Beyond Solitaire Podcast 237: David Thompson on Managing Multiple Designs

0:20 It's ad break time. I'm proud to announce that the Beyond Solitire podcast is sponsored by Central Michigan University's Center for Learning through Games and Simulations. I'm personally very excited because CLGs has a springtime crowdfunding project on the way. They'll be publishing a revised edition of Jason Morning Stars the Blue Way, which you can hear about in episode 224 of this podcast. But for now, let's get on with the show. Hey gamers, this is Liz David from Beyond Solitire, and I am here on the pod with my most regular repeat guest, David Thompson. Uh, we're just here for our, I guess, seasonal check-in.

0:52 How you doing, David?

0:53 I'm good. I'm good. How are you?

0:55 I'm good. I mean, not that we wouldn't know that because we meet every week, but we'll pretend for podcast sake. Um, but uh before we get talking about codeesign in general, our code designs are like making it out into the world. I've seen somebody sent me a picture. They got their copy of Queen of Spies yesterday.

1:13 Yep. Yeah. I I was a little bit surprised. I didn't know that had already shipped. I mean, it's way ahead of schedule. So, it was super cool to see it out in the wild and people playing it and yeah, asking questions already. So, that's greatness.

1:25 Yeah. I can't even believe it. Like I I'm like dealing with processing that something that we made is actually out there.

1:32 I know. Well, I know. And I know that we're both so busy right now that it's like you sometimes forget to enjoy like take time to enjoy what what has been finished and is out in the world. Yeah.

1:44 Because you're so busy with other things. But yeah, as soon as we get our like actual retail versions, uh it'll be cool to see like and just kind of enjoy it for a moment.

1:54 Oh yeah. I um I'm really really happy about it. Also um I'll be posting a video about this soon everyone or if I haven't already. Uh but we have an early prototype of Night Witches which I think I see on the table behind you back there.

2:07 That is Yep. It is. It is right there. My son and I played it. We played the first mission two days ago. And so the intent for me is to just play through everything. you know, you and I as we were sort of working through all the tweaks that need to be made to the final production version is to just play through the whole campaign with with my kids, my wife, whoever. I gota gota gota gota gota gota gota gota gota gota gota I gota get a a you know a partner in there. So

2:33 yeah, gota gotta get through it. No, it's I'm actually really excited to like be playing mine. I um so you know it's not the final copy everybody but it's our first like factory proof and so we are going through and thinking about what needs to change. Um you know Ian made a couple of adjustments to the pieces and like you know the graphic design has impacted the mechanics of the game somewhat. So we were like figuring out how to reflect that in the rules. Um it's really cool actually. It's neat to be at this stage as opposed to like where's night witches? I don't know like for like two years. Yeah, I mean we're in like Yeah, we are in very much like just Yeah, it's just physical production stuff now, right? So, that's really it's exciting to see it in that state.

3:18 Yeah. Yeah.

3:20 And and this is so funny, Liz. We we've talked about this before for sure. Uh you know, you get this this thing out and I'm setting it up to play with my son. We I haven't played Night Wishes since we demoed it at conventions like a year ago, right? Or maybe more. And so you always were like, "Is this game any good?" I don't remember. Like, "Does this game suck?" So, so it was fun to get out with him and like, "Oh, this is really good." He had never, my daughter had played it with me a lot during our prototyping, but he had never played it before, so it was brand new to him. And it was really cool to see like you could see like he's learning the game, right? And then by about halfway through he's grocked all the mechanics of the game and then by the end of the mission and we're just in the first mission like he is terrified because he's taken damage, you know, we're down to the last bomb with the last fuel over the last target and it's like it all comes down to a single success check. And I mean you could see like in the the his in his eyes he's like, "Oh my god, are we gonna make this?" I was like, "Oh, the game's good." Okay.

4:24 Yep. I also I'm like, you know, I it is it is weird like the more distance you get from something you made, the more it's like coming to a new thing when you return to it.

4:36 Um I'm actually kind of glad of that now as we're doing some rules editing because the rules look fresh to me because I forgot that I wrote them. So it's like reading something that somebody else made.

4:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That's right.

4:48 Um it's it's good times. Also, you know, you and I have some things that we are working on quietly. Um, so we have one game that's being looked at that we did with Roger Tankersley.

5:02 Yeah, that's right.

5:03 Um, so that's a game about watching birds because David and I only make history games. Um, we have our top secret writing project that is off with um, some readers to make sure that it's going in the right direction and we're starting to have initial meetings for a next game. And I thought it might be just kind of fun to talk about our process and then we can kind of spread out and think about how we're working with other code designers. So like um, how would you like so we're working on we're working on a new game. We're starting to do the historical research. Like how would you describe I guess that process to somebody who's like I want to pick a historical topic make a game like what are we doing? Yeah. I mean, I think that I think that the process that you and I are doing now with this new game that we're looking at is similar to that the way I generally operate and probably similar to how you do. It's like, okay, this is a historical topic that we are interested in independent of designing a game for, right? Like I don't think either of us have ever set out to I want to make a game about X topic now. I'll go research the topic. It's almost always the other way, right? Like, oh yeah, this topic is super interesting. I want to make a game about it. Right? And so like the process is typically we we find out about a topic or we learn about it or whatever.

6:20 We we decide like oh this is a topic that needs a game. We're really passionate about the topic for whatever reason. Then we start the research process and during that process we aren't super concerned about the mechanisms, right? It's like okay let's dig in. Let's find out. Let's do the research. identify quote unquote where is the game kind of then like do a more focused review of the topic itself identifying all of the the uh bits that you want the game to be able to communicate right and then after you've done all of that then you circle back finally now you start having the conversation about like okay well what are the mechanisms in the game to reflect those key points of communication because I don't think either of us are like in the camp of games should be simulations of history, right?

7:13 No,

7:14 that's not my thing, right? We're not trying to simulate a battle or simulate. We're trying to we're trying to evoke feelings, right? And we're trying to communicate key points.

