Interview on Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION with Jan Martin

Hello all! Today I have an interview with Jan Martin, creator of Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION! I’m so excited to share this interview, Jan is an amazing creator and Crow Island is SO cool!

Jan: ” I wanted to have this section of the overall story play out as a game because it underlines the importance of surviving the trip in a way that a short story couldn’t do on its own. Being able to fail, actually fail and lose and not make it at all, would have huge implications in the universe. There’s no telling how the future would have unfolded if that group didn’t survive the trek to the City of Seven Nations. “

Graphic comparing two maps, on the left is a full map of one large continent roughly in the shape of a crow mid-flight with five smaller landmasses just above it, all five of which are also roughly shaped like birds in flight. These are labeled as Crow Island World Map. The topmost landmass is completely covered in ice and snow. Nestled into a bay on its eastern shore is a smaller landmass of mostly tundra and bogland. To the east of that is the smallest of the landmasses, mostly mud and sand. To the east of that is a long landmass which has a good spread of biomes, with ice covering its most northern tip. To the southeast of that is another landmass, this one all green with a large lake splitting it into a western and southern side. Below all that is the main continent, with a dry western edge, the southern most tip which is rough badlands full of canyons. The middle of the continent is a mixture of grasslands, rolling hills and thick forests. The entirety of the mainland is riddled with rivers, leading from the most central portions of the continent where the mountains lie. In the north central portion of the main continent is a longhouse on stilts over a lake labeled City of Seven Nations. Far to the south east from there is a peninsula with a spot labeled Village Where the Land Ends. To the right of this map is a more zoomed in map matching up to the areas on the main map. We see the same longhouse on a lake labeled City of Seven Nations, and the paths leading down to the Village Where the Land Ends. On this map we also see more details of the landscape, a dog, ruffed grouse, blueberries, salmon, herbs, and a moose peppered around the landscape which is full of lakes, rivers, and trees. above this map is the label Map from funeral PROCESSION. Both maps sit on a dark blue background simulating the ocean.

Hello all! Today I have an interview with Jan Martin, creator of Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION! I’m so excited to share this interview, Jan is an amazing creator and Crow Island is SO cool!

Thank you for the interview, Jan! You have been designing games for a while now, but for people who are new, could you tell me a little about yourself and what gives you passion for games?

Jan: I think the biggest thing for me with games is I love how they can help putting together a good story. Every great TTRPG session would make a great TV show, film, book, comic, whatever medium. That’s a magical thing to me, a book with some rules and ideas, in the hands of a group of humans, leads to great stories. Stories that come together organically, with lively characters and compelling scenes. I’ve spent my life writing fiction and I’ve never been able to come close to the kind of story you can make with friends around a table.

It’s that idea that I might be able to craft a game that can help people create compelling stories of their own that really excites me. Game designers have an incredible power in this way, and I guess I’m always trying to chase that same power. To facilitate stories full of laughter, drama, and intrigue between friends with a book of ideas is amazing. That’s what gives me passion, is the pursuit of the dream that I too can someday make a game that can do that.

Beau: Today we’re talking about your solo game, Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION. It is a really well put together game with a lot of content, & I am excited to know more! What excites you about Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION?

Jan: This is the first introduction to a much larger world and Universe that all my games and fiction are set. This game takes place in the same location as seen earlier this year in a short-story I wrote for Wizardpunk by Sandy Pug Games. That story was set in the modern day. In Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION players explore that area in the early years of civilization on the planet. It’s the year 349, exactly 10 years before the discovery of Spirit Trees and Spirit Magic. It introduces some names that will show up again and again, Asogomas and Naad, as well gives a peek into early culture.

Anyone who picks up my games now and follows from here on will keep seeing familiar details and learn more and more about them. I’m really excited to be able to share these bits of the world, and even more excited to see peoples reactions as they learn how things end up. I’m also a little worried, because the deeper it goes, the wilder it gets and I run the risk of alienating some people along the way. The expectations of what this world is and its place in the Universe it lives aren’t obvious at this point. I’ve got some plans to try and keep people onboard and interested so hopefully those work out.

Beau: Creating a world in which your games are set sounds really awesome!
Having read through your game, I feel like there’s a lot of richness
there. What is guiding your planning for this world and what are some
ways you can see it in Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION?

Jan: It’s a combination of things, a large part of it is making sure everything fits within the larger Universe. There are a lot of different planets and even Universes involved so it’s a challenge to keep everything organized. For Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION in particular a key part of keeping organized is a timeline of the planet that starts when Crow Island itself is in year 1, when it created by Kiskik the Creator.

The timeline goes all the way up until current day, the year 13,425, which happens to be the year the larger game in the series is set. You can see this in the game itself through some of the lore, for example the two paths you can take. There’s the Path of Asogomas and the Path of Naad I mentioned before, but another example is the location Mudgash River. This is the location where the story in Wizardpunk is set, and will be an important spot in other games and stories. Some of the areas on the map will come up again more than others, but pretty much everything you see in this game will be present or referenced in future ones.

