October 15, 2024 • 58 mins
Emma Larkins, celebrated creator of "Abandon All Artichokes" and the eagerly awaited "Epilogue," takes us inside the vibrant world of board game design, discussing the pivotal role of community and collaboration in her design journey. We explore the evolution of games from simple card concepts to intricate storytelling experiences, underscoring the importance of prototyping and the creative freedom it provides. Emma shares invaluable insights for aspiring game designers, highlighting the significance of networking and how engaging with playtest communities led to her first board game creation.
Discover the magic behind storytelling games as Emma discusses her latest project, "Epilogue," a cooperative narrative game designed to make every player a storyteller. We explore the mechanics of word fragment assembly and how digital tools have adapted game design. Learn about maintaining creative control and the importance of strong relationships with publishers as Emma emphasizes staying true to one's values amidst industry challenges.
Find Emma
Find Roll Play Grow:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Courtney (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for
tabletop entrepreneurs, creatorsand fans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop role
play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as welearn from the creators behind
your favorite brands about whothey are and how they are
turning their passion for gaminginto a career.
(00:28):
We are officially back for real.
Over the last two weeks, Idropped the two unreleased
episodes from last year with DoeJackadonuts and Margaret Crone.
I hope you guys enjoyed gettingcaught up, because now we have
officially gotten to our firstnew recording of this season.
I am thrilled to introducey'all to Emma Larkins, the board
(00:50):
game designer behind games suchas Abandon, all Artichokes,
starry Night Sky and theupcoming Epilogue.
Today is actually the first dayof Epilogue's Kickstarter
campaign, so be sure to go checkit out.
Before we dive into theinterview, I want to welcome any
new listeners to Roleplay Grow.
We just got back from a verylong hiatus, but I am thrilled
(01:11):
to be doing this again.
This show allows me to chatwith so many amazing folks about
business, marketing, hardships,lessons learned and how-to
guides across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene, but we are also going tostart venturing into the board
game scene, hence today'sinterview.
One fun update is that I haveadjusted the Roleplay Grow
(01:33):
Patreon a bit, now that we canhave followers or a free tier.
Patreon followers now have theability to view my upcoming
guests and add questions.
There are now two tiers of paidmembers, both of which allow
you to hear the quick questionblitz, where I ask guests 10
additional non-gaming questionslike describe the perfect
sandwich or what character froma book or TV show would you like
(01:56):
to meet?
It's a super fun time thatallows us to get to know the
guests a bit more outside of theyou know businessy topics that
we're talking about.
But if you are not in a placeto become a patron, you can
still follow me on Patreon forfree and add your questions to
my guest announcement posts.
The disclaimer on that is thatany silly questions will make it
(02:18):
into the quick question blitz,but I'll do my best to add
business-related questions tothe main interview.
So if you are interested ineither following or pledging, go
to patreoncom slashroleplaygrow.
And lastly, I want to shout outour favorite tea company Friday
Afternoon Tea.
Friday was one of my very firstinterviews on this show.
(02:41):
It was episode six interviewson this show.
It was episode six and theamount of tea that I have drunk
from this shop ever since ismind-blowing.
I love this tea so much.
Friday is so good at creatingblends that are so complimentary
.
So she's got teas that arebased off of characters from
(03:02):
your favorite books or movies orTV shows, podcasts all sorts of
super fun things.
It's a really good interviewthat I would highly recommend
you check out Again.
That's episode six, but youshould absolutely get some tea.
She's usually got some goodsampler packs so you can get an
idea of what the tea is likebefore you commit fully.
(03:23):
But either way, I'm going totell you you cannot go wrong
with any of the blends there.
We are affiliates with Friday,so if you go to FridayTeacom and
use the code LightheartADV,you'll get 10% off your order.
Have some amazing tea and helpsupport this show.
Thanks for hanging out and enjoythis chat with Emma.
(03:45):
Hello friends, I am here withthe fabulous board game designer
, Emma Larkins.
How's it going, emma?
It's going pretty good.
I am very glad that we are ableto talk.
It's been a couple times we'vehad to reschedule, mostly my
(04:08):
fault, so I'm just very excitedto get to sit down with you and
just learn more about you andall of your awesome games.
Yes, I'm very excited to behere today.
Well, to kick us off, I wouldlove to know what is the very
first game you remember playing.
Emma (04:30):
Oh gosh, the first one.
I think it was actually a videogame and not a board game, if
that's okay, because my dad is asoftware engineer.
So we had a PC very young inthe 80s, showing my age, showing
my age, and I think it musthave been sim ant on the dos
(04:51):
games where you had to enter inthe command lines to launch the
games.
Yeah, I think that's the firstgame I ever played.
What about board game?
board game, I think it waseither mousetrap or a classic
monopoly yeah, I would saymousetrap was definitely my
favorite when I was a kid Ithink I was always already
starting to show my designerroots a little bit, because it
(05:13):
frustrated me so much that themachine didn't always work, and
I understood that that was partof the mechanics of the game,
you know, but I also thought itwas a little gimmicky.
I'm like they just made thisthing not very well and they
made the fact that it doesn'talways trap the mice into a
mechanic of the game.
(05:33):
So, yeah, I can see that, yeah,yeah, little, little like five,
six year old emma over therescowling at the plastic pieces
like how dare they not make thisbetter?
Courtney (05:47):
yeah, exactly, yeah.
Yeah, I also remember reallyliking Monopoly, but I was not
good at it because I was youngand, yes, no one else in my
family wanted to play with mebecause, like, yeah, you're not
good and we're so sick of it,but I just want to play the
(06:08):
little dog token.
Emma (06:09):
Yeah, I just want to move around the board.
Oh gosh, I have to give a shoutout to Ludo as well, though,
which is um, I don't know ifit's a British game, because
both my parents were from Europe, so we did play some games, and
Ludo, if you haven't heard ofit, is kind of the classic uh
cross shape board.
You're kind of going around theedges and trying to get your
(06:32):
two little tokens into your homebase, so this is another great
classic yeah, I'd say I haven'tactually heard of it, but I'm
intrigued, yeah, yeah yeah, uh,this thing's roll and move.
Courtney (06:45):
Yeah, classic, yeah what are you playing these days?
Emma (06:51):
I'm glad that I actually am playing some things these
days.
I definitely took a littlehiatus from playing games, but I
was actually able to go down toLos Angeles, uh, just a couple
of days ago and see some awesomeboard game industry people
Paula Deming, dave Luza, amandaPanda and just had an awesome
(07:11):
time down there and we played abunch of games.
I got to play physical versionof Captain Flip, because I've
mostly been playing that onBoard Game Arena.
I've really been enjoying thatgame, so that was a lot of fun.
Oh, and Ruel Gaviola I actuallysaw when I was down there as
well.
We played Far Away and Seaside,which were two other very fun
(07:35):
games.
Far Away, you build yourtableau from left to right, but
then you score it from right toleft, so you have to double
brain, brain it thinkingforwards and backwards.
And seaside is a very cute gamewith double-sided tokens.
You pull out of a bag and it'sall sea themed and you're trying
to eat bugs with birds and thewinner is the one with the
(07:57):
highest stack of tokens, which Ilove as a win condition.
And last but not least, thegame which I only started
playing recently and I've becomeobsessed with, uh, especially
this.
There's a solo mode to it whichmost people don't know, and
I've had a lot of fun with that.
Courtney (08:14):
So, yeah, lots of fun stuff when I hear the game, I
still, yeah, think back to thatstupid thing from like what
elementary school oh my goshit's like, oh, you've lost the
game.
Guess what listeners.
oh my, that's such a deep cut.
Oh my gosh.
(08:34):
Yes, yes, oh wow, yeah, alwaystickling the back of my brain.
You're right, that's absolutelyright.
Uh, it's no offense to thepublishers, but it is the worst
name for a game.
It's so hard to talk about it.
But it's such a good game.
It's so good it's.
I love it so much.
I don't actually know that one,oh gosh, okay.
(08:56):
So it's maybe by the samedesigner or publisher as the
mind, which I also love.
Sorry if I got that fact wrong.
We can fix it in post, probably, maybe.
But in the game you have fourstacks.
They start out empty and twostart at one and two started at
100.
The 100 stacks are going downand the one stacks are going up.
(09:18):
It's a cooperative, lowcommunication game.
So you have your hand of cards2 to and you're trying to put
the cards in order.
You have to play two cards perturn.
So, for example, if I have the97 in my hand, I'm going to play
it on the one of the hundredpiles, but then you can only
play 96 and lower If your handis all 50s.
(09:38):
Especially in the beginning,it's really rough because you
have to put those somewhere.
But there's also a specialmechanic where, if you have a
number exactly 10 above thenumber you just placed, you can
go backwards.
So there's a little bit ofextra mechanics there and it's
just a really fun, satisfying,surprisingly activating
(10:00):
cooperative game.
Every game I've played withother people, it's just the
people sweating and yelling ateach other in a good way and
just cheering when people makethe perfect move, and it's just
so simple to teach too, which,and it's a tiny little box too.
So all things I love in gamesyeah, that sounds super fun,
like yeah really gonna go checkthat out.
(10:24):
okay, so love to transition abit and learn how you went from
playing things like mousetrapand monopoly to making them.
Emma (10:39):
So I came at it from kind of a weird angle.
I know a lot of designers,especially more classic
designers, have a history ofplaying especially more hobby
board games.
A lot of people I know in thespace 10, 20, 30 years have been
playing classic or hobby boardgames and I still came more from
(11:00):
the video game side, like Ileft board games behind a little
bit after the mousetrap andMonopoly era, played a lot of
video games in the interim, didplay Catan in college, so I had
a little introduction to themore modern hobby games.
That had another big gap thereand wasn't until I moved to New
(11:23):
York City and kind of startedgetting into the video game and
board game scene.
That started opening up my eyesto board games again and was
introduced to the playtestcommunity in New York City which
is really robust a lot ofreally cool board game designers
out of there.
I made my my first board game,which was a Valentine's Day
(11:47):
themed game, complete withlittle construction paper cutout
hearts, very cute, very dorky,and somehow it was pretty good,
according to other people.
The people who saw it were likeyou should really do something
with this.
It a little uh, 20 card cardgame, two player, just kind of
(12:09):
back and forth secrets anddeception.
Um so I play, tested it andfound a publisher and yeah, just
kind of went from thereYeah, yeah, there was other
stuff in there as well, but yeah.
Courtney (12:30):
How did you find the Playtesters group in New York?
Emma (12:34):
The communities there were really kind of interconnected.
I was actually working for astartup and getting ready to run
a Kickstarter for my sciencefiction novel and I started
(12:55):
reaching out to different groupsand communities to do panels
and talks kind of a marketinglike, about crowdfunding.
