#187 – Rifts Promise of Power Reforged (w/ Kevin & Sean)

Breakfast puppies?

This podcast contains adult language and content and is meant for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Hi, I'm Kevin Sembita of Palladium Books, and you're listening to The Glitter Boys.

20-something-odd years ago, I was promised power. And that promise, unfortunately, due to some very, very unfortunate circumstances, just didn't come to be. But that is going to change.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

We sure hope so.

We are joined today by Kevin Sambita and Sean Owen Roberson of Palladium Books. This was a really fun session to schedule in that I believe we are multiple time zones in either direction apart. Sean, you're in tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, I'm in tomorrow, but it's fun.

It's a good place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're in the future where the N-Gage wasn't canceled almost immediately after releasing the game.

It's not that far.

I don't know. This timeline doesn't seem that different.

Let's not say that.

Yeah.

Okay, so tell us the good news.

Go ahead, Sean.

If anyone's ever heard of the Nokia N-Gage back in 2005, there was a really cool Rifts turn-based tactical RPG developed for it. Unfortunately, it came out to rave reviews. It got Mobile Game of the Year from Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, the official US PlayStation magazine.

Ooh.

It got, I think it was like best, one of the E3 big awards from GameSpy and 1UP.com, like best of show or best RPU show, you know, that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, a few months after the game came out, it was one of the premier titles for the N-Gage, the N-Gage itself was canceled. It just wasn't hitting the popularity it needed to hit to make the platform possible. If anyone's heard of it, it's basically like a Game Boy phone thing by Nokia. And so the game basically disappeared. played it. Obviously a few people played it, important people had played it and thought it was pretty awesome. As a Rifts fan, I, I've heard people talk about it and mention it like, oh well, you can go, you know, try and find an old copy of the game and an N-Gage and all this stuff. And, and I'd never really had the chance to play it, but, um, due to some intrepid sleuthing and discussions with lawyers, we realized we have the rights to the game. And we're gonna bring it back. We have some really cool partners that are gonna help us bring it back for PC. So we're launching a crowdfunder very soon. We are— you can already go to backerkit.com and sign up for that and mark your place, and more will be coming to that page soon. And with your help, it's kind of like Peter Pan. If you believe too and you pledge for the project—

And you clap your hands together.

Right.

Close your eyes, wish.

Yeah, yeah. Cheer for the flashlight.

Click your ankles 3 times.

I do believe in rifts.

I do believe in rifts.

I do, I do, I do. Yeah. So, so yeah, but we're really super duper excited about it, and we're actually working with some major industry veterans at TransPerfect Gaming, which, uh, they did the miniature sculpts for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness miniatures, which, um, I think pretty widely everyone thought were just fantastic sculpts for Ninja Turtles miniatures. But their whole company, that's what they do, is they do localization and DLC and art for video games and coding. So they're kind of like coders for hire, and that's not something that really is common and has existed in the past. And that's been one of the big things. I actually studied game design and product— like video game design and production. Um, for my degree, uh, from university. And I actually like kind of bent it towards tabletop design and production, obviously.

Yeah.

But, uh, but the funny thing is, is I, you know, people would ask about, oh, well, would it even be possible? What about a Rifts video game? And I was always like, well, what are we going to do? Staff up 30, 40 top-tier people and then fire them 2 years later? Right.

Oh, it's so sad.

Yeah. Well, how are you going to do that? Right. I mean, you know, um, that's not what Playin' Books does. We're focused on books. But we've got some really talented folks that have worked on— worked with Blizzard and Microsoft and Stardock and other big computer game studios to help us bring this to life while we continue to make books. That's the really cool part, is there's this awesome game just sitting there waiting to come back.

Yeah, for sure. And it is awesome. I mean, that's the thing is Nokia really put a ton of money into this game. The producer at Nokia, Shane Neville, was a huge Palladium fan. He was— he started by playing TMNT and, uh, and then Rifts, and he was just a gigantic fan. And he really made sure that everything was very accurate, that it really reflected Rifts. And a bunch of other guys that, that were working at Backbone Studio, the main studio behind development of the game. You know, they, they were fans too, and, you know, they just did this beautiful job. And while the N-Gage was, was like discontinued a few months after our game release, uh, after Risk, Promise, and Power was released, from my recollection, they actually announced that the N-Gage would no longer be supported like a freaking week After Rift's Promise of Power came out, which was like just devastating.

It was like a blip. It was a blip of time. Yeah.

Just, I looked it up. The N-Gage went end of life 24th of February, 2006. Promise of Power came out in November of 2005.

Yeah.

So, and, and the announcement that they were no longer gonna support it, yeah, it was just a week or two after our game came out.

And which is a death knell, right? I mean, that's, yeah.

Yeah.

That no one's gonna buy the game of the system, right? That no one even likes anyways, apparently, you know, sadly. Um, or isn't doing well in the market anyways. Yeah, that's just sad.

Not, not to rant on the Nokia N-Gage, but it was kind of a, kind of a weird product that in some ways was behind its time and ahead of its time at the same time. Like now, if you look at a smartphone, if it could take a cartridge, that's, that was the N-Gage, right? But they didn't quite get the mix. I mean, I had one, I have one.

Early, yeah, the mid-aughts were an interesting time for the change of technology. Like, Wi-Fi was just really spreading and we didn't quite, we didn't have smartphones yet. And then, you know, everything changed when the iPhone and the Android came out.

You had smart-ish phones and everyone was trying to create a different OS for the OS that would actually take over the market.

Um, you know, and then, uh, everybody thought it was going to be Palm for a while. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, Kevin and I talked about it, and Kevin has some opinions because he saw— he actually went on a world tour with them for the N-Gage and the Promise of Power release. He actually saw how it was marketed in different major European and American markets. It's— some of it's the approach too, you know. Was it a phone that you could also play games on, or was it primarily a Game Boy or, you know, a gaming device?

Yeah.

that mom can still keep track of little Johnny, right?

Right.

And Johnny can play games with his friends, so he wants to carry the, the hockey puck of mom can contact you with him. So yeah.