7:23 So,

7:24 yeah, that's very funny you said that because I was like, I think we're more into evocation than simulation was how I was going to put that. Like,

7:30 I I want to I want to find like a feeling that I think

7:33 I want to capture, right, and then see if we can like get it. Well, and and that's a I mean that's a really good point. So, like I'll go back to the example of my son when we were playing Night Witches. The Night Let's V be very clear to players. If you're looking for a P2 flight simulator, bombing simulation game, Night Witches ain't it. Go find a different game, right? It is very from like the way that you're, you know, the board is unfolding in front of you and all of that. It in some ways it's very abstract, right? But I would submit that it provided it evoked the the feeling that we want players to have with the way he felt at the end of that game more than a game that's like hyper simulationist and all of that stuff, right? So yeah, it it's definitely a balance, but I mean for sure for us we we are in the same camp of wanting to players to feel something more than to simulate a historical thing.

8:28 Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. I'm writing like a little piece that we talked about right now uh like recently. Um it's I've basically settled on talking about accuracy versus authenticity in historical games. And I feel like what I feel like they don't necessarily go together because if you're too accurate, you lose the vibe. And if you're very viby and you're going for that authentic feeling, then you can't have too much chrome on it. And so you've got to like balance it. And I feel like you and I very very much trend towards the authentic feeling as we understand it as opposed to the very specific factual replication of things.

9:09 Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that for sure.

9:12 I mean the research is grounded in facts. We know the facts, but I'd rather read those than play them.

9:20 Yeah. Yeah. And I mean to be honest with you, I look at gate I look at games as like like each media has its own strengths and weaknesses, right? And so games I I want to learn about a topic through a game, but I want the game to kind of give me the sense of feeling about the topic.

9:38 Yeah.

9:38 If I want to if I then want to go and pick up a book and read about, you know, the specific order of battle or something that that's, you know, and even you can even have that light touch on components and stuff, right? And that's and I've done games where that's the case. But uh I think you you lean into the strengths of each media, right? And so games exist to to give you that feeling of a topic rather than to try to account every single fact about it.

10:04 Yeah. Yeah. That you can read. I feel like in some ways, you know, games aren't always used this way, but I think sometimes games are good at showing you the why.

10:14 So you can read that someone did something. But if you want to model like choices or points of tension, I think a game could show that better than a book in a way because it could put you in the shoes of a historical person who then has to make relevant decisions based on like the situation at hand.

10:32 Yeah. And to me, that's like the magic of what a game can do because you can kind of like narrativeize history and it'll be like, oh, you know, Napoleon wanted X and he had this political challenge, so he did Y. And you can make that entertaining, but how much more illustrative can it be if you are Napoleon in the game and you're like given an array of choices and roadblocks and then you have to make the call yourself and try to see it through. I think that is like the particular magic of like a game narrative.

11:05 Yeah. And I mean I think even at the most basic level if you think about like the most prototypical whatever but Hex encounter game you know you can read a book about a battle right and you can this is what happened historically and you're like okay that's fine. I understand the historical resolution of this battle. But then you get a hex encounter or what it doesn't matter, but let's just say a hex encounter game about that same battle and you array all of the the counters onto the map and you look at the geography and you look at the disposition of forces and you're like, "Oh, okay. Now I understand why the battle unfolded the way it did. It had to do with how the forces were initially just, you know, the disposition of those forces, the constraints of geography, and that's what a game allows for.

11:50 Yeah. that a that you know a even a map in a book might not be able to communicate as well, right?

11:55 Yeah. Yeah. For for me, I often like I've actually thought I should just switch my YouTube to some sort of board and book series because I um I really like to read a book and play the game or play the game and read a book and kind of like do it together as a paired activity. Um, but right now for research, you know, I've been really really enjoying like reading these accounts, like picking out really good money quotes that reflect what we're looking for because it's like I knew it was there. I knew I was reading this correctly. Um, but also like okay, so what are some problems that these people had in this battle? And like what are some challenges in terms of like where they were and where the enemy was? Like how do we like reflect this? Like making that list is great because it's going to like grow the mechanisms that we choose because we'll know the facts that let us like pick the most evocative mechanisms, but it's not going to be like a onetoone thing and nor do I want it to be.

12:54 Yeah. I mean, it's like it's like writing a book, right? The book has to have conflict in it, right? And I don't mean like physical conflict. I mean conflict and tension. And so the game needs to have the same thing, right? Where are all the tension points? Where are all the piece the points of conflict in the in the whatever it is the story you're telling? And making sure the game evokes that.

13:13 Yeah. What's really funny is that doing that also does make the game easier to pitch.

13:18 Um

13:18 y

13:19 because knowing that knowing where your tension points are, I think it makes the design better.

13:24 It helps you always make the right decisions about your design as decision points come up. So like I I'm looking back at night, which is in its more mature form now, right? And I think about that or about Queen of Spies. is like every point where you and I had to make a decision about like the design could go this way or it could go this other way. Um we had like a core feeling to try to return to

13:46 and I just think that that was exactly what we needed.

13:51 Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think an extension of that is um I try to be super conscious of what I call my Chrome budget when I'm making a game, right? And so like level of complexity or your grid or whatever you want to call it, but um you know we talked about right so we're we're researching really you're leading the research on the ne the next game we're working on and you're going to go through and you're going to write down all of the key pieces and we can use that list to make sure that okay if we've agreed that all of these things have to exist in the game then at some point

14:24 at some point you have to make tough decisions about the game design and say that like okay we can try to be as elegant and streamlined as we possibly want to be, but at some point you might have to consider a subsystem or something

14:36 that's going to add grit or chrome to the game. And then you look back at that list and you're like, "Okay, we have to make a choice, right?" Like, if we're going to introduce the level of Chrome in this game by X, it has to it has to be there for a reason, right? We don't I'm comfortable saying that you and I don't typically exist in the game design school of thought that every single thing that ever happened historically needs a chrome rule. Right?

