Latest / Story Games / Episode 4: Interview with Viditya Voleti
Transcript
- Maggie Studio: you Hello friends and welcome back to Story Games, a gaming podcast all about tabletop role-playing games with a specific focus on narrative-driven games. My name is Momo and I am your host. In our last episode, we played a game called A Land Once Magic, which is a magical fantasy world-building game. And today I'm so excited because I get to sit down with Fiditya Valeti, the creator of A Land Once Magic, and we had an amazing conversation. We talk about... fantasy as a genre as a whole and how we want it to change and evolve. And we talked about world building and game design. And it was just a really great conversation. But enough yapping from me. Let's take it away to the interview. Well, I would like to just jump right into this interview if that's okay with you. Yeah, of course. And I just kind of want to yap. I just want to talk to you about your games because I was able to play land once magic. It's my first game of yours that I've played. I had such a fun time. I had such a cool experience and I am just so interested in the group that you have. I talked with Elliot Davis a few weeks ago and I just think you guys are doing amazing, awesome things. So I'm so excited to chat with you. Yay. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to talk. very excited to chat. Awesome. Well, then we can get started with my first little question, which is, would you like to introduce yourself and tell people where they can find you? ⁓ guys, ⁓ my name is Veditya Valletti. I use he, pronouns. ⁓ I am a game designer and games educator in Brooklyn, New York. ⁓ And you can find me online everywhere at Veditya Valletti ⁓ and my games, like my own personal games at vedityavalletti.itch.io. ⁓ And ⁓ you can, yeah. Just kind of all over the place. You'll find my name in various books. And A Land Once Magic is published by More Blueberries, Elliot Davis. So you can also find that at moreblueberries.shop. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Would you like to introduce your games as well? Because I did mention A Land Once Magic, but I want to hear from your own words. How would you describe A Land Once Magic and any other games that you have? ⁓ yeah. So A Land Once Magic is a post-fantasy conversational world builder ⁓ where by drawing some cards and answering some prompts with your friends. ⁓ You will create a wholly unique fantasy world that will feel like a fantasy, but will look like no other fantasy you've ever seen. ⁓ And it comes with like, you'll make your own magic system and how that magic system impacts the world and how it is changing or disappearing. ⁓ And you'll craft like a bunch of different ⁓ like ⁓ rules and ideas and a city and some characters all throughout. Something that you can jump right out into other things with. Yes, it's so fun. I love the way that we kind of start big and then narrow in. I think it's a really fun way to do it. I had, I'd love to tell you about the world I made with my friends because it's so cool. Perfect. Do you want to talk about any other games? I mean, like I have a bunch of different games that you can find. Bloodbeam Badlands is a game of gunslinging vampires in a post-apocalypse where the sun doesn't set. ⁓ It's bombastic. It's ridiculous. It is ⁓ just like a rip roaring good time of being cool ⁓ and also having to survive. ⁓ And then I have like Space Goblins, which is a game of goblin mayhem in space where you play a bunch of goblins in space in a junk ship, crashing into ships and stealing a bunch of junk to find their way to junktopia. I kind of call it like a roguelike of role playing games where it's like really simple to play rotating GM, play a few rounds, crash, play again later. I love that. That sounds so fun. Yeah. Awesome. I will be adding both of those to my list because those would sound like right up my alley. Yay. Awesome. So. Something that you kind of already touched on that I want to dig deeper into is you talked about post fantasy and you talk about that in A Land Once Magic, this concept of post fantasy. So what in your words is post fantasy and how did that influence your design of this game? ⁓ So post fantasy, I like to be upfront with the fact that it is like kind of a made up term. like ⁓ post fantasy as like a ⁓ kind of to put a word to a vibe. of wanting to make fantasy that kind of looks past itself, like that is like, okay, I kind of want to push the conceptions and ideas and imagery of fantasy forward. I feel like sci-fi gets to do that all the time. It's like as the future becomes now, science fiction has to kind of keep moving forward, but because fantasy is so... rooted in the past, it stays pretty stagnant in a lot of its core ⁓ imagery and ⁓ references. And so the idea of post-fantasy is like, let's push past that. Let's maybe start taking inspirations from things ⁓ not that long ago and making them more fantastical or things now and then adding a fantastical spin to them. ⁓ And so it's like ⁓ in a wonderful conversation on the Yes Indeed podcast with Thomas Manuel, I was explaining this to Thomas because like, this is like very postmodernist of you. And I'm like, ⁓ it is actually, I guess so. that ⁓ is like a part of the