Tag: romance

Honey & Hot Wax with Sharang Biswas

I’m super excited to share this interview with Sharang Biswas talking about a lot of things, including Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games, which you should check out after reading what Sharang has to say below!

The images for the book are by Janna Heidersdorf (Illustration) and Jen McCleary (Layout). (update 7/37/202)

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A smiling, dark haired man in a maroon shirt and black tie.
Sharang Biswas, for the Medici Group.

I appreciate you taking time for the interview, Sharang! Would you share with me a little about you and your experience? How did you end up in games doing the kind of work that you’re enthusiastic about?  

I’m a game designer, interactive artist, and writer currently based in NYC. I started formally learning game design under Mary Flanagan at Dartmouth (though I studied engineering), and then went to ITP at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU to get a Masters in Interactive Design. Since then I’ve made numerous games, won an IndieCade, 2 IGDN, and a Golden Cobra Award, exhibited my games at galleries and art museums, mounted interactive theatre productions at various venues, and given a bunch of talks at conferences and universities. I’m also currently on the faculty at both Fordham University and Bard College.

I’m actually pretty enthusiastic about many different kinds of work, so I try and keep myself being by doing different stuff all the time. My major project right now is co-editing Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games with Lucian Kahn. I’ve been into the idea of procedure and process for a while, and about how mundane actions, when placed in a game context, can convey artistic meaning. I explored this in my games Feast & Verdure, and out of that line of inquiry came the thought: “Can games use sex acts as game mechanics, where the acts themselves are not the sole goal of the game?”. From that arose the idea of the book, though Lucian & I expanded the scope to also include games that discuss sex, sexuality, and related topics, without the use of sex acts between players or characters. 

Lucian and I were very keen to make this project come to life in a way that uplifts artists and game designers, and so we decided to apply for a grant from the Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity. We received two consecutive grants, and are basically using all the money to pay the creators involved! 

That’s so fantastic to hear! Honey & Hot Wax sounds really brilliant, and also like a unique challenge. One curiosity I have is how you handled ensuring that the games in the collection use consent and are responsible, considering how sex can be. What was your approach to safety and boundaries?

It is my firm belief that art can and should discuss difficult topics–art is one of the ways people, both as individuals and as societies, make sense of the world. However, such art needs to be practiced with care and sensitivity, and as such, Lucian and I were very concerned about issues of consent and safety in the games included in the anthology. To begin with, when we were soliciting proposals, we took a very broad definition of what sex is, and relied on the Effing Foundation’s definitions of “sex-positivity” and “inclusivity” (which you can read here). This was to ensure that everyone was on the same page regarding the goals of our project, and what sorts of depictions of sexuality we would be considering.

Once the finalists were selected, we commissioned Maury Brown for an entirely separate chapter on consent and safety in LARP and TTRPG, to act as a general set of guidelines when playing any of the games in the collection (or indeed, any roleplaying game at all). In the rules for their games, each game designer also included their own sections regarding safety and consent practices, to uniquely address the idiosyncrasies of the experience they were creating. 

Additionally, each game was thoroughly vetted by Lucian, myself, Cat Tobin from Pelgrane Press, and Kit Stubbs from the Effing Foundation, a diverse set of eyes to ensure that the games all represented the values we wanted to promote, and that consent language was clear. As director of the Effing Foundation, Kit, in particular, offered valuable insights concerning such matters!

Finally, we were very serious about the playtesting requirement for each of our accepted games; holes and gaps in rules are hard to predict without playtesting. Running my own game with a trusted friend, for example, showed me places where I could clarify language about safety!

Of course, and unfortunately, no safety mechanics can handle every eventuality, or account for bad actors. It is in the nature of participatory, non-linear stories to defy our expectations and predictions, so to all the players of our games, we ask you to exercise judgment and pay attention to your own boundaries! 

The cover of Honey & Hot Wax with a black background and a honeycomb formation with different symbols inside.
The Honey & Hot Wax cover.

Is this the first game you’ve applied for grants for? It sounds like you’re pretty great at it! What did that process entail and how do you think it’s impacted how the games are designed?

Grants, like most sorts of applications in this world, are partially about luck, so “being great at it” doesn’t mean as much as one might think! But this isn’t the first grant I’ve received to make game-like work, and hopefully won’t be the last!

When Lucian and I sent in our proposal to the Effing Foundation, we were very clear about what the grant-funding would be used for: paying the folks involved in the project a fair amount. This was paramount. All our funding went to the writers and designers involved in the book. 

The creation of any kind of art requires time and space. Time and space are luxuries reserved for those with money. Good art is impossible to make (consistently, at least) if an artist is forever worried about where their next rent check is coming from. As such, Lucian and I were hoping to do our small part in supporting and uplifting indie designers. At the very least, we’ve managed to create a space where artists who might otherwise not be able to make games about risque topics, have the ability to do so, and in a way that’s financially viable!

It might be good to note here that in addition to support from the grant, each designer is also receiving royalties, and a portion of sales is also going towards charitable causes that promote sex-positivity and sex-education!

The cover of The Sleepover with an image of a pillow and flashlight.
The Sleepover by Julia Ellingboe and Kat Jones.

It is great to hear that everyone is being well-paid and that you and Lucian are working to support charitable works! What do you enjoy about working on larger projects like this with lots of collaborators? How does it contrast with how you enjoy working on individual projects, and how that affects your design? (note: please feel free to give examples of your specific projects!)

 I really enjoy working on group projects. Most of the work I’m proudest of is in collaboration with others. However, I wouldn’t call this a “group project” per se. Lucian and I were editors and curators of other people’s work. It was their designs…we just helped them. Granted Lucian and I have games in the book as well, but each of those was an individual work (albeit, with help from others). The book wasn’t really a group project in the same was as some of my bigger, interactive theatre pieces, for example.