And a lot of the people doingcrowdfunding in New York City
were in the game space because,especially then there was a lot
of video game kickstarters, sostarted to meet people there.
Uh, there's the New York CityGames Forum, which is now
(13:17):
Playcrafting, which is a greatorganization that did a lot of
like huge 100 person networkingevents.
Um started attending eventsthere and found the the game
design people through thoseconnections that's fun.
Courtney (13:33):
I always just love like learning, like yeah, we'll
get into the community becauseit's yeah yeah, it can be tricky
sometimes, but then it can alsojust be so completely random
that you're like, oh yeah, I metthis guy on the subway and
you're like, yeah, ok.
Emma (13:47):
Yeah, it can be very fortuitous.
Some of the people that I wasworking with at the time were
also because we were in a bigco-working startup space, as one
does in New York City, so wewould attend these events
together.
So there's a few things kind ofaligning at the same time to
get me into this new space.
Courtney (14:06):
That's great, yeah.
So you've made a lot of gamesover the years now, and I know
that you started with card gamesbefore you dove into like a
full onboard game with StarryNight Sky.
You now have this storytellinggame.
So I would love if you couldjust walk me through just your
(14:27):
game design journey and just howit's evolved over time.
Emma (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
I remember talking to someonewho had seen a lot of games made
, talking about early designersand how a lot of people
gravitate towards cards early onbecause it's very easy to
prototype, and I think that'sthat's true in a lot of ways.
(14:52):
You know, you can have a pieceof paper, cut it into little
scraps, rip it into scraps,write on them with a pen, you
know, and all of a sudden youhave a game for rapid
prototyping as well.
It's really fast to iterate oncards.
So definitely great place tostart.
I recommend, if people aregetting bogged down with things,
it's a good place to start.
Also, if you're doing simpler,more approachable, more family
(15:16):
friendly games, cards can begreat because as soon as you
start adding on other pieces, itcan definitely get more
elaborate.
The Heart Catchers, which isthat first game that Valentine's
Day game I made was a card gameand, funnily enough, what would
become Epilogue was my secondgame.
(15:39):
So I actually started workingon that, I think, 2016.
And we'll get into that alittle bit because it's gone
through many iterations to getto where it is.
But, yeah, also cards and thenAbandoned Artichokes, which is
the next kind of big game Istarted working on that was a
(16:00):
card game, card game.
But I had other things as wellwhere I was working with
components and different piecesand kind of experimenting with
the physicality of board games.
I think it took me a while.
It wasn't until Starry NightSky that I really took a full
game with board and a board game, you know board and pieces and
(16:21):
everything all the way to thefinish line, which I think I
feel very comfortable with cardsand the mechanics of cards.
But I think there's a lot offun stuff you can do with other
components as well and I'mactually prototyping something
right now that is very highcomponents.
So I'm excited about that andthe the potential of lots of fun
(16:42):
little bits oh yeah, I wasgonna ask like, would you do
another one?
Courtney (16:47):
But it sounds like you want to do nets.
Emma (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think the gosh my mind defaults to cards.
You know like how do Irepresent this with cards, and
even the high component one isvery card-based.
I've done a few game a day,prototyping weeks where I try
and do a quick and nerdyprototype every day for a week,
(17:10):
and one of the ones I did a fewyears back was games emma
larkins would never make, quoteunquote.
So, uh, two-player abstractstrategy game, area control game
, like heavy Euro game.
So I think it would be fun todo something, do another
(17:32):
prototyping week that was alllike like no card games, games
without cards or with very fewcards, like the seaside game
that I played that Ruel showedme a few days ago.
It was very fun and verysatisfying and just using the
token components.
So I think it's a really funspace to play in.
Courtney (17:52):
Yeah, I'm also just thinking of like a prototype a
day, Just like I mean, you know,obviously like there's game
jams and there's like all thelike writing challenges or
whatever, and I'm like, okay, Iget it, but also just like man
(18:12):
like, how do you come up withthese ideas?
Emma (18:14):
yeah, the I I do very mostly pretty simple games, and
when I say a game a day, it's ifit is a bigger game, it's like
a mechanic, or I mean the factthat artichokes came out of that
blows my mind, because that wasone that was kind of fast and
very fully formed.
But everything else is likeit's a six by six grid and I
have it's like checkers, but thecheckers are dice and they flip
(18:38):
onto another face every timethey move and then it's a game.
You, you know so kind of moreof a.
Some of them were more justthought exercises use the term
game very loosely sure, but Imean it's turned into some
(19:01):
really fun ones.
Yeah, yeah, it's any sort ofanything to really break
yourself out of your brain.
Habits can lead to some prettysurprising things.
You like I would never havethought I was capable of making
a game in a day before I did,and then I did it and I was like
(19:21):
, oh, I guess I was.
Courtney (19:27):
Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new
creators every episode, but Icould really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content, add your
questions to upcoming interviewsand you could even receive a
shout out on our site in anupcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventurescom.
Slash RPG.
(19:47):
And now back to the show.
Yeah, so, as I warned youbefore we started recording, I
love to talk about processes,yeah, and so I mean, obviously
it's going to be different,especially the type of game, how
many components you've gotgoing on, but maybe it just
makes sense to like break downwhat were your processes for the
(20:08):
card games, what were theprocesses for Starry Night Sky,
and then we will pause and talkabout what's coming up.
Emma (20:17):
So the start of the process is always the seed of
the inspiration, and I thinkthat's very fun to talk about
because I have used every singleseed.
I use lots of different typesof seeds.
Abandoned Artichokes was a name, first design, so I always like
(20:38):
to talk about the.
I made a little list ofalliterative game names on the
bus and I posted a picture of it.
Abandoned Lauderchokes was oneof the names on the list and
somebody said you got to makethat game.
So I made that game.
I've made games that were themefirst.
Starry Night Sky was themefirst, say.
(21:00):
Heartcatchers was moremechanics first, because I had
an idea of how it was going towork.
What is now epilogue was vibefirst because the idea came from
a dream and I had this visionof pareidolia or seeing things
in the cards and yeah.
(21:21):
So ideas can come from anywhere.
And that's always the start ofit, you know, having something
that's just compelling enoughthat you want to move forward
with it and then prototyping asquickly as possible, especially
new designers, because there'sonly so much you can figure out
(21:44):
in your head and a lot of peoplelike to kind of dwell on that
and think it through, but reallyas soon as the mechanics hit
paper or digital.
That's how you prototype andthat's when you start to see
things come together.
Put some mechanics on it, put abox around it, frame it, you
(22:05):
know, contain it and start toactually play it yourself to see
if it's something you want tomove forward with.
Then, pretty soon after, thatis playtesting.
Even if you think you'vecaptured something into a shape
you could call a game, there'sstill so much of it in your
(22:25):
brain that you're interpretingand filling in the gaps.
For so it's not until you putit in front of someone that you
see all those gaps andeverything falls apart.
I know this is a really toughspace, especially for newer
designers, and I've seen thatkind of crestfallen look and I
felt that many times myself ofwhen your precious, beautiful
(22:46):
diamond of a game turns out tobe glass and shatters and
crumbles all over the place andyou have to pick up the pieces
and then, yeah, scrapingtogether those pieces and making
some changes, play, testing itagain and just kind of iterating
on it until either you get itinto a shape that really
(23:10):
functions and you're reallyhappy with, or maybe not, you
know, and it goes on the shelfor in the trash, usually on the
shelf though, yeah, and afterthat, you know, comes all the
pitching and publication and allthe other pieces.
But yeah, the process it's allprocess, all collection of
(23:32):
different processes.
Courtney (23:34):
Do you use any digital platforms for any of the
initial prototype and playtesting before actually sourcing
out to factories?
Emma (23:46):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Especially more so these days.
I have always used Adobe Suitetools because I was lucky enough
to take a class in collegewithout which I never would have
figured it out, but the toolhas been incredibly useful and
powerful, especially onlyrecently when I figured out the
(24:09):
data merge for InDesign, whichlets me iterate and prototype on
cards very quickly, likerearrange, and print out a whole
deck with all my information ina spreadsheet.
And there's a NANDEC and there'sother tools that are available
for that if people don't haveaccess to Adobe Suite.
But it really makes a hugedifference Because I think one
(24:33):
of the biggest barriers to gamedesign is people not wanting to
make changes and especiallyspending too much time and
effort on any individualprototype and then not wanting
to make the changes that arenecessary to get it to the next
level.
So the more barriers you canremove to making your prototypes
quickly and efficiently, thebetter it is to to get those
(24:57):
prototypes spun up quickly.
And then, early on in thepandemic, I actually took my
physical in-person playtestgroup, digital, so we all had to
transition to digital tools tobe able to playtest our games,
which was tough but has had somebenefits, especially being able
to playtest remotely withpeople all over the world and
(25:19):
also to be able to pitch topublishers a lot more easily.
Courtney (25:23):
Yeah, I can definitely see that being one good side
effect.
Emma (25:27):
Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean you don't get the physicality of
it, which is tough and I dothink is important for games.
So definitely pros and cons.
Courtney (25:39):
Yeah, we did a fair amount of tabletop simulator in
that first year or two and itwas like, okay, I'm able to play
games, but man, is it clunky.
Emma (25:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Courtney (25:53):
Okay, mentioned it a couple times, so tell me about
epilogue all right, uh, epilogue.
Emma (26:01):
Epilogue is a cooperative storytelling game where you play
as ghosts trying to figure outhow you died together so you can
pass on to the other side.
As I mentioned before, it was agame that I started working on.
Uh, 2016, I know 2015, maybe2015 or 2016 and it was a game
idea that came to me in a dreamwhere I kind of woke up with
(26:24):
this idea of a spooky, creepy,you know, looking into static
and kind of seeing images emerge, and it was after Heartcatcher.
So I had made a game, gonethrough the publication process
and I knew it was something Iwanted to do more of.
So I was excited to startmaking new things.
So I briefly went with thisidea of seeing images and cards.
(26:50):
I looked into some of theGoogle Deep Dream weird, creepy
stuff and couldn't figure outhow to make that into a game.
So my brain pivoted and thoughtwell, you know, people see
words in collections of letters.
So I took words and choppedthem up into chunks, put the
(27:12):
chunks onto different cards andstarted fitting the cards
together to reassemble the wordsand very quickly saw kind of
the potential of that,especially having a lot of
fragments on a lot of differentcards and being able to make a
lot of different words, and thatjust making the words with the
cards was super fun.
And from there my brain jumpedto this idea of hey, what if you
(27:36):
made a story from the words?
Because it seemed like kind ofthe most natural leap from there
and so the storytelling aspectcame in.
My brain wanted to put a lot ofwrappers around it and try to
put a lot of mechanics onto it.
