Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and with me we have a special guest today that
is Tyler Crumrein of Possible World Games.
How you doing this morning, Tyler?
Doing well. Thanks so much for having me.
It's a it's a balmy day here in Pittsburgh, PA, reminding me the
slow death of our planet as winter lasts fewer and fewer
days and weeks every year. Hey.
You know what, I'll take it for now, but I know it's awful.
Let's just say that I used to live in Pennsylvania, actually
on the other side, where like, half the fucking indie scene
apparently lives. Like keep finding.
Out. That's the problem.
Like a lot of people don't realize that you can fit
multiple countries in the European Union inside of
Pennsylvania. Like it is, it is a large state
and it was always like a personal bugbear of mine.
Anytime I would see like a band that I like, you know, they're
like, we're doing our national tour and they'd be like we're
going to every state, blah, blah.
And they would go to Philly, but they wouldn't go to Pittsburgh.
I'm like you guys. It's a four hour drive from
Pittsburgh to Philly. It's a.
Good. It's it's a minute you gotta you
gotta pop into Mr. Smalls. Hey, we got we.
Got arrested root out here. I'm in California, so if you're
not in LA, you're not seeing anybody and it's like a 12 hour
drive from top to bottom. So I feel you trust me, I'm
right there with you. So.
So for those that might not know know you or possible world
games, can you tell us just a little bit about possible world
games and maybe some of the stuff that you've put out that
people might know? Yeah, I will start with one very
small correction and it's one that I do a lot and that it is
possible Worlds games. And there is an XI See it right?
There on the screen, so many of them, we have just dozens.
Well, less Dozens. More like, I don't know, coming
up on 10 worlds that you can explore with possible worlds.
It's all it is not in my Twitter bio or Twitter handle because
not enough characters for worlds.
So I'm just possible W games on there and then like that makes
for its own kind of, you know, pile of problems with like,
well, I've got to be on Instagram and I've got to be on
TikTok and I've got to be on all these other places.
Because if any one of these, like, life lines for my personal
livelihood just decides to disappear one day, you got to
diversify. But before I was possible Worlds
games, I was, I was just, you know, random hobbyist game
designer. I actually was a full time drama
turg, which is the most pretentious title in theater.
I was like the editing guy. Basically a dramaturg is to a
new play what a editor is to a novel.
So I would work with playwrights, a lot of like, you
know, honing work, kind of identifying like scenes to be
added, removed, character motivations.
If there's like a talk back after a play or something like
that and usually be the one moderating those writing
programs for plays, things like that.
And that is a job that a lot of theaters don't have someone on
staff doing those things. They hire them for specialized
projects. Like if there is a new play from
like a new writer or something that requires a bunch of extra
research, they will bring in a Drama Turk to be like, hey, we
just would appreciate having extra creative in the room to
help make sure that this is a smooth process.
And I had a network of theaters throughout Pennsylvania and Off
Broadway in New York that would bring me in for shows, you know,
like 1 show a year. But if you have like a handful
of theaters you can cobble together living doing that.
And so I was working in theater and doing some editing on the
side as like a literary person who also just enjoyed RPGSI
started off editing games for World Champ Gameco, a friend of
the pod. Yeah, I love Adam.
We we often say this is an Adam Vast and podcast, so yeah.
Gave me a lot of my earliest opportunities in the space and I
had been making a small game of my own on the side called Beak
Feather and Bone when folks like, encourage me like hey, you
should, you know it was the 2nd Zine quest.
You know, Zine Quest one was a surprise hit.
Zine Quest two. Everyone was like, why the hell
not. You know, let's hop in.
And so at friends encouraging I put it up with the goal of $1000
and it raised $20,000. And then my career disappeared
because a pandemic happened and all of the theaters closed their
doors. So I am still, like, eternally
grateful that I had this project that was like, OK, I have some
momentum here. If I can lean into this, you
know, maybe this will get me through until I figure out,
like, when theaters are opening back up or, you know, how am I
going to weather this storm? And what I found was that
theaters didn't open back up nearly fast enough.
Well, for my career, I think. Personally, I think theaters
could still be pumping their brakes some with like some of
the more reckless stuff they're doing out there.
But you know, like continuing to sell and fulfill the feather and
bone wound up being a full time job.
And so going into the year following, I was like, you know,
I think theatre isn't going to be kind of doing it anymore.
And a lot of the, like, experimental stuff that helped
me get my name in theatre was also the things that were like
really fun pieces. But like, I was never going to
get a desk job. Like the best I could hope for
is like being a really good freelancer, which is its own
like very stressful way of living as an artist.
So I decided like, hey, I'm going to do another campaign.
I'm going to incorporate an LLC so I don't get fucked on taxes
again. And if I can repeat the success
of beak, feather and Bone, then I'll try and make a go at it
full time. And so that is when I put up the
possible worlds box set that is a collection of six games, each
of them like about 30 pages long.
Similar length to beak, feather and bone, but just different
stuff that kind of showcased my design ethos, like the style of
games I'm interested in, you know the different kinds of like
worlds and genres I'm interested in.
And thankfully that project funded too.
So kind of since then I have been just trying to figure out,
like, OK, you know, as someone who had an early breakout hit,
how do you translate this into a career?
You know, how do you make sure that, like, I am, you know,
making projects that I'm happy with, But also thinking about
things like, OK, a key part of making a living in tabletop is
going to conventions and selling at conventions.
And if I'm going to have to go to conventions, I don't want to
have two games on my table. So I'm going to do a box set of
6 so that when I start going to conventions, I'll have seven
games on my table. And even if people, you know
don't buy all seven, maybe they'll want one or two.
So a lot of things like that of like continuing to put out
games, support games. I did an expansion for Beak,
Feather and Bone, more maps that won me in any, which led to all
of its own, you know, joys and problems and things like that.
And now I am back with my next original game, the details of
our Escape, which is my return to Zine Quest.
And also just like trying to do a little bit of what I did in
collaborative spaces like the theater, translate that to RP GS
Son and kind of do like a slower generational process that also
invites like artists from other spheres into the scene.
And it's, I hadn't said that I worked in theater.
You could probably tell from the monologue, although I appreciate
your providing the props. Right.
You know, that's that's what we've always said over and over
again our best interviews or when we can just sit here and
listen. And that's exactly what we like
to be as just a platform for people to to be as passionate
about what they are doing as we are about what they're doing.
I will say there are not, I don't think there are many indie
creators out there that can say that they had three projects
back-to-back to back that went for $20,000 on Kickstarter,
$18,000 on Kickstarter and $30,000 on Kickstarter.
So to do, what's the math on that, like 60 grand on your
first three projects across Kickstarter out of nowhere.
It's got to feel nice because as you know we talked a little bit
before stream like that's not, it's not like that's it.
You know a lot of these projects and and you talked about the LLC
and stuff, they're still selling and they're still selling out
and you're still distributing these all over the place.
So it started a whole thing. So it's really neat and
interesting to hear. The timing couldn't have been
better clearly with the pandemic, but how one thing
catapulted into these continuous successes and then getting us to
the project that we're out right now, It's just really
interesting cuz I love again, we've talked about this before
stream. I love these.
