Hello, all you click-clickers out there. My name's Tom Quelfelt and joining me for volume

11 of Canaan Rints, issue 535 are James Carter, Click, Jesse Fuchs,

Hello, Ryan Jow, hi there.

And we're here to talk about nothing less than Universal Paper Clips,

an epic soulslike action adventure with RPG mechanics, Deep Law, a Wagnerian soundtrack,

and of course I am talking nonsense.

It's actually a 2017 clicker or incremental game or if we're feeling derogatory like Walking Sim.

We could say an idle game, which is not really, but we'll get to that, where the player

role-playing as an AI optimises their production of paper clips while unlocking various

story beats and gags, new mechanical elements and choices, and ultimately hurtles towards

converting all matter in the known cosmos into office

stationery. Spoiler warning. I guess this game can be spoiled. It can really. So yes, we will be

spoiling this game. I think because it's not a traditional game as such, it was developed mainly by one chap called Frank Lance.

And we have a cane and rinse here.

I was actually the one who chose Universal Paper Clips for this volume.

However, as it turns out, one of our panelists has a quite a strong connection to the

sort of mainly sole developer on this game. So I wonder, Jesse, could you give us a little

introduction, a potted history of Frank and tell us a bit about his kind of who he is and his design

philosophy? Yeah, Frank, I mean, I met him because he was one of the founders and the director of the NYU

Game Center, where I have taught, I've talked about teaching, you know, the class on

the 80s games and et cetera.

And so, yeah, I know Frank because he, for a long time, was the director of the NYU Game Center.

...