15:00 No.

15:01 So it has to be a very carefully considered thing. And so we go back to that list of like well we said it was super important and non-negotiable. So now let's what's the most elegant way we can include that in the game.

15:12 Yeah. And it's very interesting to be working on this while also working on Foxes and Lions with Paul. Um, so for those of you who want to hear about Fox's lines, we did an episode about it a couple weeks ago, but um, basically Fox's is very chromy. It's in a very chromy series. Um, and Paul is a subject expert. He's a Renaissance scholar. And so I've been learning about the Renaissance with him and like having a really great time. Um, but our like whenever we have a conflict, it's usually about chrome reduction. Um, because uh, I'm like, okay, well, what are the broad strokes? because that's how I always think about it. But, you know, that Here I Stand series is also a series where it's like, okay, this little card with a little historical detail does something funny. And so, we're like negotiating with Joe, our developer, right, about like what is the correct level of like weird facts that we can insert into this game without overwhelming it. And, you know, we need to make sure that it is like no more complicated than Virgin Queen. And we need to make sure that it's something that's like not no more a pain in the butt to play than any other game in that series.

16:17 Yeah. But you know that but that's an important like that's an important extension of this conversation because that is that is all about player expectation.

16:26 Yeah.

16:26 Right. So most people that know our work are going to know us from Night Witches and Queen of Spies and stuff. And if the next game we come out with is a 4.5 complexity six-hour game from the two of us, you're like, "Whoa, that's weird. That's not like that's not a typical Dave and Liz design." Um, conversely, obviously anybody that buys Foxes and Lions knows it comes from the the Here I Stand series and their expectation for Chrome Budget is going to be calibrated accordingly, right? So now I will say that I think I so I played Foxes and Lions at um Circle DC. I've never played a game in the series, right? I know I know only vaguely of what the series is, right? I know it through reputation. Uh I was surprised by how not complicated it was. Now obviously you and Paul don't come in the box, right? So you're not going to be there to help me with the game and explain the rules, but I thought that the core rules of the game were pretty straightforward. So, um I that's just my way of telling people, anybody that's listening that hasn't engaged with the series, uh it might not be as terrifying as as you might be led to believe.

17:34 No, it just takes time. Uh one thing I'm actually working on, I don't think it's going to go in the game box, but I'm planning to release it on BG when we're ready, is I've been working on like a very chatty like what can I do and why would I bother kind of teach to the game. Um, and so you won't get me in a box, but you will probably get me as a PDF download like explaining like here are the concepts and like this is why you want to do these different things. Um, you know, if you want the super details of the dice modifiers and stuff, go to the rule book, but like here's the basics because that's what I wish I had for my first game of Here I Stand and for Virgin Queen. And so I'm making one that's for foxes, but that also explains like larger series concepts because I want people to be able to play and have a good time. um because I love the series. Uh it's just like the on-ramp is kind of big. So, you can find other experienced people to teach you, which is what I've had the blessing of doing.

18:25 Or if you want to get started on your own, you're going to have to like figure it out. And so, the teacher in me wants to make that easier for people. I'll probably also make like once I have like a nice copy of Fox's Lions to work with and our rules have kind of settled. Um I fully intend to do like a bunch of teaching videos and stuff like that so that people can see like what does it look like? What do these pieces do? Why do I care? Um because just all those little on-ramps, right? Like I want people to play. I sort of feel like a lot of our design ethos together is that we're trying to distill things down so that people who are just hobby gamers can pick up a historical game or a war game and just play it.

19:06 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I will say that that that your whatever you want to call that like the learn to play that document was the only thing that I read. I had never seen a video of virgin queen. I had never read rules. That's the only thing I read and I felt really I mean I I thought it was awesome. It was an easy like quick read and it demystifies a lot of like because when you go into those games the most challenging thing for me at least is not the rules, it's the why am I doing what I'm doing. Like I can step through procedure, right? But like demystification of like why I'm doing it that opacity is really the thing that I usually struggle with in a game like like that. And so you're you're like how whatever you call it learn to play intro and also it was a much nicer easier read because it is the sort of like conversational chatty approach rather than a dry you know rule book that was

19:59 yeah I know people like to read rule books out there but mine are all chatty because I want to feel like talked to. So, um, they're not quite Amabel level chatty, but they are chatty. Um, so speaking of research, uh, you told me a cautionary tale before this that I just I feel like you should tell it on air because I feel like it's very relevant as we're doing research for our next like kind of crop of games. Um, because it's just crazy.

20:30 Yeah. So, so sure. So, uh yeah, I mo almost all of my like TVish whatever video and TV uh consumption comes in the early morning hours when I do my daily elliptical, right? So, I do about 45 minutes of elliptical each day. Um and it's either going to be like a TV show that I'm watching like I just finished uh andor which was amazing. Um or YouTube. And my YouTube algorithm is like hyper hyper hyperfocused, right? And so when I go on to YouTube, it's either going to recommend me some like uh gaming topic or historical topic. And so a video came up and it was like I can't remember exactly, but it was like top rated AAA unit during World War II defending London from V1 attacks, which is like I mean you can't spoon feed me any like that's that's my stuff right there. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna watch this." It was like 35 minutes, so almost the length of time I needed. And so I start watching it. It's and it's this this um black unit that the 452nd anti-aircraft battalion. They deploy to London and they to defend London from V1, mostly V1 attacks. And it's like the top ranked unit or something. And it talks about it says like 400 times during this 35 minutes, 89 confirmed kills. 89 confirmed kills. And it walks through how that how that number came about. And uh I watched the video and I was like, man, this was a cool thing.