postmodernist post-fantasy idea of it all. I think it's really interesting that I never thought of it that way in that. Like the sci-fi has so much to work with because the future is always expanding, but traditional fantasy is more so rooted in the past and there's less to draw from because we keep drawing from the same pool over and over again. Yeah, so I love like the idea of bringing in new ideas to fantasy. Yeah, and it's not like we don't see it. I think that's kind of the thing is like there is like a lot of fantasy nowadays that are very much like that. ⁓ There's a lot of manga out there that takes fantasy in interesting directions. I ⁓ always point to Brandon Sanderson's books as an interesting post-fantasy lens to it. Stormlight Archive, very fantasy, but very unique. Mistborn, think, can still feel like is a fantasy to a degree. Absolutely. Even though it is, yeah, it is like... It doesn't look like a traditional fantasy in the way that it's like medieval and it's Lord of the Rings esque. It's, it's quintessential and it's good fantasy. And it's good fantasy. Yeah. I could talk about Brandon Sanderson for forever, but I will. I will hold it in myself. I adore that man's books. But yeah, I wanted to kind of piggyback off that too. And in a land once magic, you mentioned things that either bore or infuriate you about the fantasy genre. I'd like to pick your brain about that. Yeah, I like, I mean, truly the, the, answer to that is like a lot of like, I mean, like racism is kind of the big one, think. Totally. I absolutely agree. It's like, ⁓ no, fantasy is really rooted in various like racist concepts. but I think there's like something interesting about like cultural concepts, like cultural clashing, but then it's like, there's a lot of racial stereotypes and the eternal kind of ⁓ like, evil races, right? And this idea of that being really annoying ⁓ or annoying to just have to rehash all the time as people defend it. ⁓ And then the things that kind of bore me sometimes are like, I think it's like, ⁓ imagery is a lot of stuff. It's like this, like, okay, like this is just kind of what fantasy is supposed to look like. I enjoy like a European fantasy, but it does bore me sometimes. Like it gets much more exciting when we can like branch out into different ⁓ cultural touchstones for fantasy, like visually or mythologically. ⁓ So those are kind of the main ones. And then also a little bit, and this is like, less, maybe less specifically in a land once magic, but it shows up and stuff like that is like, ⁓ there's a lot of like in role playing games, the like what you need, like structurally or mechanically that make a fantasy game. ⁓ that I think kind of bore me a little bit. It's like, ⁓ like exploration needs to be deeply important or, like how we fight things or just like the stuff like how like these core concepts of like what magic is or like how these arguments are like, I don't know. Like sometimes I like the idea of just like, let's shake it up a bit. Let's try and ⁓ break up like what a fantasy game feels like. ⁓ Totally. Yeah. And I love that. I think it's so cool to breathe fresh. air into this genre. fantasy is my favorite anything. It's comforting to me. It's where I'm happiest. there's comfort in those tropes and those stereotypes, but there's excitement in breaking those. And I think that's really fun to explore, especially when you can do it with your friends and build off of each other and each other's experiences. And it all coalesces into something that's completely unique. And I think that's really special. Yeah, I like, and that's like the real thing about it is like, no part of me is like, don't have your fantasy. Like to me, ⁓ sci-fi is my comfort zone. I really like science fiction a lot. It's just like, if I ever need to think about a setting or if I just need to slip into something, sci-fi is really easy for me. But like, I enjoy a classic, you know, like high fantasy to low fantasy. ⁓ ⁓ and like a sword and board or like ⁓ you delve into a dungeon. I think this is really fun and genre and trope is important because it's comfortable, right? Everyone knows what we're talking about and so we can just jump right into play. ⁓ Which is maybe why it's like I like ⁓ a world building game that forces you out of it because then everybody is a part of making something new so then you all feel comfortable with this new. fantasy that you've made. Like, hopefully it's like we've got out of the land ones magic being like, okay, well, because we've all made this together, ⁓ we're all just as comfortable in this new fantasy than we would be in this like traditional fantasy. Totally. Yeah. And everyone like contributes something and it's, like all of ours. And I think that's cool. Yeah. I love it. Love it. it. Cool. ⁓ I had a piggyback to a piggyback question. ⁓ And that question is, what direction would you like to see fantasy move toward? We did kind of touch on this, but like, if you could like kind of dictate where fantasy would go from here, what would you like to see more of? ⁓ where would I like to see fantasy go? ⁓ huh. Gosh, that's a tough, that's kind of a tough one. Like all directions I feel and you know, I talk about wanting to create new fantasies, but like I said, there is a diversity