Home > News > Killer Bunnies® News > 13 April 2010 CTA Interview
MagicCarrot.com interviews Creative Team Alpha about their Ultimate Odyssey
MagicCarrot.com sat down with Creative Team Alphain April and talked about the Ultimate Odyssey, Killer Bunnies, and other games. Creative Team Alpha’s fearless leader Jeff Bellinger, Creative Director Jonathan Young, and Product Development Specialist A.J. Pfeifer answer fans’ questions and give tantalizing answers to our Odyssey questions.
The transcript has been lightly edited. Because the transcript is so long, a table of content is provided:
Is Odyssey the end of the line?
Are there any cards that CTA would re-do?
Have you experienced magical moments during game play?
Jeff has a message regarding new product
Introductions
Glenn: If each of you could introduce yourselves and describe your roles within Creative Team Alpha, so people can know what each of you do.
Jeff Bellinger: Since I’m the most important person, I’m going to go first! Hi, I’m Jeff Bellinger and I like sesame rolls and poppy seed.
Kathy: [Laughs]
JB: Were we talking about rolls? We were talking about rolls, right?
Glenn: Yes, we were!
Kathy: [Laughs]
JB: Most rolls are good. I like Onion rolls, actually—that’s my favorite.
Kathy: There’s a reason you get along with him, Glenn.
JB: I guess I’m in charge of coming up with the raw ideas for the games and the funny names and the pop-culture references. It is certainly not a one-man job. Almost every aspect of what each of us does is a team effort. And here’s Jonathan...
Jonathan Young: I’m Jonathan and I guess you can call me the Creative Director, or the Art Director, or whatever fancy, fun title you want to give me. I make what Jeff does look good.
Glenn: Because otherwise it wouldn’t?
JY: I’m just going to sit here quietly now.
Glenn: [Laughs]
JY: He [indistinct] me a lot. You should put that in there!
Glenn: Okay, we’ll do.
JY: I’m the logical Spock to his frenzied Kirk.
Glenn: Ah.
JY: Although he looks a lot more like Janeway than Kirk.
JB: Although. I. Don’t. Know. What. He’s. Talking. About.
Glenn: Oh, very good Shatner!
JB: Thank you, thank you. I’m finished now.
JY: I take what he does and add the graphics parts to it. Everything from the card mechanic to the look of the game and even the artwork. Sometimes Jeff gives me a lot of creative freedom and sometimes he give me a very specific direction and we meet somewhere halfway in between.
Glenn: That is wonderful. What does A.J. add to the mix?
A.J. Pfeifer: I do a lot of playtesting and basically with our newest game, [Killer Bunnies and the Ultimate] Odyssey. I do a lot of rules checking. I make sure there’s a good continuity going on, that nothing clashes and that rules changes are correct and in place, uh, correctly.
Magic The Gathering
JB: He’s also an avid Magic player and he makes sure that whatever we do is creative but not duplicating any of their universe. Which is cool, because I’m certainly not a Magic player. He’s like an expert.
Glenn: Is that why we’re getting a lot more Magic-like play in Odyssey?
JB: I like to think Odyssey is a lot more like [Killer] Bunnies than it is like Magic. I’d say the number one thing that they share is that there’s “card cost” on each card. But really, after that, you’d say that this is a Bunny game. It’s got Run, Special, Very Special cards. It’s got the five-card in your hand, two-down mechanic. Well, a ton of Bunnies. It has all the condition bars on the left side, like you need a Bunny in The Bunny Circle, etcetera, etcetera. So anyone who’s played either [Killer Bunnies and the] Quest [for the Magic Carrot] or [Killer Bunnies and the Journey to] Jupiter would find playing Odyssey very simple.
AJ: Another note on that is any type of game where you have players constructing their own ideas and putting together their own decks, the resource system or card cost. It’s pretty much impossible to get around it. So I guess Magic was the first game to have that, and that a lot of people will relate that and think its Magic-like, but it’s really it’s really hard to break that mold of card cost and still have an effective game.
Glenn: Interesting. I have never played Magic myself. I’m kind of a casual gamer. Kathy, have you ever played Magic?
Kathy: No, I haven’t.
AJ: It’s very complicated!
JB: Bunnies is nowhere near, and [to AJ] you correct me if I’m wrong, but Bunnies is nowhere near as complicated as Magic.
AJ: Not in the slightest. I’m mean, what’s our rule page on the first set of Odyssey? How many pages is that?
JB: How many pages, Jonathan?
JY: Four.
JB: Four!
AJ: I believe that Magic, when I first started playing in 1995, the little booklet was about 30 or 40 pages in six-point font, so yeah, it is nowhere near as complex as Magic is.
JB: We’re hoping that will work to our advantage!
Unpublished CTA Games
Glenn: Good! Now, we’ve got some questions prepared and I’m going to try to ask them as the conversation flows, but I’d like to start with some Creative Team Alpha questions. So, admittedly, according to your new web site—nice job on that by the way—many Creative Team Alpha games have gone unpublished. What are your favorite unpublished games and we welcome any speculation as to why they remain unpublished today.
JB: AJ’s going to start this one.
AJ: Wonderful. My personal favorite out of the games we haven’t published yet is probably a game called “Where the Buffalo Roam.” It’s exceptionally fun and every time you play it it seems to be a blast. Its a great party game, which is kind of unusual for us because there’s no seriousness involved, not that there’s much in Killer Bunnies! It’s very fun and games don’t traditionally last very long so its good for a crowd that is not looking to spend a whole afternoon or evening on a game.
JB: Jonathan?
JY: What?
JB: We’re going counter-clockwise now.
JY: Well, we have so many that … I’ve never been asked that question.
JB: I’ve never been asked that question, either! [Laughs]
JY: There’s a game that we have that is a combination of board game and cards and it’s called “Solar Flare.” And, it’s interesting. I like the game mechanics, and its fun to play, and I did the graphic design for it, but I actually didn’t do the illustrations for it. But its still a very fun game to play.
JB: I’m going to go with “Slots of Fun”. [Laughs] “Slots of Fun” was one of the worst games that I ever made. It was a really good idea at the time, but ... wow. I would have to say that my favorite is, yeah, I’m going to have to go with “Arch Thirteen”, which is kind of a relatively new game that I did this year and its got a lot of promise. We haven’t showed to a lot of publishers yet. We’re kind of negotiating right now with one. Again, a simple game, but it’s kind of different every time and you don’t really need a whole lot of instructions to play. One of the things with Bunnies is that, especially with the boosters and expansions, it can get pretty complex. I almost like to take a break from thinking about Bunnies and try something light and “Arch Thirteen” was definitely something I enjoyed working on. Although I will say “Where the Buffalo Roam” is roaming in as a close second.
Glenn: We really like party games that are easy to teach to a group of people that probably aren’t going to hang around all night. Will those every be published?
JB: Well, from your mouth to God’s ears! We pitch to publishers every year and we keep our fingers crossed. You never know what any particular publisher is going to like or dislike. There’s been interest in all three, but times are tough right now and so I think everybody’s kind of being very conservative and if they don’t see anything that’s like, unbelievably unique or an über-hit, they’re kind of holding back. They’ll all be kind of shelved for now and we’ll continue to push and pitch those. I’m hoping to see all three out eventually. Nothing for sure, yet. Only in the works. I don’t know how much of this you know, so I’ll make this brief, but there’s not a lot of game companies that we can pitch to. I mean, there are a lot of game companies out there. You go to GenCon or Origins and there are hundreds and hundreds of game companies but I classify them in three different categories: there’s the Mattel and Parker Brothers, and Hasbro and [indistinct] of the Code, the big huge companies that we can’t even get our foot in the door; there are the smaller companies that they made their company because they have a game that they made and they only publish games that they make; and then there’s the people like Playroom that are kind of in the middle, that work with people like us to develop the games. But that’s the smallest group of the three.
