Beyond Solitaire Podcast 238: Amabel Holland on Swords Against - Beginner's Box

0:22 It's Ab time. I'm proud to announce that the Beyond Solitaire 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 Morningstar's The Blueway, 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 Davidson of Beyond Solitaire. This week on the podcast, I'm back with a very special returning guest. It's my friend Amabel Holland.

0:50 Hi.

0:50 She is a game designer and she is uh the person uh behind Hollandspiele. Uh and you can go and check their stuff out. Uh hopefully you'll want to check out this next thing we're talking about at the end of the show. Uh so, Amabel, how are you doing today?

1:06 I am doing all right, you know. The the the the world is not great, but the small things in my life um are are good and rich and fulfilling and I'm hanging on to that as tight as I can.

1:26 You know what? I had the same thought this morning of well, I guess the world's on fire, but today's going to be good at work. It's all I can ask for.

1:35 Um so, uh what uh what generally, before we we zoom in on one game, has been new at Hollandspiele?

1:44 Um not a whole lot. We've been slightly dormant in in some ways. Like we've had games come out. Uh some of them have done well. Some some less well. Like no one showed up for Belinda's Big Bonus. Really really are breaking. But um I I think you know, a thing that happened like 2 years ago is we released uh City of Six Moons and that took off in a way that nothing else has and that has actually given me a lot of like stability during a time when the industry is not particularly stable and it's given me a lot of uh more time. Uh like we we sell a copy of City of Six Moons every single day.

2:33 Still, 2 years later, which usually things peter out by now. Um and so it's allowed us not to have as aggressive of a release schedule. So I can spend some more time on each game um and also just spend more time enjoying the things in my life. So we've been releasing things but not uh like we had one game that came out this year so far and if you'd asked me you know, 3 years ago if we went, you know, 6 months releasing one game I I would assume we were we were spiraling. You know, but uh we're at that point now where we can do that. And uh so that's that's what's been going on.

3:18 That's awesome. Uh and I sort of feel like the success of City Against I I sort of feel the success of City of Six Moons has perhaps led you to even more unhinged horizons. Um

3:31 That's fair to say.

3:32 with this Swords Against Beginner's Box, which is the main topic of today. Um so, uh for people who don't yet know what we're talking about, what is a Swords Against Beginner's Box?

3:43 So this is presented as a replica of a specific incomplete copy of an old RPG found at an estate sale. And the most of the game is missing. Uh the only the only part of the game that's still there is the adventure book. So, there's no the module. So, there's no rulebook. There's no map. There's no answer key for the puzzles in the adventure book. The only thing that's there is the adventure book and then some personal effects belonging to the person who had owned the game. And that's this thing that that I'm releasing is is this this replica of this adventure and these personal effects.

4:34 And that's that's what I'm doing. [gasps]

4:43 Okay. So, um this leads me to ask did you reconstruct this from partially real material that you found or did you invent everything yourself? And so that adventure book is like your understanding of an old-school RPG adventure book module.

5:01 So, um you know, it it is all a fiction, but I you know, I I do I have spent time engaging with other RPGs for this you know, for this purpose and for a lot of other older things from the period. Um and so there's a way in which it draws on that. There's a way in which um there is a lot of there's a fair amount of Latin, which you helped me with and like Roman culture. And there's a fair amount of Old English. And so I drew it from a lot of like Old English literature. Uh got got a little bit of Beowulf in there. Got The Dream of the Rood. Have uh some other like medieval Christianity stuff in there. Um and so there is definite some some definite references that people who are that nerds will will recognize. I spent one morning um I needed to have a description of a hellmouth, which is something that first popping up during the kind of historical period that this fantasy setting is analogous to.

6:18 And uh one of the earliest we have is in one of the Vercelli homilies, uh which are these series of prose Old English homilies, and um that's hard to find in translation outside like very obscure academic writing. So what I had to do is find a copy of it in Old English, which I could find, and then do word look up word by word to get a rough translation and then kind of rewrite it and rewrite it to get my reference, to get my little bit of that flavor. Uh there's also some like uh Old English metrical metrical charms in there. Um so like it's drawing from from some some sources that give it a texture and that includes some like old gaming sources, old uh science fiction fantasy novels.

7:13 Um but it is like my original thing. And and

7:22 You know, I had I had a It never occurred to me someone would think it wasn't fictional, but I I had I've had people uh who thought who think it's a real thing, and I don't know how to respond to that. I'm not sure are they just playing along? Cuz there there was a guy who responded that responded to the announcement like, "Oh, I played that game, and I I remember it had these weird dice and it was so fascinating to me. You know, it was it was him like showing he's in on the joke. There are other times when I don't know if someone's in on it or not. Um autism, you know.

