Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Dracknack and Friends official podcast where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Seren from Dracknack and Friends and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazeldon, the head Dracknack at Dracknack and Friends.
Speaker: Hi there. Today, we're joined once again by Blas, who you may know from his work on games like Lock, Herd, Work, Work, Work, many others. How are you doing today?
Speaker: Hey, hello. I'm doing good. Thank you. Awesome. So ah for listeners who have not... heard any of Blage's content on this feed, um I personally recommend that you go back and listen to the Locked Digital episode ah with both Blage and Ferran.
Speaker: ah This was right as we were launching the game that came out. And in that recording, you can hear all about how Blage got into games, all the stuff that he does Outside of games, he's a multi-hyphenate and a very interesting individual.
Speaker: ah But for now, we're going to pick up from where we left off and jump in on ah what's been going on since that recording. So with that, Blas, what's been going on in your ah work and games since that recording?
Speaker: ah Okay, yeah. So after Log Digital, I released two physical games. The first one is called Work, Work, Work.
Speaker: And the second one is called Heard. So yes, these two projects were both released last year. ah But otherwise, yeah, I was also active in other non-game related stuff.
Speaker: So ah composing music for theater plays and so on. How would you introduce our listeners? Like, can can you introduce, like, what are the concepts behind Work, Work, Work and H.E.R.D.?
Speaker: ah Well, workwork Work, Work, Work a very heavy, very visualization-heavy puzzle book, which focuses on very pure logical solving process.
Speaker: ah And basically, you're building up the universe. You're connecting blocks with little workers and and assembling them into bigger and bigger constructions. And this is...
Speaker: ah This is presented as path drawing paper puzzles. then yeah And the the second one, Heard. Heard is a bit special. ah it's not so It's not in just the book form, but it also ah has figurines and it's played by sliding these figurines on top of the book. So it's more of an actual physical experience, which I wanted to try out.
Speaker: So having tried that out, ah what was your experience with that, both with the game design, but also the procedure of it, like the process of getting samples and like revisions and things like that?
Speaker: Yeah, ah well, first of all, pretty pretty early into the development, I figured out figured out that this won't be a rule discovery game. I mean, it is in the late post-game, but otherwise I had to keep it at a pretty understandable level. Just because you have...
Speaker: physical pieces and you can't really look at your past solutions. So I had to simplify it and keep it really, really basic. And we did within this ah simple core gameplay,
Speaker: I then tried to lean onto the physicality of everything, especially the the game is constructed out of two chapters. And the second chapter really leans onto this because you ah you have only six pieces. And in a game, you could have infinite of them. I mean, in in a video game. But here, because you have six pieces,
Speaker: you can then, I don't know if I can spoil ah a mechanic, but for an example, sometimes you have multiple spawning points and it's not just the game reminding you, hey, you can only ah put three pieces on onto the page. No, you actually have only three to use there.
Speaker: So, and then for an example, when these pieces move between pages, um you actually have to flip the page. And doing so, you have to remove the pieces from the previous page. And this is again, a mechanic based on the physicality of the medium.
Speaker: and this is how I try to make it a bit special. So yeah, of course, it's influenced by all the Sokoban games that we play on on the computers. But I really try to see how can it be a bit special in this, you know,
Speaker: actual physical environment. ah But yeah, on the other hand, publishing this was probably the biggest process, the most ah challenging process in my game development career simply because, yeah, I live in Slovenia and so far I was publishing books by manufacturing them in Slovenia. But suddenly the prices here in Slovenia didn't make sense. So I had to look abroad and it was just really, it was just me contacting people and getting stressed out and not really knowing if everything will get together in any
Speaker: It's all the fun of producing a physical board game. Yeah. Yeah. How how stressed were you when ah quotes started including ah tooling costs for the plastic?
Speaker: I mean, i was aware of them because, yeah, at first I tried to make everything in Slovenia. And it's actually, a in the end, it's a happy story because As I was working on herd, I was getting more and more conscious of the fact that I will actually make this thing. It won't be just a print and play thing or something. i will i want to I want to have it in my hands.
Speaker: And I started looking at manufacturers in Slovenia. And I actually found a group of very enthusiastic young people who had a silicone mold machine.
Speaker: And it was cost-wise, it was great. But yeah, ah they were the reason that I decided to pull the trigger to actually make the game.
Speaker: And then this whole thing fell fell into a hole and they couldn't produce these figurines. They had many ah manufacturing problems. And suddenly I was left with a thousand books already printed and ah and a thousand boxes already assembled and no figurines.
Speaker: And this pushed me into yeah into working with a Chinese factory. And truth be told, I mean, it was... It was relatively stress-free. I mean, i i was stressing a lot, but looking backwards. Now, now you're not stressed at all. Yeah. And actually, I mean, i' am in the process of ah of getting a second print run ah together.
Speaker: And I am seriously considering manufacturing everything in China. the The big downside of this is actually USA, because if I manufacture everything in China, then it says made in China. And yeah, this means costs for for the customers. Right. Whereas if you get figurines made in China shipped to you and you put them in a box, that's not made in China. Yes, so far. That's assembled in Slovenia is, I believe, the official phrase. Yeah, yeah, But I think that they will change this like legislation.
Speaker: Sorry, in ah European Union, ah there will be like a digital passport of all the components where they were made and so on. So I'm not sure if this will be a viable option in, I don't know, a year or so, but...
Speaker: i yeah I give it a year and a half and more more likely than not, the U.S. importing is going to become a lot easier again. Hopefully.
Speaker: Hopefully. hopefully i I have to remain optimistic as someone in the US who suddenly stopped buying things internationally as um as much as possible.
Speaker: Is this the the closest we've gotten to political discussion on this podcast? not it not even close, but I don't blame you for forgetting other episodes. ah those Those first months were brutal because yeah I actually had to stop shipping to the United States. And yeah yeah and the the Americans are my biggest customer base. Yeah, no, it's because... the ah You were at at the time we were selling the lock book through the Draconect merch store. And so all of the back and forth and uncertainty about like, do we just pull, do we just ban the US as a shipping country? Do we just like try and...