of fantasy out there already. ⁓ hello, Bumboo. Love you for my mic. ⁓ But like, you know, like I like, ⁓ I'm trying to find a word for it. ⁓ I really enjoy, ⁓ Like, okay, so I really like Magic the Gathering. And I actually kind of like Magic's fantasy, like vibe of fantasy. One of my favorite planes in Magic is Ravnica, and it's like very city and urban, and it's like very strange. And I think like I enjoy a, and we were talking like Brandon Sanderson, like kind of a little bit more pushing towards like industrialized fantasy and stuff like that. There's a book that I really enjoyed called Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wong. ⁓ That's like a really fun like spin on fantasy and magic. That's like really thinking about it in like an industrial sense, which has been seen a bunch. like I think like technological magic is really fun, like a Final Fantasy. Yeah. I'm just talking like aesthetic here, I think. Yeah. was like, ⁓ I think really want aesthetic. But like, OK, so like the real maybe like a more core thematic question then, or answer to this is like, it is a little bit what a land once magic is about, is like, ⁓ a land was magic is like very much like also about climate change in a way. Like I, I talk about this in the afterward, ⁓ in the book where like, as I was writing this game, like this idea of magic disappear or changing or disappearing because of our use of it or something is like, very climate change adjacent to me. Like that was a major thing I was thinking about when writing it. And I think like that's kind of what I want to see fantasy moving towards is like changing its like core relationship to its magical systems. Like thinking about like what is, ⁓ like what does it mean to kind of have like this miracle, magical thing that lets you do anything and then like. I like to see consequences of that or pushing forward from that. It's pushing a lot of stuff that pushes it closer to what science fiction does, which is cool. We've kind of figured out first contact more. Or not first contact, but it's like, okay, elves and dwarves and all these guys, we've kind of sorted out our cultural or mysticism or ⁓ we don't know each other too well. And then now it's a greater thought of like, what's going on with the world and like what's going on with pushing technology forward. I like that kind of fantasy most. Yeah, no, that's really, and I, it's really cool because it's never explicitly said in the Lance One's magic, but it does come up in many games that I've played with it. This idea of climate change or this resource that we have is waning and it's because of our own doing and how do we grapple with that? ⁓ And it's very grounded in reality because that is the reality of what we're doing. But it takes it in a way that it is ⁓ kind of easier to be thoughtful about what we're doing because it is this kind of make-believe place. But it does make you think about, ⁓ real life as well. But in a way that's more digestible, I guess. It's more accessible. Yeah. sitting in like a climate change lecture or something. Yeah, yeah. Then like being confronted by, mean, that's like the beauty of like creative, creative exercises, right? Is that like, when you get to abstract something or put like a fun coat over it, it does allow people to be like, oh my God, like, oh, racism, the robots are an allegory for racism. Wow. I didn't think about that. You know what I Like, yeah, good. Now I start thinking about it. I'm glad you're here with us now. Yeah. You're here with us now. As sad it is to know that you needed androids to be prejudiced against ⁓ to get there. I'm glad that you're here now. Yeah. I guess that's like the whole thing is like, just, kind of want fantasy to be more sci-fi in its thematic elements of like, ⁓ but in like the opposite. like, we're looking to the future with ⁓ science fiction and I think I just want fantasy to now be like, we're no longer like romanticizing the past. We're instead like maybe getting a second chance at the past. Like, okay, cool. Like what would happen if our fantasy is like at the cusp of like, we could have made the correct decisions to start to like make a big change against climate change, right? Like make a big stance against it. It's like, we're still playing in a, in a sort of past fantastical setting. ⁓ But, you know, it's not just like exploration, fun, like brave new world kind of excitement, exploration stuff. Now it's like, okay, like, hold on, we can think about our current problems and what happens, what could we have done to solve them in the past? I love that. No, that's beautiful. That's really cool. And it's, ⁓ it's a cool thing to think about, because it's something that It's something that comes up, but not explicitly. So it's like, it's in the back of your brain, but it's cool to have it be like, ⁓ yeah, that is kind of what, what we were doing here. I love that. Yeah. ⁓ I'm glad. I like it when it sneaks up. That's, I try not to be explicit about it until the very end of the book specifically, cause like, I'm like, it always kind of, it always kind of comes up, but people are like, ⁓ sometimes they'll be like, ⁓ my God, it's just like the coral reefs. Like, you know, like they answer a question and they're like, ⁓ this is just like