7:55 But um Uh but you know, it never would occurred to me that someone would think it was a real thing cuz you know, where I'm looking at it, this is a uh supposedly a an RPG from 1979 that no one's ever heard of, it's never been documented uh with an adventure module written by a novelist working in that period who also no one's ever heard of, it's never been documented and I know that just that's that's not going to exist for something from that period of 20th century. But I know that because I spend a lot of my free time researching games, usually board games of this period. So I know what is there, what traces are left and not. Um and other people don't necessarily have that background so I can see where perhaps someone uh would be taken in by it. But for me it's it's it's as obviously fictional as like by the way, I met some aliens and they showed me how to play their game.

9:01 That's not fictional at all, Annabelle. Everyone knows that aliens show up and they take

9:10 Um uh at some point ask me how uh my partner and I almost broke up over ancient aliens and the troll that went too far.

9:18 Oh no.

9:21 Um uh actually I'll just tell it cuz it's so goofy. So um my my partner Robert, he is a jokester like to the point where he once told his colleagues that I had a glass eye and if you looked at me at the right angle, you could tell. And so I met his colleagues and I was So he's just one of those, you know. Um, but early early in our relationship, sometimes he didn't know when to stop trolling me. And so, he was talking about Ancient Aliens like he believed it, and he did it so long that I actually started to worry. And

9:51 and he just would not let it go. And uh, you know, um, I was in grad school at the time. And he points at that guy with the hair. He's like, "Look, I mean, that guy has his doctorate. You don't."

10:06 Um, he's lucky he's live.

10:08 Um, yeah.

10:10 I love him very much. Um, but uh, regardless, uh, so this this leads me to a question, actually. Uh, so, what you're given is a not a complete game. And it's something that you wrote. In your head, even though there are no like answers to any of the puzzles or anything like that, how much of the full game do you know versus what you're presenting in the box for the game, if that makes sense?

10:34 So,

10:35 you have to construct the whole thing, and then excerpt a piece of it for us to play with.

10:40 So, um, I I do know how the whole thing more or less works, with the caveat that that RPGs, especially of this period, are a little wiggly. Um, now, to be clear, the puzzles all have I don't provide the solutions. But, they all have like solutions. But, you know, um, I want to be I want to be clear about that. Um, because, you know, there's a big question of how how are people going to engage with this? I mean, we'll we'll come back to that later. Like, where are some ways, some layers of engaging within? One of them is um, you know, there are puzzles to to solve. Um, but uh, so yeah, so I I I know how the game works and and within the materials, within within the adventure book, there are references to the rules.

11:42 And then in some of the supplemental materials, there are other references. And from that, I think you can piece together most of how it plays. Uh you know, I I was talking to my printer about this cuz he was like, "So, it is this a game?" I was like, "I don't know. My friend always tells me my games aren't games. Uh they might be right this time. I'm not sure." But he's like, "Well, I mean, can you play this?" I'm like, "Maybe. May- maybe you can play this adventure module. You know, and maybe you can adapt it to a another RPG system or something. Um but uh I I do I do try to make sure it's a you know, a kind of fair puzzle with some ambiguity baked in, right?

12:29 Um just try to capture the the experience of encountering an older incomplete thing.

12:38 This sounds really fascinating. Like my inner historian cannot wait till I get my hands on this. Um so, uh the game the [clears throat] game contains um an adventure module and some like ephemera from the previous owner. Right. So, what kinds of things, you know, maybe you leave us some surprises, but what kinds of things did you decide to include in this box um for us to also encounter along with along with the module?

13:06 So, along with the module, I I actually I I I can basically tell you the contents and I can even show you some of them.

13:12 Okay.

13:13 Briefly. Um so, there is a zine. I don't have the zine right now. I'm waiting for it to be to be printed, but there is a also a a fan zine uh that goes along with it. There is a letter from the uh writer of the module who has correspondence with the owner. There is a photocopy of two pages of an old book.

13:43 See, I I have these because um I'm not having them printed by our printer. I'm printing them at at home. So, they're a little uh of lesser quality on purpose because they're those personal ephemera. Um there is a code wheel from a computer game.

14:02 Oh, no.

14:06 And then uh there is a letter uh to the author of the module written by the owner that's never been sent. And we we stamped it do not open. And so, do do you open it? If you open it, are you following the rules? Are you breaking the rules? You know, um those are questions I find really interesting and other people find annoying and and some you might be somewhere in between. I don't I'm not sure. But uh I I I I'm really proud of these particular things. There's also going to be There's also going to be a pencil. And a pencil will have um a bit to do with the chronology of the thing. Now, there are other things that we have thought about doing. Like when I first came up with the project, one of the first things I wanted to do was have uh an audio cassette.

14:57 Ooh.

