------------------------------------------------------------------ Playability Podcast Episode 7: Lauren Woolsey with Carla Kopp Run time: 15 minutes, 35 seconds Episode recorded by Lauren Woolsey. Playability is produced by Mike Risley. Transcript edited by Lauren Woolsey. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 00:07 Lauren Woolsey Welcome back to Playability podcast, where we have short interviews with game designers and publishers to talk about games and how they come to be and how we can make them more accessible and inclusive. Today I'm talking with Carla Kopp of Weird Giraffe Games and more recently, Galactic Raptors Games. So today we're going to talk about one of your newer games. Do you want to let me know the backstory for that game? 00:31 Carla Kopp Okay, so, Dreams of Tomorrow. In the game, you are a dream engineer and you're sending dreams into the past to try to change the future because things didn't quite work out as you know everyone wanted them to. It has a set collection and rondel where you guys all work together -- everyone is a dream engineer -- so you kind of do benefit from others when you go to different spots on the rondel, but you do want to, you know, make the best dream -- like be better than your competitors -- because you want the future that you want to get passed down and for people to remember it and change things. 01:03 Lauren Woolsey Excellent. If you would, briefly talk me through the game’s developmental path. 01:08 Carla Kopp Well it didn't start off as Dreams of Tomorrow it started off as a game called totemic rights. It was first a dice game and then it became the card rondel game that it is right now, mostly because dice, they weren't that strategic and it just, like, it didn't feel right but like, adding in the rondel made everything just kind of fit together. So in the game, like, originally you were building a totem pole and it had a color on each side of it so it was kind of like a set collection mechanic where you wanted to, like, connect at least one of the lines on each side so you get more points for that but one of the really interesting parts of it is that so you would acquire the parts of the totem pole and every part that you could see the ability on you could use its ability. But when you started building up your totem pole you would cover up its ability so you'd have to do like a even though a building gave you points in the end, you'd have to consider that versus like getting rid of the ability of the totem that you were covering up. 02:11 Carla Kopp One of the really interesting parts were the abilities that could change how the rondel works. So the rondel, it's not really a circular rondel like you would think, it's made up before cards in each of the four cards has two spaces and you go around this card rondel, but like one of the abilities is to move one of the cards to a different location and then move again so like you can move one card, you can move multiple cards, you can go counterclockwise instead, and you can even flip one of the cards. I really like the flipping mechanic because that was one of the last things I got in, like I started off with just like moving one card and then it was like, you know, this is cool, like this is a really cool part of the game. Like, I've never played a game with a rondel where you can move it so like I slowly started adding in, like, oh you can move instead of just moving one and moving two you can move, you know, you can move as many as you want but you only get to move one and then you can flip and then you could go counterclockwise, and then you could swap places with people so like I like gradually made a lot more of this is a rondel moving game then like I think the percentages started off with like maybe 20 percent of the cards moved the rondel or move something on the rondel and now it's like 60 or 70 percent. Because, like you know, that's like the cool part about it! It's like moving it around and getting to where you need to go over like right now it's like a puzzle. 03:38 Lauren Woolsey Awesome! So you mentioned that the players are sort of working together, but it seems like it's not a cooperative game. What are the primary goals of the players? 03:48 Carla Kopp Oh they want to create, well now they want to create a really good dream that has really impactful parts to it so each of the dream parts has a certain victory point allocation like they range from two to five so you want the big hitting ones but you also want the ones that fit with the set collection and that's important because it would make a more cohesive dream to the person that's viewing it, because it would just make more sense so they have more ability to remember it. And you also want a longer dream sequence, because like if you have a long dream like you can remember it a lot better. so you want to get up to five dreams. That's like when the game ends so that'll try game and if somebody has five and then everyone else gets another turn and it's over. 04:29 Carla Kopp So about the semi cooperative part. There's resources in the game. So to acquire a dream, you need a certain resource, but to make the dreams you need two other resources. So when you go and gather resources on the rondel you also give resources to other players so every time you go somewhere that gets you resources or lets you acquire or lets you build up your dream, you give resources to other players so you have to think about that and that's another reason why the abilities are so important is because if you go on one of your use your ability parts of the rondel you don't give any resources to anyone else so there's certain dreams that let you just gather resources and that's kind of like a, I'm gathering resources but not giving any to anyone else 05:15 Lauren Woolsey Excellent. The rondel, I've started to see some more games use that. It seems like it's one of your primary mechanisms for the game. What got you so interested in trying a new take on the rondel mechanism? 