Interview - Banana Chan / Sen-Foong Lim - Exquisite Crime Kickstarter

Today I talk with Board Game and TTRPG Creators, Podcaster, Kickstarters and horror enthusiasts - Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim.

We discuss TTRPG Kickstarter Projects including 'Exquisite Crime', Calibration Tools, Scrum-Mastering and much more.

You can find Banana, Sen and all of their content via the links below.

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/bananachangames
https://twitter.com/gameandacurry
https://twitter.com/SenFoongLim
https://twitter.com/Hunters_Ent

Website:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/huntersbooks/exquisite-crime?ref=project_link
http://www.gameandacurry.com/
https://senfoonglim.carrd.co/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pelgranepress/suburban-consumption-of-the-monstrous?ref=project_link
https://www.instagram.com/bananachangames/

Calibration Tools:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/114jRmhzBpdqkAlhmveis0nmW73qkAZCj

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Banana Chan / Sen-Foong Lim

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Edited by: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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http://snydersreturn.squarespace.com

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Transcript

Snyders Return: 0:26

Hello, and welcome to snows return at the top roleplay podcast. My guest today would love for us to invest some of our time to investigate the newest creation. But before we set ourselves down to consume from the veritable buffet of TTRPG offerings, we must first build up our appetites by riding on bikes, surviving through dread domains, and working the family business. With many situations to resolve cases to solve and antagonists plot to unfold, we are drawn into its beauty, tracing its lines to the truth, playing our cards close to our chest, and our hunters for good entertainment and good food at its end, here to discuss their Kickstarter exquisite crime, a banana Chan and son from the gym. And it's an absolute pleasure to working with both to the show.

Banana Chan: 1:17

Thank you so much for having us.

Sen-Foong Lim: 1:19

Yeah, thanks very much.

Snyders Return: 1:20

Nice an absolute pleasure. Before we get into your Kickstarter proper, how did each of you get into tabletop role playing games, please.

Banana Chan: 1:27

So the first time I had played d&d was as a teenager, and I did not enjoy it. But several years later, as a 20, something year old, I played monster hearts for the first time I played Juggernaut, I played several LARPs, which also dived into my love for role playing in general. And I think that's how I got my start into tabletop role playing games.

Snyders Return: 1:59

A bit of an interesting mix there for sure. And what about yourself, so

Sen-Foong Lim: 2:04

I was I was dropped off, and the basement of a university at the age of six. That's how I got my start in role playing games. So my mom did her schooling in Britain. She was a nurse in London. And so she was always listening to the BBC, even when she moved to Canada. And around the time that I was five or something. I think there was this big push about Tolkien, Tolkien, Tolkien, Tolkien. And so my mom said, Oh, you might like those books. And of course I did. And I read them in I don't know, I finished the Lord of the Rings when I was six. So I was done reading. I was like, Yes, we're done. What else do we got? Mom? She's like, I don't know. But she found out I don't know how she found out. But that there was a gaming club at the local university. It also at this time on the BBC in the CVC, like, so this would be 1978 There was a lot of buzz around Dungeons and Dragons, and what is Dungeons and Dragons. And so my mom found this Dungeons and Dragons group for me to join. And so I started playing chainmail when I was six, and just the dragons when I was six, and just grew up in role playing ever since. And I gave it up when I was in university because it takes way too much time. And then I found my love for it again, later on after I got into the hobby gaming industry. Because I still needed games in my life. So even after I gave up role playing games, I would say oh, you know what, I should just I can play some games, I'll just play Magic and Warhammer. And that took over my life until the my grad school years. And that's like, Okay, I gotta sell all that. So I sold all of that basically paid for my entire grad school with magic cards. And then after I got into game design, formally, I kept on seeing all these role playing games being played at cons and being, you know, announced that cause this call man I really like role playing is I miss it. And so I made a rule that every convention I would play one role playing game with my friends. So it was looking for one shot. So I think that really got me into modern gaming more so. So dread was a really big return for me. And then PVTA stuff, learning how to hack that. Yeah, so it all started with chainmail though. Oh, wow. A long, long, long time ago.

Snyders Return: 4:34

Yeah, no,

Sen-Foong Lim: 4:35

that 40 What is it? So that's 43 years ago to the day,

Snyders Return: 4:39

I wasn't gonna wage you but I'm glad that's respected, experienced and respectable. So how did you're sort of Divergent Paths through this sort of role playing hobby that each of you have taken? bring you together? Where was your connection formed?

Banana Chan: 4:59

I think I was just really excited for the work that satin was doing.

Sen-Foong Lim: 5:04

I think I was just really excited for the work that banana was doing. Oh.

Banana Chan: 5:09

And I think we met do we meet on Facebook? Initially? Yeah, actually Facebook, and then we met his real life at was at Fan Expo in Canada, or was it before that?

Sen-Foong Lim: 5:20

It was before fit Expo. Okay. Because we were writing together when we were at FIT Expo. Oh, true. Yeah. So yeah. So before that, we went before that. But we had just run it in similar circles, but not same circles. Banana is an X Canadian. So, you know, people that I know, know, banana and people that banana knows know me. And we had just, you know what it probably was banana. It was probably writing for other people's projects. We just see each other's names and stuff. Yeah. Kids on bikes. Yeah. And then it was golden Cobra was your golden Cobra award that really kind of said, I need to work with this person, because she makes a kind of games that I think are hilarious.