AJ: Yeah, by far, by far.
JY: So even though there are a lot of game companies out there, there’s not a lot for us to work with as independent designers. And we don’t have the finances to go to this full-time.
Journey to Jupiter
Glenn: Things are tough out there. As I mentioned in a couple of my emails, a number of our local gaming stores have closed and we’ve been quite disappointed in that. This year, have you seen a great drop-off in sales, or is it fear on the publisher’s part of the unknown game? An established title might be a safe be, but an unknown game might not be.
JB: I do all of the finances for the company and I can tell you exactly. We saw a relatively low drop in our sales. This was the first year that we actually had a drop since we’ve been around, but it was not unexpected. Our drop was considerably lower than most people. So overall, I’m not disappointed. So far this year, Playroom is getting ready to release fifteen new products, just by us, all Killer Bunnies—but in fifteen different packages, which is really good for us. We have one game coming out by another publisher, I can’t, unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it is, because they have not finished development yet. They’re looking for kind of a Christmas release. They’ve not given us the “okay” to release any information. So overall, our personal company, CTA, is putting out sixteen products this year, which is more than we’ve put out in the last five or six years. So several different types of package. All I can say is “fingers crossed.” With the economy as it is, I believe we have a great business model for selling it in small, inexpensive packages. And hopefully that will draw in new players as well as entice our old fans to come back and try something new.
JY: Also, to put that into perspective, the drop may have been the economy, it may have been the sales, but its pretty possible that its drop may have been that we haven’t had as many releases in the last year, as in previous years. It’s been two years since [the] Onyx [expansion] came out and the only game that we’ve published since then has been Jupiter and that’s a tough sell because the higher-priced game. We just haven’t had as many releases in the last year, so that may also affect our bottom dollar.
JB: We always knew that Jupiter sales would not match Quest, but what we always wanted to emphasize to our fans was that whatever you buy, you’re going to get your money’s worth, and I think by far, Jupiter is the more intense, more thought-provoking, more of a gamer’s game.
AJ: Absolutely.
JB: Which is what the public was asking for, and we did about five or six year’s worth of play-testing before we released it. I’m extremely proud of it and I think “the test of time.” I think in time, when people take a chance on Jupiter, they will definitely see that its the more intense game. I’m not going to say better. It depends on what you’re doing. If you’ve got, like a party situation and people just want to hang out, and kinda not think too much, and just play a game to be entertained, Quest is definitely the ticket. But if you’ve got an afternoon, and you’re with a bunch of gamers who are up for something a little bit more challenging, then Jupiter is the ticket. A.J., you have something to say about Jupiter.
AJ: We’ve had many a day—many a days—of intense games of Jupiter that, well, their lifespan has well-surpassed the afternoon. Jupiter just seems to be a blast. Every time we play it is a great game. Everything I hear from it is just a remarkable experience. Whenever I’m with any of my other gamer friends, they absolutely love Jupiter and they always ask me to play it. It’s definitely my favorite out of Quest and Jupiter. I really, really think Jupiter is...
JB: There may not be as many Jupiter fans, but the ones that play it intensely love it.
AJ: Right.
JB: I mean, we’ve got plenty of Bunnies fans, but... wow. The Jupiter fans are actual fanatics. So, there you go.
Glenn: Thank you for that very good answer. Speaking of competition, …
JB: I forgot what the question was!
Glenn: [Laughs]
JB: [Laughs] It was so long ago, I’m in a different time zone now! I’m sorry, I tend to be a little long-winded.
Glenn: That’s okay. Then we can move onto the next one.
Competition
Glenn: Certain entertainment sectors, like cable television, are feeling pressure from the Internet and I imagine board games are feeling a lot of pressure from video games. Can you describe what you do to create a game that is interesting to the set of fans that grew up with video games, like those who are younger than we are?
JB: Everyone’s younger than we are! [Laughs]
Glenn: [Laughs]
AJ: Well, not me!
JB: [Laughs] No, no, not him. We should say that AJ is the baby here. He’s 23. He’s 23.
Glenn: Oh, my word.
JB: Jonathan is in this thirties, so....
JY: Jeff’s in his forties ... almost 50.
JB: Almost.
AJ: Right. There was a question there.
JB: There was a question there? Oh, right. I’ll start this one, but chime in. I don’t have television or Internet. That’s my answer.
AJ: He’s got dial-up! Make sure you’ve got that loud and clear. There is someone with dial-up in these United States!
JB: I’m going on record that I’m switching over to WiFi, I swear, sometime this year. I’ll tell you what. I’ve played my fair share of video games and I’ve played my fair share of Internet games, and TV, whether you get it on cable or you have the discs, or your NetFlix, or whatever the case may be, I have to say that I think for the most part, even the video games that you can play with other people but they’re somewhere else, they’re all lacking something. Whether you play the computer or you play somebody who lives in a different city, they lack a personal interaction. They lack camaraderie. They lack a social aspect of it that I think only being in the same room with somebody else can provide. Now, if you’ve got five guys all with control panels and sitting playing a video game, even that interaction, which is all virtual, cannot compare to a few bowls of pretzels, some candy, some root beer, some good folks, good food, good friends. And that’s where I see Killer Bunnies. As like in all the match to that. When you’ve got good folks, good food, good friends, you’ve got good times, whether you’re playing a board game or out doing some other activity. And I think that there will definitely be a swing back to more social interaction. People miss it and I think people crave it. People are not, in general, lonely creatures. We like being around other people. We like interacting. And that’s how I... I know that’s for me. I mean, there are plenty of nights I’ll be sitting around watching a movie and I’d rather be with a crowd of people. But that’s just me. [To AJ] You’re a gamer.
AJ: I have a little bit more experience. I’m definitely a gamer. I own an X-Box. I play on-line pretty much every night with my friends, especially those who, you know, move away for school. I can say, that pretty much as far as being a gamer is concerned, I would much rather, a hundred percent of the time, I’d much rather sit for an afternoon with my friends and play a game, you know a card game, whether it be Bunnies or Magic or whatever, I would much rather do that than sit and play a video game. I think you have a unique interaction when you’re there when you’re with other people. Not only that, I think something that is lost that people don’t really think about, is I tend to remember a lot more afternoons of a good games of Bunnies, and who won that Bunnies game, and what happened in that Bunnies game, than I did in the last 12 or 13 games of Call of Duty or Halo or anything along those lines. So I think they’re a lasting impression when it comes to gaming as well. Also, the physical attributes, you actually have something that’s texture, and you can do something with it, instead of just sitting there staring at a screen. So I think there’s a lot of subtle differences, and I don’t think many people stop and think about it, but it does seem to be a more fun and entertaining experience when you actually have a live presence there and a live audience to interact with, rather than nameless and faceless people over a TV screen.
JB: Boy, you sure have to pull those answers out of us, don’t you?
Glenn: Yes, you’re all so reserved.
Kathy: [Laughs]
AJ: They don’t let us out much.
JB: [Laughs] No, we don’t get out much. Jonathan, do you have anything to add to that one?
AJ: He Passed.
Glenn: You’re taking a “pass”?
JB: He’s taking a pass.
Hardest part of the artwork
Glenn: Okay, then I’ll direct the next question at Jonathan.
JY: Wa-hoo!
JB: I’ll take “Stump Jonathan” for five hundred, please.
Glenn: For the aspiring artists out there, which artwork elements were the hardest to develop within each of the games and what did you do to master them?
JY: Which element?
Glenn: What parts of the artwork were hardest to create? If you had a particular vision or Jeff had a particular idea that you wanted to put down and make it a card, what were some of the things that were really challenging and what did you do to overcome those challenges?
JY: You’re opening up can of worms here. Barrel of monkeys.
JB: I’d better leave the room. [Laughs]
AJ: We’ll be back in about an hour?
JY: Oh, geez. Where do I begin with that one?
JB: Think Jonathan, think!