14:59 And I thought, "Oh, that's going to be so rad." And there's there's things I can do with that. But um it actually is a little expensive to have a bunch of audio cassettes made. Uh transporting them is a little difficult. Um and then there's the fact that uh a lot of people don't have cassette players. And I I argued with myself that well, they probably know someone who does. Or someone will upload it to the internet. But in the end, I I felt like the um the logistical concerns and the price point concerns just and the fact that it is so different from the other things where it might be a point of of non-interaction for someone.

15:45 Mhm.

15:46 I I just even though it was like appropriate to the period, uh it was just something that I I I couldn't commit to.

15:54 Yeah.

15:55 Now something that something I did uh that wasn't in the game until very very recently

16:00 [snorts]

16:01 uh was uh this this pegboard.

16:07 So uh there is a board game within the game. Like within the fiction of the setting, there is a board game that is played that's kind of like a kind of fox and geese kind of thing.

16:20 Yeah, okay.

16:20 with some variations. Um and if you have to figure out how to play this game and and to win at it in order to fully solve some of the puzzles. Um and I thought well, what if we had pegboards people could could play it out. And there's a local company that does pegboard games here in Michigan called New Venture Games. And I cannot recommend New Venture enough. Their games are real are real fun. Uh really really handsomely produced. And uh they have a YouTube channel. And uh the guy in the YouTube channel does like uh videos about game history and research, especially games, ancient games, traditional games, and games of like the 19th and 20th century.

17:07 Um like really concise histories. Uh he tracks down information about old defunct companies. Uh really fascinating channel. Doesn't not get nearly enough use. Um, and I reached out to him and then he and his business partner who, um, his family runs a Uncle Goose, which is, uh, a wood block manufacturer here in in Michigan. Uh, like, yeah, we'll we'll put these peg boards for you. But all all these holes are drilled by hand. And it puts a cap on how many copies can be turned around in X amount of time. And so what happened and I thought, well, that that'll be all right, but what happens we announce the game and it's gotten, uh, a fair amount of interest, a fair amount of attention.

17:58 And I realized, okay, um, this has the potential uh, like Six Sones did to be very successful for us, to reach a wider audience than what we usually reach, people who are not really familiar with our games. Um, and what were the things that made help make Six Sones successful? One of them was the price point, which is which is pretty low. And I'm still figuring out the price point on this one, but certainly with with I mean, this is this is like 10 more bucks per thing before we ship it.

18:34 Right.

18:35 Um, from Michigan to Tennessee where our printer is, who then has to ship it out to, you know, with the game. Uh, so it's like, well, that that adds a lot to the price point of the game if we include these. But also, uh, the thing about Six Sones is that we were able to meet the demand. Like we had a couple times, especially when things took off with with some media coverage, uh, where like we we exhausted our supply, need to get more wood pieces from Germany and that took, you know, two or three months. But then once we got those wood bits, we're able to meet those orders those orders out for fairly quickly. And I looked at like, well, how many Six Moons orders did we do like in our best week? And the number we did in our best week, if we were doing these boards for this game, uh it would take us 10 to 12 months.

19:32 Oh, yeah.

19:33 And I was like, you know, I I love this, but uh it just is not going to work for our to to keep the game having momentum and to allow the game to be successful. You know, I was just talking the other day, uh someone asked me about like how often do I make like business decisions? How often does the business end come you know, mix up with artistic decisions? And usually it's never. But this is a case where it's like, well, I want this to be able to have that success and reach that audience, and to do that

20:07 Right.

20:07 I I had to not do this. Uh Now, I figured that out after ordering the first batch. So, I'm going to find out what I'm going to do with those at some point, but um that ended up not making it into the game. Uh at the same time though, um deciding what if we had a peg board is what informed the design of that specific game within the game.

20:31 Yeah.

20:32 And and so like it which is measurably improves the game and has like thematic resonance within the fiction of the game. And so I and also I think I think maybe it allows me to argue it's a board game because there's there's a board game in it.

20:48 You put a board game in it somewhere.

20:50 Yeah.

20:52 Um you should sell the peg boards as like an expansion.

20:55 I I I was thinking we might do that. Uh you know, we'll we'll see.

21:00 Yeah, fair enough. Um we don't do like exclusives or yeah, I can see how that could be a tough thing. But yeah. All right. So, kind of thinking about what made you want to make this particular game? Cuz I feel like City of Six Masks has a very specific premise of like it's aliens and they have a different language and you know, there's something about that that just seems like pretty natural.

21:26 Mhm.

21:26 This is almost like I don't know. Is this based on a real-life experience?

