Interview - Cory Burns - Rookie Jet Studios - Red Giant TTRPG Kickstarter

Today I talk with TTRPG Content Creator, Game Designer and Kickstarter - Cory Burns of Rookie Jet Studios.

We discuss Ryuutama, Overarms, Kickstarter Red Giant, founding Rookie Jet Studios and much more.

You can find Cory and all of Rookie Jet Studio content via the links below.

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RookieJetStudio

Website:
https://linktr.ee/rookiejetstudio

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/237058/Purgatory-House

Discord:
https://discord.com/invite/g2ZhXMJ

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Cory Burns

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:27

Hello and welcome to snows return at Pathak roleplay podcast. My guest today is ready in all respects for us to take flight within the worlds of their creation. Whether that means awakening a part of ourselves first, which is being aware of the sun at all times, it is time to know if we have the persona to become kings, or we just go Berzerk. Is it our fate? Or will we be hunting forever? Built on more than just one gimmick, my guest has an extensive set of field notes, even if the goblin makes an appearance. Joining me today to discuss the red giant Kickstarter, and many, many other products. His game designer TTRPG, content creator, and rookie jet studio founder, Corey burns. Corey, welcome to the show.

Cory Burns: 1:13

Hey, thanks for having me.

Snyders Return: 1:14

i It's an absolute pleasure. Cory, just in case, someone sort of unaware of who you are. And to give us a little bit of a footing here. How, how did you get into TTRPG, please?

Cory Burns: 1:25

Well, I had discovered Dungeons and Dragons books when I was a kid. But I kind of quickly dismissed them because they looked incredibly complex to me. Within the past decade, I had a friend who had asked me to join a Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition campaign. And that was, you know, it was fine. But I quickly I quickly moved away from Dungeons and Dragons to other systems. So definitely have to give my friends a shout out on that one.

Snyders Return: 1:59

Oh, no, of course, you mentioned them moving on to other systems. What? Give some examples of where your TTRPG journey is taking you from the de 20 Dungeons and Dragons system.

Cory Burns: 2:12

Right. So I mean, like most people, I have way more books and games than I've actually played. But yeah, I mean, the next thing I jumped into, which is kind of like, the real origin story, I guess, was a game called Retama, which is a Japanese tabletop RPG that was translated into English by Kodama Heavy Industries, then that that game really, I think, is what caused me to not only continue playing tabletop RPGs, but also get into actually creating tabletop RPGs. Because you see things that are, you know, like Dungeons and Dragons, 300 pages, you know, you don't want to read the full book, and a lot of very popular, tabletop RPGs I feel like are very crunchy, very big, feels like a task you're kind of taking on. But Retama was, you know, the art style was amazing. It was just a fantastic little game. And it was really easy to understand. And I think that was really what propelled me forwards.

Snyders Return: 3:20

Yeah. Retama I picked up recently myself to be full time recording. I picked up myself and the as you mentioned, the art style is beautiful. Is it? What is it about the the say the more narrative style of play that sort of has helped push you beyond that sort of crunch wall that you sort of mentioned that before?

Cory Burns: 3:43

Right? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard to it's hard to place because every game does, does it a little bit different, right. And I mean, that's a good thing. But when when I was sitting down to play Dungeons and Dragons, we had, we had a player at the table who was very, you know, we need to stick by the rules, we need to sit here we need to, you know, crunch these numbers and make sure that everything's exactly as the book says, and I was just incredibly put off by that because I'm here to tell a story with my friends, a collaborative story, you know, we have our drinks, we have our food next to us, we're, you know, rolling dice and hoping for a good outcome essentially. And the just the amount of downtime we had while playing that kind of crunchy or style system. Just took it out of me pretty quick. And so when I play games, like kids on bikes, or Retama, or you know, any any other small tabletop RPG it's just a completely different experience because you're more focused on the story and less focused on what is actually happening. You know, you're not, you're not well happening in terms of numbers, I suppose. Because you're dealing with much smaller numbers, much more simple formulas. And I think it's just I think it's Fantastic, because I know tonnes of people who would, you know, love to get into tabletop RPGs. But then they look at Dungeons and Dragons, or Call of Cthulhu, or Genesis or something like that. And the books are massive. And so it's a complete turnoff. But then when you show them something that's, you know, small and condensed, or the rules or makeup, like 60 pages of the book, it's a complete game changer completely turns their mind around.

