Gadgetory

welcome back to the show you may know our guests from the flash but what you might not know is really and video games he's one of us everybody thanks for being here exciting yes I am one of us before this we're just talking about board games and computer games and Apple versus Mac and also stuff and we will be talking about all that stuff but let's talk a little bit first about what you're up to you you weren't Spartacus yes did Spartacus that was amazing that was kind of changed my life and gave me in Korea and then I got to be in the flash which being a big is about the coolest thing in the world pretty great is it as great as yes yes this is my favorite story ever where basically I had to like blow up a police station and so they'd rigged everything to explode and stuff because you know I'm good like a weather with a weather wizard powers yeah you know using wind and stuff but it's like so you do it and like clench your fists and it explodes and it's it's filmed and so like you do it and then I got a glass oh God but then I was like oh can I see what it look like and for like a second it went on and they're like you see me go boom bang I don't have I don't have these powers it took hundreds of people to make this happen so for a second you actually I don't want to alarm you but I may have superpowers well don't make him angry I'm gonna be watching your fists the entire interview just open hands please yeah now you're now you're designing your own yeah tabletop game yeah because I don't like being bored hello yeah no it was kind of a that's also kind of amazing I was like sitting at a convention with Nathan Fillion we were gonna have one dinner later on but he had like a line for like four hours and I was pretty popular so I was like wow this is gonna take a while hmm I'll make a game so let's start enough as a silly as you do right yeah have an extra free time while you're for nathan fillion to get done when we finally make it no but the game that's yeah it's this thing called monster lab that we ended up making they didn't start off as a different game actually but it's it evolved over ten months and I got an amazing illustrator called crystal whose crystal and Samuel she's from Spain and just incredible and yeah it's like a game we play mad scientist did you put together a monster parts and two crazy ridiculous monsters and then blow up your opponents and do stupid things to them it's really fun so let's step through that process of making a game because you sit down you're you know you're hanging out when they can Philly anything a game you only way they get made I'm thinking about properties so no you so you you are something that plays a lot of a lot yeah what's your favorite board game moment this this castles goal of the making movie which is like it's a game we build ridiculous castles and castles depending which country from and and it's just fun because you're always feeling like you're kind of in the game which is and to me really important you know I I hate that I hate games where you sort of go like monopoly for example it's a really awesome game but then it's at some point if you're I guess the more games you play you got you realize if I haven't got a street to start it's an introductory game that everyone can play but when you sort of did you know tear the pod you're like wait a minute this is not as good as it sounds on the surface so yeah that to me it's really important to make a game that you always feel like you're part of the whole time and influence did you start with the theme or do you start with the mechanic it's sort of honestly it started with the mechanic which I which was based on a game called 31 which I thought my wife's but my wife's parents made but apparently it's just a game that's been around for like but yeah it's just like regular cards and you try to put you're trying to get three three cards of the same suit worth the most points so if you get like a nice and to get king in a queen you've got 31 and you're probably going to win but the trick is is kind of like wow I've got 24 are you likely to have more than 24 points I'm gonna knock and then you put your cards down and what else gets a turn and then you can find it so it's like it's it's a simple game and so then I was like I like the three and the combining stuff and so from that very abstract idea I was like well I like monsters do you say that you Frankenstein to this game but it's right it's kind of you just got to do it right read that read the but yeah so we did in turn it was like penguins for a while because I was like what's cute penguins they're fun yeah my wife liked it that seemed right like Frankenstein II things like you know and you put them together and then that was fun it was just like building monsters which was just like a mix-and-match game which is that we still sort of have for the kids and stuff which is gonna be like a sort of a sub rule for like the kids just like a simplified game but and then yeah then it was like well how do you make it engaging so the monk building the monsters is fun and people were always like suddenly fight I was like yeah they should find a monsters like a lot of billion what is your next get down and be inspired by your awesomeness yeah so then there's and I spend like three months going then this happens that sucks then this happens no that also sucks and then so it's I worked it down and then dice got involved and I was