, the whole project ended up being around, um, $500,000 in preorders. So yeah, again, a huge portion of that is shipping just to be fair.

Um, but, uh,

Dev: [00:14:48] true, true.

Ivan: [00:14:50] Yeah. And that's our first license. That's our first like real life and and and thankfully, um, thanks to our partners with Renegade games. It could be a Netflix property. So, and, and speaking of which that sucker is out to the printers as well, too, we just, we're just looking at the we're like, should we be expecting the proofs in just like a week or so?

So we're prepping the whole thing for drive-thru. To, uh, to, to get up on so that we can serve our backers, the PDF of the book here very soon.

Dev: [00:15:20] Oh, that's fantastic. So did you guys reach out to Skydance? Did Skydance reach out to you guys or

Ivan: [00:15:27] so another funny story, so many stories. So a good buddy of mine, Joel Favi, who is responsible for like dune and the alien and brokering these large, um, These these, these, the large media companies we had met at GenCon Chris and I had met him at GenCon through a mutual friend.

Um, and we hung out at, um, a local game store in Indianapolis at their, at their bingo night or their trivia night. And we were just, we bonded over that. We were just like drinking and, and making a mess and having fun. And we had such a good time. So when we got back and found out that he was an LA local as well, too, that we just said, okay, well, let's start the conversation about licensing.

And we were still very much like a two product company, like Outbreak Undead and Kids on Bikes at that time. Right. Um, and so we kinda just kept up the relationship, even though there wasn't anything really actionable. Um, but you know, we, we kind of helped each other through, through the time. And then we, we, I said, okay, well, we're going to go, we're going to go try out for Dune and see if that happens.

Cause we had heard it was available just like everybody else in the industry. Like everybody knew in the RPG industry that Dune's on the 'table. So everyone submitted for it, including us. Um, But I had no idea that Joe was involved in that process until the press release came out. And, um, I remember like giving him a little bit of, of like, hell for it.

I'm like, Oh Joe, if only I had known, you know, um, Oh, it could have been so good. And I mean, yeah, there wasn't any serious ribbing, but we were just kind of having fun for it. And, um, And we're like, Oh, okay, well that's fine. I mean, good. Uh, you know, good for Galeforce nine. I'm sure they're going to do great stuff with it.

Um, and then, you know, knowing that the, they sub licensed it out to  Modiphius  and, but then Joe was like, okay, well, I mean, do you, what do you think of Altered Carbon? And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Yeah. read those books in college, uh, super fun cyber punk world, totally into it. Are you saying that it's available and he's like, yeah, it's available.

They're actually accepting pitches right now. And I'm like, alright. We put it on the table. And at that point we had actually submitted to a few other licenses as well, too, and been just flat out, turned down. So, you know, we didn't really go in there with a whole lot of high hopes. Cause you know, we were still a relatively new company.

We hadn't had any licensing experience before then we knew that Renegade was, um, was, it was a very powerful, uh, A distribution partner and, you know, their team had done licensing before, but we are going to be doing the development on it. So we didn't come in with a lot of high hopes. Um, Skydance really like our team and they really liked your vision.

And yeah, they really liked that Crystal La Rosa, my, my business partner had worked. For a, um, a graphic design company that made the billboards and marketing assets for Altered Carbon, um, as part of his day job in, uh, in prior circumstances as well, too. So he had some prior experience with the license and that always helps as well too.

So, you know, um, Yeah, a lot of inside baseball. This is all, all business pig stuff. I'm giving you today, man.

Dev: [00:18:45] Hey, you know what, that's what I'm here for. I love the classic LA story of, you know, it's, it truly comes down to, I knew a guy and it's funny just how it's always enforced. Every, every time I talk to someone from an LA it's enforced,

Ivan: [00:19:01] it's very much so here's another thing though, too, especially for the LA hopefuls.

It's like, cause they do say, Oh, it's about a guy, you know, Um, there is also those people in the circuit who are, who are trying to actively climb up the ladder and you can see them trying to do it. So what I like to say is is that there is no luck in this world. There is simply opportunity and preparation.

So if you prepare yourself, um, to get, yeah, ready for opportunity when it comes, you go for it. And a lot of people on the outside, I can look at that and be like, Aw, man, you're so lucky that you. Got this, are you so lucky that you got that, but luck? There is an element to it, but really it was opportunity plus preparation.

I mean, we, we spent, like I said, most of their time of this company, having it be a nights and weekends endeavor in which we just, uh, Worked other jobs in other various forms. Um, you know, I remember, I remember cutting our first, uh, commercial radio commercial for Outbreak Undead while I was working as an assistant editor and I had access to a voiceover booth and I asked the, the script producer at the timeline and because we were staying up late waiting for a render anyway, I'm like, Hey man, do you want to record this?