21:59 I've I've first of all, like without getting into a bunch of excruciating detail, through my day job, I know all about groundbased air defense. So I was like, okay, this is a topic that I'm super passionate about and I've thought about designing a game on. So that's cool. Separately, I've because of the work I've done with Fifth Platoon and other topics of interest to me, I know a lot about the black American experience in World War II, right? Right. I have a lot of books on that topic. So, it was struck me as a little bit odd that I had never heard about this unit, especially with the their high level of like um success in defending London for V1s. So, I was immediately interested. So, I go and buy the book, right? A book about it. And like I mean literally the 452nd anti-aircraft battal like it is a very specific book and it is the only book on that unit, right? So that I bought the book on the unit and it was released like a year ago. So um I'm reading the book, right? So I watched a video last week. I'm reading the book this past Thursday and I start reading all the the sort of front matter stuff and I read about the unit like forming up and they go to training and then they go to the UK and how they're dispersed around to supply depots to defend them in the UK.

23:13 And it even has some like articles home about the unit and you know it's talking about like oh they they fired at an aircraft. Um and I was like but like singular fire at a singular aircraft and I was like well where's all this V1 defense stuff? Because the the time the timing should have been they should have started engaging V1s. They should be deployed around London. Get to the next chapter. The next chapter is like, "And now the the unit makes its movement to Normandy to start like an organic attachment to uh divisions and stuff like what you would expect from a AAA battalion." And so like wait a second, where h what happened to the Defense of London? And so um I start to think like I start to like try to rationalize it. I'm like, "Oh, maybe part of the unit, it is a it's an anti-aircraft battalion, which oftentimes will get dispersed into sub, you know, batteries will go here and there and get they'll get broken up."

24:06 So, I'm thinking like, okay, well, maybe some batteries stayed behind and defended London. It was only those they're talking about. Nope. The whole the entire battalion goes to Europe for the rest of the book. It's traveling through Europe. It's doing all the things that AAA battalions would do. And they do a really good job. They're awesome unit. They do all their, you know, the stuff. There's no Defense of London, right? And so I go back when I was watching the video originally, I could tell that the the narration of the video was AI generated. Um, it wasn't bad. It was actually a pretty good quality, but you every once in a while you would hear like patterns of of text would be repeated and that kind of stuff. So that was that was obvious. But I assumed like a lot of videos now, unfortunately, that it was just the narration. Somebody had put together they had spent all the time doing the research. They put together this video uh and they wrote a script and had the the the script narrated. Nope. The entire video was AI generated. Like clearly somebody had had written a prompt to generate an AI generated video about this topic. And the dangerous part is the video does a really good job. It pulls actual for the most part actual photographs of the unit. There's some other stuff that's like you would even see in a normal video like oh here's some still photos of a different unit but they'll they'll be placed because you know nobody's going to know the difference right that kind of stuff. Um it talks about the guns that they fired those that was accurate information. Uh it talks about some of the other

25:36 historical elements of it. it just gets off the rails and starts to hallucinate when it jumped from the unit being deployed to the UK and then starts conflating that with all of the other like defense of London from V1's stuff that happened and all of the confirmed kills like the actual total number of confirmed kills is relatively close to their actual the unit's total confirmed kills throughout their time in Europe but it just attributes it all to defense of of London. So yeah, it was it was an eye- openening experience. So I am uh I mean coming into that video like I am going to be a much more educated on the topic than most people that will wind up watching that video, right? And for me to kind of fall into the trap of assuming that the video is just being honest, uh it's kind of scary, right?

26:29 And so you think about the number of people that will watch that video that will then go on to do any research necessary to disprove the video is it's um like you're not going to have many people do that.

26:40 Yeah.

26:41 Uh and especially like I had to I had to be interested in a topic, go buy a book. You could try to do your own research, but there's just not much about this unit, right? So you go read the book. You have to read the book, challenge the assumptions, go back and like take the time to understand why the two are in such current, you know, contrast to each other.

27:04 Yeah. I guess this is just an important like use warning. Everybody out there who's doing research, um, you know, we have we've officially reached the point where there's just stuff out there that is slop and you have to follow up. You've got to leave YouTube. You've got to especially if you can tell that it's like not a human voiceover and you have got to go and follow up and read like some sort of official

27:31 source. Um because it's we've we've we are we are just now officially past the point of no return on that.

27:38 Yeah. And when I went and looked, you know, um after I realized what had happened, I went and looked that there were about 20 comments on the video and every one of the comments was something along the lines of what you would expect. it would in line with what my of thoughts on the video when I first saw were like, "Hey, this is really cool. Thanks for taking the time to put together this this video on this like underserved topic because as you can imagine, there's not a lot written about this unit, right? I mean, the author in the book does a really good job of talking about the lack of um primary sources on this unit. a lot of the information he pulled together were either afteraction reports or sort of like uh other units referring to this unit's actions or a lot of those articles that were written and stuff. So the actual the actual unit themselves didn't keep a lot of really good primary source unit history information to pull from. So there's just not I mean if you're watching a video on YouTube about some ridiculously famous thing and there's countless primary and secondary sources on it that's probably less dangerous. But when you're talking about a niche topic like this that there's not a lot of other ready ready available information to push you back on, it almost starts to become like the truth, right? The deacto truth because there's just not a lot of counter information.

28:52 Yeah. Yeah. That's that's so rough. Um, but you know, kind of I guess speaking of research and other things that you're researching, um, what are some other games that you're working on as you cheat on me with other No kidding.

29:12 No, but how how's the how are the other codes doing?