Speaker: smuggle one giant pallet of books into Soren's home and she could shit them. Yeah. Yeah. it was It was rough, but yeah. Now it it eased up a little bit. Thank God.
Speaker: Yeah. at At least it's consistent. Even even even if it's not good, it's ah it's at least been decided what bad what the bad situation is so everyone can make plans about it.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Going back to the starting design of that game. Did you do most from the start that you wanted to do something with physical miniatures?
Speaker: Or did you start concepting the idea as a purely paper game? And then you were quickly like, oh, no, this needs something physical to help you visualize it. No, no, no. It started as a game using figurines. I always wanted to to just have like a smart games or think fun concept made. And um then I made UpDeck. And I remember someone...
Speaker: played it and actually 3D printed out the pieces because it's basically it's a piece packing puzzle book. ah And I mean, a side note, the pieces wouldn't help them a lot ah in the late postgame.
Speaker: That's a game where shipping with physical pieces would spoil the game, right? I mean, i I think it would be impossible, to be honest, just ah because... Yeah, I mean, here here again, it's the is the silly thing about quantity. Some...
Speaker: I mean, just a quick description of ABDEC. You pack letters or shapes into grids, and there are puzzles where you have like 10 of the same shape. Like you need to put in 10 A's, which mean ah a terminal.
Speaker: ah Does this mean that I would have to pack, I don't know, 10 15 of each of the shapes? No, it it wouldn't be feasible. So from this standpoint, I immediately knew that, yeah, Heard will be a different game. but ah But this was sort of an inspiration, just, oh, what if I take the smart games or think fun concept and I use a book for it? Because when I played smart games catalog, all the puzzles sort of seemed a bit...
Speaker: they They didn't have personality because you have a board and you have a booklet with challenges in them. And then you just set up each challenge on this same board and you can't really express... Like Rush Hour is an example of this type of game yeah where you've got some fairly preset constraints on what the puzzle is. And it's just like, oh, what's the starting pieces of these puzzles within this very rigid shape? Yeah. yeah So yeah, there were multiple puzzles, but...
Speaker: they don't feel super different to one another. Exactly. And you also couldn't have like a progress of ideas through the game ah simply because, yeah again, you have the same board. And also, I think these games are constructed in a way that they say, just go through the first few pages if you don't want to play the easy challenges. Just go to the medium or to the advanced.
Speaker: But I like to build up the game little bit. So, yeah, this this was sort of my my starting point. And I just made a few pieces out of, how do you say, we say Das Masa. This is like a clay Play-Doh. Yes. it It gets hard just by being on sun for a day.
Speaker: ah And yeah, and I started playing around with it and it sort of clicked. The the thing that I really, i think, found quite early and informed a lot of later decisions was just I wanted to make a block pushing game, but pushing blocks with figurines feels very icky, very fiddly. And the thing that I found was that if I actually jump on top of a box, so to speak, and move it around by just sliding one piece that's on top of the another piece, then this works. So I don't have to simulate anything. I actually am moving two pieces at once. And yeah, this was...
Speaker: like an aha moment for me. So coming out the other side of the development and design process for H.E.R.D., now that it is a completed game and you have shipped it, how how do you feel overall about designing with those constraints versus designing a paper book? I guess another way to phrase this question is, do you feel like you prefer one or the other in practice because there are pros and cons to each?
Speaker: The thing is, I already released three puzzle books. And I think that I prefer making puzzle books. But now I also feel like I would start repeating myself if I just put a puzzle book with, I don't know, piece packing systems and...
Speaker: similar path drawing systems in the next few years. So just from the standpoint of wanting to not just repeat myself, but explore other possibilities of physical game development. Yeah, I think I want to go into the direction of Heard more, not necessarily having figurines, but one of the ideas that I'm toying around lately is actually a cooperative puzzle book.
Speaker: And I mean, this is like one concept. i'm I'm just trying to see what else can be done in the physical ah world, because I feel like with the computers, um the physical game sort of got a bit abandoned from the creators, but I also think that a lot of very cool stuff can be expressed within this medium.
Speaker: So, yes, I think I i actually yeah prefer prefer making puzzle books, but I would want to explore other things, I think. I mean, I don't know if you're giving yourself enough credit here. I think if you set yourself the constraint of, okay, I'm only going to do, like, my next game is going to be a puzzle book and I can't explore any of the design space I've already explored, I'm sure you've come up with something really juicy and interesting.
Speaker: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's hard it's hard to not fall back onto ah design sensibilities that are are that already part of previous works. And I actually have two puzzle books that I think you playtested a little bit, Plotts and Faux.
Speaker: ah Both of these feel a fresh, but at the same time, yeah they they contain elements of previous stuff. And... i'm not sure i I always try to just follow my gut when I'm designing. And I'm not sure if I just naturally stumble upon something completely, completely fresh. I think I need to make a kind of conscious decision to go into a new direction. And yeah, I'm not sure what numbers or Sudoku likes. I'm not sure what would be just naturally something that could work in a puzzle book that... You know what? I would love you to, I'd love to see you do a take on those. um There's like a creator on Twitter who does lots of these. They're like visual, like get, get this character from here to here. And like, it's meant to be simple, but then it's like, oh no, wait, this is impossible. And then you realize like, there's like some kind of visual thing.
Speaker: illusion or something. It's like, oh, this thing has an extra leg, which means that this isn't actually one table. This is two tables overlapping each other. i think you'd have a lot of fun with that space. These are called Nasa puzzles, right? Yes. To be honest, I tried designing them and I suck at designing them. So, yeah. ah I mean, maybe I'll get better, but at this point... I mean, the way to get better is to practice.
Speaker: True, true. that That's true. Well, okay. i'll I'll set myself a challenge to make a nozzle puzzle each day. and' see Yeah, it's great. I mean if it i didn't realize it was easy to goad you into doing something. Yeah, you'll get a lot of practice then. um So one other thing that has, i think, interested me. ah So now that Luck Digital has been out for a couple of years now, which is a weird thing to say. um ah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think all of us are are making about the same face at the same time. um
Speaker: Year and a half. Yeah, yeah, learn yeah. it's It's two years if we look at the numbers, like just a year. yeah It's 2024, right? Yeah, 2024.