For example, when Nick O’Leary and I made the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance LARP for the Museum of the Moving Image, it truly was collaborative, both with each other and the museum education department. We went back and forth with each other for ideas, to refine mechanics, to flesh out bits and to write content. None of that really for H&HW.

The Feeding Lucy cover written by Jonaya Kemper.
Feeding Lucy, written by Jonaya Kemper.

What are some lessons you’ve learned through design over time that you think your particular path is the only way you would have learned them – as in, if I hadn’t done x, I would never have learned y?

Lol, I feel that’s a weird line of thinking. Who knows what I would or would not have learned under different circumstances or different decisions? Besides, I think looking at other people’s paths is at best an exercise in inspiration. Stories of paths taken ALWAYS leave out some aspect of luck or privilege, and few can ever emulate the advice given in these sorts of tellings.

Maybe the only truth that I can say that has a high probability of working for others is 1) constantly making stuff and pushing yourself to try things you haven’t done before is how you learn and improve; and 2) being kind to people is not only the nice thing to do but more advantageous for you in the long run!

What are some of your favorite projects you’ve worked on in games and what makes them stand out amongst the rest? How were you able to put your unique experiences into play while designing them?

Hmm… this is a fun question because it made me look back on my work, and turns out, I’ve made a fair amount of stuff!

  • I wrote an interactive fiction piece for Sub-Q magazine called “The Book of Chroma“. That I’m quite proud of. The concept–gay priests– was actually my first idea for my submission to Honey & Hot Wax, but I couldn’t get a LARP version to work…glad it worked ut here though. It’s also my first IF piece with a significant puzzle component! I also added a sort of Indic feel to the fantasy religion I made up, because many such religions tend towards a Christian feel…
  • I just published an essay titled “Towards More Speculative Sex: Why Sci-Fi Fucking Needs to Get Weirder and How Games are Paving the Way” through Eurogamer,  and I feel it’s one of my strongest essays. Plus it hit a more mainstream gamer audience, who I think really needs messages like this! I try and write essays in a multi-disciplinary approach, and I feel I managed that quite well with this one!
  • I was just nominated for an IGDN award for my short game “An Elegy From the Hive Witches“, making it the third time in a row I’ve been nominated for the Most Innovative category (hopefully it’ll also be my third win!) Looking back on the game, I really did enjoy it. It’s vaguely anti-colonial, uses words and language as game mechanics, stuff I’m really interested in!
The cover for Pass the Sugar, Please, written by Clio Yun-su Davis.
Pass the Sugar, Please, written by Clio Yun-su Davis.

In Honey & Hot Wax, what are some of the specific pieces that you’re particularly looking forward to seeing people talk about and seeing the impact on the design landscape from? Were there any you learned from?

I mean, Clio Davis’ “Pas the Sugar, Please” has already generated conversations, after it got picked up by Intramersive Productions as an interactive theatre piece, so that’s great. Otherwise, I thinkLucian and I curated a decent selection of game, each of which has something new and interesting to offer to the gaming landscape. Lol, obviously, I’d love it if people talk about my game and how (queer) sex can be more normalized in culture!  

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Thank you so much Sharang for the interview! Check out Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games and get intimate!

Five or So Questions on Visigoths vs. Mall Goths

Hi all! I’ve got an awesome interview with Lucian Kahn today about Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, which is currently on Kickstarter! It sounds super cool and I’m personally looking forward to playing it at Big Bad Con. Check out Lucian’s responses below!

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Tell me a little about Visigoths vs. Mall Goths. What excites you about it?

Visigoths vs. Mall Goths is a tabletop roleplaying game and dating sim about the conflicts and romances among the warriors who sacked ancient Rome and 20th century spooky teens, set in a shopping mall in a Los Angeles suburb in 1996. There are a lot of bisexuals.

The plot structure of Visigoths vs. Mall Goths resembles an open-world videogame RPG. Designed for either one-shot or campaign play, each adventure episode offers several quests that you may choose to pursue (or ignore), and the mall setting is packed with many strange retro marvels to discover. Or you can just replay the game over and over to kiss all the kissable clerks.

Imagine a surreal combo of The Craft, Empire Records, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Clueless. In addition to all that, I’m thrilled to be working with an incredible array of artists and writers on this project. The famous, talented, and extremely nice Robin Eisenberg has done an incredible job on the cover. We’ve got illustrations by Lluis Abadias Garcia, who did all the art for the Retroverse D&D 5e expansion. Vee Hendro, the graphic designer for Good Society, is doing the graphic design. We’ve got guest adventure modules by a very cool bunch of game designers, including Liz Gorinsky from Goth Court, and Maja Bäckvall who was the runes expert on Civilization VI and God of War. I could go on. The artists on this project rule.

A Latex-wearing goth with red and black hair, eyeliner, shoulder length gloves, big boots, a sleeveless shirt, and pants with cutouts that show off pentagrams stands over a Visigoth in red, golden, and steel armor with long golden hair with their foot on the Visigoth's chest.

What are some of the challenges and more exciting aspects of combining ancient Visigoths and 90s mall goths?

The only real design challenge I faced in the goth-on-goth arena was figuring out exactly how disoriented I wanted to make these time-traveling Visigoths. This could have gone very Encino Man, but I didn’t really want the game to be about ancient warriors staring in awe at escalators, so it took some work to get the narrative framing right, where the Visigoths are historically displaced but we’re assuming they’ve somehow learned English and know what a computer is. Fortunately, this game is completely surreal and absurd anyway, so this extremely fast learning process doesn’t have to be plausible to buy into the premise and have fun.