29:18 Um, you know, so yeah, good. I mean, the answer is good. This year, and you know, you and I have an extremely busy year, right? We've already talked about with Queen of Spies coming out. Night Witches will. It's already on pre-order and I think Kevin's intent is to crowdfund it by the end of the year. I mean, there's a I guess a very small chance that the game actually comes out extremely late in the year. We'll see. Um,

29:42 and then we've got our other, you know, the other projects we've got going on. like I have I mean I want to be like most of your readers or most of your listeners are not going to care about a lot of these projects but I'll quickly talk about them just so I don't make any publisher mad that I didn't talk about their project on you know when I have the chance. So there's some things that are coming out that are like unsurprising right so like uh there's a new war chest expansion coming out called Shock Tactics. The only thing I'll mention about that is like I oftentimes think that like maybe we're at the last War Chest expansion. So, everyone that I get to do extra from that is like a super little blessing because I have a lot of like soft spot in my heart for that game because I play with my son a lot. Um, and then the the new Undaunted is coming out at Gen Con, right? So, or Essen, I guess. Um, which is the the sort of like final chapter in the sci-fi story we've been telling through Undaunted. So, that's cool.

30:37 That's undaunted 2200 revolution. Roger Tankers. So that's cheating on you with Trevor, right? Um uh Roger Tankersley and I have a couple of expansions coming out for Sniper Elite. They should be out this year, too. Um hidden movement game. People probably know about it. If you don't, it's it's with Rebellion. Um uh Mua just released. So, that is the first game that Trevor and I have done for Bitewing together. We're working on another game now for them. It's in their two-player mythos line of games. And that was fun because it was my first time really getting to play in the like Irish mythology thing, right? So, this is an interesting topic like you you could have an entire discussion on this.

31:25 You we talk about the the importance of researching history, right? authenticity and accuracy in history. Researching mythology is bonkers, right? Because

31:35 oh yeah,

31:36 it it's like there is no truth,

31:39 but you want to stay true to the historical quote unquote I don't even what what is the word historical sources on mythology. What do you call that?

31:47 Yeah. Yeah. I mean because you know if you're looking at modern retelling that's different from like you know there are I'm a Greco Roman mythology buff and I would say expert um and you know that you go to heated or you know that you go to Homer and like those are primary sources for what people thought about that mythology at the time so there is like a historical layer to it

32:07 but it's also that like gods and divinities have like certain personality traits and skills and like stories and lore that you have to like stick to got to match the lore.

32:19 Well, and and but but here's the and here's the thing, right? And so with this game, Mura, I mean, it is super light touch mythology, right? Like we're talking real light touch. So, you know, what you do is, okay, we're we're playing we're designing the game and you're trying to like you're you're coming up with some some deities that you want to evoke in the game and then you're making a largely mechanical driven game because this is a me and Trevor thing and it is very abstract at its core and so there's some interplay and exchange between like this deity informs these mechanics. Oh, the mechanics are changing. Maybe we should find a different deity that better matches it and you there's like a trade-off. Well, then you get to like and I think those are we did a good job, but then you get to the enemies, the quoteunquote enemies because the game has this unusual it is a two-player area control game where you cannot directly interact with your opponent and there's a third opponent in the game that is an enemy that can score on its own. So, it's basically a three-player game, right? It's one v one versus an AI.

33:21 Well, anyway, that AI has these enemies. Now, one of the enemies is a banshee. Okay. And a person posted a Board Game Geek and they're like, "I I think I'm offended by your representation of Banshees in the game." Like they were like, "I think I'm close to being offended by it." And they're like, "Banshees don't do XYZ. They do this other thing." And I'm like, "Well, okay. It's not Banshees aren't real. Let's let's first let's establish that banshees aren't real." Okay. But second, this goes back to the point like, okay, when we look at Irish myth, it's all over them and there's all sorts of different representations and stuff, but here's the other thing. I mean, you've got like DND banshees, right? You've got like what is a banshee, right? Like, yes, the game is supposed to be Irish mythology, but I mean, it's it's crazy. It is like representation and depiction and all of these things have so much baggage. I don't know the right word, an expectation that people bring to the experience, right? That

34:25 So anyway, it was just a really interesting uh experience for me to play around in this world of myth and try to figure out what I certainly what's authentic and what's my responsibility as a designer because I sure as heck don't have the same feeling of of responsibility and adherence

34:44 to this topic that I do when I'm doing like a valiant defense game and I'm basing on real people, right? like those are two very different um feelings of like responsibility and economy.

34:56 It's funny. Uh I won't I won't name names, but I did some editing work on some mythological writing in the in the last couple years. Um, and a lot of my comments were things like, "This doesn't feel right for this God to do this thing."

35:11 Uhhuh.

35:11 Or like, why do you have, you know, this kind of activity happening when that's not that's like a very Christian thing that would happen and not like a mythological thing that would happen? And so, like, there's definitely stuff that matters.

35:26 Yeah.

35:27 Like tomb. I mean, if you know, I think once you once it's like, okay, it's fiction that does that mean that you can just do whatever,

35:34 right? Um, I'd be really mad if I picked up a romance novel and it didn't read like one.

35:39 Yeah. I mean, it's and it's it's obviously going to be more or less complex depending on how popular the thing is that you're depicting in modern times with different versions and stuff, right? Yeah.

35:50 Like when I'm digging into a very specific Irish deity, then it's probably that that like

35:58 more narrowly focused mythological representation is easier to to stick with. But it was something like a banshee

36:05 that is like

36:08 you know how do you even represent that? So yeah it's an it was yeah talk about a tangent. Sorry about that but it was a very experience. Yeah very interesting experience.

36:18 I think I think the last one that I have coming out this year is is Flint Lock. So Flint Lock is designed with Roger again Roger Tankersley. Um, it is very much based on I wouldn't even say inspired. It's based on Palomore's Blitzcreed game. Um, but and so it uses all the same core systems and stuff. The the big difference there is it's it's set in both the French and Indie War, Seven Years War. Um, and the the most obvious super big difference is it's designed to be two different two-player games. So you can play the seven years war or you can play the French and Indian War or you can combine the two and play a fourplayer team game of the whole like seven years war global

37:01 glo global combat. So that was I mean that's and that again is like if anybody's played Blitzkrieg you're playing World War II literally in 20 minutes. Uh I mean what is your representation of history? Like this counter is a tank on a piece of land that's t you know taking up the entire continent of Europe. like what what's happening there? So, um and you try to like make nods towards it with like things like the way the French and Indian War it it has like a pathing system that tries to evoke the concept of like the constraints of geography and stuff, but I mean again you're talking very very light touch.