the coral reefs. Oh, of course. Yeah, like that's the point. Yep. got it. Yeah. Climate change came up a lot. And this might just be the table I was sitting at, but religion came up a lot as well. And the corruption of religion specifically. Yeah. Which was interesting. But again, that might just be because of the religious trauma we had going on in my group. Well, mean, yeah, a lot of us, it'll come up. I'm sure you're not the only group that... has a very religious trauma based thing. But I think like that's the important part about it, right? Is like, I mean, religious big to fantasy as well. Like it's a setting that's literally there are gods and there are clerics and priests. Like it is so important to it. And the ability to maybe express that trauma in a new form is very important. Absolutely. It's one of my favorite things about games is being able to explore that in a safe and controlled setting where it's like, we can explore these feelings that we have and I know that I won't be judged for it and we can kind of work through them together. And that's beautiful. All right. I did want to ask you, ⁓ Touchstones are one of the, you know, beginning parts of this game where you introduce something that isn't stereotypically fantasy, but like an element you want to capture from it and put into this fantasy world. What are your favorite touchstones to use? ⁓ Okay. So as a fun curve ball, whenever I play this game with strangers or like at conventions or something like I always add my palette and my touchstone last or specifically ask my touchstone last. Cause I like to maybe fill in the blanks if I can ⁓ or see if I can like throw a curve ball to a group. And my favorite curve ball is to just straight up go like, mix. We're putting mix in this, right? ⁓ It's so direct. And then it gets really fun because people always have kind of new ideas to think about fantasy mix. ⁓ So that's my big one. ⁓ And I might even get specific. I'll be like, I want to do Gundam, which has its own kind of ⁓ thematic touchstone to it. Or I'll do something really bombastic. ⁓ like Pacific Rim where it's like just huge hulking things that are really important. So I love doing mix. ⁓ My other favorite touch to us to toss in there. ⁓ I've also tried more recently, I've been trying to do like kind of more esoteric ones, like ⁓ ones that like aren't so immediate. We ⁓ understandable. It's almost like a challenge to me. I've done defunct land, the YouTube channel defunct land where- hyperfixation unlocked. Yeah. It's it's Kevin Berger does little documentaries about theme parks, like theme park history and specific rides or the history of a specific defunct theme park thing. ⁓ And so I'm like, I'm going to toss that in. That's insane. love that. And it's weird and it gets really weird. So ⁓ that's probably going to be a big one for me now. I think it's a really cool way to introduce new things to fantasy by like taking things that you love from other media and just kind of like being like, we're going to add this. ⁓ My friend included, I thought this was really cool. The timelessness of a series of unfortunate events. ⁓ because you don't know what time period it is. Wow. And it's just like a hodgepodge of just different things. And I thought that was really interesting and fun and cool. That's really interesting. Yeah. ⁓ Like I guess in my examples, I didn't do like the specific bit. And like I said, I'll change the specific bit here and there. But like I've always like that is the thing that I really like is it's not just a series of unfortunate events because you could pull so much from that. It's like, what about this do you like? And that's like, I love like, I wouldn't have ever thought that that'd be the thing that somebody would pull from it. That's so cool. Yeah, that was cool. And that kind of carried, we carried that with us. ⁓ I also wanted to include, it's funny that you mentioned this industrialization of fantasy and how much you love it because one of my favorite aesthetics is steampunk. ⁓ yeah. So I wanted to include, I read this book series where it's like a steampunk retelling of World War I. And I wanted to have like mechanical machines fighting these big ⁓ like Darwinist recreation of like animals. So it's like an airship, but it's also a giant whale that's alive. ⁓ I love that. It mechanical bits to it. Yeah, very fun. That's so cool. It was great. And then that with the series of unfortunate events, my My wife wanted to include ⁓ like an onslaught of supernatural creatures from Sinners. Which I thought was like, okay, we're gonna go there. Okay, let's go. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ that's really cool. Wow, that world is already fascinating. It was so cool. ⁓ I'm sorry. You went wild with it. absolutely will. But before that, I do want to ask you a few more questions about your game. ⁓ I wanted to ask you. Why start with the magic as opposed to starting to like the world or anything else? Like I think it's so interesting that you start with the magic and then go from there. Is there a reason why? So that's a good question because ⁓ that was like a real, almost like a last minute ⁓ lock in for the game. Like I, so the game has always started with like you ⁓ build a legend first. And the reason why I I like the idea of starting kind of broad is because it gives a, everybody at the table can kind of like, okay, so a land with magic is, is sort of in itself a story. Like the way I kind of wrote it. And if you just kind of like read the tables themselves in a way, like it's like a story is being told to you or like that first two tables, ⁓ magic and, legend. are like, it is said that magic came from blank and there was a tale of blank. it's like, kind of like you're starting your game, like you're starting your world with the like prologue narration that would come from. I mean, like funny enough, I'm trying to get people away from like traditional fantasy touchstones, but it is very much like the beginning of the Lord of the Rings where it's like, you know, it's like, it starts with like the story is about the ring. So the one ring, so like you learn about that. Like that is the core of it. You need to know about the forging of the one ring and all the other rings ⁓ to jump into the story. And so like, that's kind of where that started. And so ⁓ I made the legend table to do that. It's like, you start with a story about the world that just helps ground everything ⁓ with like ⁓ a thematic element, something like gets warped, you know, it's like, there's a foundational thing. And then through testing and through like just playing the game a bunch. I'm like, really, this is a game like about the magic. Like, of course it is. I think that's almost self evident. But like before I was like, it's not really about the magic, but like, I want people to be thinking about that magic from the get because the magic is really the foundational like bloodline, like the, the, the, the blood of this world. Like it is why we are doing this. It is, it's, mean, it's the titular magic that the land was once. ⁓ and so just starting with that lets people like now, when you start talking about like the environment of the world or the cultures of the world, like it is all through this filter of, right. Our magic is that like we, ⁓ like in like, you know, we are bound to, like when we're born, we are bound to a birthstone and like that stone has an innate magical power as long as it is on our body or something like that, right? And so you're like, ⁓ what are like natural landmarks that the world goes through? And you could kind of like come up with something on your own that's based on your touchstones and your palette. But then like, you'll be like, ⁓ it's probably like mountains that are full of mines of these like gemstones that we're all connected to. And so it's like, it's just like a thing that creates like a real nice thematic and material and like tangible ⁓ anchor for all of your broad questions. Yeah. Totally. No. And I love, I love the way that it's introduced because it just, gives you, yeah, like a through line that you can always kind of go back to that ties everything together. And I think it was just excellently done the way that all the tables were presented in the order they were presented in. I just thought it was perfect. Thank you. Also, will say another thing through testing, and this is just like the idea of random tables, is that ⁓ when, ⁓ without having the magic right at the beginning as its own table in like the world table, that's like all the broad stuff, there's a whole section of it for defining the magic, but it is still subject to the randomness of drawing cards. so occasionally, very rarely, some play tables will go through that whole table and never draw a face card. And so they never actually like touch upon ⁓ like a question about the magic in that world. And ⁓ I thought like either I make a rule that's like before leaving this table, you draw a card and just treat it as a face card. And I'm like, I could do that. I don't think it's that clunky, but it's something that never happens anywhere else in the game. Or I can just have you define a magic right at the beginning so that even if it's loose, You will always be thinking about it, even if you never draw any cards that have to do with the magic in the world. So it's also a bit of like gameplay, like tweaking. Yeah. No, I think it's very well done. I love it. Awesome. OK, so what was your goal with creating a land swan magic and what do you hope people get out of playing it? ⁓ OK, so my goal creating it was ⁓ Truly, just wanted to make like, it's called a compositional world builder ⁓ because it was there to just kind of shoot the shit with friends. Like it was like a bunch of random tables based on my game, Space Between Stars, which is another one my games, which is like a space opera. That game has like a world building right at the beginning. ⁓ And so I took like the Space Between Stars tables and just made them fantasy. And so. This is like a game. The goal of it was just something that I could fiddle with and play with my friends. We would draw cards and answer questions in video game lobbies between matches of playing games or literally at hotel lobbies, at conventions, or just at a cafe. If I was just hanging out with somebody, I'd be like, hey, do you want to try this game out? So was just something for me to keep busy was my actual goal. I just like it. At no point did I really think it was going to be ⁓ a big release. ⁓ I