Hello, and welcome to Snyder's Return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today is part of a company where the fall of civilization comes in a variety of formats be that everything has been stacked against you, or that an outbreak of a very different kind has taken place. As we jump on our bikes like excited teens and look for what's missing from our tabletop game collection. We receive ourselves into whatever hunters entertainment has to offer. It's absolute privilege to welcome branding and community manager, I assume. Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex Huilman:Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Snyders Return:Thank you. Before we get into a few of the things I've lent into them in the introduction, would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into tabletop role playing games, please?
Alex Huilman:Oh, yeah. So I've actually been kind of hovering the tabletop role playing sphere for pretty much my entire life. I was growing up, I had kind of an interesting family dynamic. So my closest brother to me and age was good 10 years older than me. So when I was five, he was 15 and playing tabletop games with his high school friends. And I managed to work my way into all of that. So I started playing tabletop games very, very young, including RPGs, like I kicked off with palladium fantasy first edition was the very first game that I ever actually played. And it just kind of kept going. From there, I started getting into all sorts of different types of board games, once I realised there was more out there than just the standard classics that everyone's aware of, and that they catered to so many different tastes. So that just kind of kept me hovering around the sphere. And eventually, I kind of stumbled on to hunters entertainment with their first edition about break on dead. And I became pretty obsessed with it was hanging around their communities and stuff all the time. And that very quickly, actually led to getting various offers for work and eventually coming on to the company full time.
Snyders Return:Alright, that's, that's quite a sort of journey in a short space of time. So you mentioned there, the first edition of our break for someone that's that's unfamiliar, or may have seen it on, say, drive thru RPG, would you mind giving us a quick explanation of what to what the game entails, please?
Alex Huilman:Oh, yeah, absolutely. So outbreak on dead, it's pretty unique in that it was the very first zombie survival simulation RPG. And what I mean by that is that Chris Christopher de la Rosa, who actually did the core development of the game, what His goal was, was for him and his friends to be able to actually like they were into like the Mel Brooks, Zombie Survival Guide. And all of that was very popular at the time when they first kind of started broaching this. And they wanted to test their own Zombie Survival Plan. But there wasn't really a game out there that could provide that exact experience. I think at the time really all there was predominantly in the zombie genre was all flesh must be eaten. And that kind of leans for a slightly different bent and a different flavour of zombie apocalypse type gameplay. So they just decided to set out make the game themselves. And part of the game leans into some of Chris's background as a, he has a background in psychological testing. And so he actually developed along with a few other people, something that we call the spew AI, which stands for strength, perception, empathy, and willpower, which are the core attributes of characters in a game of outbreak. And you kind of take this little personality test that we have on our website, and it can spit out what your core stats would be for a game about break and then you can essentially develop yourself as a character and put your Zombie Survival Plan to the test. It's done in a way to give a sandbox style of play so you can also test any type of zombie apocalypse that you want. So it gives you different systems to build if you want like the slow Romero style zombies, you can absolutely do that. And have them be legitimately undead and like corpses crawling back up from the grave. You could have your 28 days later fast zombies or ones that are caused by a more biological means. So things like pathogens and stuff like that. So you kind of slip out of the undead factor. And you kind of have these biologically alive infected, that still behave as zombies. But it allows you to kind of present any context that you want in the game.
Snyders Return:It sounds incredibly flexible, and the the speed of AI being able to unlike other games, where you create a character, being able to put yourself in that situation, to a certain degree. Sounds so unique. Ice, it sounds really engaging as well. So with outbreak being on its second edition, is that
Alex Huilman:yes, yes, we're on the second edition now.
Snyders Return:So a second edition being pushed out. What can people get in supportive of the game if, if they choose to pick it up.
Alex Huilman:So right now we have the the core game is already out and available, so you can actually go out and pick up the survivors guide. And that's going to touch on the rules that everybody needs to know when they're playing the game, both gems and players. So it's a good book for anyone at the table to go ahead and pick up. It covers all the base core gameplay and everything you're going to need to know to actually play the game. Then we also have a game masters Guide, which goes into detail of how GM is constructure. Setting up like missions for the characters in this world for them to engage with how to utilise the environment, even in and of itself, as a threat gives them tools like risk and things like that, which are points that they'll generate based on player actions through the game. And then they can use that risk to purchase various like upgrades for their bodies or have like weird environmental things happen that now make the characters have to deal with Mother Nature. So the interesting part about it is that you can really honestly kind of throw the zombies out of the game entirely and actually use it as just like a survival sim for any kind of game if you really want to. Because Yeah, we really went into that kind of level of detail on it. So along with those two core books, if you want to forego the game masters guide, since it is another full fledged justice thick as the survivors guide book. So it does have that similar price tag. And these are also both available physically and digitally. So you can pick them up at your friendly local game store. Or you can get them online at drive thru RPG, and be able to download the digital versions of the books there for reduced cost, obviously. But if you wanted to forego that game masters guide, we do also have a number of free pieces of content available for outbreak, such as an intro manual, that includes a stat block for just a typical zombie, since that isn't really covered in the survivors guide with the rest of the core rules, and the opponents are mostly the purview of the game master there. So you can get that stat block and have that available. It also does come with a scenario as well as a quick rundown of the rules. So you can actually use the intro manual as a way to test out if outbreak is for you and get a taste of how the gameplay actually works. Beyond that, we also have some supplementary products that go along with outbreak that just kind of ease gameplay along so we release cards that detail things like character traits or pieces of gear that you might have on your character and