21:32 Um in some way, yes, in some way, no. Like I I certainly have owned objects that belong to other people. Um there's a copy of a book I have. I have a copy of the book What is cinema? by Andre Andre Bazin. And he is like he was like the mentor figure to the French New Wave. Like the the those kind of those players to cinema critics, right? And I he he wrote this this very influential book that was translated from French into English. And I have a copy that I picked up at a book sale and it's annotated. Like someone through the book and they underlined things and made little arguments in the margins. And in the front of the book, they have a name and an address, which I would reasonably assume is the name and the address of the person who owned the book.

22:28 And that person is Andrew Sarris, who was around the '60s an extremely influential American film critic. Basically the guy who brought auteur theory over here. Um and so it's possibly I just I just have Andrew Sarris's copy of that book that somehow found its way to a book sale in Ann Arbor. Um or someone just wrote Andrew Sarris's name in it for some reason. I'm I'm not sure. But um having this thing that belonged to someone else, seeing how how argued with the thing, Um is a really valuable experience, right? It is something I find really human. Cuz it makes it makes it feel reminds me that these objects are are human things that mean things to people.

23:16 And and private too is just um you know, so there's there's the layer of narrative as far as like the fiction of the game. Which allows me to express certain things I want to express. Uh there's also the layer of like annotations made by the owner and their personal facts and the way those interact to give us a story of that person. And how they find themselves in this piece of art. And that experience of the way in which particularly with books um the writing whether it's fictional or non-fiction is is an act of communication, an act of of one person expressing themselves to the reader in a way that's that's very kind of intimate, right?

24:21 Um and I wanted to capture that experience of finding yourself in that. And maybe finding yourself in an incomplete way. Because things are not as explicit. And that's certainly something that has resonance for me, you know, um the front cover of the adventure book uh implores the the reader or the player or or or whatever you'd call it to um Hang on, I have it here. I do to figure out the truth of this queer mystery and I used the word queer, you know, in two ways, one of which is is a very strange kind of thing going on within the fiction.

25:10 And the other, of course, is you know, as a queer person who grew up in the '80s and '90s and had to try to figure herself out not entirely successfully during that time. Um, finding traces of things in art, in books, in in in terms of phrase. Um, and in my kind of incoherent, um, ways I tried to express myself creatively. And so, I wanted to capture that kind of thing. Um, that all was an influence to it, having having some, um,

26:00 I don't want to say narrative ambitions, but, um, wanting to have something that was a little more expressive than pure cardboard and and wooden discs. Um, and all of cuz it there are, I don't know, all together all these things together there are 30, 35,000 words um, to take into. Um, and finding a way to express that thing, you know. Um, and just also the experience of piecing something together, something that is not um, presented in a way that's complete, having to infer things, having to draw connections, is something that that, um, I've enjoyed in other works of art. You see this more in video games.

26:54 Like there's there's several video games lately where you are sifting through documents or video clips or something um, trying to find the the truth of what has happened. And uh, video games are able to gate your access to the information in a way that you can't really do with a physical game. You know, I can't stop someone from opening this letter and that's being the first thing they read. Um, so there are ways in which the narrative that emerges has to be about the lines you draw between things while still having some catharsis within an object itself.

27:45 Um, did that did that answer your question?

27:51 Yeah, actually mentioning video games, you know, the the closest analogy analogous experience to this that I have that I can think of without having played it is um, Her Story.

28:01 I played Her Story. Yeah.

28:03 Um, like right down to the the extra game that's in the trash on the PC [snorts] screen. Um, I went digging through Her Story because I wanted to find everything and I feel like this is a game that's going to like evoke a similar uh, feeling for me. Uh, but so I guess all games get some play testing. How did you go about getting feedback for this? And how did you decide that it was getting the range of responses that you wanted from people?

28:43 So, there were a a rounds of of testing. Uh one testing was kind of limited to the adventure book and the puzzles within to make sure that they are solvable. And then uh there's kind of wider testing for kind of the whole package in its and it it's kind of narrative piece work because like like there's a question of of like how what do you do with this?

29:18 Mhm.

29:19 And [clears throat] and one thing you can do is you can go through this adventure book, right? And there is a mystery at the heart of it. And and that mystery uh involves a lot of narrative threads. Um so one thing that this book takes the form of, you know, it it has the structure of an adventure module with like descriptions of locations and the items within that location and the enemies within that location. Uh but for most of it, each entry uh is written from the point of view of a different person within this setting.

30:06 And so you are getting this kind of piecemeal view of the story. Um and so you're putting the piece together the story of these characters, of these people, of what happened cuz the central mystery at the center of it is that there is a whole castle garrison that's just disappeared. And um so you're like where did they go? What happened to them? And you're talking to people within the the town within the village. So, the setting is um roughly analogous to like early Norman England.

