appendix ndp #4: WHITE
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[00:00:00] Nathan Paoletta: Hello and welcome to appendix NDP. My name is Nathan Paoletta. I'm a game designer, independent publisher and graphic artist. This is episode four: design journal: WHITE.

[00:00:28] This episode is coming from more of a comment than a question that was left by patron John W. John says: I'd just enjoy hearing about the game you're playing or working on, and what you think of it. 

[00:00:40] While I field questions from all listeners, patrons get to submit this kind of thing. 

[00:00:44] That's, as I said, more of a comment than a question, but I do have a couple of questions in front of me that touch on a game that I'm working on. So it's all coming together into this design journal episode. The other questions are from, first, listener and friend of the show Jadzia asks via Instagram: where do you get your ideas? Winky emoji. And patron jonathan H asks: how do you know when a design is ready to be playtested by groups that do not include you; and by you here I mean, actually you and not necessarily what your advice would be in general to other designers. So, what do I personally actually look for when I say I'm ready for other people to play test my games. 

[00:01:24] Uh, this this comment and question are bringing me to, as I said, a game I'm working on. Um, this game is called WHITE and there's a little bit of backstory here. It's part of a three game series of emotional games named after colors. So the three games are BLACK, WHITE, and RED, and this series was generated out of the Break Kickstarter initiative way back in 2019. This was a themed event run by Kickstarter itself that they have never repeated. And I'm not actually that surprised. Um, I actually had to do a little digging to find the announcement post and the blog associated with it isn't up anymore. 

[00:02:01] As chance would have it, um, Kickstarter is on the mind right now, uh, due to their recent announcement about looking into blockchain technology for the future of their business, which I'm not a fan of, but I'm also not here to talk about that. It's just, um, in talking about where I get my ideas and talking about this specific game, it very specifically comes out of this Kickstarter background. So that's why I'm talking about Kickstarter so much. 

[00:02:28] Anyway, I did eventually find the announcement. And, uh, here's the description of the event: 

[00:02:35] Break Kickstarter is an initiative supporting unconventional campaigns running from July 15th to August 15th [in 2019]. You're invited to play with the structure or concept of running your campaign and stretch the limits of our platform. Take it apart, put it back together and try something new. Experimentation can lead to new ideas and new ways of seeing by re-imagining the very components of Kickstarter's platform. We hope that you'll discover new ways to find support for your work and to connect with the people who love it.

[00:03:04] So this was in the wake of the first Zine Quest, which was in February of 2019. You know, and was a big, um, a big moment for independent games specifically. Zines obviously, but I think all of us using Kickstarter at the time, Zine Quest really was kind of a shot in the arm in terms of really being an approachable way for people to start using the platform, to get their games out there. Um, and so there was a lot of energy around Zine Quest - and still is. And it seems like this Break Kickstarter thing, while not specifically about games was kind of trying to capture a similar energy. Uh, however, unlike Zine Quest, uh, uptake did not seem to be nearly as high as I think anyone would have liked to see. Um, and as far as I know, it did not happen again. And the nature of the brief probably contributed to that. Um, you know, you are invited to break the rules essentially- though, not like really break the rules, right? Like terms of service rules, but you're invited to stretch the boundaries of the concept of, of crowdfunding. 

[00:04:09] There were some cool games that came out of it. Uh, shouts to A Guide to Casting Phantoms in the Revolution by Adam Vass and friend of the show Will Jobst and MadJay Brown's ongoing gaming experience Into the Madlands, which is kind of an actual play concept that also had a zine that came out of Break Kickstarter.

[00:04:28] Uh, but it's not really a theme. It's a structural challenge. I love structure. And when it was announced, uh, getting back to the topic of the episode, it gave me a great opportunity to put myself into an intentionally inspirational state that was receptive to a game that has something to do with structure.

[00:04:54] This concept, the intentionally inspirational state, um, is where I'm trying to address Jadzia's question to a degree, uh, where do I get my ideas? You know, this is a Winky emoji question because like, where does anyone get ideas? You know, it's a great having some, you know, kicking back and hanging out question. It's not really a super functional question, I think, but in this specific case, I actually can talk about it. Um, so, uh, you know, where do I get my ideas? 

[00:05:24] Like most creative people ideas can come from anywhere, but something that I consider to be part of my long-term practice as a designer is cultivating the ability to put myself into a mental place where I'm receptive to something, but I don't necessarily know what it is going to look like. And sometimes even what I'm really looking for. I'm sure this must have some name in, in psychology or some kind of academic analysis thing, but it's the words that I put to this idea of like being creative, like what is being creative?