saves you having to do the traditional method of writing down all the details on your sheet, you can just kind of grab a couple cards have them right available at the table, you don't need to flip through the book, your information is just right there for you. The gear cards in particular I really like because it gives a kind of visceral sense to when characters go out looting, especially when you're playing yourself. So if you can hand a person a card that details a hammer, the act of handing them that kind of adds this tangibility, sensation to the whole proceedings. And it's a really interesting way to drag people further into the game. We also have a few tokens available for the game to track your degrees of success or degrees of failure because we do use a degree based system it's not just a binary system of pass fail. And things like damage that your character takes or if the GM wants they can use a little tokens for risk as well. to just help have a tangibility to that that the players can kind of see you building up on the table instead of just privately tracking it. Beyond that, on our Kickstarter, we also managed to get some extra funding to be able to do some Custom dice for the game. It uses percentile and D sixes. And the D sixes have a special result in a lot of cases when a six is rolled, so it just replaces the six side of the die with a unique company logo, the little a hunter's h with a sword through it. And they also come in different colours because we do a dice pool system so you can quickly during like combat encounters put together all the little constituent pieces of what's going to need to happen like if there's a difficulty involved if something can potentially deplete. If you have damage, you get your initiative and your skill checking, you kind of all just build it all up into a pool. And so we colour code the dice as well. So you can quickly distinguish in those pools what represents what. So we do have those available not required by any stretch of the means. You can absolutely play with just a regular set of percentile set d 10s. And some different coloured D sixes. A lot of people have loads of those typically on their set. So you just keep in mind that the six is a special result and make sure you do have about four colours of six ciders to represent all the things that can pile up in the pool. And then we do also have some additional supplements that are coming out for outbreak on dead. Second Edition we've been releasing first Friday of every month we have a programme called free content Friday. And what we do is for outbreak and a few of our other games as well, including kids on bikes on this run, as well as our partners at Renegade game studios have been kind enough to add over light into our run this year. And our game Icarus by Spencer Stark, the first one that he did before Ellis's missing with us. That one has also been a part of the run. And we release a free piece of content for each of those games on the first Friday of every month, over the course of a year. Lau people to kind of grab those and collect these extra bits of content that are written by either the developers of the games themselves, other industry professionals, or even members of our own community who can pitch ideas to us. And if we like it, we'll actually pay them to fully write it up into a manuscript, we run it through the whole internal process, and we put it out with their name on it. So at the end of the run, we clear out the previous year's content from the product that we have on Drive Thru RPG. And we set up a print on demand annual for the game line, each game line in particular, and we put that out as a fairly cheap product that you can get print on demand. But the money that we raised from that goes into funding future free content Friday that we get developed. So you can always get a little bit of extra cool stuff. And since we're not quite to the end of the year yet, you can actually get the backlog of the whole year's run for every single one of those game lines. If you hop on to the drive thru RPG product, you just search for hunters entertainment free content Friday. And this time around with second edition we're also doing something new called the stream series, which is going to provide actual settings for you and outbreak undead to take out the world building in that sandbox style of gameplay and give you a full fledge setting with a unique zombie type. It kind of gives you some background details of what's happening around the globe in so you can incorporate that background information into your games and give it just that extra little bit of flavour as the GM without having to think about these outside events. You can keep your focus mainly on your players survival group trying to make their way through this crazy event that's happening. We've been really fortunate to be able to get local writers involved in regards to getting these strange series products developed. So each of the regions that we end up talking about, there's usually an author from that actually lives in that area, who provides a bit more local flavour and flair to the proceedings so that it can be much more realistic and visceral for anyone trying to incorporate that information. Since we are fortunate now to have fans all around the globe at this point, which is pretty awesome. So we've got the first stream series out digitally right now, which is strain series on V which is one that I actually developed. It uses a more contemporary form of outbreak. It actually ended up being very similar to what ended up panning out in 2020 sands it being actually zombie like behaviour but there were enough hallmarks that honestly even when we got to the point of getting ready to release it, we were a little concerned just due to everything that was going on this year and how people would receive that. But it's it has been received wildly well. I think most people realise obviously, that we wrote the book, well in advance of it actually getting out. So we didn't have any perception of what was going to be going on or how close to home we would get. And I think a lot of people found it a cathartic kind of setting to engage with because it gives them a little more agency than I think a lot of us feel that we have right now with everything that's been going on around the world and 2020 and the global pandemic that we find ourselves in. So that was that was pretty interesting. And we do have another stream series that was also funded by the Kickstarter, Kai marrow, which is being done by the lead developer of outbreak undead, Christopher Dela Rosa. And that should be actually coming out pretty soon, we're actually getting the final touches on that and getting ready to get our regional localised writers ready to engage with the general concept of the setting and kind of add their flair for those regions of the world and kind of get that nice global feeling on it. And then we'll be able to kind of get that one released as well. Once those are done, we do actually have some additional plans as well with the stream series. So it isn't just going to stop with the two that we funded on the Kickstarter. Although our backers for that, even though it's been a good while since that campaign finished up because we weren't able to start fully writing these books until the campaign itself concluded we knew we had the funding, they will still be getting those digital copies for free themselves. But everybody else will be able to pick them up on Drive Thru RPG once they're available. So yeah, we've got a lot going on, actually without break second edition.