A graphic of a more zoomed in map matching up to the areas on the main map of Crow Island, labeled East Central Crow Island, with a detailed list of landmarks and settlements. We see the same longhouse on a lake labeled City of Seven Nations, and the paths leading down to the Village Where the Land Ends. On this map we also see more details of the landscape, a dog, ruffed grouse, blueberries, salmon, herbs, and a moose peppered around the landscape which is full of lakes, rivers, and trees.
The map from Crow Island’s text with a zoomed in focus on East Central Crow Island, featuring a legend of the landmarks and settlements, by Jan Martin.

Beau: Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION has a really cool card mechanic and I
love the structure of it. How does the design of the mechanics
interrelate with the world building and the fiction of the stories you
tell in the game?

Jan: The mechanics are meant to reflect the uncertainty of life while still being predictable. This ties directly into the world which is very similar to how my people lived pre-Colonialism. We had great understanding of the land and how to move through it and survive, but there is always that element of unpredictability, random chance, chaos, whatever you want to call it. It makes it so even the most skilled individuals must take care and have constant respect for the dangers of nature. Having the cards always have the same set of resources available, just presented in different order thereby taking something predictable and adding tension.

At the time of me typing this the game is too easy, and I’ll have to tweak things a little bit to better reflect the dangers of travel through the wilderness. The dice mechanic is similar when fording rivers, technically it’s possible to get through river obstacles without issue, but it’s highly unlikely. Basically I wanted to have the mechanics reflect two things, that you are experts of travelling through this wilderness, but despite that, it can still kill you. This is important to get right because future games will be difficult but for different reasons. I want there to be a strong contrast between how things were tough “back in the day” versus modern day, but keeping it clear that both times were rough.

Beau: The timeline of Crow Island seems very significant! Designing your own
universe sounds like a big task, but what are the best parts of making
something so big but accessed in individual play experiences?

Jan: It’s really nice to be able to zoom in on something in your Universe and have people pay attention to it on a deeper level. Originally this was all going to be a sprawling science fantasy novel series, with endless lore and backstory. That felt too tedious to subject readers to, even if I enjoy that sort of thing myself I don’t have the writing chops to deliver that kind of content in an enjoyable way. Anything I wrote sounded like a history text book and I wanted something immersive. Breaking the Universe up into separate experiences allows me to share a lot more about a particular part of it without worrying about people getting bored. It’s also really enjoyable to have a Universe just sitting there to think of like a sandbox. Anytime I’m feeling blocked on progress in a game, I can just hop into the Crow Island Universe timeline or map and find a new thread to pull.

Graphic comparing two maps, on the left is a full map of one large continent roughly in the shape of a crow mid-flight with five smaller landmasses just above it, all five of which are also roughly shaped like birds in flight. These are labeled as Crow Island World Map. The topmost landmass is completely covered in ice and snow. Nestled into a bay on its eastern shore is a smaller landmass of mostly tundra and bogland. To the east of that is the smallest of the landmasses, mostly mud and sand. To the east of that is a long landmass which has a good spread of biomes, with ice covering its most northern tip. To the southeast of that is another landmass, this one all green with a large lake splitting it into a western and southern side. Below all that is the main continent, with a dry western edge, the southern most tip which is rough badlands full of canyons. The middle of the continent is a mixture of grasslands, rolling hills and thick forests. The entirety of the mainland is riddled with rivers, leading from the most central portions of the continent where the mountains lie. In the north central portion of the main continent is a longhouse on stilts over a lake labeled City of Seven Nations. Far to the south east from there is a peninsula with a spot labeled Village Where the Land Ends. To the right of this map is a more zoomed in map matching up to the areas on the main map. We see the same longhouse on a lake labeled City of Seven Nations, and the paths leading down to the Village Where the Land Ends. On this map we also see more details of the landscape, a dog, ruffed grouse, blueberries, salmon, herbs, and a moose peppered around the landscape which is full of lakes, rivers, and trees. above this map is the label Map from funeral PROCESSION. Both maps sit on a dark blue background simulating the ocean.
The World Map for Crow Island by Jan Martin.

Beau: The experiences of your people are valuable, & it’s really awesome how
you’ve reflected them in this game. Are there any unique challenges to
designing a pre-Colonialism game?

Jan: Absolutely, there’s all kinds of worries about depicting things accurately and not viewing the past through a modern lens. Originally this game was about North America and an alternate-history where Indigenous Nations drove off Colonial forces. The more I worked on it through that lens, the more I started to feel guilty. Sometimes I will talk out loud to my ancestors and ask them about what I’m doing, they never answer me, but, just the act of asking about it gets me to think of it through their mindset. The more I thought about that the more I realized I wasn’t being fair to my ancestors, assuming I or anyone could have done anything differently to predict or avoid what happened.