37:41 Yeah.

37:41 Right. So now I think those are those are games that are coming out this year, should come out this year, whatever. Um, there's a few other things that I can talk about that I think you know and we we've talked about in the past that people might be interested in, right?

37:56 Um, give an update for the game that Non-breaking Space and I are making, Fifth Platoon.

38:02 So, we talked about, you and I talked about on this podcast many years ago, Fifth Platoon, right?

38:08 PreNB.

38:09 PreNB. That's right. Yeah. So, it's a game that um was spawned out of experiences that I had, not great experiences I had with Undaunted Normandy, where people were very, very upset about the fact that the uh the game Undaunted Normandy includes representation for black soldiers. And the the issue that's arisen with that was that people just did not like the inclusion of black soldiers in the game. and they al argued about representation in the game. Uh I' I sound like a broken record. I've talked about this before, but very quickly, the issue that people raise about it is they'll say that, hey, uh the army was segregated in World War II, so there would never be black soldiers uh with white soldiers. That's not really accurate. If if the if the argument was ever undonted Normandy depicts the 30th infantry division and that infantry division never had integrated platoon that's a true statement. If the argument was hey undaunted Normandy takes starts in just a little after D-Day and runs through the just it just ends in uh Maine in France that is and there were no integrated platoon at that time that is also true. So those two historical arguments are true. And if if I ever have a person argue because of that, I would say you're absolutely right. The game is not an accurate representation.

39:37 Never once has that been the thing. It's always been these incorrect statements that the army was totally segregated during World War II. That's always been the argument. I I will say no one has ever once said, "This game is misrepresenting. There were no white soldiers in a black platoon." That's never been brought up. It's always never never black soldiers in a white platoon. So, I just wanted to raise that point. No one's made that argument just for the record. So, um

40:04 why ever or not?

40:07 So So, so uh so I wanted to make a game about the actual truth that's really focused on the story of integrated platoon of World War II, which did exist. They existed after the Battle of the Bulge. they there were it's it's not a very small it was like 50 you know 50 units had integrated platoon um so that's what the story of fifth platoon is about when I first started on it uh you know it was sort of an exploration of the topic and the history and stuff and so I worked on it was not it's not been on it wasn't on contract it was always sort of this very indulgent thing that I wanted to do and so it was always oftentimes sitting on the back burner so that's why it's been in work for years Um, it hasn't been an active design for years. It's been like kind of comes and goes. But a couple of years ago, I was at Circle DC and I met with Non-Breaking Space and I I had a chance to play his game um his Ortona game and I was like smitten with it. I thought it was super awesome. And at the time I was I was at a place with fifth platoon where I had I had worked on a lot of the core stuff but I needed to transition to you know what what specific real world platoon if any do I want to base it on you know starting to really grind out scenarios that kind of stuff. And I asked NB if he'd be interested in working on it with me and he was. And so we're almost done with it now. we're age where the the design is basically done. Uh I am working with a

41:40 local play tester who's awesome. Tommy his Tommy Ray. He's like my one of my local gaming buddies, but he's also really really really good at testing solo games for degenerate strategies. So he's like the holy grail of solo testers. Um so he's working on that with me right now like literally day dayto day. Um, and we're iterating through some very minor tweaks to to address some degenerate stuff. Uh, and this isn't technically official. We don't have it on contract, but that's the way Kevin works. Anybody that works with Kevin knows. So, so um Four Circle will be the publisher for it. So, everything's lining up um to move forward with that. And so, I'm super super excited about that. That's really really cool. And then the last thing I'll mention, unless you had any questions on that before I Okay, so the last thing I'll mention is um rebels against rebellion. So I know you know about this.

42:34 I can't I mean this is horrible. Have we talked about this on the podcast?

42:38 We've not talked about this on the podcast. We've just talked about a lot privately on the internet. So it feels like

42:42 Okay. All right. So all right. Sorry. I I feel like I've just been going on and on and on, but um

42:48 it's good.

42:51 Okay. So, Rebels Against Rebellion is a game I never thought I would make there. I never like I've never been interested in American Civil War. It's always been kind of like eh I'm not I grew up in Savannah, Georgia. Without going into excruciating details, there's reasons that the American Civil War doesn't make me feel super great. So, um I was like, I don't think that's ever anything I'm going to play around with. However, the podcast uh Fred Zall's podcast and specifically the um uh what's the exact

43:24 We intend to move on your works.

43:25 We intend to move on your works. Yeah. I don't want to miss mis misspeak its name. Um it's a fantastic fantastic podcast, right? And so it just I mean just it inspired me, right? I was listening to it. I was listening to their their sort of like critical analysis of ACW games, especially in terms of lost causes and and stuff. And at the same time that that podcast was was starting, um Denver Walker uh who's, you know, the the lead now for Flying Pig, she and her and her dad Mark reached out to me and asked would I be willing to work on a game for for Flying Pig. And I had talked to Mark over the years a couple of times. And the truth is I was just I couldn't because I was just too much, you know, too much going on. So, uh, but I met with them at Origins a few years ago and I said, "Look, here's the deal. If I was going to make a game for Flying Pig, one thing that I talk about hyperindulgent, one thing I would like to potentially explore was the roles of um like unionists in the South." So, meaning people in the South who are aligned to the Union, right? And so they said, "Yep, if that's what if that's a game you want to make, you can make that game." And so that's what Rebels against Rebellion is. It is about a county in in Tennessee, eastern Tennessee, like Appalachia, Tennessee, when Tennessee seceded from like so Tennessee originally, without going into the

44:55 history, when it looked like the Confederacy was going to be established, uh, Tennessee voted and they voted not to secede. That was their original vote. Then Fort Sumpter happened and uh the western and middle parts of Tennessee vote did vote to secede the second time and eastern Tennessee voted not to secede and that's the way Tennessee was organized at the time basically three parts and the reason for that is I mean this is really reductive but the reason for that is slavery really I mean it existed in eastern Tennessee but not nearly to the same extent it did in the middle and western parts and it was just not smart for the the economic situation for eastern Tennessee to to secede, right? They say they didn't want to.