Exactly. It was just, it was one of the very first— well, as far as I know, it was the very first game platform that allowed multiplayer, especially a mobile game platform in which you could play with 2, 3, 4 other people. It was the first product with Bluetooth. It was the first with multiplayer capabilities. They had all these cool, really great features. But Nokia, which was the 6th largest company in the world at the time, they were a phone company and they really encouraged people. When I say people, I mean countries. So basically every country Every territory could market the game whatever way they wanted to, but Nokia encouraged them to market it as a phone that also plays games, just as Sean just said. Well, the problem is all phones could play games. Everyone's like, well, I can play Tetris, I can play Snakes. And it's like, no, this is Sonic, this is X-Men, this is Call of Duty, you know, and all kinds of great stuff, whatever was popular. They had a huge library of like 60, 70 games of which we were one of them. And we were like, like one of the truly new kind of things that we were putting in here. And so I'm on part of the European tour, and we have— I happened to be there when they got the news that in Spain, where they marketed the N-Gage as a game platform, as basically a Game Boy that was also a phone, It outsold the brand new Xbox.

Wow.

But Nokia decided that was a fluke.

Yeah.

Enough, right?

Like, who are they now?

Right, exactly.

Where are they now? Unfortunately.

Yeah. I mean, they—

And it really was cool. I mean, it had its flaws, but it was cool.

The form factor was a little funky, but But besides the form factor, which they could have fixed because the Sidekick, remember the T-Mobile Sidekick that sold, like they sold out of that like constantly. And all they had to do was just tweak the form factor. And I think the N-Gage would have like N-Gage 3, you know, in the world where it kept going, it would have been, you know, the hot thing and we'd all be carrying N-Gages right now.

Yeah.

Right. It was launched. It's just, it is, it's a fluke of fate that Rift's Promise, 'cause Rift's Promise of Power was again, it was one of the games that they spent the, most development budget on. And it was, for them, it was one of their flagship titles. And the reviews reflect it, right? I mean, it was really the preeminent title if you look at the reviews for the year. It's really sad to see that it didn't happen, it didn't take off. But at the same time, now we have this opportunity to bring it to the PC.

Yep.

And as stretch goals, we wanna, you know, we can talk about that, but, you know, I don't know if you wanna dive into it now, but one of the big things is we wanna to offer that we can also port it to Nintendo and PlayStation and Xbox and mobile phones and then Mac and Linux. So, that's one of the beauties of rebuilding it in the Unity engine, which is our plan with TransPerfect Gaming, is that that is a— for anybody that knows game development—

Yeah.

That's an engine that once you build something in it, especially if you have that intention from the beginning, it's really easy to spin it off for other platforms comparatively. It still costs tens of thousands, $100,000, but it's relatively cheap.

I mean, I've got Unity games on my Android, on my tablet, so yeah. It's very, very portable.

It is, but there's also really high-powered games done on Unity for your PC, right? So yeah, it's amazing the breadth it's got. compared to modern phones. I mean, the Nokia N-Gage is a potato, right? I mean, it's ancient news. So we can definitely get it running on these kind of devices and platforms today. But that doesn't make the game itself any less cool. And so one of the big things that we're— with the announcements is we're— the very base conversion over, right, is gonna have updates for mouse and modern user interfaces, but also a full-screen resolution. So if you've ever seen a Nokia N-Gage, your play area is like a large stamp, a large mail stamp area.

It was better than Game Boy, I think. At least it felt better than Game Boy. Not—

Yeah, no, it feels better than Game Boy. There was something really cool about the form factor and the colors are really bright.

But it was a very small screen, you're right.

Right, but it is a small screen. Yeah, it's like, uh, you know, what's that big? It's like smaller than half a credit card, right? 320 by something.

Yeah, yeah, think of it as, you know, TV shows that were made for television and it's that small square versus widescreen movie panorama.

Right, and most screens these days are obviously wide. Yeah. And this was built for tall. Well, the cool thing is, is when you play the game You're either on overworld maps or you're on these tactical battle maps. So there's a lot to show off when you're playing the game. On the N-Gage, it actually feels like, oh, this isn't so bad to navigate. But wow, if you could put that on a full computer screen, that would be fantastic. So that's our goal, is that's one of the core goals of the port is to bring that to the table for everybody. And then we're gonna have stretch goals for taking the original and doing HD versions of it, a whole new soundtrack. We were just talking— funny, Kevin was talking about Shane Neville, the original producer. We were just talking to him today, I guess yesterday my time, but today your time. And, you know, he was just talking about how they actually engineered the sound to sound better when you held the N-Gage.

Oh, wow.

'Cause your hands like create this like cupping microphone type effect. And it was designed to do that. So he said, yeah, it's gonna probably sound a little funny You really need to do it with your soundtrack.

You have to hold your speakers like this while you play the game to—

Yeah, it sounds fine though when I put in the headphones. So I don't know what the deal is there. One of the other big things is if we get to a further goal, we want to reimagine all the art in the game and the sprites with completely new art. You know, the style that it was really originally designed in works really well for mobile, for a really small screen, has really bright colors. and simple shapes that you would need for that kind of a game. Well, what about if we instead redo all the portraits and the graphics to look like the COVID of a Palladium Rifts book? Not just a high-definition version of what came before, but something truly like dark and gritty and, you know, kind of heavy metal looking. So that's— those are some of the major goals that we've got. And so we're really excited about it. And another one is we'd like to have a button where you can push it and you can see the old graphics and you can switch between the old graphics while you're playing the game for the, the people who want that retro experience and experience the original, see what it looked like as they were playing kind of thing.

So there's a trend— well, yeah, kind of a trend. There's a little Easter egg sometimes that games will do where modern games will have it so, you know, your character is running around doing whatever and then you find like a computer or terminal or something and you can access that terminal and while you're there then it loads up a built-in game and it's usually like, you know, Asteroids or something. But, but I've seen somewhere it's a little bit more complex than that. It would be a really cool Easter egg if somewhere in the Rift's world of the game was a built-in emulator for the original game. So you, you know, you, you run somewhere into the ruins of Chicago and you find a box and it's like, what is this thing? It looks like a, looks like a tablet.

It could be the handheld PC that's in the main book that has like, you know, 96 megs of RAM and, you know, and it's like really amazing by 1986 standard. You pick it up.

It's an N-Gage.

Yeah.

It's an N-Gage. Let's stay away from trademark, I'm sure.

But so I do have a question though about the world running around in the world. I know nothing about the game. Like I've read the ads. I've seen the posts that do things. Where does it take place? What's going on? What's the general premise?

So I'm actually playing through it right now. It was funny because I kept telling Kev, I was like, man, Kev, I don't know where I'm going to get one of these N-Gauges.