I love that they're Spiral bound and Hounds is my favorite and
it's just really fantastic to hear that the success is
continuing and you have like all of the problems of of more
success, which you know, good problems, which is.
Also, like, you know, fascinating because, like there
have been, you know, a number of.
And so another fun thing that has happened within the last
year is that I've also started to teach game design and
publishing at Carnegie Mellon University here in Pittsburgh,
which is wild because I used to temp for them.
I was the lowest of the low, literally was just like mooching
healthcare off the university because they let me like as a
temp kind of come and go as I had theater projects.
But you know, when they had an opening in there like Ida, you
know, collaborative learning environment for a professor,
someone local recommended me as like, hey, we have a game
designer in town who does this kind of work.
They reached out. It's like, oh, yeah, I used to
teach theater and university settings all the time.
And I was like, I don't have a master's or a PhD, though.
Like, is that OK? Because your job application
says a terminal degree is required.
And they're like, oh, yeah, you're you're a professional.
You know, like, that's that's more valuable than that.
It's fine. You figured out as you go.
But you know, through that and working with these students and,
you know, really thinking intentionally about, like the
different ways that someone can, you know, be an RPG designer.
Because this course that I teach has it's an elective, It is open
to all majors. CMU has a game design major, but
this is one that is like open to anyone.
Like it can count towards the minor if you wanted to.
It's kind of a Portal course. But I have a number of people
who are taking that class who are like, I eat and breathe
tabletop role-playing games. And I want to learn, you know,
better ways to kind of like design and, you know, play, test
and distribute these games that I already love and that, like, I
just want to be an even closer part to the scene or people who
are like, yeah, I am on a career track.
I'm paying to go to university to prepare me for a career.
And the career that I want is tabletop games or video games or
game design in general. And I also have just as many, if
not more students in that class who are like, well, it sounded
more interesting than pottery. You know, they're taking it
because they're like, you know, yeah, it just sounded fun.
And so I'll go through the class and I'll ask, like, So what are
your day one? I'll ask like, what's your
experience playing, you know, role-playing games?
And I have some people saying, like, I've been playing in the
same Vampire the Masquerade campaign, you know, since I was
a freshman in high school. And you have some people who are
like, well, I don't really play RPGs or video games, but I
really enjoy character creation in The Sims, you know.
And so a lot of like, you know, even as we talk about the
success of, you know, my Kickstarters and my business and
things like that, a lot of that is because it became very clear
to me early on that this was a life raft for me.
I was like, I have the skills. I have the publishing skills and
the creative, like product management skills.
For my time in theater, I also ran a small press for theatrical
literature. So, like, I knew how to lay out
books, I knew how to print books.
And so I was like, hey, I'm going to make a lot of decisions
that are motivated by the fact that, yes, I love this, but also
I need this to pay my rent. And it is just as valid and just
as, like you know, deserving of, like, you know, praise for
someone to just have an enriching hobby.
You know, like I do not think that the students in my class
that are like looking to get career advice are any more
valuable or valid than the student who is like, hey, I'm
just looking for something that might be fun for this semester.
Or maybe they pick up like a hobby that they get into during
undergrad and then they never play again.
Or, you know, maybe they own the only games they make are the
games that they make for grade in my class.
But even then, like one of their play testing assignments is
like, run this game for your family.
You know, run this game for people in your home towns.
And even if that's the only time they do that, that is such like
a like really beautiful experience to be like, I made a
game, play it with me, you know. And so as we talk about like the
success of possible Worlds games and also like the trials of
possible Worlds games, a lot of people don't tell you that.
Like as a small indie, when I won an Any for the expansion of
Big Feather and Bone Claw Atlas, it led to a huge uptick in
sales. But also my entire inventory
sold out. You know, and suddenly, you
know, it's post Gen. Con.
I've got packs unplugged, you know, like in the, you know, in
the window. And I'm like, how do I get all
of these games, You know, how do I make sure that like, I have
what I need to to, you know, continue to pay my rent?
Because it's one thing for your distributor to say like, Oh my
gosh, these games are selling like hotcakes.
Please send us 1000 copies of Beef Feather and Bone.
But when you're like, you know, a small to now, I would consider
myself more of like a medium indie.
It's a lot of learning to figure out like, OK, they want 1000
copies. I need to print more than 1000
copies so I can satisfy them and also have stock for myself.
And when I send them those thousand copies, even if they
were all to sell out tomorrow, they pay out on a quarterly
basis. So whatever money I'm spending
to print these copies, I know that I'm not going to get a
return on my investment until the end of the quarter when I
get a paycheck. So things like that and even
like I love the wire bound games, like that was like a key
element of that box set for me. And there's some people who like
just have never engaged with those games because they're like
I can't read it. They're like flipping it,
turning it too complicated or folks are like, yeah, I don't
really know where it would go on my shelf, etcetera, which I'd
say like it's a 30 page game, you can figure it out.
But the more I go to conventions, the more I ship
games to distributors, the more retailers tell me like, hey, I
love your games. I don't have a shelf to put them
on. You know, that ultimately led me
to like make the decision to switch that suit to you know,
paperbacks just because I'm like well it's going to be a lot
easier to print and move these around.
But now I am in like the situation where it's like man,
but I I'd really not like a nice little case for them.
Like all their widths are different now so they don't
really like fit the same in that box.
So I'm like do I print more of these boxes, do I make like a
cool kind of like cloth solution for it?
I'll like dear Unicorn stuff but yeah, so all that to say thank
you, like I I really appreciate it.
But also, you know, if anyone is hearing about, like the
successes that I've had or the ways that I've been able to make
a career out of it, I would encourage you that.
Like, rather than feel less than or feel jealous.
Like, please shoot me an e-mail. Because like literally, I would
not be here if not for the generosity of people like Adam
Voss, People like Will Yelps, you know, the entire brain trust
extended universe. Because like when I had
questions, I asked them and you know, when I needed support, I
reached out for it. So if anyone is listening to
this stuff and being like, damn, like couldn't be me, like yeah,
it could be. But also, it doesn't have to be
like I am not any more legitimate of a designer than
anyone else because it pays my rent if anything.
Like I'm just under more stress because I know I'll die if I
don't make a game. Listen, a wise man once said MO
money, MO problems, you know. Yes, and that's true.
Yeah, I think that was Charles Dickens.
And in The hit story of Christmas is a Christmas Story,
Christmas Tale. I just remember Ebenezer Scrooge
shouting out his window at that orphan.
More money, more. Problems.
Exactly. That's the one.
I will say that the Christmas. All these turkeys as big as me,
you know, the goose in the store window.
It's it's stressful. So I will say, and it's funny
because we did talk about the wire bound thing before and then
the first thing I said was, God, I love these are wire bound and
it became this whole thing and it's great.
I'm very glad I have a copy of the Wire Bound once.
I love them and I find all the reasons that you did originally
make them wire bound are good reasons and it's very irritating
that people see any minor discomfort to their current
status quo as a a hurdle versus an opportunity.
So I'm whatever. The solution though is if you
come up with another box that I'm going to have to buy that
too. So let's, I'm OK if you hold up
on that for a little bit. Well, people want like the last
wire bounds in existence. Check your friendly local game
store. Some of them might have those.
