Our heroes’ lakefront vacation is coming to an end, so it’s time to leave the beach and head to the ballroom for once last night at Kaos Manor. With a lot on the line for Al, Deb and Tim team up to support their old friend. Just kidding, Tim runs off with Tippy to buy some beach weed, and Deb makes moves to reignite her dormant photography career. With our heroes scattered across the beach like so much sand, what can possibly bring them together for a satisfying ending? A dance competition fulled by booze, passion, and “special” pudding? Yeah, actually, that should do it! Tune in to this conclusion to the Kaos Beach Blanket Bingo saga, which is basically Rashomon.
Our 1960’s adventurers are back in this continuation of their Kaos Beach adventure! In this installment our heroes Tim, Deb, and Al hit the beach in their finest beachwear. With Stan Cardealership flopping joyously in the water and Carla entertaining guests, our friends finally have some time to catch up and kick back in the sun. Drinks are had, crushes are flirted with, and Tim gets closer to his familiar mystery date. But as the day progresses, trouble drifts ashore as a group of hippies with malicious intent demand to use the beach. Can our heroes continue to navigate these increasingly choppy social waters? Will danger inspire Deb to take back up her camera? What’s Al going to do as Carla draws him closer? Where the hell is Tim going?
In this installment, Tim Tim the reporter, Al Buchanan the ad man, and Deb Hammer the photographer reconnect a year after Tim and Al were fired from Feyboy to drive up north in the car of Deb’s new blockheaded beau. Once they arrive in Tarraesque, WI, they face grim butlers, spooky paintings, and drinks with their devilish hostess. Can our heroes make it through this first night? Or will one night at Kaos Manor send them screaming back home with tears streaming from their eyes and their legs all blurry, in this, the anime of our story?
It’s a very special birthday party for a very special goblin, and our heroes are in charge! Quickly abandoning their plan to let the goblin interns set up the party, they get really excited and start tricking their coworkers to go off and get gifts for Agnes. In context it…sort of makes sense. Finishing up the job the goblins started, our heroes are confronted with one of their biggest challenges ever: lighting a can of Sterno! Can our heroes put together a feast worthy of NPC Inc.’s best salesperson? Can they convince Quinn the Medicine Goblin not to tell on them? Mix yourself a “Surf’s Up, Buddy” and count how many brands will our players reference in this exciting episode!
It’s Friday, dear listener, and our heroes are waking up, bleary eyed from the night before to see their day laid out before them. With Agnes’s confidence in herself and her band on the line, they must ask themselves a deadly Friday question: work hard? Or play hard? Can our heroes face the last day in this long, eventful week? Can the make it unscathed through the day and rock out at The Dragon Known as Lincoln Hall? Where the hell is Gerbbi? Hanging out in his clocktower apartment?
Time for our heroes to gather on the field of mental battle and face their foes in a spirited game of bar trivia! After making some bets and pissing off their competition, they settle in to face Maurice Feather’s BoneZone Trivia. With a paid-for tab on the line, our heroes test their minds versus a two teams of spooky monsters and one of their old foes, The Heroic Herd. Can our heroes win, or are they going to have to…*gasp* pay for their own drinks the rest of the night?
Oh, dear listeners, our heroes are still reeling from the sudden loss of their friend and have to face more bad news to end their Thursday. What are our heroes to do? Go drinking at the Bone Zone, obviously! With their new party member, the difficult to read Tory Mercita, in tow they head down into the Crypt for the Ripped. Will it be a night of happy hour drinks, or will it be another chance for them to make enemies, alienate lovers, and make a wager with a menacing, trivia-loving monster?
Hello dear listeners! Our heroes are taking a sunny afternoon off from office work to go to the BBQ cookout of a friendly, Buber driving Minotaur they met in a previous episode! Can they navigate the metaphorical maze of conversational traps at this party full of damp vampires, flirty sphinxs, mad hermits and a quartet of familiar, grill-loving giants? Can Agnes find a way to win the sauce contest? Can Maxwell get someone to try his Japanese dessert? Can Stuart get laid? How drunk will Gerbbi get? Check out this exciting live episode, recorded at Bit Fest! at Chicago’s The Crowd Theater!
Hark, dear listener! Our heroes are on their way to run some basement errands for their boss, Joanie Hoffman, and maybe help the security guards along the way! Well, not all of them. Brube takes some time for a solo adventure so she can pay a visit to her secret office-within-an-office. What is Brube looking for in there, and who else might be lurking around the marketing floor? Tune into this exciting episode for moments of whimsical beauty, and a goodbye that requires no rolls, only waving.
Taking a brief pause from their busy Thursday, our heroes take some time to reflect, connect, and bother Tory. I hope you like art, dear listeners, because this part of my tale uses a very clever storytelling device that is later abandoned and never mentioned again! Get ready to write a 1000 word essay on the use of this, again, really cool narrative structure! I expect the essay by the next chapter, ok? Very good. Enjoy the show.