They're hard to find.

You know, it was funny, we were talking to Chris, who's the lead developer, and he actually ordered— he went on eBay and he found— and I've heard it's hard to find, but he found a copy of Promise of Power and he got it finally in the mail and it was signed by Kevin.

Whoa.

And he was like, he was like, oh, he's like, I can't open this. So he went and bought another one.

I think mine's signed by Kevin. I think mine is actually signed by Kevin too. I have a copy.

Wow.

It's on the outside of the case though, I think.

Yeah.

So it was, yeah, he apparently was some way that he didn't want to even open it. But anyways, you know, Kevin was like, oh, well, I've got you, Sean. And he's, I mean, Kevin's a packrat extraordinaire.

And he goes— Collector. Collector.

Thank you.

Collector.

You're an eccentric collector.

He is. Kevin is an eccentric collector. Yes. So he went and pulled out this end gate, this box. with an N-Gage in it and Promise of Power. And I think it was a review copy.

Yeah.

And I was like, there's no way this is gonna work. And I pulled out, pulled out the battery, and I was like shocked that it wasn't corroded or anything. It's been there, it's been in a box for 20 years. I pulled it out, popped it in, thing powered right up. I was just like, wow. Everyone knows Nokia's reputation from back in the day for having indestructible stuff. But it was just fantastic to see it all power up. And I've been playing it. It has a great introduction to the world at the beginning of it, just talking about the rifts and the ley lines and the new dark age and the apocalypse. And then you are a character that is escaping from Coalition detention.

Hmm.

You've been branded or tattooed on your face and as one of their prisoners. And apparently they gave you some drugs to keep you persuadable. And so you don't really remember anything from before you were incarcerated. And so you go running off and escaping through the Badlands of North America, and then you make your way east as the plot progresses, and you hit Scotland and the New German Republic.

Oh.

But it takes place— there's an overmap that you move along and kind of progress along. You can go back to places if you want to And they said one of their inspirations is Final Fantasy Tactics. Yeah, it kind of has that where you can go, oh, I can go fight another battle here to get more XP and loot. Yeah, and then go to the next town kind of thing.

That answers another question of mine. Yeah, definitely.

And then the tactical battles are really fun. Um, you've got, uh, it's, it's— I, I, I haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics, but it reminds me of XCOM. I've played all, you know, the old and the new XCOMs. The maps look really gorgeous, actually. But you move through the terrain and you have, you know, you can move so many squares and you have action points to perform your actions, whether it's shooting your guns or casting spells. And you actually control, you get to control more than one ally as well. So you end up going around with a party regardless of what class you pick personally. So when the game starts, you can pick either mercenary, magic user or psionic as like a proto-class. And then you've learned the basics, and once you get to level 4, you pick your subclass. So, and there's 17 of the major classes from Rifts that you're familiar with. So everything from a cyborg to a glitter boy to a cyber knight to a mind melter, burster, ley line walker, battle mages. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff you can, you can play as. So I was kind of bowled over with, with that. But it's cool too because in my playthrough I want to do Glitter Boy stuff, so I can also, you know, one of my allies though that I chose, I chose a Leyline Walker, so I also have a magic user in my party, right, that's also leveling up and gearing up.

Well, and you got, I mean, Palladium, you guys created the Elemental Fusionist for this game to be a unique OCC for just this game, right? Or at least that was the story I remember you saying, Kevin. And so now when you read the book, it has the introduction at the top of the OCC for the Engage, and you're like, but I don't know where— I've never heard of this Engage thing. Where do I get this?

Yeah, you've got the, you've got the Elemental Fusionist in there as well. There's a lot of cool possibilities.

And actually, I think, I think if I recall correctly, They created the Elemental Fusionist.

Oh, okay.

They asked me how I, I liked it, and I said, you know, it's, it's fine, it's cool, it's another type of, you know, mage. And they're like, would you put it in the game? And I'm like, sure, give me some information and I'll, I'll do a write-up for it and stat it up. And in fact, the art in the game, the black and white art, is by the lead artist that helped design, uh, oh, Rifts: Primes of Power for N-Gage.

Oh wow.

Chris Barasa. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, it's artist.

Yeah, and I, uh, it's funny because I, um, I did the Elemental Fusionist for, uh, Rifts: Savage Worlds. So one of the things with that was, um, since warlocks, that which are your elementals in Palladium.

Fantasy.

They actually come with— from Palladium Fantasy. So as to not cross the intellectual property streams, you know, Savage Rifts didn't— Rifts for Savage Worlds didn't have any, any elementalists in it. So I added that to one of the books as a way to bring it— bring that type of character into Rifts in a Rifts way. And it was really cool. It was really fun. It was a really different approach. So now the Elemental Fusionist is pretty neat. I really enjoyed writing that and working on it, and I think Savage Worlds Rift players have really enjoyed it as well. So, but it's cool to see where these different ideas come from because—

Yeah.

As I was playing through it on the Engage, I told Kevin I was really blown away because they do have the advantage of music and art But they did a really succinct introduction of the Rift's world at the beginning. And as I've gone through the game, I'm just impressed with their attention to making it feel like Rift should. So that I've just been— I was—

Yeah.

I mean, I always heard it was a cool game, you know what I mean? And other people, other Rift fans that have played it always said really positive things. But to actually go through and see it myself has been really fantastic. And so it gets me more and more jazzed, like, wow, we got to do this. We got to run a crowdfunder. We got to see if we can bring this back for the fans and for new fans and, you know, alike. I mean, I think it's just a— it's a great game. You don't have to be a RIS fan to want to play this game.

Well, Matt, didn't you say you have an N-Gage and RIS Props and Power and you've played it many times?

Yeah, I've played it through. Well, I've tried to play it through a couple of times. Um, I was given it for a birthday gift, um, by a buddy of mine who has a tendency to surprise me with these random Palladium-related birthday gifts.

Uh, cool.

And it was an N-Gage or 2 N-Gage. It was an N-Gage with the power cable and The Promise of Power. And I was like, oh my gosh. And I played, I think I played through it all the way through. And this was like 2009, 2010. And then I went back to it and the battery, the internal, the battery had died.

Oh.