Banana Chan: 6:04

Oh, I played chunk art. And I was like, this is cool.

Sen-Foong Lim: 6:08

Yeah. So Bananas, bananas, golden Cobra award winning game was about alien invasion or something, parasites and weirdness and video, it just did a vlog. And I was so amazed that you could make a solo role playing game at all. And just vlogging it and it was just phenomenal to watch because I watch all of her, you know, this is how you play. And then she just started acting and role playing it was awesome. So it was like this whole revisioning for me coming from like, you know, the OG of OSR to more modern gaming, and I actually fell out of love with role playing games around the time that like Shadowrun came out, because it was like this is more R O L L playing and less R O L E playing and then I got to see some of the more interesting takes on role playing games that are almost crossing over to LARPing without being total LARPs that it's like okay, I can get into this I can like this this is interesting stuff and I can write for this. So that's how we sort of met up was over a mutual appreciation for each other's projects and then being tapped to write for similar projects that kids on bikes

Snyders Return: 7:30

amazing and you know, kids on bikes, which is available through actually I'll pause it there before I continue that line of inquiry to plug you both would you mind telling us where each we can find each of you and the projects you're associated with please because that will tie in to where we go next?

Banana Chan: 7:48

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at banana Chang games and you can find me on tick tock at banana dot chan dot games

Sen-Foong Lim: 7:59

because there are so many other banana chan

Banana Chan: 8:02

there are there actually are on Tik Tok.

Sen-Foong Lim: 8:05

It's pretty ridiculous. It is pretty ridiculous a little mad about that. How dare they?

Snyders Return: 8:11

What about yourself? So Mike, can we find you?

Sen-Foong Lim: 8:13

You can find me on Twitter at send phone live. That's senf Oh, and G li M. And yeah, I chat a lot there about role playing games, board games and social justice issues and my underwear apparently that's what I talked about yesterday was my underwear.

Snyders Return: 8:32

It's it's all content. Speaking of which, links will be down below scroll down, click on those links and support these fantastic creators and their wonderful projects, including the one we will get to shortly. I mentioned their kids on bikes available through hunters again, there'll be a link in the description below. Fantastic game. Just have so much praise the discord server for that's fantastic. But you work together on a project before you squizzy crimes. So what have you learnt from previously working together that has helped you with this current Kickstarter project? Yeah,

Sen-Foong Lim: 9:09

so that banana, oh, go ahead.

Banana Chan: 9:11

Oh, no, I was just gonna say like us working on Josha. So we worked on junk Chable and the banquet hall previously, we co design the game together and I co publish it with white and games. And I think that it was definitely a heavier game in terms of both physical weight and like design weight. Like it involves like a lot of collaborators involved like a lot of different different people just you know, having their input when it comes to not just like the mechanics, but like the lore. The the actual, like scenarios, like having a whole bunch of different people work on that. So for this, this game is a little simpler. It's a little bit departure from that. It doesn't require dice It doesn't require like a GM. And I think this is like a little bit more experimental, which is something that we've been wanting to do for a while.

Sen-Foong Lim: 10:09

Yeah. It's working with banana is like working with somebody who may or may not be a scrum master.

Banana Chan: 10:17

I just got certified. Everyone, I'm so excited.

Sen-Foong Lim: 10:23

Do you know what a scrum master is? Adam?

Snyders Return: 10:25

I do not. It sounds like a rugby term, isn't

Sen-Foong Lim: 10:29

it? No, it is yes. But a scrum master is not. It was not played rugby.

Banana Chan: 10:34

I do not play rugby. But is a term stolen from rugby. And yeah, it's just basically like a project management style of project management.

Sen-Foong Lim: 10:45

Yeah. So that is what it's like to work with banana as your project will be managed, which is great. Because I am literally the absent minded professor, I am a professor, and I am absent minded. So that is me. In a nutshell him banana keeps us on track and keep the ship afloat, and makes me do things and I do them. And that's good. Because we get stuff done that way. So yeah, working together is wonderful. This is it. It may sound odd to say this, I don't know. But it's like, when you work with somebody who just kind of gets you it's real easy. And so working with bananas really easy. Oh, get each other in a lot of ways, like so. I think partly because we write from a very similar standpoint in terms of our ethnicity, our culture, our history, immigration, all that kind of stuff. But then we have different styles. Like I'm kind of more serious, I think, and bananas, little more fun, loving. Love fun. I just have this very serious view of myself. Think like, oh, no, all my stories should be horror. And all the horror stories should be scary horror, where but is like, hey, spooky is awesome. That way? Yeah, yeah, so banana, like sad and dark things. But there's a humorous bent to it. And I like sad and dark things. And there's like a really dire bend to that. So if we're writing from a horror perspective, you can expect there to be some dark stuff that might be funny, but also might scare you a lot. So there's both aspects of it. And it's surprising where it comes from sometimes, because sometimes banana just scares the crap out of me. And sometimes, I might make it in a laugh or something that she didn't expect to be funny, because usually we were the opposite hats, right? So. But I find that we don't have to communicate a lot about stuff, which is weird, and good, right? Because we just kind of get each other in some ways, like when we talk, especially about like, Asian stuff. Like, I don't have to explain why I'm angry about certain things. I don't have to explain why something is racist when something's not. But it is like, oh, yeah, I get that. Or she doesn't even have to say that to me. We she just knows. Because she also thinks the same way about certain things that are racist. We might check each other every now and then say, Is this really racist? Are you sure this is racist? We do. But in general, like, we bounce ideas off each other and other people in the Asian community or designers as well. But it's just an easier conversation. That's all. And so when there's a lot of effort to put into the writing, it's good to have or it's nice anyways, to have a little bit of low effort, experiences, where it's like, this is not an effort to talk about this other stuff, and we want to talk about it. And we know we both are going to talk about this in some way, shape, or form or address it. And there's no question. If we're still overstepping our bounds, there's no question that we're going to push the wrong buttons for the wrong people. And if there are, we can check each other on that too. Because we, we, you know, we understand each other to the level that it's like, okay, I know you're going to be a little bit iffy about this. So I'm going to see what you think. And then, you know, for certain things, so for example, just even during last year's pandemic, with the violence against Asian people, and whatnot, and then the whole Wu Han virus and what thought there was a lot of stuff that, you know, we went through as Asians in America and Canada. And we just had to check ourselves and make sure we weren't being particularly biassed in any view and it is something that you know, we we talk about with each other, but also know each other's boundaries quite well. So that's what it's like to work with banana in a nutshell,