Our heroes continue on their Thursday adventures, dear listener! Outside the office, Agnes, Brube and Gerbbi work to convince mystical photographer Stevi Smoothstone to turn in his work. Inside the office, Maxwelll and Stuart turn to an old friend for advice on their manticore problem. Looks like our heroes are going to have to really rely on their persuasion skills in this installment of our story. Hopefully they won’t roll horribly, making all these conversations tense! Support the efforts of the Library of Congress by listening to my exciting tale!
It’s a split party party, dear listeners, and you’re invited! Agnes, Brube and Gerbbi are hot on the trail of Stevi Smoothstone, but a sudden storm pushes them into their local CVS (Cures, Vitamins & Swords) to find some rain gear… and danger. Meanwhile, Maxwell and Stuart plead their IT case to Mr. Cortez, the very intimidating and very boring supply manager. Can Maxwell and Stuart, who aren’t heal boys, survive a run in with this surly solitaire lover? And will Agnes’ new power over others, and the influence of Gerbbi, make her turn to a life of crime?
Hello, Dear Listener! Sit down and hear my tale of a Thursday morning! Our heroes have gathered in the office of Hobe Shadetree to get their day’s assignment only to find the Heroic Herd have assembled to “help.” Under orders from the stern hobgoblin middle-manager Thaddeus Warman, they divide to conquer, with one group setting out to help install some supply ordering software on the computer of a sinister employee, and on group following the Herd’s trail, hoping to beat them to Stevi Smoothstone.
Greetings, Dear Listener! Our heroes have completed another day of work and quests at NPC Inc., so now it’s time for them to briefly drop character to talk with DM Hobert about some fun home-brew changes coming to the characters as they reach level 5. But we know that not everyone can get down with a leveling up ep (you should though, if y ou want to understand who Party Fred and Brains MacKenzie are!) so we’ve also included our live episode from the Chicago Podcasters Unite event at C2E2! Eat your D&D vegetables and then treat yourself to a some D&D dessert!
I hope you like arcade games, dear listeners! Because our heroes are determined to play them. With drinks in hand they head deeper into Horseplay and deeper into the clutches of Jackson Bloodskull-Williams. Is his invite to join him and some of his new pals in a little tournament of games a trick or a treat? And when faced with competition, will the heroes of the Apple Barrel Gang choose to fight dirty to protect Hobe?
Time for a little R & R for our heroes, dear listeners! After making their daring escape from the HR Dungeon, they’ve found their way to the Marketing department’s possibly snack-themed “Goodbye Tracy Vista” party. Can our heroes navigate the choppy waters of social interaction, or will the wounds they sustained during their HR trial make them cagey, flustered, and really bad at flirting? With a widening rift developing in the group, our heroes set out for the arcade bar, HorsePlay. Hopefully they can make it there in one piece (emotionally)!
Our heroes are between a ghoul and a wolf place, dear listeners! They have to tame the wild side of their friend Stuart and then fend off the terminally boring Norman and his HR co-workers, Bob and Suz. I believe in them, but do they believe in themselves? I guess you’ll find out in this next chapter of our tale, in which our heroes try to escape the paperwork pit, attempt some shopping montages, make and break deals with old foes, and discover a secret about Brube’s torso.
Oh dear listener, our heroes are trapped in the Paperwork Pit! Will they escape the clutches of Weird Norman (no relation to Weird Al) or will the allure of looking at birthday cards draw their attention from their escape mission? Oh, I sure hope they can hold out against these spooky undead co-workers, listeners! I mean, surely this group of ragtag adventurers, when faced with a tomb of monsters, wouldn’t go up and immediately try to touch them, right? Ah jeez, you’re right. They’re definitely going to try to high five the monsters.
Greetings, dear listeners! Our heroes have been hauled off to the ScenarioTron for a test of their business skills. Or is it a trap!? Ah, dear listeners, you know it’s a trap! Can our heroes escape the banal-yet-friendly digital clutches of Ted the Electronic Coworker? And once they do, how will they while away the time it takes to make it through Mr. Kammen’s seemingly endless line? Perhaps with a trip down memory lane, a battle with an old foe, and discussion of email body positivity?
Greetings, listeners! Good to be back here in 2019, telling you the tale of our heroes, the Apple Barrel Gang, as they begin their Wednesday adventure. Though they are well rested from their successful quest to destroy the S.I.E.G.E., they now have to face the gauntlet of horrors that await them in the HR department! Can our heroes keep themselves from being part of Dr. Gregsteen’s twisted management methods, or will they be crushed (emotionally) by his menacing underlings before they even make it to their appointment?
