Latest / Story Games / Episode 18: Interview with Jack Harrison, Creator of Koriko

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Episode 18: Interview with Jack Harrison, Creator of Koriko · Story Games

• Maggie Studio: And welcome back to Story Games, a podcast all about your favorite narrative-driven games. My name is Momo, and I will be your host. I am beyond excited about today's episode. I got to sit down with Jack Harrison, creator of Coreico A Magical Year. Coreiko is one of my favorite games of all time, so to be able to talk to Jack and ask him questions about his process was just a dream come true. Also, a bit of an announcement. Coreico is available again for pre-order. We will be fulfilling orders early 2027. But if you've been wanting to get your hands on Coreico, you finally can. All right, without further ado, here is me and Jack Harrison. Hello, Heart of the Dear Nicorn friends. Welcome back. And today I'm really excited to be talking with Jack Harrison, creator of Coreico, aka one of my favorite games of all time. And we're just gonna sit and chat and talk about his games today. So hi, how are you doing today? Hi, yeah, good, thank you. ⁓ hot, as I was just mentioning, is ⁓ I think we it's about a hundred in Fahrenheit ⁓ in my office. So I'm not in my office, I'm in I'm in the house. Beautiful. Well, yeah, definitely try to stay cool as best as you can. It's a cute 75 degrees here, so not too bad. Sounds much more reasonable. Much more reasonable, but the Pacific Northwest is just like gorgeous all the time, so I can't ever complain about the weather here. But wonderful. Let's get into some of these questions that I've got for you, if that's okay. Yeah. Awesome. So first can you just introduce yourself a little bit and introduce some of your games? Yeah, sure. so I'm Jack Harrison. I publish games ⁓ under the brand Mousehole Press and have done for like I think about six years now, maybe seven. and yeah, it's it's what I do now, it's what it's my whole job, ⁓ which is pretty cool. That hasn't always been the case. I yeah, like many ⁓ people, I worked a boring office job for quite a long time, and made games in secret. ⁓ but now I now I'm just now I'm just doing it full time. ⁓ and yeah, my ⁓ you mentioned thank you. ⁓ you mentioned Goriko, there's also Artifact was my first big big game, ⁓ another solo game, and a bunch of other smaller, weirder ones as well. Yes, I've played Coriko and I've played the slow knife, which was very, very fun. Very different ⁓ vibes between the two. Yeah. Yeah. But very cool. So you mentioned Coriko. Would you like to describe Coriko in your own words for everyone? Yeah, sure. ⁓ so hmm, I feel like I've done this so many times now, but every time it's a bit different. ⁓ Coriko is solo game. It's a story game. and You are telling the story of a teenage witch spending a year away from home for the first time. ⁓ so it's sort of a it's definitely like a journaling game. ⁓ you're drawing cards, we use tarot cards, and you are responding to those prompts in a in your diary and writing from the perspective of your witch as they kind of go through the trials and tribulations of a year spent in an unfamiliar city. ⁓ and then at the end you kind of figure out, are they gonna stay there, are they gonna go home, and they're gonna do something different. And ⁓ yeah, that's what you're doing. Ugh, I love it. I cannot sing the praises of Coreico enough. it was actually the first solo game I've ever played, and it had such a huge impact on me that it kind of changed the trajectory of my life a little bit. Because now I get to do this for a living, which is insane. ⁓ so I'm very grateful to Coryco and for you for making it because it's really a special game. ⁓ thank you very much. That's that's really cool. Yeah, of course. So Corico is a solo journaling game. Why did you want to make like a solo journaling game? Like what about solo games kind of inspired you to make stuff like Corico and Artifact? Yeah. I guess when it started with a very practical kind of concern, which was which was I had ⁓ my first Git in 2018 and my second one in 2020, and really The amount of time I had available to play games in person with my friends went dramatically downhill. and that's that's when I started playing a lot of solo games. I think Takuma Okada's Alone Games, I think you saw you you saw this. Alone in the Ancient City was the first one that I played, and I really loved that game. and so that's that's kind of where solo started for me was this idea that you can be creative and you can tell these stories even when you're not with your friends. And that's kind of a cool thing to be able to do. Have that flexibility to do it whenever you like. but then it also kind of goes the other way where Coriko in particular for me was always going to be a solo game. And not not all of my games are, but Coriko for me it was it was it's a game about being a teenager, which is kind of awkward. especially a goofy teenager who's kind of finding their feet And that can be a difficult thing to do with ⁓ your friends around you sometimes to like fully embrace that ⁓ and all the messiness that is contained within that. Whereas I think something about sitting with the diary and pretending to be a teenager makes it much easier to access that part of your ⁓ your history or what's going on for you right now, depending on where you are in life. so that's kind of those were kind of the two big things in terms of it being a solo game. I love that. Yeah. Having it be a solo game kind of allows you to get to that awkward teenage place that maybe isn't the most like comfortable place to be in all the time because it's like, ⁓ gosh, being a teenager. But allowing yourself to sit down and kind of reflect on that and maybe make decisions that you would make now kind of as an adult, like it just it gives you a lot of that freedom to kind of explore those kind of weird, complex adolescent feelings. So I love it. Great. 