Snyders Return:Yeah, it's all very exciting. And it's definitely a game I hadn't sort of looked up before. But saw a bit of, of the the stream, which is something I'll touch on in a moment. But you mentioned there, right through that this this community, that sense of community, people feeding back in how do people get involved with this community? And what's it been like being the manager of that? group?
Alex Huilman:Yeah. So we've always kind of been trying to figure out ways to really cultivate that sense of community behind our brand. We know as fans of RPGs ourselves, the whole reason why we got into the industry was we were making games that we wanted to play. So it's it's really about the passion for us. And we want everyone to be able to get behind that. I know I love doing that with other brands that I love. I've been an advocate of a number of different gaming brands over the years. I mentioned, like I said, I started with palladium games back in the day, I have been a huge advocate of those games for years. So I have I have my own passions and like to get involved in communities. And we wanted that to be available. early on. Like when I first got involved with hunters, they had a community forum, because it was still kind of back in the days where social media was still really building up into being wildly in vogue. And giving like all the nice group tools and things that you can make communities with on social media platforms. But they did have the the community forum, which was very popular back then. And I was very engaged with that we've since moved on from that, since that is a little bit more of a dated medium now for most people. So nowadays, we maintain a presence on social media. So you can find us on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. On a lot of those, like for both. On Facebook, for instance, we have like community groups for outbreak on dead and kids on bikes that are official communities that you can join up over there and actually engage with other fans and community members and many of the team members are on there. So like on kids on the kids on bikes one, both Jonathan Gilmore, Doug levandowski, and Heather Vaughn, the lead artist on it and some of the other folks who have done content along the way for that brand, all hang out in there and engage with folks. We also maintain a community Discord. So you can always kind of jump in on there. We've got sections for each of our games, as well as just kind of some general community sections. channels for talking about our programming that we do on Twitch now. And as well as YouTube, where we kind of feed that out to the general public if you're not a subscriber and can't catch the live airing on Twitch. So yeah, we kind of try to keep a little bit Have a read on the pulse across the board with our community and give them multiple ways to be able to reach out and engage with us as much as possible.
Snyders Return:Yeah, absolutely. And I'll make sure, as best I can to find links and put the links in the description of the episode below. You mentioned that the twitch stream and I was going to ask about if someone had been listening to this or seen outbreak on dead on, say drive thru, or the hunters entertainment website and wanted to watch someone actually playing through and understand the mechanic for me more, or the gameplay through a visual sense where wicked the wicked they go to find that.
Alex Huilman:So there's a couple options that they'd have available right now. We actually run a twitch channel of for hunters entertainment, you can find that at twitch TV slash hunters entertainment. And we do shows every Tuesday and Friday at 6pm. Pacific time. For both of those, you can convert that into whatever particular time zone that the listeners are in here, for your local needs there. And right now, our Tuesday show is an ongoing, long form campaign of outbreak undead. That is called outbreak, rag and bone. So on that show, one of the really cool things is that we've partnered with another company for teller to develop some technology that allows for viewer participation in the show without it necessarily being a disruptive thing to the actual flow of the show. So we've got tools where essentially our viewers can generate time, which is a resource that's very prominent in the outbreak games solely by like engaging with our content on Twitch there. And then they can utilise that time to do things within the game world that then the GM knocks while or birth will take into account when running the actual sessions. So ends up not being like a lot of twitch channels that try to do the audience engagement, a lot of times it's based around things that end up being a little more disruptive to the flow of the gameplay, and kind of can potentially even risk taking over the narrative of the actual show itself. So we've tried to come up with an interesting way to find that engagement while still being able to present you with a really solid show that won't deviate off, of course, abruptly at any point, based on what's going on there but still having meaningful impact. So you can catch that on Tuesdays. And we do release these after a week of exclusivity for video on demand to our subscribers. They then do get released to youtube for free to everybody so you can catch us on YouTube as well. Hunters entertainment over there as well. And our Friday show hunters gathering live that is producing hosted by Marquis McCarty. And it's kind of a behind the scenes look at the company of hunters in general. So we'd like to change it up from week to week. It's kind of different each time we do it. We've had live illustrations on there with some of our artists and our art director, Caleb Cleveland. We've had live music with Jason Charles Miller. We've had interesting just kind of general behind the scenes discussions about things that we're working on things that we're developing past products that we've worked on the history of hunters, all of that, and occasionally a live play here and there, where we play test products that we're currently working on. So it's a good way to get a lot of just behind the scenes of how the Gaiman's games industry works. And kind of be able to connect a little bit with some of the faces behind the products that
Snyders Return:you love. So we'll move on to some of the other products because you mentioned them a couple of different games and game systems but who, who else makes up the hunters entertainment team alongside yourself.
