Anna Blackwell & Bryan Tyrrell

James Hanna for Ethereal Mirror: Thank you both for joining me and coming to Ethereal Mirror. The two of you have a brand new project coming out that will be Kickstarting when this publishes, Apawthecaria, and I wanted to just kind of open the door for you to talk about the project.

Anna Blackwell: Thanks very much for having us. So yeah, Apawthecaria is our little collaborative attempt. It came out because I saw Scurry from Zinequest. And realized that Brian was also in Scotland and thought, Oh, yes, I want to collaborate with you.

Brian Tyrrell: Scottish creators. Yep. Well, I mean, I'm English, but I live in Scotland.

AB: No one holds that against you.

BT: Yeah, I mean, they should. But that's a whole separate can of worms.

AB: So we had this idea to basically combine my Zinequest game Apothecaria, which is about making potions to help people in a kind of fantasy cozy fantasy world. And Brian's game Scurry, which is about adorable animals and the forests and hills around Loch Lomond.

EM: That is that setting particularly important to to the two of you?

AB: Definitely.

BT: So the... I feel like it's...where to start? So Loch Lomond is a specific large body of water, and then a lot of other lochs as well, north of Glasgow on the west coast of Scotland. I, at the very beginning of the pandemic, was sponsored by Roll20 to start a live play series, debuting my own system Adventures on the Dime, which was like the first system they'd ever had for free on their marketplace. And I it is called Beast Fables. And it's set in Loch Lomond. And for about a year, myself, and some friends who are also illustrators, like myself, have been playing as little animals scurrying through the forests of Loch Lomond. And around that region, the tropics, the mountains there. And we wanted to make a game. Originally just a one shot game, because we kept having like one person be like, gone for a reason. They had, like, commissioned work, or they were ill, or there was a family member or something need to go see. And we'd have like most of the party there. But every time we tried to have like a one shot, we got distracted and just kept playing that one shot, and it became like a five or a six session thing, which it seems to be the way of our play style. So we wanted a game that wrapped up entirely in a single session, which is why we wrote Scurry and illustrated Scurry as a group project for Zinequest 2020. And then we published it, so like to me and my friends, like Loch Lomond, and the world of Beast Fables is very personal and fun, because it's something we all made together. Yeah. And Anna has her own ties to Loch Lomond.

AB: Loch Lomond is where I spend most summers. That's where I spend every good sunny day that we get here, which are few and far between. As we spend our time hiking around the mountains there and spend our time out on the water.

EM: Oh, that's amazing. I didn't realize how close that was to you. So you mentioned that you're, I mean, you're both in Scotland. Were you both aware of each other's work? Or how did how did this collaboration begin?

AB: It happened after Zinequest. I backed Brian's game Scurry, and after it dropped, and I was looking through, and just falling in love with it. I figured I'd shoot my shot and just set up a little message over Twitter, I'd been like, "OMG I love your game. Can we collaborate?"

BT: And yeah, it was really lovely to get that message because I think we'd been like Twitter Mutuals for a while anyway, and I'd seen like the success of Apothecaria, and I played it, it'd been really fun. So it was just a natural pairing really.

AB: There was a good pun to be made.

BT: Yes, that was literally the first thing we decided is what are we naming this? We threw some stuff around, and Apawthecaria kind of stuck. And then we made a game based on that.

EM: You know, it does strike me as this sort of name that you see it, and it's just well of course it's called that. What else could you possibly call it? So this is unlike Scurry, but like Apothecaria and Delve. It is a solo game. And as I look through the Quickstart it, I guess it feels like we're sort of witnessing the evolution of solo games, as they're kind of coming into their own as a genre of tabletop role-playing. And I just wonder how you see the evolution of these solo games happening and maybe also how you hope to help push that evolution forward with this new game.