Snyders Return: 14:42

it's a that was quite a large nutshell but a nutshell nonetheless. Yeah. So you mentioned there about your, each of you having different properties back in each of you having different perspectives, and that really seems to be brought to life in exquisite crime. Just Reading through the Kickstarter page which congratulations over $20,000 funded over 400 backers time of recording less than two weeks remaining until hopefully, backer Kitson, and we can get our hands on things. So for someone that's that's listening to this and thinks, I've seen it on Twitter, I've seen it come up on Kickstarter, someone's recommended it to me, but not really sure. What it is, what is exquisite crime.

Banana Chan: 15:28

So exquisite crime is a game where players are playing psychic detectives trying to solve a crime. And that crime is going to be drawn up by the players themselves, collaboratively. And so it's not, it's not a crime that all of you have. Sort of just like, you know, it's not laid out there for everyone to see. You collaboratively draw it together with an exquisite corpse mechanic. So it doesn't use dice. It doesn't use a GM. But basically, you're just like drawing this thing out. So you are going to be drawing up the witnesses a suspects the victim, the scene of the crime, and you don't have to be good at art. You don't have to be good at illustrating me. Well, I'm not. Yeah, me neither. But like, Yeah, so basically, you're just like, you know, just drawing whatever comes to mind, because this is a surreal project. Right? So this is like a, it does take on a surreal theme. So whatever you come up with can be as silly or as weird as, you know, as you want it to be. And we also have some cool character creation stuff.

Sen-Foong Lim: 16:38

Yeah. Which is kind of neat that it just kind of fell into place. A Yeah. Yeah, they're, it's a really neat game in that. So the genesis of it, if you get we can get into that. Please was yeah, it was basically, and I don't know, but at a if there's anybody other than you, me, Shingon car and Gian Shem, who liked to do this stuff. But banana and I really, really like artefacts. Like we like making people make artefacts to remember the game they play, whether it's writing a spell that you stick on the forehead of the juncture, or creating memorable pictures that our friends keep them by their desk so they can talk about them. They love them so much that like I love this picture. It's so amazing. Because they created they remember the whole story around it. But because we like paper crafting, and we like mementos, we like keepsakes, and tokens and memory aids and things like that in our games and people, we want people to create the while they're playing. So they remember the action of playing the game, not just the story. We are always looking for things. And I can't remember who found exquisite corpses. But exquisite corpses are just like a really surrealist movement art form where you fold up a piece of paper, and somebody draws the head, somebody draws a board body and somebody draws the legs of a person or a thing or something like that. And we just said, Oh, this is cool. How do we make this a game? And then I think I added props to the, to the folds. And then it was a game. It became a game? Like who is this? Where do they work? You know, why would somebody want to kill this person? All this kind of stuff? And because it was they're called exquisite corpses. You know, it just kind of lent itself into this idea of Oh, it's a murder mystery. Hmm. And then from there, our brains what to work on, you know, how does this gets systematised? How do we make it so that everybody's playing? And then all this other stuff got added to it? To make it to round it out? Really? Yeah.

Banana Chan: 18:45

Yeah. So we added some vision cards. So vision cards are basically cards with artwork on them sort of similar to how Dixit has there. Or even obscure, obscure? Yeah. mysterium mysterious, mysterious. Yeah, like those games have pieces of art, where the player interprets, you know, the artwork. So in the game as one person, or a few people are like drawing out these, these exquisite corpses, one player would be describing what they see. So they would be in character, and they would be like, Oh, I see a fish with a hat, carrying a knitting needle or something like that. And you know, and this, this is like stuff that they would like, actually visually see and just interpret based on the artwork. And then the other players would draw it out based on what they say. The character creation part that that we also added was the Zener cards. So Zener cards are a you might have seen them from Ghostbusters, where they're like, No, you have to like guess what card I'm holding or whatever. But centre cards were a a tool used in para psychology that was invented by perceptual psychologist Carl Carl Zenner. He was like, Hey, I think that I could use this tool to like, make people, you know, to detect like psychic abilities or whatever. And so University at Duke University, was it actually Duke University? Because I think I was just shy. Okay, that was just like my, my pack. So maybe it's one of those things

Sen-Foong Lim: 20:18

we'll see. So the original officials that are cars actually have the, like a landscape or a skyline of Duke University on the back.