I know Indie Press Revolution still has a handful in stock
because they want to make sure that they move through all those
before they take any of the paperbacks.
And then I have like a handful of copies of Scene Thieves and
Hounds, the wire bound editions on of those that again, just
like I don't really travel with anymore.
So they are up on my web store at a discount.
So if folks want to see what we're talking about, like head
on over there. You can get it for like 8 bucks.
Yeah, and and Hounds is my favorite game.
I know, I know. It's.
I know you want people. It was a dating SIM and.
Dating, SIM and wish lists are the ones that like get the least
people. I can't say that they get the
least amount of play because you know once you release a game
it's out of your hands. You only really know what people
are vocal about online. But I will say like all of the
other games I've heard, you know, like seen streams or heard
actual plays, which is like really just, you know, balm from
my soul. Like I love anytime, like any
audience size, if you ever play one of my games, please like tag
me so that I know, so that I can listen to it.
It brings me so much joy. But Wishlist and Dating SIM are
the two that like, I feel like haven't really had their their
time in the sun. Which I say not, you know,
because like I financially benefit from hype for games, but
because they are two of the games that like I designed.
Wish List is very much how I run traditional campaigns.
And so I was like, this is for the old heads and dating dot SIM
is the game that I designed like, OK, this is my game for
people who have never played RPGs before, I've never even
heard of them before. So they are like on opposite
ends of the accessibility spectrum.
So I'm just kind of curious to see how how folks jive with
them, you know, like in conversation.
Maybe we'll have to engage with them here on the on the stream
at some point. Maybe when we're not doing an
episode every other day. But yeah, maybe.
Not. When it is, you know.
You know, Zine Quest Month hell. So, right, yeah, a good help
though. We we love that we're able to to
have conversations like this and talk about projects that are are
out for Zenquest. And then Speaking of that, you
have a project that's out right now on Zenquest, something
you've been working on for years and it's out right now.
So this is the details of our escape.
So tell us about the details of our escape.
So the details of our escape is an experiment in a lot of ways,
but a really fruitful 1. So like I said, I used to work
in theater and I used to own and run a theater publishing company
called plays. Inverse plays, one word, inverse
another word. And kind of the idea with that
is that there are a lot of plays that never get published unless
it's for an acting edition because a lot of play publishers
make money through performance royalties, not through the
individual sales of their books. So when you see like an acting
edition, it just kind of has the title, no cover art, you know,
often kind of like cramped text layout because they want to save
money on pages, things like that.
Because what they're doing is they're printing an instruction
manual. They're not printing a book.
They're like we want to get like as many copies of this as we can
into high schoolers hands so that when they perform, you
know, like I wanted to say waiting for Godot, but like God
bless whatever high school is performing that.
Although I'm sure they are like too many people pressure kids,
like perform the quote UN quote greats when really they should
just do something that like lets them goof off with their friends
anyway. So a lot of plays, you know,
they have to get their reps in, you know, before they're
attractive enough for an acting edition because basically it's
like, oh, if this had a run on Broadway, other people are going
to want to perform this too. And what that means is a lot of
the experimental plays, a lot of the, like niche stuff, the weird
stuff, the, like, hard to perform.
But like really interesting plays just never see the light
of day. You know, you have to be in the
right place at the right time. And maybe you see it performed
in a garage somewhere or, you know, it's someone writes it and
no one produces it, No one like, and because no one's producing
it, it's not attractive for publishing.
So it just winds up in a hard drive somewhere.
I created plays in verse to champion those kind of plays.
Print them the way you would a book of poetry and just say
that, like, yeah, reading a play is, you know, enjoyable, the
same way that reading an RPG that you haven't played and
still be enjoyable. You know, there's so many
different elements about that kind of form of literature.
And part of why I really resonate with RPGs is because it
is a similar lineage of, like, you know, a kind of literature
that is always incomplete on its own, you know, is enjoyable on
its own, but like, it asks something of the reader, it
invites participation. So I was running this and one of
the things that were my favorite projects is I would often work
with poets who had never written a play before.
There were people who had, like, really strong command of
language, you know, very strong voice and, like, choreography
elements in their poetry. And I would be like, hey, I
think you do a really great job writing a play.
You know, if you have a concept, let me know.
And I can be your dramaturg. I can teach you dramatic
structure, but I can't teach you how to have a unique voice and a
unique vision. And so that was super fun.
And I love that collaboration. I love that back and forth.
And I love that discovery of seeing like, oh, someone
completely outside of theater. What did they bring to this And
so I like passion project of mine was to do the same thing in
in RPGs. And so there was one day where I
was just kind of like moaning and groaning about how much it
sucks to run a Kickstarter because it really is like it's
it's I I will say that this one is a lot easier now, like being
a handful of campaigns in and also a year into my OCD therapy,
I'm now properly medicated. It's not that everyone should be
taking Luvox if they want to run a start a campaign, but the
idea, like I was just kind of saying on lines like, you know,
someone could just like invest in me too, you know, and I could
just make a cool game. And Riley Coyote from the
Afterthought Committee been like a Twitter mutual of mine for a
while. They reached out through my DMS
and they're like, well, how much are you talking?
You know, like, what would that look like?
And I was like, hey, you know, I have this idea that if I had
like the money to fund a residency, I just want to take a
talented illustrator from outside of RP GS, a talented
writer from outside of RP GS, and just finance them for, you
know, 10 months of work where each, like, all they're required
to do is come up with five pages.
Basically just fund their morning pages and say, like, all
right, January, it's the comic artist turn.
They're going to Draw Something and they're going to send it to
the writer or he's going to write something, you know, So
you always get a month off and you send it back and forth.
And so after that committee was like, yeah, we're we would be
willing to make an investment in this help to kind of fund the
like you know this initial process with the idea being that
like it will eventually result in a game, you know and we will
be made whole. So we came into that agreement.
I reached out to Lynnae Esterta, who is Eisner nominated
award-winning comics artist. Did Stages of Rot and Frog in
the Fall, both through PL. books.
Really, really love her work, really like Mobius style, like
Wild out There world building. Reached out to Linnea, they were
on board. Reached out to Renee Gladman,
who has a series called The Ravikians that is just like
phenomenal, really, like full speculative fiction that is just
so different from anything else you're going to read.
Like, I was reading one of her novels, and there is like, this
group, they're exploring this old abandoned church.
And they encounter someone and they realize this person is
speaking a different language from them.
And that person, like, their language is puffs of air.
And there's an entire Society of these people that are living in
the catacombs under this church. And the protagonist just like,
live with them for a while and like, tell you what it's like
living in the society, trying to learn their customs, trying to
learn their language. And it's fascinating stuff.
So at the end of a year of them generating work, we had all this
beautiful illustration, all this fantastic writing, and both of
them really complemented each other.
We didn't require them, you know, to like, we didn't give
any prompts. It's like you have to make this.
You have to make this. It was just kind of like, yeah,
do what you want and be inspired as much or as little by what's
come before it. And by the end we had this like
short story collection of chapters about this group of
2348 people who were like a caravan of people traveling,
escaping something, looking for something better and not really
sure what either was, you know, But just like strange and
magical obstacles that they were encountering along the way.