Speaker: So I feel comfortable spoiling a little bit about that game now. um That game has... content that is digital exclusive, ah that is outside of... The base game got tweaked between Locke and Locke Digital, but then there were ah like some original mechanics and original puzzles off to the periphery of that game.
Speaker: And my question is, having explored the digital design space of puzzles... that start of mechanics that started as books, did that go on to influence any of your later physical work?
Speaker: Huh? Well, both heard and work, work, work were already in development while we were making log digital. So I don't think there was a moment where I just, I already finished log digital and I retrospectively Just, oh, okay, so I can use this and this knowledge. And also, yeah, these new things that I'm working on, I'm not sure if they are necessarily influenced by anything that I've learned in ah in making log digital. But at the same time, I also recognize some ideas that
Speaker: would just work better as video games. And this is especially the case of Platz, which is again a piece packing puzzle game. And i already I already talked with someone about actually making it a digital game primarily, so it wouldn't even be released as a puzzle book. But yeah, we'll see how this goes.
Speaker: um What I do miss in physical puzzle making is just being able to to make sound and animations, just to give my hand into you know making it an an actual interactive thing. I don't... I mean, I can't say miss because I never programmed, but I'm not missing the programming aspect of... Correct, you are not.
Speaker: I'm not. I'm not. ah I mean, it's funny because, yeah, ah Log Digital, it's a video game. Of course, it has bugs. ah And then thinking about a puzzle book, what kind of bugs can a puzzle book have, right? But at the same time, if I make a typo or if I make a non-unique solution, then this thing is printed out forever. If someone has this book, yeah, it's bugged and that's it. No patches can fix it.
Speaker: I went a little bit off the rails here, but... No, no, you're good. i mean this is I mean, this is one of the primary differences between putting out a game on Steam and phones and Switch versus ah putting a game out as direct mail.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things were different in the eighty s but ah I can actually spoil a little bit here. ah This is also something that I talked with Alan a few days ago.
Speaker: ah But I am again in the process of getting something that was primarily a puzzle book into a video game. So now yeah now it's time for work, work, work.
Speaker: this This game is now getting a digital counterpart. And yeah, I'm going through, I think, the same emotions. Yeah. ah Yeah, just ah i'm I'm working with a person who doesn't want to be mentioned yet. That's fine. bit Yeah. ah But yeah, this the game will be released next year. And yeah, the emotions...
Speaker: they're They're quite silly because at first, like with dog with Log Digital, when Ferran wrote me, hey, I want to make this into a video game, i was like, no, this can't be done. the The game will be lost in translation. And then the prototype was made and I played it and, oh, okay, so this works.
Speaker: And the same happened here because I was certain, I was 100% certain that Work, work, work, digital would have to be a different kind of game than the puzzle book. That if you introduce ah an option for to the player to trial and error the solving process, then you i mean you you lost the whole logical aspect of the book, which I think is is the strongest part of it.
Speaker: But surprisingly, no, ah because, ah I mean, you can, of course, go through each iteration possible, but in the end, the the puzzles just don't don't allow themselves to be cracked so easily.
Speaker: So, yeah, ah I'm again making animations and music for a game, and I'm happy in this regard. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I mean, it it makes sense. i you know having Having played the ah original version of Work, Work, Work, and then ah imagining little of what like ah of that kind of translation process, I'm like, yeah, no, i can I can see why you might be hesitant, but I can also see how it works really well.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, this is probably just... ah me being bound my by my past developer self, just because when I was making this thing, I was seeing the main friction of work, work, work being in just really...
Speaker: crunching through the visualization issues. And you have to come up with basically cheat codes for yourself. You need to find little logical tricks to that you apply to puzzles so they open up.
Speaker: And yeah, I was certain this won't be translated, but it it it did ah translate. So i'm I'm really glad about this. And yeah, should we should we dig into the the the paper version of Work, Work, Work a bit more? Because spent a while on on herds. Like Work, Work, Work, there's less like unique stuff about like, oh yeah, but this doesn't have figurines or anything. But yeah, i like i I really loved it. It's very striking and it like really goes places ah in a really joyful way and a way that I think will be very fun to experience as a digital game too. Yeah.
Speaker: oh Thank you. ah I mean, just just to return the compliment, a Draknek and Franz game ah was one of the major influences, actually. Sokoband Express ah and also Zektronik games. like these These two mixed together in my mind into how work, work, work could maybe work.
Speaker: And yeah, it was really just... Let's draw a path and you are picking up pieces, sort of like in Sockebond Express. but But then this twist of actually the edges are important. Which edge connects to which edge is what makes everything twisty. And and there was just a lot of crunch in this concept. and I remember I made a prototype of like 10 puzzles in an afternoon and I immediately saw that there was something in it.
Speaker: I shared it on Discord and people i responded relatively well to it, but nothing special. And then this this small little prototype just sort of sat behind me for, I don't know, half a year,
Speaker: so maybe even nine months. And I returned to it every month or so and just resolved all the puzzles. And each time I went through the same ah process of, whoa, this is really hard to to get through, to visual visualize.
Speaker: And then at about puzzle four or five, this, I don't know, just this skill appeared. Like, okay, I'm i'm so sort of starting to see the matrix. And I really, really, really enjoyed this part of the solving experience. And yeah, then I had a very, very ah bad month of herd development because herd was really difficult to put together.
Speaker: Sliding puzzles are difficult to make. ah And yeah, I was really just in a hole ah and I wanted to create something, but not necessarily hurt. And I sat down and started working on work, work, work. And it came came together really fast. I think it was maybe four to five months of work.
Speaker: ah And it's probably the design I'm the most proud of, just from the... the purity of the idea aspect. I mean, I'm probably more proud of Herd just because of... The struggle. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was I was more proud of it after was released. It was really just a moment of, whoa, I'm capable of something, you know. ah With Work, Work, Work, I'm more proud, yeah, just... I think I i ah i was in a really good design space with it.