Alex Huilman:So we've actually been growing quite a bit recently, the founders of hunters entertainment, are Christopher J. Dela Rosa and Ivan van Norman, who I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with, with his work with Geek and Sundry and things like that. So they initially started the company. I was the first employee that actually came on. So over the course of time, we've all worn very different hats at various different times as well just due to the number of us that were available at any given time. Nowadays, it's Ivan and Chris are still with the company. They're obviously they're kind of the directors of the company. I've been overseeing kind of the marketing arm of the company with Chris overseeing kind of the the development and game side of the whole coin there. There's also myself, I do project management and community outreach with hunters entertainment, and I also help manage our events. So with the project management, I kind of oversee existing product lines that we have and make sure that we have content still being developed and getting approved through the pipeline. And being able to keep our games kind of fed in that ecosystem of being able to get new stuff out to our fans there. I now have a partner in crime on that level of project management and events and kind of community engagement. And Ben Dunn, who is kind of my counterpart and has been picking up a lot of the new properties. So I kind of oversee a lot of our existing stuff that we already had in the bucket, once we got to the point of needing to kind of further expand there. So I oversee outbreak and kids on bikes and altered carbon, and Icarus, where's Ben is taking up all of the new properties that we've been working on, privately behind the scenes that we're cooking up ourselves, as well as some of the other licenced content that we have. So we kind of both do a little bit of a mix across the games that we have there. We have Caleb Cleveland on board as our art director. So he kind of manages, finding artists for us and getting folks to be able to do the amazing, wonderful artwork that you see in all of the products that we put out there. Beyond that, we also have Christian Shelton, who works with us doing a lot of our fulfilment for a lot of our Kickstarter campaigns. And it's kind of our campaign manager for a lot of the Kickstarter stuff. He'll also engages a lot with our social media and kind of manages the unders social media accounts at this point. So over on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Often that's very commonly Christian who's engaging with that these days. We have JB Jarrah who is our technical director and new business manager. So he kind of handles a lot of the like contracts and stuff that we have to do and a lot of the paperwork stuff as well as being the person who directs all of the awesome content that we have coming out on hundreds entertainments, media platforms through Twitch and YouTube. So he's the guy that's always kind of behind the scenes there, making sure that we get like cool camera angles and stuff like that. We have Knox Wyler, birf, who is a partner with Mark McCarty, who generally lead our stream team over at hunters entertainment, and are both the kind of producers for the two different shows that we have mark, he oversees the hunters gathering live with Knox overseeing our hundreds presents on Tuesdays. So yeah, we we've been a consistently growing company. And we're actually in the process of picking up some like additional designers and stuff into our stable. So it's been an interesting journey over the time that I've been here. A lot more hands in the cookie jar than we used to have
Snyders Return:this. Yes, absolutely. And there's so many things that you've mentioned that I'd love to touch on if we get the time. So leaving future products in the future, and staying with what is currently in the bucket, as you say. And you mentioned events, though, is there anything given the the situation the world is in any events that are sort of coming up in the next sort of three to six months that people would be able to sort of engage with anything in the pipeline on that front?
Alex Huilman:On not in that time frame? So we're actually doing as of recording this. You guys will be hearing this a little bit later. But we're finishing up our last event for the 2020 season, which we're going to be closing out with the role 20 con 2020 event here. We're still kind of assessing what the situation is going to be in 2021. More than likely we will participate. Yeah, Yeah, no kidding. My guess would be right now if like obviously if we do get back to a point where imperson events can potentially be going on safely. We would love to be able to engage with people face to face again, that's always a blast being able to go to those actual conventions and get out there with people. Barring that, I'm positive. And I'm positive. This would this either way, even if we do get just dirt actually interacting face to face again, will likely be engaging in various digital conventions over the course of 2021. One way or the other, we'll just kind of need to assess what we can manage along with all of our development and things like that. Because obviously, anytime we're off doing an event, as fun as it is, it means we're not being able to work on making new products and stuff like that, at that point in time. So yeah, it's, I'm sure we'll do a fair bit though. And like I said, I think online based stuff is going to kind of be permanently part of our repertoire. Moving forward at this point, we've had a blast doing a lot of different digital events over the course of 2020. Just to compensate the situation that we all find ourselves in. So like we did the the digital Gen Con, we produce, participated in a couple of our partners at Renegade Game Studios, put on a renegade con couple times over the course of the year, and we participated in that. And yeah, it's been a real blast. So I think that digital is going to be something that we kind of keep in our quiver there. Mainly, because at the moment, we're not quite to a point where the company is doing a lot of events like overseas or anything like that. So we are a US based company. And we know we do have fans all over the world, and we'd like to be able to engage with them. So being able to participate in digital conventions kinda helps with that whole situation where we can set up events that anyone around the globe is going to be able to potentially participate in, despite us, not necessarily always being able to get out to all the places where our fans are potentially going to be. So a lot of the the physical conventions that we end up doing do happen to be US based at the moment, though, I would love for us to get to a point where we can start kind of making a couple of annual trips to some other places that would be that would be fantastic.
Snyders Return:Yeah, no, and it's, as you say, the the world of sort of moved on online and seems to be enjoying the online experience in the role. 20 con has been popular for a number of different franchises. And I'm sure hunters entertainment certainly found a fresh interest and new people coming into your products. And speaking of products, we've sort of spoken very much about outbreak, but that is clearly not the only thing you guys put out of such a high quality. So would you mind taking us through some of the other products you you put out, please?
