Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. My name is Michael.
And my name is Galen. And yeah, these are two our
special guests with us today, Michael Elliott and Galen
Peugeot. Yes.
Yeah, today talking with us about their upcoming Zen Quest
project that is gonna be Fealty. Before we get to fealty though,
Michael Galen's Who? Who the heck are you guys?
Why? Why should people know who you
are? Especially considering like the
stack of games I have by one or both of you here next to me.
Let's just start with Michael. So Michael like what would
people know you from for past things that you have created?
Yeah, I'm Michael Elliott. I'm a writer and game designer.
I have made single player games and games with strong anti
capitalist themes. So you might know me from a
Torch in the dark or neon black or the fall of House Prosh.
Nasty, brutish and long. I'm really just trying to name
things that Ryan might have on hand right now.
And merger. Yeah, Merger Weekly scrolls on
the first people that like Rated Merger had it on the stream and
that was really cool. Yeah, Merger was great.
Merger was actually. My opinions on Blades of the
Dark are well known, but Merger was just a great game and
honestly one of the early Forged in the Dark games that I picked
up in Red and then realized this is fours in the Dark, but you
know, taken to a a a different kind of direction.
It was super fun. I think that was one of our
earlier reviews too. It was really super fun game.
I really, really, I mean that's the one that was like I need to
follow this person for the rest of the stuff that they write.
So that was a great one. Nice.
Thank you. Fun fact, Merger is the only
game that my mom has played that I've made.
So I don't even know if my mom knows I have a podcast.
So. Yeah, I.
Know. Galen same question like what?
What? What would people know you from?
Like what should they have in their collections from Galen
Peugeot? You might have something for me
already because I've jobbed it as an illustrator on a lot of
indie games, character sheets for things as big as a * Forged
and as little as well the free stuff I give away on my site.
But let's see. Deadbelt Illustrated Stone
Burner, a game of Space Dwarves and Space Mines, fairly
recently. Oh excellent.
I don't even have a copy of that yet.
I'm jealous and gosh, I can't enlist it.
So rather than that, more than the Dawn design end, I like to
make games about communities primarily and anything that lets
me draw robots that haven't been drawn before.
So the in things that I've done, you've got I believe a copy of
The facility, my most recent project.
If. I can find it.
I it's somewhere in the in the plethora.
But I can't. I can't quite get my hands on
it. It's perfect that it would be
lost, though, because it's a game of amnesiac scientists
trying to escape an insane mechanical labyrinth.
Yes, that one. And also Crash Cart, a game of
near future Cyberpunk paramedics, which I'm hoping to
get revisit sometime this year once we've gotten through filty.
Is one of my absolute favorite towards the dark things.
It's awesome. Yeah, we met Kind of a peeking
out about each other's projects mutually, because Torch in the
Dark really spoke to me on a really fundamental level.
I didn't think anybody could do Solo Forge in the Dark, but
Michael nailed it. Thank you.
Both of you seem to have a lot of Forged in the Dark stuff, I
guess. What what draws you both to?
To that mechanic, I guess, Or that that system subsystem.
For me it was, I don't know, Blaze the Dark was the game that
kind of brought me back into RPGs in a way, 'cause like I got
started with like 4th edition D&D campaign years ago and that
lasted like seven years. And I had to take a break after
that and be like I need to not be in a fantasy world for a
minute. And but eventually like played
in some 5th edition games, ran a couple games, but then started
to branch out into like indie stuff like like Fiasco and like
the Quiet Year and stuff like that.
And I saw Blades and played through it and it was like, wow,
this is everything I wanted in role-playing games and didn't
know you could do like characters that not only like
advanced levels, but advanced and like complications and like
personality changes and quirks and like this living breathing
world that reacts to the characters and really
interesting fiction first mechanics.
And also you can just make your own version if you want.
The SRD was free online, so yeah, that coupled with like
having like a really weird creative block at that time of
life with creative writing, I want to make things but I could
not face writing stories. So making games is like a happy
little medium spot. So yeah, I've just, I've fell in
love with it and it's just kind of my go to thing when I want to
think of game design and making games.
Like it's such a great template, so.
It's weird. We never talked about it, but it
was very much the same sort of thing, but on the art end that
back when Blades was getting run up for its Kickstarter, I had a
newborn and had a lot of sleepless late nights on.
Just hanging around like holding a baby and being on G+ and
reading about RPGs, which I had also taken a long break from.
And just the way that John Harper was synthesizing game
mechanics and just and the fiction of his world and the
integration of that with his system of layout.
And the whole thing was just like a a light opened up in the
way it could be done and how games could be made.
And it was, I started doing fan art on G+, and that's what
brought me back into illustrating, or really started
me illustrating, because I hadn't really done anything
artistic in almost a decade at that point.
And it was just so much fun and everybody in those communities
was just so nice that it just kind of slowly dragged me in.
And now here I am doing it and making a living on it.
You all are just the the best indie gamers out there.
I love you all. I would have to make something
to be included in that. I just critique them so I'll
I'll I'll take that but but so you said you guys had when those
strings started you said you guys have never so you worked on
this you've known each other for quite a while at this point but
I've never actually met in person or or or even had a
conversation what how did you work is law I guess know each
other as long and not like sit down and do that just life gets
in the way or or and and then to kind of merge that into another
question what was impetus to finally get together to work on
this project that we're going to be talking about in just a.