'Cause you've got stuff like ⁓ stuff like Slug Blaster and Tales from the Loop. They you're a teenager in that too, but but those are action games and I think the the kind of awkward stuff is there, but it's smaller part of what you're doing. ⁓ Yeah. You there's kind of more of a focus on being like a cool teenager and like the kind of like F you attitude, like I'm gonna do what I want. But Corico is slower and more introspective than some of those other games. ⁓ Which I personally love. Yeah. Yeah. Yay. I love it. ⁓ okay, let's see. So a big parallel between Coreico and other media is the parallel between that and Kiki's delivery service. And I wanted to pick your brain, is Ghibli like a big inspiration for you? And if yes, why does it inspire you? Yeah, I mean, yes, for sure. ⁓ I think Geeky in particular, ⁓ was was at the forefront of my brain when I was writing this game because I kinda wrote this on the Kickstarter page way back when. But ⁓ still true now, but especially in that period, it was my eldest favourite film and so I would watch it like once a week. and that just made it really kind of front of mind ⁓ when and ⁓ and and it That that came second. So I was looking for a game that did certain things and then it was like, ⁓ this would actually be really good framing to kind of explore this stuff within. but ⁓ but like I love I love Jhibli stuff more broadly as well. ⁓ and I think a lot of that is from a lot of that applies to like the slowness and the beauty of it all, ⁓ taking time and appreciating. you know, standing on top of a hill with the wind blowing through your hair and looking out over a beautiful vista. That's a very ghbly thing. as well as melodrama and and magic and all the other sort of mainstays of those films. but yeah, I really love the the there is even amongst all the films which are of course very different, there is a way that magic is presented that feels very ⁓ organic and ⁓ kind of authentic, in a way that it doesn't always feel in in other types of media. Yeah. One of my favorite things about Ghibli is the way that it portrays magic as almost mundane and vice versa, that the mundane can be magical, which is like one of the tenets I try to live my life by. ⁓ I love that. Yeah. ⁓ because it is. It's like taking that time to appreciate the stillness and the slowness and finding the magic and beauty in that is very valuable, I think. And that's one of the reasons why I love games like Coreco is because it's a practice in that. It's a practice in slowing down and appreciating the things around you. I make a little ritual of it. I like bring myself some tea. I like, you know, maybe turn on some like lo-fi music and I just make it like a whole thing. And I just think that people need that. People need an opportunity and an avenue to explore being quiet and slow and introspective. So yeah. That sounds really consistent with my own experience, but also talking to people at conventions and stuff like that. I think both with Artifact and with Coraco, people often have shared that they've used it as a way of like more structured mindfulness, which I really love. That I I don't know that that was necessarily an aim going into any of those games, but it's fantastic because people have said to me they they find it quite difficult to just sit there and, you know, meditate with no kind of goal in mind. But but having that like you say, the ritual of it and then the structure of making space for it can be can provide a lot of the same benefits in more of a in a way that works for them, which I really love. That's super cool. Absolutely. And you also have the aspect of the tarot cards as well, which is also a tool for meditation and introspection. So I think that kind of adds to it as well. There's like so many factors going into the game that makes it this wonderful, serene, introspective experience. And I think it's well done. Very smartly done. Thank you. Yeah. And how special that people like can latch on to a game in a way that you didn't expect. And kind of gain something from it that wasn't intended but still like so cool and beautiful. I love that. I love that too. The the the the flip side of that is that people often tell me that they've cried. And I that's not actually my I'm not I'm not like a sicko for making people cry, but ⁓ it seems to be a really common theme with a lot of my games. People say, ⁓ yeah, I've cried at the end. I'm like, okay. Was it good though? Yes. I think crying is good. I've actually talked with Game designer Elliot Davis about this, who designed The Time We Have. ⁓ and I think that there's a catharsis in in that, and how beautiful an experience to have, either with someone or on your own, that you're so moved by the story that you're telling that you're brought to tears. I think that's also something that we need more of. We need more connection with our inner world and our emotions that way. So I think that's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I think it's the it's the it's the