And also just the difficulties of playing with a group, like,
you know, being part of a group that large.
And Linnea was similarly making all this like kind of travel
imagery. And so by the end of that
process, it was handed off to me to design A game around it.
And I saw like, OK, this is travel, you know, if we want
like the mechanic to also serve as a metaphor for the game, what
is something that is like a path?
What is something that is like a journey?
And that's when dominoes came to mind.
I've been playing a lot of, you know, like traditional dominoes
with my partner's family. I was like, OK, this is a path,
you know, and also like a 28 set of dominoes, like has some
really interesting probability curves and it has two numbers on
each domino was like I can, I can work with this.
And so through combining the art, the fiction and then also
just kind of my own like design proclivities towards games that
are, you know, like low, low, buy in, you know, I call it
dollar store design, not requiring anyone to have play
materials that they couldn't find at a dollar store.
And it's like dominoes are pretty accessible, but we're
also including cut out sheets of dominoes for anyone who doesn't
want to go buy some. And I designed that game and I
took a year to play test it, mostly just locally around
Pittsburgh, getting in front of people, figuring out how it
felt, how it played. And the end result is the
details of our escape. And it really is this RPG that
is, you know, one part art book, one part speculative fiction,
one part rule book, because all of them get like equal levels of
showcase and interest in the like Zine itself.
And it's also something that is unlike any other RPGs out there
because, you know, it was devised by people outside of
RPGs. We're just like these are the
kind of stories we're interested in.
These are the kind of groups that we're interested in.
And the challenge fell to me of like, OK, how do you make a game
that is Caravan style role-playing, where instead of
playing individual characters, you are playing groups of
hundreds and you know, and then what do the stakes look like for
those characters? If you're playing a group of
200, you know, like what does it look like for their journey to
end or to continue? And how can I mechanize those
things using the numbers available on the dominoes?
And so, yeah, that's what we've arrived at.
And I needed to put out a game early this year, and Zing Quest
is in February, and it's going to be approximately 30 to 50
pages. So I was like, all right,
saddling up for one more ride. There you go.
Yeah, no, it's it's it's fascinating.
Like I like I said before, the first time I heard about this
project was when you were on the RTFM podcast.
Also go listen to that. That is better than us, but I
will not. Listen to some other episodes
before you listen to my episode, because Aaron is like both of
Aaron and Max have both said that my episode is not the worst
episode of the podcast. It is the worst game that the
podcast has read. It's Akon agony something.
It's like an English adaptation of a fan series of fantasy
novels that has never been translated to English.
It's only available in French. So, like, there's an interesting
conversation to be had about, like, adapting literature into
RP GS. And what does it mean to play
like The Lord of the Rings role-playing game if Lord of the
Rings was a series of books that, like, no one was able to
read? But it's also just like a real
shitty game and so a lot of it is US clowning on it and me,
like dragging them through the like Disney theme park tour of
this book as they are kicking and screaming, being like we
want to go back to the hotel. Right.
But it it's also an interesting link to or or there's
interesting, I don't even know what the word I'm looking for.
Like a parallel between that and the game that you're talking
about, where they took a literary work and tried to adapt
it into a game as opposed to what you have done.
And that is to actually have an artist and a writer create and
then you gamify it because it sounds like what they attempted
to do to a point I guess with Agony or whatever it's called
unsuccessfully. But the fact that you're not
able to read the source material makes it it's it's a lot harder
to, I think understand the game mechanics because it's like is
that there because it's in the book or is that there because
this game mechanic sucks, you know, versus you know what
you're working on now. So it was it was it was nice
parallel to hear that episode specifically because of that
link intended to now see the project on Kickstarter.
With that one question I had right off the bat.
Is there a reason that there's exactly 23148 people, or was
that just a random number? It's just what came up in
Renee's writing. Like it showed up in her first
chapter that she did. And so I was like, OK, this is
fascinating. And then each chapter like the
that the group size is like mentioned over and over again.
And so I was like, OK, this is a key part part of it like I and I
wanted to like honor that. So that is always the starting
point of the game and that is the like the group number that
is mentioned in all of the fiction interspersed throughout
the text. But as the game goes on, you
know each leg of the journey you are going to reach a door.
You know whether a literal one or like a figurative one, like
kind of a threshold to the next part of the journey.
And depending on the tiles that are present in your path to get
to that door, your group will either stick with the caravan or
they will settle in the surrounding area like their
journey ends there. There's also like I see this as
a low lethality game. I would rather it be a game
about people escaping from something and finding what
they're looking for early, rather than people fleeing
something and you know, being cut down you know as a result.
So the but like, so ultimately you have your groups that have
like you know what they're searching for and once they you
know find it like it is a mechanical element that says
like no, you have no choice. Like they they are stopping
here. They have found what they're
looking for here. How did they find what they were
looking for here. But then if you're playing a
group of 600, that 600 is going to be subtracted from your 2000
plus. And the game goes until either
the group has dwindled and you know, the game decides for you
what the final destination is. Or, you know, like so many small
indie games, it's like, play until you're done.
You know, play until you get to a leg.
That's like, OK, we know this, this, this phase of the game
takes X minutes. You know, we have this much more
time before, like, we got to catch our bus.
So let's play one more round and like, this door is the door that
we will be ending at. But there are also mechanics for
like refilling your caravan between sessions if you want to
play it like campaign style, so you can make it go as long or as
short as it wants. But yeah, like having that as
something to latch onto as a unique design challenge was
actually like a gift to me. Because I feel like there are so
many different ways that people have done ability scores or, you
know, different ways to kind of like spec your one special boy
that there's a certain, like kind of release to saying, like,
yeah, you are not playing as individual as you were playing
as like a collective that is unified by, you know, certain
beliefs or certain practices but could just as easily, you know,
like diverge from each other. So you said dice are is the the
kind of gamified aspect of this. You also have Domino's.
I'm sorry, I meant Domino's. Yeah, you have Domino's on it.
22 parts of that. One, I would love to hear how
that's kind of incorporated. But two, there's another person
on top of the project or on the Project 2, there's you, Linnea,
Renee. But also Hannah Cotto is doing
the like paper Dice or what? What are they?
I keep saying dice. I keep meaning Domino's, but I
keep saying dice. Oh, it's it's fine.
I mean, that is like also, you know, like what we're talking
about about the RPGs that are like adapted properties versus
something built from the ground up.
You know, you have a lot of people that are like, you know,
wary of what they consider, like D&D clones or something like
that because like, oh, we'll just go to the source.
Or when someone makes like, you know, the Lord of the Rings
game, they're like, oh, we're going to like run it in
something that is very recognizable.
Because, you know, when we talk about like RPG's, literature,
you know, it's a lot of the same conversations that happen of
like, oh, is this movie adaptation of this book still
like Capital C Cinema? You know, And I think one of the
ways that, like, this book is unique is that it is literature
because it was, like, conceived as literature.
It is not like adapted from anything else.
It is not pulling from like what other RPGs do you know, whether
it is like, well an RPG has to have dice or an RPG has to have
character sheets or these different kinds of things.
It kind of was like all right what is our story?
And then what does the story require?
But at the same time that can be like a risky move to make.