just slowly kind of worked on it as a fun passion project, ⁓ side project, ⁓ until it was made. And so that was my initial goal with it. But then as I started playing with people and as I started thinking about publishing or whatever, it turned into a thing that... ⁓ And honestly, as I started teaching games and as I started being a little bit more professionally ⁓ helping other people with their games and thinking about games and world building, ⁓ I really liked making something that inspired art. Like, I kind of like had a goal with the land on its magic that this is a game that inspires you to make something. ⁓ And that was like kind of it's a lot of what it does is like, it pushes it, it leaves you either with something that you feel like you can immediately play into like, it's like a session zero game fully. So it's like, you come out with characters that you could like, like you, I tried to make it so it ends in a space that I think is an interesting, okay, go start playing. ⁓ But then also, like, it has so many different, like, little bits of intrigue all around it that, like, if you wanted to make, like, comics about it or write or, like, write about the world that you're in or, like, ⁓ really, I think, like, I feel like I really make it if somebody, ⁓ if a game designer played a landlands magic and then made a bespoke game based on the world that they made, like, to me, that would feel that's like my kind of Hope is a game designer gets inspired to make like an actual game about it. I think that'd just be really fun. ⁓ So that's like its goal now is to inspire. That's awesome. And I think it does a really good job of that because I know as soon as I stopped playing, I was like, I need to draw from this. Like I am an artist myself and it just gave me so many ideas for illustrations and you know. concepts that would look dope in a painting and You definitely achieved that I'm not a game designer, but I will make art from this for sure. I'm so happy I mean like yeah, I mean really anything it's just it It's so like world-building games in general for me are really important. Like I really love them Like I'm a huge fan of I'm sorry to say Street Magic One of my favorite games of all time, ⁓ huge inspiration for this game. But then like any Ben Robin game, ⁓ any, like world builders in general, I think are so fun because they are like, games or story games are about telling a story. But I feel like world building games are so much about like just the expression of creativity. Like what if we just make something for the sake of making it? ⁓ Feather and Bone is such a fun example of this. It's so simple, but it's just like, I don't know, like, let's just start coloring in a map and creating weird little factional conflicts. You leave them with kind of a story, right? I think ⁓ like, Quiet Year maybe has more of a story to it, because you kind of think about it and Microscope is a timeline, so there's many stories in there, but there are games that are just for the sake of creation and they are the most inspiring games to me. And so it's like really nice. I just wanted to keep that legacy alive. And it's just so exciting to hear. I want to draw something in it. I'm like, yay. And it does, it does a great job of that, especially because it is so collaborative. And I had never played a world building game that was collaborative like this. And there's something about having these other ideas from other people to build off of. And someone says something like, ⁓ what if we added this? And they're like, yeah, that sounds great. What if we did this too? And it's just, it builds off of each other until you have this beautiful amalgamation of a world that you all exist in together. And it's just, it's really cool. It's really cool. you. Do you have a favorite world that you have created while playing a land once magic? know it's hard. Yeah. it's okay if you don't. I'm surprised. I'm generally surprised by how many of the worlds I remember. Like somebody would be like, oh my God, like, like I played this at a convention with you at some point. And like, I was like, oh, right. I forgot that I like brought it to that. And they'll be like, oh yeah, it was like this world. I think it had something like this. And I like, it floods back to me. go like, Oh, that world was incredible. Like, of course I remember that. There's a really cool world I made, that we made in. at Breakout Con ⁓ with a fun group of people that was like ⁓ a world where it's cities were connected almost like, ⁓ like almost like telephone poles, like with these huge like, like meters thick giant wire cables. And it's like, they ran power between all the cities and they were like all connected to the city powers. And like the way that magic like was suddenly disappearing was almost like blackouts. Like it was like, suddenly these cities were blacked out and we couldn't ⁓ communicate with each other. then there's like, the city that we ended up making is one of those blackout cities that ⁓ one of its wires got severed. So it just has this huge cable that is smashed into the ground and it's like a hazard. ⁓ And there are cable cars that run between them is how caravans move between all these different cities. because the forest underneath is dangerous and