Moment. So yeah, well, like, like we
said before, like, we've been kind of fans of each other's
work for a while. I've been kind of, like,
checking with each other. Like, I feel like it was like at
least a couple times a year, one of us to be like, hey, I have
this like, cool idea, Is this cool?
And then we're just like, yeah, that's awesome.
It's like, cool. Do you want to like, should we
do something with it and then be like, yeah, don't really have
the time, don't have other thing.
And like we've done like work exchanges before.
Like I did a client for Crash Cart and Gannon did a cover for
a game which I still haven't released.
But it's we've done a lot of stuff like that, like training
ideas, like kind of like hyping each other up and like flirted a
lot with the idea of doing something together eventually.
And then one day, Galen Mester, he's like, hey, have you ever
read Wolf Hall? I was like, no, I I haven't
explained. It's like this, this fictional
telling of like, the court of King Henry the Eighth and Thomas
Cromwell and how he rose from like, basically being a poor,
like, blacksmith's boy in the streets of London to basically
running England and like, there might be a game in there.
I was like, OK, sure. So I read it and I was like,
yeah, let's, let's fucking do it.
So that was just kind of like right place, right time.
Zion Quest was right around the corner, so.
It is. It's very game brained to read
such a magnificent novel and I hope appreciate it.
But also the same time thing. Wait a SEC, that guy's a
protagonist? That's APC.
See where this mechanic can immediately spring out.
And so I had a lot of very, very abstract, scatterbrained ideas
about chess pieces and tokens and not much in the way of
mechanics. I am.
I'm OK at mechanics at best. I much prefer to be thinking
about the world's and the people inside of them.
And I knew that Michael was absolutely the one for that,
because every one of those games that we listed earlier have just
got a very clean throughput of mechanics to them.
They're a lot of fun to play. So yeah, it seemed to be the
right idea at the right time. Yeah, and it it sounds great.
So what's So what is, what is fealty then what's what's the
pitch like? I know we we just said about the
the Cromwell novel and whatnot, but like what?
What game is that now becoming? It is.
Oh, go ahead. No, no, you you go first.
I've been going first all the time.
All. Right.
Fair. I've never actually done one of
these interviews before, so I'm trying to let Michael show me.
Show me the way. Oh, I usually prefer to let the
art just exist than to talk about it.
But the game is everybody who's playing is primarily a somebody
else, not of noble birth, who has been elevated to a Royal
Court through their skills, their charms, their
accomplishments. And they are various forms of
kind of Thomas Cromwell's or other Renaissance and tutor
archetypes, kind of Shakespearean characters.
The monarch is represented by a deck of cards, and it's just an
all too human and fallible individual presenting all sorts
of whims and problems to the court.
And so the players are stuck in this unfortunate rock and a hard
play situation between a king or queen making unreasonable
demands and being just an absolute selfish piece of work.
And then the needs of the entire Kingdom below them that they
have to run. Which they have a foot in both
of those worlds. And so it just seemed like there
was a lot of dramatic juice to be gained from that.
That's who you are in that game. Does that sound right with you?
Yeah, basically it is is fundamentally based on the
belonging outside blogging system by Avery Alder.
So from like dream apart dream a Skew Galactic 2E which is like a
great Star Wars take on it. And yeah, it's just about, it is
very much like fiction first about inhabiting these
characters and like kind of world building as you go.
And like I said, that kind of being stuck with this monarch
who has different whims on any given day that might run counter
to what the the country needs, what the courtiers can even do.
There could be questions like succession or like weird magical
weapons of mass destruction or you know, the monarch gets hyper
focused on the fact that like they went through a tour through
the capital, there was much of poor people and can all just do
something about that, please, you know, Meanwhile, you all
know that like everyone's starving, there's an army
marching on the nation and you know, stuff like that.
So it's very much like trying to imagine what it's like to be
these people in this possible situation.
And like Keely like because is very much influenced by Wolf
Hall. Like all these people are not
noble born. These are all like commoners who
have been elevated because their achievements or because of where
they happened to be at the time. And so they're trying to
navigate the space and we're trying to like drive the
mechanics and the set pieces to like really highlight the like
the high drama, almost like Shakespearean aspects of that,
of just being like, yeah, in this impossible place, trying to
manage your own life, trying to manage your whole country.
And just following the themes and the stories that cries from
that, basically. And also saying fuck you to the
monarchy, basically. It's a very important part, I
think. Yeah, the whole time I couldn't
help but think, why don't they just grab Henry and stick him in
a sack and throw it in the 10s? It was unimaginable in that
time. Not it would like in the same
the way that we get caught into our own systems and are
completely blinded by the boundaries that we set within
ourselves. That was very clearly part of
what Cromwell was experiencing in that book.
And you, we wanted to kind of present why that would be, how
that would be, how you could feel that experience of being in
that tiny little community and bound by these sort of invisible
laws. Yeah.
So I haven't read Wolf Hall, but like that that kind of piece and
fiction I assume often based on Cromwell of like this king who's
just kind of fucking around or doing whatever or like this and
then the people that are actually running things you're
like yet that is such a gameable like moment.
I guess it is really interesting that I haven't even heard of a a
game that would do something like that or be in that context
of this backdrop of like you said this multifaceted, like you
have to do what the king is saying.