AB: So yeah, I've been doing the solo game stuff since last year with Delve. But I started really getting into it with Artefact by Jack Harrison in 2019. And writing about it a lot for like Tabletop and Wyrd Science and [inaudible], because I'd went into almost self isolation by moving to Manchester and not knowing anyone. So back like two years ago, when the first of these games really started appearing to me. I was noticing they were very heavy and very emotional games that were very specific. They were trying to emulate, and I feel that emotionality of solo RPGs is the kind of the main drawing point. But then, later on, I discovered Iron Sworn. And if you haven't heard of Iron Sworn that is an incredibly, incredibly detailed system for telling yourself playing an RPG by yourself. So basically, you know, your own Dungeon & Dragons type thing, your own fantasy quests, are of the use of quite expansive Oracle's for places people and how combat unfolds. And when I started, like seeing this, like, two ends of the scale, almost, you've got very specific, detailed emotional things. And then on the other side, you've got nice, big, overarching stories to be told. I started to realize that we could do something similar to that.

BT: Delve and Apothecaria fit, I wouldn't say a niche, but they fulfill a demand in the solo journaling, game sphere, so to speak, in that you've got these grand narratives. With a lot of the original solo gaming, and a lot of these heavy storytelling. I feel like the first wasn't necessarily solo journaling. But like the first like solo RPG games, where those Choose Your Own Adventure books. And they always like epic adventures to save the world. And on the other side of that you've got very rules heavy, very broad reaching narratives, like with iron Swan, which again, I agree, really fantastic game they've got, it's written in such a way that you could tell any kind of story with it, or, I mean, it's a specific kind of grim OSR vibe narrative, but like where the story could go, and the kinds of stories you tell, and the characters you meet, feel unique with every playthrough. And it has a lot of replayability to it. And with apothecary and delve, these games that feel a bit more guided, and so on, so daunting for people who've never played a role playing game before to try, but also to have the requirement of having other people to play with, which is, as we all know, has been a big problem over the past. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. I was just making noises.

EM: Yeah, I mean, it's, I do wonder a little bit of if it seems like solo games, were already sort of arriving before the pandemic, but this may be just accelerated their, you know, their presence, and they're just being you know, what people wanted to play them.

BT: I would definitely agree with that. There was like there was already a market for them. But then that market greatly expanded. And I think that market is, to some degree, when we come out of the pandemic, because we're still in the middle of it. But when we come out, the demand for them will shrink somewhat, but I still feel like like many facets from the pandemic and many experiences, people have realized they'd like this kind of storytelling, and that isn't going to go away.

EM: And so I wonder, what do you hope that will be some of the elements of the game that that kind of keep people engaged or keep them coming back to it to get that replayability to get that sort of evolution of their character struggle.

BT: So I have strong feelings about this. Beast Fables as a setting started with me and some close friends, as a way of trying to digest and have conversations about the kind of social structures we were living in at the time. We're trying to use it as a way of talking about complex issues through the analogy of the fables of animals, sort of like Aesop's Fables. And that's a big philosophy I have when I play these games, when I play with my friends, is to throw complex issues that don't have simple answers. And then to sort of explore them through the different dynamics of characters, prejudices and emotions, beliefs, challenging those, that self reflection, that's what I really like about the setting that I've written. And I feel like with the solo journaling games that I've played, and that I've written, I've always had a very, like self critique, self digest approach to them. I wrote a solo journaling game, which I can't even remember the name of, it's all about drawing your face, or drawing on your reflection in a mirror and changing your image as you go through different prompts. And it was really emotionally heavy. And I put like trigger warnings on it and stuff. Because some people played it, and they're like, "Wow, this is like not a good game, if you're in the middle of an anxiety spiral." I was like, "No, it's not." And I feel what makes Apawthecaria replayable is that there are gentle, subtle themes throughout asking you to make sort of like choices about the people you meet. Yeah, sort of think about how your character approaches the world of the of the Bristley Woods, the place where the Beast Fables takes place, and where the game takes place. But it doesn't do so in a judgmental way.

AB: I think a great example is one of the events as you come across an exhiled beast, which is trying to explain a kind of criticism on punitive systems. And you get to choose whether you help the exhiled beast, which is a kind of a no-go for most animals, in the Bristley Woods. So like, you can undertake this extra challenge for absolutely no reward. You can't gain reputation from it cuz you can't tell anyone. They have nothing to give you, so there's no monetary reward. You can help for helping's sake, or you can ignore them. And face no punishment.

EM: That's, that's so interesting. I love that. That sort of, yeah, I mean, there's a lot sometimes the discourse will come up about incentivizing roleplay and that seems like just sort of the opposite. Just an opportunity for roleplay without any kind of mechanical give back.