strange, but there's so much stuff there. I remember really loving that world ⁓ just because I was like, ⁓ that's so cool. Thinking about fantasies I've never seen before, I just never thought about a world that is covered by cables. ⁓ And then there's, if I can mention one more, ⁓ an early play test that I did with ⁓ some friends, some old friends of mine. ⁓ we played like entirely over like just ⁓ like a text chat as I was like, they told me what card they drew. I posted a prompt in chat and it was like, it was like, I forgot what we called it. We called it like rail world or something. Like it was like a world that's entirely covered in railroad tracks. it's entirely like subway cars and railroads and like trains. It's a train world. and that's like an old one. So I don't remember all of the details, but it, was a world that I always hold with me because it really clicked that the game does what it wants because it just did such really cool stuff in there. Our magic was sound based. so the idea of the rail, why it was trains was also because of the sound that trains make, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, just like a cacophonous of sound everywhere. And it was like really fun. And I'll always remember that world because one of my friends answered like the question of when magic started to change, like what disappeared or something like that. And ⁓ they were like, ⁓ like silence is gone. Like not like something tangible, but just like now like, everyone is there's sound everywhere. And like you never have a moment of silence ever. And I'm like, whoa. I don't know why that just really kind of hit me in a way I was like, oh, it's beautiful. I could never have thought of that. And that led into some fun factions that were all about trying to find silence again. I love Train World, also will always stick with me. Train World is dope. sounds really interesting. I love that the sound is the magic. And yeah, there's like, what do you do when there's just cacophony everywhere? what does that mean? That's so cool. hearing about other people's worlds because we think and it's just like, I love it. And it can go in so many directions, right? So you're like, ⁓ my God, like, wait, I like, should do something explicitly steampunk or I should try and like bring something in for this. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. It's touchstone. I'm like, ⁓ what have I do? What will I make if I like put that touchstone in there? Yeah. Totally. Because everyone has different ways of viewing the world and fantasy and their own experiences. And it's so cool to see how that plays into creating something together. it's just, it's other people's brains are so beautiful. And I love when they just merge to create something together. It's amazing. Genuinely other people's brains are so beautiful. that the entire ethos of this game to me? And I look, cause like everyone feels like they contributed something cool. Like everyone had something, everyone at the table was like, they added something to the world that stuck. that we all thought was like, that's sick, that's cool. And I think that's important too, to like make people feel like they're being creative, even if they're not a creative person or they don't think that they're creative, allowing them to go into this place where they can just explore the things that excite them and create something together, I think is so necessary and so important. And I just adore anything that facilitates that. It is the most rewarding thing for somebody to be like, well, I don't really play role playing games first and foremost, because they're like, well, I don't know how to be creative or whatever. I'm just like, and Alain with Magic was also a little made for that where I'm like, it's really accessible, where I wanted to make something really accessible. But I think like world builders in general are really good at just like, it's okay. There's kind of no bad idea because we build off of each other. a ⁓ small like twist or a small like thought or just like adding a little thing can inspire somebody else to like be like, whoa, wait, like that was so cool. Like what if this? it's like, yeah, like even just like the smallest idea can be the bedrock of so many other like grand ideas. Right. ⁓ which I think is just so important and cool to letting people know that they are creative, even if they're not like a creative, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so, so important, I think. Yeah. Love it. Have you ever used any of your worlds created in a land once magic for a different project? I want to say. I want to say yes, but it might be no. That's totally cool. I'm I'm really thinking about it. Because a of the projects do like influence each other. ⁓ Gosh, I don't think I have taken a Landward's Magic World and done something with it, ⁓ which feels so hypocritical. Or I'm like, no, no, no, you do it. Like, you do it. No, I swear it's so good at it. I promise. I'm damn. really thinking like, because there might've been like one or two small things that it's inspired. Weirdly enough, it might've been the other way around. Like there might've just been like some projects that I make or like ideas, like other games I've played or media that I've read or