You have software on the country but if you know bringing a
personal life into it too, that's such a a heavy spot to be
in and like you said, complete, super gameable.
And I love the on the field T banner.
You have like the pawns all in a circle and then it's making a
crown with a shadow. That's such a good imagery of,
like, everything that you're talking about.
Good. It's so good, but soon as I show
that to you, it's like, what the art what?
Not the, It turns out I'm not the first person to have thought
of it, but it's a really it's it's so well for what we're
aiming for that I had to delay with it.
So there you may find it out that you search for that.
You can find other people that have done so many things with
chess pieces, but that's why they make such good tokens for
this. They're inherently I love making
games that can use stuff you have around the house already
that aren't just polyhedrals, that is.
Speaking of tokens, so there are tokens in this game.
I know you just said there are chess pieces.
So if if people are playing the game, like what?
What do the tokens have to do with the game or how are they
used in the context of playing the game?
I know you had mentioned the deck of cards as well.
Yeah. So the tokens are kind of like
the currency of like your your move set.
So like when you're trying to like influence things are court,
or like have your way, or like put your mark on the fiction in
some way, usually spending a token and those represented by
the pawns. Or you're gaining tokens when
you make like a back foot move, which is like being kind of
annoying. Or like distancing yourself from
the Monarch, stuff like that. And then each player also has
two of the other pieces, like the Brooks or whatever.
One of it represents their place at courts, and specifically how
close they are to the throne. So there'll be like a court
sheet that'll keep track of like how many resources there are in
the Kingdom and also how like how much in favor you are with
the monarch. And so the closer your piece is
to the throne, you'll get like bonuses, like you'll get more
tokens each round or. And you will also be kind of
expected to attend to the monarch's random whims with like
plans of action. And then also so because there's
two of every like piece and the chess set have like the two
castles, 2 rooks, 2 bishops. I'm trying to remember chess
pieces now and for some reason I can't.
The other one is this token you start with that specifically
represents like your favor, which could like literally be
like like a seal or like a promise or a vow.
And you spend those as tokens. But they also kind of like
because they are unique, you can kind of track them as they move
between player and player and like they can kind of represent
like favors you've called in and stuff like that.
And yeah, that's basically what the tokens are.
You can use other stuff like I think chess set was a great shut
out by Galen because like one of the reasons I like the blades of
dark and forge of dark system is because Rhyzon D6 is pretty much
everyone has six sided dice, but also pretty much everyone has a
chess set right? Like you might not have used it
in a while and if you don't they're really cheap to get.
And even if you can't get those things, like you can use poker
chips, you can use dice, you can use other things.
But like, it also does put you in the mind of like strategy and
like trying to think, you know, Sarah moves ahead and like, you
know, the great game and stuff like that, yeah.
It's the same with the playing cards as somebody who's been
quite fixated on them, the art on your current like your
bicycle deck of cards, what we think of as the standard deck.
Those portraits really solidified right around the time
period we're talking about, and it's just weird.
It's another relic that's been kind of caught with us and
carried on down through the years since then.
Yeah. I mean, and if you're going to
do a game about court, there's really aren't there, there are
really aren't two better things to have than a chess piece,
which is literally like the members of like court and
royalty and everything and then like you said like a deck of
cards where the faces are literally royalty.
So I can imagine that not only the what the pieces themselves
do like you said Michael, about like like moving like keeping
getting your head in a strategic standpoint, but also just the
fact that there is that kind of like artistic bend to it as
well. It's a multifaceted have those
specific tokens into a game about this.
So those are I'm I'm excited to to see how it feels to have
those on the board as well as the game and then the
illustrations cuz so next to me there's running this this thing
that's got you know the the art and what going through.
So talk to me about those and also these gilded pages.
That's. Good.
They're so fucking good. It is cutting out pretty well.
We're I've been wanting to do a big art book for a long time,
and coming off the last two games I did were very black and
white and very gloomy and heavy. If you've opened to the
facility, it's it's dark. And so it's just so nice to just
roll out something that just has all the colors of the rainbow.
And to just spend a few hours in the evening digging around
museum gallery sites and looking at all those great Goya
paintings from those from the courtrooms, from Hans Holbein
who did painted in the Henry era.
And all the books of hours and books of days that the Royals
would have in those days. Kind of the the tail end of the
illuminated manuscript era. So we really wanted to make
something that had a bit of that sort of storybook vibe.
A little bit of that, like actual artifact from the the
period and a little bit like just a like a glossy pamphlet
from the museum exhibition. So every art piece is the Royal
Court painting of that character and every page is going to be a
slightly unique in some way or another presentation of that
vines and flowers curlicue that may have gone by by this point.
And hopefully as many pieces, pages as possible have a weird
medieval guy because I've been wanting to draw those guys
forever. And so if you have any good
weird medieval guys you'd like to recommend right now, Ryan,
I'm I'm all ears. I can.
We can put one in. I I wish.
You know there's a there's a Twitter that I follow somewhere
and all they do is post medieval monsters and it's a fantastic
fantastic to follow. It might even be medieval
monsters but it's something like that.
But they they find all the weird things in there, like the devils
poking people in the butt holes and stuff, just the what kept
people occupied against back in the time.