I I watched the movie Jupiter Ascending recently by the
Wachowski sisters. So, like, came by The Matrix,
got their blank check. They're like, OK, we want to
make a space opera. We want to make like our own
kind of Star Wars. And that film was a flop because
people are like, well, what is this adapted from?
Like, wait, should I? Because, like, there was a lot
of explaining that happened in the movie.
I'm like, well, we're doing all of this world building.
But also we have to like, explain all these different
things. And like, yes, we're doing
things different from these other films.
But like, here's why. And sometimes that can be like.
Intimidating for folks. So my hope with this project is,
you know, still to kind of like have my RPG sensibility of like
I'm going to give you enough to hook you in but let you do a lot
of world building on your own. You know, the same way the beak,
feather and bone like gives you a map but doesn't tell you like
where the city has to be situated or like time periods or
things like that. But I'm also really hopeful
that, like the people who do take a risk on this, you know,
the players who play it will, we'll also then go and read
Renee's novels. We'll go and read Linnea's
comics. And I really hope that fans of
their comics and their novels, you know, in wanting to see more
of that, kind of maybe find their way into the hobby.
But Hinokoto was a late edition, in part because I knew that,
like, OK, most people have dice, not everyone has Domino's.
And a domino isn't so specialized that, like, you
can't find it at, you know, your local dollar store or Target or
something like that. But they're also a lot of
people. I've found at conventions that
when they buy a game, like they want to go back to their hotel
room and play it that night. And conventions have a lot of
dice dealers. They don't have a lot of
specialized domino boots. So I knew that I wanted to
package in with the game, you know, an approximation of
Domino's so that people could just like take it out of the
case, you know, it's going to be bagged the same way that BFB is
and like dive right in And as kind of like a late design
decision that came after the, you know, like extensive play
testing and things like that. I didn't want to like, you know,
ask more of Linnea. They're like a busy person with
their own career. But I knew that I wanted them to
be something special. And I have loved, you know,
Kodo's work, you know, ever since, like, Neru came on the
stand. And now, like, it's an entire
suite of games. But also like their font design
work, you know, their product design.
They've been doing a lot of really cool stuff, like
designing cards for an eventual card game and like, boxes and
components. Really, they're someone who
understands that, like, you know, and something doesn't just
have to be like fancy, it also has to be functional, you know,
It also has to be legible. So I'm thrilled to have been
able to reach out to them and say, like, hey, I don't know, if
you do contract work, would you be interested in designing like
a set of 28 dominoes just to be printed on like 2 heavy stock
sheets so that people can cut them out with scissors?
And they were like, I don't do a lot of contract work, but that's
just because people haven't been asking.
So if you know, if other folks are like, you know, thrilled to
see them on this project, like, yeah, they might be willing to
work on your project too. There's someone that I think has
a really great eye and talent for, you know, not just game
design, but also thinking about how people interact with games.
So they've been a late addition. And as far as how those dominoes
work and the game itself, they do pretty much everything.
There's some moments of like you kind of standard session zero
type questions of like, OK, what is it like, what is the place of
origin that everyone is leaving? You know, what is, what is it
that they're fleeing, you know? And there are also those set,
those kind of like X card type conversations of like, OK, this
is a caravan of people fleeing from something.
You know, you could tell a serious story that is about
refugees or you could tell a story that is more like, all
right, this, you know, people just want something exciting.
You know, maybe they were bored or, you know, a lot of people
kind of use it to tell like climate stories of like, all
right, you know, all the resources in this area have been
used up. They're going to go somewhere
else. The game starts and you have
your caravan of 2000 strong and everyone draws tiles from the
bone yard, which is the actual thing people call the like stack
of dominoes in the center of the table.
But say you get a tile that is a, you know, a 2626 domino.
You can either take one of the numbers shown on the on the
domino, the two or the six, multiply it times 100 and that
is the size of your group. So you can play a group of 200
or you can play a group of 600. Or you could add this is for
like a lot of this is the kind of like.
My general suggestion is if you want to play a shorter game, you
know multiply them by 100. If you want to play a longer
game, you can also add those two numbers together. 268.
Multiply it by 10. You're playing a group is of 80,
so it's going to be a smaller group.
But also because numbers are going to be subtracted in more
like 100 chunks, you know it's going to be a longer game.
You know, as people fall off from the caravan, once you have
your group size, you're going to decide like, all right, what are
they leaving? What are they searching for?
What is the thing that unifies them?
You know, maybe they are like a Cobblers Guild or something like
that, that there's just like no more leather for them to make
shoes in their region anymore. And so they're seeking somewhere
new where they're going to be able to like practice their
trade. And then as you go, everyone
also gets a hand of dominoes and there is going to be a pair of
keywords and pause me if you have any questions.
I know I'm kind of like just like injecting mechanics into
your brain right now. So you have your group, each
start of a leg of the journey. You're going to pick a pair of
words. So maybe it's like one I've play
tested with is strange and serene, or like lush and
fragile. One of those words is always
going to apply to the first number in a domino.
One of them is always going to apply for the to the second.
So that same 26 tile that we had, the two would be how
strange it is. So not very strange the six
would be how serene it is. It's like, OK, very serene.
And so you talk about like, all right, what is it that your
particular group is passing by in this location that is like,
you know, normal serene, How do they interact with it?
Then the next tile you are going to play a tile that is the first
number of it is either the same as the ending number.
So like traditional Domino's type stuff, so ends in a six.
You're either going to need to start with a six or you can play
a domino that is 1 number higher or one number lower.
So there wouldn't be something higher than a six, but let's say
there's a 7. Let's say you're playing with
the extended set of dominoes. If you play one higher, then
that means your course has veered towards something good.
And you have to tell us like what is the thing that is good
enough that you, the caravan like, changes its course to go
towards it. And if you play one under, so
let's say we played A5, you're going to go, you're going to
change your course to avoid something bad, some kind of
threat, some kind of obstacle, something like that.
But because of the way that the dominoes are played in sequence
and the fact that the words attached to the dominoes are
fixed, you're always going to have this up, down.
So maybe that first tile was like too serene, sick or yeah or
well, too serene would actually be not very serene or no, too
strange. It was strange and serene, too
strange, 6 Serene. So the next one, maybe it's a
six and then a five. So you're going to be suddenly
in a environment that is very strange because those sixes line
up and that's your first word. And then maybe you still have
the five. So like, maybe it's very still
very serene, but things are getting stranger.
And maybe you're also in a situation where like, OK, maybe
it's a five that you're playing, so it's getting, it's still
serene, it's getting much stranger.
And also you are diverting your path to avoid something bad.
What is it you know? And how does your group, you
know, interact with this? How does, how do they perceive,
like, how do they travel through this?
So you keep playing tiles in that way and it results in this
like very fun, kind of like subtly shifting journey that you
go on as you kind of a bounce back and forth between the
different aspects of this leg of the journey.
For the ones that were like lush but fragile, it was going
constantly back and forth between these like, OK, we're in
this like jungle where it's like you where everything is, you
know, vivid and like, you know, the air is thick.