And so I have to keep it plugged into the wall. And now I think I've lost the, the, the wall wart, the adapter. So I can't keep it charged to play it, but I have it in a drawer just sitting there ready for me to play it again. Um, if I can find the adapter, uh, cause you know, you collect all these different AC adapters and everything from the old days when every different device came with one and you'd have a 10-foot box going filled with them anyway. But yeah, no, it was scrolling back and forth with the combat was way more seamless than you would think it would be at the time.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, like your intro screen that you're talking about, the whole intro of here's Rift's Earth was really cool. The sound was awesome. I was like, wow, this game could have saved a console. Like it really, I mean, it was that good of a game. And yeah. And I, I know I always was, every time I'd ask about it, I know I'd asked about it at the open house and it would come up on their forums occasionally. And it was like, it's in rights oblivion. We have no idea how we can get it. And Nokia won't.

Yeah.

Because they have other titles. Nokia has other titles that are just locked behind, theoretically locked behind, or until recently, until you guys figured it out, behind this curtain, this iron curtain of Nokia somewhere in Finland, and they just won't let it out, right?

So, well, it's a common thing that happens, especially when you have titles that are developed for a platform. Yep, specifically. And the difference with Rifts is, of course, that It's— they didn't create that IP. But yeah, you do get this kind of like— it was like Fallout was in that kind of like middling weird area for a number of years before Bethesda bought it. Right. After the fall of Black Isle Studios. But the difference here is that Kevin is a sharp negotiator. And so yeah, the rights reverted to us after a number of years. So now I don't even know if Kevin remembered that. Because what are we gonna do, right? Is how are we gonna— how are you gonna just like create a video game company out of nowhere and develop a new video game or bring an old video game back? And so that's one of the cool things about Transphobic Gaming.

Yeah.

Because like their lead developer, I talk about, you know, he worked, you know, on the Xbox. He worked for Microsoft. He worked on Crimson Skies. He worked on Halo Master Chief Edition. So, and then the art director used to work with Games Workshop and, uh, probably he was, uh, Privateer Press, and then he went into computer and video gaming and has worked with major studios. So it's suddenly to have guys like that that are, you know, sellswords and, uh, you know, can execute a project and, and gladly just execute a project and move on, right? That, that solves this kind of like, where do I get You know, a great game development team to do something like that and then be able to move on. Yeah, the timing just seems kind of right right now.

Oh yeah, no, and the partnership— I mean, we work really well with these guys. It's a really great fit. You know, over the years, you know, I've had lots of fans come up to me and say, you know what would be great is to have a Riffs video game. And I'm like, it would be, but what people don't seem to understand is we can't just go to a video game company and say, hey, you should make a Rift video game. You know, they have to need to want to, they have to have the budget, they have to have the people interested in it. And over the years, we've had a number of different companies, startup companies, big companies entertain the idea.

Super massive companies.

But—

Like what, a multi-billion dollar company came to us a couple of— like, yeah, right after I joined you at Palladium.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, it wasn't— that's the other thing is what do they want exactly, right? Right.

And are they going to do it right? And but a lot of times we even cut deals or ready to sign contracts and things would fall apart at the last minute. Not on our end, on their end, because they decided they didn't have the budget or they're moving on to a bigger project. Like at one point BioWare had reached out to us. And, you know, back in the day, and we were like, holy shit. And they're like, you're one of 3 projects that, that we're really hot on doing. And we're like, hot damn, you know, this is really great. And, you know, they took some, some piece of crap IP like Star Wars over Rift.

Um, and now we have, uh, Knights of the Old Republic, right?

Yeah. Something like that. Uh, I think it was, now we have Jade Empire.

Oh, oh, okay.

But, but, you know, it's— and so, and then, yeah, you know, it's— we're not stupid. We sit back and go, you know, even with Sean's background in video games, we don't have the expertise to do it right or the money to, like Sean said, build a video game studio with 20 or 30 people. So until we met the folks at TransPerfect who have these skills and have all these different outlets that they can TAP, it just wasn't feasible. Even though one of the first things Shawn said to me when we started talking about him coming to Palladium, he's like, you know, first was, hey, have you ever thought about redoing Turtles? And I'm like, duh. And he's like, you know what else would be great would be Riff's Promise of Power, even though he had never played it, never really seen it. And I'm like, yeah, it would be, but how are we going to do that?

Yeah.

And even now, you know, I love the fact that Sean made the sort of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, if you believe in fairies, clap your hand kind of thing, because that's what this Kickstarter— or you keep calling it Kickstarter, it's like Kleenex, right?

Right.

This crowdfunder campaign, either it's a success and we can do it, or it's not and we can't.

Right.

So really, it was a beautiful analogy, Sean, because it really is a matter of if you folks really want to see this as much as we do, and the original game designers would love to see it out, please support it. Because without your support, this game isn't happening.

Yeah.

So it's an all-or-nothing kind of deal. And, uh, but we're excited about it. We think it's going to be good. We think, we think fans want it. And we think, you know, people have never played Rifts. would love this game because a lot of people who had never played Rifts loved it when it came out originally. And, uh, it's just this great fun world that, that combines science fiction, fantasy, magic, technology, and the supernatural. I mean, it's just this beautiful—

Tactical turn-based RPG combat. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like a dream come true. Yeah. And, and the, the interesting thing is we, you know, we, so we, we did I say we did. I mean, we're still working with our production partners, right, as they're finalizing production for the various different items for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness Redux Edition. But besides EU regulations on what needs to be on the box, every box, or besides these, you know, oh, let's make sure that, hey, for production, can we change the shape of of shredder blades a little bit, right, for the miniature production. You know, those are the kind of things that we've been dealing with since we sent all this stuff off to the printer, um, where it's been for, uh, what, a couple months now? Um, yeah, a few months. Uh, that's the funny thing is, is like, yes, that's still in, in process, in production. I'm guessing sometime while we're running this crowdfunder that the stuff's going to be loaded onto a boat and shipped our way, right? So we're really confident on that. But it was time for me to move forward on, okay, what's the next thing that I'm developing? So I've been working with artists on finishing up art for Bestiary 2, and as well as art for Chaos Earth: First Responders, and working on that manuscript. And we've been working on this kind of slow boil for the COVID arts and a lot of the, what would the HD upgrades look like and things like that. And so, oh, The number one cool thing is because, you know, this is going to be a crowdfunder, we are gonna have a Glitterboy statue. Like straight, our instructions are we want it to look exactly like the Kevin Long drawings from the original Rifts RPG.

Okay, define statue.

Like 8 and a half inch tall.

Oh, okay, okay. I have 9-foot T-Rexes in my field.