But yeah, excited. They look absolutely stunning,
the piece that I've seen and yeah, they're all rolling
through here with the split and one is a full page illustration
and then the other side has a gilding.
It looks absolutely stunning. The game looks gorgeous.
Yeah, I was putting together some preview layouts, like last
night, actually. And like, it wasn't until I was
doing that and putting the test is like, holy shit, this game's
going to look amazing. Damn.
So there's. Not a lot of room for my words,
so I'm going to start cutting stuff.
More. Pages talking about maybe
winding up the box I I I should. No, no more pages.
This is the problem, right? You don't understand.
This has been a constant back and forth between me and Galen
throughout the entire projects. Being like, Gail's like, hey,
give it, make it like a big book.
It could be like 70 pages like Galen.
No has to be a Zine. Has to be like 48 pages.
We can do this. Hey, listen, technically Z Max
is what, Like 73? I'm just saying it'll be a weird
fat thing that sits falling on your shelves pushing all the
other scenes away from it, but it technically can be stapled
together. One of the other aspects of the
game is playbooks. Talk to me about those are those
like I know blades and etcetera etcetera is of the PBJ
genealogy. Is it like that or how?
How do they come into to play as far as the the game goes?
Yeah. So I think there's five or six
at the moment, and they are like the people you expect to be at
the courts of the monarchs. They have like the ink pot,
which could be like a lawyer or like like a scribe or like maybe
even a poet. You got the fool, some sort of
like doctor slash, occultist person.
And basically each one describes like the various the positions
you would hold and like a suite of moves and relationships and
contexts you can use to define the world.
Sort of try to do like very light on world building where we
imply that there is a big like fantasy world out there.
But it's mostly up to the players to describe like what
they want to highlight or like if you even just want to like
put in your own fantasy world you already have, you can pretty
much sub in whatever you want. But yeah, there is like
different nations. And like magic is kind of like a
recent thing. Hence it like there was a
cataclysm in the past and magic suddenly appeared and like, all
sorts of shit happened because of that.
And so you'll have like possessions you can mark and
relationships that can't define your character's signature looks
that couldn't like just be a guy or like someone that has antlers
and a bunch of fur or maybe you're a bird.
And yeah, a lot of the moves are, like I said before, like
ways you gain and spend tokens, trade tokens between players
that usually have to do with your area of expertise.
Like the inkpot is mostly about like laws and stories and like
keeping track of debts and stuff like that.
And also everyone has a sort of revolutionary move, which is
kind of like possible end game possible.
Hey, we've had enough of this damn monarch because like I
wouldn't get the first pitch this I was looking through the
notes. I was basically kind of the
opinions, like at some point you're going to get sick of
these motherfuckers, right? Like at some point you're going
to be like, OK, enough is enough, We have to do something
about this, this. Is something that has historical
precedents, yes, Speaking of Cromwells.
And so yeah, I literally had like a little bit in my notes to
be like what to do when you're sick of the monarch.
And so that's translated is like a revolutionary move.
So the in pod can like if you can match like hoard a bunch of
tokens and resources you can spend them all at once and they
say OK, I am rewriting the laws of Kiir.
This like fantasy nation where it takes place in asks what's
your questions like OK, who who is left out?
Who does this benefit? Who suffers.
And like the majority of moves it's only about like spending or
gaining a single token at a time.
Revolution moves like 10 tokens, which means like you have to
take significantly not only from the other court years or court,
but like from the nation itself. Like you are draining into
resources to do this thing. So that works as a possible,
like, end state for the game. Or like, maybe that's the end of
your first season and you'd like see what happens afterwards.
But it the game needed away. I think like a release valve to
basically being like, hey, we're we're done.
Like it's time for the guillotine.
It's time for whatever the hell, like we need to make major
reforms so like the nation can still survive and people can
still survive. So really excited about that.
Yeah, exactly. Just like real life.
And it will come with a cost, much like in real life.
So there will probably be players who will find themselves
in that uncomfortable position of, well, maybe we should just
put somebody else on the throne. It's like we've created all
these fictional people and we're endeared to them.
Now. It'd be a shame to see the
streets run with blood. I can tell that if Michael and I
were playing, we would probably be bouncing off each other a bit
already on that too, that is, I'm definitely down to throw
overthrow the monarchy. But you say you want a
revolution. Yeah, I think I'd, I'd lean
towards Michael's camp. I think we did BTV One there.
My pacificism isn't Bring me back.
My apologies. Fellas, one thing you said
during during that is this magical cataclysm, right?
So what made you want to put like magic and more fantasy kind
of aspect into a game that feels like a lot more political
intrigue and more like that? Was there just like another
element to like the character creation or does magic like come
in a a lot into the gameplay itself and you wanted to pull
that in? What was the impetus for for
bringing that in? For me, it was like the first
bits of our Galen we're sharing was very much of like
fantastical people. So it was like, you know,
humans, as we understand it was also like a bird that had a
great hat. And like, like the art for the
champion is like a horse guy who like is doing his best.
I love him dearly. And so it's kind of like just
assumes that like it would be like, it is like kind of like 15
hundreds England. But there's magic.
So you can like be a bit more fanciful.
I also feel like that gives a little bit of a remove from
history so that people can feel like they can play around a lot
more. And also I think this is one of
the reasons I like cyberpunk so much is because lava is like if
the level of technology rises to that extent, suddenly the poor
and the rich are on a little bit of more of an even playing field
and a fantasy. I think that's also true, like
if magic is suddenly in the mix then people don't have to put up
with the nobles bullshit anymore, right?