So I was stuck on this ideathat you were actually playing
(27:59):
as kids in the woods and youwould go into this creepy house
and there would be little piecesof paper ripped up and kind of
sitting on the floor and you tryand assemble them and then
there was a ghost talking to youthrough the papers and pretty
quickly kind of let go some ofthose more elaborate pieces and
(28:20):
then spent about a year tryingto add fear tokens and people
would collect cards when theytold part of the story and again
trying to make it more of aquote unquote game, because I
was already playtesting it andpeople were telling me it wasn't
game enough.
Some people were, but otherpeople were saying they
absolutely loved it.
(28:41):
So eventually I listened tothose people, and so Confabula
Rasa was born, which was theoriginal name of the game,
because I'm nerdy and elaborateand the same person who
published Heartcatchers wasinterested in publishing the
game, so we were talking aboutit.
(29:02):
I spent a lot of time working onthe art for the game even
though into tea, to kind of giveit this look of the old, faded
pieces of paper and at the timeI was working full time as a
(29:29):
video game marketing businessperson for a small indie video
game company, so I was going todifferent shows and learning
about all the conventions thatwere out there.
I learned about the IndieMegabooth, so later I was able
to show Confabula Rasa in theIndie Megabooth, print physical
copies, so actually sold copiesof Confabula Rasa, and
(29:53):
eventually, through all thoseefforts, found another publisher
to publish it.
They changed the name to andthen we died.
We changed the art to thewriter, wait tarot deck art,
which is in the public domain,and we launched the game at
essen in 2018 17 8 2018 prettysure it was 2018.
(30:17):
So that was very exciting goingto Essen for the first time and
launching the game, sold abunch of copies.
Then that publisher went under.
I got the rights back to it andit was always kind of my baby
when I was pitching other gamesto publishers.
At the end of the meeting I'dbe like and.
I also have this littlestorytelling it's like 26 card
(30:38):
storytelling game, if you wantand everyone thought it was
really cool but didn't reallyhave a home for it Until Anna
Maria launched Violet DaisyGames and was looking for
story-based, story-type gamesand it was a match made in
heaven and that's how Epiloguewas born.
I mean, it was a long drawn-outbirth process.
(30:58):
Seven eight-year birth processof Epilogue was born.
I mean, it was a long drawn outbirth process.
Seven, eight year birth processof epilogue no, I mean that is
really cool that I forgot likeit's that you have been able to
iterate so much, I guess, yeah,and I mean like it's very sad
that your original publisher forit went under, but yeah it
(31:22):
means you got to keep working onit, yeah, and shout out to you
know, anna Maria, of course,estefania Rodriguez and Arnel
Ballut, the graphic designer andthe artist, who are also two
dear, dear friends of mine, andjust the concentration of talent
working on this game is morethan I ever could have imagined,
(31:43):
and the art is incredible andit's just it's going to be such
a beautiful game and I'm soexcited for that to have become
a possibility yeah, how did youtwo get linked up?
Courtney (31:54):
well, I met Annemarie online gosh, was she?
Emma (31:58):
I?
I think she was on the EastCoast, dc.
I think and yeah, I'm trying toremember Sorry, anna Maria when
exactly it was that we met inperson I meet so many people at
shows over the years and sheactually moved out here to
Seattle and we started chattingmore, getting to know each other
(32:21):
, you know, becoming friends,and then just working up to this
publication opportunity.
And then she hired Arnell forthe art and then we brought on
Estefania and, yeah, it's justanother one of those things
where all the the stars alignedfor the perfect combination of
(32:41):
creators.
Courtney (32:43):
That's why I love this industry.
Emma (32:44):
So much, yeah.
Yeah, it was like, oh, you know, I'm having this person do the
art and you're like, oh my gosh,either you love that, you know
that person and love them, youdon't know them and you're in
awe, or, you know, fan crushingon the person.
You're like I can't believeyou're getting that person to do
(33:04):
art for my game.
I'm dying.
Yeah, it's lovely.
Courtney (33:10):
So how did bringing in this storytelling aspect like
just differ from your normalprocesses?
Emma (33:20):
I think one of the biggest parts is people's perception
and kind of the audience for thegame, and I had mentioned
earlier a little bit likepeople's perceptions about the
definition of the word game,which, spending more time in
(33:40):
this industry, you know, beingon the Ludology podcast for a
few years and having a lot ofthese discussions my own
definition and interpretationhave changed over time.
I have a very broad definition.
I used to say that peopleworking towards goals are making
(34:03):
decisions in pursuit of a goalwithin a predefined space.
But even that Candyland, Iwould absolutely say, is a game
and you're not makinginteresting decisions in that
game.
So I think there's a lot ofdifferent definitions for game
and I definitely would call ablog a game.
There's people who definitelywould not.
(34:24):
So it's interesting navigatingthat space.
I think it's important.
I don't want to say thosepeople are wrong, because I
think when people are sharingthese things in conversation,
when they're recommending gamesto other people, that word has
weight and interpretations and alot of it is comes down to is.
This going to be an experiencethat I enjoy and I think when
(34:46):
people share these things, it'sone of the biggest ways that
games become known and spreadamongst communities.
It's important that they havethat language that they can use
together to talk to people aboutit.
So that's been an interestingthing is like my ideas of what a
game is.
Others people's idea of what agame is, I would say.
(35:08):
The other piece is just peoplewill quibble about whether or
not they call it a game, buteven people who don't think it's
a game are surprised by howmuch they enjoy the experience.
You know just the.
I think when people come into agame like man and all
artichokes, they have a prettyset idea of what it is.
(35:31):
It usually fulfills what theyexpect from it.
They're like great, that wasfun epilogue.
They come into it and it's.
A lot of people haven't had anysort of cooperative storytelling
experience like that before, sothey don't know what to expect
and just how much it surprisesand delights people, even people
who don't think of themselvesas storytellers.
(35:53):
I like to say anyone can be astoryteller and it's been proven
over and over again withepilogue and it's been just so
wonderful to see people cometogether and enjoy it, even if
they don't think they have.
Whatever it takes.
It's like humans are story, arestorytellers.
(36:13):
Every person tells storiesevery single day.
I my car broke down on the wayhome from work and I had to call
a cab.
That's a story.
We're always telling stories,so it's just fun to give people
a tool to do that in a fun andoften hilarious way.
Courtney (36:33):
So earlier you mentioned the part of piecing
words together from letterfragments, but I would love if
you could maybe provide anexample of like how that's tying
into telling the story yeah,yeah.
Emma (36:48):
So the each card has six or seven word fragments on it.
The word fragments were decidedon very intentionally.
Speaking about systems, Iworked on an algorithm to
actually take the thousand mostcommon, like four, five and six
(37:10):
letter words, break them intobeginning and end fragments and
then rank those fragments basedon frequency and use the most
frequent ones on the cards tomake it more likely that you can
make more words.
And each card can make like1700 words or something wild
like that.
So you might have a beginningfragment on one of the cards.
(37:33):
That's like GRE, for example,and you always start with one
card on the table and that has abunch of fragments, so it might
have an end fragment of AT onit.
So you could lay the your carddown on top of the card on the
table and then, together the GREand the AT double check my
(37:55):
spelling in my brain Make theword great.
But because the cards aredouble-sided and there's
multiple fragments, you mightalso have a c on your card.
So instead of making great, youcould rotate your card and use
the c and the at and make theword cat.
So any card you have and anycard that's already on the table
(38:16):
.
You can make many differentwords, choose one of them, put
your card down and the reallycool twist that I really like
about this game is you don'thave to use your word.
You're going to point tosomeone else and they have to
work your word into the story.
And what's really fun aboutthat is it really takes the
burden off of you as the wordmaker.
(38:39):
And that was a pretty toughchoice there, because a lot of
people's instinct is to want touse the word that they make and
tell the story, and a lot ofpeople do say that to me.
They're like, oh, but I want touse the word, and it's
sometimes in games.
There will be mechanics thatare so important that you kind
(39:01):
of have to go against people'sinstincts.
I will.
I like going with people'sinstincts, but in this case it's
all more collaborative.
You know, I make a word and youhave to use it, and then when
you're done, you make a word andsomeone else has to use it.
And that shared improv nature.
It's a very improv style gameof people making words, pointing
to each other, talking, andthen adding another card to the
(39:24):
tableau to make a new word andpointing to someone else, and
just keep doing that until thelast card is played and everyone
dies.
Courtney (39:34):
Oh right, everyone dies, everyone dies.
Yes, yep, in case you forgot,it was about figuring out how
you died.
Figuring out how you died, yeah, yeah, it sounds so fun, like I
love storytelling games so much, like I feel like you've
(39:55):
probably played gloom, maybe,maybe not um, I have it.
Emma (40:03):
I might have played it once.
I'm trying to remember nowbecause I just in chatting with
keith baker and just hearingabout it over the years, you
know, is something I'm like thatwould be fun.
And every time people hearingabout it over the years, you
know, is something I'm like thatwould be fun.
And every time people talkabout it I'm like that would be
fun.
But I've, I've just talkedabout it so much at this point I
don't know if I've actually Ican, and I see the cards and I
see how they stack up the clearand how they stack up yes, maybe
(40:27):
, possibly, and I don't thinkI've ever actually played.
I think I've just thought aboutit enough that it's entered my
psyche.
That's fair.
But yeah, exactly the kind ofgloomy trying to give people
happy birthdays and things sothat you can be the gloomiest of
people yeah, it's like I'm justtrying to think, like I think
that that's the onlystorytelling card based game
(40:50):
that I've played.
Courtney (40:51):
Yeah, so now I'm like very excited to try Apple yeah,
and I like storytelling games.
Emma (40:59):
Every other storytelling game I've played has been much
more of a framework, moreelaborate, either more
mechanized or just morestructured in creating
characters and creatingscenarios and world building.
There's so many things outthere that make for interesting
stories, or even in these daysit's starting to merge together
(41:24):
with journaling RPGs andstorytelling RPGs and the line
is blurring between all thesedifferent mediums, which I think
is really cool.
But I really like the lightnessthese days.
Just anything where I have todo preparation or learn
elaborate rules, I just like, oh, it's such a hump to get over.
(41:47):
So I like providing an optionof something.
That's seriously like put acard down, use the word, not
octopus, because that would betoo long of a word.
Use the word diet, you know,and, or whatever it is, and go
from there.
Courtney (42:04):
You know, card go yeah , it feels really accessible.
Yeah, yeah, like I'm looking atmy collection right now and I'm
like, all right, I have a fairnumber of storytelling games,
but yeah, they take like an hourto set up yeah, yeah, and I
think that's great.
Emma (42:20):
You know, I've definitely played some and had really just
eye-opening experiences, I think, just the collaborative.