Part of what’s exciting for me about throwing together these 2 types of goths is that they’re both outsiders. The Visigoths are outsiders for 2 reasons: first and most obviously because they’ve been displaced from their original historical context and dumped into a ‘90s mall, but they were also oppressed outsiders in Roman culture before the time travel. The Mall Goths are also outsiders in 2 directions: they’re too weird to fit into mainstream teen culture, but they’re also both too young to get into goth clubs and too commercial to be accepted by the avant garde. So the scenario I’ve set up pits these 2 groups against each other, but both groups are outsiders within the context of the mall and the suburbs. This makes for a weird and fascinating array of potential social dynamics that the players can mess around with.

It’s weird to think of it, but a 90s game is now a period piece! What’s it like writing a near-history piece and how did you make the game feel totally 90s?

I was a bisexual grunge-rock teen in Los Angeles in the 90s and started goth clubbing as soon as I turned 18, so the aesthetics of this game are very close to my heart and my personal experience. Honestly, this entire design process has been extremely heartwarming, partially because I’ve gotten to indulge my nostalgia, but also because the past year of playtesting at cons and stuff has brought me into so many cute conversations with other people who still carry a torch for 90s counterculture. People who were there at the time will find a lot of Easter Eggs that refer to real stuff that was going on back then, and at the same time, I’ve made the world vivid enough that it’s still fun for younger players or people who weren’t in the USA at the time, etc. I don’t want to give too many spoilers, but the mall has a salon for humans and pets called Gerbil Essences.

Gerbil Essences is amazing! It sounds like you had a lot of fun with the project. What was it like in playtesting – how did the design choices you made come to fruition with different diverse groups?  

I playtested this game for over a year, which is a long time for me, and it definitely evolved a lot over that time. One constantly recurring theme was the balance between structure and freedom in the game rules. I wanted this game to accommodate the needs of some very different types of players, from Dungeons & Dragons fans, to indie storygamers, to LARPers, to total newcomers. Based on player feedback in the past few months, I think I’ve struck a fun balance that lets a lot of different people enjoy the game.

How are the Visigoths and Mall Goths represented mechanically in the game, and how do their mechanics interact with each other?

There are 3 types of Visigoths (Conqueror, Charlatan, and Runecaster) and 3 types of Mall Goths (Theatre Tech, Witch, and Cyber Pet). Each character type comes with 3 skills that get bonuses on dice rolls. For example, the Theatre Tech has bonuses to costumes, pyrotechnics, and rappelling. They also each have a special skill they can use once per day without rolling dice. For example, the Cyber Pet can put on cute animal ears for a half-price discount at any store. 

But the most important mechanic is probably Embarrassing Traits. Each character has 1 or 2 of these, and the options are different for Visigoths and Mall Goths. For example, one Visigoth embarrassing trait option is “Fear of Animals,” which gets especially dicey if you’re a Conqueror with the “control animals” skill, and another is “Allergic to Metal,” which sucks if you’re wearing chainmail. The way these work is that you can embarrass yourself to make your friend look cool in comparison or draw attention away from them, giving one of your fellow Visigoths or Mall Goths a bonus to their roll. 

Finally, while most games only track physical damage, Visigoths vs Mall Goths only tracks emotional damage. That’s right, physical combat only has emo outcomes — and if you get too emotionally overwhelmed, you can’t fight anymore until you talk about your feelings with a friend!

The cover of Lucian Kahn's Visigoths vs. Mall Goths, subtitled " a tabletop roleplaying game and dating sim." On the cover the background is a deep purple in varying tones showing mall store fronts. In the foreground, a Visigoth with light blue skin and pink hair in an ornamented helmet and scaled armor in blue and gold wears a fuschia cape and holds a sword while staring down a goth with short curly blue hair and light purple hair and a spiked choker, who is wearing a fishnet shirt under a vampire smiley face crop top and a belted skirt.

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Thanks so much to Lucian for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Visigoths vs. Mall Goths on Kickstarter today!

What’s in a Ring?

I have a big life thing coming up soon – specifically, my partner Thomas and I will be exchanging rings near Halloween to make our relationship “official.” While looking at rings and thinking a lot about love and relationships, I realized there’s just not a lot of support for polyamorous people who want to have a formal aspect to their relationship, and especially when you’re not religious in any way, it can be difficult to have a way to mark your relationship.

Someday Thomas and I want to have a more formal commitment ceremony, when things are more secure, but for now, we’re just gonna have a quiet exchange of rings. I decided to write a little game about love, polyamory, self love, consent, and commitment – and give people like us a ritual to mark their love, too. I tried to be inclusive – I hope it is inclusive to you! If you like it, consider picking it up at https://briebeau.itch.io/whats-in-a-ring and leaving a donation to help us pay for a celebratory dinner. 🙂

Love to all <3

An image of the full text of What's In a Ring? over a watercolor flower.
What’s in a Ring? by Brie Beau Sheldon, dedicated to Thomas Novosel.

Quick Shot on Hearts of Magic

Content Warning: There are allegations against Erika Shepherd for abusive behavior. I don’t have any links, but have been notified in private and respect the privacy of those raising the concerns, and I’m making this note as part of my policy against perpetrators of harm.

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Hi all, I have a few quick questions with answers from Erika Shepherd on Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled! It looks like a really interesting game, I hope you like what Erika has to say!

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What is Hearts of Magic, both as a product and as your vision?

Hearts of Magic is a Firebrands Framework game about fey nobles, arcanist-bureaucrats, and anarchist witches vying for control of a magepunk fantasy city, getting in messy entanglements with eachother amid an undeclared magical war. It’s a story told against a backdrop of imperialism and class struggle, but it’s also a story about individuals finding ways to resist that system, and just maybe finding eachother instead.

It’s intended for one-shot play, with zero prep and an easy-to-learn ruleset you can pick up and play; while it has a set of factions and setting elements built in, it’s easy to adapt to other settings/factions, and flexible about how you portray your faction, without defining a lot of the worldbuilding.