Alex Huilman:Yeah, absolutely. So we were a full fledged kind of multimedia company at this point. With our heart still being in publishing so and the core of that still being in games publishing. Now we have done some like ancillary products in the past. So we're Ivan van Norman, Caleb Cleveland actually partnered up with Wizards of the Coast and they did the ABCs of DND and the one two threes of DND, which are actually children's books that are very much engrossed in the the DND and gaming flavour that you can use to help teach the alphabet and numbers to your young ones with that nice kind of gaming flair and kind of start hopefully helping build some of the gamers of the future there. And but outside of that, I like I said, Our primary Crux is with games. So we also have kids on bikes, which I would more accurately could more accurately describe as the powered by kids on bikes line. So it started off with just kids on bikes, which is a very, very rules light, which is polar opposite end of the spectrum from outbreak where we give you a lot of mechanics and crunch that you can utilise to get that simulation feel. And it leans very heavily into that teenage coming of age story. But you don't necessarily have to exclusively play like a kid or a teenager in them there is the option to still play the adults so you can get your stories ranging from like, stand by me and Goonies all the way up to Stranger Things because it does also support the idea of like a powered character being involved in the story and he actually that in a very interesting way so that you don't have to, like if you wanted your Stranger Things situation where only one character has powers, you don't want to necessarily make it so that one of the players is utilising that character specifically, because that might make the other players jealous. And if you just make it an NPC, it doesn't have quite as much weight as it might otherwise. So it's actually a community controlled character amongst all the players, who will be able to control they'll be in charge of different facets of the power to characters personality. And when that personality would be part of the personality would be a forefront in a particular scene, that player can choose to take control of the power of character for that period of time and kind of act as the power of character. When it's not one of these particular personality traits that would be at the forefront, the GM would still utilise it as an NPC. So it kind of becomes this communal character that everybody at the table plays and gets to have investment in. And the the core system itself was such a well designed system, both Doug levandowski and Jonathan Gilmore, who developed that one did a just bang up job on making something that was going to be able to easily adapt to other ideas as well. So since kids on bikes has come out, we've also released two additional full fledged games that utilise the exact same core system, teens in space, and kids on brooms. They're both they're all standalone. So they don't require kids on bikes to play. So you can if you're not like if you are very kind of particular about your genre style that you like to roleplay with, you can just shoot for the one that is exactly up your alley. So if you like sci fi, you can go that route. If you kind of like the like magical schools type stories and things like that you can go with the kids on brooms. And if you like the more traditional kind of coming of age stories that are a little bit more grounded and centred, you can go with the kids on bike style. And that's not to say that you can't have cool supernatural stuff happen and kids on bikes, but it does feel a little more grounded compared to the other two options there. I can also say that we've definitely been continuing to support those lines as well. So for kids on bikes, we already got strange adventures, Volume One and Volume Two, which are out and available. As well as free versions of these games as well that you can find on Drive Thru RPG, we tend to like I said, without break, we like to put out more condensed, not quite the full game, but enough for you to get a good taste of it version of the game, that it's just freely available so that we can kind of try them out before you decide if you want to make that kind of money commitment, because as we all know, there are a lot of games out there. And they are not necessarily super, super cheap. So we want to make sure that you you're investing in something that you're actually really going to be happy with and pleased with. So yeah, that line has been continuing to expand, we do have some additional plans for a few other supplement books, as well as a couple more core games actually on that powered by line that we've been discussing and working on quietly. So there will be some more cool stuff coming up with that. And as I mentioned, we also have it available in our free content Friday line. So there's free content out there for each of those game lines included in that run that you can kind of check out and grab right now and drive through to further enhance your game.
Snyders Return:All right. Well, you mentioned there, sort of a sci fi element of teens in space and staying more on the future side of things. Are you able to take us through moving from high fantasy to science fantasy or sci fi? Or to carbon, please?
