Brain Trust

While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . We revisit A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution ( https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/guide ) and the results may shock you (we still love it). In this episode Adam dials it in, Will goes Mads, and we both talk about games that let you do mean things. With a return to setpiece g...

While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . The Brain Trust podcast is a foley-centric soundscape for those invested or interested in the heard world. Also, we explore different styles of campaign play, focused around living worlds with multiple groups playing in a shared space or time. Kill Dick Dastardly. Save the world.&nbsp...

We’re back, we’ve been back. While you’re here, contribute to Black Lives Matter in whatever way you can: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ . In this episode, we’re talking all about hexes, inspired by Adam’s hex jam ( https://itch.io/jam/hexjam ) and his hex pack ( https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/world-champ-hex-kit )! Hexes are a type of gon. Gon is math for shapes. Different gons mean differ...

In this new sort of game, everyone in the world is a target. Or an opportunity. The only thing you have are your devices, a personal code, and a lifelong commitment and understanding of the trifold axis of our new world. Seek the mysteries of the forebears, extract your pound of flesh, get points in exchange for advanced techniques, and choose your path. Savior or scourge? Do you walk alone or do...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are random entries. We’re in a treasure appendix and you always fudge the numbers a little bit to get us. In this episode, we generate an episode of the Brain Trust podcast. Will chats about their new game, shipwrights, available today at https://willjobst.itch.io/shipwrights . Adam propagates some mechanics from his strategy game draft Ossuary. I think this is how you pla...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are a weird hand gesture. We are sundials on your walk. We are apples and milk, but worse. In this episode, we talk about layout, failure, and building a relationship with your work. Will might still be in an infinity library of their own design. Adam chats his new game, Aurora, available today at https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/aurora . What fruits do lizards like? We do...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are your drive-time DJs on 69.3 AM, your home for funny number bands. We are again apologizing to the gamers, recollecting radio stations past, and definitely specifically not at all trying to say anything on the Brain Trust bingo board. We make three games involving other games, experiences on top of experiences, like a double decker bus but for games. Do you understand?...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are two big fangs. We’re Weezer now. Life’s going to be a little different, out here in the g’rage and Beverly Hills. Adam unveils 500 years of vegan secrets and outlines new editions of Babes in the Wood and Protest Singer. Will recounts a citrus meltdown and makes an enemy of Frank. We made a game on this episode that really asks: what that mouth do? This is our Green Al...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are Hollywood again. This is the beginning of a new era of Brain Trusting. A computerized world. For art and likes. And Dew. In this episode we dramatize game design, ask: what is owlbear?, and get into your innards. Adam dives into ForeverDex: a game about monster and mail at https://worldchampgameco.itch.io/foreverdex , and Will talks about just getting your head right a...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are against the owlbears. Not "against" so much as "attempting to coexist". They induct a new Pokemon into the Brain Trust-Certified Favorite Pokemon club, talk about the playtest of THIS DISCORD HAS GHOSTS IN IT (available now: https://willjobst.itch.io/ghosts ), dive into what early access means to us, and remember the name of the music website. Spin? Stereogum? We plot...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst brainstorm and brainproduce three games using online. What kind of games lean into the crosstalk and overspeaking of voice chat, the private space around your computer, or the haunted house that is Discord? We got you. Adam unveil a very good impression of our favorite LOST character, Will doesn’t analyze the significance of twos, and we both consider what makes a flakey,...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst enter online, again. We derail fast to talk about supermarkets, blueboxes, and Will’s friendly upstairs cult. Adam give a Quietus play report, and we both talk about playing games online. Will debuts a brand-new joke and Adam reveals himself to be something of a music guy. Wow! A programming note, in these quarantine-days, we’re going to switch from biweekly to weekly! You...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst tear it up, materially-speaking. We tear it up, generally, too. But today it’s specific. You get it. In this episode, we design three games revolving around the destruction of zines, with at least one of them about LOST. If you love something, sometimes you have to rip it up into 1,000 pieces. This episode is ready-made with everything you need: foley experiment, Adam and...