Banana Chan: 20:27

That's the one I have. Yeah,

Sen-Foong Lim: 20:29

that's those. Those are the official cards.

Banana Chan: 20:32

I have the official cards. So that's really cool. or something. But yeah, so basically, in the game, how it works is, one player would ask another player to guess what their guests what their, what they're holding up the car that they're holding up and based on, if they guessed correctly, or incorrectly, they get a trait. So thank

Sen-Foong Lim: 20:52

you for holding up a star.

Banana Chan: 20:54

It's actually a circle. And so you would get something like I'm a con artist trying to fit in with these other psychics?

Sen-Foong Lim: 21:03

Of course, I could. Obviously not.

Banana Chan: 21:08

So it'd be something along those lines. And the prompts that let you that say that you've guessed correctly are usually things like you're the golden child of this detective agency, or you've won the lottery recently, and you're trying to quit the job, stuff like that. Whereas if you've guessed incorrectly then chances are you're either a con artist or fake psychic or maybe you're like a stage magician actually or something. Something along those lines.

Sen-Foong Lim: 21:36

a charlatan?

Snyders Return: 21:38

Good word.

Banana Chan: 21:40

Just lost your psychic abilities.

Sen-Foong Lim: 21:42

Maybe it's yeah, a thing. I haven't a bad day. You're just having a great day.

Snyders Return: 21:47

Yes. I'd sort of tapping onto the word charlatan there which brings up sort of some certain imagery in in the mind the the artwork, the aesthetic, and the setting is so beautiful. The artwork for the Kickstarter is amazing. What inspired you to take it down that stylistic sort of route, that sort of setting?

Sen-Foong Lim: 22:09

Well, I mean, so as access to that particular artist was one of them. We got a lot of art direction through the hunters team. She's an amazing artist. She did the all the art for palaces missing as well. And so hunters has a really good relationship with her. And we really liked what she was doing. And it was quick and it was clean. And the the game itself being like very surreal has a lot of those surreal pieces in it. But we wanted the overall kind of design ethos of the game to be sort of, not not necessarily Holmesian Victorian Holmesian but have that feel of a detective agency with like a business card. This would be a business card that you'd hand out. And then I don't know how you found it. Banana but banana picked the dragon fly, and specifically a ginormous dragonfly called a Gryphon fly as the like iconic centrepiece for the game. And there is actually something really cool about dragon flies. Yeah, links to the game.

Banana Chan: 23:21

Yeah, I think it was a symbolism. So that gigantic dragon fly. I just chose that because I thought the name was cool. Like a Gryphon fly.

Sen-Foong Lim: 23:30

I just Yeah. Leader leader kismet, you found something out about?

Banana Chan: 23:35

Yeah, we found out that a dragonfly represents like a, like a 360 view of everything because their eyes are like they can see like 360 degrees or something like that. And so the, the idea behind it is just that, like, you know, they can see everything

Sen-Foong Lim: 23:54

like x sure should like unless they're charlatans or charlatans.

Snyders Return: 24:01

So someone inspired by by the description of the game, the drawing the some people can be put off by GM games and like that gymnasts experience and building the story together. So, you know, when not if, when they're excited by this idea, this game and want to go and back on Kickstarter. What will they what are the options available to them for backing this project?

Sen-Foong Lim: 24:28

Well, I think there's a couple options is not a tonne, because we're trying to do all of the game as locally as possible because of the current issues with shipping and things like that worldwide. So I believe over not incorrect that the vast majority of things will be manufactured in America. And so there is like the PDF version, the old 20 version. There will be the hardcopy version And then there's like an exquisite, exquisite chrome version, which is done up in like a momento box and the Reeboks with all sorts of cool doodads and things.

Banana Chan: 25:10

Again, a murder bot murder in a box.

Sen-Foong Lim: 25:13

Oh, are we? That's cool. It's awesome. Although I kind of think that an exquisite exquisite box would be cool. This is an exquisite version of the exquisite chrome game. So it's an exquisite, exquisite Chrome. Yeah. Anyway, murdered a box. Yes.

Banana Chan: 25:31

Yeah, I think we're focusing mostly on shipping this game out to US, Canada and the UK. But all digital versions will definitely be available to everyone.

Snyders Return: 25:43

Excellent. So, but exquisite crime. Our work is phenomenal. You mentioned some things just looking at the kickstart page. Now you get an enamel, Gryphon fly pin. So something to take with you to either prove you're a psychic or just carry on your charlatan or just carry up the pretence? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Magnifying glass by the looks of it, which which could also be fun. So you mentioned there role 20. So it's not necessary to be in person to play this game. It sounds like there's a couple of different ways that this game can be facilitated. Played set for.

Banana Chan: 26:23

Yeah. So we're working on role. We're working with role 20 right now to figure out a way to make this digitally available. Luckily, rule 20 already has a drawing thing in it. Yeah. So we've tested it out. The drawing thing is actually a lot of fun. It's actually very usable, and it's already built in. So hopefully the coding is not going to be too difficult when it comes to trying to make sure that you know everyone can see their own thing without seeing other players, players panels when they're drawing out these Fantasma graphs. Yeah.