[00:06:00] Uh, in this case, I'm intentionally aligning my receptive energy with some kind of goal. Sometimes the goal is I need a project for next year. Sometimes the goal is I want to submit a game to Eppy for Worlds Without Master. Sometimes the goal is, I had a really almost, but not quite satisfying experience with another game, and I want to get the experience I thought I was going to get, but ultimately did not. These are all things that have led to games. 

[00:06:27] In this case, I intentionally aligned my receptive energy with the goal of: come up with something that fits into Break Kickstarter. Um, I didn't sit down and grind out a bunch of concepts, uh, which is more of a design school approach where, you know, you have the time and kind of the allowance to just like work out a bunch of ideas and throw away stuff until you find something that works. This is more of a, in the background while I'm doing other things, I'm giving myself a specific mental space to consider this goal, uh, to pay more attention to insights or inspirations that would lead me to something that will fit into this initiative.

[00:07:07] And then part of it is also looking at things that occur to me through the lens of will this work, is this the right fit? And if so, how? Um, this is a state that can last for days, uh, months, I'd say usually less than a year, um, since I'll generally have found something or abandoned the goal by then. Uh, a long-term example is finding the inspiration for actually doing a second edition of World Wide Wrestling. Um, I was receptive to the general idea, but I didn't see the necessity or demand for it for a long time, but I did kind of keep a low key intentionally inspirational, you know, space open for what would a second edition look like? I would say that that was for a couple of years, until enough little things came together to nudge me into realizing some concepts for qualitatively improving the gameplay experience for that game. 

[00:07:59] Anyway, back to this game and to Break Kickstarter, the project that came to me was actually born out of two very specific dreams that I had during that time.

[00:08:08] One was being in a dark room and looking for an exit with a flashlight. Um, and this dream left me with a feeling of managed, uh, apprehension. Um, of seeking a release that I knew would come once I got through this darkness. And this very specific image of use of using a flashlight to find a door. Uh, the other was a more abstract dream that left me with this kind of feeling of like yearning, but a satisfaction, uh, in that yearning, stemming from an acceptance or a letting go of something. This was a very soft dream. Um, and in, in the manner of dreams, they were more complicated than that. Uh, but they had this emotional component that really stuck with me, which is unusual for my dreams- um, this is not how I typically wake up.

[00:08:59] So those dreams and the emotional kind of stakes that they rose for me fit into this idea of breaking Kickstarter. Um, these were both very amorphous concepts that were much earlier in my process than I would ever usually bring them to any kind of funding. Um, and so that was the breaking part. I'm going to come to the platform with a very vague idea and intention, and just like the barest description of the, the kind of thing I am aiming for. And I'm asking backers to trust me to go through this entire design journey, um, before I could even say, this is what this is going to look like. This is how many players it will have. This is a genre. This is a play experience, like not even that, just a, here's a set of emotions and I'm going to try and capture them in games.

[00:09:49] So those were two specific dreams. There's a third game, RED, which is kind of in this space between those two, um, where there's this like emotional state of like frenetic energy that I do get from dreams, but I did not have any specific dream at this time about it. But it was more like if I'm going to do a series, I'd prefer to do three things then two, uh, what else fit in this space. And there was kind of a natural, um, discovery of something that I could access emotionally, that wasn't from a specific dream that I woke up and was like, oh, that's something I'm going to remember.

[00:10:32] So these games are, are breaking the kind of implicit bargain, which is like, I do have something for you. I just need money for it. That's not how Kickstarter bills itself, but that's kind of where most projects come to it at. And that's where I usually bring mine to it. Um, at that stage when it's like, I have a thing, I need to realize it in a way that takes real dollars, that's why I'm coming to Kickstarter now. But like, you know, the shape of it, you kind of know what you're in for. These are games that you don't necessarily know what you're in for. I'm just asking you to trust me. And I also don't know when I will be done. Uh, I put my deadlines in December of 2020, which was, you know, 18 months out and, uh, you know, LOL, I don't think I need to go into that too much.

[00:11:14] I did, uh, finish BLACK earlier this year, right at the beginning of the year. Actually I was working on it around this time last year, or maybe there's something about this like end of the year hurdle towards the holiday break that, um, puts me in the place for these. But anyway, um, I was working on RED and I kinda got stuck on it and this year, right.

