I have a quick few questions with Eli Seitz on The Last Place on Earth, a Zine Quest 2 project on Kickstarter! Check out the responses below.
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What is The Last Place on Earth, both as a product and as your vision?
The Last Place on Earth is a tabletop role playing game inspired by the Heroic Age of Exploration and by Robert F Scott’s fatal 1912 expedition to the South Pole. It’s a game about the hardships of Antarctic exploration and the arrogance of men who believe that they can or must overcome nature. It’s designed as a one or two shot experience with black and white zine of rules accompanied by archival photos and an illustrated map of the route to use a play aid.
This sounds like an intensive research project! What kind of research have you been doing for the project, and how have you found that research to be useful in designing the game?
My research started with a much broader scope as I was interested in a game about historical exploring. I was reading about mountain climbing which had a lot of juicy material: harsh environments, bad equipment, improper safety procedures, great scenery, but almost all that history engages in indigenous erasure. As a white designer, it is not my place to write that game so I turned my attention to the South Pole, and Scott’s Terra Nova expedition drawn in by the photographs and journal entries. The journal entries.
The journal entries are fascinating because they provide insight into the thought processes of the expedition members during their ill-fated march. We can read about the dynamics within the group and later what they want to be remembered in the history books. Journaling is included as a mechanic in the game as a form of monologuing, and as a stretch goal, I will be writing a solo RPG variant that relies on journaling extensively. In the end, the emotional arc of the expedition became the focal point, and the technical aspects of exploration were relegated to window dressing. The best gameplay comes from exploring the attitudes and relationships of these men at the end of the earth.
I like the way you say “the arrogance of men who believe they can or must overcome nature.” Can you expand on this perspective and how it shapes your design and your approach to this project?
Beneath the mechanics and setting, the Last Place on Earth is about colonialism and masculinity. These men traveled to a place with temperatures of -45 degrees Fahrenheit and winds regularly over 100 miles an hour so that they could claim the glory of reaching the center of an uninhabited continent. This toxic mindset is just so deeply ingrained in their identities. For example, they viewed skis as children’s toys and barely used them instead they walked almost all of the 900 miles to the pole. It’s also apparent in their words. One of Scott’s last journal entries reads, “we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen. I regret only for the women we leave behind.” Or Lawrence Oates’ last words were, “I am just going outside and may be some time,” then he walked into a blizzard with no boots.
In the game, the characters are created to evoke the absurdity of these historical attitudes. During the game, the players explore how characters with this mentality deal with intense physical hardship, failure, and possibly even death. They form close bonds with fellow expedition members and see if they can weather the storm as their entire world is challenged. I hope that the critique offered by the game will lead players to think about their own beliefs on nationalism, masculinity, and the natural world.
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Thanks so much Eli for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out The Last Place on Earth on Kickstarter today! Also, take a look at Eli’s other ZineQuest project about rules, pomegranates, and arguing, Fruit of Law.