2021 Christmas Presents – page 23
Ya gotta have a board game, right? It’s just not a proper merchandising spree without a weird, inexplicable board game!
Actually, I kind of had to compromise with myself on this one. My first inclination for “Far Out There: The Board Game” was to try and do something like one of those huge plastic monstrosities from the ale 80s/early 90s. You know, when board games were desperately trying to retain some relevance after video games refused to go away, and the best they could do was huge contraptions with lots of moving parts that took tons of batteries and left the game unplayable if anything broke. Look up Shark Attack or It From The Pit for good examples of what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, while I’m all in favor of deliberately bad merchandise for the sake of a joke, I couldn’t come up with one single giant plastic object that really worked with the name. Like, if the board were dominated by a giant Gright figure, it wouldn’t really be “Far Out There: The Board Game,” it would be “GRIGHT: The Board Game,” and so on. Eventually, I gave in and changed the gag from the game having this one big unwieldy gimmick to the game having WAY TOO MANY unwieldy gimmicks… which probably is a better representation of the webcomic, if I’m being honest.
Oh, and this is the real test of my own ability to keep track of what I’m doing: I’m writing this commentary on the morning of the 14th, but as you read this on the 23rd, there SHOULD be a new TWC Voting Incentive up. Mercilessly mock me if there’s not! I’ll deserve it! Don’t you dare even THINK about editing this page to remove this, Future Me! I’m holding you accountable!
EDIT: No worries, the Voting Incentive is up!
That box art reminds me of “Mouse Trap”. You had to get your mouse to the end of the game board while simultaneously constructing a Rube Goldberg device to try to catch the other player’s mice.
Oh yeah, Mouse Trap was definitely one of the main influences on the final design, especially the windy slides that the marbles would roll down.
And the rulebook for the game is, in correct nitpicker style, the length of an unabridged dictionary.
Vote incentive plot detail: Either it’s that Mariska really doesn’t like cold much, or she develops a lifelong paralyzing phobia of armed pastries. Or both.