[00:11:40] But in the transition of summer to fall, I had some thoughts about WHITE that I decided to pursue. They gained some traction. And so now (counts), over two years later, here I am with an actual vision for play for this game. That's moved on from, here's my idea for what I want you to kind of get out of it and into like, oh, here's what it is going to look like, and here's what it is actually about. It's not the most positive thing. 

[00:12:05] This is a bummer alert for actually talking about this game, but it's where my mind is at. And the inspiration for actually getting past the, the hurdle with this game was thinking about how much we've lost over the last couple of years, thinking about grief and thinking about resolving your relationship with letting something go, which is the kind of emotional core of the original dream, but we've lost so much. We've lost so many people, uh, to this pandemic, that could have been handled so much better and not just, I mean, it's almost trite, but like not just the people, which is obviously a tragedy, but also like all the little moments of life that have had to be put on hold all the interactions with those people that were never had. All the, all the things, you know what I'm talking about, all the things, right. It's, it's so big. And what do you do with that? Um, specifically, what do I do with that? Uh, what can we do to recognize that weight without it just being totally crushing? 

[00:13:02] And I don't know, and I'm not trying to say that this game is like going to do that. But, this is where my head's at when I'm working right now. And so WHITE is a solo game about death. And I don't know if it's the best way for me to work on processing everything is it's still unfolding. But it is a way. And, um, yeah. And so here we are. 

[00:13:28] So in WHITE, you play an end bringer. Um, in this world when people reach the end of their lives, uh, naturally or prematurely, someone needs to release them to move on. So this is a job people, you know, have a career as an end bringer. And so this is, this is you. You are handling a series of cases, you are going from person to person who is about to die, and releasing them so that they can experience their end and move on. One gift of being an end bringer is that you know exactly how much time you have remaining. And you can gift some of your time, that you still have, to your cases. So you can grant them a few more minutes, a few more hours, to gain closure or perform a final task, or just because you want to talk to them longer, whatever you want. This of course means that your end will come sooner than it otherwise would.

[00:14:23] Um, so it's a solo game. It's kind of a journaling game. It's played with a deck of cards. Um, you use them to generate some prompts for yourself and your background, um, and to determine how many hours you have left of your own life, and playing the game is playing out your final hours as you go through your last cases. Um, you then use card draws, um, and then crosses; so you draw a card and then you cross it with another card. As envisioned currently it's a zine format pamphlet, um, where each of these cases is a set of prompts with questions for you. And so you can answer those questions is, is, um, what you're doing as you play, but you're also tracking your time. The more time you spend on a case, and the more time you grant to your case, the quicker your end is going to come.

[00:15:18] A brief example, I'm not going to go through a whole thing, but I thought, you know, just to give you the sense of what I'm doing here. Uh, I have a deck of cards here. And to find out my next case, I will draw the top card from the deck, which is the six of spades. But when I look up the six of spades in my, you know, my, my case book here, um, so the numbers are all one kind of more generic group. And then each, uh, face card, ace and face card is a more specific case. 

[00:16:00] The six of spades is, uh, my case, is one of the undeserving. The undeserving meet their fate before their time. They still have a lot to live for, to contribute and to receive. But the end waits for no one, they don't deserve to die, but lots of your cases don't deserve to die. And then I cross this with the next card that I draw from the deck. Uh, the six of diamonds- and we only care about the suit for the cross. The diamond here means that for this particular case, they make a bad choice that results in their sudden demise. What is it? So if I were then to play, I would sit with this for a minute. Think about this person who does not deserve to die, but they've made a bad choice. What does that, what is the choice? What, what has brought them to this moment? And then I have prompts for granting them another half hour, another minute, or just bringing their end now. And then I move on to my next case.

[00:16:58] So the tone of the game is generally meant to encourage sitting in that for a few moments. Like what, what that brings to mind for me, obviously it's going to be different than what it might bring to mind for someone else. I don't feel the need to go through that internal process here for the podcast, but yeah, you, you sit with the case once you kind of know the parameters. You answer the questions such as they are, accept the truth of the condition and make a choice about how much time to grant them, if any, uh, and then you move on. Then there's another, another case. So you're, you're sitting with each case, but you're not wallowing in the case. You're appreciating, you know, the discovery of what, of this new thing, uh, before you and you are releasing them. You know, this can be a positive thing. 

[00:17:42] Some of the individual cases are more pleasant and joyous. Some are darker, and, uh, uh, more, more reflective of unpleasant people and situations, but WHITE is about the transitory state, not about gruesome details, so it's not gory. Um, and it's, and it's meant to be abstracted to a level where you can kind of inject your own, uh, you know, whatever you're processing, you know. You can do a totally fantastically or you can, like, relate it to things that are happening in your life I guess, if you wanted to. It's meant to create a certain way to open a dialogue with yourself, but it's not really meant to like put you in a certain place necessarily.