Sen-Foong Lim: 26:57

And then like stick them all together. Right? Get Exactly. Get it right and lined up. Exactly. Yeah, that'll be that'll be really cool to see. implemented. And it's, it's a kind of game because there, it's very rules light. And there is no GM. So nobody is really responsible for knowing everything. And the lore is as you create it. So it is a really easy game to just kind of pick up and play. If you want to do a drawing game with a little more story, or a story game with a little more drawing. You know, you have you have choices.

Snyders Return: 27:30

Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Rewinding slightly, but still moving forward mentioned about perspectives and how how each of you can sort of go between the darker side of things and the lighter side of things to keep it just just keep that going. But what about influences? What inspires you as you create? It doesn't necessarily have to be for this game in particular, but what is it that that inspires you to create your from your various projects, some of which we will come on to shortly?

Banana Chan: 28:02

Reality television for me. I watch a lot of reality TV.

Sen-Foong Lim: 28:09

She does. And I'm not sure why it's

Banana Chan: 28:11

like and horror movies. It's I don't watch anything else.

Sen-Foong Lim: 28:15

And then for me, it's podcasts and comic books. And oftentimes, we will be yelling at each other over mm, like over a messenger system, whichever one we're on at the time. So you gotta watch this movie, or you should listen to this podcast or read this comic or watch this reality TV banana knows that's not gonna happen. But she still watch below. I know I don't watch below deck. And I should and I will like because I trust you. But there's a lot of media out there that we're both very influenced by that, like, can we make that a game? Or, oh, that should be a game or what if that was a game? These are questions we are constantly asking yourselves, because we are very enamoured with, I think just how pop culture influences people's lives and how they think. And what if they were a part of that pop culture experience? cryptids are both big and both big and both of our lives we like cryptids we like weird stuff. Yeah, we just kind of Yeah, cult. We like cults like multi level marketing. Just anything where human behaviour is kind of messed up. We think it's fascinating that you, y'all get that messed up about like selling stuff. I don't know why you're doing this, but okay. Just all that kind of stuff is really fascinating to us. Other influences, I think we're always kind of interested in how do we make a random decision, not or decision outcome, how do we make a random outcome? So we often play around with things that how does has become, how does this how is this random? How is this a game, so it's not just reading a storybook, right. And that's where the Exquisite Corpse piece came in. It's like, oh, that's random every time because everybody's gonna draw neat things that are weird and different. So it's always going to be different, which is fascinating to us. We have another game coming out through exalted funeral, where you're a band to GarageBand High School GarageBand. And the momentum that you're creating is a poster for your last gig as a high school student you leave for college. And that's the that's the story of setting up the gig and play the gig. And then the rest of the story is coming back after, you know, to your 20 year anniversary or reunion or something like that. But you have this physical poster that you've made with your band name and all this stuff on it so that the game is archived through the to the poster.

Banana Chan: 30:59

So I realised we're also really into divination tools. Yeah, I think that's the random stuff. Right?

Sen-Foong Lim: 31:06

It's not the random stuff. That's bucket. I don't know. Okay. Well, I think I think divination is really fascinating. And just not that. So. It's funny. It's not that either of us necessarily believe in cults and divination and things like that. We are just fascinated that people actually do think that's more what it is, is like, wow, y'all are strange for actually believing that but okay, let's make a game out of it.

Banana Chan: 31:31

I mean, I love these tools just because, like they're great for outcome resolution.

Sen-Foong Lim: 31:35

Yeah. Like,

Banana Chan: 31:37

you know, that kind of stuff. Like they're, they're like clever ways that you know, to figure stuff out, aside from dice or not dice.

Sen-Foong Lim: 31:45

So yeah,

Banana Chan: 31:46

I think that's cool.

Snyders Return: 31:47

Yeah, well, you mentioned dread way back at the start with the wooden tower. Yeah, the particular brand and that's, that's, I've yet to play, but it looks

Sen-Foong Lim: 31:58

I know gosh, Dread is awesome play dread.

Snyders Return: 32:01

I've got it Alice is missing is an old one I missing a good sin, you know, sin it all again on the hunters discord on role 20 and streams and other things. And I've yet to facilitate again, myself, but But it's all in the works. So it'll happen. It will even just, I'll use Zener cards to work out whenever you mentioned that a future project, or do you have more on the horizon? Either of you, both of you?

Sen-Foong Lim: 32:35

Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

Banana Chan: 32:38

I have another Kickstarter that's off right now. It's called suburban consumption of the monstrous by Saudia bees, and I it is a collection of 14 different LARPs they're all horror LARP set around a dinner table or suburban environment. And these are games for adults. They are not games for children, because they are. This is like the darker side of game design. I think that you're talking about Sen. Where things are just like a little a little creepier, a little more serious, and a little bit more messed up.

Sen-Foong Lim: 33:12

Yeah. But super cool.

Banana Chan: 33:14

I hope so. Thank you.

Sen-Foong Lim: 33:15

Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.

Snyders Return: 33:18

So when does that Kickstarter expire just in case people catch this and can go and back that as well.

Banana Chan: 33:24

I believe we have 16 days. 15 days left on that Kickstarter. So that's being published by pelgrane. Press.

Sen-Foong Lim: 33:31

Yeah, it was like a 30 day instead of a 20 day, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So the oh, I mean, well, yes. Always. Let me think that's the thing. It's like, how many NDAs? Well, I break it I talk about

Banana Chan: 33:49

we can talk about stuff that we're on to like, maybe? I don't know.