Because of that it depends on your magical system.
But like if the level of power is like even that way it can
like let people like our courtiers have a lot more leeway
and like managing things. And also is like fun to like
hint that like hey, there used to be like a huge empire and
this emperor and the cataclysm happened and that shattered and
now there's a Republic nearby that doesn't have a monarchy or
like a a much different hierarchical power structure.
And that's starting to like influence how things might
happen in Kia. Like might have friends or from
the Gantz Republic and like they're talking about like you
know elections and shit like that.
That again puts more pressure on this hierarchical monarchy which
depending on like how you play fealty might be the only
monarchy in the world left after the cataclysm, right.
So it kind of like gives players a bit more freedom.
That's also just like, I'm sure, again, like it's fun to draw
horse guys and birds with awesome hats, right?
Well, that's part. Well, that's certainly part of
it. I won't lie, I do love to put a
hat on a bird. There's it's just one of the
rarest joys of being an illustrator.
But it also there's a thing that happened when I was making that
crash cart and was testing it out with people is that most
people did not know enough about being a doctor to really feel
like they had a lot to say. And it caused a lot of players
to clam up if they because most of us have not worked as EMT's.
I haven't worked as an EMT, so reading a lot of medical
journals doesn't make you get you there and it doesn't put you
in the shoes of that thing. But when you can glue some
cyberpunk around it, that gives a lot of people the license to
draw from the materials that they know.
And you can kind of speak to them in the nerd world that they
live in. And I'm hoping by including the
more fantastical elements in addition to everything that
Michael just said and giving everybody freedom to play around
in their own earth, their own world, we by throwing in Wizards
and talking animals, you're communicating with the players.
This is, this is something you can put your hooks into.
If you for example, have not read Wolf Hall or have not spent
a lot of time in Renaissance studying Renaissance politics, I
don't know that anybody needs to go read Machiavelli before they
play. This wouldn't hurt.
But I don't think it's it should we should let it gives them a
fantasy world that is familiar enough that they can grab onto
that part. OK.
It makes sense. I mean especially the part that
you said about setting it aside from history a little bit
because I think there could be some people that are a little
bit tentative to really play in in specific specific historical
things as opposed to a little bit of a generalize.
So it's it's nice to shift it into more of a story place than
than a historical place. Yeah, the mechanics all just
internal. This is one of the other things
I really like about Michael, your work and obviously Galen
your your your work as well. But it's the, I know you
specifically said Michael about the mechanics is that the clean
through lines of everything like especially when I first read
Merger it was just that's one of the things that it just feels
very clean like all the mechanics really speak to
itself. All the mechanics reinforce so
many aspects of play. So it's just a really, it's a
really nice thing that you have in your kind of repertoire of of
of mechanical knowledge, just this consistent clean elegance
to to game design. And I don't know some of that
comes from, I mean, I so here's the thing, Blades is not my
favorite game. I think that's a nice thing I'll
say about it and but I love Forged in the Dark games.
I absolutely love them like I was I've, I love Forged in the
Dark stuff and then I read Blades and was like how did this
have this? But it is the the core dice
mechanic is one of the things I really do love about it.
So do you think there's anything that you, I know you said Blades
kind of pulled you back in. Do you think there's anything
about, like the elegance of the blade system that you feel you
incorporated into your overall game design concepts?
Or is it just like an attention to detail that keeps everything
kind of like simple but not a bad way?
You know, like clean and alien? Yeah, I think, I think Blaze the
Dark and Forge the Dark games in general.
I think it shows us with Powered by the Apocalypse games as well
as it's, they're all fantastic genre emulators, right?
So you can look at any of the influences in Blaze the Dark,
like Peaky Blinders and The Wire and stuff like that and like
almost see the mechanics on screen, right?
It's like, OK, that was clearly a mixed success.
That was clearly an entanglement.
You know, this is downtime. I hear that really helps when
you're translating that to other genres because I mean, the way I
tend to design games, I just, I watch a bunch of stuff that is
the thing I'm trying to emulate, right?
So for merger, I watched Michael Clayton, which is one of my
favorite movies. And like there was another one
that was about the 2008 financial crisis that had a
weird title margin call was that And like documentaries about it
and stuff like that and like trying to like keep track of
those moments that keep happening and try to figure out
a way I can slot that into the game so that when you're playing
it you are going to make those same kind of moments happen.
And in fealty it's, I don't know we're playing with a very
different system it's they're blowing outside blowing system.
But like, in the moves and stuff, and there's also a
mechanic we have right now called the contested draw, which
is basically if there's any, like people ever do something
like really risky or like is up to fate.
Like you're trying to like assassinate somebody or like
lead a siege or, you know, set up a poisoning or like this
huge, like important diplomatic action between nations.
You'll have to draw cards from the deck and like call a certain
suit. So like if me and Galen were at
odds against each other, we're both trying to like have our
plans of action enacted. I would name a suit, Galen names
a suit, a different suit, and we pull cards to the deck until we
hit one of those suits. And for every card that doesn't
match one of those suits, that's more complications we have to
deal with. So that can create like incoming
threats there is by clocks other like tick up and stuff like
that. And so that's a great way of
doing that kind of like mixed success like the seven to nine,
four to five result and PBTA and forces arc games of like when
you were doing something risky, you are introducing more
challenges and obstacles into the fiction.