Yeah, yeah, well, but like you're putting one—

I'm envisioning a 10-foot Glitterboy.

Glitter boy, I'm gonna stick that to my T-Rexes. Yeah, not a t-shirt or wearable. Yeah, but no, something that you could get in the mail that wouldn't be insane. But yeah, and then we'll have a place where you can put your USB with your, your PC version of the game in it. But, uh, well, we're gonna have other stuff, but that's gonna be one of the crowning physical items that backers can get that I think a lot of people will be excited about. But anyways, the whole point is, you know, with this production is it doesn't— sure, there is oversight, and if this funds, there will be a number of hours to be put into overseeing production and updated art assets and all that kind of stuff. But in general, this doesn't really slow down our core production because it's their team, right?

Right.

In very capable hands. Bringing back a game that already exists, right? I mean, it's not like we have to write new dialogue or create tons of new characters or anything like that. It's a known quantity. So that's one of the things that we think is really exciting. We hope fans also understand that's another beautiful part of being able to work with a team like this on something like this is uniquely, it's not really slowing down our role besides running the Kickstarter and prepping that kind of stuff. Or I keep saying Kickstarter, dang it. You got me, Kevin. Um, but yeah, the crowdfunder, because we're doing it through BackerKit, and for, for good reason, because it, it really is, uh, it's got a lot of really cool stuff. For instance, the day on launch day, what we're planning is a live stream on launch day. Um, and the cool, coolest part is when you go to the page, you'll be able to see the live stream at the top of the campaign page.

That's cool.

Oh, neat.

So not like— because I know one of the things we did with Turtles, with, uh, the Turtles Redux Edition was we did a livestream the last day, but you had to see the link in an update or in an email we sent you, right? Boy, it doesn't have to be like that. We can have nice things. And so that's— there's a lot of cool stuff that BackerKit is bringing to the table. They're really changing up the game for crowdfunding.

Yeah.

And so we're really super excited to work with them on this. But we think the fans are gonna really enjoy it too because of all the different ways they get to participate. So we're gonna have, in fact, we're gonna have some different, uh, there's gonna be a special backer level that you can get actually before the campaign even launches. So you, it's basically like a pre-order pass where, yeah, so we're working on that. It looks like it'll be like you, you pledge $5, but, uh, you get to lock in special stuff for, um, when the, when the game goes live. Like for instance, being able to back an hour or 2 before. Oh, that's cool. the main campaign launches. So that means the people that really want to get the, um, the limited items, because there are, you know, usually, as usual, there's gonna be limited tiers that have, hey, if you are on this associate producer tier or whatever, you get a whole bunch of the original Engage pre-launch items and, and, and passes and, and paraphernalia, um, as well as, you know, just like we've done with other ones, um, you know, maybe there's, uh, Yeah, custom, like you get an actual piece of original Riffs art as well and things like that, where those things are limited by a certain quantity. Um, so just wanted to kind of get that idea out there for fans to take a look at because, uh, we're still working on the details on that, but I think it'd be a pretty cool option. And then the other thing about it is, is, um, I want to be where, you know, we're going to have different— obviously there's, you know, you have different backer levels And one of the things is custom art or unique items or exclusive items, in-game items and things like that. So we're gonna be doing stuff like that. But if you get in on that, you're gonna get some of the stuff that you wouldn't normally be able to get unless you backed at a higher, like, physical tier and stuff, even if you only do a digital backing. So looking at ways to make it kind of cool for people to get in and help us front-load the hype train. Because, you know, a crowdfunder really is It's a hype campaign. It's, it's, it's a marketing campaign. It's a fun event that we want to get as many people in and excited about it as possible. So we're trying every which way we can to, to engage with different types of fans.

To engage?

To get them involved.

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

Yeah, yeah, careful with that. So, um, a nuts and bolts question, and you may not be able to or have the answer. So it looks like it's about 20, 20 days-ish until it'll actually kick off, something like that. 25 days, I think, is what the estimate said.

Yeah.

Uh, so the one thing when I'm looking at Kickstarter, especially software, because I know software as well, and something like this is, can be a big thing. Do you have a number already? And can you say what the number is on the minimum to at least get the game? None of the extras, none of the extra stuff, just like Like, if, if all things— no one shows up except for the one dude who wants to write a check to get the game, do you guys have that number?

Are you talking about, uh, getting the game as a personal backer?

No, no, no, no, like, like the minimum that you need to kick the product. Yeah, minimum goal. Yeah, the minimum goal.

Yeah, um, I'm hammering that out right now, um, but it's probably gonna be around $700,000, I think.

Okay, that's what I was wondering, like Because I've seen some projects that are software and they're like, we only need $10,000 to bring this game to 60 hours. And I'm like, are you crazy? You know, and those, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a, this is a realistic budget to actually do the game.

No, no, no. Yeah. We don't, we don't, we don't do that. And there's a, well, no, but there's a temptation even with books.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That there's companies that will say, hey, our goal is $5,000 or $10,000. Right. And But really, they need more than that to print the books. But they— what they want is that they want it— they want it to look good when, oh, it funded in 5 minutes, right?

Right.

And they want to build that kind of, you know, that speedball hype train kind of thing. And, you know, I'm not trying to dog on anybody when I say that, right? Um, but our approach at Palladium is we give the real— the real dope, you know, the straight dope. So like with Turtles, TMNT: Another Strangeness, because of all the different accoutrements that we were making available, we knew we were gonna have to hit— I think our original goal was $300,000?

Yeah, sounds right.

You know, we didn't softball that. It was the real goal, right? So if they hit it, it happened. And we're doing the same thing with Promise of Power. And so that's one of the great things though, is it's a known game. It has art, it has music, it has assets, right? So it is more of a port job. Um, a straight-up port-over job, so that makes it a little more cost-effective, right, than developing a game from scratch. Plus, you know, the flavor of the cake that's coming out the other side, right, is awesome. So, uh, that's, that, that's the, that's, that's where we're at. That, you know, I don't want to give an exact number because—

No, no, I was just—

yeah, that's—

Yeah, we have a realistic number.

Realistic number of like, actually, this is a real number, and if it goes, it goes. That's awesome. We're all super excited. I hope it does. I can't write a check that big. My wife won't let me mortgage the house again. But maybe if I get a couple of people together, we can mortgage our house.

Yeah.