30:52 So, we have like uh an Anglo-Saxon type of village with some Celtic influences, which is we work in a lot of um lot there's a lot of like 1970s folk horror, like British folk horror uh at the foundation of this. Um you have the castle of a like a motte-and-bailey castle that is uh was filled with basically fantasy Normans. Well, what happened to them? You have some Roman ruins. Uh cuz cuz there were a a fantasy equivalent of Romans that were here and that left. Um and so, you have all these kind of cultural influences and the way those things um kind of bleed together and the symbols kind of bleed together and become messy.

31:42 Um so, there is a sort of like person level mystery to solve. There is a more um supernatural cosmological mystery to solve. And then there are like the puzzles to work through, the actual meat meat of the adventure. And then on top of all that, there's all these annotations of the person who owned it. And so, you also have to piece together like parts of the life of the author of the module and the person who owned that and the way that this book then interacts with these other personal effects. And the inferences you draw from that.

32:28 So, are are you playing this as as like a book you're reading as a mystery, as a kind of turn of the screw kind of thing. Uh are you playing it as like a series of puzzles, a puzzle book? Are you you know looking at this larger narrative picture and all these layers um are all tangled up together. Like you can't fully fig figure out one thing without figuring out some of the other things and they all kind of feed back into each other. It's actually like some of the most I would say intricate work

33:08 Mhm.

33:08 that I've done structurally in a game. Uh this is certainly like the most ambitious and the most work intensive thing I've done. Um I'm very proud of it. But so testing, you know, involves how people engage with all these different levels and which levels they choose to engage with. And um in a way it was easier to test for the more mechanically focused things like like the puzzles. And um and then figuring out like when it's okay for a puzzle to be more obscure. Because um so there are puzzles that turn on if you were just looking at from the adventure book uh that you can figure out if you know um for example, some details of like medieval Christianity.

34:14 You know, uh do you know the names of the of the of the two thieves that were crucified alongside Jesus? Well then then you're good. Then you're good. You got it. If not, there are other references to things within the other material that will kind of point you to that, right? So, but there are puzzles that are not nec- Like, I think they're fair puzzles, but they're difficult. And sometimes they require some knowledge of language. Though, a lot of that language is things you can infer. Like, one reason I had this setting is so I can use a little bit of Latin, I can use a little bit of Old English. There's a whole alphabet layered on top of that that is different from those things.

35:02 But, um the thing about Old English though is particularly the words I tried to choose, um are words where they're close enough. They're close enough that you can kind of figure out what words they're supposed to be from context. A lot of it is names, too. Like, like I try to use a lot of of names so that they're, um some of those language puzzles are a little easier for that reason. Um And and so, like, I it's okay that the puzzle is a little obscure because a lot of puzzles from this period or that show up in these things or or especially show up like in adventure games are a little obscure.

35:53 But, I I kind but I kind of lampshade it I try kind of pull you try to pull you into it and try to find ways to have it be something you can engage with on on that level, right? Um so, when someone says to me, "Well, I don't know the the names of that or I don't know the significance of, um this this side wound and the spear." Um that's okay if you don't. Um I I had to be able to be okay with that, right? And I I think I did get some test I did get some testing feedback of like, well, this this thing is a little too hard or a little too uh, obscure for me. It wasn't for other people, but it was for this person. And I'm not necessarily trying to be super friendly about it.

36:47 Yeah. When when I published uh, Six Moons, I felt One thing I felt was like, well, this is so easy. This is such an easy thing to figure out. I I could do another one that's like actually hard, where the puzzles are actually hard. And I I quickly found out that that those puzzles actually that that the puzzle of Six Moons is hard for a lot of people. Um, in this case, like some of these puzzles are hard. Um, and I think that's okay. And some some of the narrative threads are a little difficult to piece together, but you can do it if you're giving it enough time. And this this is a thing about it is that I feel like this is a game that is a time investment.

37:41 It's a game that I hope people can, if it is a game, uh, that I hope people can get lost in and think about and maybe obsess over a little bit. I got a little bit of that with Six Moons. And and I really liked that feeling actually. I really liked the fact that people were telling me that they were going to bed thinking about Six Moons, trying to puzzle it out, the shapes in front of their eyes. I like that there's someone who did a a a a multi-part session report about translating the game that basically wrote it as fan fiction between him and an alien in his head. And you know, I'm so glad that exists. I'm so glad that there's something there for some of the hold on to and I try to make sure there are things in this game for people to hold on to and puzzle out and find resonance with.

38:33 And um I I hope I hope it's being well received. I hope people will will will give it that time. Uh and I understand it's quite a thing I'm asking. To to ask someone to give that kind of time to to do something to engage with something that is a little difficult on purpose and obscure on purpose is asking a lot, but I think that the experience will be rewarding. And also I'm I'm I'm just going to I'm just going to say this. Um I know for a lot of people the idea of of a game that is very text heavy that is you know thousands and thousands of words um might scare them off because for the most part writing in board games especially is quite bad.