Speaker: it's It's funny because you you said... that you'd go go back to that first prototype once a month or so and resolve it. I thought were going to say, oh yeah, I'd i go back to it once a month and like add a little bit and iterate on it, but you would you were just playing it as a player and that's like ah really delightful.
Speaker: Yeah, because it's i mean this is this is, I think, the the magic of Work, Work, Work. Maybe also also why it intrigued me so much because you can't really i mean Of course, you can remember the simple path that you draw for a solution, but this is nothing. This isn't the solution. The solution happens within the solver because it's so crunchy just in the head.
Speaker: ah and um It's really replayable in this aspect because you you still, I mean, of course of course, you can remember the path, but it's this is not it. This is not that's the solution. Yeah, that's funny. The solution, you can represent the solution as a path.
Speaker: but you still need to convert that path into visualizing the blocks piecing together as you trace that path. Yeah. huh And it's funny. Some of the the hardest puzzle in the book are like on a grid of three by four and have, I don't know, five line segments and that's it.
Speaker: But getting there, it's another story. Not quite on the topic of... a workwork Work, work, work. But as you're talking about this, something strikes me.
Speaker: Are there any sort of white whales of puzzle design that you've had or how or ideas that you couldn't make work that you want to go back to one day because you're like, I will make this work. I will get this mechanic or this idea or et cetera.
Speaker: Yeah, sort of. um I started out my game development journey as a board game designer. And I would really, really like to make an abstract two-player strategy game.
Speaker: A beautiful one, like a simple, very pure one, like Hive, for an example. And I tried out a lot of things, but... I just didn't strike this.
Speaker: this I didn't make one which would work so far. And it's funny because I am pretty comfortable in designing for one player.
Speaker: But when you get to two or more players, there's just a design space that... I think I'm not skilled enough yet to just tackle it. And ah and yeah, I would like to to make an abstract strategy game for two players. This is like a big dream of mine.
Speaker: Although I also know that if I make one especially... today in in this current time frame, it won't be played as much. I mean, it's really funny how how much easier is it to get a solo game out to people for them to, you know, take it to the beach or play it on their mobile phone, but to sit down with another person.
Speaker: I myself have a game group which... just fell apart in the past few years. And I've heard a lot of similar stories. I'm not sure if if it was COVID or just, but yeah, people don't game as much. I know that Alan games because I read his posts on Discord. Based based on, um just based on personal experience and personal anecdotes, I do think that COVID just broke a lot of people's habits, just like completely decimated them. And a lot of people built themselves back up, like built the blocks back up during COVID, but they built them up differently than they were before. Yeah.
Speaker: I remember Shut Up and Sit Down pivoting pretty hard towards solo games. just when COVID hit, because I think that their initial stance was solo games aren't really games. I remember there were there was a blog post or review of Friday.
Speaker: which I love, by the way, great game. ah But then, yeah, they put out, I don't know, two or three solo-centric videos just in 2020. And i I remember, like, okay, things got real. So solo is a viable...
Speaker: uh gaming experience uh and yeah i think this sort of also pushed me to look into solo development and find my voice yeah i i think another potentially underrated thing and i think that this is something that alan particular is going to have a million opinions on um at least in my experience It is easier to get people together to play get a game, like a new game, to try something new, if the learning process or the...
Speaker: I guess the thinkiness happens during the game as you play the game and uncover the rules as opposed to sit down and read the rules for an hour and then stumble. And then you understand it. But then when you understand it, there's ah less...
Speaker: strategy less like rule discovery actually in the game because everything is just printed in the rules and the expected user flow is just like here's here's a booklet and i think at least in my experience i've more of the games that i've played recently recently here meaning last four years lean more towards how fast can we get you to take your first turn yeah which is frankly good because, ah in my opinion, the single worst part of playing playing a new board game is how long does it take you to get to playing the game? You you you don't and enjoy spending 45 minutes learning the rules?
Speaker: i It's less of, okay, it is honestly less about me learning the rules and more about everyone making sure that everyone everyone is on the same page about the rules. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: um there are i i have seen many many different uh iterations of some of of this uh but i think the single the single most demoralizing is when you spend 45 minutes everyone's on the same page but the rules everyone plays one turn and realizes they don't like the game And it's like, oh, this game could just be ah like if you distilled this game and then distilled it further, distilled it further, and distilled it further. ah Really what this game is, is ah who rolled higher.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, oh, you've added 20 layers of abstraction on top of a dice roll. But like not ah not much skill expression.
Speaker: It can also go the other way. I remember Tapestry. Have you played ah tap Tapestry? tap I'm aware of it, but haven't played it. Jamie, the designer, was really proud that he expressed everything on just four pages of the rulebook. And the the result was...
Speaker: Well, I haven't played it myself either, but I remember people just being, why it is only on four pages? I have so many questions. ah And at the same time, yeah, it also made the game simplistic in some aspects, while it wanted to be like a big civilization game.
Speaker: but But yeah, I absolutely agree. Rule learning, this is sort of the the genesis of Locke, to be honest. yeah i made I made a puzzle book before Locke, which had rules explained on pages, and I saw people just tuning off. they hadn't even come to the to the first puzzle because there were six pages of rules. Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, it's a big thing. And and this was this was specifically for Locke. You had versions which explained the rules more for that same puzzle system. and people oh No, no, no, no, no. The game for Locke.
Speaker: Yeah, there was a game called Lineon. That one was just a path drawing game, another path drawing game. um Locke started off as let's take rule discovery of The Witness and marriott marry it with Ozzy Books.
Speaker: Yeah. um I feel like, in my opinion, I guess my instinct, is that the most successful way to handle...
Speaker: the tabletop role discovery quandary is have a what you need to get started that is streamlined to get people to take the first turn. And then a separate like rules supplement FAQ of like, all right, these are, once you've like actually understood the systems, these are the things that you're going to need to know, but like either print them as separate documents or make very clear, like, no, no, no, no. no no no You don't need this before you get started. Like do not spend the time to memorize like
Speaker: corner cases. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's ah a fine line though, because there's some games where you, you hit a corner case and you, you look it up and like, Oh, well that would have completely changed my strategy. Yes. No. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: But you of course need to consider the first game, like just ah a test ah course, uh, Blush, I don't know if you know this. Alan knows this, but I play a lot of ah card games more than board games. yeah um Largely have...