JY: The game development is—When we develop a game there is a lot of work at the beginning developing the mechanics of it, you know, how big is the text going to be, what icons are going to be where, you know, we have different size icons, we’ve got from icons to the “Run” and the “Special” and all of these things we have to develop. But once that’s done, everything else is the images. If we’re going to talk about images, oh my.
When Jeff develops a game, its fully play-tested before I get it. So all the text is done and all the images... the cards are done, but there’s no image on them. And Jeff gives me “Here’s what I want for this card, or what I’m envisioning” and sometimes its very, very, very specific and very detailed and its referencing a specific pop-culture reference, or it has some sort of mathematical equation to it, or its very loose.
I remember one card, I asked him what he wanted from this and he said “I don’t know. I just thought the title was cute.” And then I have to come up with an image for that. I don’t know if it would be difficult. I just think its fun to come up with different ideas to match what he has in the playability of the card. And its fun talking with the fans because they catch a lot of the things I throw in there to a point where they try to catch things that aren’t there. The things that we throw in there, from planet Jupiter being in Quest before they even knew we were doing the Jupiter game, to characters that show up, to things in the background, to “Viva Las Vegas,” which has references to twenty-one other cards. So they’re just kinda fun to throw in there.
Glenn: That was a particularly good scene, incidentally.
JY: [Laughs] That one was fun. It’s just fun to create characters, unique and original characters. They all have ears and tails, but they’re all different, unique characters. Bellinger’s a character in the game, and I’m a character in the game, but I don’t appear as often as he does.
AJ: And I’m finally getting my first card in Odyssey!
JY: And AJ has a card.
JB: He’s a robot. He’s going to be robot.
AJ: If anybody knows Robocop, keep your eyes...
Glenn: Oh, sure. So, we won’t really be able to tell its you?
AJ: Well, no.
JY: Yes.
AJ: I didn’t say Robocop himself, but anybody familiar with the Robocop universe and the characters, yeah. That’s about it.
JY: Sometimes Jeff will give me a card that I look at and think “How am I going to make this funny?” Or “How am I going to make this fun or artistic?” Some of them are a little challenging. But I’ve also gone back to him and convinced him “Let’s change this card,” either by title or by mechanic to make it... to kind of match the artwork.
Kathy: Hmmm.
JY: For example, he gave me a card called the “Mach 3 Staple Gun”?
JB: “Mach 1 Staple Gun”
JY: “Mach 1 Staple Gun”.
JB: It kinds of rhymes. Kind of.
JY: Mach one, staple gun. Okay. I can see. I sat there and couldn’t figure out how to make a staple gun look like its going mach 1. As I was drawing it, I said “Well, why don’t we change this to a “Cylon Staple Gun?” and that’s how that card came about.
JB: It’s not like I’m a big fan of science fiction or anything, but I let him go with it.
Everybody: [Laughs]
JY: I put things in the cards that Jeff doesn’t even know about.
JB: Sometimes.
Glenn: Do you have an example, like on 23 Skidoo, what that little thing hanging from the building is?
JB: You don’t know?
Glenn: Is that Spiderbunny?
JB: Yes!
JY: Yes, it is Spiderbunny. [Laughs]
JB: Do you know why he’s there?
Glenn: Nope.
JB: Because that building in that card is where “The Daily Bugle” is at in the movie.
Glenn: A-ha, okay. I’ve been to New York, but I kind of missed that. [Laughs]
JB: It’s on Broadway and Fifth, isn’t it?
JY: Twenty-three isn’t it?
JB: Yeah, Broadway and Twenty-third.
Glenn: Next time I get to New York, I’ll have to look for it.
JB: [Laughs] Let us know if you see the Spiderbunny!
Glenn: I will, because then I’m on some serious chemicals!
AJ: I heard you can get serious cash getting pictures of him.
Everybody: [Laughs]
AJ: Like Peter Parker.
Glenn: Yes, that is how he got his big break.
Game Design
Glenn: How did you determine the “look” of each game, because each one has a little different look. Or was it artwork kind of evolved over time and we’re just seeing a snapshot of what it looked like at that time?
JY: In each game, or each booster deck?
Glenn: Well, actually, either. We notice that Quest cards have certain similar elements. The bunnies tend to look more bunny-like, than say, the artwork we’ve seen for Jupiter or Odyssey so far, you know, the promotional artwork, it seems that they’re a little more anthropomorphized in the later games than the earlier games.
JB: What was that word? I’m looking that up right now.
AJ: Anthropomorphized.
JB: How about I’m checking my thesaurus. [Laughs] You threw me with that one there!
JY: I can answer that on an artistic level, but I’m going to pass that to Jeff answer it on a story-line level.
JY: This is not a very commonly-known fact, but I don’t shy away from it either, but I’m not the first artist to draw bunnies for Quest. I was about the third or fourth artist to come on board when Jeff was making the game out of his garage before it was sold to Playroom. There was kind of a style already developed. I helped Jeff develop the game from a graphic design standpoint using existing artwork. But there came a time where we ran out of artwork. A couple booster decks is all we got. And then I had worked with it enough that I just continued to draw in that style. And when Playroom bought the game out, I went back and redrew the majority of the cards so that they had a consistent style. And that’s where you get the bunnies that look more like bunnies instead of more like humans. There’s a mix of styles there. Some of them are very tall and human-like. Some of them are absolutely anthropomorphized.
JB: Anthropomorphysis.
JY: [Laughs] There are some that have haunches and some that are large bosomed and some that are butch and some that are short and some that are fat. You know, A good variety of styles. When we developed Jupiter, we wanted to make sure people recognized them as the Killer Bunnies. I started the game with the five bunnies that are used as bunnies and went back and forth with Jeff. The first round—that nobody’s ever seen—were very round and very bunny-like, as opposed to human-like. They had haunches and they were shorter and rounder. I’d say cuter, but I like the ones we’ve got now. We decided that these bunnies fly ships and they’re out in space so they have to have thumbs and legs and feet so that they can drive ships. And so we did go with the more human-like figure with that. The story line continues in Odyssey. They continue with that. They evolved a little bit more. They’re still very Killer Bunny-esque. I think the one big change we made in Odyssey is that they have to wear clothes.
JB: Yes, that’s true.
JY: A lot of the bunnies in Quest don’t wear clothes.
JB: They don’t wear pants.
Glenn: That’s just in Walt Disney tradition!
JY: We had a comment from somebody that complained about … what was the card name?
JB: “Beauty On Duty”.
JY: … Beauty On Duty … which is a parody of “Down Periscope” and Lieutenant Lake, who is a very large-breasted actress, in a very small, tight-fitting outfit, and we drew a bunny like that. And the complaint was it was pornographic because she’s not wearing pants.
Glenn: Wow.
JY: I went back and counted, and out of all the bunnies in Quest, there are about five that wear pants.
Glenn: [Laughs]
JY: The majority of them don’t wear pants. But in the new games, they’re all wearing clothes. No naked bunnies. No pornography.
Glenn: I do notice with the Jupiter bunnies, that it’s almost like they’re paper dolls. They’re all in the same position, and basically have an overlay of clothing on them. Can you describe the creative process by which you created the set—and by “you” I mean all of you who were involved—the set of initial bunnies that we have and how did you choose the particular TV shows that are being parodied in those?
JY:When Jeff originally developed the game, and his fascination with science fiction, he wanted to parody “Space: 1999”. Because of some copyright laws, we can’t develop a game that has too much emphasis on one parody. We can get away with all of the parodies that we do because it is small percentage of the game. So I said “Let’s do each color a different sci-fi show.” And so I developed the five bunnies and then we sat down as a team, Jeff and I, and AJ and a few other guys, and figured out which five we were going to do, and that also includes we knew what we were doing for red, which was “Red Dwarf.”
JB: That was easy.
AJ: The best!