like doesn't make it too nerdy not nerdy enough and yeah so then it was all probability matrices and stuff which had was where the game stopped being fun to make it started being more fun to play it was it was cool they'd have you know over there over a bunch of months you sort of workshop it until it's in a place where you like this is I mean I'm still like tinkering with some of the balance of it like I guess you do with any game but it's fun though it's actually fun which is cool so you got your friends to play with you like relentless I'm not just being nice to you no well that was the thing there was a point where I was like I'm just gonna make you play this game until you hate it and then at one stage some friends started going well can we come around and play the game and I was like no no no I mean you know we've played it a bunch you don't have to do that they're like no no Kay we like we've instead of doing this other thing can we play the game and it was like for real like you would choose you know there's something there there's something I remember we played one amazing game which I wish I had filmed so I could put it on the Kickstarter thing but where it came down to like you had to roll basally have to roll a six with like six dice and I had an argument about probabilities they're like it's guaranteed right thank you if wil Wheaton's playing it's all ones yeah it's all the roles wills roles are never I never they're never like a couple of weeks ago I played my first of an x-wing tabletop game and like the guys playing it was just like it was all hits everything you do beats me yeah I'm sorry man it's like playing battleship with a psychic that's why so good so from start to finish how long did it take to develop the game to where it is now I guess it skill it's going on to a year like yeah which is kind of not as long as I thought it would be I know some games you can like pick up in three months and they work and some games take a lifetime but it just it kind of you know I'd played a lot of games so that informed like how its it made it easier to make decisions where I was like well I want to put this in the game would that be fun what have I done I've played that guy that's kind of got it I didn't like the way it did that so I want to put that I'll take that bit but not that bit so you can actually kind of put together different bits of rules try them out quickly in your head almost because you play it on latex and then you like well Michael mechanics different because it's got like the three parts and then how does that you know and there were bits where you'd find out that that would that was kind of like munchkin but then like you know it was a point like there was a lot of destroying cards but then it was comparatively too hard to build monsters and really easy to destroy them so you had to like change the balance of that or the powers of you know it's a fascinating process it really it really is and like it's funny I know all my friends now because I had like at the same time I was like that's a good idea no no focus on this one so I've got like four other games they know what I make in my friends library your Kickstarter so you can go you can jump over onto Kickstarter and go to monster lab that's the name of the game did we say the name I think we did monster lab and it's already past its goals season stretch goals now where's French girls we're getting cool stuff for people that's right you got like more than 20 days left so that's pretty good it's cried it was funded in a day it was amazing like it was it was this day I'd had all this at least auditions because pilot season practice so I had all these auditions and and it was like just the craziest thing so I'd be like going to an audition be like oh my god that's great huh no okay I still feel good about it I got this stuff I don't need you I'm sure all the other actors there we're doing the exact same thing building we're all looking for game designers slash hunk yeah yeah Australian board game hunk business class a man that I'm just you can own that above the Hemsworth that's something that you can say is not something man oh you're Thor are you well huh yeah sure but I mean how many board games my grandfather was Milton Bradley so so we got you still have 22 days to go so if people want to play the game obviously can get the game through the kicks absolutely are you going to be able to buy the game yeah if you didn't know that's it we've reached the target where we're gonna print it to print a bunch so we'll put it up on Amazon and then see if that game designer of game sellers or resellers one of them get involved yeah I mean it's it's exciting times now I guess like the first out of the kickstarter you go what is it gonna work and so i don't to make too many plans and now that it's working pretty well which is great we're getting into a point where now we want to see what possible so yeah after the kickstarter it will still be available you won't get like this cool stretch goals of like cards like whether the artist will make you a monster like there's like limited edition stuff and likely she's back that'd be a two-headed monster yeah are you really really fun at the end so there's like limited edition series cards for like inspired by the flash inspired by Spartacus and stuff yeah so that those will only be on Kickstarter but the actual game will be available so I think your story is can be