And so that's like quite a lot of the bigger parts of like
trying to grab those parts of these genres of stuff like Wolf
Hall or even like Black Adder, which is another kind of like
Touchstone for me. Work on this is like, nothing's
ever cleaned. Like nothing is ever like
you're, you're not here to be a a a hero, right.
You are here to manage an awful situation.
And the fun of it is seeing how these people are changed and how
the world is changed by it. Yeah, that's kind of like my
influences in like how I'm trying to try to streamline the
design as much as possible. And a lot of the moves growing
out of that Powered by the Apocalypse framework and going
into belonging, outside of Belonging and say in other all
the other excellent variations of that, like Wander Home,
you're doing a lot of not just collaborative world building,
but collaborative character building.
There's a lot of more so even in than in any other system.
And that's one of the things that really drew me to force in
the Dark and PBTA and belong outside of Belonging is that
everybody's kind of Co directing Co writing the story in a way
that was just so, so different from anything I'd experienced in
the more trad game world when I was younger.
And it's just it it pushes you to, and I apologize to whoever
said it first, because it might not have been John Harper but it
was John Harper who said drive your character like a stolen
car. And I really always want to make
games where you just thrust them in.
They immediately start figuring out who they are as they play,
and they know that when the session's over, when the game's
over, it's OK for your character been dragged off to the headsman
or to have perished while inciting a mob down by the
Capitol. Because it was.
It was a one good story. Yeah, yeah, as there was we, the
folks that blaze at our Discord, actually did like a deep dive on
that quote, trying to figure out where it came from.
And the only thing I remember, I think it was originally Avery
Alder. I think it was somewhere in
Monster Hearts or Monster Hearts 2.
I think that it was actually about like talking about the NPC
specifically, which is a weird, like how it's been like, you
know, lost in translation. But yeah, very much that kind of
feeling of like I am so much more drawn to games or about
having like a bad time that about like heroic fantasies or
wish fulfillment, because I had my fill of that with D&D.
Like, I don't. Maybe I'll go back to it at some
point, but like, I I am much more here for, like very
complicated characters that you can kind of like, empathize
with, right? Like, I don't.
I don't need to be out and fighting for good anymore.
I want, I want the the grey. I want the the awful, like
devil's bargains and shit. Yeah, I couldn't.
I couldn't agree more. I definitely ran way too much
5E. You know the OC generator and.
Exactly. That that's a that's a quote
from Christian Trello. I'll make sure I always give.
I always give them my credit for that.
But I I I love games where I don't even have a name because I
know I'm just gonna die, you know what I mean?
So it's nice to to do something a little different.
Kickstarter though. Kickstarter, Backer kick
Crowdfunder. Kickstarter.
We're going to Kickstarter for
Zenquest. Zenquest for those.
I mean, This is why we're doing like 3030 episodes this month to
talk about people who are putting out great project.
Not not this month, just over the two months.
No, we've. Only worked for you.
This is only like 15 or 16 this month.
A scene quest is coming up in February.
It is, you know, Kickstarter's very meager, mostly forgotten
attempt to encourage indie creators to put out scenes and
whatnot. And this is what this project is
for. I know that you're like, it has
to be AZ and it has to be AZ, and so we're doing it for Zing
Quest. So coming to Kickstarter, I
believe, will you tell me when, when is it actually going to be
on Kickstarter? It is going to be on Kickstarter
February 1st at. I think I'm going to try to push
the button at 9:00 AM PST. That's why I usually do it.
So yeah, it's going to be February 1st.
It's going to run for two weeks, so I'll be over February 15th in
the evening at some point. Yeah, gotcha.
And why? Why?
A little too weaker.
That's a good point. I just, that's how I run Star
Campaign. It's like, I don't know, I
started like I think the the advice that was kind of floating
around is like you don't get much more in a month than you
would just in two weeks anyway. That's a lot less like you don't
have to sit with the anxiety of running something on Kickstarter
for a whole month, which is very real the sooner.
It's done and funded. The sooner we can get to making
it the most beautiful thing we can like it's it'll be good to
have that phase out of the way and onto the real meat and
potatoes the job. Yeah, that.
That's what the part is like. It is, is the sooner you end it,
the sooner you get your money. Basically.
Like people I don't know, like after your Kickstarter ends,
there's like a solid 2 weeks before you get the funds.
And I I do this for a living. So like I need to like make sure
I have my bills paid and like rent and stuff like that.
So two weeks just makes it a lot more manageable, a lot easier to
plan around. And yeah, that's.
Yeah, So what? What can people expect from the
Kickstarter? Are you guys gonna have, like, a
bunch of tiers and fancy stuff? Are we keeping it nice and
focused? After after talking Galen down
from the special like hand like embossed leather copy of the
book that he wanted. Yeah, it's going to be 3 tiers,
real simple. I always do like a financial
hardship tier, so I'll be like 3 or 5 bucks.
You don't have a lot to spend. You can still get the digital
edition of the game. You'll get early access to it to
get all the updates, and then you there's a tier for just the
digital version, so very similar.