JY: It’s not just the clothes. They’re also holding—we decided we were going to give them each a prop. Some of them were pretty easy to figure out what they were going to hold. So their hands move, based on what they’re holding. Can I tell them the fast-forward story?
JB: Sure, sure. Keep going. You’re doing fine.
JY:We sat down on two different days with the team in Jeff’s living room and we had to find props for the “Space: 1999” show and the “Battlestar Galactica” show.
AJ: No.
JB: Lost in Space.
JY: Lost in Space.
JB: Right.
AJ: So that would be violet, orange and green bunnies, for everybody that doesn’t get the references.
JY: We’re all big “Star Trek” fans and “Star Trek” has a lot of cool little gadgets. The “Star Wars” yellow bunnies all have light sabers.
JB: I want to go on record here saying I totally objected to “Star Wars” bunnies.
AJ: Yeah, I had to fight to get that in there, guys, so everybody, all the bunnies fans that like “Star Wars”, you can send the emails to me in thanks that I fought to get that in there. Enough of this “Star Trek.”
JB: It’s not that I don’t like “Star Wars”... Well, I should say that I don’t dislike it. I’m not really thrilled with it. I never, ever, had it.
AJ: That’s because you don’t understand its superiority over “Star Trek.”
JB: We’ve had this debate many times.
AJ: Yes!
JB:I’m a trekkie from birth. I’m a “Lost in Space” guy from birth. And “Space:1999” from close to birth. And, of course, you know, Galactica. It’s really weird because when you think about it, [Star Trek:The] “Next Generation. We decided to go with Next Gen only because we didn’t want all of the shows to be that old. “Lost in Space” was the 60’s. “Space: 1999” was the 70’s and so was Battlestar Galactica. And so we went with Next Gen because it was the 80’s. So “Star Trek” [The Next Generation] was the most modern of all of the references.
AJ: Even Star Wars was late 70’s early 80’s.
JB: It was amazing. If we’d gone with the original “Star Trek” the problem was that all of the uniforms were different colors. So we’d decided to go with Next Gen because there was so much similarity and we could make them all the same color and still have the patterns, we needed recognition. That’s more from your end of it.
JY:Once we got the five, or the six if you count red, themes figured out, we worked on the outfits, what type of outfits were recognizable, but not the same outfit on every character. Then we sat down as a team and fast-forwarded through every single “Battlestar Galactica” episode. And every single “Space: 1999” episode. And every single “Lost in Space” episode.
JB: And you have to really pay attention when you’re watching at sixteen speed, looking for props!
AJ: Holy prop! There’s one! It’s a good one. Go back. Wait, no. They’re too far.
Everybody: [Laughs]
JY: It turns out it was a very unique experience for the team’s relationships.
AJ: I definitely recommend any types of teams out there, do this stuff for research. You’ll definitely get a bonding experience out of it. [Laughs]
Glenn: Well, I look forward to that.
JB:We have the theme song to “Space: 1999” pretty memorized.
AJ: [Laughs]
Glenn: Can you hum it for us?
JB: Have you seen the show?
Glenn:“Space: 1999”?
JB: Yeah.
Glenn: Sure. Oh, yeah, I used to watch it as a kid.
JB: [unintelligible]
JY: It’s very pornographic. It’s like a 1950’s porn show.
JB: Close your eyes and you don’t get Sci-Fi?
JY: We’re talking about the theme music.
JB: No, not Martin Landau. He’s not pornographic.
Glenn: Or Barbara Bain.
JB: Or Barbara Bain. No, no.
Glenn: As long as you seem to like Gerry Anderson shows, are we ever going to see his earlier live-action work, in the TV series “UFO”?
JB: Actually, I have all of “UFO” on disc. I’ve gone through it once, and this was years ago, when it first came out on disc, and I haven’t, and I don’t know that I’ll actually do it again. It was really difficult to sit through “UFO,” having never seen it as a kid. But I will say that we’ve already put a “UFO” reference in Odyssey.
Glenn: Awesome! I look forward to that.
JB: It’s the car. The brown car.
Glenn: Mm-hmm.
JB: With the gull-wing doors.
Glenn: Mm-hmm.
JB: Yeah, that’s already in it. It’s in the card “Auto Pile Up”.
JY: I haven’t seen it yet.
JB: It hasn’t gone to the Art Director yet, but it’s a few years away. It’s in there.
JY: If you’ve read some of the comments that I’ve left on the forums, I’ve made comments that we’re just as excited when stuff comes out because we work a year ahead of schedule, so it’s a big surprise when it comes out for us. So, Jeff is on the sixth or seventh booster deck already for Odyssey...
JB: I’m on the fourteenth.
AJ: Yeah, the fourteenth.
JB: AJ and I were discussing the fourteenth booster deck earlier this afternoon.
AJ: That’s right.
JY: [Pause] I’m on the third one.
Everyone: [Laughs]
Glenn: Well, I’m sure you have a lot of lead time to do all of the artwork on those. That’s quite a bit of effort. I’ve tried my hand at it a little bit and I couldn’t do, probably more than a card a day, so if you can hit more than that, I’m quite impressed.
JY: One of the things that will come out, and we haven’t started talking about it yet, is I’m not actually doing the artwork for Odyssey. I’m doing probably twenty-thirty cards per deck. But we have hired several other artists that are drawing for us. That work that you see in all of those promotions. We’ll be introducing those artists officially as the game is released.
AJ: One of them might be at GenCon.
JY: That just comes from not because I didn’t want to, but I just don’t have the time to.
Glenn: Oh, of course.
JY: Because contrary to popular belief, Jeff and I and AJ have full-time jobs to provide [indistinct].
Glenn: Oh yes, we know that.
JB: We don’t enjoy them, but we have them! [Laughs]
AJ: That’s right. [Laughs]
Is Odyssey the end of the line?
Glenn: Promotional cards notwithstanding, is Odyssey the end of the Killer Bunnies series or will there be a fourth game beyond that?
JB: End?! There’s no such word! We have plans for a fourth game, but we talk very little about that. Odyssey is open-ended. You see, Quest ended exactly where it was always planned to be ended. And Jupiter has a planned end because we’ll run out of planets. [Laughs] But Odyssey is open-ended. Playroom asked for an open-ended game and they got one. So, as long as sales keep going, we’ll probably continue to work on Odyssey. I mean, one can say we’ll stop after the twenty-sixth deck, because the decks are lettered.
JY: Because we’ll die. [Laughs]
JB: He’s kidding. I’d like to officially say that I will not be dying—ever. But the decks are lettered and so after we get to “Z” I don’t know if we’ll just pack it up and do something else. But to answer your question, “yes,” but nobody knows anything about it.
AJ: I think the main thing there with Odyssey is that when Odyssey comes out, if the Bunnies fans really like it, and if you guys really do like it that much, all you have to do to make sure the game stays around is buy the game. As long the sales are good on the game, then that gives us enough to keep making it and keep producing it as long as we can.
JB: Actually, I’m going to disagree with that. We’ll keep producing it as long as it’s good.
AJ: And the sales.
JB: Right, of course. Because I will stop, like I stopped Quest because it was the right time to stop it. If there is ever a time when we think its time to go back and revisit Quest, then we’ll do it, but we’ll do it right.
JY:I’m shaking my head over here: no. Because Quest was developed with that number of booster decks. If you look at the back of the first booster deck, it shows you how many booster decks and that’s how many we did. Oxyx was a double booster deck but the first draft was a triple booster deck. Jeff has so many ideas that he just wanted to keep going and Playroom said we can’t do that, that’s a little too expensive. So a lot of those ideas will go over into Jupiter and a lot of those ideas go over into Odyssey. So we will never run out of ideas. We’ve got lots and lots of ideas for cards, even after doing thousands and thousands of cards already.
JB: Sometimes you just get like a catch-phrase or a title and then we do a card for it. Like I am sure we’ll be saving the cheerleader, at some point.