It’s also, not to put too fine a point on it, *gay as hell*. An Oblique Discussion is explicitly and intentionally a game about, not being able to say out loud the thing you want to tell somebody, and As A Lesbian, it was important to me to put down in a game that feeling of, talking around something and hoping your were understood. It’s a game about fighting with your friends and allying with your rivals, but most of all, about falling in love with your enemies, and about how love (or something like it) can overcome the things that keep us apart and the systems that tear up our world.

The Hearts of Magic cover with three people in fancy historical dress are standing around a table reading a spellbook. One person is in a purple and pink dress and looks like an elf with pointy ears. The other two are human-looking, and one is stabbing a knife into the table near melting candles. The text reads "Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled" by Erika Shepherd.
The cover of Hearts of Magic, illustrated by Finn Carey.

What is the design process for a project like this with the ten games in one design, especially when trying to create these messy entanglements?

I have to give almost all the credit to Vincent and Meg Baker, for the overall design – Hearts of Magic started as a 1:1 reskin of Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, and much of that design is still part of Hearts of Magic. I did, however, remove a couple of the Firebrands games, and added two of my own – Weaving a Spell and A Wizard’s Battle. With that said, I did have to think about the kinds of entanglements I was looking to create. This game is as much the story of The City as it is a story of the characters themselves, and I wanted to make sure to focus as much on the ways characters interact with The City as the ways characters interact with eachother.

In “A Chase”, for instance, I wanted to make sure to fill out the landscape of the city and the range of setting options, for the players, being sure to include a range of physical locations in the City to expand the range of whats possible, there (Like trains! Can’t have magepunk weird-fantasy without trains!). Another example is how A Wizard’s Battle makes sure to include as much about how a violent confrontation affects the City, potentially devastating the surrounding neighborhood.

With that said, the real core of the game is about the interactions between the player characters; by making Weaving A Spell focus closely on the intimacy of doing magic with another person for instance, by keeping the focus of the games on the relationships between the players and not just their factions, I wanted to make sure that there was more binding the players together than keeping them apart.

A fancily dressed horned person with branch-like legs wearing an outfit with a long train that is being carried by a small bug.
Sketch by Sasha Reneau.

What kinds of characters do we see in Hearts of Magic, and what are they likely to encounter mechanically in the various games?

The three factions of Hearts of Magic are the Lords and Ladies, the fey nobles whose families have controlled The City for generations and who hold their power with the magic of nature, promises, and prophecy; the Order, a bureaucratic empire of scholar-mages who use the might of empire to, supposedly, try and protect the world from the dangers of magic; and the Witches, anarchists trying to free the city from nobility and empire alike and teach Magic to the masses. Each faction has their own set of adjectives to describe the characters with, but aside from the faction description and the adjectives, very little about character creation is dictated by the book – you can explicitly be any kind of person you can imagine, certainly not limited to traditional fantasy archetypes. My favorite character I’ve played as is a noble Lady whose body is a musical instrument of glass, wood, and clockwork, and that’s pretty tame on the scale of what the game allows.

The ten games that make up Hearts of Magic are:

  • Solitaire (what were you doing? what have we heard about you?),
  • A Chase (do you have the nerve to pursue?),
  • A Conversation Over Food (at ease together, or a tense meal?),
  • A Dance (when the music ends, will I see you again?),
  • A Free-for-all (why do we fight, and what are the stakes?),
  • Meeting Sword to Sword (steel meets steel, gaze meets gaze – who will blink?),
  • An Oblique Discussion (how can I tell you the things I can not say?)
  • Stealing Time Together (alone, together, with a gentle “may I?”)
  • Weaving a Spell (how do the two of us make magic greater than either alone?)
  • A Wizard’s Battle (can you resist the full strength of my powers?)

The games are all played by taking turns choosing prompts, except for Solitaire, which you play by yourself quietly to establish some context for yourself, and A Conversation Over Food and An Oblique Discussion, which give you the choice between choosing a prompt or engaging in actual improvised conversation. A Chase and Meeting Sword To Sword involve coin-flips to determine the outcome, but all the other games let the players decide the outcomes, and even in the fights, your character’s fate is always in your own hands – only you can decide if your character’s life is on the line, or how badly they are hurt by their opponent’s blows.

A witch with a witch's hat and sparkling coming from their eyes. Their one hand unwraps the other, revealing a bird-like claw.
Sketch by Sasha Reneau.

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Thank you Erika for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled on Kickstarter today – hurry, only a few days left!

Assembludo: What I’m Working On

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.

A dark haired, bearded man in glasses and an orange and blue flannel button down looks off to the distance inside an industrial styled restaurant.
Thomas Novosel, photo by Brie Beau Sheldon (c) 2019.

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 Runaway Hirelings cover with a person carrying a large sack illustrated as walking along with determination.

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!

Two okapi, a mother and baby, walking around in the zoo. They are horse-like creatures with shorter faces and big ears, dark brown fur all over their torsos and then zebra-like striped fur on their legs.
Two Okapi, so cute, so weird (from Wikimedia Commons).

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.

Low mountains on the other side of a large field with a dynamic skyscape above, lens flares scattering across the center of the frame.
We recently went to Lake Placid and had a picnic looking at nearby mountains. Few things make me miss living in rural areas more than spending time in the wilderness!

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
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.

Thomas Novosel, signed by Beau and Thomas both in the Little Green Dot documents.

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.

Beau and Thomas in front of a picturesque mountain and lake scene with branching trees behind them. Thomas is a bearded, brown haired man in a green and red flannel shirt and aviator sunglasses. Beau is a nonbinary person with blue and white short hair, wearing a blue and black shirt and aviator sunglasses. They're both smiling brightly.
Beau & Thomas at Lake Placid, by Brie Beau Sheldon (c) 2019.

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!