You go to a different world.
You know, it's just intense,lovely experiences and I like
that this takes that, wraps itjust in a little package, little
consumable, 10-15 minutes, andlike there's, there's your story
(42:42):
.
Courtney (42:43):
Play it at a bar, you know, play it, play it on the
beach, wherever you are so nowthat you are, at the time of
this recording, gearing up forkickstarter by the time it comes
out it might have launched orjust be about to launch, but is
there anything else that's goingon right now to help prepare
for that kickstarter?
Like, how are you feeling aboutthings?
Emma (43:04):
uh, good, good time it passes.
You know time she passes.
I swear I feel like I blink anda month has passed, because I
had it in my head.
It's like, oh yeah, threemonths.
We got three months and nowit's less than a month.
Oh my gosh.
Luckily, I love working withpublishers.
(43:24):
Anna Maria is absolutelybearing the brunt of this and is
doing an absolutely incrediblejob.
We're going to be working withsome other people as well.
So right now, yeah, we'redefinitely in the crunch period
of all the.
The review copies have been sentout and marie has done some
really fun stuff with sendingcopies to people.
(43:47):
We have a lot of really lovelyfolks who are going to get the
game and look at the game, soI'm very excited to start to
hear what everyone thinks aboutit.
Although it is kind of fun, somany of these people have just
built up relationships over theyears and it's like epilogue.
It's like, oh yeah, like weplayed and then we died, uh,
five or six years ago.
(44:08):
So they're gonna have themechanics of it, but be able to
see it with the new art, whichI'm so excited about and, yeah,
just getting the word out aboutit because I think even with it
having been published in itsprevious iteration.
I think we did a few hundredcopies, you know, and I always
felt like I just want people tohave this game because I think
(44:32):
once it's in people's hands, uh,just really fun stuff is gonna
start happening.
So I'm excited for that yes,I'm excited for you.
Courtney (44:42):
You know, I do want to circle back, just kind of
speaking about publishers.
Emma (44:46):
You've three now uh, I mean five, six seven ish.
Courtney (44:55):
Yeah, never mind, you only mentioned three my bad yeah
yeah, okay.
So you've worked with a lot ofpublishers.
Yeah, having done so, what aresome elements that you look for
when you are starting up a newpublishing partnership?
Emma (45:14):
I can speak yeah, I mean I have to say I've been so lucky
and grateful to have incrediblepublishing relationships that
even the company thatunfortunately went out of
business the company thatunfortunately went out of
business I'm still really closeto the person who works as my
(45:37):
publisher there.
I a lot of people I knew beforeI started working with them.
You know some people say don'twork with your friends, but for
me I think that that having somelevel of closeness and trust
with people is really importantfor those relationships.
(45:57):
So all of the smallerpublishers especially that I've
worked with have been peoplethat I've known and trusted
because I talked to a lot ofdesigners and a lot of people in
the industry, you know, andthere's a lot of horror stories
sounds like a lot, but some ofit's pretty bad.
You know with what a lot ofpeople have been through.
(46:19):
I have to say, especiallydesigners from marginalized
backgrounds that I know havesuffered kind of the worst of it
.
So more important than ever tokind of just know the people,
either by reputation or frompersonal relationship, which is
tough.
Again, I've been very lucky tohave met a lot of people, made a
(46:39):
lot of connections over theyears, so I do know these people
.
You know there's talk throughthe grapevine so you can kind of
get a feel for things onceyou're in the know.
Kind of get a feel for thingsonce you're in the know.
So yeah, just having having thetrust that they'll do right with
your, your art, with your babyand trust and then then
verifying that.
(47:00):
And that's with contracts andconversations.
And you have to have reallytough conversations.
And, like I have very heavytouch on all my games, I know
some people, either throughpreference or accident, will
just hand their game off and itgoes and it gets published.
You know, but the publishersare only human.
(47:25):
I want to see the art for thestuff, because there's things
that I really care about in art,like having diversity of
representation, because there'sthings that I really care about
in art, like having diversity ofrepresentation.
So I want to make sure that aproduct I have my name on is
something that aligns with myprinciples, the rule books.
(47:47):
You know that's really hard toget right.
So I want to have final touchon that and I work that into my
contracts.
I have those conversations upfront just to make sure that
it's a little more work.
You know to be that high touch,but in the end, you know, it's
a product that I can really beproud of.
Courtney (48:08):
I think there's a lot of really good advice and
learnings in there.
For sure.
Yeah, it has to be nervewracking, especially when it's
like the first time working withsomeone and you're like this is
my baby.
Emma (48:18):
Please, yeah, don't screw it up yeah, I was, um, I knew a
game lawyer when I was in NewYork City who actually hired to
look over my first one or twocontracts, and that was a huge
help.
And then I learned a lot.
And for newer people in theindustry, I know it can be hard
to get in touch with people, butnow there's organizations like
the Tabletop Game Alliance Iforget the exact name of it, but
(48:41):
there's people like me you canreach out to about contract
terms, and getting that allnailed down is really important.
So, like, don't be afraid toreach out to other designers.
Like, we love talking to peopleabout these things and making
sure that people are taken careof.
Courtney (48:58):
One of the questions that I like to ask in all my
interviews is that you know wework in this industry because we
love it, but it can be hard,and so what would you say has
been like the most challengingpart, or just like some
challenges that you've beenencountering over the years?
Emma (49:19):
oh yeah, I mean I would say the.
You can't work in this industryor any industry, I'm sure
without the community and therelationships, and 90% of the
time that's good and that'sgreat, but then there are other
(49:44):
times when just the people orcompanies or organizations will
do things that you don't agreewith, and that's always an
interesting struggle to navigate.
You know, for example, the wholeAI art thing and I'm very
(50:04):
strongly against AI art and nowpublishers different publishers
are having stances on that, youknow.
And how, how do you moveforward in your relationships
and in the industries as peopleare doing this or a lot of, you
know, just kind of bad actors,and how do you stand up for your
(50:27):
principles while navigating aprofession?
I think it's a balance, youknow.
I think the biggest thing isjust moving forward and chipping
away and standing in your truthas much as you can, while
trying to use whatever powerinfluence.
(50:49):
You have to make the changesthat you want to see and make
sure that this stays a goodplace for for everyone I think
that's very wise, because yeahlike every time, it feels like
we've gotten through one hurdle.
Courtney (51:07):
There's another one and you know like where so much
marketing has to happen onsocial media, and then just how
much you find out one thingabout one person and you're like
, well, shit.
Emma (51:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is.
It's tough and I think eachperson needs to make the
decisions about how they'regoing to approach those
situations.
I think you can't always be100%.
(51:41):
You know you're working with apublisher who publishes 50 other
games a year, you know, andmaybe they'll publish a game for
someone that you don't agreewith.
Or they'll like a publisher oran organizational platform, a
social media personality, whoyou don't agree with and you
can't.
I don't think the answer is tochuck everything into the trash.
(52:04):
I think if you do have thecapability to just, you know,
continue to stand, share youropinions.
You got to keep working.
You know you got to make aliving, but also kind of use
your position and power to tryand just keep pushing that
needle, you know.
Courtney (52:25):
Yeah, All right To flip it around.
Looking back over the lastseveral years of working on
these games, what has been themost rewarding part?
Emma (52:36):
I would also say the people in the relationships.
So, as tough as it can be,navigating amongst people and
organizations and situations,I've met almost all of the best
people I know through thisindustry over the last few years
(52:58):
, seeing the people whoparticipate in the industry as
players and as fans and gettingto share my games with them and
seeing the looks on their faceswhen a game kind of clicks for
them.
To give an example, I was atXOXO Fest in Portland a few
weeks ago and got to play, oractually got to see, played
(53:23):
Epilogue with a group of sevenpeople and they really got into
this story of just having such agood time.
And later, later or the nextday, one of them came up to me
and was just raving about thegame and that was their favorite
and they had such a goodexperience with it.
Like they, their team had justwon the Super Bowl or so that's
(53:49):
how excited they were about thegame.
And you know, just to be ableto create something that
inspires that kind of joy youknow in people is incredible.
So there's a lot of joy thatcomes out of this and I'm
grateful to be a part of that.
Courtney (54:09):
That's so fun, that's so special.
Emma (54:12):
Yeah, it makes my heart happy, it makes me feel warm
yeah, definitely.
Courtney (54:18):
Well, I cannot believe that we're already at basically
an hour yeah but yeah, emma, ifpeople want to find you and
find epilogue when it launches,where should they go?
Emma (54:36):
yeah, so the depending on timing, the kickstarter violet
daisy games uh epilogue.
Right now we're doing the thepreview page and at a time in
the future it will launch and belive and that's going to be on
Kickstarter.
There's also information on theViolet Daisy games website and
(55:04):
you can also find Emma Larkinswherever fine goods are sold.
So I have websites, instagram,blue sky, the old sites, other
sites as well that shall remainnameless.
You can connect with me.
If you look up Emma Larkinspretty much anywhere and don't
find the travel author from the90s, then you'll probably find
me there.
Courtney (55:24):
Perfect.
I will have links to those inthe show notes.
Obviously, epilogue is the bigone, but is there anything else
coming up that you're excitedabout?
And allowed to talk about?
Anything in the works?
Emma (55:37):
yeah, nothing really on the radar.
I'm kind of in the pitchingslash development process for
things.
I feel like, again time I havestuff that's I'm hoping to get
ready to the point of beingready to talk about very soon,
(56:00):
but really it's epilogue is thebig one that's happening yeah.
Courtney (56:04):
I think that that's enough you?
Emma (56:07):
I don't know.
I always want to be do I like?
I have stuff, like I have allthis thing going, things going
on in my head and things I wantto get out there.
But yeah, I'm excited for ablog.
Courtney (56:16):
I'm also excited for a blog.
Emma, thank you so much forcoming on today.
This has been so fun.
Thanks, yeah, thanks, forhaving me.
All right, listeners, we aregoing to wrap up the interview
portion of our time today, butfor patrons I I am now gonna end
this section and thenimmediately start the next fun
(56:37):
quick question blitz.
Um, so for those of you who areunaware, on patreon we do a fun
little extra segment where Iask emma a bunch of more silly
questions and we learn a littlebit more about her outside of
all of the fun game talk that wejust did.
And you can find that if you goto patrioncom slash role play
(56:58):
grow.
Thank you so much, emma.
Thank you.
You just finished anotherepisode of role play grow.
To check out the show notes andtranscript from today's episode
, you can go tolightheartadventurescom To keep
up with every episode.
Please subscribe on your podcastplayer of choice and if you're
(57:20):
enjoying the show, I wouldabsolutely love if you would
leave me a review and share thisepisode with your friends.
Your review might even getfeatured on an upcoming episode.