Sen-Foong Lim: 33:56

I don't know. But yeah, let's see, what do I got going on here? I've got so we'll be fulfilling Kingdom Rush. Elemental uprising in the new year. I've got a couple scenarios and adventures with Nicolas use adventure tactic scheme, stuff like that. But also a lot of other writing projects that we're doing. So I'm doing a character for queers, and a scenario for venture village, which is a really cool therapeutic game for children about social emotional growth. So that's really cool. What else am I doing? Oh, I'm writing for Avatar legends still. So that's that'll be out. At some point. It has to come out because lots of people bought it. So yes, check them out. Yeah, thank you. And then what else? Lots and lots of board games. development stuff coming. But that's that's all under NDA. So I can't talk about that. Sorry.

Snyders Return: 35:05

That's all. That's all I totally understandable. I mentioned I didn't mention I saw something on your Twitter, banana damos Academy.

Banana Chan: 35:16

Oh, yes, Davis academy that was supposed to launch this year. But because of, you know, the world that we live in, currently, that has been pushed back, or pushed forward, push back to 2022. So, q1 of 2022, we're hoping to launch that day most Academy is a another papercrafting kind of game, where players are returning to players are playing characters who are returning back to their old creepy boarding school. And so they are using paper dolls to go through different rooms and collecting memories and fears and ripping up decks of memories if they forget things, or if they choose to forget things. So that's a project by Austin Knight, Amanda call and myself. And, again, we are hoping for a 2022 release q1, if the world doesn't end by then.

Sen-Foong Lim: 36:15

So that's the Kickstarter though, right?

Banana Chan: 36:17

Yes, that is, that's the Kickstarter. So we're publishing it through a game in a curry. And there will be two books. So you have a colouring book and you have a rulebook?

Sen-Foong Lim: 36:26

Hmm. It's really cool. The so the art of the maps are like all like these top down maps of the different rooms in the school that you can go to, and then you walk around with your, your paper doll, you can dress your paper doll, and like the school uniform, or not the school uniform, because you were a rebel. And my hemline was much higher. And so yeah, it's a really cool game about exploring the past and the mysteries and your memories. And I didn't see it that way. And I saw it that way. Really fun. It's good game. Loved it.

Snyders Return: 36:56

Thanks. It sounds like it will, it will be a lot of fun for sure. So excited for that when it comes out the tying into you an odd turn of phrase do its use, but staying with you for a little bit longer. Game and a curry your company? How What's it been like having that form? And what's it like sort of running that?

Banana Chan: 37:22

Oh, so having a publishing company in the height of the pandemic is not fun. So I'll tell you that, if anyone's listening, please, is thinking about having a publishing company and coinciding it with a big world event like that. Don't do it. avoid, avoid it, especially if you're psychic, and you can see it happening then don't do it. But it's been an interesting experience overall, like I have had a great time just like you know, publishing games, co publishing with what ink games with let him in games. It's been fun, just like you know, working with other people. I enjoy collaborating. So anytime I get a chance to like, split up the work, I would rather do that than just take on the bulk of the work and manufacturing and right doing distribution and doing all that so

Sen-Foong Lim: 38:18

and now that you're a Certified Scrum Master, you can manage the heck out of all of us. Oh, so

Banana Chan: 38:23

scrum does not believe in. In hierarchies like that. We're all on the same playing field.

Sen-Foong Lim: 38:29

I get that but I still make you manage us.

Banana Chan: 38:33

Fine. I'll do the I'll do the scrum mastering as long as someone else is the product owner. There you

Sen-Foong Lim: 38:39

go. That's good.

Snyders Return: 38:40

Sorted. I'm glad we got that little business meeting. resolved.

Sen-Foong Lim: 38:45

Could have been an email, but it could have been an email, it could have

Snyders Return: 38:47

been an email, but here we are having our daily scrum podcast is so good. Well, speaking of sort of managing, controlling, maybe the wrong word. Using the your gifts and teams around you. Each of you have run and played in and created games. What advice do you have any sort of tidbits of advice for new players or New Game Masters or people that are looking to get into the hobby and want to pick up something either more mechanically sort of complex or even something like your own game where it's it's more story based? Do you have any advice for new players is is basically the condensed question there.

Sen-Foong Lim: 39:38

Mm hmm. Well for new GMs My advice to most new GMS is be the biggest fans of your players ever want to see you want to see them do wild? Amazing things tell great stories. And it's hard to do that when you're thinking adversarially but it's real easy to do that when you're thinking Like, Oh, I'm a fan of this show. And I'm watching these actors on this show. And I want to see them do amazing things, even if sometimes amazing things, means they're going through hardships and pains and sorrows and even death. But when you play adversarially, you tend not to do that, for some reason, you don't tend to be as amazed, you tend to be like, I'm going to stymie these people I'm going to, which doesn't lead to a lot of growth. So that's my advice to to newer GMS is, yeah, be a big fan of your players. Yeah,

Banana Chan: 40:32

I think for new GMs definitely see what everyone is most interested in at the table. But also keeping in mind your own interests. So if you want to play a game about I don't know, cats or something like the play, then find other people who would be interested in playing a game about cats the play with you.

Sen-Foong Lim: 41:01

I will be interested in cats the movie?

Banana Chan: 41:03

Well, then we have to find another table for you to play cat. But that is okay. I am happy about you know, your, your interest in cats the movie as well. This is like DND arguments right here. Like

Snyders Return: 41:24

I'll let you resolve that.