[00:18:27] So all of this where I'm kind of like hedging a little bit and it's meant to do this, I'm not really sure. Uh, this is actually, I think, a good time for this game to move on to what you would call a public playtest. I think the mechanisms are sound, the actual, you know, card mechanic of moving through the prompts. It's fairly straightforward, but it has some emergent, uh, it has a pretty wide spread of possibilities, which I think is interesting. I think there's, there's something compelling about like seeing what the next case is. And so this overall structure fits what I'm going for. But because it's such a quote, unquote "feels" game, I certainly would gain insight from having people other than me go through it and just tell me what their experience is.

[00:19:08] I'm pretty sure I'm not going to change how it works. Um, and I still have a kind of a revision pass of tightening up the language and giving some more specific narrative color to grab onto, but I'm sure that I could revise the specific content to more reliably shape this experience. And that would come out of hearing how other people, you know, how they encounter the game and what they get out of it, if anything. Um, for this particular game, I don't really expect much feedback because it is what I consider to be mechanically complete. I'm confident of sending it out as here's what the game is. And then over time I could certainly revisit it and revise it. Um, it's not something that I'm interested in having, doing some kind of like call for playtest or, or something like that. So if anyone sends me their thoughts, it's something I can quickly and easily revise over time. And for this game, that is a totally valid thing. Uh, a more complex game that's still in this stage that I think has a wider audience that I'm trying to like get it in front of; I would have more of a, uh, discrete playtesting phase for that.

[00:20:10] For this, it's kind of like, I know it's where I want it to be. I'm open to changing it over time. It's ready for other people to encounter; that doesn't that's necessarily, I mean, it's done. So this gets to more specifically answering Jonathan's question about playtesting. 

[00:20:22] Uh, there's two general times when I'm ready to put a game out for others to play. This is a little past, I don't know, as I was trying to kind of parse right there, this is a little past what I would say, like, I would like playtesters please, because it's a game that can be continuously iterated on. But it's a little more in the second bucket of the, two of the things I'm going to talk about. The first one is the other case where I go to playtest. 

[00:20:47] The first bucket is, uh, when I'm stuck on something in the design and getting input and perspective from others will shake that loose. I just, like, need more perspective. This often overlaps with my internal playtesting. This isn't a discrete state. I mean, almost none of my playtesting is discrete- like it's all one big continuum. But this is often when I will try to play with new people and just look for where, when they encounter the thing that I still have question marks about how they handle it. Or, how we develop something to work with it in the moment. I'm also looking for validation of the stuff I'm confident in, and I'm looking for opportunities to make positive changes.

[00:21:27] But the need for me usually is like a specific thing that I'm just like, I don't know how to solve this. Or, I could solve this in multi, in multiple ways, but I won't know what the best way is until I kind of see it in action. 

[00:21:40] For example, the original draft of Masks of the Mummy Kings had a PVP mechanic in it, uh, where players could bid tokens against each other to steal resources. This is represented in the, in the fiction of the game by backstabbing or, um, like in a fight or stealing treasure when someone else's back is turned, that kind of stuff. It was mechanically balanced. Um, you know, you would get into like a bidding war in order to try and take someone else's stuff. So you can kind of build up to it and hoard your resources or respond to it in kind or, or whatever. There was, you know, the, the, how, how the tokens moved around was functional. But I wasn't sure if players would want to do it. Um, and I ran a playtest with a table of all players fresh to the game, who'd never played it before. And one of the players was very interested in PVP and the others were not like, no, we don't want that in our game, but just that wasn't something they were looking to do.

[00:22:31] Um, and it functionally worked, but it was a pretty unsatisfying experience because the player who wanted the PVP didn't get the competition that they were looking for. The other players weren't really invested in moving those tokens around in a really strategic way. Um, and the other players are kind of sucked into dealing with it and just getting out of it, you know, with as little loss as possible so we can all move on to the next cool thing that we're going to do as a group. So, you know, functional, (it) worked, but not a great experience. And it did definitely answer my question of like, is this something that adds value to this game or not, right? 

