Become a whacky doctor from the 1800s in this #boardgame! Wil your patient survive?

  Medical school can be so expensive. Luckily, you don’t need a degree to be a doctor in this game. In A Cure for What Ails You, players take on one of four asymmetric roles. Pharmacist, Voodoo Mambo, Root Doctor, or Charlatan to treat mysterious and often humorous maladies in 19th century New Orleans. Four rewards.

Use wacky and sometimes historically accurate ingredients to formulate your cure. I can’t wait for you to meet the creator, Jerry. That interview starts Hey Jerry, what’s going on? How are you? Hi, I’m good, thank you. How about yourself? I can’t complain. It is a beautiful Sunday. And I’m here talking to you about something that is near and dear to my heart.

Uh, cause I’m nursing a hangover. Uh, Cure for What Ails You is the name of your game. Why don’t you tell me more about it? A Cure for What Ails You is a 2 4 player asymmetric cooperative and competitive game set in late 1800s New Orleans where a fictional historical pandemic with Other events happen where you are playing one of four different roles to try and cure A variety of, uh, patients and these patients range from, Oh, Oh, I’m feeling a little, I’m feeling a little phlegmy to, Oh yeah, that’s a hell mouth, right?

So it escalates quickly as expected and your goal is to use each of their disciplines to cure them as you do. We try to make it interesting. We try to make it very asymmetric. We tried to make it slightly horrifying, um, from the, From the medical perspective, we tried to make it educational and respectable, respect, respectful for each of the disciplines.

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to say, words. Well, and some of the patients, uh, I mean, it, it, it was also rather funny. Well, thank you. Yes. Um, we wanted to make sure that If you’re playing a healing game, okay, so team healer is a hard sell for any game This is the truth of it, right? Not a lot of people are called to that They’d much rather, you know do something else a little bit more action a little bit more heroic to do team healer You have to have a pull and we could say oh sure play a pharmacist and throw cocaine at everybody Which is a terrible plan.

Please don’t do this But we also wanted to say people need a laugh That’s the way to elevate it, right? You, you watch any medical drama, there’s going to be some humor in it to elevate it. So you have a chuckle to lighten the mood. And so you had, we knew that we had to have the patients be entertaining on a lot of levels, whether it’s their condition or how you treat them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it’s, it’s a co op game, uh, with some humor. Uh, all built around, uh, doing something medicine y to, to help your fellow man. I mean, what can go wrong? Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. That was one of the big things we really did want to explore. Uh, medicine back then, I, I’m sure you know, Mike.

It’s, it’s, it was, um, it wasn’t reliable. Right, but germ theory wasn’t developed at that time. It was still it was considered fringe You had any number of any number of older beliefs From hundreds of years before still in use by some people and there was no FDA or any of that. So You know, your best bet is all right.

Well, let’s go hope they know what they’re doing. Sure. That’s why they didn’t say it. And those, you know, and what’s interesting is back in those days, a lot of times a doctor wasn’t named a doctor. It was like, you go to your local barber, uh, to get a haircut and your teeth pull, uh, you know, that type of stuff.

And the, the, the use of bloodletting and all sorts of various quackery, um, yep. Right. Yep. Uh, some of those things actually have been proven to be helpful, much like leeches. Oh, yes, leeches are still in use. It’s a little bit more niche than it was back in the day, rather than having to balance your humors.

But, um, no, and it was a big foundation for what we’re doing nowadays, and I wanted to explore that one stage just before we really started doing a lot of revision of the game. It’s horrifying, but it did work. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So this game is on Kickstarter right now. It is on Kickstarter right now Yes, and I will have links to all that information down below as well as you’ve been while the while we’ve been chatting you’ve been seeing some of the The various artwork and, uh, various pieces of your creation.

So, uh, but how long did this take you to, uh, put together? So this was our pandemic project. It took a couple of years from the original, uh, from the original planning and starting to put together. We went through a lot of revisions, not just for the core game in dealing with the patients and dealing with the ingredients and administration methods, but also making sure each of the roles were represented faithfully as well.

So it, that was a. Big project for three guys. Yeah, that was, that was a lot. Yeah, I’m sure. But we, you know, we wanted to show that we had ambition from out of the gate. We’re like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can do this. We can do this to completion. The game took you several years to get together, put together.

It was all a pandemic project. Was there any irony in this?

Okay. Oh, God. So aside from having made a game called A Cure for What Ails You, you know, the fact that Several ailments happen to the people who are making it right that was where my irony really came in There’s some health concerns But there was one point where I just got really stressed and I was wind up having like not heart attacks But enough where my heart was like, hey, hey, you need to chill out.

