Yes Indie'd Pod Thomas M
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Do I like game design? Yes, indie'd! A podcast of bitesize interviews with indie tabletop roleplaying game creators about their work and game design theory & practice. Releases every two weeks.
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Reading The F**king Manual (w/ Max Lander & Aaron King)
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Today we're talking to Max and Aaron from RTFM. Maxwell Lander is a game designer, photographer, visual artist, and also musician with an album of dungeon synth. Aaron King is a game designer whose works including Patchwork World Sixth Edition. They are both the co-hosts of RTFM, an RPG book club podcast.
Show Notes:
[00:02:49] Why start an RPG bookclub podcast?
[00:14:43] What each person brings to the table
[00:28:47] Critiquing RPGs as an artform
[00:41:24] Infectious Enthusiasm: Sagas of the Icelanders, Bloodfeud
[00:45:03] Tyranny of Numbers
[00:50:08] RePlay
[00:53:13] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Prep more, be less?
Other Links:
It's up to you really, an all vtuber actual play of Patchwork World -
Meeting Games Where They're At [w/ Quinns]
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Today, we're talking to Quintin Smith aka Quinns, who has been reviewing boardgames for more than a decade with the iconic show, Shut Up and Sit Down. Then about 3 years ago, Quintin joined People Make Games to cover everything from Roblox's relationship to child labour to the battle for ownership and control of Disco Elysium, from the revival of kabaddi in India to phenomenon that is jubensha in china. Now, he's gone and started Quinns Quest, a new youtube channel to review tabletop roleplaying games that feels like a lot like that one weird show where William Riker from Star Trek looked at the camera and asked us if we believed in ghosts. Don't worry, listeners, we're going to ask the question on everyone's mind: why?
Show Notes:
[00:02:00] What makes a good review?
[00:08:02] Horror versus Tension: one of the challenges of reviewing RPGs
[00:16:12] Would you ever do a bad review?
[00:23:22] Why playing games are vital for reviews
[00:40:44] Infectious Enthusiasm: World Wide Wrestling by Nathan Paoletta
[00:43:26] Tyranny of Numbers: Youtube drop-off
[00:45:12] Replay
[00:50:31] All Advice is Advice For Myself: Use your hands?
Other references:
I mentioned an article by Quinn Murphy which talks about promises, consistency and economy, you can find that here
If you liked this podcast, you'll probably love the Indie RPG Newsletter -
Games That Make You Cry In A Panera (w/ Hannah Shaffer and Evan Rowland)
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On this episode, we have Hannah Schaffer and Evan Rowland, the two creators behind indie game design outfit, turtlebun. They've published games like Questlandia, Noirlandia, Damn the man save the music, Mud: a golem memoir, and many more. You can find more about those games at turtlebun.com.
Evan and Hannah also co-host a podcast called Design Doc , which is in their own words, about "trying to make a living as people putting things out in the world". If you read any reviews of that show, you'll hear it being described with words like honest, vulnerable, caring, friendly. It's one of my favourite podcasts in the world and you should listen to it. Then, you can too get vulnerable insights into the daily practice of being a game designer and you can also learn that Carrie Fisher once overtweezed Hannah's mom eyebrows at a workshop.
Follow them on Instagram
Show Notes:
02:46 Getting started (Evan reinvents microtransactions)
09:07 Going from making big things to making medium-small things
11:30 Getting deep with Design Doc
25:00 What is collaboration and how do you even do it?
36:25 Infections Enthusiasm: The Beast and Usagi Yojimbo
39:40 Tyranny of Numbers
43:46 RePlay
45:33 All Advice Is Advice For Myself
Some of my personal greatest hits from Design Doc :
Burnout
A Cat in the Lap and Other Good Things
The Work of Games is Not Just Making Games
The Games You Want To Make The Life You Want To Live -
Bonus: Open Hearth's Games of the Year 2023
A guest episode on the feed today as I share with you something from the folks over at Playing at the Hearth, the podcast from the Open Hearth gaming community. It's a nice, welcoming online place where people from all over the place get together and play games. It's like having access to a convention all year round. If you'd like to join, head over to their website.
This episode has members of the community sharing their favourite games played in 2023. Lot of cool games mentioned and I add my 2 cents at the very end but I also got to play in two campaigns mentioned by other people which was Capitalites and Nahual. -
Best of 2023: Games Recommended By Guests
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In this round-up episode for 2023, every single one of my guests sounds off about one game that they want to recommend to you!
[00:02:05] Judd Karlmann recommends Into the Odd, The Between, and As The Sun Forever Sets
[00:05:55] Lowell Francis recommends Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition
[00:08:27] Jahmal Brown recommends Legacy: Life Among The Ruins 2nd Edition
[00:12:05] Indrani Ganguly recommends Alice is Missing, Blase Monotony, and Bubble Bubble
[00:13:55] Tan Shao Han recommends The Nightmares Underneath
[00:17:07] Fiona Hopkins and Stephanie Burt recommend Wool of Bat and Monsterhearts
[00:20:20] Paul Beakley recommends a|state and Fellowship
[00:24:08] Becky Annison recommends Escape from Tentacle City
[00:27:38] Emily Friedman recommends The Quiet Year
[00:29:46] Chris Chinn recomends Errant
[00:31:58] Josh Fox recommends Microscope and Microscope Union
[00:35:23] Evan Torner recommends Prism
Listen to the other round-up episodes of 2023 on the Yes Indie'd patreon!
Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter -
What We Get From Studying Games (w/ Evan Torner)
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Evan Torner is the Associate Professor of German Studies and Film / Media Studies at University of Cincinnati. He's the Director, UC Game Lab and has a co-edited volume (with William J. White) entitled Immersive Gameplay: Essays on Role-Playing and Participatory Media. He's also co-founder and one of the editors at Analog Game Studies, which has been publishing research into RPGs and larps for more than ten years, and the Golden Cobra Challenge, which is a larp competition. He's a lifelong game master and a game designer and larpwright including his freeform scenario “Metropolis” was nominated for an award at Fastaval.
Show Notes:
[00:02:38] Starting out as a GM
[00:10:02] Railroading Is Good Actually
[00:22:20] Actor stance is "commercially default, not culturally default"
[00:29:43] Where do tabletop RPGs stand in game studies?
[00:39:55] Game design as media analysis
[00:45:19] Infectious Enthusiasm: Prism by Whitney Delaglio
[00:46:54] Tyranny of Numbers
[00:49:17] RePlay
[00:51:21] All Advice Is Advice For Myself
Transcript of the entire episode can be found here.
Support the showThe Yes Indie'd Website // The Indie RPG Newsletter
Customer Reviews
Should You Listen to This? YES, Indi'ed you should!
This show is an awesome little window to the world of tabletop design. I love how approachable the host and guests sound. It's like having a quiet moment while at a game convention sharing a coffee with people passionate about gaming.
Should you listen to it? Yes, Indie'd...