Radio script for my role playing game. Would you be wanting to do that? And he's like, yeah, man. Sure. So I throw them in the booth, I record it and like cut it while I'm waiting for this render to happen. And that's how we got like a radio commercial that we put in front of the we're live podcast for outbreak on dead.

So it's just little things like that where you're just always being sincere, humble, and driven, right? Like don't. Don't don't mistake driven for being aggressive and cutthroat. You know what I mean? Because it's, it's easy to, it's easy to just say, okay, well, who can I sacrifice to grow in the world? But if you, if you grow because you're helping other people grow in the meantime, Then everyone wants to, to, to rise up together.

So the, the, the mantra I've used that kind of exemplifies that is that by allowing others to shine you as a result, shine, just as bright, you know, um,

Dev: [00:21:14] I love that.

Ivan: [00:21:15] Yeah, so it's, it's good. It's it is nice. It's like, and it was good that, you know, those relationships that we built were mostly from a friend basis and then grew into opportunities because we all enjoyed working together kind of a situation.

So now, um, yeah. Yeah.

Dev: [00:21:36] Is that, is that something that you have kind of chipped away at and honed out over the years or is it like one day you woke up and, you know, that was, that was the realization that you had is, you know, because you're such a, you know, a genuine and humble and hardworking individual that you saw your, your relationships and your projects blossoming because of that kind of a behavior. .

Ivan: [00:21:59] See if it was, if that kind of behavior, if that behavior was exemplified, because I was seeing that it was getting results, then that would kind of be the wrong reason to do it. You know what I mean? I mean, you try not to do these things, but yeah, because they give you a leg up. Um, it helps when everyone helps and there is always going to be a situation where, you know, you give out a hundred handshakes, but you only remember the one slap, you know, kind of a situation.

But there's, but, but there is, but there's that point to where you just, you can't can't stop because of the one slap, you know what I mean? And, um, there'll be, there'll be an opportunity in the future where, and I think, I think I was given some good advice in which someone, I can't remember who said it at this point, maybe it was someone back in the Dreamworks when I was working at Dreamworks animation days, like one of the bosses over there.

Cause this is a very filmic thing. Um, kind of piece of advice is like, you don't know what, you don't know what PA is going to be your boss down the road, kind of a situation. So the nicer you are to everybody, the more likely those people are going to remember. You remember you when you go down the road, you know, so if you belittle someone in a lower position than you, but they grow up in the world and surpass you because they did good work and you might need them one day.

Um, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't help or it doesn't hurt to show kindness. Then as a result like it's, uh, by, by being mean to people, you only are generating a thread of toxicity that will eventually pay you back down the road. But if you only initiate threads of kindness, then even if those people do nothing for you down the road, which is more likely the situation than not.

At least you'll know that like you, you did right by them. And you know, if it does end up working out for you then great, good. And hopefully you help them. And again, everybody, the benefits from the situation, you know, and if you mess up then just own it and move on, you know?

Dev: [00:24:09] Right on the same foot, just kind of want to pivot into; these are amazing lessons for, you know, one the listener, but I can only assume that you're also, you know, you're enforcing these with, with your own kid.

And does, does your, does your son follow along with a lot of your work? Does he, does he know what you do?

Ivan: [00:24:26] I mean, he's he's five right now. So he knows, he knows a little bit about, about the games and a little bit about some of the studio work and stuff like that. But a lot of daddy's work is very high concept, but he likes to say, when I get off things like this, like, daddy, how was your call? You know, and

Dev: [00:24:44] yeah.

Ivan: [00:24:45] Conversations like that. Um, you know, but, uh, I mean, it's a lot, it's a lot to wrap around even for my partner, like a lot of the details of the day. Um, so I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, you don't want to bog down his little brain who just wants to watch Steven Universe and play on the bed, you know, so keep him, keep him protected from some of those things and let him than I enjoy the simple things, the simple pleasures of life.

Dev: [00:25:13] Over your years of working for, or Geek and Sundry, CriticalRole, Hunters. Have you ever found it hard to go from a, you know, Ivan businessman, tabletop board game maker to, you know, just switching off and just, you know, dawning the red Cape and running around the house and being, you know, being the superhero for five minutes.

Ivan: [00:25:34] I mean, we have a very, uh, Phoenix is actually, my kid has actually enforced the best way to do this is yeah. As he has learned to use our Google home and it's such a good way and he will set a timer. That's what he will do. Like, you'll be like, Hey GMan, set a timer for 30 minutes and he'll go to me and goes, okay, daddy, it's time to play.