Glenn: Saving the cheerleader? What cheerleader?
JB: From Heroes.
Glenn: Oh, see, I couldn’t get into Heroes. [Laughs]
JB: [Laughs] Regardless, we’re going to be saving the cheerleader.
Odyssey
I want to throw something else at you now. Even though Odyssey is open-ended, I would like to point out one major difference Odyssey and Quest and Jupiter is that when you buy a[n] Odyssey booster deck, you will not have to buy the ones that came before it, nor will you have to buy them in order. So, every booster works with every starter and you know, that’s going to help tremendously because, you know, only logically all of the booster decks for Quest, per se, sold in a pyramid structure. If we sold a million Blue, then we’d have to sell less than a million Red and less than that many Violet, and so on, because you needed all of the ones before it and people would jump off at different points. Whereas in Odyssey, you can mix and match. I think that’s a very important point to mention.
AJ: About that.
JB: About that. [Laughs]
That was Playroom’s request and they said “Please design us a game that is out of the pyramid structure,” and so we did that.
Glenn: Very good. How will fans know which of the expansion sets to buy for Odyssey?
JB: [to JY] Do you want to tell them about the packaging and the colors and the letters?
JY: Odyssey is developed in six different colors and with six different themes.
JY: With Quest and Jupiter, everybody played with one deck. With Odyssey, you play with your own deck and whoever you’re playing with, plays with their deck. Each color represents a different theme. Each booster deck is lettered, A, B, C, booster deck A, booster deck B, and each color has its own booster deck. So there are six starter “A” decks and six “B” booster decks.
JB: They will come sixty cards to a deck, so they are ready to play. You don’t have to do any building or create. Just open it up and you’re ready to go. Each booster deck, starting with the letter “B”...
JY: For “Bunny”.
JB: … for Bunny, will have thirty cards. Each starter and then every booster in every letter comes out in six different colors. So you pick color or the theme that you like best, and that’s the one you play. Now, AJ can tell you what the colors and what the different themes are.
AJ: A little bit briefly to add on that, is the great thing is that you’re not stuck into whichever color that you bought. So let’s say you bought the yellow “A” deck. By no means are you concreting into buying the buying the yellow “B” deck. You can mix and match as much as you want. When the rules come out and they’re public, you’ll be able to see the interesting little twist that we did that allows you to pretty much throw in anything that you want. Unlike a lot of other games out there. You can pretty much do whatever you want with your deck. Which is, as a Magic player, and a different game player, it definitely makes it a little bit more easy to deal with. As far as the colors are concerned, like Jonathan said, it is broken down into six colors. There’s violet, red, blue...
JY: Yellow, orange...
AJ: I’m trying think of the... never mind.
JB: He’s trying to do them in the right order.
JY: ...violet, red, blue...
AJ: ...Orange, green and yellow. I always get orange and green mixed up. Basically what it is is Violet is elementals, so that would be precious gems and metals that are found. Red is energy, any form of energy. Blue is technology. Green is crops. Orange is animals and yellow is land. Like Lex Luthor said, they’ll always want land.
JB: But the correct order is violet, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow.
AJ: Right.
Glenn: Okay. [Laughs] That’s a lot more information than I expected on that one.
AJ: [Laughs]
Glenn: Seriously.
Kathy: Very cool.
Another Odyssey question. It was hinted, back when Odyssey was called the New Orleans Odyssey that it would involve VIPs or “Very Intelligent Penguins.” Now that the game is Killer Bunnies and the Ultimate Odyssey, are Very Intelligent Penguins still involved, and if so, in what way?
AJ: Penguins?
JB: What penguins?
AJ: What penguins are you talking about?
JB: Never seen a penguin.
AJ: We get all these emails about penguins. I don’t get it.
JB: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Glenn: Fair enough. [Laughs]
JB: They’re not laughing.
Glenn: Actually, I’m trying to mute my microphone so I don’t breathe too much into the microphone here.
JB: I don’t know what the two of you were doing…
I think originally, way, way back in the original structure of the game, that has to be before I met either one of these two, the penguins were called VIPs, Very Intelligent Penguins. All I can say is that has changed. Much like we’ve changed the name of the New Orleans Odyssey to just the Ultimate Odyssey. It was really kinda done out of respect because the game was supposed to take place in New Orleans and it was supposed to be in and around the streets, and the buildings, and the neighborhoods, and garden district, and all that kind of thing, and since a lot of that got wiped out a few years back, it kind of doesn’t really follow what I was going to do. Half of me thought it would be disrespectful to do the game with the older name and half of me said “Well, the game has evolved so much past that now that maybe we should just make a fresh start.” We kept the word Odyssey just for that handful of fans, of which the two of you are included, that remembered that. And thank you, by the way, because I hadn’t thought about VIPs in a long…
JY: I remember VIPs.
JB: You too? You do remember, okay. There used to be a Quest card called VIPs.
JY: Yeah.
JB: It got…
JY: It was drawn too.
JB: It was ditched. It was part of the Killer Bunnies Quest Onyx edit of 165 cards to 110. That was one of the cards that got ditched. We’re keeping the truth and the mystery of the penguins under wraps. But, I will say that all will be revealed in the “C” booster deck of Killer Bunnies Odyssey. That’s “C” as in Caroline.
Glenn: Is this where we queue ominous music or something?
[Creative Team Alpha makes ominous music sounds]
Kathy: [Laughs]
JY: Some of the booster decks for Odyssey have a theme to them. The “C” deck may have some flightless birds buried in them. The aliens have their own deck. The aliens that you see in Jupiter have a guest-starring role in one of the booster decks as well.
Glenn: Very good—we love aliens! Almost as much as we love killing bunnies.
AJ: I’m sure you’ll love them even more.
Are there any cards that CTA would re-do?
Glenn: Now, of all of the games that you’ve published within the Killer Bunnies series, are there some cards you wish you could rework if you had time to revisit them, and if so, what might those be?
JY: Are you talking about a mechanical-level or an artistic level?
Glenn: Either one, actually, because each one of you work on a different aspect of the game development, so for Jonathan it might be “You know, that artwork didn’t quite come out right” and I’m thinking something might be like H.E.M.P. where the missiles don’t really look like they’d fit in the missile launcher. They kinda look like they’re at an angle, or something like that. And for Jeff, maybe it’ll be some game mechanic that didn’t quite work.
JB: Jonathan? What the hell’s with those H.E.M.P. cards?!
Kathy: [Laughs]
JY: What’s up with the Bounty Mounty, Jeff? [Laughs]
JB: I’ll tell you what though, let’s pick on Jonathan first. There was a line missing from the Terrible Misfortune with the Hand Grenade, where there was an extra line, it looked like the grenade went through his belly. You remember that?
JY: Yes.
JB: But we fixed that.
JY: In a different printing.
JB: In a different printing, yeah.
JY: There are cards, on a mechanical level, that are not the strongest in the game. But you have to realize, you know, there are 715 published cards, not including any of the promos, just the ones in the starter and booster decks. And we play it quite a lot, still. And you know, we go to the conventions. We play the game a lot, and there are cards that we have still never played. So we don’t know if there are good ones or bad ones in there. There are some art cards that I really like and there are some ones that I’d like to re-do. There is discussion, which is very vague discussion, so I don’t know if you can quote me. I’ll look at Jeff and say “edit that out” or not.
JB: [Laughs]
JY: There is some discussion that the next round of promo cards, whatever we call those, or name them after, will be current cards in the new artwork.
JB: That’s a possibility.
JY: Ok.
JB: That’s still a possibility. I think what he’s going for, since you threw that right back at me with the mechanic…
JY: Well, you’re talking about my artwork, though!
JB: Alright. Bounty Mounty is the lamest Bunny card.
AJ: With Mob Hit coming to a close second to that.
JB: I invented Mob Hit to fix Bounty Mounty. It didn’t fix it.
AJ: At all.