39:24 Like the the quality of of of the flavor of the literary writing is quite abysmal almost across the board.

39:35 I'm really trying not to run my mouth right now, but I don't disagree.

39:39 Here's the thing. I'm good at it. I know I'm good at it. I know I'm probably a better writer than most people working in board games and I'm fine with that. I'm not a good technical writer. As a technical writer I'm I'm actually quite terrible and people will tell you that when they read my real books. But as far as like literary quality you know as far as like having themes, having characters I know what I'm doing and I think people will will find this rewarding. That's my hope anyways. This is an ambitious thing and and I'm I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous still. But people seem excited about it and I'm excited to to give it to them, right?

40:20 Well, I'm pumped about this. Um I've actually been about to ask you about time investment and like how much people need to put in in order to get something out of this game. But I feel like you've answered it. Uh so

40:33 Yeah, I mean I mean I mean here's the thing. You could just engage with it on the layer of trying to figure out like the narrative mystery and it is it'll take you however long it takes you to read 30, 35,000 words a couple times. Um if you're going further than that because to get actual understanding of that narrative you need to do some of the puzzles, like these puzzles are a little difficult. It could take longer than that. You know, uh people told me Six Moons usually took them between 10 and 20 hours. Which is not what it was for my playtesters of Six Moons. But it was for the general public.

41:18 Uh and there's some people who still, you know, are still working at it. I got an email from some poor guy who's working at it for months and has only gotten like some of the numbers. And I felt

41:33 a guy who wants your money to me.

41:35 Yeah. Yeah. Um Well, he was getting frustrated and he he was asking like "Is there an actual game here to figure out?" And I was like, "Yes. I can't tell you how to figure it out, but yes, there's an actual thing to figure out." Um and there's actual meat here. I think people can trust me on that. I feel like I've been making games for for over a decade now. Um I feel like people know I don't half-ass things. And then this thing especially, this thing especially took took so long to put together like there's been so many months spent just on some of the writing and and the structure because each little snippet in the adventure module is from a different character's voice but all those characters are written by the same person as be within that person's kind of overall voice that's being inflected in different ways and then there is the zine that's written in a totally different voice and style and so like all these it it takes a lot longer to write that when I have to constantly shift

42:52 Yeah.

42:53 voice and context you know but yeah so I I don't know I figure you'll you'll get a good 20 30 hours out of this maybe maybe less I I I I can't tell you how much you're you're going to be able to figure things out either intuitively or through deduction right?

43:17 Yeah. So one thing this leads me to like as a question is do you think that this game idea is partially inspired by the work that you're doing for your video essays cuz I feel like you've done a lot of work tracking down like unattributed games and looking at old games I'm sure you've seen a lot of really partial stuff in the just as part of your research is there a connection between this design and that activity?

43:47 I I think there is to a degree and certainly is something that's had me more plugged into this period. um and certainly like things I have figured out or engaged with through that research have come to be folded into this in certain like narrative strands. Like I think if I wasn't looking at um the board game industry uh which was also kind of the video game industry in part uh in the late '70s, early '80s uh there there would not be a code wheel in this game. Because while that didn't really factor into the stuff the board game companies were doing in video games like it it I kind of had to know about that industry uh and and figure that stuff cuz I never actually encountered a code wheel myself.

44:58 Right? Because by the time

44:59 them in the exit games.

45:01 [snorts]

45:02 Okay. Yeah, so so uh you know, these were used in for computer games as like a copy protection thing like you you boot up the game and it's like turn the code wheel to this and say what this thing is. Uh other games were like tell me what word is on this page, this paragraph, this this word number. You know, and that's how they did copy protection because if you were pirating the game, you would not have the code wheel or might not have the manual or the codebook or whatever. Um and so finding out about more about that industry um I I I think you know, allow me to have that code wheel, right? Just being interested in a lot of things, you know, interested in the way different creative lives intersect with games.

45:57 Yeah.

45:57 You know, I I I did that video about Rene Soriano, the uh designer who did KerPlunk and a bunch of other games. And, you know, his first job was working for an industrial design studio that had like former animators. And the way those people kind of interacted with, in a roundabout way, games. Um or the way that like Don Adams, the actor, was directing commercials for for board games and appearing in them. Um kind of gives me a sense of of how things are a little more fluid and more connected and allowed me to envision the idea of of a old RPG adventure module written by a sci-fi fantasy author who probably did stuff for the equivalent of like Ace paperbacks.

46:54 So, um So, yeah. So, I I do think I I I got something from that research and certainly from just um being more engaged with this period, which, you know, um somewhat predates and somewhat overlaps like the first few years of my life. Right? I don't have a lot of personal nostalgia for the '80s. I did live through a lot of the '80s, but as a small child. And also, um it was hell. You know, living in the '80s and '90s as growing up as a queer kid who does not understand her own queerness in a a time and place that's very hostile to um gay, lesbian, trans people.