Revealed in Turn

We recently posted an update about Turn’s progress, and it’s going pretty well! We may soon be closing pre-orders (which are still open here!) if all goes well with layout, and we are pushing on thru with the stretch goals. I wanted to talk a little about Turn in playtesting, and a big thing that happened recently in our longest-run playtest.

A buff colored kitten on a soft bed, with its toes in focus.
Just a picture of a cat to start us off right.

Some people may have heard me talk on Twitter about my character Beau Taggart, who is a professional hunter, the game’s Late Bloomer, a Cougar, and super gay. In his early character background during character generation, we established that Beau had turned for the first time only recently, about six months ago (as required for the Late Bloomer role). When he turned for the first time, he his truck had just been hit by a drunk driver while he was driving down a winding back road.

He got out of the car to check on the driver, but the driver was behaving aggressively, and tried to punch him. Beau knew something felt wrong, but he was scared and panicked, and responded by hitting the guy back. He didn’t know that his body had started to turn, that his super strength had grown. The hit was so hard it broke the guy’s neck, and while Beau was realizing with horror he’d killed a man, he also turned into a cougar for the first time.

Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 saying "Now that I have the taste for blood, I can't stop murdering!"
This gif is not an accurate representation of Beau. It’s just funny!

His animal instincts kicked in – he hid the body, and ate some of it, leaving his claw and teeth marks on it, desperately hungry in light of the force turn. In his panic, he was found by Camellia, a fellow shapeshifter (Overachiever, Bison) who helped him get back to human form, and over time, he learned better how to calm down. He didn’t tell Camellia, or anyone else, about the drunk driver, harboring his accidental crime as yet another secret.

Not many Turn characters have super tragic backstories, and this one isn’t even all that bad (sometimes people accidentally kill people, and those are small town secrets I’ve heard), but I knew there was a risk of it being an element when people played so I built a character with a high risk background to see how fast we could ramp up to exposure. It still took over a year at our slow playing pace – which is ideal. If we were playing weekly, it would happen more quickly, but it paces out well.

How did I plan this out? Well, I knew the number of exposure marks for towns and town characters, I knew the average number of scenes per session (5-8), how many of those typically risk exposure (4-7), and how many sessions each character is generally in (3-6). I knew that having a higher risk background meant that I would end up on the higher range of everything, and that Beau was starting with a generally positive reputation as a Late Bloomer.

That doesn’t mean I was ready for the exposure to hit max!

Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 being asked "Are you crying?" and responding "No. That's eyeball sweat."

Turn has ten marks on the exposure track for the town. You can get positive or negative marks, based on the type of interaction that causes them. You take the marks when you’ve done something that might cause someone to suspect your shifter identity – it can be behavioral, it can be physical, etc. Something like slipping up and saying you spent all night in the woods, or maybe your eyes shine oddly in a photograph.

Beau’s track grew and grew over time, including his town character (TC) tracks, which are separate. One TC of his was Diego, his best friend who knew everything but this secret. Early on in the campaign, I played Beau to slowly reveal his identity as a shifter to Diego, purposefully planning positive encounters. He managed to do so successfully, which was good, because Beau was truly in love with Diego. They later became partners, but it was still pretty quiet, because the town was relatively conservative in that regard. Their own professional hunter in love with his buddy? Beau wasn’t sure they could handle it.

Jack Nicholson saying "You can't handle the truth!"

There are three results you can get when you become fully exposed to a TC or the town itself: reviled, which is the lowest result, and results either in a toxic and risky relationship with the TC or you getting run out of town or dealing with violence; revealed, which is the middling result and means you may risk comforts, safety, or gossip but you’ll be able to stay in town; and known, which is the best result, and means you’re accepted in the town or by the TC.

With Diego, Beau got known, so he was able to get together with Diego, stay friends and more, and not have any risk increased from it. Over time Beau had some more positive and some more negative interactions with people in the town, just like you do – simple things that cause conflict last longer in people’s minds than we thing. It was pretty balanced. But, rumors arose when a body was found in the woods that it turned out matched the drunk driver, whose car was found, too.

This combined with Beau acting out of sorts because he found out who his birth mother was and it led to a spectacular new ability – the ability to turn into a Raven, as well! These events combined led to an exposure roll, which is 2d6 plus the exposure track, added up based on the +’s and -‘s on the track, and a + for any known TCs. I rolled poorly, but had enough based on the roll, the track, and Diego, I got the middling result – revealed. That meant no immediate danger, but it meant time had come to face facts.

Griffin McElroy saying "And let's just have a full blown panic attack together!"

The rumors spread faster than Beau could do anything for, and before he could even come clean to his closest friends (Camellia and Iris, his cousin and coworker), the cops were at Camellia’s door looking for Beau. He managed to tell Diego what happened, and Diego supported him, but he was going to have to deal with the police at some point. He decided to turn himself in. Meanwhile, on the in-fiction Facebook, his fellow townspeople were spreading memes of the Cougar Killer, claiming he’d murdered the man and mutilated the bodies. This is something that would eventually die out without the police arresting him, but in the moment it was challenging!

A little bit of coordination led to him having enough time to sneak past the deputy posted at Camellia’s (where his truck was*) to tell Camellia and Iris what was going on, then turn himself in with some legal support obtained by Camellia. He confessed to fighting with the guy, but stopped short of admitting to murder. The cops didn’t have enough evidence to keep him. In the end, Beau will still live in Cauldron Springs, unable to leave easily because of the ties that hold him there, and hopefully happy with Diego (because that cat’s outta the bag).

a Cougar, by Cecilia Ferri
This cat, specifically. a Cougar, by Cecilia Ferri

But, once you’re brought in for something this serious, it’s hard for people to drop their suspicions. Combining it with Beau becoming obviously out as queer since Diego went with him to the police station, Beau’s once stellar social standing is pretty decreased. He’ll be able to survive, but he’s not who he once was to these townspeople – many of them will go on believing he actually murdered someone, others will simply struggle with his identity especially when tied with the stigma of being questioned for murder.