So we'll play for half an hour and then we'll go back and he'll set a timer for half an hour or an hour. One time he tried to get me for five minutes. I told him five minutes that he needs more than that to go back to work. So he's, he's very good at enforcing, the work, play, work, play. Is that exhausting to, you know, switch that back and forth.

Absolutely. But you know, that's what it is. That's what it is.

Dev: [00:26:28] No. I mean, that's, that's cool. I mean, you always hear the story of the kid, you know, buying his dad's, you know, one hour worth of time. So, you know, it's, it's cool that you guys have that, that system where, you know, you can still break away in play, just cause, you know, uh, you know, the kinetics, especially playing with the kid, it can be, you know, super great for, for creativity pushing product forward and just for stretching your legs and getting away from work for five minutes.

Ivan: [00:26:53] Yeah. I mean, it is, it is kind of like a foreced break, you know, which the the aggressive, um, go get them part of my brain's like no breaks. Right. You know, as they say, when you become, when you, when you, when you own a business, you usually become your own worst boss. Right. Um, but, uh, so the forced breaks are nice sometimes.

Yes. Sometimes I'm like, I just need to get this out and then we can go. So

Dev: [00:27:19] other than hanging out with your kid, like, what do you, do you still dive into tabletop and board games to have some fun? How do you unwind?

Ivan: [00:27:26] I mean, yeah, that's kind of the challenge right now with everyone in the, in the current, um, the current environment right.

Of, of forced relaxation. I I've, I usually enjoyed, I got my downtime and my, and my. Like recharge my battery by being around people. Cause I just didn't really love being around people. Um, whether that was like celebrating, celebrating a birthday or going out to, you know, go on an adventure with friends or, you know, just kind of make, make, make trouble, even if it was just once a week going out for drinks or whatever.

Um, that was kind of my, that was my fast recharge prior to all the COVID-19. Um, but now I'm trying to find new ways to do it. And, uh, it's, it's a challenge I will say, but the things that are still making me happy as we do have like a, we had a pretty regular GloomHaven session. We were playing with, with a couple of friends and we ported it that game over to Tabletop Simulator now, um, I mean it's doing great, like there's a, there's a couple mods for tabletop simulator for GloomHaven that makes set up.

Just double click and you set up the whole map and it's brilliant. So there's some stellar, like if you go, I can't remember specifically what it is right now, but I believe it was like fantasy set up GloomHaven. If you go to Tabletop Simulator and then go to the steam workshop for it, it's phenomenal.

Um, so there's stuff like that. We do have a regular D&D game that we play every two weeks on. Um, There's been just a lot of like self care and just kind of taking care of the, uh, of our living space and things like that. But I would like to go back and explore some of the hobbies, but I wish there was more time, but unfortunately the, the demands, the demands are, are very, uh, intense at the moment.

Um, and I need to be better about enforcing that kind of self care where I say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna step back and like, You know, take a weekend in which I turned the phone off and things like that. Um, which is, which is an admirable thing. If you can do it and, um, yeah, yeah, it'll get there. I wholeheartedly believe at some point they will not ever be an opportunity that I'll have to, then I'll have to actually turn it down so to speak.

Dev: [00:29:56] Right.

Well, that's, you're in like one of the busiest sessions of 2020 imaginable. I mean, everything's in Kickstarter, everything's in print. Everything's coming back, live on, on Twitch. Like everything that you're attached to is activating again.

Ivan: [00:30:13] Yeah. And that's just the stuff I can talk about right now is the challenge.

We are definitely looking. That's the thing, right? Um, we are, we are very excited about some things that are behind the scenes and yeah, the, the Twitch channel, like we're definitely, we, I was very lucky to bring on some people, um, Markia, McCarty, uh, Knox Weiler, birthed to help us launch a Twitch channel, um, which should be happening sometime here in July.

Uh, if this, if this hasn't gone up by then , it should be very, very soon. And we're stoked for that. We're building out some show concepts, talking to Twitch and. We're looking forward to like going out there with a real offering, like 20 hours a month of programming offering kind of a situation. So

Dev: [00:30:56] what all are you guys going to be working to produce on that?

So right now, tentatively, we have two shows that will be, um, uh, Tuesday. And then it will either be, it looks like it might end up being either Friday or Saturday. For the second show and one will be like a circulating carousel live play called Hunter's Presents in which we're just going to be bringing in DMS and, um, like a kind of a quasi house cast of players in which we're going to be playing our games, kind of exploring different things.