To contact us, you can emailroleplaygrow at gmailcom.
There are a lot of social mediasites out there right now.
So look for roleplaygrow forthe show account and look for
(57:40):
either Ketra or Ketra RPG for myaccounts.
Lastly, I want to give aspecial shout out to our editor,
sam Atkinson.
Your help is always appreciated, sam.
Thank y'all so much forlistening and I'll see you next
time on Role Play Grow.
Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for
tabletop entrepreneurs, creatorsand fans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop role
play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as welearn from the creators behind
your favorite brands about whothey are and how they are
turning their passion for gaminginto a career.
(00:28):
We are officially back for real.
Over the last two weeks, Idropped the two unreleased
episodes from last year with DoeJackadonuts and Margaret Crone.
I hope you guys enjoyed gettingcaught up, because now we have
officially gotten to our firstnew recording of this season.
I am thrilled to introducey'all to Emma Larkins, the board
(00:50):
game designer behind games suchas Abandon, all Artichokes,
starry Night Sky and theupcoming Epilogue.
Today is actually the first dayof Epilogue's Kickstarter
campaign, so be sure to go checkit out.
Before we dive into theinterview, I want to welcome any
new listeners to Roleplay Grow.
We just got back from a verylong hiatus, but I am thrilled
(01:11):
to be doing this again.
This show allows me to chatwith so many amazing folks about
business, marketing, hardships,lessons learned and how-to
guides across a wide spectrum ofindustries within the TTRPG
scene, but we are also going tostart venturing into the board
game scene, hence today'sinterview.
One fun update is that I haveadjusted the Roleplay Grow
(01:33):
Patreon a bit, now that we canhave followers or a free tier.
Patreon followers now have theability to view my upcoming
guests and add questions.
There are now two tiers of paidmembers, both of which allow
you to hear the quick questionblitz, where I ask guests 10
additional non-gaming questionslike describe the perfect
sandwich or what character froma book or TV show would you like
(01:56):
to meet?
It's a super fun time thatallows us to get to know the
guests a bit more outside of theyou know businessy topics that
we're talking about.
But if you are not in a placeto become a patron, you can
still follow me on Patreon forfree and add your questions to
my guest announcement posts.
The disclaimer on that is thatany silly questions will make it
(02:18):
into the quick question blitz,but I'll do my best to add
business-related questions tothe main interview.
So if you are interested ineither following or pledging, go
to patreoncom slashroleplaygrow.
And lastly, I want to shout outour favorite tea company Friday
Afternoon Tea.
Friday was one of my very firstinterviews on this show.
(02:41):
It was episode six interviewson this show.
It was episode six and theamount of tea that I have drunk
from this shop ever since ismind-blowing.
I love this tea so much.
Friday is so good at creatingblends that are so complimentary
.
So she's got teas that arebased off of characters from
(03:02):
your favorite books or movies orTV shows, podcasts all sorts of
super fun things.
It's a really good interviewthat I would highly recommend
you check out Again.
That's episode six, but youshould absolutely get some tea.
She's usually got some goodsampler packs so you can get an
idea of what the tea is likebefore you commit fully.
(03:23):
But either way, I'm going totell you you cannot go wrong
with any of the blends there.
We are affiliates with Friday,so if you go to FridayTeacom and
use the code LightheartADV,you'll get 10% off your order.
Have some amazing tea and helpsupport this show.
Thanks for hanging out and enjoythis chat with Emma.
(03:45):
Hello friends, I am here withthe fabulous board game designer
, Emma Larkins.
How's it going, emma?
It's going pretty good.
I am very glad that we are ableto talk.
It's been a couple times we'vehad to reschedule, mostly my
(04:08):
fault, so I'm just very excitedto get to sit down with you and
just learn more about you andall of your awesome games.
Yes, I'm very excited to behere today.
Well, to kick us off, I wouldlove to know what is the very
first game you remember playing.
Emma (04:30):
Oh gosh, the first one.
I think it was actually a videogame and not a board game, if
that's okay, because my dad is asoftware engineer.
So we had a PC very young inthe 80s, showing my age, showing
my age, and I think it musthave been sim ant on the dos
(04:51):
games where you had to enter inthe command lines to launch the
games.
Yeah, I think that's the firstgame I ever played.
What about board game?
board game, I think it waseither mousetrap or a classic
monopoly yeah, I would saymousetrap was definitely my
favorite when I was a kid Ithink I was always already
starting to show my designerroots a little bit, because it
(05:13):
frustrated me so much that themachine didn't always work, and
I understood that that was partof the mechanics of the game,
you know, but I also thought itwas a little gimmicky.
I'm like they just made thisthing not very well and they
made the fact that it doesn'talways trap the mice into a
mechanic of the game.
(05:33):
So, yeah, I can see that, yeah,yeah, little, little like five,
six year old emma over therescowling at the plastic pieces
like how dare they not make thisbetter?
Courtney (05:47):
yeah, exactly, yeah.
Yeah, I also remember reallyliking Monopoly, but I was not
good at it because I was youngand, yes, no one else in my
family wanted to play with mebecause, like, yeah, you're not
good and we're so sick of it,but I just want to play the
(06:08):
little dog token.
Emma (06:09):
Yeah, I just want to move around the board.
Oh gosh, I have to give a shoutout to Ludo as well, though,
which is um, I don't know ifit's a British game, because
both my parents were from Europe, so we did play some games, and
Ludo, if you haven't heard ofit, is kind of the classic uh
cross shape board.
You're kind of going around theedges and trying to get your
(06:32):
two little tokens into your homebase, so this is another great
classic yeah, I'd say I haven'tactually heard of it, but I'm
intrigued, yeah, yeah yeah, uh,this thing's roll and move.
Courtney (06:45):
Yeah, classic, yeah what are you playing these days?
Emma (06:51):
I'm glad that I actually am playing some things these
days.
I definitely took a littlehiatus from playing games, but I
was actually able to go down toLos Angeles, uh, just a couple
of days ago and see some awesomeboard game industry people
Paula Deming, dave Luza, amandaPanda and just had an awesome
(07:11):
time down there and we played abunch of games.
I got to play physical versionof Captain Flip, because I've
mostly been playing that onBoard Game Arena.
I've really been enjoying thatgame, so that was a lot of fun.
Oh, and Ruel Gaviola I actuallysaw when I was down there as
well.
We played Far Away and Seaside,which were two other very fun
(07:35):
games.
Far Away, you build yourtableau from left to right, but
then you score it from right toleft, so you have to double
brain, brain it thinkingforwards and backwards.
And seaside is a very cute gamewith double-sided tokens.
You pull out of a bag and it'sall sea themed and you're trying
to eat bugs with birds and thewinner is the one with the
(07:57):
highest stack of tokens, which Ilove as a win condition.
And last but not least, thegame which I only started
playing recently and I've becomeobsessed with, uh, especially
this.
There's a solo mode to it whichmost people don't know, and
I've had a lot of fun with that.
Courtney (08:14):
So, yeah, lots of fun stuff when I hear the game, I
still, yeah, think back to thatstupid thing from like what
elementary school oh my goshit's like, oh, you've lost the
game.
Guess what listeners.
oh my, that's such a deep cut.
Oh my gosh.
(08:34):
Yes, yes, oh wow, yeah, alwaystickling the back of my brain.
You're right, that's absolutelyright.
Uh, it's no offense to thepublishers, but it is the worst
name for a game.
It's so hard to talk about it.
But it's such a good game.
It's so good it's.
I love it so much.
I don't actually know that one,oh gosh, okay.
(08:56):
So it's maybe by the samedesigner or publisher as the
mind, which I also love.
Sorry if I got that fact wrong.
We can fix it in post, probably, maybe.
But in the game you have fourstacks.
They start out empty and twostart at one and two started at
100.
The 100 stacks are going downand the one stacks are going up.
(09:18):
It's a cooperative, lowcommunication game.
So you have your hand of cards2 to and you're trying to put
the cards in order.
You have to play two cards perturn.
So, for example, if I have the97 in my hand, I'm going to play
it on the one of the hundredpiles, but then you can only
play 96 and lower If your handis all 50s.
(09:38):
Especially in the beginning,it's really rough because you
have to put those somewhere.
But there's also a specialmechanic where, if you have a
number exactly 10 above thenumber you just placed, you can
go backwards.
So there's a little bit ofextra mechanics there and it's
just a really fun, satisfying,surprisingly activating
(10:00):
cooperative game.
Every game I've played withother people, it's just the
people sweating and yelling ateach other in a good way and
just cheering when people makethe perfect move, and it's just
so simple to teach too, which,and it's a tiny little box too.
So all things I love in gamesyeah, that sounds super fun,
like yeah really gonna go checkthat out.
(10:24):
okay, so love to transition abit and learn how you went from
playing things like mousetrapand monopoly to making them.
Emma (10:39):
So I came at it from kind of a weird angle.
I know a lot of designers,especially more classic
designers, have a history ofplaying especially more hobby
board games.
A lot of people I know in thespace 10, 20, 30 years have been
playing classic or hobby boardgames and I still came more from
(11:00):
the video game side, like Ileft board games behind a little
bit after the mousetrap andMonopoly era, played a lot of
video games in the interim, didplay Catan in college, so I had
a little introduction to themore modern hobby games.
That had another big gap thereand wasn't until I moved to New
(11:23):
York City and kind of startedgetting into the video game and
board game scene.
That started opening up my eyesto board games again and was
introduced to the playtestcommunity in New York City which
is really robust a lot ofreally cool board game designers
out of there.
I made my my first board game,which was a Valentine's Day
(11:47):
themed game, complete withlittle construction paper cutout
hearts, very cute, very dorky,and somehow it was pretty good,
according to other people.
The people who saw it were likeyou should really do something
with this.
It a little uh, 20 card cardgame, two player, just kind of
(12:09):
back and forth secrets anddeception.
Um so I play, tested it andfound a publisher and yeah, just
kind of went from thereYeah, yeah, there was other
stuff in there as well, but yeah.
Courtney (12:30):
How did you find the Playtesters group in New York?
Emma (12:34):
The communities there were really kind of interconnected.
I was actually working for astartup and getting ready to run
a Kickstarter for my sciencefiction novel and I started
(12:55):
reaching out to different groupsand communities to do panels
and talks kind of a marketinglike, about crowdfunding.
And a lot of the people doingcrowdfunding in New York City
were in the game space because,especially then there was a lot
of video game kickstarters, sostarted to meet people there.
Uh, there's the New York CityGames Forum, which is now
(13:17):
Playcrafting, which is a greatorganization that did a lot of
like huge 100 person networkingevents.
Um started attending eventsthere and found the the game
design people through thoseconnections that's fun.