BT: The way that this is in very much air quotes, "Justice happens in the Bristley Woods," because you're all animals, you're all on the scale of animals, like a squirrel is just a squirrel; a bear is a bear; a bear is massive thing to squirrel. The only way that they can really have permanent justice is what they do is branding, where they literally brand you with a mark that shows what you've done that was so heinous that you need to be exiled, and no beast can talk to you or interact with you. What makes you so dangerous, you can't live in society? And in these sorts of scenarios and situations, the solo journaling aspect comes in where you're presented, not with a specific crime, but just a situation where someone is in need. And they may have this ostracizing mark on them, but you don't know the background and you as the player are invited to sort of give that context. What crime did they commit? Or what crime does the brand say they committed? What do you think, as a character, the background of that is? How do you approach that? And you can have that same scenario come up with different characters that you're playing, and have those sorts of questions with yourself in different ways. It could be a really severe crime. There could be a murderer, or a beast eater, or a claw licker. But they're there, and they need your help in that moment, and you get to decide whether they get that help or not. The whole game isn't as serious and heavy as that, but there are times when it can be like that.

AB: You've got events like passing Doughfellows, which are the bakers of the woods, give you a tasty treat, and it asks you, What is it? How does it taste? And what prompts this moment of goodness? Like celebrations you can take part in.

BT: You're walking on the road in the meadows, and a mouse pup comes out the grass with a little toy sword, and is like, "Stick 'em up!" And you're like, What do you do? Obviously, you could just walk past this kid, and no one's gonna care. But how do you react and interact with this? It's just lots of little fun, very social moments.

EM: You mentioned the sort of this concept of justice, that appears at least in some of the elements of the game. And the game itself is sort of about gathering the components to create medicines or poultices for your fellow beasts. And healthcare itself is a big social justice issue. And I wonder, did that go into your thinking as you're designing the game?

AB: Oh, yeah.

BT: Definitely. Something that we came up with, I feel like this is something that has been for the whole of the design process. But when we come up with an idea, we seem to come at it separately at the same time. And then we're like, oh, my God, I was thinking the same thing. So a lot of the time, when I say, Oh, I did this, or Anna did this, we kind of both did it at the same time. And we just kind of beautifully came together. But specifically with healthcare, one of the kind of the crossing over of playthroughs is this thing called Guild Reputation and clinics that you can build throughout the rest of the woods. You play as a poultice pounder who goes and makes remedies for people, and the poultice pounders are a whole guild, so each time you play through, you're increasing the guild's reputation, and decreasing it, with the actions that you do. But you can play a totally different character in a totally different part of the woods, and still have that same reputation.

AB: You can also create Burroughs, which serve as clinics, which kind of help other Poultice Pounders to basically bring supplies, help other animals. And you get this feeling you're creating a sort of like National Forest Health Service.

EM: I'm curious if poultices were actively a part of either of your lives.

BT: So the naming conventions of the Bristley Woods tend to be very literal. So you've got the Doughfellows who are literally, you know, they're bakers, and you've got the Orebeaters, who are people who beat ore. They're blacksmiths. This was part of the worldbuilding in a sense that animals are very literal creatures. Humans, we're all poetry and art, and thinking about thinking, if that makes sense. And animals, I mean, you got to eat, you got to live, you got to go do stuff. They don't have time to just lie around, especially as some of them have quite short lives. And some of them have quite long lives. So they're very literal in the way they do things. And so the Poulticepounders pound poultices. That's what their guild is for. Yeah, so that's the that's my take on the poultices in my life and how it is in the Bristley Woods.

AB: I have a slightly more direct connection to them. While I'm not a spiritual person, I do know people who work as shamans, people who consider themselves witches and who make herbal remedies and poultices, especially for midge bites, which is a common thing around Loch Lomond.

EM: A what?

AB: A midge. It is a small spawn of Satan, that travel in clouds of about 10,000 and bite. You won't feel that until a couple of hours later. You'll just know that they're on you when you feel them walking. If you don't get them, you get these horrible itchy bites. And they're here from I think March until September.

BT: They're vile. If you're walking anywhere in Scotland, and there isn't a breeze, they're there. If there's a breeze, you're free of them. So the east coast and some parts of the west coast are pretty good. But if you're in the middle of Scotland, they're just a cloud of death. Tiny, tiny little bites, but vile.