It's just an opportunity to do live, play, um, showcasing the products. And then, uh, the we're going to have a more roundtable kind of discussion with Markia going to be doing the hunters gathering. And that is an opportunity to like, it's not going to be like, um, you know, board game news, but it will be an opportunity to, you know, bring developers and talk about projects.

Talk about game design, talk about all the things that are kind of fun that we don't often have an opportunity to hear about from like a publisher side of things. Um, you know, And those are the two that we've locked down. And then there's one more that we're flirting with right now. But, you know, I don't want to give out too much of it yet just in case things change drastically, always.

Sure. Stance, always, always. So are. Without spoiling anything. Are you guys looking to do a Sagas, Undeadwood? Something like that?

Ivan: [00:32:27] Oh God, those are those shows. I'm Devin. I don't know if I can even communicate to you the cost of those shows

Dev: [00:32:34] Oh God I can't even begin to imagine

they, um, I mean, we're not talking to Hollywood money, but we're talking to like upper end digital platform money and the business models that are required to support that level of production is.

Requires so much overhead in order to make that work. It is, uh, I do, I can say without a doubt that that, that kind of level of shooting is it's pretty far away from what we're doing, but should we ever get to that stage? I mean, I could, I could spin up one of those shows tomorrow. I know all the people that I would need to do to put one of those shows together.

It's just literally about, you know, Can be amount of money that it would cost to produce. One of those shows the support and, or raise the same amount of money that it cost to make it. Um, yeah. And you know, when you're, when your business model is basically I'm selling games, um, to do that, and that involves margins and markups and sometimes royalties, in fact, very often time royalties.

Uh, if you're talking about all the units to pay for something like a Sagas of Sundry

Well in, in an idea world in three or four years, once you guys have built up a really good core audience, is it something that you guys have have discussed or just working with the more

Ivan: [00:34:00] no, it's certainly something that is discussed because it'd be, it'd be fun to do it all again.

And, you know, even, but even if. Even if things were back to normal, so to speak right now, um, like I said, it's just a, it's just, it's just, it's a lot, it's a huge endeavor to put that together. So, but with the studios closed and a lot of production being in being, being not available because of COVID, it's, it's very challenging right now because trust me, there's nothing would please me more than to employ a lot of my.

My close friends who are very, very talented to work on something like this, because they don't have a lot of opportunities with the studios being closed right now. But I don't think ethically I could do that safely at this stage. The best I can do is continue to try to make content from home and think about content that would play well from home, um, in a good way.

And thankfully, there are people who are. You know, trailblazing this kind of stuff, board like CR has got a lot of great, um, you know, safe and home programming, uh, even right. But even understanding the, the endeavor that it takes to get, to take that main show of theirs and turn that into social distancing safe.

It's it's just very involved. It's very, very involved, but right now it will mostly be mortises and Skype. And if I can continue to plug away some glorious interactivity, which is 100% the goal, um, then I will continue to do so, because I think it's worth it. And I think it will be amazing if we pull it off. Yeah.

Dev: [00:35:32] You've got Alice, you've got Altered Carbon. If you could license any product in the world for tabletop RPG, what, what would you get your hands on?

Ivan: [00:35:45] Uh, that. That's interesting. Um, it's so funny. Cause the ones I really well, yeah, I think without giving too much away, let me see what would I want? Oh, I know.

I remember now and it's impossible and I've looked everywhere and if anyone knows how to find them, please let me know. But Pirates of Dark Water, that's what I would want an official Pirates of Dark Water, but there's, there is a fan made version of it that I have found. But if someone wants to reboot that cartoon, and so I can turn it into an RPG, if someone could do it to it, what happened with like She-ra and Vultron and some of those other classic reboots, uh, I would be forever in your debt.

Um, because I loved that show growing up. It was the perfect blend of like, Fantasy and adventure and Sci-fi , uh, in, in Pirates of Dark Water that I, I want so bad and I think it would make an. Awesome RPG. It has a unique world. And even though there hasn't been a whole lot of characters explored in that, have you seen this show?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Dev: [00:36:56] I have no clue, but I just Googled it and I can't wait to go down this rabbit hole.

Ivan: [00:37:04] It was, it was an animated show that I watched growing up and I loved it. And it was uncompleted, which was the tragedy too. Like, even if it was way ahead of it's time Devin. So cool. Like we're talking to like, like we're talking like elf quest and Lord of the rings and pirates all mashed together into a Hanna Barbara Cartoon and it had dark water and all this other cool stuff.

Like it wasn't like this cannibalistic. Water that like ate ships and people and stuff. So, cool.