45:44 Well, that's generally true of the entire eastern part, but that's especially true for that that more Appalachian and remote you were, the more you did not want to secede. And so this county, Scott County, voted, it was something like 420 not to secede to like 19 people to secede, right? It was like overwhelming,

46:04 right? We're not talking like close.

46:06 And so this game, Rebels Against Rebellion, tells the story of Scott County, Tennessee, holding out, defending themselves against constant Confederate attacks and Confederate aligned secessionist gerilla attacks uh for about a three-year period. So, it tells that story of that of that county.

46:28 That's awesome. I love a good a game that brings out a good story and you know how to pick them out. Um,

46:34 now talking about history and the challenges of history that I mean we're talking about a very niche story and so I did, you know, I traveled down to Scott County to do the research because there's just no secondary sources really on the material at all.

46:49 Yeah.

46:49 Right. I had to had to go there to get some of the primary source material to to put the game together.

46:54 Yeah. Um, let's just say maybe the Civil War isn't so bad in terms of picking out game topics. Um, but um, uh, I have been doing some Civil War research as we know recently and, um, one thing that's actually really cool about that period and it makes me think that we need to redo how we handle our own lives, uh, is all those letters and journals and stuff that are kept from that time period are incredible. Like it's actually it is amazing how much Civil War knowledge you can acquire from reading people's diaries, reading like little newspaper reflections on what happened, uh reading letters between people because people were writing home from the war. And it just makes me think like how will anybody know anything about our society if the internet crashes? cuz like we've got all these emails and tweets and YouTube videos, but like if those things don't necessarily last depending on how we preserve information.

47:51 And honestly, I think about that a lot.

47:54 Well, you know, and and related to that that point is, you know, I I typically operate in a very zoomed in scale when I'm making games, right? Like if you think of my historical war games especially, they're almost always at the sort of like skirmish level.

48:10 And to your point about the existence of all of these letters now, yes, we have a lot of letters in a in the ACW from generals, right? And those often get referenced all the time, but there are a lot of like quoteunquote normal people who if you care about it and you look into it, that primary source material still exists for those normal people living their normal lives. And one thing that struck me as I started working on Rebels against Rebellion is like there's not zoomed in scale ACW games. And I don't mean like tactical versus strategic. I mean like skirmish level individual people doing normal people day-to-day lives that are affected by the war, right? And so that's one thing that I really enjoyed about um Rebels Against Rebellion is like in the game there's a card for this lady named this girl named Julia Markham because you know her house was attacked by Confederate soldiers and she defended her house, right? Like she exists in the game and there's not many ACW games that are telling the story of individual quote unquote normal people, right? And to your point that material exists.

49:19 There's an opportunity there to explore at that level if you want.

49:24 Yeah. I uh it's very cool. Uh one more I guess. So we talked about you co-design with a lot of people. Uh I actually also have multiple codees at this point. You know um Ricky's in my project for Oath is going to the factory and um you know Paul Wright and I are doing Foxes and Lions together. But I think one thing that I've I've taken a page from your book since you're the first I made my first game with you. Um I also enjoy like working with multiple different publishers.

49:53 Um is that something that you know if somebody's like an upand cominging designer? Um what do you recommend I guess when you're thinking about who to work with at the publisher level as well as the co-design level?

50:07 Yeah I well there's Okay. So yeah, for the publisher there's two major considerations, right? the initial consideration and we had this you know me you and Roger when we were working on our the big year right the game about bird watching

50:21 we talked we primarily talked about publishers that we thought were a good fit for the game and we were primarily looking at things like what does the publisher publish right that was their catalog right that was our primary consideration I I think for new designers when you're designing a game that's probably the most important consideration however there becomes almost immediately a secondary as soon as you start getting games published, there's a secondary consideration and that is what is your relationship with the publisher, right? And so what I mean by that is, and you and I have talked about this, we might be willing to pitch a game to a publisher who we think might not be the publisher who would print the most copies or make it the most lavish production or whatever it is because we know that that that publisher has better communication, that they're more collaborative, that they are more reliable, those other sort of intangible things that

51:19 especially for me, I mean, you When we talk about you, you you exist in two spheres. We you have your leader, professional like relationships. Yeah.

51:27 And then you have your your like whatever you are with me, hobbyist, side job, whatever we call that, right?

51:34 Yeah. I guess designing for pleasure, you know,

51:36 designing for pleasure, right? Like we you and I you and I and people like Trevor, we design quoteunquote design for pleasure, but we treat it as like we do a profession. We're very serious about it, right?

51:50 Yeah.

51:51 When you are approaching it from that perspective, uh having a relation, a positive relationship in my opinion is the single most important thing about a relationship with a publisher. It's not any other thing, right? And so those are the two considerations. The initial is like, is this a right fit for their catalog? And secondly, once you've established that relationship, do you want to keep working with them in the future?

52:17 Yeah. Yeah. Um, I will say too, I actually really like that I have relationships with multiple publishers, including, you know, obviously I work at Leader. Um, but of the games that I have signed so far, there's three different publishers. So, one with Fort Circle, one with Salt Pepper, and one upcoming GMT. The other thing that I really like about that is that I have a really strong sense of what contracts look like or are supposed to look like and also like enough experience to have understandings of like what I want from publishing relationships because I've had like different experiences and so it gives me a clearer sense of like what am I looking for but also you know what am I signing what am I agreeing to um I actually think all of that is really important especially now that like I am helping to draft and offer contracts to external designers at Leader. Like having been a designer myself and still being that like you know it it turns out I'm very much like a designer's designer like I'm like wait I'm the publisher and everything but let's like let's like make a good agreement for the designer.