EM: Sounds terrible.

BT: Yeah, like, Scotland is all like poetic and beautiful on the outskirts, but then it gets more and more OSR the further you head in.

AB: Definitely.

BT: Bog and death.

EM: So do the midges appear then in the in the game?

AB: Yep. They're also in Apothecaria.

EM: Excellent. So looking through some of the character choices that you've got just for the Quickstart and, you know, there are a bunch of animals in there, like a lot, and there were some that I would categorize as sort of rare, or at least I had never heard of them, including one that was the the capercaillie?

BT: So they're like a grouse. They're Scottish. They're big. They are massive. They can fly, which is incredible. And I think they're omnivorous. They eat a lot of pine nuts from like pine cones. But also like if you're a mouse, they'll just chomp you. They don't really care. If it gets in the beak, it gets eaten. But they're these massive birds, covered in these bristly feathers. I just think they're incredible creatures. Yeah. Which is why they are listed as majestic.

EM: I did look it up and I was like, Oh, that's Yeah, that's a pretty impressive bird. And so as I looked at all these animals, I just had to think like, clearly this is common ground for the two of you: the outdoors and animals, and I just wonder do both of you spend a lot of time outdoors? Do you consider yourselves outdoorsy?

AB: Oh, yeah.

BT: I'm quite lucky that I live in Edinburgh, and I'm right next to Arthur's Seat, which is this like miniature mountain, right at the heart of the capitol. I'm very lucky to live next to it, and I do try to go up it as much as possible, especially on like a lovely day like today where it's all like blue skies and sun and wind. Yeah, I like being outside when I can be. But when it's not like a deadly pandemic happening.

AB: Yeah, I'm quite happy. I live five minutes from a like, big shopping mall. And also close enough that deer wander past my house.

BT: Oh my god. Yes.

AB: Glasgow's weird in that way.

EM: Animal games, like solo games are sort of having a moment. We've got, you know, Mausritter had a really successful Kickstarter, and obviously Wanderhome. And there's several others. What do you think it is that makes animal games so appealing?

BT: I feel like animal games and animal stories, in general, like all kinds of stories, come in waves. I think a lot of people in my generation, you know mid 20s, born in like the late 80s and early 90s, definitely grew up with stories like Redwall and Watership Down, where the allegory of being an animal ,and being small in a big scary world was really appealing. Especially for young audiences. And again, now that we're in a world where everything's very tumultuous, having a natural symbol that you can sort of like vibe and associate with I think, is very appealing for a lot of people. Animals are also just slightly unknowable. They're beautiful, and they're charismatic, but they're also slightly mysterious. When you see a bird flying off, you don't know where it's going, or what its life is going to be like. So I feel they're an element of fantasy and mystery that are around every day and can be so appealing. And like many animal games, they're personal. Animals are different wherever you go. So you can always play as something, and it can be part of your identity. Like I was playing with some American friends using Scurry, the one shot animal system I wrote. And they were playing as like raccoons and ... they've got massive jaws, and they have tails .... possums! There we go! Yeah. <laughs> Like your really typical, beautiful, national animals of America. Amazing. We love them. But it's a great way to play as them and have this sort of like thievy little spirit, and not actually have to necessarily be a thief. You just have got this grabby hand syndrome.

EM: That's great. I think you said that you're basically doing the playtesting yourself, doing playthroughs as you develop it, is that right?

AB: Yeah, for now, just like, from my own experience, making solo games, the best way to see if something works is to play it. And we've already managed to pick up a few things in these early tests. It's like, you know, that's really, really fun. But it's worded in a way that's not going to repeat well.

BT: Or there are slight conflicts where we have a more specific example later on. And we already specify something earlier on, and they don't match together. Like we say, Ah, this poor person's broken their wing, and then you get to an event where they're like, Ah, help them fly, or like, help them deliver messages around the woods. And it's like, if they've got a broken wing, they can't be delivering messages, it's not gonna work out. And so we reword things. So yeah, we've been, we've been playtesting. ourselves. But I feel we'll also be playtesting in like public stuff with the Kickstarters. We'll be releasing, like little example sections, and new content as we write it. In prep for the actual printing.