Snyders Return: 5:28

Yeah, definitely. And so, having gone on this journey, that's my little nod to Retama there, having gone on this, this, this journey, through sort of tabletop and continued Where did you go from sort of enjoying these lighter, more narrative games to found in creating rookie jet studios? How, what was that process? Like?

Cory Burns: 5:49

Yeah, I mean, that that literally all started when I found Retama, because that's when I joined their Discord server, I began talking about the game. And the game has a lot to offer. But I was thinking, you know, I want to homebrew some stuff for this game. And as I started making more, and talking to people about it, it became very clear that I had, you know, something that I could put out into the world to share with others over it. And I had spent Lord probably like seven or eight months working on the little Nico goblins, Field Notes guide the English expansion that I had created. And oh, my gosh, uh, you know, it took off, I didn't think I'd get that kind of reception to it. And admittedly, it's not the greatest thing that you could, you know, sit down and read it, and it's got its issues. But at the same time, there was just there was such a response to it. And I'd always been interested in making games on my own. But I never really thought that I'd be making, you know, content for Retama, which eventually, even the Japanese creator reached out to me about so it was it was fantastic to have the opportunity to do that.

Snyders Return: 7:06

Yeah, for sure. I picked it up earlier, and sort of look through it. And it really does build on the sort of basis retirement the artworks beautiful and it's absolutely you, you you probably spot all the the issues because you designed it. But scan reading and having a just pick through it, it really helps expand and open our options to play is in such a wonderful way. So I'm glad I picked it up to go with my Retama game. So thank you, no problem at all. So we mentioned their rookie jet. And before we sort of move on too far. Let's let's get some socials out only so where can people find your good self and all the products you're putting out please.

Cory Burns: 7:51

So everything that we put out is on Drive Thru rpg.com. Or you can go to our website, rookie jet comm or rookie jet studio.com. You can also find us on Twitter at twitter.com/rookie Jeff studio and from there you can find just about every single link you can hope to. We also have subreddits if you're familiar with Reddit, and we also have Discord server for all of the games that we make. And so we have tonnes of ways for you to network with anyone who might be playing the game as well.

Snyders Return: 8:23

Wonderful. While we'll make sure those links are in the description below this podcast, please scroll down and click one of the most important links that we'll be discussing today, which is the red giant kickstart like however, we will get to that shortly. So DND led to Retama Retama led to us sort of creating this thing that you can put out into the world where did overarm sort of build from there.

Cory Burns: 8:48

So over arms was definitely a subsequent product that came out after the Retama expansion. And over arms was something that I had I had gotten into Jojos Bizarre Adventure probably around the same time that I was writing the Nico goblins Field Notes guide for Retama and after I saw that anime, I mean I became obsessed with it. I know some people it's either hit or miss for a lot of people, but I became obsessed with it. And as I started, you know, thinking about it, you know, I had a lot of groups that were playing tabletop RPGs at this time, and I was really kicking off with the reception I was getting from Nico goblin fieldnotes guide so I began working on a Jojos tabletop RPG. And when I started looking into it, because I always look into see if there's something else out there that before I started, there was a few fan games, but there wasn't anything that did what I wanted to do. At least with the series itself. And then as I began working on it, I started going wow, you know You could really use this with persona, you could use this with, you know, if you wanted to play a game inspired by shaman King, if you wanted to, you know if these are animated that you're even, you know, us accustomed with. But regardless, you know, it just kind of developed into its own thing after two years of working on it. And so yeah, I mean, it was, it was a blast to work on. But it is also very stressful because I was inventing a new system and not working with something that was already, you know, pre made, put together, which is fun. And it's also a bad time. This just depends on what you're trying to do and where you're going with it, I guess.