So basically it all worked out? Like this is exactly how this sort of result should be narratively. Maybe some people might choose to have the shifter identity be the forefront and have it be more fantastical, some people might want to diminish the fantasy even further, and either is okay – just keeping in mind that people rarely want to believe the most fantastical things, even though they’ll often use fantastical things as metaphor or illusion for the reality.

The pacing for the exposure to max out worked perfectly, the narrative surrounding it hit all the right notes, and all I did was start with some trouble baked in, like so many characters do. It meant a lot to me to play this character** and have it play out so true to what I designed. The game works, it works really good, and it tells the stories I want to be told.

I can’t ask for more, honestly.

I’m curious, what have you worked on in games that you played out in playtesting or just when you released the game that made you have that, like, damn, I did it! moment? A moment with the math lining up just right, or the narrative tone hitting the right button? Share it in the comments, and please share this on social media to talk about those moments of design success!

*Beau constantly forgot his truck at Camellia’s, where he often went to have tea to calm down and to hang out, then turned into a cougar to hit the woods. It actually became a feature on the map! Oops.

**Who some might have guessed was a test run for my chosen name

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Five or So Questions on Rosenstrasse

Today I’m so excited to share that I have an interview with Dr. Jessica Hammer and Moyra Turkington on their game Rosenstrasse, which is currently on Kickstarter! I hope you enjoy hearing what these amazing women have to say about this project – check it out below!

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A person in a sweater leans over a table to write on a form. The table has the character sheets, cards, and book of Rosenstrasse spread out for use.

Tell me a little about Rosenstrasse. What excites you about it?

JH: The Rosenstrasse story is an incredible story of non-violent protest and resistance to unjust authority. The game puts you inside marriages between Jewish and “Aryan” Germans. You play out what I like to call “ten years of marriage in three hours”; then, at the end of the game, the female characters have the chance to protest the roundup of the Jewish men in their lives. The historical protest we’re exploring was spontaneous, women-led, non-violent – and successful. That’s something we want to remember. At the same time, we remember that even these women, who were willing to stand up to the Reich, didn’t do so until their own families were on the line. We can honor their courage and still aspire to do better next time.

MT: A lot of things! Jess has the first thing that comes to mind – it is history that belies the story we’re told about our effective potential to affect oppressive regimes and that makes it an urgently important story to me in our current political climate. But I’ll also pick one that I don’t often mention – that it’s designed to be very procedurally easy to run! Unlike many games that require GM skill sets that experienced gamers take for granted (world building, scene framing, narrative positioning, mechanical management) Rosenstrasse takes care of the lion’s share of that work for you. In this game, the  primary GM skill is emotional calibration – listening to a scene until it has reached an emotional place of fulfillment, asking questions to reveal how characters are processing the events in their lives, and checking in to make sure players are coping with the material. Because these are core emotional intelligence skills rather than specialized GM skills, this makes the game accessible to folks who have historically found GMing daunting – and as a result we’re seeing better representation among facilitators.

The photo shows the game materials for Rosenstrasse including the book, colored cards ranging from dark to light purple, a form, and further cards with character names in orange and blue.

What inspired you to create the game specifically as a live action experience?

MT: Rosenstrasse is actually a hybrid larp & tabletop game so groups can play it as a live or tabletop experience. Because most of the gameplay involves the emotional negotiation between two people, the delineation between tabletop and larp start to naturally blur anyway; a scene where a husband and wife have a difficult conversation at a kitchen table looks and feels very similar in either game mode. When I run the game, I tend to do so in larp mode because I find that embodied roleplay is a powerful conduit to adopting the headspace and heartspace of the character, especially when there are strong relationship ties. I think that the emotion follows the body and vice versa.

JH: In contrast to Mo, I tend to run Rosenstrasse closer to a tabletop. Players still get to have meaningful in-character conversations where they embody their characters verbally and physically, but adopt a very different relationship to the game materials. For example, players in this mode often describe experiencing the card deck as a ticking clock, counting down to new horrors. This sense of dread is palpable at the table and very powerful for play.

What is the game like in play – what emotions do players normally experience, and what do they physically do?

JH: The game comes with eight pre-generated characters, and more than eighty scenes for them to encounter. In a typical scene, players get the description of a situation – for example, maybe two of the characters are going to work on the morning after Kristallnacht – and then a prompt for role-play. Prompts typically ask the characters to have a conversation, react to the situation being described, or show how their marriage changes.

MT: The game is meant to feel like an elegy – a thoughtful observance of the loss of security, dignity, freedom, and selfhood incurred under an oppressive regime. But it’s also a game about resilience and resistance – players through their characters struggle to hold on – or sometimes to let go. They discover that in an active genocide, that the minutiae of living and thinking and loving are themselves, resistance. The game play is often quiet, somber and serious – one where everyone shares a deep breath before the next scene because the story just keeps on getting harder. But there’s also moments of lightness, bright love, and true courage that also make it bearable.

A person is leaned over a table or desk writing on a document, next to a document listing various information to support play.

What kind of research did you need to do to create Rosenstrasse?

MT: Research for historical games about people in marginalized situations can be hard. And it becomes harder still when you try to uncover their stories from a time where oppressive regimes have a stronghold on the narrative in which even documentation of your own story can be prosecuted as a treasonous crime against the state. You can double this down once more in a locus of war (Berlin) where victors literally displace the regime and with it wrest control of the story to broadcast their own victory. Stories get lost, they get distorted, they get overwritten – the stories of victims get defined by their victimhood in service to the vilification of the enemy and the righteousness of the victor.