Speaker: because i have a personal and deep fascination of consistent a game rule set, but with ah rotating pieces.
Speaker: And like, what is, what are different pieces that do different things allow? ah Like trading card games, like for example, magic or Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh or something like that, right? Where the the fundamental rules stay the same, but what you are allowed to do changes depending on the card.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. that That sort of design space really fascinates me, deck builders, et etc. But when I think of how those games tutorialize in like dedicated like starter sets, it is always the single funniest conundrum.
Speaker: Because I'll use the most extreme example, which is Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is a game that has... ah roughly 14,000 legal game pieces. And rule one is that if the card overrides the rules, the card wins.
Speaker: Yeah. So ah they they have basically limitless design space. And an example of a card in this game is a card that exists in the other player's hand.
Speaker: You don't know if they have it until they play it. And it says negates the effect of one of your cards. OK. And it can it can be played quickly. Like player one says, I do action. Player two says, no, you don't. Nope.
Speaker: And this is like a cornerstone piece of interaction. magic Magic has a similar. Yeah, magic has similar. But the the the problem is Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't have mana system either.
Speaker: OK, so every so the the the resources are the cards. And if you do not know as player one how like what types of interaction are available in this game,
Speaker: your strategy is for your first like real game is going to be so wildly different because you're going to make a play you're not going to be thinking about redundancy or like baiting out interaction or anything just going to like you you're saying you've got your turn planned out okay i can play this and then this and then that and and then and then you're going interrupted immediately and then you're going be like well now what do i do cool cool cool cool game like you have to you kind of have to get um bullied a little bit before you can like truly understand the relevant interaction space that kind of like like that whole class of game like you go magic that those are fully like oh yeah you need to like devote your life to like being beaten up a dozen times before you have any grasp of anything Not not not quite, but one of one of the single funniest interactions is there is a card ah for anyone who wants to look this up or coincidentally has played the game before. ah The card is called Nibiru the Primal Being, and it's a card that stays in player two's hand. And player one is a game where you are... um
Speaker: Committing a lot of car resources in a given turn. This is like a this is a game where turns tends to take five to ten minutes of setting up interactions and setting up layered resource loops and things like that. ah This is a card that says if your opponent has ah summoned five or more monsters in a turn, wipe their entire board.
Speaker: Just wipe everything and says, no, you don't. And if you do not know that this is going to happen, it's um the card artwork is just just a giant meteor about to hit the earth.
Speaker: And it's just like, no, the rock is coming. Sorry, you didn't you didn't know to plan your game to turn around four or fewer summons. Is it mandatory, like in tournaments, to see the other player's deck before you play them? Or it's surprises? No, it's completely blind information.
Speaker: It is best two out of three. So after game one, ah you can make it more informative decisions knowing what they're playing based on what you saw. But no, it is private information.
Speaker: Okay. It's funny because earlier, Blas was talking about like, yeah, would be nice to design really elegant two-player game. And you know my favorite thing is? It's the exact opposite of that. No, this is not my favorite, but it is very funny because how do you even begin to tutorialize this? And their solution is they made a board game, like two-player starter set that is just a scripted duel using cards that don't even do anything.
Speaker: It's like, all right, turn player one, play a card and pass turn. And I'm like, that has never been what this game looks like in 25 years. well I mean, but I guess the community is strong enough that you you experience the tutorial through playing with a friend, right? They tell you, they bully you a little and teach you.
Speaker: Broadly, yes. People join the game because you usually because a friend has invited them to learn the game. e And um usually if the player, if player one is inviting a player two, player one is not trying to just crush them in the tutorial game and turn them off of the game forever.
Speaker: And this is this isn't thing I find interesting, though, because going back to Hive, which was specifically mentioned earlier, I really like um teaching people that game um in it in a like slightly mean way, but in like a you in a in a way that's like very interactive like a puzzle game can be, in that somebody can make a bad move and you can immediately show you, and this is why that was a bad move. And you could actually...
Speaker: bring somebody up to yeah decent level of play very quickly. like i also think like Go. like Go takes a lot there's a like a lot more bad things you can learn when you're learning to play Go. There's so much.
Speaker: um But there's a few like when you're very, very early playing Go, there's like a few things that you can very quickly learn. Oh, this was a bad idea and this is why. yes And I find playing somebody who hasn't played it before and getting them up to that standard of like, okay, well, you were a terrible player because you haven't played before. And now you can make competent decisions. Like that journey is like a quite nice 30 minute experience. Yeah. for For some people. Some people like hate it, but. Yes. I mean, this is why, and I've i've talked to you about this, Alan, like if there was a thinking game that I was going, I would design.
Speaker: I would want to make the thinky version of the competitive card game that has that interesting layered interaction, but has much more nuanced, smaller stakes ah decisions instead of big swings where you make one mistake and suddenly you lose everything.
Speaker: But isn't isn't the the the big swing problem just the result of power creep, of the game being available for a season after season? Because I remember Hearthstone at the beginning and where it is now. It just became crazy. So there are... It's it's funny. um On another competitive card game, Pokémon...
Speaker: which despite what news articles would lead you to believe, some people do actually play the game. it is not some It is not just a financial instrument. I played it was as a kid. yes actually um They have an annual rotation that every year at that fixed point in the year, any card that is basically two years old or older of gets removed from the format.
Speaker: And they can use this to lower power level, raise power level. like They can rebalance their game on the fly. Magic has a billion formats, and each format has their own ideas about rotation or limited, like like forbidden lists.
Speaker: Yu-Gi-Oh! for whatever reason has made the genius decision that every card is legal unless it is explicitly mentioned on a ban list. The ban list is like 100 cards only.
Speaker: So, so at some point, this, this is like in a product sense, this means that the power creep needs to go on forever. But in a game design sense, this also means that you need to design every card around the idea that someone could go dig through a bulk binder from 20 years ago and find a card that breaks this interaction.