Alex Huilman:Yeah, absolutely. So altered carbon is one of the first licenced products that we ended up actually getting here at Hunter's entertainment. So that one is going to be based on the Netflix series as the primary source of information, which, while that was recently cancelled, there is still obviously a lot of information that is available there. And we've been kind of given the okay by sky dance, the licence holders that we're working with, to be able to kind of expand that world as well. So our Kickstarter campaign that we did for that it was wildly successful, and we were able to line up being able to do all sorts of bells and whistles actually, that will kind of accompany the game but um Obviously aren't necessary, as well as additional supplementary content that'll actually be coming out for it. So our backers actually already have a basic version of the PDF. Now the reason why I say a basic version of the PDF is because one of the features that we actually unlocked during the campaign was what we're calling the data slate PDF, which is actually going to be an interactive PDF that will have a few interesting accessibility features, hopefully baked into it as well. So it's a little bit more robust than just a standard PDF release that you would normally see with a lot of tabletop RPGs. But the backers do already have the the basic PDF available to them. And we're looking to still get the content out and available this year. So all the product stuff has been kind of running off the production lines and getting into our warehouses for sorting, and being able to be distributed out to our backers, and then also distributed out to retailers so that they can eventually get down on the shelves here. Like I said, we're still expecting that to actually occur this year, for the core materials of the game, which would be the the core rulebook, which is a all in one rulebook in this particular case. Since I did mention, without break, we do have the survivors game game masters guide, this one is an all inclusive rulebook here. And then we do also have, like I said, a bunch of bells and whistles that are going to be available. Some of those are going to be they were limited edition things for like our backers during the Kickstarter campaign. Some of those will actually be available in distribution, we tend to run extra on some things that will be limited edition. So that way, we can one cover anything that happens like if there's defects for any backers products, or if anything gets damaged in shipping, we can send them a replacement out for it. And then we'll tend to release those as a limited item. As well as like I said, we have some that are also Kickstarter exclusive, that you won't be able to get any other way. And then the general product line. So for altered carbon, we managed to do a lot of really cool things. We've got some custom dice, from level up dice that are called alumium dice, which, when you actually look at them, they just kind of look like clear crystals in the shape of dice. But if you shine a black light on them, and the packages will come with a black light pen, it reveals the numbers actually on the faces of the dice. So they're blacklight reactant dice, that are actually pretty cool. I've gotten to see the prototype in action. And it was pretty awesome. We also were able to do a replica cortical stack as like kind of like a challenge coin type item. So the cortical stack is the little device in altered carbon that is inserted into essentially everyone that stores your consciousness digitally, or as a digital human freight dhf. And that can be pulled out of a body and slotted into another body. So that's referred to as re sleeping. And bodies are kind of seen as sleeves, which means death is not necessarily assured in the world of altered carbon, which makes it a fairly interesting and unique setting. So we do get to make a replica cortical stack that was done through the campaign. We've also got reference cards much like we do without breaking dead because as I mentioned, we've found reference cards while not required in any way. They're wildly handy game tools. I use them with any game that's willing to put them out now pretty much in my home tables because it's it's just very handy I find so we have some nice reference cards coming out for all three carbon we've got a GM screen, both a standard and a special custom Deluxe one that was done by our friends at dog might. So it's this just beautiful, handcrafted wooden GM screen that's died to look like the song spire trees from the series. And it actually has like a song spire carved into it and the altered carbon logo as well edged in there. Those are really nice and kind of customizable, just like the rest of their wonderful custom screens. But we do have standard one that will also be available. And then we were also blessed to be able to go ahead and do the Hello unicorn backpack. That is something that I think a lot of people have wanted to be able to get Sensi on the show. And so we designed it as a carrying case, specifically for being able to hold the RPG contents that you're going to have with the game so you can carry your book and stuff around in style with that nice hardcase Hello, unicorn beautiful pink case with the lighting in the interior there as well. So we've got that included on it. Yeah, it's it's a fantastic piece for anyone that just is wanting to have it as a collector item. And I believe that one if I remember correctly, that is a backer exclusive. So we're not doing a really like a limited release on that even. So, yeah, unfortunately, the window has closed on that one for people. But that was a really cool piece that we got to do. We also unlocked a few supplemental source books that are going to be coming out for the game. One that we have is basically confidential, which is going to keep the general primary focus that you see kind of like during the first season of altered carbon over in Bay City. But then the other three source books, we got the green light to be able to kind of expand the world of altered carbon, specifically on Earth, because there's obviously more going on than just Bay City still on planet earth in that universe. It some of them even being referenced in the show, even though only briefly like Osaka. That was where Lauren's Bancroft had supposedly had his little meeting during the course of events there. And we are lucky enough to be able to explore Birmingham, Osaka, and Johannesburg and each have their own little supplements and provide a robust look at each of those locations and what they are like in the era of altered carbon, some 300 some odd years into the future, which is really, really cool. And again, we've been able to get writers who are familiar with the localised areas and regions to be able to provide that personal touch to it. And make sure that it comes across appropriately. We want to make sure that we give the appropriate representation on those kinds of items. So yeah, it's really cool to see what's been going on. Being a project manager for altered carbon, I've obviously been getting to kind of watch those come together as the writers work on them. And yeah, we've got some really cool stuff that's going to be going on with it, you can actually get a slight sneak peek at one of them. Osaka, if you go over to our YouTube channel, or if you're a subscriber to our twitch we did a little micro campaign, while back on Hunter's presents called Osaka turnell was a three part series that kind of gives a little bit of a taste of some of the things that we'll be doing with the city of Osaka and the altered carbon setting. And yeah, I'm really excited about those, they've been coming along fantastically. A couple of them, manuscript wise are pretty much finishing up at this point. So yeah, it's it's definitely going to be some good stuff. And then we definitely have some ideas potentially for future content. If we are able to go ahead and explore some additional things, there are some stuff there's definitely some stuff in the ultra carbon world that we would love to further elaborate on for the RPG so so it's a really rich world and we're very very lucky to be able to kind of play around in that sandbox and have a little bit of fun.
Snyders Return:It sounds amazing and I didn't interrupt you because all of it sounds amazing no other word it sounds but i think i think my wallet is not gonna like me very much after after this interview but you know as you say that's the way the games are the you know, you you you get in so invested in demand invest in them. So yes, I have written a few things down that I will be perusing drive through all your your website for free. Absolutely. So I mean that is I thank you so much for giving us all that information about the various games or products you guys put out but what is it you play at home? away from work? What is your downtime? How do you relax? What sort of games or other activities do you take on?