idea that you don't wanna be setting out to do that. You want it to be a by product of the other stuff. Totally. But yeah. I love it. Wonderful. Ugh I am loving this. Okay. ⁓ are there any other big inspirations for Quariko that kind of weasel their way into the game? I mean I I read the I read the books as well and they they offer a different perspective on Kiki and that's that's really nice. But but really it started with it started with like an experience in life rather than a a piece of media. which which is just that ⁓ like I'm in my mid thirties now. I've got kids, I was walking, taking them to swimming, ⁓ and I was just feeling really reflective about ⁓ the paths that we take, especially in our early adulthood and the how they kind of those paths that we take can really set a a course for our life. And of course we can change those paths and things can shift, but the decisions we make in our teenage years, you can kind of connect those dots backwards to see how they how they lead towards where you are now. And I was also thinking about how that is a time where you have a lot of different competing ⁓ voices around you, and increasing pressures and expectations around which paths you should take and you shouldn't take. And so really that's that was like the kernel of the game before it became anything to do with Kiki's delivery service. It was like, I wonder if I could make a solo game that kind of explored that early adulthood period where you're you don't really know what you could do with your life and you've got like ten people trying to give you different advice on what to do with your life. ⁓ and what might that be like. ⁓ And so that's that's where it all started. And then it and then and then because I was watching Kiki every week, it was like, ⁓ yeah, this is a good vessel for this idea to be moved through. That's perfect. I love that. Yeah, 'cause it it is such a tumultuous time in everyone's life. ⁓ being a teenager and not knowing what to do with anything and you're going through so many changes at once and it's just chaotic and crazy. So ⁓ I love that. I love that you took the time to kind of explore those feelings and they do impact like you as an adult too. And I think it's it's fun to kind of reflect on that as an adult and kind of try to go back to those teenage years in a way and maybe process some stuff. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It's interesting because in the as I kind of look to explore what I want to do next within that same space. the but the big kind of kernel for the next one is is what about when you are in your thirties and or or that kind of age. You've you've done that part that first path and then what is it like to make a big shift or a big change at that point? Because of course those paths do you make and you you kind of start walking when you're a teenager. Sometimes it can feel like that's your path until you die, but actually that's not really true and we can change and shift in big ways. And that's kind of what I want to explore next. That's very exciting to me as someone who is freshly thirty and going through about fifty million life changes at once. Yeah. It seems like a pretty common thing, I think. I think so. I think there's like teenage hood, which is a lot, and then you turn thirty and it's like, okay, now we're gonna take everything that used to be true and now we're going to make it the opposite of that. And you're gonna go through a lot. So ⁓ I think that's a really exciting Really exciting idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes from that. Yeah, me too. Yay. All right. So I want to ask you: how does it feel as the creator of Coriko to see Coriko become so I wrote down the word beloved because so many people love this game, are absolutely feral for this game. I get comments every day about when it was coming back. Like People are hungry for this game and how does that feel as the creator? ⁓ well it's very nice. I think there's probably quite a British part of me that that just has to be a bit demure about the whole thing. ⁓ but ⁓ i I mean it i in a big way it's made it possible to go full time doing this stuff, which is really cool and not something I ever thought I'd be able to do. So that's that's extremely cool. ⁓ but but I guess for me I only really feel it I think when I meet people and talk to people in person. ⁓ or like this, this is this is quite similar, but there's obviously like all these copies out there and you get comments and those are really nice. But when when I I only started going to conventions I think last year or the year before and that was the first time that I had people coming up to me and being like, Wow, I had this experience and it was amazing and that that sort of connection was really lovely and to to have to have people playing back things that I kind of was like hoping to express. is just great. Like that's that's kind of the dream, right? You wanna ⁓ and also if like you like you kind of hinted at, find things that ⁓ you you didn't necessarily intend and they they took that away from it too. And that's really cool. But it has also created a bit of a problem in that I get maybe like ten emails of a day asking me when it's back in stock. ⁓ that's fair little double edged sword. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. That's that connection I think is so special, especially because it is like a solo game. So you don't maybe expect that community aspect of it, which kind of leads me into my next topic of conversation, I'll get to in a bit. But to be able to like have a connection with something so introspective and solo, I think is just really special. And I host a solo RPG book club every month where we get together with a bunch of people in my community and we play a solo game together. That's really cool. It's so fun. It's so cool. And Coreico is the game that we're playing next for that. ⁓ cool. Which is very exciting. And I found a lot of value in playing a solo game with a community. There was a lot of collaboration. There's a lot of making new friends. And it's one of my favorite things that I've done in my professional career is this whole solo RPG book club. So I'm really excited to How does it how does it work? Yeah. So 'cause 'cause I imagine it's very quiet. You'd think so, because I thought so too. That's what I thought. No. People are talking, people are conversating. So how it works is I kind of open the floor, I tell people how to play the game. I introduce the concept of solo journaling RPGs. We have like journals and like stickers and little, you know, fun decorations and stuff for people to use. ⁓ I walk them through the beginning part of the game and then we all sit down and we play it. And I thought it was gonna be a very solo, quiet, contemplative thing because that's how I play solo journaling games. You light your incense and play some exactly calm music. Yes. You'd you you're picking up my vibe. but it was kind of the opposite. People were, you know, catching up with each other if they came together. They were talking to their 'cause we were at like these big tables, they were talking to their table mates, they were like asking each other advice and for help. ⁓ We played the Balsam Lake Unmurders last time and you pull cards that represent like people and two people pulled the same card and were like laughing about how different they interpreted that prompt. And it was just really special to see one of my favorite hobbies be expressed in this new and exciting way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole new way of playing. Solo together games. Yeah, solo together games. And it was awesome. And I've had people like come back. I've had people reach out and tell me that they had a great time, which is just like makes my heart sing. it was really special and I'm really looking forward to introducing Cory Go to this group of people ⁓ this month. Great. Well hope it goes well. Yeah, I'll have to update you how it goes. Yeah. Wonderful. But I just I love this genre, I love these games, and I'm just so grateful I get to share them with people. Awesome. All right. So we kind of did touch on this already, but I would like to give the floor to you again. What do you hope people get out of playing Cory Go? Hmm. I guess I mean I talked about kind of what went in for me for making that game and I I think in a in a lot of ways that was what ⁓ that was like the fire that lit inside me that made me want to make that game. But I I don't know that I I need people to take that away from the game and that exploration. I think really I want people to tell a good story. That's like the biggest thing for me is that I think that ⁓ way more people than than can tell these kind of stories than probably think they can. And I really like the idea of you know, I put a lot of thought into making this somebody's first solo role playing game. ⁓ so that if you'd never done anything like this before, if you'd never pretended to be an orc, ⁓ or whatever, you could still sit down and do this and it didn't feel too intimidating to start writing. And that's I guess yeah, we talked about this earlier, but that's one of the other benefits of solo role playing is that if you're new to the hobby, it's kind of a really safe space to ⁓ explore that because you're not gonna make a fool of yourself in front of anyone. You only have to share what you wanna share. ⁓ and that's really nice too. So yeah, just like if for everybody who has reached out to say that they've told a story with it, that's like the pinnacle for me. That's that's really what it's about. And being creative in that way and taking the kind of beats that I've put down and running with them and some people write so much. Somebody wrote like three hundred pages in their journal. Which That's amazing. That's it's amazing. I I don't really understand it. I think it's but they and they and they were talking to ⁓ you know me about it like it was ⁓ like a cross to bear, like a real burden. They get demand of me updates. And I was like, Yeah, you're having a good time though. ⁓ but are you having fun? That's funny. Yeah. But but yeah, but telling stories, I think that's the main thing. ⁓ and if they if they if some of the stuff resonates with them on on a deeper level, that's great. But really it's about telling a fun story and and using that creativity, which isn't always doesn't always have an easy outlet, ⁓ depending on what you've got going on in your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it does a good job of facilitating that. There's so many fun imaginative prompts that that are given that really you can take and and run with as little or as much as you want. I know I'm more of a more of a writer, so I write ⁓ like a chapter for each prompt basically. ⁓ 'cause I like to just kind of like exist in the world and explore it a little bit ⁓ deeper, which is which is fun for me. That's how I have fun. And I like to do little character drawings and like dress scenes. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me. ⁓ but I just I love being able to be creative and sit down and exist in a little world that is kind of a strange collaboration between the two of us because you're giving me the tools and I'm using them to create a thing, which I think is also really cool. ⁓ and I've actually I've always wanted to be a writer and I have a really hard time with creating an ending for my stories. But through playing Coreico and other solo journaling games, I've been able to kind of do that. So I'm able to kind of tell a complete story with an ending and that feels really good. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, I even typed it up and was gonna maybe edit it and make it into like just for me, but a little self published little novel that I wanted to kind of have exist in the world. That's so cool. Yeah. It's really nice. It's really nice that ⁓ that people I love to help people finish a thing. 'Cause it's quite hard, like like you were saying, it's quite hard to actually continue and see something through to its completion, especially if you're writing three hundred pages. But ⁓ totally. ⁓ but ⁓ but even if you're keeping it brief. I don't rem actually remember exactly what I wrote in Goriko, but I I always try to keep the when I'm kind of setting the standard in the rules and stuff, I say like, got a couple of lines or like, you know, just a few words because I don't want people to feel like have to do that. And I know that the ever the people who want to write three hundred pages will just do it anyway, no matter what I say. Absolutely. Yeah. ⁓ that's really cool. It's it's actually really funny because I completely resonate with everything that you're saying because I've had those experiences, but also I basically never play solo role playing games anymore. ⁓ really? Yeah, because they and Jason ⁓ is the same. We were talking about this. We talk about it quite a lot because we both make solo games, but we very rarely play them. And we've kind of for me anyway, ⁓ it's because the like the part of my brain and the energy that I use to play a solo role playing game is so similar in like you were saying with this collaborative nature to writing them. So if you spend all day writing them, it doesn't feel like really like a leisure activity to then participate in playing with one. I ⁓ completely understand, which is very funny because that's also a parallel to Kiki's delivery service in that Yeah. you get a little burnt out. And I'm a I'm an illustrator, I'm an artist, and I tried doing art professionally as a living. Same thing. Once it becomes a job and something that feeds you and sustains you, it's really hard to do it for fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that says a lot about the roles that you're playing, both as a player of a solo RPG and a creator. And I think they are really similar in terms of like the creativity that you're bringing to the table. You're both bringing kind of like the two pieces of a puzzle that make this story. ⁓ and that's really cool. I like that part of it. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. I love it. All right, let's see. What else have I got here? Okay. ⁓ bit of a logistical question. So Koriko is being kind of re-released. It's the same game, but there's a little bit of changes happening to it. Do you want to talk about those changes for the people who are really, really excited to get their hands on Coreico? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will say nothing major's happening. There's the the main text is is mostly unchanged. There's like a few fixes and a couple of things that keep coming up as questions that people have that I want to try and explain a little more clearly, but but basically it's the same game. ⁓ mo mostly it ⁓ it was just an opportunity to I really like presenting it as a boxed game. because I really like anytime you can remove a barrier to someone playing the thing, that's great. So having all the cards and the dice in there ready to go, rather than having to try and source your own tarot deck and find twenty one identical dice from somewhere. Like I think e all of that stuff means that that book stays on that shelf a little bit more and then like attrition rate goes up. ⁓ so I really like having it in this kind of presentation where you can get going with it whenever you're ready basically. but when I when I did the original crowdfunding, it was just a book, so there wasn't a boxed version because I didn't i I didn't have the confidence in it. Well, ⁓ I'd never done anything that big before and and so it it's quite a step up to make it into this like boxed edition with all the components and so it was just a book. and then the box was kind of an afterthought in in but it was literally an afterthought. and so part of this is also an attempt to think a bit more about what the best way to present this thing is. ⁓ so the box is ⁓ it's kind of more book like in shape. So it'll go on a bookshelf, it's magnetically closed, so it can kind of sit up like a book, which I kinda like 'cause I don't know about you, but ⁓ some of the boxes that these games come in make stacking your bookshelves really difficult. ⁓ and yeah, so that's part of it. The inside of the box is more nicely organized so everything doesn't move around and there's no not loads of air in there. There's like a the book will sit on top of the cards and the dice and you'll be able to kinda