EM: I was curious, like, as you're playing, do you sort of force yourself to play different characters? Or do you like, kind of find yourself gravitating to particular animals?

AB: Yeah, I use the random creation tool, just to make sure that was working, which is why I ended up with an otter, which felt really fun.

BT: I definitely have animals that are my favorites, like otters and rats. But I feel kind of why like the clinic in the Barrow mechanics came from was the fact that we were thinking of lots of different animals and different characters who we want to play and being able to repeat while still having a sense of forward momentum. So I feel like it all affects and weaves together, however we play.

EM: Each of you sort of started in different different ways. I wonder if you could maybe briefly share your kind of trpg origin story, if you will?

AB: So I actually got into game design, trying to go into computer games. And then in 2014, very long ago, and which most people have now long forgotten, I released a little generic, universal role playing system type thing called Those Who Play under my birth name. And it crawled over the thousand pound mark. I got a hundred backers, and I was like, yeah, that was really fun. But now I'm going to go back to university and never think about this again. Until I realized that I bloody hate computer games. It's like, okay, so right. I want to be a games writer. But apparently no one employs those. And it's a nightmare to get into that industry. And I have all these ideas that I can't create digitally. So then I started looking back at roleplaying games, which I've been playing since I was like 10 every week, and realized that you know, hey, here's a lot of cool opportunities. So instead of going into design, I went into writing about them. So I became a freelance writer. Thankfully, Tabletop Gaming were the first people to allow me to write for them. I'd been writing for like video game stuff for free, for a little website that someone in my union started. And then I was like, I want to make a living out of this. Contacted Tabletop Gaming. It was Matt Jarvis who was the editor at that point. I was like, let me write for you for free, please. He was like, Don't ever say you'll write for free. That undervalues you, undervalue your writing. I'll pay for 50£ because your pitch sounds cool. And that's our standard page rates. And yeah, from there on, I just eventually caught a bug for designing. Saw Zine Quest coming up in 2020. And I was like, Okay, I want to take the shot. What can I make?

EM: And that was Delve?

AB: That was Delve, yeah. That took off. That was eight grand by the end of it. I think largely in part because I had promised three zines for 7£. That was a nightmare.

EM: Oh, was it?

AB: Yeah. They're fundamentally the same system with increasing levels of complexity going up from Delve, Rise, to Umbra, but just trying to come up with all the content for them, test them make sure it all works... By the time I got that out the door I was like, Oh my god, no, no. The next game's coming out for 200£, and I'm making one copy.

BT: <laughs> I feel like with every first project from every creator, you always over-promise. You're like, Yeah it'll be so easy to do this. I can create anything! I'm amazing! And then you have to do it. You're like, oh god, this is awful. Working is hard!

AB: Like that Kickstarter update of, "Hey, I've decided to refocus my efforts on a time machine to go kill my past self and never promised this bloody project."

BT: Yes, don't worry, all of your money will be refunded through a ...

AB: temporal anomaly...

BT: Yes, temporal anomaly! Like you won't even know this happened.

EM: <all laugh> What other lessons have you kind of taken from previous Kickstarters that you're hoping to apply here?

AB: Have a good solid idea of what you want to create, and keep it simple. There's no need to go out saying hey, here's my project. And then once the money starts rolling, and trying to just keep the stretch goals coming, which I think is like a trap a lot of people fall into out of the first Kickstarter. Because it feels like a way to kind of keep the momentum going. But really, if the money's coming in, it's because people like the idea. You don't need to keep throwing things on the pile.

BT: Yeah, I definitely agree. I wouldn't think of it as like under-promising, but by keeping things basic, you get to focus and really craft something that is, like, you get to take a raw gem and polish it into something beautiful, but if you over-promise , you just end up with all these bits of broken glass, and you're like please they're shiny

EM: Right. They may be shiny but they're not not the gem.

BT: Yeah, they're not the gem. They're not the one gem that you want in your crown.

AB: That's definitely what happened between Delve and Apothecaria. I just focused in. I was like, this is just Apothecaria, and some little art things on the side. And that went a lot better... until shipping.