Speaker: but if if If every deck is broken, then no one's deck is broken. Okay, you say that, I will just say if the current format ah has what are called FTKs, first turn kills, which means ah that player two doesn't get to take their first turn.
Speaker: yeah ah That is beyond broken. Sounds like a skill issue. That is, if player two opens their opening hand and they don't have a way to stop player one, they lose.
Speaker: it is It is what is called a compare hands format where the the game gets decided based on what you draw, not based on how you play. And no one likes that.
Speaker: But I mean, people still play it on a competitive level or is it just. Yes, but people seek out alternate formats, alternate ways to play or like so sit out for a format. If the format is especially bad, wait until either cards get banned or those cards get power creeped.
Speaker: Do you do remember that card game by Richard Garfield, which was a unique deck? You bought a whole deck in a pack and you didn't know which cards it would contain. And this was the deck that you had.
Speaker: ah And ah then, of course, there were bad decks and there were good decks. But if you were losing too much, then the opponent got some handicaps.
Speaker: Right. And that's it. And this is Keyforge. Yes. Yes, Keyforge. Is this even an alive project still? or I have no idea. Was it discontinued? Something tells me that it's probably not, but... There was a new set in February 2025.
Speaker: Okay, a live-ish. Yeah. I mean, this sounds this sounds sort of like, I'm not sure, really really fascinating to hear about it, but I'm not sure if it would be as fun to be part of the community for multiple years. Yeah, um a lot card games, and bluntly, a lot of ah lot of games that at least can rely on randomness have a lot of ah pluses and minuses. And even if that randomness is as simple as what is it it is a card game, what cards do you draw? Yeah.
Speaker: And so the the reason i feel like every time I talk about Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic or Pokemon on the record, it's like to compare and contrast how out of hand they feel to other things. So I feel like I should give like the one minute, like, why do I like it?
Speaker: Which is ah the at ah at a high level. when When players are fully onboarded, when you understand the possible interaction space, the likely interaction space of everything, um especially Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: being a game that is so such high power level, so it is it such a fast-paced game in terms of turn count, where the game almost never goes beyond turn three.
Speaker: ah That is to say, player one takes a turn, player two takes a turn, player three ah finishes the game if player two was not able to win. Like, that is that is the current pace of the game. And granted, that's 30 minutes of back and forth gameplay because each player is playing on each other's turn.
Speaker: But... turn count very low. they're At a very high level, this it is basically decision path after decision path after branching path about making informed choices about if I do this, it opens me up to these risks. If I do this, it does not open me up to these risks. And in getting better is about under is about basically learning about more branching paths and being able to make those ah more informed decisions over and over. And it is about...
Speaker: mitigating risk while while building up a strong field. And obviously, sometimes your opponent just drew cracked and they just have everything. And like, sorry, you you you did the best possible turn.
Speaker: And then they drew the 3% hand. Like, so I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes that just happens. But broadly speaking, the best gameplay is back and forth and incredibly informed decision after informed to decision after informed decision.
Speaker: Like that it that is what makes those games good. But it's it's informed decisions based on just like squeezing a ridiculous amount of information into your brain. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. no you got to you got to act as if your opponent has the four best cards in the format plus plus one card that's going to start their play.
Speaker: Like, you yeah you just got to assume that they've got the best hand possible. And this is actually why ah one of the most ah hated design spaces whenever Konami, who designs the game, explores it is cards that reveal your opponent's hand.
Speaker: like The entire game is about playing around things. And as soon as you have perfect information, as soon as your opponent has perfect information, you've lost. are Are these cards part of the 100-Band cards? ah very Many of them are, yes. Many, many, many of them are. However...
Speaker: for some reason, every few years, they they decide they want to explore this design space again, and everyone says no And right now, right now, in the Western format, which everywhere except for Asia plays, ah the the the best deck by far, ah at some point in their combo, gets to look at your opponent's hand.
Speaker: And in ah Japan and Asia, which is the format that we'll be getting soon, they printed a card that says your opponent must play with their hand revealed at all times. Okay. And no one understands how this and how this leaves the testing lab, how this gets printed. It's like it's it's it's fine. this is a This is a solved design problem. All you need is a single non-banned card that does something terrible when revealed from your hand.
Speaker: No, no, here's the problem. Mechanically, any card that says reveal this card from your hand um gets disabled when your opponent has hand knowledge because you cannot reveal it from your hand. Reveal is an action that you take, not a state.
Speaker: So the game needs a new keyword. The game needs a new keyword. I mean, what game doesn't? This is this is all like the design interaction and like You can like hopefully you can tell by the way I'm talking about it, like the emotional highs of playing this game are very good and it keeps me coming back.
Speaker: But sometimes the format is just really bad. It's really about how does the design how does the design space and how does the design team explore that design space?
Speaker: ah And unfortunately, there's a lot of room for bad decisions. do you Do you play this with people in person? Like, do you have a community in your city? or Yes, in person and online.
Speaker: And I'm also a judge for this game because I know all the rulings or enough of the rulings. Okay. nice That I can help with judge calls if someone is confused about a ruling, which thankfully does not mean ah that you know what every card does. ah Cards are written ah in a legal format ah where a colon and a semicolon mean different things in game language.
Speaker: So it's about learning how to read the card. And if you know how to interpret a card and how different ah mechanics interact, that's what being a judge is helpful for.
Speaker: okay It's very funny. Not to go on an another long ah digression in this in this, because this has been great, but Saren, have you played much Mindbug?
Speaker: I have not. um Like, i I really respect it. um It's kind of the closest I've gotten to this kind of, like, gameplay of like, oh, yeah, you're playing cards and those cards can then attack your opponent and then they block each other. um But it's super, super streamlined. It's like, i I don't want to play the games that you have to learn thousands and thousands of cards. Yeah. Mindbug is a game where you can kind of just wing it and like, just look at your current hand and go like, okay, I understand the cards I have in my hand. And you only have it your, your, your entire deck for the whole game is just 10 cards at random. And so it's very, very simple.
