Penny Arcade

I spent the evening last night sitting in on one of the more unconventional panels I've seen, which was likely one of the more conventional panels for hosts Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkens, who are much better known by their comic monikers of John "Gabe" Gabriel and Tycho Brahe.

The panel was a full hour of uncensored Q&A with the two of them, and topics raised included male pregnancy and bestiality. The two sat at opposite ends of the table, saying that "we sit next to each other all day long." When asked if they could possibly sit further apart from each other, Jerry took to the podium, where he stayed for the rest of the panel.

Div vs. Fruit Fornicator? This could happen, they said, and it'd be "epic, at least a seven parter." When they asked if the audience would want to see Penny Arcade robots do battle, there was deafening cheering, to which Jerry said, "That's all I needed to hear."

Why Tycho Brahe? Contrary to the asker's belief, it was not because they share the same nose. Jerry took the moniker of Tycho Brahe because of how ridiculous Brahe was as a historical character. Tycho in Penny Arcade is a "high class idiot," much like the real one.

What's next? After a webcomic, the books, PAX, a game, and more, "What more do you want from us?"

What do they look for in terms of narratives in games? Jerry said that if a game's story is good enough, he's willing to overlook flawed gameplay, and the opposite is also true. Gameplay and story are inversely proportionate now, for the most part, and he would like to see them come more in line with each other.

Do they live in fear of meeting someone they criticize heavily? They said that they've actually met a number of the people they've spoken harshly about or who have worked on things they verbally destroyed, and for the most part they agree with them. Even the Lair guys agreed with what they had to say about their game, they said.

Any future character development with their characters? They have no plans to develop their characters through the comic, they said, though they intend to allow the games to help explore how the characters might behave if they were real. Mike would go on to joke that they would crowbar in some drama by having a story arc in which Gabe has a miscarriage (zing, CTRL-ALT-DEL).

More Paint the Lines type stories? The two joked about trying to pitch a turn-based ping-pong CCG to Upper Deck, and went on to say that they were surprised at how many people enjoyed the Paint the Lines story arc. They would like to tell more stories like that, but the trick is to find out where to draw the line. "We don't want you to have to endure us," Jerry said.

Will the Cardboard Tube Samurai's story be told? They apparently have tons of stories to tell about the CTS, including the origin of the tube, but currently have no plans to work on a graphic novel to properly tell them because time is at a premium. They did entertain the notion of doing a CTS game in the future, though.

Other types of games? After they're finished with the current series of games, they want to take a break, but both Mike and Jerry expressed interest in the side-scrolling beat-'em-up genre, and specifically named TMNT IV: Turtles in Time as the type of game they would like to make.

What would they like to do in the future: Surprisingly, Mike said he'd like to make children's stories. Apparently, Twisp & Catsby were originally created for one such story, but they couldn't pursue it and adapted them for the comic. Also, they have no plans to end the comic.

How many episodes will there be in the game? Despite Hothead's reluctance to discuss this in the panel the day before, they said that there would be four episodes.

When will episode 2 be out? Fallish.

Do they have an ongoing feud with Tim Buckley (creator of CTRL-ALT-DEL)? Despite their earlier barb, and the character of L.H. Franzibald, who they admitted is a parody of Buckley, the two said that they've never actually met the guy and have no vendetta against him. The particular story arc that introduced the Franzibald character was meant to be completely ridiculous, and they pointed out that Gabe actually loves the character, going so far as to take a bullet for him.

How do they feel about how Play has changed their review system to not feature numbers? "You mean they just give everything 100% now?" Jerry then said that he hadn't heard about this change, and that it's a step in the right direction. On the subject of 1UP's change to letter grades, they said that it was dumb, because "everyone knows that a B is 80%."