And then maybe the next tile, it's like, OK, you know, we are
still in that environment, but now we have come across
something that is like extremely fragile, you know, what is that
like? Is it like, you know, like a
just a collection of flowers? Are there like crystals Now, you
know, is it like eggs of some kind of creature And you keep
playing until you get to a player who doesn't have a valid
tile to play. You know, they don't have
something that lines up or is 1 higher or one lower.
And at that point, you have reached the door, you know, and
you as a group, you know, you're going to have to figure out how
to get through the door, pulling from the different kinds of
things that you've seen along your journey.
So it's kind of an opportunity to kind of decide like, OK, what
what were the, like most interesting things that we
encountered on this leg that we want to make sure that we
remember, You know, if we were taking notes on this for a
campaign, like what is the good stuff?
You use those to get through the door and then let's go back to
your two six tile. That adds up to 8.
If there any other tiles in your leg of the journey that add up
to 8. So maybe it's a three five,
maybe it's a you know, there are some probabilities that are
higher or lower than others. double s are always going to be,
you know, near impossible to find.
But once you look at the path you're going to, if it's your
turn, you pluck it out of the path and you say, like, OK, my
group found what it's looking for.
Subtract their numbers from the overall caravan.
And I'm going to tell you, you know, what it is that we found
here. That was enough for us to, like,
decide like, yes, this is where we're going to start our new
life. And the game continues.
Go through the door. You either maintain the groups
that you've been playing or you draw new groups.
You come up with new keywords and you describe like, all
right, what are the other things they encounter?
So it is very much in the ilk of like you know my style of game,
you know the beak, feather and bone, you know, single unique
power game that's like, all right, this is a fun standalone
experience, but also could be like a good session 0 for world
building. And it's also just a game that
like, I don't know, it encourages people to like come
out of their shells and like engage in that world building
process in bite size pieces. You know, because it can be so
hard sometimes, like to put someone on the spot and say like
OK, now it's your turn to like come up with a faction and make
sure they're interesting and make sure they're this and make
sure they're that and you know, make sure that they relate to
this thing or that thing. When really like at any point in
this game, you're only having to describe like one thing at a
time and it's always going to be influenced by like 2 numbers and
your individual group. So hopefully that makes sense.
It's one of those games that, like, I'm getting better about,
you know, summarizing it in a succinct way, but that I have
really loved seeing how it comes together on the table.
Yeah, there it's the wheels are turning.
I it sounds really, really interesting.
So when you do, you play, I'm gonna say play the dominoes, but
like, do you actually lay them out like end to end as if you're
doing dominoes? So.
Yeah, so when I talk about like building a sequence, you are
making like an actual physical path across your table.
Which I mean, I can only assume that that concept came into your
mind when you're designing this, since you're actually like on a
journey with people who are diverting to take another path,
and you're actually laying out the path that they're actually
like. They're taking some up with the
dominoes as you go. That is such a nice, clean,
elegant feel to the mechanics like it feels like it belongs,
you know. So I I really love that.
I love and games have like that level of elegance where like the
the mechanics especially if you have something physical like
like die stacks in some things or things like that where you
feel that like what you're doing mechanically really fits
narratively. So the idea of actually laying a
path out with your dominoes as you're going on this path, you
know, with the it's that's fantastic.
I absolutely love that. There's so many.
If I can go on something real quick related to that, I
actually, when I teach game design, I call that mechanic as
metaphor. You know, the idea being that
like whatever mechanic uses the game, you know is also like
there is. It doesn't necessarily always
have to be, but by and large there is like a metaphor to any
kind of mechanic in a game, even rolling AD 20.
You know the meta. It is a metaphor for like the
randomness of the universe, you know, things like that.
But I would generally teach inside out design and outside in
design. Inside out design is the idea
that you have a mechanic that you are really interested in or
like Oh my gosh, I really love, you know, let's take Dread as an
example. The idea being like, I really
love Jenga, I wonder if there is a game that I could design
around Jenga, you know, and the metaphor there being is like,
OK, So what kind of feelings does this mechanic evoke?
Like, when I'm playing Jenga, like, are there's tension here?
You know, there's precarity. There's always a risk of things
falling over, Maybe a story where like, you know, things
could go awful at any moment where there is a certain level
of, like, you know, dread involved.
And then you're kind of like, OK, if we're starting from the
inside with a mechanic, then let's go out and find
appropriate genre trappings to kind of put this around this.
They really, like, kind of shake hands with each other.
The opposite side of the coin would be outside in design,
where it's like, Oh my gosh, I love slasher flicks.
You know, I love horror movies. I really want to design A
role-playing game that, like, feels the same way that I feel
when I watch a horror film. And so you can always kind of go
the route of like, all right, well, I'm going to like use kind
of a pretty standard mechanic with like D 20s and I'm, you
know, the flavor, the feeling is going to come from, you know,
other elements like maybe it is the flavor text in the game
itself. Maybe it's the visual design of
something that is like, you know, very like stylish and like
vibes forward like a more Borg. Or, you know, you can always say
like, well, if I don't have the budget for art or if I I'm not
as confident in my writing to kind of evoke this, how can I
have a mechanic that kind of like helps get the player
halfway there and maybe through play testing, through iterating,
through design conversations, maybe then you get to Jenga.
If you're like, Oh my gosh, Jenga is something that would
work for this. A lot of people have Jenga sets.
They can find them, you know, that kind of thing.
So when I design A game, usually it's from one of those two
paths. Either a mechanic comes to me or
I'm like, Oh my gosh, it would be so cool to come up with a
game where, like, the randomization mechanic is how
long it takes her a piece of ice to melt.
What kind of stories can I tell that?
Like, what would be good ice stories, winter stories, et
cetera. And sometimes I'm just like, God
damn, I I can't get enough of one Piece.
I need to make a shonen style game or and that's where like
single unique power came from. I was like, OK, how can I take
all these tropes that I love in these and kind of mechanize them
into a way to, like, make your own cast of just like, weird
guys? So this design for you then I
guess. Was this an inside out and
outside Indesign when you chose Domino's?
Definitely inside out. You know, or sorry, outside in.
So in that I started with the material generated by Lynnae and
Renee of like, OK, this is the style, this is the substance.
You know of like when I put this book together, you know, I'm
going to be including all of these things and how do I make
sure that the game mechanics like not only compliment them
but connect them to each other. You know, that kind of emphasize
the fact that like all three of these things are like equal
parts of the recipe. And like I said, I I think the
dominoes are such a fantastic choice for exactly the the
metaphor that it has like actually putting the path
together also when you're. Talking I mean there's so this
is such a fun kind of system and as you said you know the as if
you start with 2348, is that what it is, 2084?
Yeah 4848 breaking off a smaller and bigger groups and things
like that. But like my mind immediately
started going to man, there's so many things there's so many ways
you can hack something like this too.
I mean obviously you have the content generated from the the
writer and the artists that are already there.
But I mean you could do you have a Co-op version of this where
like you have you're going off in groups and I'm going off in
groups and I'll see you in a week and then come back together
and you tell me what happened with your.
Chunk of the game out of this of like who's going for the
fastest. And it is like very shoot, I I
had a point that I wanted to make.
Maybe it'll it'll come to me later.