Snyders Return: 10:41

Yeah, I guess so. Which I've been naturally sort of brings up its own its own follow up question, which was having put out a supplement for someone else's game, and then bringing this this new system to life to achieve the style of game and the type of games that you want to do. What have you learned from that and brought forward sort of developed on effectively? Yeah,

Cory Burns: 11:04

I mean, that that's a good question. I mean, definitely don't be afraid to change things down the line, I had actually built a system for over arms initially. And then, as I'm working on it, I'm noticing, well, the math isn't really adding up, you know, things aren't working, how I intended it, I have run a couple games with that system. And I knew what I would have to do in order to fix the system. But at event it, you know, it essentially involved me destroying everything I had worked on for the past year, and then restarting from the ground up. And, you know, I, because I wanted it to be a fun game, because I wanted it to be good. I think that's probably the best thing I could have done. So I wipe the board clean and completely started over with the new system that we have today with over arms. So and it's also been used for Red Giant as well. It's been tweaked and changed, but definitely somewhere.

Snyders Return: 12:02

Yeah. So having sort of picked up these these sort of nuggets of information as it were and sort of built on them and created your own style. Very much. So even building on the influences, some of which you've mentioned there. What has it been like, sort of putting red giant out into the kickstarting space?

Cory Burns: 12:33

Yeah, so I mean, I'll preface that with Red Giant was a game before overarm, technically, it was, I had created it as an OSR system. And at that point, I, you know, I put it out, there's a few people who really liked it, it didn't get a lot of traction. And after over arms, I was like, Well, I love this thing that I built, but I want to make it better. So I went back and created red giant, and, you know, the the reception that I've been, I've been getting on it, it's is actually, you know, more, it's better than I thought it would be. It's definitely exceeded my expectations. And I don't know if that's due to the success from over arms or if people are just really liking the setting and the rules and everything else to do with the game. But I mean, I can't complain about the reception. It's gotten so far. Well,

Snyders Return: 13:25

I have supported it. But before I delve too much into into it from various different angles and perspectives. If someone's listening to this in Richard John studios over arms have heard of that red drone. I think I should check it out. We might give it a precis of what Red Giant is to help sort of really draw draw someone into it. The Raid Sainte Marie interested.

Cory Burns: 13:49

So Red Giant is a what I call a cursed world. tabletop RPG is rules light, you can read it in a day, play it in the same and it's inspired by anime like Berzerk Vampire Hunter D Claymore. And you could even say similarly, video games like Castlevania, or Dark Souls, even, you know, it's a whole new borrows kinds of game, your characters will die. That's that's supposed to happen. It's based in a world where the sun has kind of expanded, and the light from this sun kind of bathes the world in this curse light that awakens these horrors from the earth. And so you kind of the tagline for the game is you cannot save this world. And it's true. There's no way to reverse this from happening. You and your party are going to be traversing this cursed world in search of some sort of meaning for yourselves. You aren't going to be the heroic people who are saving this planet or Receiving this, you know, civilization, you're essentially witnessing the downfall of humankind while trying to make meaning out of your lives without giving up.

Snyders Return: 15:11

That's hauntingly beautiful. And that's partly why back to be going through the character creation, we mentioned a lot about this being sort of rules, like maybe more and more narrative based character creation seems very sort of fluid and streamlined. And there's some fun a nuance in there as well. How did sort of putting those structures in place sort of help set the scene and deliver the game that you've brought to Kickstarter and, and future success? Of course.

Cory Burns: 15:45

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I wish I had a better answer for it. But everything just kind of came together. It took time. I mean, I've worked on Red Giant in total for, you know, three, maybe even four years at this point. And so it's, it's definitely just been something that just came together with all the media that it was inspired by the, you know, mechanics that I got the stew on and figure out what works, what doesn't. It all really just kind of came together. And it came together, at least in the new system relatively quickly. I mean, red giant, with the new system is under a year old. So it's Yeah, I think that would that would be the only thing I can I can tell you about that.