Dev: [00:37:38] Okay. So I'm looking at a bunch of, of Google images and I don't is it a, is it a dragon, a parrot? This little,

Ivan: [00:37:47] Nidler! Nidler was like the parrot. A parrot dragon bird. Yeah. Yeah. Parrot dragon monkey. I think it was a monkey bird.

Oh, that's what they call it. They called them a monkey bird. Yes.

Dev: [00:37:57] So I very vividly. I can see this in my mind. Like I have a, I'm sitting on a couch with my brother and there's cereal involved. And this, this Nidler, Nidler is onscreen like, wow.

Ivan: [00:38:11] He was the Snarf of, um, the Pirates of Dark Water. He was the clear. Comedic relief character. So, you know

Dev: [00:38:20] gotcha.

Ivan: [00:38:21] But even he had a cool arc dude, you know, so anyway, I'm, I'm obsessed with this show and I would, I would, I hope in my lifetime, we'll get to see this thing rebooted in a way, and then I could be cool it, the license for it. So, um, cause a lot of those Hanna-Barbera cartoons are like they're, they're probably under some, uh, vault that's that's lock and key.

That's probably with every other Hanna-Barbera license. That's just like in someone's archive at this point. And so getting, getting any licenser to, to, to, to care about it. And even that, even if I did, even if they cared about it enough to even do the talk with me and be like, okay, well, exactly. How many people am I going to get engaged with this?

Just me. It's just, gonna be me

Dev: [00:39:13] uh, so. Where can we find you amongst the ether on social media?

Ivan: [00:39:19] I'm pretty easy. I'm pretty much Hydra_Lord at on all of the things, Instagram, um, Twitter, and on the Facebook, you can just search up my name. That's fine. Um, a Hunetrs entertainment is where you can find us online and, and all the socials there.

Either Hunter's entertainment or on the Twitter. It's Hunters_ENT. Cause someone else to a country's entertainment, um, butter, but that's, that's pretty the villains that they took it, those villains. Um, but no, that's pretty much where we live and, and what's going on. And, uh, in here, man, taking the time, I hope, I hope everything with this works out in a glorious way.

I know you're like building up your, uh, your, your core here so that you can have a good time with it, but I wish you all the best.

Dev: [00:40:10] Thanks, man. I, I really appreciate it, especially. I mean, it's been, you know, a few years since we've chatted, but you know, I'm hoping the next time we talk, it's not in, in two years, so

Ivan: [00:40:21] no, I get it.

And you said you, you said you ended up, uh, checking out the, um, uh, not the Never Split the Difference, but, um, the Tipping Point, what did you think?

Dev: [00:40:32] I am? I am still working through it. Um, it's one of those, like when I'm in the car and driving, and of course with everything going on in the world, it's not a frequent occurence

Ivan: [00:40:40] the only way to do it.

And here we go. You're not in the car that often I'm listening to in the car right now, I'm listening to, um, Lovecraft Country at the present. So I don't know if you've heard of that.

Dev: [00:40:50] I, I it's queued up in like seven different places on my phone, on my computer. I've got the audio books. But,

Ivan: [00:40:58] uh, it's very good.

It's very, very good. And I heard they are turning it into a show as well.

Dev: [00:41:03] Yeah, I think it's on prime right now. Actually.

Ivan: [00:41:07] How interesting. Yeah, I heard it. I heard it was HBO, but of course I'm literally hearing my news through hearsay. So probably a quick five minute Google-fu would fix that. So, no,

Dev: [00:41:18] you are correct. It's HBO and August 16th is the first episode.

Ivan: [00:41:23] Wow. Wow. I mean, good for them. I bet you, it was one of the last shows they were able to shoot before everything started shutting down and they were just been in post with it this whole time, but still that's probably exciting. Well, um, I mean, it sounds like you had a lot of books to read, dude, so

Dev: [00:41:39] yeah, it's a story of my life. Read one five, get added to the shelf.

And then we can find Alice is missing on Kickstarter and then you guys are moving it to crowd ox, right?

Ivan: [00:41:50] Yeah. So right now it's in the late pledge manager for crowd ox. You can find that at Aliceismissingrpg.com, pretty simple. Um, the pledge is the pledge manager for that.

We'll be closing very soon because we are going to be submitting it off to printers very soon. But if you are only hearing about it now, feel free to hop over there. If there's still time, grab it. Otherwise it will be. It will be available in the friendly local game stores coming towards the end of this year.

Once the, once the, once the boxes have hit the port and they have made it out to backers, so to speak.

Dev: [00:42:21] Perfect. Alright, man, thank you again for sitting down and chatting with me and I look forward to having you on the show in the future.

Ivan: [00:42:27] Absolutely dude, no worries.