[00:23:05] And I had a choice. I could make it more fun. Which would put more focus of the game on it, possibly taking it all the way to being a competitive game, or I could just take it out and use other things that were already in the design to create the little friction points that players could bounce off of, to kind of add competition at the social level, like at the story, and at the story level, without needing to support it with rules. And that would keep the thematic focus on "you're all here as a group though, you may have different agendas." But the way you're going to act out those different agendas, that's more a matter of the epilogue and not a matter of in the moment play. So I decided to keep it out because that thematic focus was more, what I wanted to do with the game.

[00:23:46] There's still an element of competition because there's limited resources. Only one cool mask shows up at a time. So it's like, who gets the mask. That's a question that's answered by role-playing essentially, or just at the social level, just talking about it. It doesn't need a mechanic, like, to establish. And that's enough of that friction I'm talking about to like, add that little bit of additional texture without needing this whole support structure of token bidding and whatnot.

[00:24:11] And that was from a playtest where I had a specific question and I was like, I need to see some new people with this to see how it shakes out. And, you know, and I tried it a couple of times and it kind of was the same each time, but that, that one specific playtest, I have a strong memory of just being like, I think this probably told me what I wanted to know and it did.

[00:24:28] So like for WHITE, if someone plays it and has a really unpleasant experience, um, I'd want to know that and kind of want to know what the gap was between what they thought the game was going to be and what they actually got. And the specifics of their experience could tell me that I either need to work on revising how the game makes its promise, so that it's more clear and, and you know what you're getting into; or revising that what the game is actually doing in order to better fit the promise that it's already making. Because those are two slightly different things. And that's the kind of thing that I would expect to get out of an external playtest of the game at this stage. 

[00:25:04] I mean, and I do have the question of like, is this going to work for other people? But kind of on the level of like, does anything work for other people? There's lots of stuff out there that I'm not sure if anyone else gets something out of this, but I do. Hopefully it'll find other people who are on that same wavelength. 

[00:25:20] I talked about two kind of buckets of when I go to playtest, that's one where I have like something I know is an issue and I'm trying to solve it. And the other is a little more where WHITE actually is. Which is, like, I've done all I'm prepared to do on it for now. And in this case, I think it's basically done. Um, but for other projects, I might just need a break or I might've just lost creative momentum and putting it out there to hear other people encounter it actually will recharge my creative energy to keep working on it. 

[00:25:50] Most of the feedback I get on stuff at this stage usually is people reading a draft. My stuff, honestly, just doesn't get a lot of external playtest unless I'm specifically in communication with someone who's expressed interest during early development. Like I'm always happy to put things out there and I'm happy to get feedback, but the most useful public playtesting for me is generally when I run sessions, or am present for someone else running a session that, that, that I've kind of put together and organized, um, for players new to the game. 

[00:26:17] The most feedback I get about my games is after they're quote unquote "done", and people are just playing the game. Um, and I think this is true for a lot of people. I do my best to be confident about what I'm releasing. Like I do a good faith effort to playtest things that do need playtesting, but the general player base tends to want to play things that, that are presented as being complete. Uh, I mean, there are some highly engaged people who are like, you know, love to playtest stuff and are good playtesters. Often they're also designers. There's a lot of overlap with that mindset, but, uh, yeah. Second editions tend to be the beneficiary of all the playtesters of the first edition. So thank you everyone. I would be surprised if I'm unique in this, but yeah, I've kind of learned to scope what I put out there, such that if I hear from one or two groups, that will probably get me what I need to know in conjunction with my own playtesting efforts.

[00:27:20] Back to this game, WHITE. The text draft is done. Um, I'm working on the production draft now, which is like I said, kind of a once over on the writing and putting it into the, the zine format so that it can be printed out and played in person. There's, like, space on the pages to, like, write to the prompts and space to track your time, that kind of thing. And so that'll be going out to backers of my Break Kickstarter campaign, who have been very patiently waiting, for years now. Uh, and also my patrons, um, as soon as that's, as soon as that's ready to go.

[00:27:51] I'm probably not going to make the color games publicly available until they all go out to the Kickstarter. So I still have RED to do. So if you're interested in BLACK or WHITE, the, the only way to get those, if you did not back this particular Kickstarter is to be part of my Patreon because all my work does go out to my patrons. As I said way back at the beginning, I'm calling this episode a design journal because I'm kind of also sharing a little bit and thinking about, you know, some of the design stuff that, that has struck me while working on this game.