Courtney (13:33):
I always just love like learning, like yeah, we'll
get into the community becauseit's yeah yeah, it can be tricky
sometimes, but then it can alsojust be so completely random
that you're like, oh yeah, I metthis guy on the subway and
you're like, yeah, ok.
Emma (13:47):
Yeah, it can be very fortuitous.
Some of the people that I wasworking with at the time were
also because we were in a bigco-working startup space, as one
does in New York City, so wewould attend these events
together.
So there's a few things kind ofaligning at the same time to
get me into this new space.
Courtney (14:06):
That's great, yeah.
So you've made a lot of gamesover the years now, and I know
that you started with card gamesbefore you dove into like a
full onboard game with StarryNight Sky.
You now have this storytellinggame.
So I would love if you couldjust walk me through just your
(14:27):
game design journey and just howit's evolved over time.
Emma (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
I remember talking to someonewho had seen a lot of games made
, talking about early designersand how a lot of people
gravitate towards cards early onbecause it's very easy to
prototype, and I think that'sthat's true in a lot of ways.
(14:52):
You know, you can have a pieceof paper, cut it into little
scraps, rip it into scraps,write on them with a pen, you
know, and all of a sudden youhave a game for rapid
prototyping as well.
It's really fast to iterate oncards.
So definitely great place tostart.
I recommend, if people aregetting bogged down with things,
it's a good place to start.
Also, if you're doing simpler,more approachable, more family
(15:16):
friendly games, cards can begreat because as soon as you
start adding on other pieces, itcan definitely get more
elaborate.
The Heart Catchers, which isthat first game that Valentine's
Day game I made was a card gameand, funnily enough, what would
become Epilogue was my secondgame.
(15:39):
So I actually started workingon that, I think, 2016.
And we'll get into that alittle bit because it's gone
through many iterations to getto where it is.
But, yeah, also cards and thenAbandoned Artichokes, which is
the next kind of big game Istarted working on that was a
(16:00):
card game, card game.
But I had other things as wellwhere I was working with
components and different piecesand kind of experimenting with
the physicality of board games.
I think it took me a while.
It wasn't until Starry NightSky that I really took a full
game with board and a board game, you know board and pieces and
(16:21):
everything all the way to thefinish line, which I think I
feel very comfortable with cardsand the mechanics of cards.
But I think there's a lot offun stuff you can do with other
components as well and I'mactually prototyping something
right now that is very highcomponents.
So I'm excited about that andthe the potential of lots of fun
(16:42):
little bits oh yeah, I wasgonna ask like, would you do
another one?
Courtney (16:47):
But it sounds like you want to do nets.
Emma (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think the gosh my mind defaults to cards.
You know like how do Irepresent this with cards, and
even the high component one isvery card-based.
I've done a few game a day,prototyping weeks where I try
and do a quick and nerdyprototype every day for a week,
(17:10):
and one of the ones I did a fewyears back was games emma
larkins would never make, quoteunquote.
So, uh, two-player abstractstrategy game, area control game
, like heavy Euro game.
So I think it would be fun todo something, do another
(17:32):
prototyping week that was alllike like no card games, games
without cards or with very fewcards, like the seaside game
that I played that Ruel showedme a few days ago.
It was very fun and verysatisfying and just using the
token components.
So I think it's a really funspace to play in.
Courtney (17:52):
Yeah, I'm also just thinking of like a prototype a
day, Just like I mean, you know,obviously like there's game
jams and there's like all thelike writing challenges or
whatever, and I'm like, okay, Iget it, but also just like man
(18:12):
like, how do you come up withthese ideas?
Emma (18:14):
yeah, the I I do very mostly pretty simple games, and
when I say a game a day, it's ifit is a bigger game, it's like
a mechanic, or I mean the factthat artichokes came out of that
blows my mind, because that wasone that was kind of fast and
very fully formed.
But everything else is likeit's a six by six grid and I
have it's like checkers, but thecheckers are dice and they flip
(18:38):
onto another face every timethey move and then it's a game.
You, you know so kind of moreof a.
Some of them were more justthought exercises use the term
game very loosely sure, but Imean it's turned into some
(19:01):
really fun ones.
Yeah, yeah, it's any sort ofanything to really break
yourself out of your brain.
Habits can lead to some prettysurprising things.
You like I would never havethought I was capable of making
a game in a day before I did,and then I did it and I was like
(19:21):
, oh, I guess I was.
Courtney (19:27):
Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new
creators every episode, but Icould really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content, add your
questions to upcoming interviewsand you could even receive a
shout out on our site in anupcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventurescom.
Slash RPG.
(19:47):
And now back to the show.
Yeah, so, as I warned youbefore we started recording, I
love to talk about processes,yeah, and so I mean, obviously
it's going to be different,especially the type of game, how
many components you've gotgoing on, but maybe it just
makes sense to like break downwhat were your processes for the
(20:08):
card games, what were theprocesses for Starry Night Sky,
and then we will pause and talkabout what's coming up.
Emma (20:17):
So the start of the process is always the seed of
the inspiration, and I thinkthat's very fun to talk about
because I have used every singleseed.
I use lots of different typesof seeds.
Abandoned Artichokes was a name, first design, so I always like
(20:38):
to talk about the.
I made a little list ofalliterative game names on the
bus and I posted a picture of it.
Abandoned Lauderchokes was oneof the names on the list and
somebody said you got to makethat game.
So I made that game.
I've made games that were themefirst.
Starry Night Sky was themefirst, say.
(21:00):
Heartcatchers was moremechanics first, because I had
an idea of how it was going towork.
What is now epilogue was vibefirst because the idea came from
a dream and I had this visionof pareidolia or seeing things
in the cards and yeah.
(21:21):
So ideas can come from anywhere.
And that's always the start ofit, you know, having something
that's just compelling enoughthat you want to move forward
with it and then prototyping asquickly as possible, especially
new designers, because there'sonly so much you can figure out
(21:44):
in your head and a lot of peoplelike to kind of dwell on that
and think it through, but reallyas soon as the mechanics hit
paper or digital.
That's how you prototype andthat's when you start to see
things come together.
Put some mechanics on it, put abox around it, frame it, you
(22:05):
know, contain it and start toactually play it yourself to see
if it's something you want tomove forward with.
Then, pretty soon after, thatis playtesting.
Even if you think you'vecaptured something into a shape
you could call a game, there'sstill so much of it in your
(22:25):
brain that you're interpretingand filling in the gaps.
For so it's not until you putit in front of someone that you
see all those gaps andeverything falls apart.
I know this is a really toughspace, especially for newer
designers, and I've seen thatkind of crestfallen look and I
felt that many times myself ofwhen your precious, beautiful
(22:46):
diamond of a game turns out tobe glass and shatters and
crumbles all over the place andyou have to pick up the pieces
and then, yeah, scrapingtogether those pieces and making
some changes, play, testing itagain and just kind of iterating
on it until either you get itinto a shape that really
(23:10):
functions and you're reallyhappy with, or maybe not, you
know, and it goes on the shelfor in the trash, usually on the
shelf though, yeah, and afterthat, you know, comes all the
pitching and publication and allthe other pieces.
But yeah, the process it's allprocess, all collection of
(23:32):
different processes.
Courtney (23:34):
Do you use any digital platforms for any of the
initial prototype and playtesting before actually sourcing
out to factories?
Emma (23:46):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Especially more so these days.
I have always used Adobe Suitetools because I was lucky enough
to take a class in collegewithout which I never would have
figured it out, but the toolhas been incredibly useful and
powerful, especially onlyrecently when I figured out the
(24:09):
data merge for InDesign, whichlets me iterate and prototype on
cards very quickly, likerearrange, and print out a whole
deck with all my information ina spreadsheet.
And there's a NANDEC and there'sother tools that are available
for that if people don't haveaccess to Adobe Suite.
But it really makes a hugedifference Because I think one
(24:33):
of the biggest barriers to gamedesign is people not wanting to
make changes and especiallyspending too much time and
effort on any individualprototype and then not wanting
to make the changes that arenecessary to get it to the next
level.
So the more barriers you canremove to making your prototypes
quickly and efficiently, thebetter it is to to get those
(24:57):
prototypes spun up quickly.
And then, early on in thepandemic, I actually took my
physical in-person playtestgroup, digital, so we all had to
transition to digital tools tobe able to playtest our games,
which was tough but has had somebenefits, especially being able
to playtest remotely withpeople all over the world and
(25:19):
also to be able to pitch topublishers a lot more easily.
Courtney (25:23):
Yeah, I can definitely see that being one good side
effect.
Emma (25:27):
Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean you don't get the physicality of
it, which is tough and I dothink is important for games.
So definitely pros and cons.
Courtney (25:39):
Yeah, we did a fair amount of tabletop simulator in
that first year or two and itwas like, okay, I'm able to play
games, but man, is it clunky.
Emma (25:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Courtney (25:53):
Okay, mentioned it a couple times, so tell me about
epilogue all right, uh, epilogue.
Emma (26:01):
Epilogue is a cooperative storytelling game where you play
as ghosts trying to figure outhow you died together so you can
pass on to the other side.
As I mentioned before, it was agame that I started working on.
Uh, 2016, I know 2015, maybe2015 or 2016 and it was a game
idea that came to me in a dreamwhere I kind of woke up with
(26:24):
this idea of a spooky, creepy,you know, looking into static
and kind of seeing images emerge, and it was after Heartcatcher.
So I had made a game, gonethrough the publication process
and I knew it was something Iwanted to do more of.
So I was excited to startmaking new things.
So I briefly went with thisidea of seeing images and cards.
(26:50):
I looked into some of theGoogle Deep Dream weird, creepy
stuff and couldn't figure outhow to make that into a game.
So my brain pivoted and thoughtwell, you know, people see
words in collections of letters.
So I took words and choppedthem up into chunks, put the
(27:12):
chunks onto different cards andstarted fitting the cards
together to reassemble the wordsand very quickly saw kind of
the potential of that,especially having a lot of
fragments on a lot of differentcards and being able to make a
lot of different words, and thatjust making the words with the
cards was super fun.
And from there my brain jumpedto this idea of hey, what if you
(27:36):
made a story from the words?
Because it seemed like kind ofthe most natural leap from there
and so the storytelling aspectcame in.
My brain wanted to put a lot ofwrappers around it and try to
put a lot of mechanics onto it.
So I was stuck on this ideathat you were actually playing
(27:59):
as kids in the woods and youwould go into this creepy house
and there would be little piecesof paper ripped up and kind of
sitting on the floor and you tryand assemble them and then
there was a ghost talking to youthrough the papers and pretty
quickly kind of let go some ofthose more elaborate pieces and
(28:20):
then spent about a year tryingto add fear tokens and people
would collect cards when theytold part of the story and again
trying to make it more of aquote unquote game, because I
was already playtesting it andpeople were telling me it wasn't
game enough.