Snyders Return: 16:33

It's the sort of the four basic stats, so you're not sort of scanning across an entire sheet for for in depth things. Oh, absolutely.

Cory Burns: 16:42

Yeah. I mean, with that, with the stats, it's, you know, I like to keep things simple. I like to keep things to where, if you if you didn't know anything about tabletop RPG, and you were going to, you know, try playing one, let's say you've really, like Berzerk, but you you've never played Dungeons and Dragons, you've never played any tabletop game. You know, I want it to be something that can be that gateway for people who are into this kind of media to jump into tabletop RPGs. Because I believe that the simpler the game is, the more intriguing it's going to be for people outside of the hobby.

Snyders Return: 17:14

Yeah, definitely. And just, I'm looking through next to me, because there's so much that I want to draw from without going through page by page for the great the Quickstart that is available on drive through and through the Kickstarter page. Again, link will be in the description below. Regarding going through personalities and flaws, so you can sort of get that inspiration series to sort of start putting your current together, past some misfortunes, again, really able to sort of just very quickly know who your character could be. And then build on that and then narratively bring them to life rather than in other systems, sort of spending longer flipping through several pages of rule books, trying to sort of piece this all together. And the archetypes I think are fantastic as well. So thank you. Do you have a particular favourite character setup,

Cory Burns: 18:07

I don't have a particular one right now. I know that some people in the rookie jet discord have been making some exchanges that have been some of my favourites. And for those who don't know, exchanges are a part of the system where you can exchange kind of a piece of yourself, like your soul or some something that you can do in exchange for another. For example, there's one I think called crow keeper, where you get a flock of seven crows or something like that, and then you can commit they'll abide by your every command, your will whatever, but in exchange, you're indefinitely blind. So those crows need to be your eyes and ears as well. And so deep yeah, like I said, people in the discord have been making some really good ones. And I like I fall more in love with that kind of stuff than I do my own because I get to watch you know, the, the baby grow up and people are making content for it. So very fun.

Snyders Return: 19:10

Yeah, that was one of the ones I was gonna pick out of the book, which is uncanny to be fair, or I'd say unkindness, or is that we're not going to burn. Again, moving through the Kickstarter, and it's so beautifully presented that the artwork the layout is is it just sings to me, even though it appears to be bleak, it still invokes that sense of adventure and yet weariness in it raises so much sort of emotion, conflict, almost. Combat we'll come back to in a moment, but you have sort of all the world building stuff is is there easily accessible, it's laid out it's simple, it's quick. GMs can can just help create even if the current players build on it with us? With sort of playing through the game in the system, do you? Do you have any advice for, per se, the new GM sort of picking up and wanting to introduce maybe some of those looking to sort of dip the toe or maybe commit some serious time to the system? Because it's definitely got longevity in it?

Cory Burns: 20:22

Yeah, yeah, thank you. Um, so. So this is kind of my advice with every tabletop RPG, because I see so many people falling into the pit, where new GMs or people who are approaching a new game, we'll craft this super intricate campaign or session with all these different branching paths of things that could happen. And, you know, I, my cousin, had approached me one time and had asked me what to do. And I told him, throw away everything you're doing, keep it very loose, keep a very loose plot, because you can create, you know, 25 different branches to one scenario, and your players will always find the 26th. One. You know, there's no way to prepare for what's going to happen. And in my opinion, you know, you want to, you want to create the story together, you don't want to have something planned for everything. So work on the improv, don't spend too much time creating all of these different branches that your players can go to. And try to, you know, try to work on your improv just a little bit so that you can stay ready and stay on edge for when someone does something you didn't expect, you still have an answer for it, then even if you're trying to tell a specific story, try to guide your players without letting them know they're on rails. And if they go left or right down a corridor, you know, all directions lead to the same. And the goal.