something that is like, like I'm working on like something else. And then I go, This would be a really, thing that mean, Blood Bean Bad lands as like a very specific setting of mine that like, I really love it. I feel very comfortable in it. It's like very ⁓ specific and like unique in itself. Then I'm like, ⁓ this is a cool idea. Let me see if I can sneak a little like, how do I like turn an idea that I made in that into like a prompt for a land once magic, you know, like. ⁓ Maybe weirdly enough, like, Alano's Magic is a little bit of a, of a Vittio Valetti world builder. Like, hey, make a world like I would. So I was like, kind of don't need Alano's Magic to make games. Totally. Which is not its point. the point is I actually love getting outside feedback and ideas into my own projects. But I think it might have been the other way around. Like, more of my own work has found its way into Alano's Magic. for other people than a land once magic games that I've played. I've went, I have to make something from it. Totally. That's not to say though, that every time I play a land once magic, I do go, there's a game here. I should just make this game. Like straight up, I should really do it. There's just so many things to do. I know. So too many. Too many. I love that though. I love the way that, ⁓ you kind of funneled. the things that you love into a land once magic in some way or another. And I think that's I'm going. Awesome. That was about it for my questions that I had for you. Do you have any last things that you'd like to share? Any experiences or things you'd like to share about the game that you think are important to tell? And it's okay if the answer is now we covered it. We might have covered it. I mean, like it's this is such a... I don't know. mean, like, I think a lot of designers feel this way, but it's like, it's such a precious game to me now. Like, so much of it is so particular that it's like, I kind of could talk about it forever. And in so many different little parts and bits. I don't know. Like, I truly, we talked about it, but it's like, I want this game to inspire others. Like, I really like... A small thing I'm proud of that I think goes into a lot of the stuff that we've talked about is when you get to a point of view or when you get to a point of view where you just pitch characters, ⁓ I ⁓ really held myself back from making any kind of table because I found that through playtests, people didn't need any outside inspiration. They were just like, ⁓ I know exactly who. this character is. I can make a person in this world. Everyone made a very different person in it. ⁓ And to me, that's the most gratifying thing out of this game is just like, ⁓ it does inspire in a way that I don't actually need to handhold you to get you to make something yourself and your own. like, guess my last thought is I just always like to tell people like, I don't know, like play it, mix and like, and if it inspires you do something with it. that's, keep the train going is the thoughts I have. That's awesome. That's, and it's true for my table too. Like we all knew exactly who we were going to be, exactly what kind of point of view we wanted to play through. the things that excited us the most and we were all psyched to just like get in there. And ⁓ it was just a really cool experience to create something together and like have that well of inspiration just overflowing with ideas. And it was just a really cool, really cool game. I loved it. Yay. Thank you so much. I love that. You did a really good job with it. did. Do ⁓ you have any future projects you'd like to plug while we're here? ⁓ I do. Their release dates are a little in the air, but ⁓ so like a land of magic was published by Elliott Davis. And it's kind of like, I'm very happy that there are people in my life that want to publish my work. And so like I have ⁓ Space Goblins, which is another one of my games, is going to be published by Dino Berry Press later this year. So look out for that. And then Bloodbeam Badlands, which I've mentioned, is being published by World Champ Game Co. later. So look out for that. then ⁓ Space Between Stars will also be published by Possible Worlds later. I have a lot of these games kind of out in development and they're you're going to find them hopefully soon. So keep an eye out. They're also all available on my itch page. If you want to check them out now, play them. They're all fully playable. They will just be better later. Totally awesome. That's so exciting. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me, for chatting with me. I appreciate it. Um, yeah, you're great. Oh, thank you so much. This is a lot of fun. I'm very happy and I really appreciate it. Awesome. I just want to say another huge thank you for Faditya for sitting down with me and chatting with me. I loved our conversation. It's always so cool to talk to game designers and see the method behind the madness. If you would like to pick up a copy of A Land Once Magic, you can do so through our website. Our website is heartofthedirnacorn.com. Also, feel free to follow us on all the other social medias. We are at Deer and Acorn on most places. And thank you so much for hanging out with us today. I hope you had a good time and I'll see you in the next one.