Some people were, but otherpeople were saying they
absolutely loved it.
(28:41):
So eventually I listened tothose people, and so Confabula
Rasa was born, which was theoriginal name of the game,
because I'm nerdy and elaborateand the same person who
published Heartcatchers wasinterested in publishing the
game, so we were talking aboutit.
(29:02):
I spent a lot of time working onthe art for the game even
though into tea, to kind of giveit this look of the old, faded
pieces of paper and at the timeI was working full time as a
(29:29):
video game marketing businessperson for a small indie video
game company, so I was going todifferent shows and learning
about all the conventions thatwere out there.
I learned about the IndieMegabooth, so later I was able
to show Confabula Rasa in theIndie Megabooth, print physical
copies, so actually sold copiesof Confabula Rasa, and
(29:53):
eventually, through all thoseefforts, found another publisher
to publish it.
They changed the name to andthen we died.
We changed the art to thewriter, wait tarot deck art,
which is in the public domain,and we launched the game at
essen in 2018 17 8 2018 prettysure it was 2018.
(30:17):
So that was very exciting goingto Essen for the first time and
launching the game, sold abunch of copies.
Then that publisher went under.
I got the rights back to it andit was always kind of my baby
when I was pitching other gamesto publishers.
At the end of the meeting I'dbe like and.
I also have this littlestorytelling it's like 26 card
(30:38):
storytelling game, if you wantand everyone thought it was
really cool but didn't reallyhave a home for it Until Anna
Maria launched Violet DaisyGames and was looking for
story-based, story-type gamesand it was a match made in
heaven and that's how Epiloguewas born.
I mean, it was a long drawn-outbirth process.
(30:58):
Seven eight-year birth processof Epilogue was born.
I mean, it was a long drawn outbirth process.
Seven, eight year birth processof epilogue no, I mean that is
really cool that I forgot likeit's that you have been able to
iterate so much, I guess, yeah,and I mean like it's very sad
that your original publisher forit went under, but yeah it
(31:22):
means you got to keep working onit, yeah, and shout out to you
know, anna Maria, of course,estefania Rodriguez and Arnel
Ballut, the graphic designer andthe artist, who are also two
dear, dear friends of mine, andjust the concentration of talent
working on this game is morethan I ever could have imagined,
(31:43):
and the art is incredible andit's just it's going to be such
a beautiful game and I'm soexcited for that to have become
a possibility yeah, how did youtwo get linked up?
Courtney (31:54):
well, I met Annemarie online gosh, was she?
Emma (31:58):
I?
I think she was on the EastCoast, dc.
I think and yeah, I'm trying toremember Sorry, anna Maria when
exactly it was that we met inperson I meet so many people at
shows over the years and sheactually moved out here to
Seattle and we started chattingmore, getting to know each other
(32:21):
, you know, becoming friends,and then just working up to this
publication opportunity.
And then she hired Arnell forthe art and then we brought on
Estefania and, yeah, it's justanother one of those things
where all the the stars alignedfor the perfect combination of
(32:41):
creators.
Courtney (32:43):
That's why I love this industry.
Emma (32:44):
So much, yeah.
Yeah, it was like, oh, you know, I'm having this person do the
art and you're like, oh my gosh,either you love that, you know
that person and love them, youdon't know them and you're in
awe, or, you know, fan crushingon the person.
You're like I can't believeyou're getting that person to do
(33:04):
art for my game.
I'm dying.
Yeah, it's lovely.
Courtney (33:10):
So how did bringing in this storytelling aspect like
just differ from your normalprocesses?
Emma (33:20):
I think one of the biggest parts is people's perception
and kind of the audience for thegame, and I had mentioned
earlier a little bit likepeople's perceptions about the
definition of the word game,which, spending more time in
(33:40):
this industry, you know, beingon the Ludology podcast for a
few years and having a lot ofthese discussions my own
definition and interpretationhave changed over time.
I have a very broad definition.
I used to say that peopleworking towards goals are making
(34:03):
decisions in pursuit of a goalwithin a predefined space.
But even that Candyland, Iwould absolutely say, is a game
and you're not makinginteresting decisions in that
game.
So I think there's a lot ofdifferent definitions for game
and I definitely would call ablog a game.
There's people who definitelywould not.
(34:24):
So it's interesting navigatingthat space.
I think it's important.
I don't want to say thosepeople are wrong, because I
think when people are sharingthese things in conversation,
when they're recommending gamesto other people, that word has
weight and interpretations and alot of it is comes down to is.
This going to be an experiencethat I enjoy and I think when
(34:46):
people share these things, it'sone of the biggest ways that
games become known and spreadamongst communities.
It's important that they havethat language that they can use
together to talk to people aboutit.
So that's been an interestingthing is like my ideas of what a
game is.
Others people's idea of what agame is, I would say.
(35:08):
The other piece is just peoplewill quibble about whether or
not they call it a game, buteven people who don't think it's
a game are surprised by howmuch they enjoy the experience.
You know just the.
I think when people come into agame like man and all
artichokes, they have a prettyset idea of what it is.
(35:31):
It usually fulfills what theyexpect from it.
They're like great, that wasfun epilogue.
They come into it and it's.
A lot of people haven't had anysort of cooperative storytelling
experience like that before, sothey don't know what to expect
and just how much it surprisesand delights people, even people
who don't think of themselvesas storytellers.
(35:53):
I like to say anyone can be astoryteller and it's been proven
over and over again withepilogue and it's been just so
wonderful to see people cometogether and enjoy it, even if
they don't think they have.
Whatever it takes.
It's like humans are story, arestorytellers.
(36:13):
Every person tells storiesevery single day.
I my car broke down on the wayhome from work and I had to call
a cab.
That's a story.
We're always telling stories,so it's just fun to give people
a tool to do that in a fun andoften hilarious way.
Courtney (36:33):
So earlier you mentioned the part of piecing
words together from letterfragments, but I would love if
you could maybe provide anexample of like how that's tying
into telling the story yeah,yeah.
Emma (36:48):
So the each card has six or seven word fragments on it.
The word fragments were decidedon very intentionally.
Speaking about systems, Iworked on an algorithm to
actually take the thousand mostcommon, like four, five and six
(37:10):
letter words, break them intobeginning and end fragments and
then rank those fragments basedon frequency and use the most
frequent ones on the cards tomake it more likely that you can
make more words.
And each card can make like1700 words or something wild
like that.
So you might have a beginningfragment on one of the cards.
(37:33):
That's like GRE, for example,and you always start with one
card on the table and that has abunch of fragments, so it might
have an end fragment of AT onit.
So you could lay the your carddown on top of the card on the
table and then, together the GREand the AT double check my
(37:55):
spelling in my brain Make theword great.
But because the cards aredouble-sided and there's
multiple fragments, you mightalso have a c on your card.
So instead of making great, youcould rotate your card and use
the c and the at and make theword cat.
So any card you have and anycard that's already on the table
(38:16):
.
You can make many differentwords, choose one of them, put
your card down and the reallycool twist that I really like
about this game is you don'thave to use your word.
You're going to point tosomeone else and they have to
work your word into the story.
And what's really fun aboutthat is it really takes the
burden off of you as the wordmaker.
(38:39):
And that was a pretty toughchoice there, because a lot of
people's instinct is to want touse the word that they make and
tell the story, and a lot ofpeople do say that to me.
They're like, oh, but I want touse the word, and it's
sometimes in games.
There will be mechanics thatare so important that you kind
(39:01):
of have to go against people'sinstincts.
I will.
I like going with people'sinstincts, but in this case it's
all more collaborative.
You know, I make a word and youhave to use it, and then when
you're done, you make a word andsomeone else has to use it.
And that shared improv nature.
It's a very improv style gameof people making words, pointing
to each other, talking, andthen adding another card to the
(39:24):
tableau to make a new word andpointing to someone else, and
just keep doing that until thelast card is played and everyone
dies.
Courtney (39:34):
Oh right, everyone dies, everyone dies.
Yes, yep, in case you forgot,it was about figuring out how
you died.
Figuring out how you died, yeah, yeah, it sounds so fun, like I
love storytelling games so much, like I feel like you've
(39:55):
probably played gloom, maybe,maybe not um, I have it.
Emma (40:03):
I might have played it once.
I'm trying to remember nowbecause I just in chatting with
keith baker and just hearingabout it over the years, you
know, is something I'm like thatwould be fun.
And every time people hearingabout it over the years, you
know, is something I'm like thatwould be fun.
And every time people talkabout it I'm like that would be
fun.
But I've, I've just talkedabout it so much at this point I
don't know if I've actually Ican, and I see the cards and I
see how they stack up the clearand how they stack up yes, maybe
(40:27):
, possibly, and I don't thinkI've ever actually played.
I think I've just thought aboutit enough that it's entered my
psyche.
That's fair.
But yeah, exactly the kind ofgloomy trying to give people
happy birthdays and things sothat you can be the gloomiest of
people yeah, it's like I'm justtrying to think, like I think
that that's the onlystorytelling card based game
(40:50):
that I've played.
Courtney (40:51):
Yeah, so now I'm like very excited to try Apple yeah,
and I like storytelling games.
Emma (40:59):
Every other storytelling game I've played has been much
more of a framework, moreelaborate, either more
mechanized or just morestructured in creating
characters and creatingscenarios and world building.
There's so many things outthere that make for interesting
stories, or even in these daysit's starting to merge together
(41:24):
with journaling RPGs andstorytelling RPGs and the line
is blurring between all thesedifferent mediums, which I think
is really cool.
But I really like the lightnessthese days.
Just anything where I have todo preparation or learn
elaborate rules, I just like, oh, it's such a hump to get over.
(41:47):
So I like providing an optionof something.
That's seriously like put acard down, use the word, not
octopus, because that would betoo long of a word.
Use the word diet, you know,and, or whatever it is, and go
from there.
Courtney (42:04):
You know, card go yeah , it feels really accessible.
Yeah, yeah, like I'm looking atmy collection right now and I'm
like, all right, I have a fairnumber of storytelling games,
but yeah, they take like an hourto set up yeah, yeah, and I
think that's great.
Emma (42:20):
You know, I've definitely played some and had really just
eye-opening experiences, I think, just the collaborative.
You go to a different world.
You know, it's just intense,lovely experiences and I like
that this takes that, wraps itjust in a little package, little
consumable, 10-15 minutes, andlike there's, there's your story
(42:42):
.
Courtney (42:43):
Play it at a bar, you know, play it, play it on the
beach, wherever you are so nowthat you are, at the time of
this recording, gearing up forkickstarter by the time it comes
out it might have launched orjust be about to launch, but is
there anything else that's goingon right now to help prepare
for that kickstarter?