Snyders Return: 22:00

So don't ghosts, great advice about sort of the improvement and keeping that sort of, we're not in the end of the day trying to write a book, we're trying to tell a collaborative story. And that's dope what you said there is fantastic and great advice. Some of us feel like we might be cursed on times when we pretend to potentially fall foul of these things. And speaking of curses, the book, the magic and the curse system, where have you, where's all the inspiration come from some of those because they're brilliant, I have to say some of these guys, thank

Cory Burns: 22:34

you. So the magic system, there's three different types of magic, you have speech orbs and staffs. And so all of those have different use cases. Orbs are one time use expendable sort of items. Stamps are items you can use or you know, magical items that you can use multiple times, but they're less geared towards combat and more geared for narrative play. And then you have speech magic, which works off of keywords that goes through, I believe it's the type of magic, the area or size of the magic, and then the potency of the magic. So for example, would be like fire like fire pillar, minor fire pillar or something like that. So it does minor damage, it's fire and it creates a pillar of it. And so some of the inspiration from from that specific Magic Tree is definitely pulled from a game, and animais called dot hack, if you're familiar with that. And dot hack, they have these these world gates that you go to and you get keywords that you can add to one another so you could get like mystical grassy plains. And by putting those keywords into the gate, you would be teleported to a place that follows all three of those keywords. So I kind of thought you know, let's do the same thing with magic because that was the original just 100% that was going to be the only magic system and red giant. And then the curses. You know I just asked people I asked people I went looking around on the internet seeing you know what people had said before, what would be a good curse to have? And in a game and I think I think my absolute favourite curse from Red Giant because it's so silly. And it's also very cruel is just roll one D for you. You lose that many letters from your name. I think that's my absolute favourite. Because if your name if your name is four letters long, you know you no longer have a name. So narratively, what can that do to people no longer know who you are? Do you know or if your name is longer Do people just call you? You know something ridiculous. So No it's it's it's one of those curses that doesn't really impact the game a whole lot, but it is definitely there for flavour just because nothing safe. Nothing at all safe not even your name.

Snyders Return: 25:11

So you can go from having a glorious name to Clint Eastwood or Zapp branigan, The Man with No Name. Anyway, that's great. That's unusual reference to me. So you've we've learned a little bit about the setting we've learned a little bit about the magics the curses wonderful curses. I can't inflict these on on players when I when I get to run it for them, but I hope one of them falls foul of it. Who else with respect to like, monsters and beastie airy? What else? Can the characters look to come up against an experience out in this tortured a curses land that you have created?

Cory Burns: 25:56

Right? Yeah, I mean, we have a BC area of I believe it's 40 Plus creatures and horrors and there is a difference between them. creatures are kind of going to be the standard, you know, enemy that you come across in the game. But I don't want people to underestimate how actually powerful they can be, you know, taking inspiration from games like Dark Souls or games like Shadow of the Colossus, you know, every encounter should kind of operate like a boss fight, whether or not it's, you know, something that's a little flying dragon blowing fireballs at you. Or this, you know, 300 foot tall being made a void that you couldn't even hope to attack. So and I think that's, you know, a good way to kind of lead into the horrors because horrors are things that you're either going to win or you're going to die. I mean, there's just no, there's or you just don't engage in combat, you try to run. So some of the horrors I mean, are genuinely, you know, it's you don't stand the chance against them. It's it's you will be chased or you will be found you will be killed. So, it's, it's, it's kind of funny when I when I played it with people, because people will still treat it like, oh, well, I can I can take this thing down. And they swing the you know, I had one player swing a sword at one of the horrors I brought out. And I can't remember for the life of me which one it was, but I do remember that they just completely missed, you know, because they couldn't even hope because I was just like, do you guys want me to tell you know, what you're up against? And I told them the number and they're like, oh, wait, wait a second. And they looked at their sheets, and they go, we don't even have equipment that can hit that. And I was like, Yeah, you don't need so what are you gonna do? You know, so at that point, it becomes more of a, how do we kill this thing to how do we get away because there's no, you know, run away option, or button that you can hit? Right? It's it's a narrative experience of trying to escape this thing. And even beyond the creatures and horrors, you know, we have, we have a new scenario, we actually just dropped yesterday for backers who have backed red giants called unbroken wings. And in that there's actually one part where you enter the first area, which is Forest and you come across this little lady who is just staring into a pond. And she seems like she's having a conversation with something in the pond. And she's laughing, she's kind of speaking nonsense. And if anyone from your party goes up to speak with her, and this is something that GM should keep secret. But if anybody goes up to her, and tries to assist her, she is freed from the curse. And that party member takes over and is effectively dead. Unless somebody else wants to take over for them. And then the little old lady just goes running away into the forest.