Sen-Foong Lim: 41:27

Yeah, on that note, banana, I think the renaming of safety tools to calibration tools, I would really recommend that new GMs. And new players think about using them. Because all it does is make the game better for everybody involved. There, there's a lot of pushback against them. And I get why in some ways, and a lot of ways I just don't like you wouldn't ask your friends to watch a gory horror movie if they were into gory horror. But for some reason, it's okay at a game table, I don't get that. So calibration tools that can make the game better for everybody. Even just something as simple as you know, lines and veils at the start stars and wishes at the end of each session, retouch to the lines and veils, you know, you know, every month or so and have an x card on the table, it's really easy to play with those tools that just helped calibrate the game to something that everybody at the table will be satisfied and happy with. And, you know, I've played many, many, many, many, many, many games with those tools on the table. And they're not used tonnes and tonnes like because we do such a good job of calibrating at the start. There's not a lot of ex carding in the middle. And there is it's we all respect it. And it's serious business because they have decided this is something that I'm going to x and we're going to rewind it a little and start again. Okay, cool. And we move on. Yeah, but some people are just so opposed to that. And I don't understand why

Banana Chan: 43:06

I think that people are scared of the word safety. I think that's why we are trying to push it towards the word calibration and negotiation, because in LARP, a lot of the time people negotiate scenes, right? You negotiate with another person, like, Hey, can I do this? And then the other person is just like, okay, yeah, sure, why not? Like, let's do the scene this way, or let's do a scene in a different way. Whereas, like, when sometimes when we say like, the word safety is just like, oh, like, do we need a safety helmet? Like, what are we? Where are we getting ourselves into? So it does get like, I think that word does bring up some fear around people. Sure. And that's probably why like, so many people are into like the word calibration now. Like the LARP scene always thinks about this kind of stuff, because you're in the forefront of like, using your physical bodies and acting Yeah, it's embodied. It's very, it's quite different. Right, exactly. And that's why they like switch words so frequently, so it's no longer safety it's now calibration it's now calibration and negotiation like that kind of thing. Which is like a whole nother discussion. I don't want to like take up too much time talking about there's no like, yeah, like I think that sometimes we also have like people who do want to police safety as well. So like trying to, like manage that is like kind of difficult. So you know, setting up expectations making sure that like calibration is normalised instead of like a thing to have power over like other people or like, you know, something like that. That's like a weird sort of, I don't know, power play over other people. Like that's something that we want to avoid. Like we want to make sure that everyone's just enjoying their time. And also adding an oath Oh card, I think an O card is useful to know

Sen-Foong Lim: 44:57

Yeah, cuz it basically If all we have is always this, this quasi negative thing of the x card, it's not really negative, trust me. But some people might think of it as negative. But what if we included an O card, which is like basically just like applause that, oh, I want to see more of that. Then we have people using a similar thing for a different reason, which may help them use the other thing when it really does need to be used, right. So the tools that are available, I think, are really important for newer players to understand. The calibration tools and things like that, I think are something that could have probably saved a lot of people from leaving RPGs and could have probably brought a lot more people into RPGs, particularly people of marginalised groups. So I would like to see them in more things. So new, new GMs new players, take a look at calibration negotiation tools, figure out which ones work for you and use them.

Snyders Return: 46:00

For sure. tacking on to that slightly just in case we have a reference or a link. Do you know of a set of calibration tools that I could put a link to to help people out? Or are they still sort of I know we've sort of renaming kind of but is there anything I can put in the description below to help people find these calibration tools?

Banana Chan: 46:22

The TT RPG Safety Toolkit is great as by just like I'm gonna copy and paste the link over as well. It's

Sen-Foong Lim: 46:32

by a lot of people but it's curated by like Kiana and Candice partner whose name escapes me at the moment. Laura, Laura,

Banana Chan: 46:43

Laura, Kiana and Laura. So here, I'll copy paste that in there. So that's a great reference guide. It also credits everyone that create his tools as

Unknown: 46:53

well. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 46:55

Well, I will make sure that is in the description for people that want to use these and you've recommended them, I slash we as a POC. Recommend Them using these calibration tools. I will now start referring to them as calibration tools because I think that, as you said, is a a healthier way to, to, to, to name them or refer to

Sen-Foong Lim: 47:15

them. Well. It's just like the number of spicy peppers you see unlike, you know, Chinese restaurant menus. That's all it is. How spicy Do you want your kung pao chicken? It's California tastes right.

Snyders Return: 47:31

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We've discussed a lot you're fantastic. Kickstart exquisite crimes link in the description below this podcast please go and back it as I have. It looks fantastic. And it plays for everyone. Which we we can tell you the experience calibration tools. Yeah. Your future coming projects your concurrent Kickstarter. Suburban consumption of the monstrous out there for for those into the LARPing side of stuff. And those that maybe want to get into the life insider stuff again. Respect at your lopping meats. Is there anything we haven't touched on yet that you want to bring up? Just before we close out this interview?

Banana Chan: 48:11

Are we allowed to talk about our projects then? Which project? Wait, so we already talked about the one night only? We're talking about that? Yeah. I was allowed to talk about the other one.

Sen-Foong Lim: 48:22

I don't know. When you talk about it. She would talk about revenue. Oh, yeah. No, no. Okay. No, yeah, no. Okay. Okay.