Unknown:Oh, man,
Snyders Return:uh,
Alex Huilman:so much stuff. So yeah, like I said, I've been an avid gamer for a long time and I kind of like the Quite a few things across the spectrum of different tabletop games, not even just RPGs. So, yeah, I play World of Darkness games Shadowrun played some games I mentioned previously, I'm big fan of the Star Wars RPG, I, my personal joy with that one is the West End games version of it, the old the sixth one. I'm quite the sucker for that. You don't see it run too much anymore, either. So I'm always excited if I get a chance to hear about anybody running or playing in that game or getting an opportunity to play around that game. Lots of different board games, lots and lots of different board games, I'd be kind of hard pressed to really even give a good rundown I mean, nightmare hero quest. Some more modern ones would be things like Power Rangers, I like to try out games too. So I do still also have a few on my shelf that I haven't quite gotten around to like there's the civilization board game, which I'm big into that video game. So I was intrigued by the idea of possibly playing a board game version of it. But I haven't quite gotten around to it yet. But I do have that one on my shelf, play testing games that we are working on. So that's always kind of an interesting thing, getting to try out interesting new mechanics or systems or game lines that aren't necessarily getting a lot of buzz or honestly having anyone know about them, because it's really just our kind of internal circle that's still working on it. Although we again, some of those, we do get to eventually kind of push out to the more general public. So we've got gods of metal Ragnarok is a game that we have coming up that we've been talking a little bit about, because it is a completely internally owned property. It's being fully developed and made by Ivan van Norman and a few folks from our team. So we can be a little bit more just direct and open with the what's going on with the development of that. So we've been kind of taken advantage of that. You can actually see a lot of stuff on our YouTube and Twitch in regards to that game, and kind of watch how it develops along. But yeah, it's it's the ultimate heavy metal fantasy recipe. It's it's pretty fun game. And I'm really excited that we've been able to start showing it off to people because I've been getting to play around with it with Ivan and folks for a bit here now at this point, and it's a really fun one. I also like to play video games, which I'm sure probably isn't a shocker. I think a lot of tabletop gamers do also, like video games, your genre of choice at that point is certainly up in the air and up for grabs. But a lot of folks do tend to like some form of video game entertainment. So I've been kind of actually going back through recently Red Dead Redemption to just slowly and at my own pace and playing around with all the stuff that they did with that world and all the detail that they put into it.
Unknown:And I
Alex Huilman:like to play see a thieves a lot. Our community actually over 100 Entertainment, a lot of times after streams and stuff like that. A number of folks in the community and sometimes members of the team will actually get together and start playing among us. So that's been another big one recently. So yeah, I mean, it's a wide diversity of stuff that I'm into and like to do in my spare time reading as well. I think that's kind of an important thing to do, to flex those creative muscles and just be able to kind of, you know, spark ideas and get influenced in inspiration from things. And also to know, like, for instance, like if there's any types of licences, you might want to eventually work on. Because you can't really know unless you know the content and then you can make a pitch and try to see if you can get it. That's kind of part of that. Yeah, movies, all that stuff. I spend a lot of time with my wife and my mother in law. She actually lives with us. We kind of help with some things that she needs, our our hand width, so yeah, it's a lot of family time, especially now during the pandemic, with my wife working from home now as well. We had to get adapted to all of that and get it sorted out but it's a pretty good situation. Yeah, I've got a pretty diverse set of joys and interests. I like a lot of different genres of stuff. And it helps with working in the industry because you never know what kind of game options might come up.
Snyders Return:Yeah, no, absolutely. And it sounds like you've got a good spread. Here. quest is getting an updated release. And I think, yes, all Rangers are getting getting their own new game, I believe.
Alex Huilman:Yeah, they've got a renegades actually working on a card game. And they actually also recently announced that they'll they got the rights from Hasbro to do some RPGs for a lot of their games. So that was actually big news that came out recently, as of this recording not terribly, terribly recently, as of the time we post this. But hopefully, there'll be other cool news out about that as well from them. Because that's a that's a pretty big deal. They grabbed Power Rangers and transformers and my little pony and GI Joe, there's gonna be some really cool stuff coming out. And they do also like great board games and card games. Like I said, The Power Rangers board game that they've got the that game is astounding. Jonathan Yang knocked that out of the park. And it really hammers home the flavour of the Power Ranger series. So yeah, a lot of cool stuff definitely coming down the pipe from them as well.
Snyders Return:I'm actually making a note right now the Power Rangers ballgame to go and have a look. Because you the way you you talk about it. It sounds like it could be something I'd be interested in. So maybe other people? Absolutely. Yeah, it's
Alex Huilman:very fun. They've been, they've been very on top of it as well, there's been a lot of additional content that's come out for it. So if your favourite Power Rangers version isn't there yet, don't be surprised if it shows up eventually, because they've just been knocking it out of the park getting different teams in there is a really cool easter egg. For those of you that like to watch the like live plays and stuff like that. Our friends over at hyper RPG, they did a show a while back that was a hyper force for Power Rangers where they kind of made their own little RPG system that they utilised for the show and did a kind of a Power Ranger series. And the characters from that one, some of the cast members from various Power Rangers shows actually joined in and played in the game. And their characters are actually featured in one of the expansions the shattered grid expansion for the Power Rangers game. So like, they are deep cutting.
Snyders Return:So much so much good content out there. And like, you know, clearly hunters entertainment, adding to that great pool of event of games and content and community that seems to be supporting pretty much all of us at the moment.