Snyders Return: 29:11

That's amazing. That's amazing. I love it's

Cory Burns: 29:15

nice to let the people know what what they're getting into ahead of time. So I'd say if people play red giant, make sure you have at least one backup character.

Snyders Return: 29:25

Noted. Yeah. One backup character. Okay. So with with you mentioned there about the I was gonna say the Lady of the Lake, but that sounds very Arthurian. With that encounter and the other horrors, you mentioned there that particular encounter that scenario that that moment happens within a forest, but the sun itself has an effect, or can have an effect on the players. I'm looking through the book and the bleached.

Cory Burns: 29:58

Yeah. Yeah, the bleached. What was the?

Snyders Return: 30:02

What was the I was gonna say the spark? What was the the inspiration for those? Where did you draw that from? And? And how easy or how challenging Be careful where this is a GM? Is it to create characters to become the beach?

Cory Burns: 30:18

I mean, it's it's definitely more of a narrative sort of thing where it's, you know, oh, there's probably people you know, long ago who when this event happened we're staring at the sun, right? And so as the sun, you know, cursed energy radiates through and people look at it, their skin starts to become white, their eyes start to become red, and they kind of become your stereotypical zombie, but with more energy like think like, what is it 28 days later, something that that kind of style, except they just don't stop, they don't run out of energy. The sun feels them. The inspiration, I think I think there was something in Adventure Time that I had pulled that from, I can't remember 100%. But a lot of this stuff. You know, I wish I had more. I wish I had better answers for you. But it's just things that just come to me, either by reading the media and trying to adapt it to my own, or I'll see something and related media. And I'll go let's twist that. And let's turn that let's make it into something grotesque and horrifying.

Snyders Return: 31:28

I'd say you've achieved that. Well, thank you. So we've mentioned that you've mentioned Adventure Time, Jojos, and a few others. So what have been some of your sort of more overarching inspirations going into over arms and red giant and a few other things as well?

Cory Burns: 31:48

Yeah, I mean, over arms is definitely Jojos Bizarre Adventure persona related. Red Giant, I told you a few of the inspirations for that earlier. But overall, I mean, there's not like a single anime, or video game that inspires me to, you know, make everything sort of like this, I think a lot of the games that I make are just inspired by every kind of media that I can consume, then, I think the thing that inspires me the most is to take these kinds of themes generated from these different media, and create games that are not only a self contained package, but are also a toolkit. So that you can create your own I mean, even in red giant, or over arms, there's nothing saying you can't just strip the entire game of the setting. And, you know, reuse everything else and something that you've created. And I think that's where I found a lot of success. Because every in every tabletop game I've played with friends, something is home brewed. Yeah, something is tweaked, something has changed. And so instead of spending time, you know, building this super in depth lore heavy scenario, I give you the founding, you know, like the building blocks for it, I give you the foundation, and then at that point view, and the players can build what comes next. So I think I think a lot of it is just, I want to make simple games for people who otherwise wouldn't be playing tabletop role playing game.

Snyders Return: 33:29

Yeah, for sure. And so with, overarching, you've mentioned that sort of that one style of play and inspiration. Red Giant has another gimmick zero takes on another sort of approach to or influence sort of Bank of influences to bring to life. So if someone hasn't gone to your page on Drive Thru RPG, which I do recommend gimmick zero.