JB: The bottom line is that no one is going to pay to kill somebody else’s bunny. So I tried. It was a swing and a miss, and then it was a swing and a foul ball, because at least Mob Hit has a really good picture. What are some of the other really lame-ass cards?
AJ: Really lame?
JB: Really lame cards. I mean, I’ll admit that there are lame cards in Odyssey, but at least they’re funny. Right? Functionally, functionally they may not do much, but at least they’re funny and the artwork’s great. But for Quest, [indistinct] and Jupiter, I will proudly say there is not one lame card or one card that doesn’t belong there. You see, Jupiter was a very tight game. Every single card slot really needed to be there, and AJ and I worked on this for years. Quest was always “Well, here’s 55 cards, okay. Here’s about 40 that need to be there and that are good. Now we’ve just gotta fill the other 15 and what are we going to do? And so we had a lot more leeway. But let’s think about what are the lamest?
AJ: Bingo Flamingo!
JB: [Laughs] Nobody uses Bingo Flamingo. It was a good rhyme and it was a “P” card. It’s a pink “P” card.
AJ: A pink pawn card.
JY: It’s so hard to win, though.
JB: It was unbelievably complicated and no one does it.
AJ: It was like Golden Ratio without the payoff.
JB: Golden Ratio I’ve seen people use.
AJ: It’s a great card!
JY: I’m leaving the room! Golden Ratio is one of the cards…
[Phone rings with Phantom of the Opera music]
JY: Can you hear that music?
Glenn: Oh yeah, that’s great.
JY: Jeff developed that card after reading some mathematical book that he enjoyed, which I don’t understand.
JB: I’m totally into number theory and game theory.
JY: That card has references to about five mathematical equations and references in it and I had to do exactly, by the number, and I’m looking at the card and thinking “This is not funny, it’s not cute, it’s boring.” And I was able to throw the penguin, er, the bunny in there. That was one of the ones that he and I went back and forth on and I was begging and pleading and whining and moaning and griping and …
JB: He didn’t want to do the Penrose tiles, but they were the best part.
AJ: And nobody knows what a Penrose tile is.
JB: They turned into the Psi cards’ icons, right?
JY: Yeah. I have heard that… people have written me back, and said “We’ve love the artwork for that card, it’s great. It looks like you had fun doing it.” and I just cringe, because I did it. There are a couple of cards that are like that. Precession?
AJ: Yes.
JB: Precession you didn’t like to draw.
JY: I didn’t like to draw, but it was a good card.
AJ: It was a great card.
JB: Let’s get back to the original question.
AJ: What was the original question?
JB: What was the lamest bunny card, basically. There’s a group of cards that you asked if I could rework I would and that would be Noah’s Flood, Bug Off!… Is it Bug Off!?
AJ: Bug Off!
JB: Bug Off! and Diverse Portfolio! Because the way I describe these are as quasi-Specials. Because you have to have them saved in order to use them immediately like Very Specials. They should have been Very Specials from the start, but they weren’t. We did a revision of Quest, that’ll be… well, Playroom hasn’t decided when they’re gonna put it out yet. It’s kind of just like a… we went back and corrected a few typos and did stuff like that. We added an extra line of text that really saved the cards. But yeah, those three were never really supposed to be there the way they are. So with an extra line of text, though, they’re fine. But going back to the lamest cards…
AJ: Noah’s Flood, Bug Off! and Diverse Portfolio! Before Playroom picked it up, and you were making it, didn’t they all have one use too? When Playroom picked it up, we added it so they’d have an additional use, so they weren’t such dead-weight cards.
JB: Because back then, the game only had about 400 cards so it wasn’t nearly as bad. As we planned, we adjusted. But I’m thinking of like, really lame cards.
AJ: No, it’s funny, there are some…
JB: Off the top of my head, I forget. One of my favorites is Uriel’s Machine, because actually that’s based on the book “Uriel’s Machine” and the diagram came straight from the book. It is a fantastic book by Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight. I mean, absolutely fantastic, but it is only good four days out of the year. [Laughs]. So I’ve actually never played it. It is one of my favorite cards and the chances of playing it on an Equinox or Solstice and then getting the card…
AJ: I did it once.
JB: You did it once?
AJ: I did it once.
JB: But it was years ago, though.
AJ: Yes.
JB: I’ve never played that card, though. I wish I could.
AJ: Speaking of cards and the time frame you can play them, we’ve got one coming up in Odyssey… and how often do you play that one?
JB: We’ve got a card coming up in Odyssey. It just won’t be out for six years, I know. I won’t tell you the title, but its only good… no, I can tell you the title because its a Quest card: Venus Cycle. But in Quest you can use it any time but its really good every eight years. But the next year that Venus Cycle is really kick-ass is 2017.
AJ: So in Odyssey, you can’t use Venus Cycle at all unless it is one of those eight years. So the card is really good, but only if it is on one of those eight years.
JB: It’s fun. I like to read a lot and my reading material is generally non-fiction and its theology and then modern science, quasi-science, and numbers theory and game theory. So its a lot of fun.
I see what I can work into the game for no other reason than to amuse myself and see if anyone is paying attention. And occasionally I’ll get one or two emails from somebody who said “Omigod, that couldn’t possibly be there by accident!” and we bond.
Glenn: [Laughs]
JB: I’m sure there are lame bunny cards… Adventures in Bunnysitting is kinda lame.
AJ: Yeah.
JB: I don’t even know. We’ve been working on Odyssey for a while and …
JY: For us it’s been done for three years.
JB: Quest has been done for you for three years. For me its been done for more like seven. I don’t remember every Quest card, its true. I know them if I see them. Currently there are about 2,800 Odyssey cards, which far, far surpasses Quest and Jupiter combined. Its four times the amount of cards. My mind is in the Odyssey universe these days.
What are your favorite cards?
Kathy: What are some of your favorite cards?
JB: This could be another hour!
Kathy: [Laughs]
JB: Start with Jonathan while I go get some water. What do you think art-wise?
AJ: Why not overall? That way, we’re not on the phone for an hour with this one question!
JB: I could write a thesis on this one.
AJ: How about the top three for each of us?
Kathy: Okay.
AJ: You go first.
Glenn: I knew this was going to be a hard question.
Kathy: [Laughs]
JB: I will talk Quest first. I love Uriel’s Machine for what it does. Artwork-wise, I’ve got to say Athena because it is a blatant “Lost In Space” reference.
JY: I’m rolling my eyes.
JB: I made him draw Athena three times before he got it right. You remember the floating green lady…
Kathy: Oh, yeah.
JB: …that was in love with Dr. Smith? By the way, she’s still alive and she still does conventions as the green lady.
JY: Omigod. [Laughs]
JB: [Laughs] She’s like… seventy years old now.
JY: The first draft of that bunny was round and puffy, and Jeff went “No, we have to do her… sexy”
Glenn: I’d much rather see Susan Oliver.
JB: [Laughs] Well, there you go. So I like Athena. I like Uriel’s Machine. In Kinder Bunnies, I like Ace. The red bunny, Ace? Do you have Kinder Bunnies?
Kathy: Oh yes, we do.
JB: Ace is after Red Dwarf. Ace Rimmer. He was great.
Kathy: Ah!
Glenn: We also actually play Kinder Bunnies with the nephews.
JY: I like the Terrible Misfortune from the Blue-Yellow deck of the guy cutting the bunny with the hedge-clipper.
AJ: [Feigning ignorance] Why is that, Jonathan?
JY: That’s me!
JB: Though, seriously, Sky Waitress is a better picture.
JY: The original artwork for the Terrible Misfortune, the one with the hedge clippers… you know the one I’m talking about?
Kathy: Yeah.
JY: The original artwork, it was supposed to be an over-zealous hedge clipper and the original artwork from another artist had an older gentleman, who looked like he was about to fall over…
JB: Under-zealous.