53:21 Yeah. Yeah. As the as a designer I can tell you I appreciate that. It's nice to have a publisher that has the the that mindset.

53:30 Yeah. I mean I don't know that you you don't have the games without the designers. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

53:37 So, I mean, although, you know, as we were one more hot take, I guess before the end, which is that um we were kind of discussing before this before hitting record on this, like I'm not really convinced that there is truly other than other than credit an accreditation such a thing as like a true solo designer of a game because you actually can't make a game by yourself. Uh even if you're the artist, you can't make a game by yourself. Although having an artist does change it. Like I feel like the artists we've worked with have also impacted our design like mechanically even on the when when graphic starts to get done. But you know if you have a developer what's really the difference between a developer and a code designer half the time or if you're looking at play testers like you can't give them design credits but you also can't design by yourself. You need them.

54:22 Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean the industry in in general has moved towards including artists on the cover of the boxes in a lot of cases, right? Especially I guess I guess it's broadly being done more and more and more.

54:36 Yeah.

54:36 I mean really, you know, I look I think it's cool that designers names are on the front of the box and illustrators names now and graphic designers, etc. You really kind of almost want on the back of the box to be where everything lives and just have all the credits there, right? Like a movie or something, right? like do you for the designer the developer blah blah blah and they're all co-creators. That's the that's the important piece, right?

54:59 Yeah.

55:00 Now, you can sit here and debate whether somebody should get co-design credits or whatever, but none of that really matters, right? It's just, you know, we're going to make Night Witches. When Night Witches comes out, it's me and it's you and it's Ian and Kevin at Fort Circle and Mark who did the layout and Raina who did all the historic stuff. Like,

55:20 the game doesn't exist without all of those people, right? Yeah.

55:23 U and you could try to prescribe some sort of percentage of but none of that matters. Like it just would be a different thing if all those people didn't play their part. So

55:31 yeah, you need the whole creative team to make the creation.

55:34 Yeah. Yeah.

55:35 Yeah.

55:36 Yeah.

55:37 I'm uh uh you know watching the game come together as its like full self. Like I think about that more and more.

55:44 Yeah.

55:45 Um but we're kind of reaching the end of our hour. So softy question. What have you been playing recently that you really enjoyed? I just played night witches with my son. Uh um okay. So the the thing that stands out to me that I've been playing because I don't you broken record I don't play games a lot unfortunately. Um my friend Tommy who I mentioned earlier who's help you know helping me play test uh fifth platoon. He and I started playing a few acres of snow together. I don't know year and a half ago two years ago something. I introduced him to it. Now, Funkres of Snow stands alongside Maria and um El Grande is those are my top three games. So, uh we've probably now played a few acres of snow. I I can't even remember like 30 times, 40. I mean, we the last time we got together a couple of weeks ago, we played it three times in one night, right? We just play it and then we play it and then we play it. And so, uh it just stands out. like I never get I don't get to play games much and I certainly don't get to play my favorite games often and I certainly don't get to play my favorite games a lot. And so it's been it stood out to me how much fun I've had with uh being able to play with Tommy on a game I love and like really really getting deep with the game. That's so that's been the the standout sort of experience for me. The other thing I'll mention just of course broadly without going into specific games is Circle DC which we were at

57:15 recently which was you know we talk about it all the time. Circle DC and SD Histcon are the two conventions like to me those are kind of the two conventions and everything else is like I mean other than maybe Buckeye Gamefest. Um those are like the pinnacle and uh we just got to be at Circle DC. It's basically a family reunion for us, right? Like all of our best friends are there and we're about to go to SD North in a couple months, right? And do it again.

57:42 Sweet.

57:43 So yeah, this is And then I won't go into all the games. It was really, really cool. The thing that I will remember is playing Foxes and Lions because I got to play with you and Paul. I've never gotten to play a game with Paul before. Uh I got to play with you where you were kind of like teaching me. I've never played the series before. It was an amazing experience. I don't get to play like like long complex games, so it was just a really really like uh special unusual experience for me that that I'll remember for sure.

58:14 That's awesome. That makes me really happy. Yeah, I've been um I've been really horrible about gaming enough recently, but I have my ongoing like Republic of Rome game with Paul and some of his friends in Philly, and so we just go on Discord and Vassel and yammer about land bills. Um it's great. And then Um uh and I got Dan Bulock's Penitent in the mail. I'm excited for that. I need to like down.

58:40 Yep.

58:40 Um so I gota I got to play the Quaker prison game. Um and actually I've just been reading a ton.

58:47 So much reading. Like I said I took Friday off and I did nothing but read on Friday. Like that's it. And it was wonderful. And I really could do that for like two weeks to like fully detox from everything else in my life.

59:01 That's awesome.

59:03 Um, and I, you know, if you want to be found online, which I know that you are out there, uh, where do you currently like to be found?

59:10 So, you if if somebody's interested in meeting probably Blue Sky is the best thing, right? So, I'm DJ Thompson on Blue Sky. Um, the other way that people can get a hold of me is on BG. So, if you just look at look me up on BG and Geekmail will be there. Those are the two most like reliable D. I'm checking them both daily. So, yeah.

59:31 Nice. Um, that may be right for me too, but I'm everywhere online as Beyond Solitire. Uh, David, it's not like I'm not going to just talk to you for a second after recording, but um, but thank you so much for coming on and actually recording with me. I always really appreciate it. It's a delight. You've been on every season.

59:47 Yes. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, people are probably tired of hearing from me, but but I always appreciate it. It's great to have one, too.

59:53 Oh, no. We'll continue our streak next season because we'll have some stuff to talk about, believe you me. Uh, but for now, everybody, please like, subscribe, comment, ask questions, and most of all, happy gaming.