Well, that's, and that's the thing is, is we, we really, we really, you know, but it is, it's aggressive, right?

Yeah.

Um, I mean, it has to be aggressive. So, um, we're gonna have, um, a lot of, and again, I wanna wait until I've actually got all everything hammered out and we've got quotes from everybody, but Because we're also, you know, I'm working on production quotes and sculpting quotes and all these different things. Um, and we're only go— like with Turtles, we're only going top tier.

Right.

Um, with, with our partners that we're working with, um, both for production and for, uh, development of the art and other assets. The— that, that's one of the big things is if people can back at the physical level, um, we're going to have multiple software-only, you know, download-only type backer levels, but then we're also gonna have a lot of physical level backers, backer levels options. So the more that people can back, the better, because that just helps us accomplish the goals. So, and I understand, I've been the gamer on a budget before too, where it's like, hey, all I got's my $50 or whatever, right?

For sure.

But at the same time, I haven't usually been in like the place where I'm like, oh, I'll spend $5,000 on this thing. But, you know, I've dropped a few hundred bucks on things that I was really excited I mean, some of us, some of us are gifted with being able to support at higher levels.

I was just happy I hit that first button on the Turtles project and I was like, wait, what? I get this? And a backer number?

What?

Done. You know, there are things that we don't discuss and, you know, things that I've put too much money in. I'm not saying I have the money. I just I just, I, I, I make bad choices sometimes.

You know, some people gamble. This isn't nearly as bad as— that's what you tell, that's what you tell a loved one.

Right.

At least I didn't gamble away our fortune. I got this cool shiny box for you.

Yeah. And it will be an investment and invent at some point in the future, it'll be worth more money.

In 30 years, I'll sell this.

Right. To myself.

Because I'm a collector. No, no. By the way, we want, I want to thank you guys for, for backing at the very top tier. For, um, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Redux Edition. Your name is in both books at the end.

So I don't know if I went as hard as, uh, as NPC did, but I went pretty high.

I just, I wanted that Ludic book.

Yeah. Well, that was pretty cool. Yeah, that was pretty cool. I'm like, I need that.

I need it. Need.

No, I remember when Kevin, you know, Kevin pulls stuff out and shows me and, you know, things I didn't even know existed. And, um, you know, one time it was a bunch of original Kevin Long art from before he even met Kevin Long. And I was, I was hollering for what, 30 minutes?

Oh, easily.

I was like, what?

This exists?

No way! What? As he pulls out more pieces of art by Kevin Long that no one's ever seen. It was— yeah, it, you know, sometimes he, he, when he pulled out Woojik's original, you know, that book, I was just like, Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So to see his signature and, and yeah, everybody else is on there. Yeah, there's some cool stuff in the Turtles Redux Edition. And we're, we again, we're, we're building things up. We would like to have lots of cool options for, for this as well, for, for Promise of Power. And fortunately, Kevin is a collector at heart, and we have a bunch of stuff that, uh, that we're going to be able to, to offer to fans.

So when we last chatted with Kevin, you, after we were done and we had stopped recording, you're like, you guys want to know what's coming up? And we're like, um, yes. And you told us about, you know, the, the announcement that's coming up and we're like, okay, well, we can't tell anyone.

But I dropped very, very, very, very subtle hints over the last like month.

And all of my hints were basically just Captain Picard memes from Star Trek.

Engaged.

That was the meme.

That's the meme. Yep. And it took until like 2 hours before the email finally went out for someone to like, wait a second.

Well, and I think we told you this, Kevin, last time we talked, they literally the week before on the Discord channel for the Glitter Boys and the Breakfast Puppies, they were talking about how it'd be so cool to get Promise of Power back. And everyone's talking about these things that we're careful about them not talking about. Like, how do we literally hack the system and break and blah, blah, blah? And we're like, well, let's not talk about that, but you might be able to find it somewhere out there. And then you drop your little nugget to us and we're like, what? And so we had to sit on it.

It was exactly the same with Valley of the Pharaohs. Again, we had a chat with Kevin. We were talking about the early days and we're like, man, it would be pretty cool if you brought Valley of the Pharaohs back. And Kevin's like, you never know.

The next freaking week. And I don't know, I don't know, it's been in the zeitgeist or something because the last month, even without someone leaving Picard memes, they've been talking about it over and over and over. Like, this would be really cool and like the different ideas and different things. Now, at the same time, they also bring up the list of the lost books, the books that were announced and never actually made it or someday.

Someday.

Someday.

Yeah.

Okay. But then Promise of Power keeps coming back. And as I just looked it up right now, you have just 1,199 people have signed up for the announcement already. So, you know, you're—

That's great, right? I mean, those are actually fantastic numbers for just announcing it. Yeah, it's interesting. By the way, we do have a project status page on the Palladium Books website, so you can see when Your favorite book was canceled to never come back again. But, uh, you know, your favorite imaginary book. But yeah, we are hard at work though. There are a number of books though that we're— we are working on.

Oh yeah.

Um, getting to the fans. So that's a really great page to take a look at for fans that are like, whatever happened to this or that?

Yeah.

And what's the official status, you know? And some of it was like, well, with the passing of Vera Pujic, some titles, they're never going to happen, right? Um, Other cases, maybe an author thought they had something good, and then when it came down to brass tacks, they're like, you know what? I'm sorry. I don't have the full— I don't have it. I thought this would be a cool book, and I got stuck on— couldn't develop it. And if we can, we try and pick stuff like that up. But I mean, books take time. But yeah, with this, it's pretty fascinating because I've heard people talk about The Promise of Power a lot.

A lot.

It does seem to kind of cycle through the zeitgeist of the fans. And so we're really excited to be able to bring it in. And there are a few things that you always hear whenever people talk about The Promise of Power 2 is, yeah, but they have that spotlight on the Glitterboy's head. So there's a couple of things like that that we are going to update while we have the chance as well.

No more spotlight.

So the classic look of the Glitterboy head and— The, the, the— when you play the game, the, the Dead Boys are— they're kind of a mix between the old style and the new style.

Yeah, those, they were a little funky.

Yeah, they're a little funky. So, you know, for instance, the portraits are gonna be at least gonna be the classic depiction. Yes, thank you. Yeah, and you'll be able to see that when we—

when we—

I mean, maybe before, we might put it in some of our advertisements and stuff, but you'll definitely be able to see it when we launch. You'll be able to see examples of it because we have the original portraits from the N-Gage, and then we also have the HD versions and what their sprite for the whole character on the map would look like as well. So people will be able to see, these are the things that we're offering as far as our updates and improvements and things like that. And the funny thing is we hope the project funds because that all costs money. If the project doesn't fund, then we're out a chunk of money. chunk of change.