[00:28:19] Um, so there's 20 cases. Uh, there's five for each suit. As I said, the numbers are one kind of general case. And then the Ace, Jack, Queen and King are more individual people as cases. And then each case is crossed by another card with that suit driving a specific question. So that's 80 combinations and I anticipate a given game to hit, you know, maybe four to six cases, uh, maybe less, maybe more depending on your initial time draw, which can be anything from two to 10 hours. And then you're spending the real time that you read and make your answers, plus your additional time of however much you give to your cases as you play. That's a pretty big spread, but, uh, I hope that it- it should mean that players have pretty unique journeys and there's a kind of interesting curve to the results.

[00:29:09] I'm not going to run all the numbers because it's complicated, and this is kind of more of a gut check probability than a getting the hard numbers probability. But the distribution of results is uneven because there's eight cards in each suit that get the same case and then four cards that give you [a] unique case. And so roughly half the time with a full deck, you get one of the number cases. So one of those four general categories. Um, but then since you're crossing each case, first of all, hopefully those will be different from each other. Generally, you know, the chances of pulling the same suit and crossing it with the same suit is- I think that's fairly unlikely. That I probably should run a number on just to double check.

[00:29:48] But what I've been looking at specifically is that, like, roughly half the time you're going to get one of these number cases. But since you're crossing them, also, you're more likely to pull numbers out of the deck as you go. So the general curve should get you a slightly increased chance to get the specific cases as you play. Especially if you have a lot of time and you're hitting more cases. And you can choose not to grant your time and see as many cases as possible, or you can really kind of sit with an individual case, both sit with it for yourself, and then also donate your time by the rules. You could spend it all on one case, if you wanted to. 

[00:30:26] Uh, the idea is that some of these cases are going to be more compelling than others. Right? And so at a certain point, you may be kind of trying to judge like, all right, how much time do I want to spend on this? Versus what I might get next time. And I think that's an interesting question. When what you're doing is- fictionally, is releasing these people to die. Does there need to be a rush? How do you feel about that? 

[00:30:48] Like I said, maybe not the greatest headspace for a game, but it raises a lot of questions that I think are interesting questions to consider within this space of, of game play that are driven by this mechanic of, of choosing how much time you're spending with each set of cards.

[00:31:04] Anyway. So there's a lot of possible variation. It's going to be hard to see any given play through as representative, um, you know, really have to see a lot of, of runs to kind of see if there's any trends. I could run some, you know, I could run some numbers on that just to get a pure analytic, but I just don't know what that will actually tell me. I feel like if people play and tell me how it went, that will give me more actionable info than, uh, running spreadsheets on this particular game. 

[00:31:30] Um, so yeah, zooming back out a little bit. So this whole experience has meant to like support this idea of mindfully considering the end of life and considering what it means and how it changes based on who the person is. And it's abstracted a bit because you don't necessarily, I mean, I guess you could answer something such that you do know who the person is, but they're kind of presented as strangers. So there is a layer of, of distance. And at least that's important for me, like for my personality to not be mapping specific relationships onto these cases. Like I want to know context about who they are, but I don't need them to be connected to me. Again, that might be better or worse for another individual person. But for me, it's a kind of a necessary distance to do this kind of thematic exploration. 

[00:32:17] Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if it's going to be a pleasant or, or wanted experience for people right now, but it's where my creative reception has brought me to this particular year, with this particular project. We can't create in a vacuum. And I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect that people are not going to make things that reflect the state of the world right now. I think other people can focus on escapism and looking to the future in a way that is, is fun and good and helpful, but that's not really where I am at right now. So that's not where my game design is at right now, either. 

[00:32:52] And that's WHITE, the game that I'm currently finishing up and, uh, will hopefully have for backers and patrons soon. 

[00:33:00] Thanks to John, Jadzia, and Jonathan for the prompts and questions. If you have a question for me that you would like me to talk about on the show, you can submit that at my website, ndpdesign.com/podcast. As, as you can hear over these episodes, I try to collect questions kind of into little groups. So feel free to ask a group of questions or just one. And when, when I find good pairs for it, uh, it'll come around. 

[00:33:26] I'd love it if you could, uh, support the show by leaving a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. That stuff always helps. Apologies if this was kind of a bummer episode, but hopefully there is something interesting in there. And if you found something useful or helpful, tell a friend, maybe they'll like it too. And of course you can directly support the show and all of my design work by joining the Patreon at patreon.com/ndpaoletta where you get early episodes of this show, appendix ndp, among other things, including another podcast and the upcoming release of WHITE.

[00:33:58] Thanks again for listening. Hopefully I'll have a little less of a bummer episode next time for you. And, uh, keep your heads up out there.

[00:34:12] appendix ndp is written, hosted and produced by me, Nathan Paoletta. Music is by Will Jobst. Be seeing you .