Speaker: Every, almost everyone I've played it with has had a bad time. um But like I think that's just because I'm playing it with the wrong people. yeah it It wouldn't give you the same highs. mean, I would be willing to give it a try for sure. No, and i think I think it's it's really interesting. It's a really streamlined version yeah of some of the same stuff. i mean, i look, I'm all for streamlining. And like this is where I'm at in terms of like how would i what would I want to do with this type of game is like I want to keep the decision tree matrix.
Speaker: But I want, but like, i almost want the the version of that it's like to make the version of this game, or maybe maybe even and like the single player version of this game. Like the way that when you are playing in Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: and if you're playing as a good player and you've had to reveal your hand, like the reason you lose is because all of all of the probability weights for a good player's decision tree have shifted from like 25, 75 to 100, zero.
Speaker: And they can just make the correct decisions every time. They still have to play well in order to make those correct decisions. So like I almost wonder about making the single player version of a two player card game that is like this powerful, but like you have a defined opening hand, you're so does your opponent and you see your opponent's hand, you still have to play well.
Speaker: Right, there's there's versions of this that are kind of like um deck builder-y, like here's a Slay the Spire, like here's a single player Slay the Spire hand equivalent. Can you find the way to score this much damage in a single turn, given these starting cards? Oh, this is Mage Knight, right?
Speaker: Basically. I've not played Mage Knight, actually. I'm thinking of a digital game. oh I mean, I think there's been several digital games based on this concept. Oh, I liked playing Slay the Spire. Let's make us a puzzly version of Slay the Spire. Yes.
Speaker: ah Yeah, I mean, this is this is sort of like, yeah, my my thinky gay and white whale. of like, can I, like... And I would... I would i have told Alan that if he ever wants to make anything like this, ah i'm I'm sprinting away from production into game design on ah for this specifically because I have a and a million thoughts. And i' have told you bring me a design document.
Speaker: I have... I have a million thoughts about this. of I would, like... Here, Alan, my game design document is going to be two identical prefab Yu-Gi-Oh decks that we play a best of three on.
Speaker: ah That is curated. And if you win, then i'm I'm forced to make this game with you. yeah Exactly, exactly. Okay, so we know what the next Dragon Ball game we know what the next Dragon Ball game is because I'm just going to build.
Speaker: There is um one last thing I'm going to do before i before we leave this Yu-Gi-Oh! long tangent that should not have been this long. I apologize. No, it was great. And ah move to leaving. And that is this incredible card...
Speaker: ah that I am going to i' i'm going to read it out because this is an audio format, but I'm going to, for the first time ever, share a link with the people I'm recording with that they can look at this card too, just so that I can truly underscore the amount of design space that is available within this card game.
Speaker: ah This is a card called Linear Equation Cannon. It is a trap card, and it says, during the battle phase colon declare a whole number from one to six semicolon choose what effect monster your opponent controls period multiply Multiply the effect monster's level times the declared number, then add the number of cards your opponent controls and check if the result equals the number of cards in your graveyard.
Speaker: If yes, colon, send cards from the top of your deck to the graveyard up to the declared number. And if you do, shuffle cards your opponent controls into the deck up to the number sent to the graveyard. If no, you lose life points equal to the declared number times 500. You can only activate one linear equation cannon for turn.
Speaker: I mean, that last sentence is just ah boring. Why why they gotta stop my fun? This card, there's another one called there that's very similar called Simultaneous Equation Cannon.
Speaker: There's just like, what if you had to stop everything and do algebra? I have no idea if this is a usable card or not. It isn't until it is. And if it is and it resolves, you've effectively won the game. Okay. It's basically how this card reads. Because the positive effect of if this actually goes off is remove all of your opponent's resources.
Speaker: Okay. But in order to do it, you have to have perfectly staged the exact perfect algebraic equation and then execute at exactly the right time.
Speaker: Someone on the team is clearly a mathematician and was like, was given ah carte blanche and was told, all right, we have one more card that needs to fit in the set and we don't have any ideas. Make a card real quick. And they were like, this is my life's calling.
Speaker: So we already know two people in the development team, this math guy and the person who likes to reveal cards. ah Yes. in head I don't know. It's very funny. There is in no way is this game a thinky game or even really a puzzle game.
Speaker: But there's absolutely a lot of ways in which this game could be adapted into an excellent ah thinky thinky puzzle game. All right, that's my you got me talking tangent. Great content. i'm sure this will I'm sure this will either be in full length or deeply truncated in the edit.
Speaker: Oh, i I would be disappointed if too much of this got cut. I think it's... Melanie, our editor, plays Yu-Gi-Oh with me. Okay, well, there we go. There we go. I've been teaching her game. So I do not... I suspect that she is going to get a kick out of this when she what she hears me talking about Handtrap Negates and Nibiru the Primal Being.
Speaker: Yeah, come come for the Blage, stay for over half the podcast runtime being about card games. No, it is not. It is it is about a third, not half.
Speaker: I don't know about that. I don't know. I'm so sorry for dominating that. Blage, is this inspiring you to in any design space?
Speaker: Yeah, actually. ah I mean, i am preparing a new edition of a card game of mine to release. So, yeah, all of these ideas. going to have a new edition of All Is Bomb coming All Is Bomb, yeah. And it does operate, I mean, it is a solo game, but... Going to your first sentence about card games, it is sort of card game which has core system which is relatively simple and then each card has its own effect. Yes. It just overrides everything and...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, this is very interesting design space to me, but I wouldn't dare to go into a two player or two plus player ah card game design just because, yeah, first of all, how do you even make a mark in such a... ah You make every card an algebra equation, every single one, not the one off. you Give the people what they want. That is the entire design space is different algebra equations.
Speaker: I feel like, ah yeah, the the next Rockneck game is sort of forming currently. but I mean, ah we we do actually know what the next Rockneck game going to We So the one after that is going to be a Calculus Hero.
Speaker: Oh, wait. Really? By way, I'm not familiar. Is this a reference to- No, this this is just me making it up. Okay. Okay. I like the name. I don't think I heard it anywhere. So it is strong name, strong title.
Speaker: You had it here first. Calculus Hero. Calculus Hero. Your subtitle, you're going to wish you took that class in college. I could i could kind of see a Zaktronics game about calculus. absolutely No, Zach should be making the calculus game.