But yeah, in terms of like people taking the game and
hacking it and running with it, you know, I think sometimes it's
nice to kind of have these games that just like serve as a spark
for other people's creativity, you know, because like I am, I
love whenever someone makes a game that is inspired by beat,
feather and bone, you know? Or I love whenever, like anyone
kind of takes, like that's why I put an SRD out for it.
You know. Sometimes it really does take
like someone else just kind of like turning on the light bulb.
You know, like oh this is something we can use or it's
like I hadn't thought of Domino's or how many people are
like I never would have thought of Jenga if not for dread.
And then you wind up with games like Star Crossed, you know,
that are like, OK, I this, you know, mechanic can also be this
metaphor. And so I'm very hopeful that
when people are like, oh, all right, Domino's, that people
take this concept and run with it.
But also that people start to think about like, what are other
things you can do with Domino's? Like you can stand them up so
they topple down. And another exercise I do in my
class is I'll do like an Iron Chef style exercise where I'll
just hand out identical pieces of a material to everyone in the
class. Recently I've done it with
cardboard coasters, and we just spend like 10 minutes being
like, hey, let's get a whiteboard out and talk about
all the different ways we can manipulate this object.
You know, you can like, it's cardboard.
So you could fold in half if you want to.
You could flip it like a coin. You could spin it on the table.
You could write something on one end and conceal it.
You can put in your pocket. You could get it wet so that
it's like, you know, different parts.
You can let it dry. You could light it on fire.
It can be really kind of useful to think about like, all right,
what are things that people might have on hand?
What are things that are common to the scene, and how can I make
them serve my purpose? And I remember the thing that I
wanted to talk about before of you saying like the 2438 or 348,
I swear I'll have it memorized by the end of this campaign.
The fact that Renee included that number in each of the
chapters that for this project, what that signaled to me is that
this is a game where numbers are important.
Numbers are something I should be paying attention to.
Because there's also, I could have gone a route that I was
like, OK, there are no numbers in this game.
There are no dice. There are no dominoes.
You know this is more of like a Microscope style game where it's
just no cards all the way down. You know, where you make a path
that are just the things that you write on note cards.
Or maybe it was a drawing game where it's like, all right,
everyone draws different elements of the path, but even
small things like the fact that like, OK, numbers are something
that is going to be present in the fiction they should be
present in the mechanics as well, was something that was
like a big clue for me as a designer of like, how can I make
sure that like the mechanics and the flavor of this kind of go
hand in hand? It's really, it's really
interesting the the entire concept from beginning to end
too. And I will say one thing about
Domino's, if you don't use the extended set, it is 2D6 if you
look at both sides of a dice and that is a mechanic that a lot of
people in the same use is 2D6. So that exists out there.
But again, just being able to pull three people, three, you
know, creatives together in in like separate, but, you know,
creative spaces, writing, arts and design, which is the core of
RPGs as well, but from completely different areas.
And like you said, two people that are outside of RPG space.
And to make an RPG like this is such a cool thing.
I really hope that it encourages more people, not only, like you
said, fans of theirs, to come into the RPG space, but to also
extend into other not RPG spaces for RPG, you know, inspiration
or anything. Because it's when I heard about
it, like I said on the RTFM show, it sounded so interesting
and seeing it now, like I'm just really like excited to actually
get in hand and actually be able to engage with this.
It is on Kitchen. Right now, yeah.
The designers listening to this podcast, I hope this also
encourages you to kind of like reach out to, you know, like
different kinds of people, You know, reach out to folks who,
you know, maybe haven't worked in RP GS before because just
because they haven't doesn't mean they wouldn't want to, you
know? And I'm a strong believer that
our hobby is only enriched by welcoming people in whether it's
different perspectives, different styles, different
things like that. And as a creative, like, we've
all got to like, feed ourselves. We've all got to, you know, pay
rent. Like I increased the price of my
games by like 1 or $2.00 this year because, like, the cost of
my health care went up. Because inflation is real.
And there are a lot of artists that are like, oh, you know, I
work in comics or I work in cartoons.
And that is like where I have gotten a reputation, it's where
I've gotten connections. It's where I built momentum.
But that doesn't mean that they also aren't trying to, like, do
the hard work of making a living off their art and sometimes
reaching out to someone and saying, like, hey, I know you're
very busy. I have a project that would need
like 10 pieces of illustration and I really love your work.
If I can afford you, I would love to hire you to work on
this. Hopefully it's something that's
approachable and maybe if this game does well, or maybe if you
enjoy this process, then it will also be a portfolio piece for
you. You know, like the 30 page game
can help these people get work on a 300 page game.
So don't think that your game is too small.
Don't think that you are too small, you know, to work with
the kind of artists that you love and admire.
Because for a lot of them, like one, if they aren't interested,
or if it would be, you know, cost more than you can afford,
they're going to tell you. And that's like that
conversation is not the scariest thing in the world.
The scariest thing in the world is like over promising something
that you can't pay for. And like if they say yes, then
like who knows what that could lead to.
Who knows what kind of doors that it could open for them and
not just for you. So it is not a like.
It is not a selfish thing to look at someone whose work you
love, admire and say like, I would love to work with you.
Not only that though, everybody in every industry and every
scene, you know, you get, you get the brain of that thing.
Like we have, we have game brain.
We've seen all the mechanics. Like I can tell you all the
probabilities of all the two D6 roles.
And sometimes when you reach out to somebody and that doesn't
have that brain, they are capable of looking at the bigger
picture. Because sometimes when you know
too much, it really narrows your view a little bit to the things
that you know and makes it more difficult to to see the things
that you don't know because you know all the things right,
Except you don't. So being able to bring people in
from other fields and other especially creative interests
and stuff with fresh eyes is the really cool thing to have in all
creative spaces as well. So it's again really cool to
bring on not one but two people that aren't in the space onto a
project like this and then still be able to gamify in such an
interesting way. But this is on Kickstarter right
now. It is actively funding for Zene
Quest. It's got 18 days left to go.
It is less than $400.00 from funding.
Oh really? That's great. 9617 dollars, 621
backers. I mean, because it's extremely,
it's extremely reasonably priced.
Which as far as the tears go. So when people go to Kickstarter
and back this as they should, because it looks fantastic.
I was back in #1, just around there, but.
You sniped it like I instantaneously have to like
include something special in Here is for that hot number one
spot. There we go.
I don't have a folder, although my Kickstarter #1 spots or
anything, but what what can they get from Kickstarter?
Like what are the tiers from Kickstarter that they can they
can back at Yeah. So the first thing you're going
to want to do is go to bit dot LY slash details of that's
DETAILSOF that's going to take you to the campaign and I
believe in keeping it simple. You know they're really only two
reward tiers. You can get the digital PDF
version of the game for 10 bucks.
You can get the physical print version of the game for 20 bucks
the first week of the campaign. We're offering an early backer
special of $15 for the physical version.
That also gets you the digital stuff.
So if you're watching this live, you have an opportunity to do
that before it ends at noon on Monday, February 12th.
If you were listening to the YouTube or podcast or YouTube or
things like that might be done. But I promise you I this is very
affordable for what we're offering.
And yeah, I also just like I don't believe in stretch goals.
I think that, you know, there are plenty of times that I have
received stretch goals from creators that I've been very
grateful for their generosity. But as a creator, I think that
like, I do not want this to balloon out of control.
