I’ve had some recent changes in my personal life, and they’ve reflected some changes in my professional life, too! As some people know, I have multiple romantic partners (I’m polyamorous), and that I work on game stuff and play games with my partners a lot. One of my partners is Thomas Novosel, who is a brilliant artist and game designer I met through Google+ a few years back. We’re dating, and we’re also working on some super rad game stuff.
Thomas is in upstate New York, and he’s consulting with me on Turn’s border towns stretch goal that replaced the Mormon towns goal. This stretch goal is going to take a little longer to complete, but Thomas was part of the inspiration – I visited him in his town, on the northern US border, and realized there are a lot of stories to tell. He’s helping me get in touch with the local indigenous center (Akwesasne natives). This is hugely useful.
(P.S.: I’m still looking for a southern border consultant, preferably a person of color, from either side of the US southern border! Please use the contact page if you’re interested.)
Thomas and I have also made our own little game collective, called Assembludo (a mashup of assemblage+ludo for artistic mashup of game stuff, basically). It’s been really fun to work on so far, and we’re nearing having some projects ready to release! It’s hard figuring out how to fund projects, but in the meantime I’ve been helping Thomas get some game jam products out like The Heaven’s Prophet’s Tomb for the Pamphlet Dungeon, and he’s run his game Runaway Hirelings for me so I can get a better feel for his design sense. (Unsurprisingly, Runaway Hirelings was SUPER fun, very creative and adventurous, and plays in like 2 hours! It’s worth way more like $10!)
The other new projects we’re working on are even more exciting!
The first project we’re hoping to release as a joint effort as designers is called The Magic Hour, and it’s a short adventure for general fantasy campaigns with some custom creatures. It’s set in a small town in a rural fantasy land with a variety of characters in the town, where a mystery is occurring! People in the town have been disappearing, and no one can seem to figure out what’s happening!
The description I gave to John one of the creatures is “okapi with condor wings” and I’m excited to see them realized in the game. We’re both obviously working on this while juggling our regular jobs, freelance work, and individual projects, so it’s taking a little bit of time. But, we’re making good progress, and I think it’s a cute game adventure that encourages nonviolence, explores a small town, and has a little bit of silliness baked in. We’re both capable of seriousness and spookiness, but I think that’s something really wonderful about what Thomas and I have been working on – there’s just a little lightheartedness in every bit!
We have a few other ideas bouncing around. Like, Thomas is working on a King Arthur and the Round Table inspired knight game, A Knight Rode at Dawn, which looks absolutely fantastic and has been fun to follow and contribute to as he needs. I’m working on Flicker, something I started writing inspired by Thomas’s art before we started dating, which is a game about hope where you burn down tiny paper houses as you, a living flame, travel the darkening world to relight the sun. I love the game a lot, and it’s reignited by Thomas’s gentle encouragement.
Our big project, which could take a long while, is Little Green Dot, which is a game about a world populated by animals that live on little islands. It’s a world touched by folk legend and there’s a lot of thinking about our actions, what they mean now, and what they’ll mean years from now to our community, our family, our party, and ourselves. Animals are sometimes bigger or smaller than they’d be in our world, but they’re also able to use leaf-swords and acorn-caps and travel to become legends in their own right.
One of my favorite things that Thomas has written in our draft notes is this, about one of the character types that I wanted to have.
The squids and the turtles children would grow together but would always be upset and miss each other and grow apart as one went towards land. The Whale saw this and kissed the squids mantles, giving them a soft membrane of water from home to follow them onto land. Allowing them to go as far as they want, with their friends, while also taking their home with them.
Thomas Novosel, draft notes for Little Green Dot, 2019
There is a section below it where he elaborated that I read as he typed, and it made me cry!
Specific Feeling: Taking a stone from the farm with you into the city. A stone that you looked at and liked. But someone put it in your hand so that you didn’t have to pick it up.
Thomas Novosel, draft notes for Little Green Dot, 2019
This is the weirdest thing about designing with Thomas. He still is quite technical and focused on mechanics, like John is. And he’s highly artistic, like John is. But Thomas is much more of a feelsy person like me! So when he wrote this, especially as a farm kid who moved to the city and no one gave me something to carry with me, just punched me in the heart forever. It was one of our first design sessions and it remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen a person write about something they were designing.
I think my work with Thomas has made me reflect on how I design a lot! Like, maybe I need to start putting myself first, and the game after. And maybe, I should not tell myself it’s stupid to think about how mechanics feel. We ignore it so often, how games feel, what they do to us emotionally when we take action or don’t, and how we feel when we roll a die or flip a card or enforce a mechanical rule. Feelings aren’t stupid. And just because we have to work at understanding them sometimes does not mean that we should dismiss them in design. Needless to say, I can’t wait to show you more from Assembludo in the future!
One last thing I wanted to mention about my work with Thomas is something he put in the Little Green Dot document. It sounds simple, but it’s really important:
The Love Contract
Thomas Novosel, signed by Beau and Thomas both in the Little Green Dot documents.
If this game affects our relationship negatively, or starts hurting us. We will stop working on it, because we love each other very very much. And being in love is more important than fighting over work.
I look at it and I think, my gosh. How many of my relationships would be less rocky around our design experiences if I’d put this in there? What if I had put in a Friendship Contract or a Respect Contract in my projects I’ve worked on? How simple of an idea is it to just stop doing something that’s hurting you, or hurting the relationships that build up the game in the first place? It smacked me right in the forehead with its sense. So I signed it!
I love all of my partners very much. And I work with them all, to varying degrees! I think what I was missing this whole time wasn’t the right person to work with, it was the right attitude to go about working with. Considering that Thomas and I, and John and I, are very aware of how fickle the game market is and how we can’t ever expect success. I think we also know how precarious relationships can be when you’re working together. Like, yikes. With that in mind, I think prioritizing love is worth it.
Find out more about Thomas at thomas-novosel.com and find him on Twitter at @thomasanovosel. His itch.io hosts a number of his games & game materials as well (including fonts!), and is a good place to follow!
Beau’s website is currently under construction, but you can find them through briebeau.com and as @ThoughtyGames on Twitter, on Pluspora as briebeau, Pillowfort as Brie-Beau, and at briebeau.itch.io.
P.S. I go by Beau now, tho the full name is Brie Beau Sheldon. 🙂
P.P.S. – My work with John continues on Roar of Alliance – check him out on Twitter as @johnwsheldon and on Pluspora to follow his progress. He is also still my husband, thankfully. 🙂
P.P.S. I’m still with Dillon long-distance, too, and he is running some really cool games as an awesome DM, and makes some awesome creatures for his games! Keep up with him on Twitter as @Damn_It_Dillon!