47:50 Um you know, I don't have a lot of nostalgia for that period. And I know that in a in a way I'm creating a game that uh is made up of what could be nostalgia objects. But I want these objects to also carry the resonances of what it is to live in this time as someone who is uh marginalized and and who is closeted from yourself.

48:20 Mhm.

48:21 Um and so um I think there's some of that throughout the work in various places. Um yeah, I'm going to have actually have a list of like content warnings on the website because there are some things that are going to be probably a little heavier for people. Uh so I don't want people just to expect a a a a fun you know, romp or some kind of OSR throwback thing or something cuz it it's not that.

48:57 Right. It's not all whimsical.

49:00 No. No.

49:05 Um just to check in. So, we talked a lot about this game about Swords Against Beginners Box. I'm just going to mention it again for people to check it out. But um I do want to I do also want to check in about your uh your video essays. So, how have you um I guess continued to develop your craft and um you know, what are you what are you researching right now and how are you how are you currently picking your topics?

49:28 Um so I I that's that's a bunch of good questions. Um I I think as far as like my craft is concerned, I am getting better at it. And I think my editing is getting quite sharp. Um and I'm able to kind of trust my audience to follow me. There are a lot of video essays that kind of restate things over again or hold hands and I try not to do that cuz I'd rather just Okay, I'm going to trust if you are enough of a uh nerd or dork or whatever to want to watch one of these things, you're going to keep up. And part of that, too, is that like my my my first audience for these things is my partner, Sawan.

50:16 Uh who I love very dearly but has like the most severe ADHD I've ever seen. And um so I try to present information in with the density and conciseness and momentum that will keep her engaged, right? And so that dictates a lot of of the pace with of these things because uh they could be longer. Like like I I know it sounds crazy like you did it you did an 80-minute, you know, documentary about this one designer but like there's so many things I cut out of that. Right? Uh to try to keep the pace where I wanted it and to keep giving people the information. So um I think I I think I'm I think I'm getting more confident with that.

51:08 Um as for how I choose my topics, um in a lot of ways, my topics I don't want to say they choose me, but they kind of flow into each other. So

51:22 Yeah.

51:26 So so let me give you like a chronology of like some of the research-based stuff. You know, I was researching Uh so the first one of these videos is the um uncredited, which which was the video about the letter dice games. And uh while trying to figure out who designed some of these games, I found a designer. Uh, and I found out about her life and and that I made that video about it. And while I was engaged with those games, I thought, well, I would like to make a letter dice game. And so I did. And then that was that was Crossword that came out last year. And when I made that game, my initial thought was, I would like to do like a fake 70s style commercial for the game.

52:13 I ended up not doing it because I I got a cold, so I couldn't get my actress together. But while I was thinking about that, I looked at a bunch of old game commercials from the 70s. Well, I see Don Adams in a bunch of them, especially for these Skittle games I've never heard of. So, I thought, well, there's a topic there, and I can find out about these Skittle games. And I did. I researched the Skittle games, so then there's a video about uh, how they basically destroyed uh, Aurora as a company. Destroyed what was what was the biggest board game company at the time. They were outselling Monopoly. And then 18 months later, they were being sold off for parts.

52:54 Oh, jeez.

52:55 that's a fascinating story. And in telling that story, I found out that a lot of game companies in the 70s were owned by cereal companies. Like General Mills owned Parker Brothers and Kenner. And having that information helped me track down who designed one of my favorite games from the 70s, Topple. Uh, not not the Topple with the the spinny things on the plate, but the the domino type Topple Topple. And I found out who designed it. And with researching that designer, I got in touch with him, and that was that video about Rene Soriano. So, each of those things led into another thing. And while I was doing that video, um, and a big part of that story involves his time at Parker Brothers uh during a time when Parker Brothers was expanding to also do video games and children's books and records.

53:55 And and then they ended up, you know, destroying their company doing that and that's how they were sold to Hasbro eventually. Um, well, I researching that, I had to get some B-roll footage of all the Atari games. And so I started playing uh Pitfall. And I found there was a Pitfall 2. And then I found out there were a bunch of other Pitfall games. So now there's a video on my channel, which is me going through all, spoiler, 15 Pitfall games.

54:26 Some of which I did not know existed. Well, like there's a list on Wikipedia of the Pitfall games, they have nine listed. That number is incorrect.

54:41 So I I've you considered editing it in?