As a result I ended up re-writing about 40k words or so of my “Universe Bible”, and changed it from an alternate history project, to an entirely unique Universe of its own without any of the trappings of our current history.  I don’t think anyone would have taken issue with my game the way it was, but for me personally it just didn’t feel right anymore and I had to change gears. That same thing happens continually throughout this process. I’ll have some idea for the world, game, or story in this Universe and the more I talk it over with my ancestors, the more I come to realize things have to change. It’s an extra layer in the process that has no clear answers.

Unlike many problems we face in the game design process, some of the questions I arrive at I can’t look up online or even find the answers from my Elders, because we don’t know anymore. The Mi’kmaq were some of the first Indigenous peoples to meet Colonial forces and as such we’ve been subjected to the ongoing effects of their occupation since the start. So many of our practices, so much of our language, is just gone. Often the best we can do is speculate. That complicates things even further, I obviously don’t want to offend anyone living or misrepresent our culture. But more than that, I don’t want to offend my ancestors, the people who actually lived in the time periods I’m romanticizing in my games.

Beau: In playing Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION, players encounter a lot of dangers. How did you design the game to balance those dangers while
still keeping players hopeful of reaching the end of their journey?

Jan: Working out mechanics is a slow process for me, especially the math side of things. Any semblance of balance the game has right now I owe to keeping the math simple. Well to be honest it’s not super balanced right now, I thought it was, but I didn’t account for my own terrible luck. I balanced everything by playtesting it myself, and historically I’m an abysmal dice roller. In games where rolling a 1 is a failure, I roll lots of 1’s.

In games where rolling a 1 is a failure *and* you get XP for it, I never roll 1’s. So in my personal playtests, the balance felt right. I lost a couple times, and most other playthroughs I barely scraped by or had some a series of close calls. But then, all the feedback I’ve received so far from playtesters has been the opposite, that outside of a few terrible run-ins with a river, for the most part they managed to cruise through the game without any problems. Balance will be an ongoing thing.

In the next update I’ll have tweaked the math a little bit to try and increase the difficulty to be more in line with my original vision. I don’t know what will happen after that, if people playtesting say it’s much harder but they’re not having fun anymore, I’ll tweak again. I want to make sure I don’t let my vision get in the way of an enjoyable experience and I’m lucky to have some people sending me this valuable feedback so I’m taking it to heart.

The Choose a Role card from Crow Island featuring the different roles which you can play in the game with simple graphics & statistics for the Hunter, Healer, and Elder. The paragraph detailing instructions states "The Role you choose determines your starting Resources. Or make your own. Spend 160 Points, Dogs cost 20, everything else costs 1." The graphics include two arrows crossed in an X for the Hunter, a wing for the Healer, and a necklace with a symbol on it for the Elder.
The Choose a Role card for Crow Island by Jan Martin.

Beau: I find the visual design of Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION
approachable & really gorgeous! What was your perspective on how to
present the game to your audience, & how did you work to implement it?

Jan: I wanted to capture the same sort of feeling and vibe I got from the original Oregon Trail games I played as a kid on school computers. Everything was pretty stripped down in the version I played, but it really captured the vibe of going on a road trip. To pull that off I wanted to go for really simple graphics, something like you might see on a sign at a National Park. It felt right to go a little more cartoony than that, but that was my launching point.

Beau: It’s remarkable how complex of an approach to your design choices you
have, including in how you involve & respect the experiences of your
ancestors. What about this medium, games, makes it well suited to
telling stories that reflect those experiences?

Jan: Games are one of the best mediums to tell stories that have experiences you want to communicate in a more interactive way. It can help make the gravity of a situation meaningful in a fun way. In Crow Island funeral // PROCESSION I could have written the game as a story, but in the story they succeed in making it to the City of Seven Nations and that’s that. I wanted to have this section of the overall story play out as a game because it underlines the importance of surviving the trip in a way that a short story couldn’t do on its own. Being able to fail, actually fail and lose and not make it at all, would have huge implications in the universe. There’s no telling how the future would have unfolded if that group didn’t survive the trek to the City of Seven Nations.

In later installations of this game world, people will see that importance in a new light. It’s a small thing, but having “lived” in the footsteps of people in this world I think will lend that gravity I mentioned to how things went. I don’t mind spoiling it, but essentially the discovery of Spirit Magic hinged on the body of the Chief being examined at the City of Seven Nations. It’s a hugely important detail, and players being able to fail at carrying out that detail gives more life to the words than I think I could pull off with a story alone.

Thank you so much Jan for this amazing interview! This has been truly a joy to interview Jan and I hope that all of my readers enjoyed learning about Crow Island Funeral // PROCESSION. Check it out today!