really inspiring to people who are board game enthusiasts who have an idea for a game and are thinking themselves like gosh like I really wish I could put this together but I maybe they're a little bit afraid or intimidated by the process driving me right now sorry anyone like it came down to the fact that like you know there's only I always had creative ideas as a kid and it was like there was no real platform to you know communicate them but now if you if you're serious about it and you build an idea from the ground up and and you you have some idea of how to get that into the people's heads with like a marketing strategy of some kind there's formats where you can go hey I've got this cool idea anyone else like the idea right and and that's so exciting beyond just board games what board games are cool cuz they're like contained things but there's that squatty potty thing which sounds amazing you know I bet all kinds of crazy ideas that are actually pretty good you know and if you have the drive to do it you can achieve them now which is kind of amazing well you know I think that it's that that last 10% right you get you get 90% of the way there you have this great idea and that last 10% is so hard to like you say make sure it's actually out yeah I could so it's so easy like I don't know what's I mean being an actor you know lots of people that have written scripts and have never done anything right so I mean it's not like sort of Kickstarter script exactly but it's the same mentality of going oh I've got this good idea and it's close to being able to be made and if I just do this one more thing like if I actually just push myself a little further you can make it like I've got a card game even if you know it doesn't go any further than Kickstarter I made a card and strangers you don't know want to give you their money to play it well it's just nice to other people they're excited by it and that do you but just to be able to create is so such a cool gift so how high would the stretchable have to be to create monster lab in virtual reality oh yeah I was like I was gonna try and do like an absolute maybe two million dollars who knows make a number I literally have no idea but that would be so awesome to do via like bull gaming you got to make $100,000 a day for the next twenty two days that's all it's doing well you're gonna get the tar daily bump yeah so you're gonna get threes of people like three maybe four people back in this could be so so you have more ideas you're gonna keep you're gonna keep designing yeah yeah I mean this has just been such a fun experience stressful but it's been really fun you know so hey why not right yeah just seems fun I'll get this one done first and we'll see where at who's your favorite monster in the deck oh there's a rainbow unicorn that poops rainbows a squatty potty monster it's quite kind of you actually you're right dangerous radioactive yeah this dangerous radioactive they said there's a catzilla that breathes fire and that's and there's yeah there's like a dancing goblin but you know it's just it's all mental I like the IDE v'n you know if you ever did an expansion for it you could reach out to artists like the oatmeal or to make those sort of special cards that kind of our monsters from their own kind of their worlds yeah yeah I mean they did that amazing thing with exploding kittens like that yeah I mean it's so fun and there's a really good one called us from cyanide and Happiness right now yeah they're they're doing that then I they're crowdfunding that right there yeah it's something like two billion dollars it looks so funny maybe they'll have a vr version yes totally way because that's a thing now right yeah yeah we're talking around today yeah they're you know apps was the first way of taking tabletop and bringing it kind of to a wider and now evidently we're getting VR so you don't have to have a friend you can be in virtual reality or faraway friend I gotta say you know I still love just the tactile nature of board games yeah that's that yeah that's the tricky part that's the one thing that's hard about VR is is feeling stuff you know like you'll be like that's that's tricky but so we had we had Jeff try on something called a Tesla suit which is a haptic feedback full-body electrocutes you in a little specific way it really adds things almost exactly Wow none of the usual things with like whether they're in the own that thing when they will electrocute each other but I don't know like it's I feel like they'll need some kind of non tactile way of expressing again I'd love to see a via board game that kind of I guess there may be some way of making a game that's like Settlers of Catan but something where you could be in the world as opposed to like playing a virtual game you know like a are your game would be amazing you build a monster with cards yeah oh my god like I was so excited about VR and VI was one of the things I tried and I was like this this is gonna be really fun whereas I mean my going into it I was like this is amazing and then playing it I was like this is not amazing but it is awesome you know so it's like it's getting there yeah like I'm not it's more like except I played a flight simulator which was incredible but it was still unnerving because I was like what's happening around me in the real world right we talk about that a lot like the vibe now has that front-facing camera that if someone passes in front of you