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst take it all apart piece by piece and put it back together again. We’re back, baby, in the same zip code. Hell, we’re even in the same room. Locking eyes and bass boosting fives. The California sun is nice, I’m not afraid to say it. In this one we talk about playing A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution (Together! In person!), how screen printing techniques inform g...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst discover that for every thing, there is an anti-thing. Matter. Malls. Games designers. We chat about reinvention, kickstarter peeves, and wonder why you were nodding along in the first place. Adam looks at the katamaris (the game of cousins), the long view of one’s catalog, and gets ready to wrap up the Cobwebs kickstarter (while previewing what’s to come). Will anatomizes...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst set off fireworks in celebration of Cobwebs funding! We prepare our minds to enter the green realm of Zine Quest 2 by highlighting some of our most anticipated zines. Adam ponders what his own catalog, the bounds between heavy metal fucker shit and kid shit. Will recounts a scary noise from the woods. They both chat about a Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution and h...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst bluesky the next actually good corporate game. As with every movement in games, it’s one of two things. Call of Duty or Spiderman. Chipotle or Taco Bell. They talk about the scariest character sheets, zines ahead of ZineQuest 2020, and a deep dive into Adam’s coming-to-Kickstarter game Cobwebs (January 28th, mark it!). For more information, check out Adam’s mailing list ri...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst get lit. What does 2020 hold? Will gets grim, fast. Adam explores Doozle and the goblin conundrum. Then they crescendo into music games, with notes and pianos and clapping and that certain TikTok noise. This episode features a playstorm of my car is in the front yard , now available on at willjobst.itch.io/my-car-is-in-the-front-yard .  Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgame...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst give the definitive ranking of everything, including: best games you haven’t read yet, most questionable lunches, and, well, slaw. They talk about ghosts of episodes’ past, their favorite games of the year, and Pokemon. Who’s Auld Lang Syne anyways? I’m going to look it up and get back to you.  Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jo...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are together in the same room! Live and direct for Worcester, MA, Adam and Will reunite! They talk about Pokemon (Shield), the status of A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution, Adam’s upcoming game Cobwebs, and the joy of gaming with new players. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/willjo...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are two cars passing in the night. Adam’s about to leave on tour, and Will is back! On this episode, we clear the sticky-note docket, compare Gallaghers, and test dream games. Adam debriefs after Big Bad Con and Will presents the newest luxury RPG product. Find Adam on Twitter at @wcgameco and Will at @will_jobst Music by Will Jobst, available at https://soundcloud.com/wil...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst bring back the wonderful For The Queen hack “For The Game Design” and bring it on the road to Big Bad Con 2019 with a flurry of amazing designers and friends drawing cards. Adam & Will also have a nice discussion in-studio about player skill progression from repetitive play and start to re-assess where they are with the design process of A Guide to Casting Phantoms in The...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are back in the same country, time to catch up! On this episode, Adam brings a hack of Alex Roberts’ For The Queen where the word “Queen” is replaced with “Game Design.” It’s devastating. It’s really just, a lot. Adam and Will get ready for a season of design by talking about what makes them feel beautiful, the Kickstarter union, made-up cons, and our Nardwuar presents.  F...

Adam Vass and Will Jobst are a world apart, but the brain keeps trusting. On this episode, Will talks to Lucian Kahn, game designer, pentagram expert, and absolute wit. We talk about luminiferous ether, geezer energy, the Kickstarter union, what pipe cleaners are for, and the mythic wit of Lucian Kahn. We also chat about the upcoming MALL GOTHS VS VISIGOTHS Kickstarter. Adam checks in via phantosc...

Episode 7: Funded We funded? YEAH WE DID. In this episode, Adam and Will collectively exhale, talk about the future, and plan their break. We’ll be back in your feeds later this month, but for the meanwhile, we’re going to take a beat. We chat about exhaustion roleplaying, the last exciting days of the campaign, and more. This episode is a thank-you note to our backers, that made this podcast and...