We hope that it's worth the risk, you know, it's worth doing. And, and as far as, you know, the zeitgeist, I think, you know, first of all, word has always trickled over the years how much fun and how Rifts-like the Rifts: Promise of Power game really was. Um, and then there's just that, that sense of nostalgia. And, and, you know, it's 20 years we're doing this crowdfunding campaign 20 years after the original game came out. And, uh, it's really cool, and it's a game worth seeing. It's a game worth playing. Uh, they really did do a great job. And I, I feel happy that the original people involved get to have their work out, I hope, uh, if we can succeed with this crowdfunder, because they put their hearts and souls in it. And it's crushed as we were that, gee, this really awesome licensed property isn't coming out, what about the people who built it? I mean, they worked so hard on it, and it had to be devastating to have this great product that is a flash in the pan because the platform failed. And so I'm thrilled that— because these guys are all great guys. They had flown me out, and they were nervous about it. I guess the heads of Nokia were like, I don't know. Some of these creators are assholes. You know, is Kevin an asshole and Shane's an asshole?

Internet says yes.

And, you know, they flew me out, and I guess I heard later that they were all, like, nervous, like, what am I gonna think and what am I gonna do? And I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I mean, I come in and it's like, ooh, is that a 3D model? Ooh, you're drawing me. Doing what? Oh, Elemental Fusionist? What's that?

You know?

Yeah, I'm all excited. I'm like, this art's fantastic! Because I guess some creators don't understand that, you know, you're adapting it to a new medium.

Right.

So it's gonna look different. Um, but I mean, I, I got that, and I was just excited to see my creation being brought to a new medium and, and, and, and beautifully. I mean, because at this point I had already read the entire script. Um, you know, I'd seen all their plans. I had seen a little bit of the production art that they were working towards. But meeting these people, it was just a real kick for me. They had me there for like, I don't know, 3 or 4 or 5 days. And, uh, apparently they really enjoyed me being there. They were like, man, it was the best thing we ever did bringing you in because when you left, everyone was just so motivated to make this great game for Kevin. We got to do a great job. And I'm like, oh. Yeah.

Well, they really did.

I imagine you would have been far more exciting for BioWare to work with than George Lucas. Well, yeah.

Like, oh, I don't know. I'm a pretty big George Lucas Star Wars fan.

Yeah, I know. He's just like such a— he's, he is so in control of like all of the projects that I would just kind of wonder like if BioWare guys are like, man, that Kevin guy actually Let's go work with him.

He'll let us do almost anything.

I mean—

Yeah. Well, I can speak to that personally. I mean, when I was working on Risk for Savage Worlds, there is a quality bar. So Kevin will be very insistent on high quality. So if you're not producing high quality art or writing or whatever, he'll tell you. But that's because he wants to make sure that fans only get high quality product. And that's something that I think has sort of played him very well. And that's why Gladium still has so many hardcore fans, uh, that are buying 20, 30-year-old books a lot of times. No, when I was working on Rifts for Savage Worlds, you know, if it wasn't a quality bar issue, say for some of the art or something like that, I mean, he was really cool about, hey, this— do it, do what is, is most fun and what's best for a Savage Worlds version of the game, right? It take— you know, he was always like, don't feel shackled by the, the way things operate mechanically in Palladium, right? Um, you know, you need to be true to the story, but, but tell that story differently for this other— this different gaming media, right? And so I can, I can honestly say, I mean, Kevin is really great to work with. He's, uh, not overbearing. You know, I think that there, there are some people who talk about that in corners of the internet and say, oh, he's a control freak. Most of that is started by people that wrote a poor manuscript that got rejected or largely rewritten. And the sad thing is, is if Kevin did a lot of rewrites on something, that means that he thought it had a ton of potential and he wanted to make sure it could get to the fans. Yeah, I agree. But still, sometimes people will take that— I think it's more of an amateur writer thing— take that as an insult. Just like amateur artists a lot of times are offended if you don't like their first pass. Pro artists They'll give you 3 sketches up front. You choose the ones you like, the elements you like, then they go through and they'll work on it. If you need to change something, they're like, oh yeah, no problem. And they're just, uh, oh, you're right, that the perspective on that arm looks weird or something, right? And I mean, we had that experience with working on the, the new, uh, Promise of Power cover art.

Yep.

Um, by the way, isn't that cool cover art?

It's really, really, really awesome. It's, it's, yeah, like mind-blowingly awesome.

Yeah, we, um, I mean, that was not an easy task, let me tell you.

But, uh, but yeah, I mean, we— yeah, well, and there was— yeah, long story short, without throwing anybody under the bus, um, we had, uh, a really great artist come in, um, working to do a second version. So he and the art— the global art director for TransPerfect were like, you know, we're sorry that that first You know, iteration was late and didn't work for you guys. We're doing a whole new iteration. And they did a fantastic job to make sure that we could get it in time for the announcement. So, um, and yeah, it looks, it looks great. But even with that, yeah, yeah, even with that, there was like even little things where it was like, oh, this perspective, like on the hip of the burster, you know, there was, there's something a little odd to it. And, you know, they were, they were total professionals and, and got it sussed out. So, you know, that just happens with development. But, you know, that's why it's a collaborative experience. But, but yeah, that's the one thing I think is the mark of an amateur is when they can't take constructive feedback. And because, you know, Kevin is like the rest of us, we want everything to be the best product it can be.

Well, you know, doing a game is kind of like directing a movie. You know, I think when a movie ends, you have all those credits because it's a gigantic team effort. And sure, maybe the writer and the director are— and a couple of the key actors are pivotal, but there's a whole bunch of people behind them, and you've got to work together. I don't care if, you know, a great idea can come from, you know, just Joe Blow. And if it's better than my idea, I'm going to take it, and I'm going to say, thanks, you know, can I have this? And they say, yeah. I'm like, great, I'm going to run with this.

Yeah.