Speaker: he Hasn't he already? I'm not sure. He's made games that are abstractly calculus. Okay, okay. I respect his decisions, at least thus far, ah conscious or not conscious, to not make them explicitly about calculus. we Because like when we would like Sokobond is a game that feels unmarketable because it's like, well, it's chemistry and people are not enthused by the idea of chemistry.
Speaker: Calculus is like way further beyond chemistry in the unmarketable sphere. I mean, it's also hard. ah Yes. I mean, i recently play tested a puzzle book. um And the first half or, I don't know, two thirds of it was just fantastic. And I really you know got into it and it was rule discovery. And then I got to a point where I i was just dumbfounded.
Speaker: And through conversations with the developer, I learned that I just simply didn't know a formula, which I should know from elementary school, but it was just something that, well, okay, I hadn't thought about. Just outside knowledge you didn't bring in?
Speaker: Yes, exactly. And it's very dangerous. Which you could have derived independently if you just of course spent spent several hours. ah Yeah, yeah. I mean, having to reverse engineer ah like the Pythagorean theorem or the quadratic formula is like maybe not my idea of fun.
Speaker: That was the best part of math at school. What are you talking about? It was reverse engineering. Yeah. Yeah. send Send you back to differential equations. Oh, God.
Speaker: That's I calculus was not a problem for me. Differential is about where I started tapping out. Well, was like, ah, at this point, I'm taking the I'm I'm taking these classes because I'm essentially running up the scoreboard. I don't actually think I'm going to be doing math in my like for for a profession. I think I'm out here.
Speaker: yeah And my brother actually is a professor of math. so Oh, wow. yeah No, I was i was a a music teacher.
Speaker: Oh. So i could I could teach about the math of music, but... Fantastic. What what do you play? ah Primary is ah violin ah in practice, everything.
Speaker: I think we have already talked about this, right? Yes. yes sorry No, I've a part, a big part of ah being able to teach music for schools is ah you got to be able to play all those instruments at least a little bit.
Speaker: um um But string string instruments are basically the hardest, right? More or less um in the American school system, ah we tend to start those ah and start kids on those instruments earlier because they need they need more time to be able to get up to par ah just because there's yeah there's there's a lot going on.
Speaker: um No, yeah, I ah i ah eventually, when I was in college, ah we did a weird summer European tour playing ah playing with different groups.
Speaker: um That was fun. I was the only person in my a college orchestra who was not a music major. Everyone else was, which meant that they all got additional classes with like where like they got handed music and got revisions to things. And I would just show up to rehearsal because I was the only one who was only going to rehearsals.
Speaker: And then they would be like, why don't you know this? And i'm like, why would you expect I did? It's like, you're the one that allowed open auditions. I'm like, and they're like, yeah, you're the only person who got in through open auditions. I'm like, so you should just email me.
Speaker: You have my email. ah This is a very long time ago. Again, this is this is way back in college. um Yeah, I've i've lived a lot of lives. okay Maybe maybe i haven't... I think Blasch might be someone who can compete with me and maybe win in terms of number of things that you do.
Speaker: But... Because you do a lot of things. a I mean, sort of, yeah, but ah it's all the same process in my head. I don't feel... It's... it's Yeah, animation and music and puzzle design. It's all the same. It's all just the same.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, truth is all, yes. Actually, for me, it all goes back to film editing. um where i This is where I got my diploma, what I graduated, film editing. And it when you when you take everything to its basics, it's really just...
Speaker: cutting stuff up and putting them together. i mean, really, i'm I'm not exaggerating here, but I see sort of the same thought processes going on um here. I mean, okay, um instrument instrument playing is different because here you go into a flow, ah but just like composing or, I don't know, drawing and so on, it's similar to me.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, yeah, I get that. um There's a lot of finding a way to express what's in your head that I think is like connect all of these things.
Speaker: But the mechanical steps of animation versus composition is is very different, even if it is about exploring the art in that lives in your head.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to to minimize the everything around these mediums, but both animation and composing, both are sort of think things happening in time. and When I'm animating, I i mean, I'm i'm exating exaggerating right now, but like I see, okay, this action needs a little bit more of a pre-movement to really make an impact. And the same with a song. like You get to a moment and it doesn't feel as strong, so what do you need? A little bit of a pre-moment.
Speaker: In this aspect, I think they are similar. ah The same with game games where you also try to tell a story within time. ah And i mean, at least I tend to look at game design as just building up towards something and teaching people you know in very, very clear tempo.
Speaker: Everything is about tempo, basically, I think. And yeah. On that note, I think the tempo of this podcast has come to a close.
Speaker: He was just trying to find his transition into that. ah Yes. No, thank you again so much for jumping back on with us, Blas. It's been great to chat to you again as always. Yeah, absolutely. A pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for inviting A very, very comfortable and casual podcast. And you can tell how comfortable I am by how long the diversion I'm willing to take. um where Where can people find you in online?
Speaker: Just in person? where where Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Docs yourself. No. ah Online. Online. ah Yeah, I have a website which recently got its domain changed. So now it's called after my company. It's letibus.com.
Speaker: Okay. um here you can find most of my uh game stuff if you're more interested in my music stuff and so on you'll need to dig a bit deeper because currently i still have the same website um Sorry for a long fine promo. But yeah, ah both the same website has two domains now. So if you want to find other stuff, you need to type in letibus.com slash B-L-A-Z.
Speaker: So yeah, here you you can find non-game related stuff. ah And yeah, that's it. I also have each and all the social media, which doesn't include Twitter, which I need to delete at some point, but it it is inactive.
Speaker: ah And yeah, this is it, I think. Awesome. Well, thank you very much again for jumping on. Thanks, Alan, for... humoring me and uh thank you for listening to the draconic and friends official podcast our music is by priscilla snow who you can find at ghoulnoisemusic.com our podcast artworks by adam de grandis our podcast is edited by melanie zawodniak the yugioh player please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations
Speaker: Melanie, I want you to know when you next play Therent, I'm rooting for you. ah She has yet to take a match off of me.