Cory Burns: 33:58

So gimmick zero is it, it was kind of unfortunate because that game was supposed to come out this year, but then life happens. And so I mean, that game is basically complete, we just have to work out some kinks in it and do a little bit more play testing. But gimmick zero is another game that like Red Giant kind of follows a baseline setting, but its main inspirations come from things like it it's kind of funny because a lot of the inspirations have zero in the title, which is why it's called gimmick zero. So it was inspired by like Megaman zero. Horizon Zero Dawn, right. Things like that. Evan Galleon. I know I'm missing something with a zero in the title right now but it has I pull a lot of different things and themes from those media to create this this kind of game and then gimmick zero you are basically the cybernetic hunters that are hired by companies to go out and destroy these machines that they've created that are malfunctioning. And so these machines called gimmicks are usually sent out into the world or they monitor the city, so that the people inside the cities can remain safe. And, you know, civilization can continue. And sometimes they malfunction. And due to their nature, you know, I mean, you could also take in Metal Gear Solid for this too, I mean, with the whole Metal Gear thing. And your job is to destroy them before the public finds out that they've malfunctioned. And sometimes that can happen smoothly and sometimes not so smoothly. But ultimately, the gimmicks in that game are kind of fighting against these threats called aberrations. And there's actually a really cool twist in the book towards the end when you start reading about the aberrations, so I'll leave it at that

Snyders Return: 36:01

a teaser for a future release for sure. Again, looking looking on your website and then looking through the the artwork again. It's top notch it's brilliant. So I can't wait to investigate that one in the future when it when it comes out what one of your games on Drive thru? I'm harping on about it because I just I'm I'm enamoured by your stuff.

Cory Burns: 36:26

That's that's very, very kind of,

Snyders Return: 36:29

well, you've got a couple of the one I haven't had a chance to look at is Bancho. Meow, meow, a

Cory Burns: 36:35

bunch of meow meow. Yeah. Banchero meow meow was a game that my girlfriend and I had made together. There was a there was a game jam going on. I can't remember which one it was. And I had seen that some people on there were making one page RPGs. And they were just one page in the layout, you could fold into a tiny little book. And I was like, well, that's, that's perfect. Because then I don't even have to go through the actual process of hiring somebody to lay out the book or doing it myself. I can literally just, you know, create something in Photoshop, and you guys can print it and you can make the book yourself and Banchero meow meow was a really fun game. That's the term bond show is kind of like, you know, the, the like, leader, the boss kind of it's like a Japanese term for like, for delinquent gangs, I believe. Feel free to correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong on that. But so the game kind of revolves around you having you are playing as the bond show of your own cat gang, and you go up against other players cat gang. So it's kind of like a PvP role playing game. But it's also simple enough to where you can grab some beer and some chips and play it for 30 minutes. And you can knock the entire thing out. It's not a game that's as in depth or involved as Red Giant over arms gimmick zero. It's it's sort of just like a little party game. But I have I have found myself coming back to it because I think it's adorable. And I had fun playing it. And I think that I'd like to see more content for that eventually, maybe I know, it had actually a pretty good reception upon release. But it was it's definitely kind of gone under the radar just due to the source material. But I wanted to make something you know, that was kind of family oriented, not just here's my edgy enemy games all the time.

Snyders Return: 38:39

Good to spread your wings. Well, speaking about sort of trying different things and wanting to Yeah, try out different systems, different settings and different markets almost. Right. Are there other systems out there that have sort of caught your eye mentioned Retama right at the start that sort of helped you in? You've been sort of playing play testing your own games and helping to bring them to life? Are there other game systems out there you like? No, I like the way that looks. Maybe one day when I've got through my stack of pre read unread books, right? You eventually sort of try and get a shot of