EM: Oh yeah. I have to imagine that ran into the sort of fiasco that shipping has become

AB: Yeah. Thankfully, this time around, we are contacting distributors to try and get someone who's more set up for it and be able to handle that for US distribution and EU distribution.

BT: My first Kickstarter In the Red, I feel like ironically, went into the red in terms of funding when it came to shipping. Like everything was fine. Everything was in the black, and then shipping came in, and I made a loss on like the whole project, because it was so expensive. And I had a lot of European backers as well. That's the thing. If your project gets big, do it small, do it tiny, have fun with it. But if it gets big, it's fine to reach out for help. That's something you should do. Because there are people with experience out there who can help you with this sort of thing.

AB: Yeah.

EM: I was looking at the Dungeons on a Dime website, and you've got a page there foryour Scholastic work. And I just love that. I've taught a lot of young players D&D myself, and I'm always trying to find new games to introduce them to, and it seems like that whole system is geared towards teaching young players, and I wondered if you were also thinking about teaching new players with Apawthecaria.

BT: So yeah a lot to cover there. But yeah, we hope, I hope with all of the games that I write, like as a premise is that it is entry level in every way. We didn't quite cover my my kind of like origin story. But basically, you're right, I struggled to find work, having graduated with a illustration degree. I always work for free to people. Yes, graduates who can't find work! We love it! I graduated with a good degree and a full portfolio, and I did free work for two years. But I couldn't get anyone to pay me. I'd always get met with, "I'm sorry, there's some more experience going for this position," or, "You don't quite fit our requirements," or, "You need to train in a specific thing," which costs hundreds of pounds, and everything was really inaccessible. So I started Dungeons on a Dime as a way of creating work for myself and for my friends who were in a similar situation where the only thing that you needed was to be able to do the work. You didn't have to have any, like fancy CVs or big applications or anything. It was just creating work for people who didn't get work. And that ethos spread to the end product as well. I wanted all of the things that I was creating to be Dungeons on a Dime. To be cheap in terms or accessible in terms of physically getting it. Buying it, reading it, using it. But also accessible in terms of how you could play it. People who had not played Dungeons and Dragons before, who had not played roleplaying games, could be able to pick up any of my games, my systems, and have fun with it. So when it comes to Apawthecaria, I definitely want people for this to be their first solo journaling experience, for it to be written in a way that's accessible and helps guide them with clear rules, but also gives them permission to be creative and to journal, to make this their own story.

EM: Do you have any sort of like, I guess, lofty ideals about what you hope young people get out of roleplaying games?

AB: I hope it gives them a chance to understand who they are. When I was younger, I used a Dungeons & Dragons character to kind of work through my gender issues. I think being able to put yourself into the shoes of someone who is entirely unlike you, is a great way to learn empathy. It's a great way to learn how to see things from other points of views. And yeah, I just think it makes you a better person in a lot of ways.

BT: 100% agree, I think of role playing games as a fantastic tool, like any kind of hobby can be to help make you become a better person. Roleplaying games gives you fantastic opportunities to practice social skills that you don't normally have the opportunity to do in day to day life you're playing as someone and if that person makes a mistake, whether it's intentional or unintentional, it's the character that made the mistake, not you. It allows you to see, to fail, to learn, and then grow. All while having fun and playing. It's it's a great hobby. It's a great tool, and I love it. It's why I want like lots of people to be able to play these sorts of games and for them to be entry level because I feel they've got so many benefits that everyone can enjoy. I also have my own similar experiences like Anna, I'm autistic and I'm gay, and it's been a really useful tool for me to just practice those social skills, become more erudite, read, learn, be excited about stuff. I don't think I would be anywhere near as outgoing as creative if I hadn't been playing roleplaying games from an early age

EM: I got absorbed in your answer I've forgotten my my follow up. I was gonna say, I don't know if this is like a disclosure I need to make, but the very first thing I very first product I downloaded for Roll 20 was actually an Adventures on a Dime product.

BT: Oh amazing. Yeah.

EM: And it was just I was just really grateful because it was a free one I think, or it was really cheap.

BT: You know Adventures on a Dime is the first free product out on their marketplace.

EM: There you go. Yeah, I was so grateful. I was throwing this Roll20 thing together. It was like right at the beginning of the pandemic, I'd never really used Roll20, and so just to have this product there was so helpful. And yeah, it's still like this module that I'll load into my Roll20 games. And I guess I wonder if you guys hear a lot from people have played your games, or is that is that something that happens very often?