You get the PDF through H dot IO and drive through RPG, and also
just can download it off a link I'll post on the Kickstarter.
Again, you get like early access to early drafts and stuff like
that, and then we'll have the Zen tier, where you'll get a
incredibly gorgeous printed copy of the game shipped to you
anywhere in the world, in addition to the digital
downloads and everything else from the previous tiers.
So real simple, just three tiers at the game in various forms.
That's it. Yeah, love to hear it.
Love to see it. I listen.
I've only backed many hundreds of Kickstarters and I love
stuff, right? I love all the bits and bobs.
But I will say that I love a nice, clean, quick Kickstarter.
And I know, Michael, everything I've backed from you is almost
always a pretty quick turn around.
You get it in hand like solidly. I mean there a lot of times it's
like by the time the funding actually hits into each you're
like, well, I finished it, so I guess I'll print it.
You know, it's coming up excited to get rigged, you know that's
coming in soon as well. So it's really nice to see,
especially for scenes and especially for scenes quest.
You know a lot of people put a lot of money in this month
specifically and since scenes are quote UN quote smaller
projects, it's nice to not wait three years for for a project
for something like this. So it's that's one of the
reasons The Inquest is one of my favorite months of the year is
just because so many great game. I'm also a person.
If you write that 300 page book I'm I'm gonna buy it, but I'm
probably not gonna read it. And I think that 250 pages is
probably superfluous. I love scenes.
I love small games. I'll get you can get a system
without all the stuff, cuz I feel like this stuff is why I
play the game. I don't need you to tell it to
me. Another reason I really love a
lot of your stuff, Michael, is just because it is so clean and
nice. The facility as well from Galen,
yeah, I love seeing Kickstarter that are exactly what you're
doing here. So it's really nice to see that
once again, like a lot of the other stuff that you've done,
you're gonna continue doing what you do.
So it's really nice to see. Thanks.
Yeah, I like the reason I love smaller projects is because it
serves as an enzyme. Quest in general is because it
serves as a reminder that like, hey, if you're an indie designer
out there, you don't. Your projects don't have to be
like the big, you know names. We all know, right?
It doesn't have to be this 2 to 300 page hard, ever huge fucking
thing. It can be like a 36 page scene
like I have. I have lost count the amount of
like first time designers I've seen who was like, hey I have
this like cool thing I'm working on.
It's like 500 pages. I'm just like make something
smaller. Like you can still have your
like your big thing down the line.
But like you learn so much about the process by having a small
thing you can finish and get to the end of and you can find out
all the things you like, you like or might not like about
doing something like this. Like you might find like, hey, I
really love layout and I hate the writing or like, hey, I
really love doing the arts but like all like trying to figure
out how it all fits the stuff together.
I wish I could have like someone else for that.
And like you learn so much about the process and yourself by
smaller projects the faster turn around time.
And honestly like just most people have time for your game
if it's a smaller, manageable thing.
It's so much easier to convince other people to play a game if
they can read it in a couple hours, right?
If it doesn't, remind them of, like the textbooks they had to
study in university, right? So especially if you're like an
indie creator, you don't have a big team with you like Azeen
Azeen Quest itself, because like Kickstarter really is about his
own kind of internal ecosystem. So if you can be part of an
event like this, it really helps have more eyes on your project.
So I'm always encouraging people make smaller games.
Yeah, so. Oh, go Galen, Go over here.
I just love that we've all been there and I love the idea of
being in that chain that somebody gets sits down in the
morning when the quest begins again with their coffee or their
tea, and then accidentally spams through the 612 links and ends
up with a pile of zines. I want to be in the middle of
that and be with that, not just part of the where somebody says,
oh that's for me, but also after they've clicked by that, they
still feel they've got enough remaining credit to go after
some other indie creators. Design after that, it's it's
exciting to be a part of the whole thing.
Then it's an event. Yeah, I mean Zing Quest,
especially in the space is a huge vent.
I know, I know in the last year or two, you know, Zemo popped in
and popped out and and and Kickstarter decided to shoot
themselves in the foot. But I'm glad it's back in
February. I'm glad people are are really
launching into it. And and you know, again, it's
the reason we're doing as many of us as we are.
We want to talk to people like you guys who were big fans of
who have something coming out and want to try to make sure we
get as many eyes on it as possible.
Because, you know, the support for people like you doing the
things that you doing is what is the reason we started the show
entirely so. Yeah, thank you.
And also I just want to say shout out to you and Hunter for
doing the weekly scroll and all these shows you do.
Like I I have learnt about so many games I would never have
heard of because you featured it here on like a let's play a
review. And you all do such a great job
of like elevating indie creators and talking about their stuff.
And like like I mentioned before, like you were the one of
the first people that like reviewed or even like mentioned
merger outside of like be trying to like get other people to talk
about it. And like that kind of like
seemingly organic like thing like really helps creators like
get some confidence and feel like they aren't screaming into
the voice. It could be very lonely work
doing this sort of thing. And yeah, the weekly school has
been absolutely fantastic in like elevating people's voices
and talking about things that aren't in the mainstream.
So thank you. It's been awesome seeing it and
I'm glad to finally be part of it.
Yeah, it's great. I mean it's great to have you
on. It's great to have you both on.
I mean we're definitely talking about more and more stuff from
you, from you both as we go forward from here and talk about
that. Do you guys, is there anything
in in the chamber for either of you, anything post fealty or are
we just focusing on that right now?