05:29 Carla Kopp Oh well like I just always had liked rondels! Rondels are just fun, like whoa it's, it gives you like a choice usually you go up a certain number of spaces and you get that choice of where you want to go so it's like you have a small choice but it's not like a lot, and that's kind of the games I like to play where I like what you do on your turn to matter, but I also like for it to be really fast and quick like just you do the one thing you go to the spot and you do the thing. 05:55 Lauren Woolsey Excellent. now what does accessibility mean to you, for games, in that context? 06:00 Carla Kopp So accessibility, like, it means a lot of things, it could mean like just making things are sure that the game is like colorblind friendly, making sure that like different people can all play and experience it at the same level, sure like not everyone is going to like have a lot of fun with every game just due to like if they have vision things or different sorts of problems like they won't all experience it at the same level, but I want everyone to be able to experience a certain level of enjoyment from playing the game like I don't want them to be like, ok I'm just gonna walk away because I can't understand this. Like I've played games with a couple of people from my game groups, and they're just like you know this game is kind of impossible for me to play because I can't tell the difference between the blue and the purple and it I keep messing up, so you know I can't I can't play and for some of these games like we figure out ways to like mark the cards or change the dice in some way or separate them but it's still like it's not fun when you have to do like extra steps to make sure somebody like doesn't you know have at that time. 07:03 Lauren Woolsey Yeah for sure. And so beyond the ability to play, it seems like you changed the theme to be more inclusive. Can you describe some of the decisions that you made, or the conversations that you had that led you to that decision? 07:17 Carla Kopp So it had a Native American totem thing in the beginning, and I thought that was really cool. One game that I really liked how they dealt with different cultures was called Oaxaca, which it's about a craft culture in Oaxaca which is the Mexican city, and one thing they did in the Kickstarter, was that they had this deluxe version where you can get actual crafts from Oaxaca, and like the people actually benefited from the game. And I thought that was so cool and I wanted to do the same with this game, where I was like okay like the deluxe version, I can contact some Native Americans and they can sell like little things and they can like really benefit from this and I was going to hire a Native American illustrator and they'd make sure, like well, one I really wanted like somebody in the culture to make money off of this, like, I didn't want to just be like me white person making money off of a different culture, like that's, that's bad. 08:11 Carla Kopp Okay, so I went out and I tried to find like a Native American illustrator or graphic designer someone that would like you know look at the game make it more realistic like and make sure I also wasn't doing anything like terrible because like I could just do something terrible and not realize it, and then somebody that culture would play this game and go it like be like super offended and not be at all able to enjoy it because I just didn't know enough about the culture. So I went out and tried to find like some illustrator and I was contacting them and it just either wasn't working out like they'd start to talk and then they'd stop and then I contacted this other illustrator who was like, hey or they responded and they were like hey, this is pretty offensive, like you can't use totem poles, like that's appropriation like you just can't do it and I was like oh, like I was so excited about this! It was really disappointing. I reached out to another person like because I was like maybe maybe they're just from a certain tribe and they don't like it but other tribes are okay with it so I talked again and it was basically like yeah this is offensive this is offensive to every culture and I was like okay I'm fine with that like maybe like just having like two people like agree on that subject I was like okay it's probably an agreement across all cultures. Like, I don't want to offend somebody. I don't want somebody to be like, okay this is just, I'm done and my day’s ruined because of this game. 09:43 Carla Kopp So I started trying to think of other things and that's why I got the dream idea, because like well, we all dream right? And that's more of an accessible thing, like even though you're not learning about a different culture -- which I do want in my games at some point, but of a subject that's not offensive of course -- because, like different cultures are really exciting and different. I want more learning to be in games, too, because like, well that's what makes games better for me, is if I can also learn at the same time. But going back, I was like everyone dreams, we have all these, all the dream games I had seen before had been like like either cutesy or