54:44 Duh, it's it's

54:46 That's So that that's that's how I um That's how all those projects led to each other. Now, I try to alternate those with projects that are less research-based, that are more about like where game design is right now. And those topics are kind of I have a vague list of topics and I choose one and try to work it. So right now I'm working on one of those videos, which is about board game expansions. And I've been working on that for like 3 months now. Um, I've been doing a number, I think like nine or 10 interviews with different designers of expansions um to get their thoughts on it. And I'm also looking at like the history of expansions.

55:37 Um, and like what what constitutes an expansion? Because like So one thing So one thing I'm I'm looking at with that you know, is like there are people who say the first expansion is is like this expansion for Monopoly from from the 30s. And it certainly is an early expansion in in that kind of modern context. But Did you know that the Joker card was added to playing card decks in about 1860?

56:09 I did not know that, no.

56:11 So this was a card that was added to the game added for use in Euchre which is a trick-taking game in the Midwest. Um

56:20 Yes.

56:21 I mean it's all around the world, but it's very concentrated here. Um though most games of Euchre within the mid the American Midwest region don't use a Joker anymore. But

56:35 Sounds non-traditional to me.

56:38 But they but they introduced this this card, and is that an expansion?

56:48 Maybe.

56:50 Uh in 1931 the doubling cube was introduced I'm sorry, 1930. The double cuz we know who did it. The doubling cube was introduced to backgammon.

57:02 Is that

57:03 sold they were sold separately. Is that an expansion Is it a separate thing you buy and add to your game? Is that an expansion?

57:12 I mean, yeah.

57:13 Yeah, I actually had had a had a great interview that's going to be in the video with like one of the foremost experts on the history of modern backgammon who has a a huge collection of doubling cubes and and doubling matchsticks which were sold before the cubes came about. Um so that's there's a historical angle to that and there's also like just talking to modern game designers of expansions. I have some interviews lined up, some interviews I've already done and um try to take a broad look at that topic and um so that's what I'm working on. That's what I'm doing in my free time. I enjoy it a lot. Um

57:57 Yeah. That sounds sick. I can't wait to watch that video.

58:02 And you know and and I'm and I'm able to do that because of the the successes of something like Six Moons. Right? There's no way I'd be able to do this if I had to worry about getting a game out the door every 6 weeks.

58:17 Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So God, we could go on forever, but we're going towards the end of the hour here. Um so I will just ask my softy questions and look forward to the next time you want to grace my show with your presence. Um so um what have you been playing lately that has brought you some joy? Sounds like maybe Pitfall, but I don't know if that's joy or obsession.

58:41 Pitfall.

58:42 Some of Pitfall brought me joy. Some of it did not. Have you seen that video yet?

58:47 You should watch I have not. It's on my watch list.

58:49 my video list. Um

58:50 I should.

58:52 Um so lately what I have been playing that I've been enjoying I've been doing a lot of playtesting for a game called Dragon Pizza that might come out this year. Um so I'm I'm enjoying that uh thing that I'm working on. Uh games that hit the table a lot lately uh here here at the house um are some heavier Euro games. So um Great Western Trail New Zealand I have played maybe 80 times now. It's like it's like one of my favorite games. I think it's a very good design. I understand that it does not resemble New Zealand in any meaningful way.

59:41 But that's okay. That's okay. Is it hypocritical of me the historical board game designer who complains about historicity in games to enjoy Yes, that's okay. I I really enjoy the game.

59:55 People are complicated.

59:57 Yeah. The South Tigris games, particularly Scholars of the South Tigris. I find really enjoyable. I think I think the expansions to those games are some of the finest I've seen. Um I've been playing Feel awkward saying this. I've been playing a lot of Oath lately.

1:00:24 Um

1:00:26 Right before all the new stuff appears. So you'll have to try the new things when they come out.

1:00:31 Okay. I

1:00:33 to try cooperative.

1:00:35 Okay. Okay. Um And that's kind of been Those are the things that been like in in the rotation a lot lately. Um You know, I've been doing a lot I really the last several months have been mostly a lot of of reading like a lot of old English. A lot of looking at old fan scenes and and drawing from that. A lot of research in that way. Um so it's nice to actually get back to just getting some games on the table.

1:01:08 Yes, although in fairness the reading also sounds delightful. Um and and then if people want to find you online, check your work, uh where do you currently like to be found?

1:01:17 Uh probably the most obvious place to do it is um Blue Sky. I'm amabel.bsky.social. Um and I'm usually I will announce work there. There's also the YouTube channel, which is um @hollandspiel. Um website is hollandspiel.com.

1:01:42 Perfect. Pop it on the show notes. Um Amabel, thank you so much for coming on. I really, really love having you as a guest. I'm super looking forward to Swords Against Beginners Box. And I just appreciate the time.

1:01:54 Thank you.

1:01:55 All right, everybody out there, please like, subscribe, comment, ask questions, and most of all, happy gaming.