AB: Well, I've got a discord setup for all my games. So I get to see people sharing their dwarven holds, their dungeons, their journals for Apothecaria. And the most recent one that like really jumps to mind is that a playing card maker contacted me because they saw someone else posting about the game. So they bought it, they played it, and they were saying how it's helped them kind of get re energized and feel creative again.

BT: Oh, that's so cool.

AB: Yeah, that that brought tears to my eyes.

EM: That's great. Well, now you'll need to make a playing card game and get them to...

AB: Things are in motion for that.

EM: Beautiful, beautiful.

BT: We love a little sneaky reveal.

EM: Yes. So good.

BT: Yeah, I've had some really genuinely nice comments from people about Adventures on a Dime. And the other games that I've written, where they said that they've been accessible, that this is their first time roleplaying. And they just wanted to try something simple. And it was more fun than they expected. That they love the artwork that they love the characters. It's always nice to hear that sort of stuff. And it can really just make your day just having one little review is the nicest feeling.

AB: Yeah.

BT: I also I mean, like, shout out to Iron Sworn, because I feel like that was the first time I played an indie roleplaying game on Roll20 with a custom character sheet. And that inspired me to make my own character sheet.... Well, to hire someone to make me a character because I'm terrible at coding. <all laugh> But basically Adventures on a Dime, is it's such a great response from people who said that they are grateful they could play it for free, and that it's just had all of the resources, and they could load it in. But I, in turn, am grateful for the other indie roleplaying games and creators in the scene that have paved the way, so to speak. They've done these sorts of things first, and I've just been vibing and reacting and making my own stuff. And I don't think I'd be... in the same way that I wouldn't be the person I am without playing role playing games... I wouldn't be the creator I am if there wasn't an indie scene to be in.

EM: You've got a Kickstarter going. But are there other things that you you'll want to talk about other things that we should be looking for from you?

AB: So many. I have a sheet on my wall of all the games that I currently have going on. I've just announced pre-orders for a game called The Dig, which is going to be A3 scratch poster paleontology solo-journaling game.

BT: Cool.

EM: Yeah, that does sound cool.

AB: Was just trying to sort getting that printed. Because the printer is being a little bit evasive just now. I've got Waste, which is the post-apocalyptic sequel to Delve, which is what I'm currently working on today. And then, after that, I've got a bunch of projects that I'm not going to announce because I don't know how long they'll survive on the wall and juust get replaced with something enticing me more.

BT: That's definitely the way of it I've found, is when you're like you're thinking of these projects, is that they have they have a hierarchy and things swap regularly to closer to being created. And then they make it onto the actually-in-development wall. I've got a fair few projects that are bubbling at the idea stage that one of them, they'll fight to the death and one of them will make it through to Zine Quest 2022. So something will happen next February, for sure. But also the big project, the one that is about to come to Kickstarter in November, for me, is Carved in Stone, which is probably the biggest project I've ever worked on. I announced this kind of soft a few months ago, but I'm designing layouts now and text— it's beautiful. Essentially, it is a historical roleplaying setting, with Adventures on a Dime inside the book as well. So it's a whole play package, if that makes sense. Exploring seventh century Scotland, the Late Antiquity period is just before Scotland became what we know as Scotland. Back then it was a combination of like five and six different kingdoms that were the Picts. There were the Scots coming in from Ireland, you had Northumbria, which was broken into several little districts, and you had people coming in over the sea. You had Germans. A whole crazy melting pot period of Scotland's history. And I'm working to create sort of like a visual encyclopedia setting of what it was like to be a Pict, the different responsibilities, social hierarchy, locations, and geography, all this cool information that's kind of a history book, kind of a roleplaying setting, kind of just a fun exploration of history, and specifically approaching it with a very queer and a very marginalized viewpoint of how can we subvert all of the previous, like misconceptions and preconceptions that have come from white male, straight historians that have very much branded the past. And how can we subvert that and challenge that with more contemporary thinking?

AB: Very excited for that.

EM: Thank you both so much for taking the time to talk with me today and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it.

AB: Thank you so much.

BT: Thank you for having us.

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