really weird, and like those weren’t the dreams I have. Like I don't have like pink fluffy clouds in all my dreams. So I was like okay, I'm gonna make a dream game that could actually be like the dreams that people might have. I mean, maybe I'm just different and I don't have like the regular, like, bunny dreams and cute animals and whatnot, but I thought that would be really cool because like if you have seen any of the art for it it's like more sci-fi, but like rainbow sci-fi, because I mean, colors make the game like a lot better! I think if you look at all my games, they look kind of rainbow-fied, because I mean, if you can make something super colorful why not? 11:00 Lauren Woolsey So it seems like you learned a lot from the process of changing theme, and now it even fits really well with all of the mechanics. Do you have any advice for designers or publishers who get confronted with that same kind of scenario where they have to learn from something that they were doing that they didn't think was quite wrong but are being told that it is? Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with that appropriately, and sort of move on from it? 11:28 Carla Kopp So you'll have emotions, okay? You'll be like, okay I'm super excited about this thing, but somebody's telling me it's wrong. That's hard. That's hard to deal with. So make sure, like, the thing I did, I was like, oh it's offensive but I'm so excited, I want this to be a thing I want to help people, I want to teach them about this culture, but take a few days. Ask somebody that you think knows, they go get more information okay like keep asking people like don't just be like, oh this person doesn't know anything, but let your emotions go away. Whether that takes like a week or so, and then keep digging like don't just drop it, don't dismiss it, like look into it and get the actual answer and if you can't find an answer, maybe think about if it could be a different theme anyway. 12:15 Carla Kopp Even if it's just one person, one person could mean a big like, like you don't want to offend anyone. You don't want to make anyone sad with your game. So really look into it and like, I know it's gonna be hard, you'd never want to be told like hey you're wrong you're doing bad you know. It's just about learning and growing, and like for me, that was a really hard day and I want people to know that, like, that it's not easy to be told that you're wrong and you did bad, and you don't know things. 12:44 Lauren Woolsey Yeah, the emotions that you experience when you're told that you are wrong, that's just a very human thing and so it's not like those emotions don't happen, it's just dealing with them appropriately. 12:51 Carla Kopp Yeah I wanna for sure like emphasize that like you are not wrong for feeling emotions, like that is your being human. It's okay, but don't drop it, you have to go confront it. Learn more, and be willing to change, because you know you have to change. Like, this is a world, and we all live in it, so you don't want to be that person that's just like the jerk that doesn't care about others. 13:16 Lauren Woolsey Exactly. With your new theme and everything working together, what is your favorite part of Dreams of Tomorrow? 13:23 Carla Kopp It’s still the rondell like I love just going around, like so I don't like any “take that,” okay, I don't like take that at all, but I am perfectly fine like flipping you around on the rondel and putting you in a different spot and just creating this and well at the same time of being passive-aggressive, like creating this beautiful dreamscape! Because I just like like how all the colors like work together, like, it's a really beautiful dream that you're creating at the same time you're being passive-aggressive and I think that's wonderful. 13:56 Lauren Woolsey Excellent. What do you think makes this game most memorable for players? 14:00 Carla Kopp I think that moment that moment when you realize what the game is, like, I love teaching this game to players because I like about the moving rondel, I can teach it in a way where they don't, like, really understand what is gonna happen and then I do like this epic move combo, and they're like whoa, that's what this game is about! I'm gonna do that too and I'm gonna feel so good about it! So just like them being able to light up and figure out how to do the thing they want to do and feel so clever about it, like, I love that. 14:32 Lauren Woolsey That's awesome! For our listeners who are interested in getting a copy of the game, is it available? Or what's your timeline for that? 14:38 Carla Kopp It's going to be on Kickstarter in late October and you can go to Weird Giraffe Games dot com and sign up for our mailing list to get more information on it, and like be informed when we launch. 14:49 Lauren Woolsey Excellent! Well, thank you so much for being on today, we had a great conversation and I'll see you around! 14:56 Carla Kopp Thanks so much for having me I really enjoyed it! 15:00 Lauren Woolsey Bye, thank you again Carla Kopp for coming on Playability to talk with us about Dreams of Tomorrow and her personal growth during game development. For more information about this game, Carla's website, and the Kickstarter campaign for it, please see the “About This Episode” section on our website at Playability pod dot com. If you have questions or comments you would like to share with us, please email us at playability pod at gmail dot com, and find us on major social media platforms as @playabilitypod. Thanks for listening, and be willing to play with a new perspective.