I’m like, this is this is This is ironic. We are working on a developer pack, right, of patients, our own little patients, where we’ve got four of us, right? Um, one for the art guy, one for the, for the money guy, one for me, and mine was originally going to be irony, and that was my ailment, and I’m like, we should really do that, but everyone looked at me and said, no, Jerry.

What’s killing you is the marketing. That’s what’s killing you. And I’m like, okay, that’s a good point. When it comes to games that you enjoy playing, what’s one of your favorites? Oh, so, I love a good cooperative game. Where everyone’s working together. Sentinels of the Multiverse is absolutely one of the ones I, I, it’s a great go to.

Like, sure, we’re all on superhero burnout right now. I get that. But it’s still a really good game where it’s, you have stuff for advanced players and you have stuff for basic players and everyone’s doing their thing, but it’s still super cooperative and everyone’s helping each other out. That’s fantastic.

Um, I don’t like, I’m not big on sports games typically. Sure. Um, it’s like, yeah, sure. It’s cooperation. I’m not denying that, but it’s also like, I like something a little bit more outside of the sports field. Sure. Sure. Um, I do enjoy, let’s see here. What was one we had played? Sometimes I like cozy games. We had played the tea dragon society recently, which is a very cozy, adorable little game of getting memories, going through seasons and kind of growing a little bit.

As people, and I was like that, that is absolutely charming. I was, I was floored by how just how warm and fuzzy it felt. Sure, sure. That was, that was a nice change. Yeah. Yeah. Games like that can, can be enjoyable for sure. I, um, co op games, you know, it’s funny cause you have, you have this game that’s coming out, but one of the ones that my husband will not play probably ever again as a game called Pandemic.

Uh, which is also a co op game, but he, he did some research and he realized that it was like 27 percent of the time you win and the rest of the time it’s just like an abject failure and it can’t be a frustrating game, but that’s what, that’s one of the games that we play that is a cooperative, I guess.

It’s just a challenging for sure. That is one of the difficult, especially having done a healing role ourselves. Like we can’t help, but have that. pandemic comparison. Sure. And it’s, yeah, it’s frustrating to go through all that and then lose in the home stretch. Mm hmm. That’s tough. That’s really difficult to deal with, but that’s also kind of the face of Medicine.

Sure. Yeah. Um, is there anything that I missed or that you wanted to, uh, touch on before we, uh, call that a video? Let’s see here. We have, part of the links will be links off to our Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator so people can try before they buy. Sure. Um, there are, oh, the, the game is going through some minor rules revisions to make it a little bit easier and to correct some errata that we found in the, in the rules.

Um, so there’s going to be, there are updates to it. Okay. Um, the copy that we’re sending out is a pre production copy. So, you know, it’s like this, but the back of the box is like this. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, so there will be, it’s not. It’s still of really good quality, especially for a prototype. Um, but it’s, it’s like it’s missing the brad for the spinner, you know?

Um, it doesn’t have individual bags for everything, so it’s still gonna feel a little rough. But I just want everyone to know that whoever does win, it’s not a complete, full, perfect version of the game. But it’s very close, considering that, as it stands, our Kickstarter doesn’t look like it’s gonna succeed.

Oh no! But, yeah, I haven’t checked it. It’s only like 30 percent and we’ve only got three weeks left. Oh, that’s plenty of time. That’s plenty of time. I have, I hope so. I like, I really, I’m, I’m really, really wanting this to get out and it’s perfect for Halloween, right? With all the, with all the spirit stuff, with all the horrible things that can happen with all the death and medical misfortune, like this game is.

It’s month is Halloween. There is no question about that. That was, yeah, that was, uh, I, I think we’re gonna, have you ever played Betrayal on the House on the Hill? Uh, Behoff, oh yes. Yes. So, uh, I, uh, that is one of the games I’m gonna introduce some folks to here for Halloween. I think it’s a really good Halloween game.

I also just realized, I think I found your beard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You have it. You have everything else. I have this. Yep. Yep. The game sounds like a lot of fun. I will have links down below to everything that way. Uh, everyone can get their hands on it. Um, and uh, if, uh, one of you would like to have this game, Comment and like the video and we’ll see if I can get you a copy.

How about that? Uh, I can’t wait to play myself. All right. Well, Jerry, it was really good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on and spending your afternoon with me. I know it’s, uh, it’s an investment in time to sit here and talk to me. So, but, uh, it was a pleasure. Mike, this is delightful. Thank you.

Thank you. No, thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you the best of luck, um, and, uh, the Kickstarter, uh, obviously is going on right now, and I’ll have links down below to everything, and, uh, yeah, uh, I can’t wait to see where this goes. Thank you, Mike. We’re very excited about it as well.