Category Archives: Interviews

Yaruki Zero Podcast #18: Cel*Style With Jake Richmond

Interviews, Podcast, , , , , , ,

Yaruki Zero Podcast #18 (45 minutes, 19 seconds)

This is Jake Richmond’s second appearance on the podcast (the first was Episode #11, back in late 2009), and he joined me to talk about Cel*Style, his new games, and his experiences selling and promoting those games at anime conventions like SakuraCon. I’m also a contributor to the tabletop gaming news site MiniEnt, and a more succinct written article is available there.

  1. Let’s Talk About Neat Things: Jake is interested in the food cart scene in Portland and wants to start one to sell awesome noodles. Ewen’s been geeking out about Slayers because of Dragon World.
  2. What is Cel*Style?
  3. Some other neat Cel*Style Games; Anima Prime, Tulip Academy
  4. Girl x Boy
  5. Panty Explosion Perfect
  6. The infamous head-punching incidents (also recounted on Found in the Alley, but this is the extended version)
  7. Selling at Anime Cons
  8. Future Games

This podcast uses selections from the song “Time Machine” by To-den from the Grünemusik album of the same name, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website or via Jamendo.

Very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #17: Malcolm Harris

Interviews, Podcast, , , , , ,

Yaruki Zero Podcast #17 (60 minutes, 13 seconds)

I became acquainted with Malcolm Harris because we’d both been invited as guests of honor for A-Kon (an anime convention in Dallas) in 2010. He’s the driving force behind Channel-M Publishing, an independent publisher of comics and RPGs, including Witch Girls Adventures. I’ve met very few people who are quite so passionate about creating and sharing their creations, and his enthusiasm is wonderfully infectious.

We finally got around to connecting on Skype to record a podcast, and Malcolm shared his insights on Witch Girls Adventures and how with it he’s designed and marketed a role-playing game aimed at teenage girls. He also talks a bit about the Witch Girls movie short he’s working on, as well as other games (Macho and Nemesis: Remix) and forthcoming Witch Girls supplements. He’s a really busy guy, to put it mildly.

  1. Introduction
  2. What is Witch Girls Adventures?
  3. A Drama Diaries Game
  4. Marketing to Girls
  5. Daytrippers; volunteers who hand out fliers at events
  6. Witch Girls as an (introductory) RPG
  7. How do girls play RPGs?
  8. Witch Girls as YA fiction
  9. Witch Girls: Beyond Convention, the forthcoming Witch Girls short film, plus forthcoming WGA supplements
  10. Macho, Malcolm’s over-the-top action hero RPG, due out this year
  11. Nemesis: Remix, a superhero RPG for fans of superhero comics, due out in late 2012
  12. Even more stuff on the horizon for Channel M!
  13. Malcolm says believe in your self!

Technical Notes
The technical quality of the recording wasn’t quite what I hoped; my voice is too loud, while Malcolm’s is too quiet (usually it’s the other way around) and has just enough of a background hum that it’s hard to boost without reducing the audio quality. (Plus you can hear me breathing far more than I’d like.) I hope you’ll bear with me all the same, because this is probably my most interesting podcast episode so far.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Time Machine” by To-den from the Grünemusik album of the same name, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website or via Jamendo.

Very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #16: Steven Savage

Interviews, Podcast

Yaruki Zero Podcast #16 (24 minutes, 48 seconds)

This episode presents a succinct but interesting interview with Steven Savage, the man behind both Seventh Sanctum and Fan To Pro. In the interview, Steven talks first about the Seventh Sanctum generators site and his philosophies of how randomness can inform creativity, and then about how RPG gamers can leverage the things their hobby involves into career stuff.

This is my first time recording a podcast with a guest in the same room (using my little Sony digital recorder), so there’s a little bit of background noise here and there, but I think it turned out surprisingly good considering.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Time Machine” by To-den from the Grünemusik album of the same name, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website or via Jamendo.

Very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #6: Marketing Anime RPGs

anime, Interviews, Podcast

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jon5In this episode I’m joined my by longtime friend Jon Baumgardner. He’s worked at several different companies doing marketing and brand management for anime, and I brought him on to talk about marketing techniques for small-press/indie RPGs, and for marketing to anime fans.

There’s a bird cooing in the background in some parts. I don’t feel like re-recording. Meow.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #6 (50 minutes, 37 seconds)

Show Notes

  1. Introductions
  2. What is marketing?
  3. Small-Scale Marketing
  4. Selling an Experience
  5. Marketing to Anime Fans
  6. Specific Techniques
  7. Addendum: New Millennium Currencies

Next Time
The next episode will be “Random Thoughts”, another solo podcast, where I’ll talk briefly about several different topics that have been on my mind.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.

Somewhat embarrassing but very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

somerights20en

(For an added bonus, I recorded a piece on Dragonball Evolution for Anime Confessions.)

Yaruki Zero Podcast #3: Interview With Clay Gardner

games, Interviews, Podcast

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The Yaruki Zero Games Podcast’s first interview is with Clay Gardner, designer of OVA: Open Versatile Anime. In this interview Clay shares his insights on the game’s development and publication, as well as his experiences interacting with the fans and his future plans for the game.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #3 (25 minutes, 34 seconds)

Show Notes

Next Time
The next episode, #3½, will be a reading of the first chapter of Slime Story: The Legend of Doug, the novel I’ve been working on based in the same setting as the RPG of the same name.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.

somerights20en