JY: A little bit under-zealous, so when I drew it I thought, I’m going to draw me. So when I added myself to Sky Waitress as a Jedi, if you notice, I’m reading a newspaper, and the picture on the newspaper is the bunny that I killed in the first card.
Glenn: [Recognition] Oh… Okay.
JB: Don’t feel bad. I didn’t get that until he showed it to me, either.
JY: I don’t think I showed it to him until it was published.
JB: There are so many other good ones. I like those Fabulous Bunnies because we love [British TV series] Ab Fab. [Laughs]. Patsy and Eddy will be making an appearance in Odyssey in the first year on a card called Drunken Women.
Glenn: Good.
JB: I think Angry Hoe is the most hilarious card I’ve ever seen, and it took us forever to get that past Playroom. They were not going to publish Angry Hoe. It took like a year to convince them that there was nothing wrong with the picture and the title.
AJ: I have a big one on my wall—Angry Hoe.
JB: A poster-sized Angry Hoe. I think your drawing of Sam for your Celebrity Bunny was spot-on, with your drawing of the Stargate symbols. Jonathan looked up every Stargate symbol and made sure that every single one was accurate. That was kick-ass.
Glenn: The Samantha card?
JB: There’s a Celebrity Bunny called Sam [indistinct] … oh, Samantha? What do I know? [Laughs] I’ve never had her in play, so…
AJ: My favorite would probably have to be in the Onyx deck, the Celebrity Bunny Alfred.
JB: Alfred.
AJ: Alfred Bester from Babylon 5. I’m a big Babylon 5 fan. I really, really like Spiderbunny. I love everything about it. I think its a great card. And to go along with Spiderbunny, I think one of the best cards in Quest is Shockwave. That card is very good. The art is extremely good on it. I love the art. The functionality of it is great.
Kathy: Yeah, that is one heckuva card.
AJ: Dago Bunny is my favorite in Kinder.
JB: We got into trouble for Dago Bunny.
Kathy: Oh, no!
JB: Because everybody thought it was a slam on Italians, like dago, but it was short for Dagoba, day-go-bun-knee. I hadn’t the slightest idea that dago meant a slur to the Italians. So, we actually caught [expletive deleted] for that. Yes, we caught [expletive deleted] for that. But we didn’t know. We had no clue. So, there you go.
Glenn: You’d never heard that slur?
JB: I had heard it, but it was so long ago… I’m from New York/New Jersey. I’d heard it as a kid, but… Technically, by the way it is spelled differently. So, thank God. We were going for the planet. Evidently, not a lot of Italians know where Yoda’s from, and the confusion…
AJ: I think it would be a nice little branch off of that question is how do the Red Jupiter bunnies, the Red Dwarf bunnies. Which ones do we like the best? We didn’t really cover Jupiter at all.
JB: I like Rimmer! I’m a huge Chris Barrie fan, no matter what he’s doing.
AJ: That would be the Red Technician bunny, right?
JB: Yes, the Red bunny.
AJ: The Red tech. is your favorite.
JB: You like Kryten, because ….
AJ: Actually, my favorite is the Red Security bunny. I like Chance the best.
JB: Because she’s got big boobies.
AJ: That’s not all of it.
JB: Have you noticed that Kryten is holding the talking toaster?
Glenn: No.
JB: Okay, are you big Red Dwarf fans?
Glenn: I would have to say, no, sorry.
JB: There’s an annoying AI toaster. It’s an artificial-intelligence toaster. It’s one of the characters in Red Dwarf in a few of the episodes and and he’s holding the toaster. It’s worth checking out.
JY: Toaster makes the reference.
AJ: What’s your favorite Red bunny in Jupiter?
JY: I don’t like Red Dwarf, so I can’t answer that question.
AJ: Awwww!
JB: He doesn’t like Babylon 5 either.
JY: Yes, I do.
JB: Oh, I’m sorry. You never gave Red Dwarf a chance.
JY: I couldn’t get past the first episode.
All: [Laughs]
JY: There are so many cards,
JB: It’s really a tough question. It’s like asking a parent which kid you like best.
AJ: I think we’d have to play each of the games some night and come back.
Kathy: That becomes hard too, because you do not see all of the cards in each game, so there are some cards that its like “Oh, I forgot about that one!”
JB: I haven’t seen all of the cards in years, it’s true.
Kathy: Well thank you, that’s a lot of favorite cards and lame cards. I don’t know how many questions you’ve got left, hon.
Have you experienced magical moments during game play?
Glenn: Actually, I did want to start to wrapping up to respect these guys’ time. But, I wanted to ask if there are any particular favorite moments of your actually playing your own games that come to mind, some magical combination of cards in the deck and people playing that just worked out in a memorable way.
JY: For me, I think the best times are when, like you mentioned, I’m playing with the fans. For two reasons. One is that I work in a little bubble. My buddy plays with AJ and Jeff and a couple of our other fans, and I get pretty [indistinct]. It’s fun to play with the fans and what they like, what are their favorite Carrots, what are their favorite cards, how they like to play. And two, for some reason, I win more when I play at the convention.
All: [Laughs]
AJ: He hits a winning streak whenever he’s at conventions.
JY: And when I’m at the convention playing with the fans, I—on-purpose, not try to lose—I try to let the fans win, to the point where I’ll give away Carrots just for the sake of giving away Carrots. I’ll give away bunnies so that the fans have a good time. But I win more often at conventions than I do any other time, so that’s when I like to play.
JB: I’ll jump in. Jonathan’s absolutely right. We do kind of work in a bubble. And we get together, AJ and I get together every Tuesday night for work. To work. We either talk about new cards, we play-test, we look at cards that aren’t working, especially with the new game, we try to build decks, see if anything’s broken.
The pride of Quest and Jupiter has always been that it has been play-tested to death so that we never have to apologize later. And I have to tell you, AJ has been a loyal bunny fan for about eight years. He knows the game, I would say, second only to me. Sometimes, more than me. It’s work on Tuesday nights. As much as we have friends over sometimes, and sometimes we have big games, sometimes it is just the two of us, sometimes Jonathan comes over, sometimes he’s just drawing at home. It’s work! So I agree. When I get a chance to do a game at a game store, or go to the conventions, which I always enjoy, or when I get to talk to fans, or do an interview like this one, I would say, off-hand, those are our best moments. I mean, we have had plenty of… you say our best Bunnies moments, AJ and I have a favorite pizza place. Generally, when we go there, we’re talking about bunnies. So that’s a Bunny-moment. Like I said before, good folks, good food, good fun. I’d have to say that it kinda is like work, and people always ask me “How many times can you play this stupid game? Aren’t you tired of it?” and the answer is “No.” because it’s not the game, so much as the people that you’re playing with. Since that’s always changing, the game’s always changing.
JY: We’ve had fans that have called us, saying “Hey, we’re going to be in San Diego next week, can we meet you?” and we’ll meet them at a coffee shop or a restaurant and play a game with them and its just fun. We get a lot of people who come here for ComiCon and other conventions in San Diego, so its fun to meet the fans, not just at conventions elsewhere, but come here. Jeff has friends and fans on his travels and its just great to hang out with them.
JB: Yeah, its always nice. I’ve never met a group of fans that weren’t fun. It’s kinda neat because, not to sound overly-conceited, but we’re brilliant on a weekly basis and yet we don’t…
Glenn: [Laughs]
JB: … that’s great, that works, oh, that’s new. Let’s put that in. And we just keep pumping it out, and we kinda do work in a bubble, and then we get to meet other folks and they tell us their stories and its kind of neat. Some of them will send us pictures, “Oh, we have a Bunny night on Wednesdays” or whatever. And I’m like, that’s cool. There’s nothing better. Talk about Bunny moments. Here’s a Bunny-moment I had by myself, is when I’m reading the fan mail about a group of people said “Oh yeah, we have a group of people, we get together on Wednesday nights, we have laughs, we’re always together on Wednesday nights, we have like ten people.” I’m like “Wow”. That’s kinda cool. That, to me, is extremely rewarding. Those are some of my favorite fan-letters. How about you, AJ. Take the ball.