lift it out and have it underneath. there's I think that's most of it. It's it's nothing nothing major, but it's it's gonna be back. And that's the big news really. ⁓ to look at it. That's everyone's so excited for. Yeah. And people can just buy it instead of asking me about it. Wonderful. It was great. Yeah. That's great. That's yes, I imagine that's a little bit of a burden off of you. ⁓ It's it's I mean it is really nice, obviously. It's just I yeah, there are a lot of people that want to get it, which is great. But it's I don't have anyone to answer these emails for me. It's just That's fair. Well, that is good to know. Just just you. Well, you're doing a great job. And I'm so excited that Coreico is coming back. I can't wait to share this game with the people in my book club. ⁓ I just I think it's a great game and everyone should play it. I can't argue with that. Hell yeah. All right. ⁓ those are nearing the end of my question, so I want to give the floor to you. Is there anything that you want to talk about that I haven't brought up yet? ⁓ hmm. I don't know. We've we've done we've done a good amount of talking about Coraco, I think. Covered a lot of ground. Do you want to talk about the slow knife a little bit? Yeah, sure. That's a very different tone. It is a very different tone. But it's also I think such a great game and so much fun. So I do want to give a little shout out to the slow knife as well since we're here. No, thanks. Yeah. It it is my favorite of my games to play. It's the it's it's basically it's maybe the only one that I can play without ⁓ without and actually get excited to play at this point. ⁓ Okay. Yeah. Because it's so partly partly just because it's ⁓ collaborative with other people so it always feels and you everyone else is bringing their own stuff to it. ⁓ absolutely. But ⁓ also just cause I love taking down rich ⁓ arseholes. so yeah. Well can the Slow Knife ⁓ yeah. Yeah sorry. I was gonna get ⁓ yep, go ahead. The floor is yours. yes. Slow knife is a game about collaborating with your friends to tell a story. about a single person who gets screwed over by a bunch of rich people and they kind of go off and become rich and famous and you're left in the dirt. and you're telling this story over sort of twenty or thirty years of that person coming back to get their revenge, but you take on the role of one of the rich people ⁓ around the circle who is who d who ⁓ conspired to take that person down in the first place. ⁓ and as you kind of tell the story, as you set it up and as you continue the story, you're building up like an actual conspiracy board on the table, ⁓ with string and and notes and stuff, ⁓ that kind of tracks what you're well, what's going on in the story. It's so much fun. I had such a blast playing it. We played in the play set that was like that kind of underground Elven city. ⁓ yeah. And it was just so like fun and imaginative. And the people at my table came up with the wildest shit. It was it was insane, the stuff that they came up with. And we had our conspiracy board on our table and I felt like Charlie Day in the meme when he's like it was great. ⁓ but such a fun Just the intended effect. You nailed it. Yeah. You nailed it. ⁓ such a fun game. And we are offering to bundle it with Coriko if you want to pre-order Coriko and also get the slow knife. You can get both, which is a great option because while they are very wildly different games, they're both so much fun. Yeah. Yeah. And there's magic in both of them. ⁓ in various guises. So there's that link. There's the the the playset you played is is definitely the strangest of the three that come with the game. Yeah. It was Very interesting 'cause it's fun because elves are usually in the forests and they were all kind of sequestered underground and we had a really fun thing with like the people in power, we're like hiding why we were all underground and it was it was very fun and of course we all got our comeumpants in the end as we deserved. Yeah. Yeah. That's the pump up. It's just that's the fun of stories and of of rich people getting their comeumpants. Yeah, and not a lot of stories where you're the one kind of taking on that role and just I enjoy playing a bad guy. I enjoy kind of going to that place where it's like, I'm gonna be bad. But the slow knife is really fun because you're playing a villain, but you also get what you deserve at the end. Yeah. There's a lot of dramatic irony in the in the it's very b baked in that you you know you're gonna you're gonna be you're gonna get your components and that kind of gives you I think that gives you kind of carte blanche to be as like theatrically evil as possible. Absolutely. It gives you the freedom to be like, okay, well, I know that, you know, it's gonna end bad for me. So I'm just gonna go for it. And that is like so fun and exciting. Ugh, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a good time. Yeah. It's a good time. And it was obviously ⁓ not obviously but The Count of Monte Cristo is probably one of my favorite books or ma if not my favourite book and that that really was the the ⁓ the inspiration for the whole thing. ⁓ 'cause there's not definitely so. There's a lot of like RPGs that will let you do a like a John Wick story where you're blasting a way through to get your revenge. But there's not there's not a lot of social stuff like social revenge where ⁓ it's a it's this like slower thing, ⁓ this slow burn kind of thing. And that that was the aim there. ⁓ Yes. Yes. and it does it so well because it takes like the course of ⁓ sorry. No, no. You're a little bit laggy, so it's kind of hard to ⁓ find when I jump in. ⁓ yeah, it takes like the course of like decades for it to tell the complete story, which I think is a smart design choice too, because it's not it's not a quick thing. It's this slow burn, like you said, of like things eventually snowballing into a big dramatic climax, which I think is just so delightful. Yeah. It's it's also the the board c serves a really useful purpose as well as just being like a fun artifact of helping you to keep this thing in in your brain and and all the people that are going on. And I love playing it with when you're playing it with people and they sort of ⁓ get a card that says like, ⁓ someone comes to you with a business opportunity or whatever it is and Instead of inventing a new character, they look down and they go, ⁓ it could be that guy. and that's always really fun when you kind of create those links and it helps it to feel more like the kind of stories that I was inspired by where everything's very kind of interwoven and people come back from twenty years ago to get their revenge or whatever. Totally. Very I haven't read the count of Monte Cristo, so the parallel that I pull like very Game of Thronesy, you know, very everyone's intermingled and has fifty billion different plot points that they're planning at one time and it's ⁓ it's so fun. Yeah. I want a game that requires a Wikipedia by the end of it. Hell yeah. That is my kind of game. I love it. Awesome. Well, we did touch on this a little bit ⁓ as well, but what projects are in the works for you? ⁓ you have the one that you were talking about earlier. anything else you're working on? So the big focus at the moment is getting the Lost and Found collection out, which is a trio of card games, two of which are kind of reimaginings of of older games that I made, which are Artifact and Bucket of Bowls. And then the third is a new one called Counterpart. ⁓ and these games, firstly, I will never do such a mammoth project in one go ever again. It's insane. I don't know why I did it. I could have done them one at a time and released them over the last two years, but I decided to do them all at once. ⁓ and it's like the each card is is they're really big cards and they've got all this text on and they're all these different characters, and I think there's like a hundred and thirty of them in total across the three games and it's it's a Hugulean effort. ⁓ but it is now nearly done. ⁓ and that's really exciting. ⁓ so these are gonna let you tell they all kind of tell the story of a particular object or like thing. in one of them it's a magical item, in one of them it's a spaceship, and in one of them it's a kind of AI companion. and you're telling the story, kind of a history of that thing through all the different people that they engage with over the course of its life. ⁓ and yeah, this this new system with like the cards is is really easy ⁓ a really kind of clean offers way more flexibility than the previous system ⁓ but still kind of touches the same points in terms of the kind of stories that you can tell with it. And you can play it with a group, which I really like because as I mentioned, I never play solo games. So fair enough. yeah, but it also still works really well playing solo. and yeah, I'm really excited for those to all come out, hopefully ⁓ early next year. ⁓ they will start arriving. Exciting. Well I will be on the lookout for those 'cause I haven't played Artifact yet, but I am excited to play this new card version of it. Sounds so exciting. Yeah. And it's it's great timing as because the story that inspired Counterpart, which is the one about the robot, was Clara and the Sun. And there's a film coming out later this year of Clara and the Sun. So even if you can't bother to read it, you can we c people can watch it and they'll be like, ⁓ I wanna tell a story like that. Beautiful. How serendipitous. Yeah. Yeah. so yeah, I'm really excited to get those out. ⁓ wonderful. And then in the summer, Jason and I, ⁓ Jason is my common collaborator on stuff. ⁓ we're gonna be working on a s a sort of reworking of Notorious ⁓ card based version of that. ⁓ That's so exciting. Yeah, so we we launched we crowdfunded that last year and we've been kind of trickling along in the background, but we're once this stuff goes to printers that I was just describing, that's gonna be our sole focus and I'm really excited to do that because we've got some big ideas. That's exciting. I love Notorious. It was so much fun. ⁓ that has me so excited. ⁓ my God. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's really fun to work with other people too. That's one of one of the things I've really appreciated over the last ⁓ couple of years is is doing more, you know, not just locking myself away and working on projects on my own and working with other people. Totally. Who who knew? Who knew? Who knew? Other people can be good sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. Very rarely. No, that's so exciting. That's so fun. gosh, just I think we covered a lot of ground today. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for sitting and chatting with me. ⁓ I really appreciate you taking the time. And again, I do appreciate Coryko so much just as a human being who loves playing games. So thank you for Sitting and chatting with me today. Thank you for sharing your experiences. That was great. Awesome.