Alex Huilman:Oh, yeah. And we were very big on trying to support the, the digital play space as well. So like pretty much all of our products right now. You can find support for them on roll 20. At bare minimum, there's going to be probably a character sheet there for you. If not a actual marketplace item for books or things like that. Or just the game itself. Like recently, we did Alice's missing, which is a completely silent RPG. in normal times, the way you would typically play it is you would get together with your friends, you'd still be in the same room, but the whole game is played via text message. So no one ever actually speaks once the game gets going. And we did a roll 20 version of that which is available on their platform right now that you can be able to still kind of try the game out. Even without that original intended experience that we were shooting for. If you need to be socially distance and don't have enough people in your household to get a good game of it going. It's a very unique concept by Spencer Stark. It's one of it's an experience. We've done some live plays of it in the past, which is a very different experience than actually playing it for one just due to the nature of the game. But it can be an interesting way for you to kind of get a feel for how the game is. And we are going to be doing there'll be another one up by the time this goes live. We'll actually have done our second one. We're doing one for roll 20 con, specifically as well. And yeah, it's a very interesting game. I'd honestly recommend it to anyone. Like I said, it's kind of it's an experience. You won't have played anything else like it and it will it It will leave an impression on you. And that's the likes of the second game that he's done with us. The first one was also a very unique and kind of ingenious one, called Icarus. It's a game about how great civilizations fall. And you actually play through the history of a great civilization called Icarus, that you can structure in many, many different ways. But the premise of the game is that it's a dice stacking game at the core. So as things go along, you start building this monument with the dice, and then once the tower falls, the civilization falls. So you're, you're guaranteed to kind of get to that end point. And interestingly enough, even though it's a dice stacking game, he found a way to do a decks list version of it to expand the availability to it to folks who might not be able to participate in something that would require like dice stacking. So there is actually a way to play it without even having that component and still getting that same kind of flavour in the end. That's,
Snyders Return:that's incredible that that ability to make a game versatile and yet maintain that core premise and theme throughout.
Alex Huilman:Yeah, absolutely. If you if you're not familiar with Spencer Stark, I would recommend anything that you see his name on. He is a fantastic designer. And he is he's a very forward thinking designer as well and tries to make sure that his games are accessible to as many people as possible, right out of the gate. And he puts a lot of effort into that. So definitely check him out if you're not familiar with him. Because he is also a freelance designer. So even though he does do a bunch of stuff with us at Hunter's, that's not to say that that'll be the only place you'll be able to find him,
Snyders Return:huh? Yeah, definitely. Another name and another potential link to enter the description below. So thank you for highlighting him in his work in amongst all the good work he's doing for you. We've talked about different games that you guys put out different content things outside of that, and a little bit about yourself, is there anything that we haven't touched on, that you would like to to bring to the interview, it doesn't have to be tabletop related, it could be anything that you feel you want to sort of highlight? Oh,
Alex Huilman:I don't think I got anything terribly specific for that. We've had a pretty good conversation that touched on a lot of different things here. And I definitely don't necessarily want to overload your listeners with my crazy ramblings and all that. But yeah, it's uh, I would say primarily just keep an eye on us at Hunter's entertainment because we are definitely actively trying to do some very unique things in the gaming space. I kind of mentioned like, the the partnership that we have with for teller for that scribe application that allows for the engagement with like live play shows and things like that. And we're, we're very big on engaging with our community. So you're always more than welcome to hit us up in our Discord. Ping us on social media, anything like that. We are we're, we're happy to hear from you. And yeah, we've got a lot of plans, a lot of plans for some really cool stuff coming down the road. Well,
Snyders Return:I would love to have you back on the show in the future, if you'd be willing once some of those plans come to fruition.
Alex Huilman:Oh, absolutely. I'd be more than happy to come back anytime. It's been an absolute pleasure to be here.
Snyders Return:Oh, thank you. And before you go, just for those who still listening and maybe missed the links, would you like to just remind everybody where they can find you hunters entertainment and the content you put out please?
Alex Huilman:Yeah, absolutely. So you can find hunters entertainment on most of the major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. On Twitter, we are at hunters under scroll EMT, EMT. So entertainment just shortened and then hunters entertainment on both Instagram and Facebook. You can find me myself at Alex hilman a LXHUIL ma n on Twitter. And as I mentioned, you can join us on Discord. We'll make sure that you guys have links for that for the description. If they want to come join us there. You can also find us on youtube hunters entertainment. I think we might actually the direct link might be hunters books, because we may have had that longer than we've been hunters entertainment. And you can also follow us on Twitch at twitch TV slash Hunter's entertainment. So most of the time, just hundreds entertainment on any social media platform out there, and you can find us.
Snyders Return:Wonderful. Make sure links in the description below. Alex been it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you today. I fear I'm going to spend the rest of the night spewing. And I mean that in the contents of context of the games we've spoken about. But yeah, it's
Alex Huilman:interesting to try to let people know that you're gonna take that.
Snyders Return:So, I will get back to your to your day. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I look forward to speaking with you again in the future.
Alex Huilman:Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me.
Snyders Return:Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to WWW dot Snyder's return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter at Return Snyder. We have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon. And we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again. Thank you