Wingnut Games

Aldo Ghiozzi: PHART!: The Dispersing, Og: The Game of Senseless Prehistoric Combat, Og: The Role Playing Game, Battle Cattle, Land of Og, Battle Cattle: Second Edition (At the printer right now!)

Nick "Dak" LaLone: And how did you get into gaming?

Aldo Ghiozzi: This is the boring part because we all say the same...played the original D&D boxed sets when I was a kid, blah blah blah, bought all the books, blah blah blah, played D&D through my youth while trying other games like Paranoia, Gamma World, etc., but still ending up doing D&D 2nd Edition every weekend with your "gaming buddies" throughout the night. It's a sad story, but true. I do miss playing my Psionicist though...

Nick "Dak" LaLone: Wingnut games is a growing company, what do your duties with Wingnut entail?

Aldo Ghiozzi: All of it except art (which I freelance) and copy editing (my wife). Sales, marketing, layout, design, writing, advertising, customer service, playtesting, et al.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: What is Battle Cattle?

Aldo Ghiozzi: The original BC came out in 1996 after watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail...You know that seen when the cow is catapulted over the castle wall? Well, all we did (same three of us from Phart!) was say "Battle Cattle" - then the cow jokes starting pouring out. BC is our best seller by far and is pretty much an evergreen title for us. The reason for BC: Second Edition is because by the end of 1999 we had less than 1000 copies left of the game. In addition to that, there were two mistakes in the game and we wanted to do so much more with it after it was printed. Second Edition is where we are going to spawn supplements and expansions from.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: And Land of OG?

Aldo Ghiozzi: Hmmm...."No use big words play Og"...Land of OG is Og: The Role Playing Game Second Edition. The original Og was a great example of how not to design and layout a game. The idea was great but with poor art, large fonts and lots of white spaces - it was a good lesson. But get this, it sold a lot and people thought the angle of using only 17 simple words was great. In addition to that, I think the fact that there was no other prehistoric RPG on the market (besides GURPS Ice Age), made it more marketable. Land of OG is everything the original Og should have been plus all the input from gamers and convention goers. There are now 18 words (!), but I think the best addition is Grunting Caveman. He is basically a mockery of a Wizard or Cleric in D&D.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: How did Wingnut Games come about?

Aldo Ghiozzi: Some buddies and I were playing the Nuclear War card game and one of us (know one remembers who) said "This would be pretty funny if you were like farting to kill the population..." Yeah, I know, call it weird, but the card names we started thinking of were hilarious!

Nick "Dak" LaLone: What can we expect from Wingnut in the future?

Aldo Ghiozzi: A LOT. Wingnut Games was a side thing from the beginning in 1993. I always had a real full time job, so I could only work on the games at night and on weekends. In 2000 I uprooted my life and moved to the far far outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area and started working from home. Now, I am able to split my time doing Wingnut Games and my other background, advertising/marketing, from my home office. With my upcoming releases, I want Wingnut Games to be the only gig I do. The second half of 2000 will be great for us:

• Battle Cattle: Second Edition (Aug)
• Stuperpowers! (Aug)
• Battle Cattle Miniatures licensed (Sept/Oct)
• Battle Cattle: The Quest for the Holy Pail - BC in a medieval world of spell-casting cows and mace-wielding bulls!
• Og the online game - [Skotos purchased a number of licenses, Land of OG, Paranoia, call of Cthullhu. [www.skotos.net]
• Two unannounced titles
• Two more publishing/distribution deals

And though not officially announced, we are doing a supplement/sourcebook for LAND OF OG because of its great sales and Og license with Skotos. It is currently being called "The Complete Caveman's Club Book"...And if you don't get the joke, I would be surprised =P...The book will have a whole section on the world of Og, explaining how the cavemen first got to know things like trees, lava, water, lightning, rocks, etc..From there, it will have specialty classes mocking the D&D Complete books. One example is instead of being just a Strong Caveman, you could be an "Impressively Strong Caveman". One of your special abilities will be to distract dinosaurs and other cavemen by flexing your muscles in a show-stopping way, maybe giving your friends time to run away while the enemy is gawking at your impressively strong muscles. Lastly, the biggest demand from people has been the want of sample adventures. There will be at least two in the book. I estimate [a] 48 page, digest-sized book for $7.95. A good supplement price as Land of OG is $9.95.

...busy busy busy

Nick "Dak" LaLone: What is Wingnut trying to do with their games that hasn't been tried in the gaming >industry before?

Aldo Ghiozzi: Back with Og Wingnut created its own niche. Games that were more than cheap $3 polybag B&W games, but games that were under $10 that actually played beyond a quick little joke. All my games are digest-sized, funny and have a real game within, and that's why 3 distributors have said to me "If Wingnut makes a game, we'll carry it because we know it sells."

Nick "Dak" LaLone: What do your game normally retail for?

Aldo Ghiozzi: My games fall into the range of not cheap (less than $5) to not a million pages or more (over $12). This is all part of the niche that I feel I created because 90% of the games on the market were cheap B&W games under $5 or 200+ pages games with 10 million supplements and expansions at $15 or more each.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: As small press, are you afraid of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster?

Aldo Ghiozzi: Not at all. Again, I am in my own niche. More than half my products thrive off of making fun of all the seriousness they strive for.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: In your opinion, will Wizards of the Coast via Hasbro help or hinder the game hobby/industry?

Aldo Ghiozzi: I spent the last 7 years working on the magazine side of the computer and videogame industry, so I know definitely that Hasbro's intentions are to be bigger than Electronic Arts and take advantage of every license know to man...That's why you have seen all those revisions of Frogger, Centipede, etc. [Now to answer that question] If WOTC/Hasbro continue to buy up every little genre out there, that's fine because they will never want to fall into the niche that Wingnut Games is in. My market is so small in terms of the revenue they are looking for that I think in the end they will probably eat up all the companies in the middle and it will be them and a whole mess of us little guys that have teeny tiny niches of games. Then the big question is, if WOTC/Hasbro offered to buy Wingnut Games (yeah, right), if anything, I would set up some independence like Last Unicorn did.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: How is your independent submission project going?

Aldo Ghiozzi: LUDICROUS!!! I received e-mails from gamers, distributor employees, rpg website editors, game magazine editors and someone in the army. I would say about 50% of the submissions are people just saying, "Hey, I have an idea...Read my two sentences below..." Ha! Go away!

Of the tons of responses, I have pretty much chosen two really good games that we are about to send contracts out for. One is from a total plain ol' gamer, but the other is from a guy who has a name as a writer in the indie game circles.

If you want me to consider a game, the people who are at the top of the list have at minimum completed the writing portion of the game. Past that, you better make sure the genre and "hook" are unique. If I have one more person send me a game where they say "It's like D&D but better..." I will hunt them down and force them to listen to hours of Battle Cattle cow jokes.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: When will we see the results of that project?

Aldo Ghiozzi: I can guarantee that both of the non-Wingnut Games submissions will be announced by September, with one (maybe both of them) getting released before Christmas.

Nick "Dak" LaLone: Thank you for your time. And let me also say that all of us here at Gaming Outpost look forward to more quality products from Wingnut Games. Good Luck!