AJ: I think that to answer the question more, I kinda got from it that more of the historic and memorable moments of when we’ve been playing.
JY: Was that the question?
Glenn: That was the question, but that’s okay.
AJ: I totally, one hundred percent agree with Jeff and Jonathan there. I mean, its definitely a lot of fun to play with people all over the country and play with our fans and get a new interaction on it and a new look on it. As far as in-game is concerned, I know we’ve had many a game, many Quest and Jupiter games, that have been just outrageous. Jupiter more than Quest, but I know we’ve had extremely good games. I know one game we passed the Plutonium back and forth about four or five times before it finally landed, and you know the suspense was just so amazing that it was just wonderful. It’s something that you don’t really forget. There have been a couple Jupiter games that, the entire game can change in one turn.
JB: Jupiter is so tight. I love playing Jupiter. That’s my favorite to play, for sure. And great pot-luck dinners!
Glenn: Are those included with later expansions?
JB: What, the dinners?
Glenn: Yes.
JB: Next time you’re in San Diego, we’ll cook for you!
Trivia on specific cards
Glenn: Okay, very good. Now I have just a couple more very, very short questions that are satisfying my dying curiosity about some things on particular cards. [the interview was 83 minutes at this point… We’re really glad they were gracious enough to answer a few more questions]
JB: [Laughs] There are no short answers!
AJ: This is correct.
Glenn: I’ll just let these fly. Mysterious Place number one, 74 West 89 South. Is that some specific spot in Antarctica or just some random spot that sounded cool?
JB: [Sarcastically] No idea what you’re talking about. Next question, please!
All: [Laughs]
JB: All will be revealed… later on. It is very specific.
Glenn: Okay, fair enough. On the Pink Timid bunny, number five-hundred, the characters “HH” appear below the pink and twenty/zodiac stripe. What’s the significance of those characters, or is it just a reference to Gilligan Island’s Episode “The Producer”?
JB: [Feigning bad phone connection] Geez, Glenn, you’re breaking up. [Laughs]. What was the question? I can’t hear a thing [makes hissing sound]. I’m getting a lot of interference. [Laughs] Something about “H”?
I’m just teasing. Yes, there certainly was an “H” there wasn’t there?
JY: Don’t look at me!
JB: Now, what did you think it was? A Gilligan’s Island thing?
Glenn: Harold Hecuba from the Gilligan’s Island episode “The Producer”.
JB: I’ve seen every Gilligan’s Island. I don’t remember that one.
Glenn: Phil Silvers played the producer, Harold Hecuba, and they did this wonderful musical number.
JB: Oh, okay. And he had H’s across something?
Glenn: Harold Hecuba: HH. I’m just speculating!
JB: Holy Hanna. I never would have thought of two words that started with H. No, it has nothing to do with Gilligan’s Island.
Glenn: Okay.
JB: The truth is, and I’ll give you this one. Originally…
JY: Originally.
JB: Very originally, there was a plan to have another set of weapons that went from levels twenty-one to thirty, and so the “H” stood for the thirty-sided die, since “T” was already for twenty. “H” was supposed to be the representation for the thirty-sided die. Mathematically, we found a better way to introduce more weapons, which was more unique, and frankly, the thirty-sided die cost too much.
Glenn: [Laughs at the honesty] Okay. Good answer.
JB: We kind of switched horse mid-stream. Horses. [Laughs] I left out the other “s”. Horses.
Glenn: And my second-to-last question: the card Earth Below Us, number 487, is that a reference to David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity” or its sequel “Major Tom” by Peter Schilling?
JB: For me, it would be the Schilling version, but I know I have both of them in my collection, but my favorite would be the [second] one, because it has such an unbelievably cool beat to it.
AJ: Agreed.
JB: Schilling was a god.
Glenn: Yes, almost a one-hit wonder, though.
JB: That’s a title reference, you bet.
Glenn: And, my last question…
JB: Baker Street is a song reference.
Glenn: Really? I didn’t know that, I thought it was a Sherlock Holmes reference.
JB: Everybody does, but if you check the lyrics of the song “Baker Street” [by Gerry Rafferty], it starts, the very first line is “Winding my way down Baker Street….” which is in the text of the card. And also, Cool Change is just an awesome song from the 80s and the one with that, what was that thing on that card? That bird?
AJ: Like a Puffin or something?
JB: Like a Puffin bird
Glenn: I run Linux, so I love the penguin.
JB: What?
Glenn: And my last question is…
JB: Last call! Last call! Sorry. Go ahead.
Glenn: What can fans expect to see from Creative Team Alpha at this weekend’s Kingdom Con convention?
JB:Arrogance. Attitude, and what’s another A-word?
AJ: Alcohol?
JB: Yes, alcohol. We’re going to party down! No, um, this is our first time going to Kingdom Con.
AJ: That’s because its the first Kingdom Con.
JY: [Sarcastically] Really?
JB: Yes, that’s true too. [Teasing] But don’t correct me when I’m talking. Actually, Kingdom Con is being run by a friend of mine, Ross Thompson, and its not really a Bunny convention. If Bunny fans actually attend this Con, the number one thing they can expect is access.
JY: That’s an “A” word.
AJ: There you go.
JB: It’s alcohol, attitude, arrogance, but access. Although we don’t promote underage drinking and we always have a designated driver.
Glenn: That’s good and very responsible.
JB: Yes, well, I have to be. I’m old.
Glenn: I’m still older than you are Jeff. It did get a little long. I apologize for the length, gentlemen, but I really appreciate your time today and thank you for answering our questions.
Jeff has a message regarding new product
JB: I would like to send a message out to our loyal fans. There’s been a lot of folks waiting for new product, so our message is, in all honesty: product comes out when it is ready. And that is not meant to sound arrogant. We just want it to be the best that it can be. I remember that Jupiter came out late because we were not satisfied with the product and we sent it back to be re-done.
JY: That’s a production issue. We had a lot of production issues with that and so it was actually printed and we sent it back to have it re-done.
JB: We will not give our fans anything substandard, in either the quality of the production or the quality of the game. We absolutely adore our fans. Tell them that the new game will be [indistinct]. We’ve planned for two boosters a year, which means for the next seven years, we’re set to go. We do want to emphasize that boosters do not need to be bought in order by color or by letter. We really think that the last game is the best game, the one we’re working on now. It beats the other two, as far as numbers, artwork, strategy…
AJ: I’d like to add one small thing. I have gotten a few emails from people that are reluctant to get into Odyssey because they’ve played collectible games before and they were intimidated by it. I just want to let the fans know, don’t let it scare you! Don’t let the fact that it is a collectible game scare you because you can get into it as much as you want or as little as you want, and its a lot of fun.
JY: Technically, it’s not a collectible game.
AJ: I mean customizable, I’m sorry.
JB: Let’s make this clear, because Playroom wanted us to. Collectible games have random card decks. We do not have random card decks. You can pick up a booster and you can know exactly what’s going to be in there. What we say is that they are constructible, which means you can take cards from different decks and put them together however you please. And ultimately, I think it is respectful to the fans not to make them buy pack after pack after pack looking for that special card, so everybody’s treated the same. I like fairness. Fairness is good.
Glenn: Fairness makes games fun.
JB: Yes they do. I want our fans to be happy. Somebody has this card and that card. Every fan in Odyssey will be able to get any card they want. And they know exactly where to get it. That, to me, is good.
Glenn: That’s good.
JB: That is good. All right, that is my closing statement. Thank you, Glenn and Kathy.
MC: Thank you!
Glenn: We appreciate all of your time.
Celebrity Bunny - Jessica
Celebrity Bunny Jessica is a companion card (pun intended) to Celebrity Bunny Roger.