You are first this time, Galen. That's very fair.
Far too many things, in all honesty.
After last year, we did that aforementioned space stores game
and it went quite well. So with I don't know if you're
familiar with any of the other breathless game projects, but
the Million the. Million million Fari RPG
Breathless, yeah. He's such a little tornado of
energy, but he and I are working on both a a game of space combat
actually. Now it's bifurcating into two
different forms of that kind of a a Hansel of smuggling story
and a Battlestar Galactica type game that uses the breathless
engine and look for that to come sometime later this year.
There's not. I've also done a little bit of
art for Spencer Campbell's Luna, one of his ongoing Nova Verse
games that will be also coming out in this February I believe.
Yeah. Did you?
Do the art on dusk as well. I did do the art on Dusk.
Is that out now? Yeah, I can.
Barely I. Believe it just dropped on the
store? I think so.
Yeah, yeah, the cover is awesome.
Produced. So much, so quickly, it's hard
to keep up with him. Chad says it is out.
I I I got to add that to my Spencer cable collection.
It's over just off screen there. Oh, wonderful.
Well, good. Those are a lot of fun to work
on, so I'm glad to see them showing up in people's hands.
How about you, Michael? Yes.
So other than Field T, yeah, we were talking a little bit about
Rig Ryan, your copy is probably, I literally have like hundreds
of envelopes stuffed and ready to go next to my feet here.
So your copy is probably in there somewhere.
So yeah, I'm shipping that. It's my solo mixels like game
speaker Spencer Campbell based on the Rune system, which I
absolutely fell in love with. And so it's again about being in
a Mac and fighting other Macs. That's a lot of fun.
And because the kick started so well, I am also going to doing a
supplements called the Good Ship Tarot, which is like basically
Rig takes place on the far distant future of Earth called
Recombinant Earth, which is all like just reduced to bones and
superstructure. And so Good Ship Tarot is
basically like, hey, what if you were a mech on a giant ship that
has been in the stars for centuries and all the weirdness
that'll be there. And also I kind of want to do
like maybe a multiplayer version where you get to use your Macs
and fight other people's Macs, like 1V1 combat, because the the
10th anniversary of Titanfall is coming up in March.
So I'd love to have some stuff ready to celebrate that because
it's one of my absolute favorite Mac video games of all time.
So, yeah, that's when we work on Next is, yeah, Fealty and also
more more supplements and add-ons for Rig hopefully, yeah.
And then where can for for both of you guys?
For future projects? For current projects running,
it's out right now. Where can people currently find
your your stuff? Where can they support you?
Yeah, so for me, my socials are basically all not writing or not
writing games. So I'm not writing games on
Twitter. You can find my games on Not
writing dot itch dot IO. You can support me on
patreonpatreon.com/not writing. It's the cheapest way to get my
games dollar a month to get everything.
I self publish behind the scenes stuff.
You get to vote on stuff I make, yeah, that's basically where you
can find me. You can find my stuff at either
G Peugeot on Twitter. Boy, I picked these names back
before I knew I was going to be an illustrator or designer, so I
apologize. And at night Jar Games and Itch
where quite a lot of them are very cheap or free if you want
to try out what I make. And and obviously again we have
these guys on the show for reasons because the stuff they
make is fantastic. So they definitely want to go
support that and we'll make sure that all the links are in, you
know all of the the beneath. Wherever you're listening or
watching this, you can just click on that easily and go go
drop some support of these guys. Field C coming out February 1st,
very excited for that short campaign.
Two weeks, don't miss it. We'll remind everybody listening
every week. All of our quote UN quote normal
episodes every Thursday during these two months.
We're going to do a round up each time to remind everyone
what's still funding. I mean what they should go back.
Listen, thank you guys both so much for being here.
Michael, like I said, we've been a supporter for a really long
time. It's really great to finally
have you show on the show and talk and Galen absolutely love
your work and your illustrations as well.
Genuinely really appreciate you guys being here.
Thank you. Very much.
Before we go, could I like, highlight a couple of other
design quest things that you do? Yeah.
Awesome. I just want to mention Death
Game by Laurie O'Connell. O'Connell, one of my favorite
designers. It's like very much like like
some kind of awful reality show. We have to kill each other for
the entertainment of the rich. So very much politically aligned
with fealty, I think. So yeah, Death Game is coming
out in Zion Quest. We mentioned Luna by Spencer
Campbell also coming out. I think there's a solo game
called The Magus and the Oracle that's also coming out.
During Zion quest. With from Amato's which looks I
just found out about last night looks incredible.
So just want to shout out those two projects as well in the
Design Quest family. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Lawyer kind of reached out.
So we're definitely gonna be talking about that project a
little bit, doing one of our roundups.
It looks absolutely stunning with the Hodag doing some art
for it. So that's definitely something
I'll see brought up here in the show as well.
And we did art from Amato's before their layout and art is
absolutely stunning. So really excited for Megas too.
So those are great call outs for those.
Yeah, back all of those back fields see when it drops in like
2 days if you're listening to this, hopefully I put the
episode out before the 1st if I didn't go jump on it right now.
But again, thank you guys so much for being here and that is
it for us. We will see everybody later.
Have a good day. Bye.
Very much.