I do not want to gatekeep any of the things that I want to do
with this game beyond a certain dollar amount.
So I've set a goal that funds everything that I want this to
be. That is enough to bring on
collaborators like Hinokoto. That is enough to like produce
the game as like something that is full color that comes with
these nice stock package, domino cut out sheets.
So you are going to be getting, you know everything for just 20
bucks or if you are someone who plays online, you know we are
going to be including digital files of the dominoes as well.
There's going to be guidance inside the book for online play
as well as single player play. It's the probability and like
hand sizes and things like that for the game map out best for
two to seven players. But there's also going to be
some accommodations for if you want to like really go wild and
play it with like 8 or more. And yeah, I think that like, if
there is kind of 1 silver lining to the Pandemic, it would be
that like a lot more designers are and should be thinking about
like the accessibility of their games from like a remote
standpoint. Because people were playing
remote games before, you know, The Pandemic had everyone
working from home, you know. And people also had different
accessibility needs that you know, required, you know, like
things like remote play, things like digital play spaces, or,
you know, even folks who just kind of prefer preferred it.
You know, there are the reason why I have, like, dexterity free
options for games like Hounds is because realizing that even
small things like manipulating pieces, you know, can be
something that is inaccessible for people.
So if you're the kind of person who likes to play with a group
remotely, or even just prefers your gaming experiences mediated
through a digital interface, there's going to be material and
guidance in there for you too. Fantastic.
Yeah. I mean, we're, you know we talk
about it all the time on the show.
Hyperlinks is like the bare minimum you can do to help
people play digitally. It's a lot easier to just click
a button than to scroll for 60 pages.
So. But on top of that, E pubs and
making them, making sure that things are accessible for screen
readers and things like that. It's just a really nice thing to
have. And at the end of the day, we're
gonna get farther and farther from other human beings.
The further our our species exists, we're going to get
deeper and deeper into these screens.
So having things be more accessible like that is just a
it's a good thing to have. And the pandemic, just as you
said, really just accelerated that process of us being in
front of these screens a little bit more.
So I mean, I haven't played a physical game with another human
being since the pandemic started.
So definitely in those digital spaces, yeah, One day we'll see
if I ever, ever, ever go back to Pennsylvania again for any
reason. We'll see.
Yeah. Hey, it's not Philly.
We've got like, I don't know. You know what, Bridges?
That's true. It is true.
I went to Pittsburgh once. The only time I ever went and my
car broke down in Pittsburgh. I'm gonna stuck there for half a
day. But.
No, it was nice. I wanted to stay.
There you go, it's cuz it wasn't.
Philadelphia. Yeah, one more day.
But I mean it's extremely affordable, it's a $10,000 goal.
You have over 620 backers which is approaching the number that
you had for the possible worlds box set.
So at 10 and $20 that's an extremely good deal.
And I think that the I can only imagine it's what like media
mail, I think I remember seeing that the the US shipping at
least is is extremely affordable project.
Yeah, it's round advantage is like 4 bucks.
Canada is right around 10 and then we use the simple export
option through pirate ship, which has been a godsend.
They have like kind of forwarding houses and things
like that where they will batch ship things.
So even international stuff is going to be in the ballpark of
like 12 to $14.00, which, hey, I would love if it was less
expensive to ship anything. But that's why I vote, you know,
because I want to try and also live in a society that, like you
know, cares about its fossil system and doesn't price gouge
people with, you know, various hidden fees.
That's true. I, I, I, I encourage everybody
out there that mails things on any type of regular basis to get
a pirate ship account please. But but yeah, like I said, the
project sounds fantastic. It's funding for 18 more days.
I'll try to have this up tomorrow.
No promises, but if you are listening to this, like Teller
said, you probably missed out on that $15 deal, but $20 is an
insane deal for the quality that this is.
I definitely am extremely excited for this project, as I
said numerous times since I heard about it.
I hope this encourages more projects like this reaching out
into different spaces. And not only this, but the
other. I mean, I have most of the other
stuff that you've done for, but for those people that don't have
the things you have done, where can people find those games and
where this will be in the future?
Your one stop shop is going to be possible worldsgames.com
because who knows what the social media landscape will be
in the coming weeks, months or years.
But I sure as hell own that URL so I'm going to make sure you
can find me. And yeah, there are links to our
web store on there, a couple of you know, some bio stuff and
portfolio things that I need to update.
But the most important thing there is yeah, there's also my
emails on there. There's a contact form page as
well. Please feel free to reach out.
And something I tell a lot of my students is that if someone's
e-mail is publicly available on their website, they are open to
hearing from you. They might not always say yes,
they might not always respond in a timely manner, but if they are
putting their e-mail out there, that means you are welcome to
e-mail them. So please do not feel like
you're inconveniencing me. If there's any kind of questions
follow up on this campaign or even just on any of the other
variety of like things that I've talked about, it's been really
cool. Like as people have learned that
I worked in theater folks who are like, hey, so like your
games are nice and things, but like do you have any advice for
someone living in a small town trying to like find ways to do
theater things and like, well, I do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny I I this pop up in my
head like a while ago and then disappeared.
But I I took I took a literature class in college just a random
credit and we just read plays all the time and I mean yeah,
who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Became my favorite play because
of that class. So it's it's fun to replace.
They're enjoyable. I.
Had I I well, I have a bone to pick with you and I agree.
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Phenomenal play.
I have worked very briefly, limited capacity, mostly
digital, with Edward Albee before he passed away.
And I will say that he is a genius, but he is kind of a
curmudgeon. And the title of that play is
not Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
It is legally Edward Albees Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
because he wanted to make sure anytime the play was talked
about or listed on a program, that his name was real big and
like, yes, he deserves it. He's one.
He was like one of our greatest American playwrights, but also
like my guy, you gotta, you gotta calm down something.
Yeah, that by Edward Albee at the end was not enough.
Had to be in the front, had to be back.
Well, we were laying out programs because if we were
doing one of his one acts in like a series of one acts.
And so there were plays by two other playwrights in that
program. And according to like you know
the contract, we had to list it as Edward Albee's Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf. And so for the other plays in
that series, they're like, well, it's going to stick out if we
don't also list all of their plays as like, you know, Maria
Fornas's Mud and you know this, that and the other thing I'm
like, all right, so those are the little behind the, that's
what you've been sticking around to the end of the show for those
exactly that theatrical program anecdotes that Edward Albee
chat. Yeah, but yeah, back this
project, it looks fantastic. It sounds fantastic.
Get all the stuff from possible Worlds games because.
Thank you. It is because really, like,
there's there's no end to them really.
Like once you pop, you just can't stop.
There's just an endless. Possibility in litigation with
the Pringles man. Just some real brand confusion
there. Yeah, but grab all the stuff at
possibleworldsgames.com, all the links to the Kickstarter and
everything will be in wherever you're watching or listening to
this down below. And you know our links.
In your head and in your heart, you know.
Just like, exactly where everything needs to be.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you so much again, Tyler, for coming on.
Really, really appreciate it. That is gonna be our episode for
today. Back this project, back all the
rest of the stuff. Support Andy creators.
Everyone. Have a wonderful day.
Bye. Bye.