you'll see a little outline of their body as they pass so that you know no one's gonna jump scare you while you're but uh but yeah but the hololens which I'd got to try at e3 was just like I went in going like good luck like what is this gonna be hoping Oh everyone in your mone hope like what is this talking to me but it was obviously it's like looking in a little window I didn't because I kind of given that I expected it to just suck I was kind of like pleasantly surprised yeah it was like I mean yeah I mean that's annoying but the fact that it's happening yeah we collected it it works right and like I get that it would be weird to have like you know myopic vision that's you really can't it's like you can't see beyond that little frame yeah I'm sure that won't be permanent yeah sure they'll expand its just but the fact that even in that one frame all that stuff was possible I was like the thing on the desk and getting your loadout ready yeah when when you look at different parts of it at tracked your eye movement so it'll be like oh you're looking here here's information about that partnership and I was like oh the potential of that technology yeah and it's just walking down the hallway and getting Waypoint that's that was last that was very immersive because you're not if there's not a separation between you and reality because you're just in it so yeah so like that kind of board game like I'd love to play that kind of board game that could be so interesting just yeah like you know like hot-stone sort of where you know you'd pop up and you'd have characters in the border they you know they'd fight each other and put down a little hearthstone well that remaining stone and then all of a sudden the whole board kind of unfolds in front of you it's all the PlayStation Eye game I of the beholder they tried something like that but is on the screen I mean we can already do that stuff and even the 3ds has those little cards that you look through this through yes and it'll stand there that'll have it guess yeah and this is what is it like kind of like is it Skylanders or something like that not exactly but you've got like infinity Disney's yeah yeah where we'll be like or amiibos or whatever it's kind of like you just have to have like a little chip and it would then do the rest that's the next step right is that your toys all have a personality because you have them yeah I'm ready let's do it just like I'm in getting that sign so right now beyond the board game that's real briefly so you're you're even in flash yeah flashes baton people keep up with you yeah wow there's like this exciting news coming out soon then I kind of talk about yet but it's really soon you can tell us after the show not even then but it's gonna be really like I'm unbelievably excited about it just for the kind of guy I am it's gonna be cool sorry I hate to I hate to leave at ease like that but it's really exciting right that's all it was for great you're on marketing team if you if you if you contribute to his Kickstarter page he'll tell you the secret yeah I'm trying to be your marketing type now you do you're doing great you're doing great great job I may be not an accurate job great job yeah but you've been on a bunch of other stuff I caught you this morning on what just went live today you were talking about trailers I think I know oh you mean like later on today I'm gonna be doing a playthrough which is exciting with Smosh games I think it is but it's yeah they're good it's it's gonna be cool yes it's been it's been awesome there's been a lot of interest in what are you playing right now why haven't I have a board game night every Thursday so that's kind of convenient so I think tonight we're gonna play I haven't really played the x-wing tabletop game yet but it looks really fun yeah yeah that's sort of it's tough finding ammo like a game that has makes a more than four players that you can play yeah but you gotta get on pandemic legacy I just saw I also saw a risk legacy as well yeah this is very good designer yeah but then I was like damn I'm kidding genius like because you like what you play once then buy together yeah but you play 12 times though in the same box it evolves it's amazing that that's a good idea yes good idea well I will check that out oh man thanks for being here thank you where can people find you on Twitter because I know your Twitter handle is not just Liam McIntyre I wish it was but apparently there are other people that really wanted to be Liam McIntyre that decided to get their first no right no it's it's at Liam underscore Jay underscore McIntyre yeah that's not too bad well we will also tweet it out from tomorrow daily so if you go over to our dailies Twitter account today and you see the episode you'll see Liam's Twitter handle and you can click on it and and all that stuff um genius click okay you can check out the Kickstarter again it's monster lab yeah I'm gonna build some monsters with some cards and then destroy things and fight with the other monsters pretty cool it sounds like a real win to me but there's no downside yeah I mean it seems there's no there's no sure downside here everybody wants to be a mad scientist you can check that out and and then of course you can always watch your television because I'm sure this gentleman will be popping up on it but don't turn away from this whatever screen you're watching us on because we have more tomorrow daily coming right up