Posted in: Board Games, Games, Movies, Tabletop, TV, YouTube | Tagged: Conludo, the guild, The Guild: Ren Faire'd

Conludo: Day & Wheaton on The Guild Kickstarter Bonus Game Series

Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton discussed their latest, Conludo, a bonus game series that is a part of 'The Guild: Ren Faire'd' Kickstarter.

As Felicia Day was developing ideas for stretch goals for the reunion movie, The Guild: Ren Faire'd, she got with her frequent collaborator and co-host, Wil Wheaton, for a brainstorming session. As content creators and game enthusiasts, what better way than to bring their love for games and the independent scene together by marrying the two concepts for their new series, Conludo, Latin for "to play together." As part of their ongoing Kickstarter, now topping $5 million, in part one of our interview with Day and Wheaton, they spoke to Bleeding Cool about the inspiration behind their new series and format, emphasizing themes and appropriate tabletop games, and recruiting their friends along the way. Among the guests confirmed (via Variety) are Todd Stashwick, Anjali Bhimani, Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and John Ross Bowie.

Conludo Stars Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton on Their Bonus Board Game Show Stretch Goal to 'The Guild: Ren Faire'd' Kickstarter

Bleeding Cool: How long have you been developing Conludo? Was it something that was originally intended to attach to 'The Guild' reunion Kickstarter, or was it something you both have been meaning to do, and the stars just aligned?

Day: Well, when we were thinking about stretch goals to get people to continue to support the movie, of course, the one thing I wanted to do was work with Wil again, and then he can take it from there.

Wheaton: I feel like it was okay, so it was about a year or 18 months ago that we got together and played with ideas for 'The Guild' movie? Is that when we did that?

Day: Yeah, we did.

Wheaton: Felicia brought…

Day: I had a work session with all of you, Sandeep, and two or three other people.

Wheaton: It was really cool, man. So, a few of us got together, and we just started spitballing ideas for 'The Guild' movie, and we had a really good time doing that. It reminded me of how Felicia and I have done lots of things together outside of creation and like things we've all made, right? We've worked for other people together, and we always have a really good time together.

Day: Yeah.

Wheaton: We achieve simpatico when we do something together. I don't know what it is. I don't know how it works. I don't know why it works, but when Felicia brings her thing, I bring my thing, and we put them together, something really cool and fun happens. A few months ago, Felicia called me and was like, "Hey, what do you think? Maybe we could do a gaming show." I said, "I don't want to do tabletop." We did that already.

Day: Yeah, we can't.

Wheaton: We did that, and it was amazing. We loved it, we're super proud of it, and also we can't because…

Day: Legally…

Wheaton: So, I said, "Yeah, I really want to do something with games together. What does that look like?" We spent I don't know how many weeks texting each other, calling each other in the middle of the night, text messages, like "Hey, what do you think about?" or "I have this idea," and in the process of doing that, I noticed we started talking about this a few days ago. Felicia and I are extraordinarily close, extraordinarily good friends and creative partners, and for the last couple of years, we've hardly seen each other because our lives are just taking us in different directions. We're very busy.

Day: Yeah, it's true. It's really sad.

Wheaton: She has a little girl, like there's just so much going on. I was like, "Yo, let's do this, man! Let's get together and play again! Let's have this show be about coming back together. Not just us, but everybody. I'm not the only person whose gaming group didn't survive the pandemic, right? I'm not the only person who has lost the habit of getting together once a week to play a game or go to the game shop on a release night or something like that.

So, we were talking about it, and what we kept coming back to was about us being together with our friends, doing something that we really love to do together. Also, introducing each other to things that we love that the other might not know about, because that's been a big part of our friendship for the last few years. It's been me going, "Hey, did you read this?" or "I saw this, and I really think you'd like it." She's sending me like, "Oh, I know, you liked *blah blah.* You're really going to want to listen to this." It's the whole reason that I read LitRPG at all; it's all Felicia's fault. I didn't even know it existed until she told me about it.

Day: No, I think it's really important for us to treat this like a game night of people getting together and sharing love of things. One of the things that I learned after leaving Geek and Sundry, my company that produced the other board game shows that I did in the past was that when I pitched my ideas to Hollywood, but they didn't want to have anything to do with my ideas, because I always designed my shows around highlighting independent creators and passing my audience off on to the creators and hopefully, supporting their work to perpetuate independent creation.

That is the antithesis of Hollywood. Hollywood won't share their creative IP because they want to exploit it. They don't want to share their airwaves unless they are making money from it, and I understand it is a business. That's sort of the antithesis of the philosophy I have about my work, and so Conludo, the way that it's designed, is that Will and I will have an opening segment where we share things we love around a theme, and then we'll go into playing a board game around that theme with the people we really enjoy. It's that simple, but it's exactly what I would want to watch, and I would want to co-host with him. I'm really excited for it, because I think hopefully people will find things that they love and bring them into their life because of our episodes.

Wheaton: The list that I made of people I wanted to invite to play with us is the same list of people I really miss and just want to hang out with.

Day: Yeah. I got to get some people.

Wheaton: I pitched a couple of my friends yesterday. I was like, "Hey, we're going to be doing." I won't tell you who they are, because it's still a secret, but I was like, "Look, this is what it is, right? We're going to get together. We're going to play a game. It's about what happens around the table when we're there at the game, and I said, "Look, honestly, it's really an excuse for me to see you, because I miss you and for us to be silly together." My friends who I said that to were like, "Great, when do we do it?" Like, "Great, when do we start? That sounds like something I'd really love to do."

Day: I know it will be great to shoot next week.

For more on The Guild: Ren Faire'd Kickstarter and Conludo, you can check out the page.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!