For Rosenstrasse we got very lucky in that an academic named Nathan Stoltzfus found the thread of the Rosenstrasse protests early enough to locate people who were actually impacted, and to collect their first hand accounts of the events. Those first-hand accounts became the heart of our research and our design. And since that work, many other academics have focused on the story and it has become a locus of debate in Resistance Studies – so for research we situated ourselves in the lives of people who told their story and followed as many threads as we could find outward until we felt we could create a palpable feel of what it was like to live in that time.

JH: While Mo focused on the historical research, I spent a lot of time looking into the challenges of Holocaust education. I have a lot of experience designing and studying educational games – that’s actually part of my day job as a professor at CMU – but Holocaust education has some pretty specific challenges that we needed to understand. For example, Holocaust games can backfire if they make the player feel that they could have done a better job in the circumstances. That can lead them to have contempt, not empathy, for the targets of Nazi persecution. So, we did research to identify these challenges, looked at what’s been done before, and specifically targeted our design to address them. Our research with the game so far, and our observations of playtesting, suggest that we’re succeeding!

A woman with short dark hair in a dark green shirt sits on a yellow couch beside a large bookcase full of books and games, and in front of her is a table with game materials from Rosenstrasse. She holds a copy of the Rosenstrasse in her hands, presenting it to the camera.
Dr. Jessica Hammer, one of the creators of Rosenstrasse.

How is Rosenstrasse important to you as a creator, and as a person?

JH: I’ve been making transformational games for nearly twenty years, and I’ve rarely seen a game that has this kind of power. It’s humbling and a bit frightening to know that you’ve made a game that deeply impacts players. But, I’ve brought everything that’s in me to the table – my work with transformational games, my commitment to activism, my expertise in psychology and instructional design, my family history, my love of role-playing games – and I think that creates a special kind of alchemy.

I’m particularly grateful that Mo agreed to dedicate the game to my grandmother, Helen Hammer. She survived five different camps, including Auschwitz, and went on to live a life of intellectual commitment, grace, and dignity. I was particularly close to her growing up. She pushed me to read bigger, think bigger, adventure bigger; she wanted me to have a vision of the world as it could be, not just of the world as it was. She died when I was still in college, so I hope this game stands as a testament to her memory.

MT: Rosenstrasse has a harmony that’s critically important to me. Its historical focus, its design, the story it tells, the player experience, the impact of play, my personal goals as a creative activist, and the design relationship Jess and I have built are all aligned with a harmony that’s incredibly satisfying. I will forever be grateful that Jess agreed to do this work with me – it has been a uniquely fulfilling and powerful experience, and I am humbled by her trust and her courage.

The cover of Rosenstrasse with the subtitle "A story of love and survival, Berlin, 1933-1943." It features two figures offset, from the shoulders up, facing away from each other. One figure is orange, the other is in dark blue. The word "Rosenstrasse" is set in all caps over these figures, and the base of the figures melds together to form the skyline of Berlin, upside down.

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Amazing! Thank you to Jessica and Moyra both for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it, and that you’ll check out Rosenstrasse on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Kiss Her Before the World Ends

ETA: Sorry, now with links! Blogger borked.

Hey all, today I have an interview with Alice Grizzle, who has a really cool name and made an even cooler game: Kiss Her Before the World Ends. I’ve heard nothing but praise for it and her design since its recent release, so check out what Alice has to say!

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Tell me a little about Kiss Her Before the World Ends. What excites you about it?

Kiss Her Before the World Ends excites me because it prioritizes how the PC’s feel and allows space for all players. My main goal when creating the game was to create a game that encourages romance while still letting everyone play characters like themselves. Be the ace, pan, aromantic, polyam, etc. I think it achieves that.

There are so many games about being a badass, that focus on violence. I wanted to make a game about being vulnerable in front of other people. My hope is that people will see games like mine and realize that relationships and romance can be the centerpiece for your game. Tabletop games have the same ability to be about anything that every form of media has.

Alice Grizzle, designer.

What do players typically do and experience in a standard session of Kiss Her Before the World Ends? What did you do in the design to allow or encourage players to play inclusively, whether they are playing characters like themselves or choosing to play characters unlike themselves?

Kiss Her is an emotional game, stressful even at times which is by design. The use of a timer puts a lot of pressure on the players to say what they have to say before they’re no longer able to do so. It simulates the same pressure the characters feel really well.

During the design process I had to think of broad definitions for things like what it means to want Intimacy. That’s hard enough to quantify, especially while still being inclusive to ace and aromantic folks. I settled on “Intimacy is the desire for closeness” which is open to lots of interpretations. All the definitions for the types of Needs are equally interpretable.

What are the mechanics like in Kiss Her and how do players engage them?

The two main mechanics in Kiss Her Before the World Ends, the ones that control the flow of the game and what the game is about, are Needs and the timer. Needs are the things people want and they come in 4 types: Intimacy Needs, Empathy Needs, Escapism Needs, and Validation Needs. The main focus of the game is the characters negotiating how to get what they want while also fulfilling each other’s Needs. At certain points in play the players will clear Needs that they’ve resolved and replace them with new ones. Priorities change as the end draws closer.

The timer is the outside world collapsing around them. It is what pushes the characters forward, and hopefully towards each other. It also controls the pace of the game. Scenes can end whenever the players feel like they should, but none can go past the length of the timer.

What do you like best about the game and how it plays, from a design standpoint?

Probably the different types of Needs. Those four types and the definitions for them really feel like they incapsulate a huge part of what it is we as people want from our relationships. I feel like they push players into immediately playing interesting, conflicted characters.

I would say I also really like how we’ve formated it primarily with mobile viewing in mind. It encourages spontaneous play in a way that you just can’t do if your game is a full book. I seriously think that books almost always being the default way we present our games is to our own detriment. Games should be presented in the way that makes them most accessible and encourages players to play in the ways you want them too.

