EXQUISITE CORPSES: THE GAME Interview with James Tynion IV

Following the very successful release of the Exquisite Corpses comic book series, Tiny Onion has fully unveiled Exquisite Corpses: The Game, a "Social Strategy Battle Royale Tabletop Card Game," based on the world of the comics. Easy to pick up, but expansive enough that no two games are the same and strategies can differ wildly between players, I'm excited to get my hands on this game as soon as I can. Thankfully, I won't have to wait too long, as the Kickstarter campaign for this game was successfully funded in less than a day.

The successful campaign is now working through its stretch goals, and I had an opportunity recently to catch up with James Tynion IV, who talked about the origins of the game, his favorite killer to play as, and future plans for Exquisite Corpses. We also discussed his latest comic book series, Odin, that he co-wrote with Marguerite Benne, and which I'd highly recommend to Daily Dead readers.

Can you talk a little bit about the origins of the game? It sounds like this was something that, from the moment you went down the path of the comic book, a game was always in the plans.

James Tynion IV: So this would've been two and a half years ago... I reached out to Michael Walsh, and I was just like, "I'm starting a new company, Tiny Onion, and I have the raw pieces of this idea about a serial killer battle royale." At the time it was only 10 [families], and then we went up to the 13 families, but the initial idea was that there was 10 wealthiest families in the world. The way that they sort out their business is that they have a contest every five years where they each choose a dangerous killer, drop them into a small town in America, and let the killers fight to the death.

And so, that core conceit was what I came to Michael Walsh with, along with the idea of building a creative writer's room around the project to be able to be able to lay everything down. And I had known that Michael Walsh had done a series called The Silver Coin, which was an anthology horror comic series that he drew every issue of, but he brought in different writers to work on every single issue.

So I knew he enjoyed the creative play of putting a story together in very, very different ways. But he was the one who was just hearing all the pieces of the story and starting to throw stuff back and forth between us. He's the one who was like, "This would be a really fun card game." And at the time, I didn't really take him seriously. It was not in a way that I was just like, "Yeah, that would be great. I would love there to be a card game." But then six months later, he showed up at the first creative summit with the Tiny Onion team with a functioning version of the card game. And it was basically something that he drew out onto dry-erase cards, and then we played the first round of the game. And actually, those original dry-erase cards are a stretch goal that you can purchase as part of this campaign. That would've been about two years ago in Buffalo, New York, us doing the first play-round of that. And after that, we started playtesting, and here we are.

In terms of your gaming background and interests, did you enjoy playing games like Magic: The Gathering?

James Tynion IV: Between me and Michael, I'm definitely more of the casual game player. I played Magic: The Gathering when I was in high school and college because I had friends who played Magic: The Gathering. I've played Dungeons & Dragons. I've always been the person who's just like, "Yeah, I would love to play," rather than the person who pulls out the game and is like, "Let's play it." And I think that was one of the things that I loved about this game is that it is an easy entry point game. It's a party game.

It's a game that you could play through in 40 minutes with your friends that's very easy to pick up. "Easy to pick up, hard to master" is the thing. That's the lane of tabletop games that I think we're really interested in playing in, and Exquisite Corpses is the start of that.

Reading through some of the game features a little bit, I like that like there's a bluff mechanic in the game. Can you talk a little bit about that?

James Tynion IV: This is a social strategy game. Essentially, when you go around the table and it lands on you, you have three options of what you can do: You can attack using your basic attack stat, you can defend using your basic defense stat, or you can use your special skill, which is specific to each of the 12 killers. And then there is also the randomizing element of playing an event card. You start the game with an event card, and you get one anytime you kill someone else at the table. And you don't see what the event card is before you play it. So essentially, it's like different players' [...] skills lean towards different social dynamics at the table. You have the characters like Rascal Randy and Layla, whose skill is totally randomized.

You have to roll to see where that damage goes across the table. So it's very hard to make a deal at the table with either Rascal Randy or Layla. The most dangerous card in the game is probably Nurse Pete, who has the healing ability within the game, and he can either turn that healing ability on himself or he can choose who he heals at the table. And it was [at] the first round of Exquisite Corpses way back at the beginning that Nurse Pete won the very first game, and then we had to balance the character a bit more. That there are a lot of different ways that you can play through the game.

Is Nurse Pete your favorite killer to play as, or do you have another?

James Tynion IV: I really enjoy playing as Fox Mask Killer. The nice thing is you get a good sizable hit and that character is left bleeding, and so they continue to take damage turn by turn by turn. And if you get those hits in early in the game, before all of the social dynamics, [you're] kind of set. Then Fox Mask Killer doesn't have the ability to remove bleeding, so you can't be blamed for what you've done earlier in the game. But the effects can linger until everyone's gone.

About how long does it take to play the average game?

James Tynion IV: I would say between 30 and 40 minutes, depending on the size of your group, and you can play anywhere [from] four to 12 players. If you're playing with a group of four, and there may be some notes on this on the playexquisitecorpses.com website, but you can do a version where you can each pick two killers if you're playing with a smaller group. But if you have a group of roughly six to eight people, that's going to last about 40 minutes.