Cory Burns: 39:19

that. Yeah, I have a lot that I can mention that I you know, I there's there's a there's quite a bit that I really love when it comes to tabletop RPGs number one I have to mention electric Bastion lands. That that game reading through that is is so easy, because the game doesn't try to be complex where it shouldn't be it tries to be if you like the exchanges from Red Giant, you're going to love electric fashion land. I think that does it even better. And I wish I would have known that they had done that before I started otherwise I might have lifted that from them. But electric fashion land is a fantastic book. It's easy to read. The artwork is gorgeous. They pulled out all the stops for it's fantastic. I can't recommend it enough. Kids on bikes is a super fun game to play. You know, you a lot of tabletop RPGs focus on like this super mystical kind of worlds and powers and things like that. And kids on bikes is kind of like, if you want to play something set in a setting like the Goonies or stranger thing, let's see then or you know, if you want to just there's so much that you can do any any like movie setting that just focuses on kids, you can do it on kids on bikes. And I think it's I think it's fantastic. Because I have a lot of memories from you know, going and getting into trouble with my friends when I was a kid. And now we've all grown up and we play tabletop RPGs. So kids on bikes is a fantastic one. And then the third one I've mentioned. Oh, Purgatory house. So purgatory house is actually made by a local designer from Ohio as well. And I play it every single Halloween. It's more of like a horror game. But you can you're kind of investigating these haunted houses and things like that. It uses blackjack as its system. That's clever. And it's amazing. I can't, I'm not going to go into explaining how it works right now. But if that interests you, and you like horror, just check out purgatory house by Robert Turk. It's fantastic.

Snyders Return: 41:29

Yeah, I will go and investigate that. Not Well, after we've spoken to be honest, because that's true. But that mechanic sounds interesting. So

Cory Burns: 41:38

it's brilliant. I mean, it's absolutely brilliant. I keep remind, remind them every Halloween after playing. I'm like, I'm gonna steal this from you one day.

Snyders Return: 41:50

I'll surely be on it. To be fair. So we have sort of covered it covered a lot of topics. From Yeah. Getting into tabletop role playing games over arms. Retama. Red Giant, a few there have sort of interest for the future is one thing that we haven't spoken about that you want to bring up before we sort of bring this interview to the end.

Cory Burns: 42:16

You know, just basically check out the Kickstarter for red giant. And if anything that I've talked about today is you know, inspired anybody or interested in anybody, check out the Quickstart it's free. You can download it from h.io or drive thru RPG. I'm sure he's like You said you'll have the links down at the bottom or you can grab it from rookie jet calm. And, you know, thanks for checking out my games. I appreciate it.

Snyders Return: 42:43

All right. Well, yeah. Links will be in the description. You want to give one last shout for where people can find you on social media. We mentioned that the website but social media itself lately?

Cory Burns: 42:54

Yeah, I'm mostly on Twitter. I'm really trying to grow my Twitter presence. So twitter.com/ricky Jett studio, come and listen to me pitch you games on Twitter. I also retweet some really cool stuff from other game designers that you may or may not know. And, you know, feel free to follow me on instagram calm slash RPG Studio facebook.com. And anything else that you could possibly think of? I'm probably on there with slash rakija studio.

Snyders Return: 43:26

So well, Cory, it's been such a pleasure to learn sort of more about yourself as much as anything else. But the fantastic products, you put out the Kickstarter for red giant, which is ongoing at the moment. If you're listening to this down the line, please just go and pick up a copy of the game. The artworks fantastic. So it's been a real pleasure. And you know, I'd love to get you back on when either gimmick zero or one of your future projects comes out. So lately even maybe even get a one shot together or something similar.

Cory Burns: 43:58

Oh, that'd be fun. That'd be super fun. Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I'd love to come back. Thank you so much for having me. It's It's been fun sitting down and talking to you. And also, I meant to call this out earlier, but you you've made some very, very witty references to my past titles of games, like at the beginning of this whole podcast, and I just wanted to I just wanted to mention that because I don't know that anyone else is going to catch on to that.

Snyders Return: 44:22

I hope so. But your work stands on its own. So it doesn't know my title. It

Cory Burns: 44:27

isn't I was lying to you. I'm like, okay, okay. He's, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, thank you.

Snyders Return: 44:32

I'm so glad I managed to for you as well. But yes, no, Cory has been an absolute pleasure. I can't wait to talk to you again. Fantastic. 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. You 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 Whatever please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve the channel and provide better content out for for those who are listening until we until we speak again thank you