Two feminine figures, one lit in sparkling pink from the galaxy-like background, the other silhouetted, moving towards each other as though they are about to kiss. The title is in capitalized white text: "Kiss Her Before the World Ends".
This cover is super gorgeous, and looks great in the mobile format. The book itself is designed to work great on mobile, which has gained a lot of praise from those who have bought the game to play!

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Thanks so much for the interview, Alice! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Kiss Her Before the World Ends today!

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Five or So Questions on Two-Player Games and Star Crossed

Hi all! I have a stellar interview today with Alex Roberts about two player games and her new game Star Crossed, a game that uses a block tower (like Jenga) to tell stories of forbidden romance. It’s currently on Kickstarter! Why don’t you check out her responses?

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Art by Jess Fink of a man in a long, fancy jacket and beige pants with a ruff collar sitting across the table from a purple being with a pink ponytail thing, also in fancy dress, both gazing romantically at each other while one pulls a block from the tower.
Alex Roberts, being intensely cute *and* talented.

Tell me why you care about two-player games, and how that ties into Star Crossed. What excites you about them?

For me, the joy of roleplaying games is in the connection with other players; not that we told a great story but that we told it together, not that we played cool characters but that we built this great character dynamic, or had these special shared moments with them. That’s a kind of satisfaction you can only get from this art form. So, having identified what I’m after, the challenge I get as a designer is to figure out how to generate that effect, and intensify it. Frankly, it’s a miracle that strong moments of connection ever happen at tables of five people – that’s a lot of interests, ideas, desires, and boundaries to align! It’s wonderful when everyone in a group is totally on the same wavelength, but it’s rare. With Star Crossed, I wanted a feeling of intense creative connection, as frequently and intensely as possible. I wanted to see it right from character generation.

183 Days, by Sara Williamson and James Stuart, is a huge inspiration to me because playing it was a profound act of connecting to another person. And of course I have to mention Emily Care Boss’ Breaking the Ice – also a game experience where I felt very much in tune with the other player, and it was in a gentler, less intense, and more playful way. I really fell in love with those games, which I think put me in a certain design head space. Even the >2 player games I love have a dyadic focus in some way. Avery Alder’s A Place to Fuck Each Other is for 3 players, but the scenes are always between two characters, and the GM role gets passed around. Danielle Lewon’s Kagematsu can take up to 5 players, but every scene is an intense one-on-one with the GM (and the other players do not get bored, trust me.)

Also… there’s a practical aspect to 2-player gaming. Scheduling is hard. Not everyone you know is into roleplaying. A lot of adults organize themselves into intimate dyadic relationships. It helps to have some 2-player options on your shelf!

As a designer, how do you mechanically make two-player games interesting?

It’s easy! You’ve got two people to think about. They’re going to be focused on each other by default. Helping them be present to the scene and invested in what’s happening will just take giving them something that keeps their creative energy moving without being distracting. Remember that mechanics don’t produce great ideas; the players do that. The game itself is just a hamster wheel. It enables and allows running; it doesn’t have to provide an incentive because hamsters love running. And people love being creative! I’m oversimplifying by the way; if anyone else gave an answer like this I would complicate the heck out of it.

Oh, and you can prototype mechanics so rapidly in a 2-player game because you only need to ask one person for help!

Art by Jess Fink of a fallen block tower between a blue-translucent person and a dark skinned feminine person in a lab coat.

Is there a difference between designing for romantic relationships versus platonic or familial?

I would say that designing for romantic relationships isn’t a specific enough focus! The relationships in Star Crossed are almost always romantic, but sometimes they’re entirely sexual, and sometimes they can’t fit into any category I know. They are only united by the quality of compelling impossibility. I’m designing to produce desirable relationships that can’t be. So how do you make players want a relationship to work? Fortunately for me, you start by telling them it probably can’t.

If you’re trying to give players tools to generate interesting relationships, I would say drill down and get as specific as you can, or help them do so. Family? Vague. Parent and child? Ok. Distant parent and over-achieving child? Now you’re onto something. And even that can be made so much more detailed and interesting. You could make a game where one person plays the Distant Parent, and the other the Over-achieving Child. And it would be so replayable. Hm, that’s a good idea, actually.

An image from a playtest of Star Crossed of a tower in a precarious state, with someone in the background covering their face in excitement and anticipation.

How do you playtest a game like Star Crossed, or really any two-player game, and make sure it’s not just like those two specific people getting the good play out of it?

You test with a lot of different people, in a lot of different relationships to each other. For example, it was especially important to me that some folks on the ace/aro spectrum play and have a good time. Also: it was sweet to hear couples enjoying the game, but to me, a much greater test was putting it in front of total strangers. I played it with a complete stranger myself actually, at a con. It was fun. I was relieved.

I always talk about how game mechanics feel in design, not just about how they function. What are some mechanics you see in two-player games like these, and specifically Star Crossed, make players feel?

Well, I have to call out 183 Days for using a card that prompts extended eye contact. It’s so effective! Is closeness an emotion? Being relaxed, happy, and connecting those emotions to the person you are currently with–that’s what it does. And I think Star Crossed does the connecting part too, but in a more panicked “we’re in this together” kind of way. Which is great. I ask playtesters what they felt while playing; that’s often my first question. They usually mention excitement, trepidation, nervousness, joy–even though the stories sometimes end sadly, there’s quite an emotional journey to get there. Of course, I don’t have to ask about certain things. When I see players laughing, putting their hands over their mouths, even making little squeals of excitement! That’s when I know I’m nailing it.

Art by Jess Fink of an astronaut and a satyr playing with a block tower that is positioned on top of a spaceship pod.

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Thanks so much to Alex for the interview! I hope you’ve all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll click over to the Kickstarter for Star Crossed and fall in love!

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I love you and I adore you updated!

I love you and I adore you, my queer love letter writing game, is now fancier and up on https://briecs.itch.io/i-love-you-and-i-adore-you!

the very simple cover for I love you and I adore you

This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.