Like, how are you feeling aboutthings?
Emma (43:04):
uh, good, good time it passes.
You know time she passes.
I swear I feel like I blink anda month has passed, because I
had it in my head.
It's like, oh yeah, threemonths.
We got three months and nowit's less than a month.
Oh my gosh.
Luckily, I love working withpublishers.
(43:24):
Anna Maria is absolutelybearing the brunt of this and is
doing an absolutely incrediblejob.
We're going to be working withsome other people as well.
So right now, yeah, we'redefinitely in the crunch period
of all the.
The review copies have been sentout and marie has done some
really fun stuff with sendingcopies to people.
(43:47):
We have a lot of really lovelyfolks who are going to get the
game and look at the game, soI'm very excited to start to
hear what everyone thinks aboutit.
Although it is kind of fun, somany of these people have just
built up relationships over theyears and it's like epilogue.
It's like, oh yeah, like weplayed and then we died, uh,
five or six years ago.
(44:08):
So they're gonna have themechanics of it, but be able to
see it with the new art, whichI'm so excited about and, yeah,
just getting the word out aboutit because I think even with it
having been published in itsprevious iteration.
I think we did a few hundredcopies, you know, and I always
felt like I just want people tohave this game because I think
(44:32):
once it's in people's hands, uh,just really fun stuff is gonna
start happening.
So I'm excited for that yes,I'm excited for you.
Courtney (44:42):
You know, I do want to circle back, just kind of
speaking about publishers.
Emma (44:46):
You've three now uh, I mean five, six seven ish.
Courtney (44:55):
Yeah, never mind, you only mentioned three my bad yeah
yeah, okay.
So you've worked with a lot ofpublishers.
Yeah, having done so, what aresome elements that you look for
when you are starting up a newpublishing partnership?
Emma (45:14):
I can speak yeah, I mean I have to say I've been so lucky
and grateful to have incrediblepublishing relationships that
even the company thatunfortunately went out of
business the company thatunfortunately went out of
business I'm still really closeto the person who works as my
(45:37):
publisher there.
I a lot of people I knew beforeI started working with them.
You know some people say don'twork with your friends, but for
me I think that that having somelevel of closeness and trust
with people is really importantfor those relationships.
(45:57):
So all of the smallerpublishers especially that I've
worked with have been peoplethat I've known and trusted
because I talked to a lot ofdesigners and a lot of people in
the industry, you know, andthere's a lot of horror stories
sounds like a lot, but some ofit's pretty bad.
You know with what a lot ofpeople have been through.
(46:19):
I have to say, especiallydesigners from marginalized
backgrounds that I know havesuffered kind of the worst of it
.
So more important than ever tokind of just know the people,
either by reputation or frompersonal relationship, which is
tough.
Again, I've been very lucky tohave met a lot of people, made a
(46:39):
lot of connections over theyears, so I do know these people
.
You know there's talk throughthe grapevine so you can kind of
get a feel for things onceyou're in the know.
Kind of get a feel for thingsonce you're in the know.
So yeah, just having having thetrust that they'll do right with
your, your art, with your babyand trust and then then
verifying that.
(47:00):
And that's with contracts andconversations.
And you have to have reallytough conversations.
And, like I have very heavytouch on all my games, I know
some people, either throughpreference or accident, will
just hand their game off and itgoes and it gets published.
You know, but the publishersare only human.
(47:25):
I want to see the art for thestuff, because there's things
that I really care about in art,like having diversity of
representation, because there'sthings that I really care about
in art, like having diversity ofrepresentation.
So I want to make sure that aproduct I have my name on is
something that aligns with myprinciples, the rule books.
(47:47):
You know that's really hard toget right.
So I want to have final touchon that and I work that into my
contracts.
I have those conversations upfront just to make sure that
it's a little more work.
You know to be that high touch,but in the end, you know, it's
a product that I can really beproud of.
Courtney (48:08):
I think there's a lot of really good advice and
learnings in there.
For sure.
Yeah, it has to be nervewracking, especially when it's
like the first time working withsomeone and you're like this is
my baby.
Emma (48:18):
Please, yeah, don't screw it up yeah, I was, um, I knew a
game lawyer when I was in NewYork City who actually hired to
look over my first one or twocontracts, and that was a huge
help.
And then I learned a lot.
And for newer people in theindustry, I know it can be hard
to get in touch with people, butnow there's organizations like
the Tabletop Game Alliance Iforget the exact name of it, but
(48:41):
there's people like me you canreach out to about contract
terms, and getting that allnailed down is really important.
So, like, don't be afraid toreach out to other designers.
Like, we love talking to peopleabout these things and making
sure that people are taken careof.
Courtney (48:58):
One of the questions that I like to ask in all my
interviews is that you know wework in this industry because we
love it, but it can be hard,and so what would you say has
been like the most challengingpart, or just like some
challenges that you've beenencountering over the years?
Emma (49:19):
oh yeah, I mean I would say the.
You can't work in this industryor any industry, I'm sure
without the community and therelationships, and 90% of the
time that's good and that'sgreat, but then there are other
(49:44):
times when just the people orcompanies or organizations will
do things that you don't agreewith, and that's always an
interesting struggle to navigate.
You know, for example, the wholeAI art thing and I'm very
(50:04):
strongly against AI art and nowpublishers different publishers
are having stances on that, youknow.
And how, how do you moveforward in your relationships
and in the industries as peopleare doing this or a lot of, you
know, just kind of bad actors,and how do you stand up for your
(50:27):
principles while navigating aprofession?
I think it's a balance, youknow.
I think the biggest thing isjust moving forward and chipping
away and standing in your truthas much as you can, while
trying to use whatever powerinfluence.
(50:49):
You have to make the changesthat you want to see and make
sure that this stays a goodplace for for everyone I think
that's very wise, because yeahlike every time, it feels like
we've gotten through one hurdle.
Courtney (51:07):
There's another one and you know like where so much
marketing has to happen onsocial media, and then just how
much you find out one thingabout one person and you're like
, well, shit.
Emma (51:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is.
It's tough and I think eachperson needs to make the
decisions about how they'regoing to approach those
situations.
I think you can't always be100%.
(51:41):
You know you're working with apublisher who publishes 50 other
games a year, you know, andmaybe they'll publish a game for
someone that you don't agreewith.
Or they'll like a publisher oran organizational platform, a
social media personality, whoyou don't agree with and you
can't.
I don't think the answer is tochuck everything into the trash.
(52:04):
I think if you do have thecapability to just, you know,
continue to stand, share youropinions.
You got to keep working.
You know you got to make aliving, but also kind of use
your position and power to tryand just keep pushing that
needle, you know.
Courtney (52:25):
Yeah, All right To flip it around.
Looking back over the lastseveral years of working on
these games, what has been themost rewarding part?
Emma (52:36):
I would also say the people in the relationships.
So, as tough as it can be,navigating amongst people and
organizations and situations,I've met almost all of the best
people I know through thisindustry over the last few years
(52:58):
, seeing the people whoparticipate in the industry as
players and as fans and gettingto share my games with them and
seeing the looks on their faceswhen a game kind of clicks for
them.
To give an example, I was atXOXO Fest in Portland a few
weeks ago and got to play, oractually got to see, played
(53:23):
Epilogue with a group of sevenpeople and they really got into
this story of just having such agood time.
And later, later or the nextday, one of them came up to me
and was just raving about thegame and that was their favorite
and they had such a goodexperience with it.
Like they, their team had justwon the Super Bowl or so that's
(53:49):
how excited they were about thegame.
And you know, just to be ableto create something that
inspires that kind of joy youknow in people is incredible.
So there's a lot of joy thatcomes out of this and I'm
grateful to be a part of that.
Courtney (54:09):
That's so fun, that's so special.
Emma (54:12):
Yeah, it makes my heart happy, it makes me feel warm
yeah, definitely.
Courtney (54:18):
Well, I cannot believe that we're already at basically
an hour yeah but yeah, emma, ifpeople want to find you and
find epilogue when it launches,where should they go?
Emma (54:36):
yeah, so the depending on timing, the kickstarter violet
daisy games uh epilogue.
Right now we're doing the thepreview page and at a time in
the future it will launch and belive and that's going to be on
Kickstarter.
There's also information on theViolet Daisy games website and
(55:04):
you can also find Emma Larkinswherever fine goods are sold.
So I have websites, instagram,blue sky, the old sites, other
sites as well that shall remainnameless.
You can connect with me.
If you look up Emma Larkinspretty much anywhere and don't
find the travel author from the90s, then you'll probably find
me there.
Courtney (55:24):
Perfect.
I will have links to those inthe show notes.
Obviously, epilogue is the bigone, but is there anything else
coming up that you're excitedabout?
And allowed to talk about?
Anything in the works?
Emma (55:37):
yeah, nothing really on the radar.
I'm kind of in the pitchingslash development process for
things.
I feel like, again time I havestuff that's I'm hoping to get
ready to the point of beingready to talk about very soon,
(56:00):
but really it's epilogue is thebig one that's happening yeah.
Courtney (56:04):
I think that that's enough you?
Emma (56:07):
I don't know.
I always want to be do I like?
I have stuff, like I have allthis thing going, things going
on in my head and things I wantto get out there.
But yeah, I'm excited for ablog.
Courtney (56:16):
I'm also excited for a blog.
Emma, thank you so much forcoming on today.
This has been so fun.
Thanks, yeah, thanks, forhaving me.
All right, listeners, we aregoing to wrap up the interview
portion of our time today, butfor patrons I I am now gonna end
this section and thenimmediately start the next fun
(56:37):
quick question blitz.
Um, so for those of you who areunaware, on patreon we do a fun
little extra segment where Iask emma a bunch of more silly
questions and we learn a littlebit more about her outside of
all of the fun game talk that wejust did.
And you can find that if you goto patrioncom slash role play
(56:58):
grow.
Thank you so much, emma.
Thank you.
You just finished anotherepisode of role play grow.
To check out the show notes andtranscript from today's episode
, you can go tolightheartadventurescom To keep
up with every episode.
Please subscribe on your podcastplayer of choice and if you're
(57:20):
enjoying the show, I wouldabsolutely love if you would
leave me a review and share thisepisode with your friends.
Your review might even getfeatured on an upcoming episode.
To contact us, you can emailroleplaygrow at gmailcom.
There are a lot of social mediasites out there right now.
So look for roleplaygrow forthe show account and look for
(57:40):
either Ketra or Ketra RPG for myaccounts.
Lastly, I want to give aspecial shout out to our editor,
sam Atkinson.
Your help is always appreciated, sam.
Thank y'all so much forlistening and I'll see you next
time on Role Play Grow.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.