I think it's really exciting that people are going to be playing this game around the world and I can imagine that Tiny Onion will be able to host game sessions at conventions too.

James Tynion IV: Absolutely. We're really, really excited about that. And some of the shops that we've been talking to about this game for years that have game nights in their shops every week, they're excited to get the Exquisite Corpses nights going, and that feels really good.

Do you have expansion plans or booster sets that will enhance the core deck from the Kickstarter campaign?

James Tynion IV: We first released the first pieces of this game through the polybags connected to the release of the monthly issues of Exquisite Corpses from Image Comics. And moving forward, we are doing a series of miniseries: The first is the Exquisite Corpses' Rascal Randy miniseries, and that series will also have polybags and will also have cards that are not in the original base set. So it's just like, there will be more killer cards. There will be more event cards. And then ultimately, when we launch season two of the comic, we will be launching with 12 new killers, which then gives us the ability to bring 12 more cards into the game. So I think you see that's our initial expansion plan, and then, based on the success of this campaign, whether we do it as smaller booster packs or a full season two expansion, people can expect to see Exquisite Corpses expansions as we continue to go.

Anything else Exquisite Corpses-related coming up that you're excited about or can talk about?

James Tynion IV: The biggest thing that I'm excited about I can't talk about yet. We announced at the start of the year that we are working with the folks at Lyrical Media to develop Exquisite Corpses into a feature film, and there's been a lot of development on that front. And I am hoping I can share some of that sooner rather than later. It's nice that, for such a new property, we've brought [it] to the tabletop game to market [and have had this] level of success even in just our first week, and then that we're going beyond that into comic miniseries and multimedia adaptations. It feels really good.

Aside from Exquisite Corpses, I know the first issue of Odin just dropped and it's REALLY good. Can you tell me why you love the title so much and what you're looking forward to readers experiencing over the course of the series?

James Tynion IV: This is one that I've been discussing with Marguerite Bennett for years. Pretty much since the moment I walked out of the theater seeing Midsommar, I started a text conversation with Marguerite Bennett that would develop into [Odin]. Imagine a story where a group of punk neo-Nazis, from America, decide to go up to the northern reaches of Scandinavia because they have this misconception of what the Norse pantheon is and what their core religion is. And then they are confronted by what it truly is, and the strangeness of that and the harshness of that rips them apart because the whole reason that they have landed on this twisted ideology is because there's nothing anchoring them. They're trying to make themselves tough with these tough beliefs, but they are little hollow, shitty children. And they're all going to die in the snow, and it's a cathartic series to be working on these days, I will say.

Letizia Cadonici and Jordie Bellaire on art have just been absolutely killing it, and the Alex Eckman-Lawn covers are just absolutely killer. The cover he did for the second issue, the eagle cover, is truly incredible.

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To support the campaign and learn more, visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tinyonion/exquisite-corpses-the-game

You can also learn more about the game at: https://www.playexquisitecorpses.com/

And for all things Tiny Onion, visit: https://shoptinyonion.com/

In addition to the standard Civilian Edition, Tiny Onion is producing two deluxe versions of the game: the elevated Killer Cache Edition, and the elite Thirteen Families Edition.

The Civilian Edition includes 12 killer cards, 24 event cards, 6 different status effect cards, and the instruction booklet. The deluxe Killer Cache Edition includes a special Killer Cache box with magnetic clasp, a Kickstarter exclusive reprint of Exquisite Corpses #1 with cover art by Ian Bertram, 12 oversized killer cards with new art, 24 event cards, premium wood status effect tokens, 13 pink resin dice in velvet bag, a pink and orange playmat, and a special Killer Cache edition exclusive event card. The top-tier Thirteen Families Edition includes a Thirteen Families box with a magnetic clasp, a Kickstarter exclusive reprint of Exquisite Corpses #1 with a gold foil cover, 12 oversized killer cards with new art in foil, 24 event cards, premium metal status effect tokens, 13 gold resin dice in velvet bag, a black and gold playmat, and a special Thirteen Families edition exclusive event card.

Aside from these editions, fans can also get even rarer rewards, including an option to get drawn into Season 2 of the comic book series, original card art by Michael Walsh, and the ultimate Historic Deck, featuring 10 original prototype cards from the first Exquisite Corpses summit, a private Zoom game with Walsh, Tynion, and the Corpse Crew, and all three editions. Retailers can also purchase packs of 25 copies and 100 copies. Fans can also get select add-ons to their orders, including blank sketch versions of the cards.

Exquisite Corpses: The Game is a casual tabletop game perfect for fans of trading card classics like Magic: The Gathering and party experiences like Ultimate Werewolf. Needing only a deck of cards and some dice, a group of 4-12 players each pick their favorite killer and proceed to attack, bluff, and barter with their fellow killers until just one remains. No two games are alike, so players can immediately play again and again and get different results.