You know, you got to put your ego aside and try to produce the best damn product for your audience. I think that's the other thing. A lot of people lose track of their audience. It's all about, well, this is my vision and this is my this and that. And it's like, you know, your vision is important because you're the guy leading the charge. But, you know, what does your audience want and what can you deliver that's really going to make your audience go, wow? I'm really big into wow factor. And I'm really— I love working with people that you can have a great interaction with and who take notes and give you good feedback. And, you know, you can spitball ideas back and forth. Um, and, and yeah, unfortunately, you know, that's, that's not always the case with whoever you're working with. But, you know, it is what it is. And, you know, we're always striving to put our best foot forward and give you guys, our fans, the best possible product no matter what it is. I mean, Yeah. Great examples with, with Turtles. And I think we, we talked about this when we did the Ninja Turtles: All the Strangeness Redux Edition. The black, white, and red editions are amazing. And the artist that we wanted to do the art for, he sent in this art which we weren't expecting with a ton of— you know, we were thinking just, you know, the black and white line art with some spot reds.

Which is the traditional black, white, and red. It's a thing in comics, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he sends in like these 3 or 4 pieces of art. And he goes, is this what you're thinking of? Because he really didn't know what we had in mind. And we look at this and it's got all these grayscales to them. They're like completely repainted with gray and reds. But it's not like just—

Oranges and yellows and—

Yep. And we're like, wow, no, this is not what we were thinking of. But yes, this is— Now it is. Now it's what we're thinking of. Yeah. And, you know, it cost us like 3 times what the original budget should have been. But we're like, the fans— we went crazy over it because we're fans too. And we're like, oh my God, the fans will just go nuts over this. We got it now that we've seen it. Exactly. We can't unsee it. We have to give them this because they will love it. It's just, just the way we operate. Shawn's like that. I'm like that. And I think it's a good way to go because, you know, your fans is everything. There's What keeps you alive and keeps you going and keeps you motivated?

Yeah, and that's a big reason that with Promise of Power, I'd never played it before. So it wasn't like I was like, oh, I want to bring back my own personal experience or something. It was hearing fans talk about it and seeing it cycling through the zeitgeist forever. I mean, we're 20 years later. This is like the 20th anniversary when the game came out, right? That's the thing is like, this is definitely something that fans want on some level, right? And so yeah, if we can deliver that with aplomb, with— I'm sure there's gonna be, you know, hopefully we get, you know, if we just hit our funding goal, then we, you know, fans are gonna get the port, right?

Right.

With, you know, the updated aspect ratio and a little bit of modernization to some of the mechanics and different things in there. But if we get the big enchilada where we get to do HD art or the full art upgrade, new soundtrack and all that stuff, everybody's dedicated to making this as cool as possible. The game— I don't know if he's director or lead developer, Chris. As I said, he went and bought an N-Gage just so he could play the game.

Right.

He's, he's been— they've been doing a lot of stuff that normally we should be paying big consulting fees for, but they're like, well, we're just really excited about this project. So if you don't mind, like, here's our ideas for what you can do for stretch goals and, and, and for backer levels and all this kind of stuff. So they're just, they're really engaged and they're really excited about it, which is awesome to see because that's what you want, right? You don't want somebody dialing something in. You want somebody coming in and giving their best for it, just like we got with that cover art, which I'm I'm elated over. So that, but that's, you know, but that's, that's, that's proof in the pudding. That's, that's work from the TransPerfect team.

And, you know, we really do want them to be engaged on this product. I have to every time. I have to.

Oh man.

Horrible, horrible note.

Well, we, uh, I know you're up late, uh, or early. Early. Early.

Yeah, I'm gonna go get some coffee in a minute.

Yeah.

Um, uh, we completely appreciate this and we're super excited for this. And, uh, hopefully I can make my next mortgage payment once this— once the crowdfunder actually kicks off.

Yeah.

Um, because, uh, I'll be incredibly incredibly tempted, uh, to, to get some crazy things. Um, and, uh, yeah, this sounds— this is, this has been some really cool news. Some really cool news.

Get to play it on my Steam Deck. Yeah. It's gonna be great.

Yeah. I, I don't wanna buy a Steam Deck. I want it on Android. There better— I hope there's a Kickstarter item like I, that you can get it on Android. That, and then with the Unity engine.

There is a mobile port that's, um, you know, and that's the great thing again, working with these guys that they're like, okay, first we do Nintendo because there's more tactical RPG players than we do PlayStation, than we do Xbox. And then once we have all those and we get some notoriety from PC and then the ports to the consoles, then it's easier to get like editor's choice when you launch on, say, mobile.

Right.

And that, because there's so many games that come out for mobile all the time, you don't know the quality, right? A lot of them are these weird progressive time sync things, um, and not an actual just game that you just buy and play.

With microtransactions and everything that you could possibly do.

Yes, yes, yes.

And, you know, all the click, click endlessly, mindlessly clicking. But, you know, so, so, so anyways, there's a— there's, there's strategy to it. We've been working really hard on this to, to try and game out the best way to bring this to as many fans as possible. But yeah, we're, we're, uh, we're super excited and we're glad that— we really appreciate y'all, uh, doing this interview. I know we've been trying to— I've been working with you guys trying to line something up for quite a while, right? So, um, when Kevin was like, well, I'm meeting with them at 8 PM Eastern, I'm like, I'm just gonna do it. I'll be there. Hell yeah.

Well, I'm glad you could make it.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad we could finally get something worked out. And yeah. Um, but, but yeah, we'll have to do something again soon, but I really appreciate— and again, appreciate your support on the turtles. Not only just getting the word out there, but as backers yourselves, as a top-tier backer, we look forward to your support on this as well.

Looking forward to it.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Well, thanks for joining us, folks, and we're going to do our best to turn this out in record time. So look for this tomorrow morning.

Yeah, if you're listening, go to the BackerKit. Hacker Kit, Risk, Promise of Power, Reforged.

So, and all the links will be in the show notes, folks, so follow that and sign up for, uh, getting information.

Yep.

Well, good morning, good night, and we will talk to you on a— hopefully again very soon.

Thanks very much. Cheers.

You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse, and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sembida and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games. You can order directly at palladiumbooks.com, and their entire catalog is available digitally at DriveThruRPG.com. Thanks for listening. RPG as well. Our opening music is 8-Bit Bass and Lead by Furby Guy from freesound.org. This closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org. All sound effects used are self-made or acquired via Creative Commons Zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as The Glitter Boys. That's B-O-I-S. And check us out online at breakfastpuppies.com/glitterboys and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies Network Discord at breakfastpuppies.com/discord. And if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.