Join Hannah and Evan on a journey in analog game design as they set out to redesign their first roleplaying game, Questlandia. Are you a junk poet or a world weaver? Can you Kickstart a roleplaying game in a three-ring binder? It’s as close to live game design as it gets, and we’re inviting you along for the ride!
Hannah grew up on point-and-click adventures games and purple-aquamarine ‘90s tracksuits, and never really grew out of it. She designs games around themes of queerness, empathy, and optimistic nihilism. You can find more of her work at makebigthings.com, where she creates board and roleplaying games as part of the Make Big Things co-op.
Evan is an avid player and creator of both tabletop and coimputer games. He’s worked previously on Questlandia, 14 Days, Noirlandia, and is developing the upcoming video game Goblin Diplomat. His favorite game is Go. If you ask, he will definitely play Go with you.
54. Packed With Care (Part 1)
Hannah and Evan talk about packing and shipping games. You won’t want to miss this thrill ride, heroes!
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53. Actually Selling Our Games
We made the games, now we have to sell them. Hannah and Evan talk about something they’re good at: making new games. And something they’re bad at: confidently sharing those games with an audience that might like them.
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52. What to Do When You’re Sick of Your Game
Hannah and Evan discuss how to repair their relationship with a game they’ve spent a year struggling to complete.
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51. FLETs (Fiddly Little End Things)
Hannah and Evan talk about the fiddly little end things that make a project go on, and on, and on much longer than you expected. Design Doc intro/outro theme: by Pat King
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50. Dispatch from an on-time timeline
Hannah and Evan salvage an episode about being on time with an upcoming game, and publish it in a world where they were not on time. Intro/outro theme: by Pat King. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like… Design Doc episode 10: Deadline Motivated.
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49. Imperfect Inspiration
Perfect media is untouchable. Hannah and Evan talk about instead using flawed, goofy movies and books for creative inspiration.
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48. Bad lo-fi game ideas to study or relax to
Hannah reads you a game ideas to-do list for 30 minutes.
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47. Underdressed and over-diced
What’s the right tone for the rules of a roleplaying game? Evan and Hannah talk about that weird dance between too casual and too formal. Also, what happens when you add too many dice?
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46. Kudos Conundrum
In this episode, Hannah and Evan talk about the self-consciousness that comes when you grow up and are told you must make things for serious reasons. How does one escape that self-doubt? Enter…bad comics! Enter…fanfic! Intro/outro theme: Pat King Design Doc on twitter: https://twitter.com/designdocpod Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/turtlebun
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45. Rekindling the Flame
How do you reignite the passion for an old project? Hannah and Evan talk about returning to Starship UltraLux and strain to apply a spaghetti metaphor.
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