Snyders Return: 48:32

Can you can you tease it by name? And then just leave it there?

Sen-Foong Lim: 48:35

Yeah, we could do it.

Banana Chan: 48:36

Yeah. Yeah. The Revenant society? Can we can we say that? Okay, we are working on a game called The Revenant society. And I can't say anything else.

Sen-Foong Lim: 48:49

Yeah, you'll have to, you'll have to reach back to us when it's announced. So we can tell you more about role playing game called The Revenant society.

Snyders Return: 49:00

But

Sen-Foong Lim: 49:03

yeah, we've got a we've got a lot of other stuff in the works, too. There's a couple games that we're working on that we're really fascinated by we just got caught up in other things. We are making a game eventually with a digital artist drip who is a pixel artist, and she's awesome. She's in Michigan, and we are going to make a game about finding romance and love over the Internet through like old school MMOs based on actually a Chinese myth, or legend or folk tale of the cowhand and the Weaver Girl. And then something else we're working on. We're working on a new game that's not Firefly, about the Chinese diaspora flying through space, which is cool. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, well, we're on that. It's not signed yet. So I mean, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, we're working on okay. It's our game. It's nobody else, nobody else's game yet. And then what else do we got going on? We've got another speaking of horror and seeing as this is All Souls Day to day, we do have another game that I can't tell you really about it because there's not really anything yet. But suffice to say that we're talking to horror comic writer extraordinaire Colin Bunn about taking one of his properties and turning it into an RPG. And it's going to be fascinating to do

Banana Chan: 50:42

about that one I like right when you said that I was just like, what horror game is he talking about? Oh, okay, that one, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I have a scrum meeting about that.

Sen-Foong Lim: 50:51

Okay. Now, I do have to say that banana, and I had the chance and it just never came through to work with one of our other horror comic icons, which is Junji Ito. Really? It just says, if you know who Junji Ito is, and you know who banana Chan and I are, you will understand just how sad we were. When that didn't come through for us. We were very sad. It's gonna happen one day, I know, days one day,

Banana Chan: 51:20

just like put it out into the world. And then one day,

Snyders Return: 51:22

it'll come back to you. Yeah,

Sen-Foong Lim: 51:24

manifest that. But we sacrifice to get that to happen. But it I don't know.

Banana Chan: 51:30

i i Oh, no, I will get rid of my packets. No, no, I'm just kidding. I can't. Originals. I can't.

Snyders Return: 51:41

I don't have a legitimate. Well, you've mentioned many projects, some more than others. Each of them sound exciting in their own way. And I'd love to get you back on the show in the future to discuss them either together again, like this or separately, depending on availability and things to have you back to learn more about your project support more of your sort of Kickstarter, and things like that, because to steal the title, they are exquisite. Leave a hang on. Before we do close, would you like to remind everybody where they can find each of you on social media so they can scroll down and follow you across on the various socialist please?

Banana Chan: 52:22

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at banana chan games and on tick tock at banana dot chan dot games. Yes, that is my handle. That is? Yes, that is it. And you can find many dots. Yeah, I know. I don't know how many. But you can find my company at gaming a curry on Facebook and Twitter. And thank you so much for having us. This was super fun.

Snyders Return: 52:48

It's a pleasure. I yourself said Michael.

Sen-Foong Lim: 52:50

You can find me at send phone limb on Twitter. And if you are interested in watching live streams about game design. You can find me on Facebook and YouTube. Maple syrup. And that is a weekly show on Wednesday nights at 9pm Eastern and then on lewd ology I'm one of the CO hosts of the dodgy podcasts, you can listen to us on a bi weekly basis. Actually, tech. I learned just today that that is the real use of bi weekly it's every two weeks. bi weekly is not twice a week, twice a week. That'd be semi weekly.

Snyders Return: 53:27

That's why I use fortnightly because of a distinction.

Sen-Foong Lim: 53:31

Yeah, it's also probably because you have that accent that when you say it, it sounds super important.

Snyders Return: 53:36

Oh, absolutely.

Sen-Foong Lim: 53:41

We should have got Adam to do the voices for Exquisite Corpse. Oh,

Snyders Return: 53:46

I would be honoured to record your video.

Sen-Foong Lim: 53:49

We got to redo the video. Next time next time.

Snyders Return: 53:52

Next one, right. Next time, My people will talk to your scrum master. And

Sen-Foong Lim: 53:57

that's just bananas.

Snyders Return: 54:00

Exactly.

Banana Chan: 54:01

I'll call your agent.

Snyders Return: 54:03

When I hire an agent, I'll make sure you have their number.

Sen-Foong Lim: 54:07

I now really legit want to make it a five E class that is a scrum master. Just planning. Yeah.

Snyders Return: 54:18

I'll try not to add too much more to your workload by the end of this interview. That does sound fun as well. Yeah. So if you release that, I'll pick that up too. It has been. It has been a genuine pleasure to have you both on the show. And I do look forward to speaking to you both in the future. So thank you so much. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to learn more about the show, then go to www dot Snyder's return.squarespace.com. Alternatively, you can find us over on Twitter. At return Snyder, you have a link tree link in the description of this episode. And if you want to support us, come and join us over on Patreon and we also have a Discord server. Please leave us a review because we'd love to learn how to improve The channel and provide better content alpha for those who are listening until we until we speak again thank you