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Playability Podcast

Episode 24: Janice Turner – Sensor Ghosts

Run time: 16 minutes, 37 seconds

Episode recorded by Rebecca Strang.

Playability is produced by Mike Risley.

Transcript auto-generated by Temi and edited by Rebecca Strang.

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Intro Music:	00:00	
Rebecca Strang:	00:09	Hello and welcome to Playability where we hold conversations at the crossroads of gameplay and accessibility. I'm your host, Rebecca Strang, and today we're welcoming back Janice Turner of Wren Games. Last summer I spoke with Janice about Assembly, which was a Kickstarter success and a puzzley, Sci-fi escape game. And today I'm going to be talking with her about Sensor Ghosts, the sequel to Assembly, and also a Kickstarter success. Welcome back to the show ,Janice.
Janice Turner:	00:37	Hi. Thanks for having me back on again, Rebecca.
Rebecca Strang:	00:40	Yeah, I'm so happy to be talking to you again. So with Assembly we escaped near death on a space station and now, in Sensor Ghosts, we're kind of hurdling toward Earth in the shuttle that we built. So, can you tell us a bit about where Sensor Ghosts picks up from where Assembly left off?
Janice Turner:	00:58	Yes. So in Sensor Ghosts, you have built your spaceship, which is a great start and you think you've managed your escape and are on your way back to Earth, but then unfortunately you look out your window and your sensors and they didn't quite align. What you see and what is actually there, isn't it actually necessarily true. So, either you've built your ship completely wrong, or that pesky AI has got on board and she's causing what's called sensor ghosts. So that's where your sensors are displaying something that isn't actually necessarily there or it's displaying nothing when there is something there. So it's all about how you have to make your way through, back to Earth, through an asteroid field not actually really knowing what's there, so you got to try to find a safe path and reveal it and discover it as you go to get home. So, there's a bit of push your luck, you've got to... It has a bit of memory, but both Stu and I hate memory games, so we've tried to minimize that as much as possible. And obviously there're asteroids, so not just stationary, sitting there once you've viewed it, you go straight into them. They asteroid field is moving, so everything's moving as well. So yeah, you got to find your way through and get back to Earth without dying. And if you feel particularly brave, there's a little mini add-on that you see a signal and there's an escape pod, and soon as you've seen the signal, you can't live with yourself unless you get that escape pod back to Earth as well. So now you have to not only navigate yourself a safe path back, but also the escape pod a safe path back. And it moves slightly differently and it interacts with the carbs slightly differently. So it's an, an extra layer of puzzle on top as well.
Rebecca Strang:	02:38	That's awesome. It sounds like a summer blockbuster movie all packed into this tiny little box.
Janice Turner:	02:45	It's just... trying to give something a bit more meaning. So the, the core mechanics in both Assembly and Sensor Ghosts are generally described as an abstract game. Some people, we love the story and some people say it's a bit over the top and "Why on Earth have you got any story on there?" But, it's easy to ignore the story and not as easy to make it up and we like it and it gives us boundaries to work within and really help shape and design the mechanisms within the game.
Rebecca Strang:	03:09	Yeah, I personally love stories in games. I mean I love mechanisms that are fantastically put together and flow really well. But I also like having story on top of that. And the art that you have in here, I love. It looks like space when you're looking through the cards that you have as your sensors. And for me it's rather immersive. So I love that you guys did the story with it.
Janice Turner:	03:32	Oh, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. We enjoyed writing it, as well, and sort of just tweaking it and making it work both ways. Making the story work for the game and making the game work for the story. It's, um, a really fun way to design. It's more to it also, not just about story. I think a lot of people get story and theme slightly mixed up. So most games have theme of some sort, but in Sensor Ghosts, I just think of it as story as in... Throughout the rule book, there's little reasons of why each mechanism exists within the game. So hopefully you understand the reason why you're doing something so everything that you do should have purpose rather than it just being a top level, "This is why you're trying to get home. This is why I tried to get home and this is why our sensors don't function and this is why this happens and this how you can do that kind of thing."
Rebecca Strang:	04:17	Mmhmm, yeah, definitely. So I know last time I spoke with you, we talked a lot about what accessibility means to you and I know since then you have written an article about the lessons that you've learned in accessibility when you were designing and producing Assembly. So what from those lessons have you carried over into the design of Sensor Ghosts?
Janice Turner:	04:40	So in terms of accessibility, if you sort of broaden that to be not just I guess impairments, but also inclusivity, which is I guess what the blog piece was about. So looking at culture, gender, as well as impairments.
Rebecca Strang:	04:56	Yeah, definitely.
Janice Turner:	04:57	We have, actually not, uh, because Sensor Ghosts is a standalone game, but a thematic sequel, we've kept the same characters. So the same characters are coming through and the characters were key points in that and having the gender diversity and having the cultural diversity. So bringing those through and putting that, all that effort up front means that we're able to bring something through and maintain that. So that's I guess one of the things coming through. And then also looking at colorblind. So the prototype cards we know are not good enough for the sector cards in terms of... perceptually for colorblindness and for visual impairments. So they've got like a tiny little icon on that because, I'll be honest, I rushed the prototypes, but we knew we need to make that bigger because we know that some of the cards might look a little bit too similar for people with vision impairments. But if you have a very distinctive icon, you can always dis.. tell them apart very easily. So the iconography I have in there as a secondary one, even if you've got something with the colorblind and it works across different colorblindnesss... It's always worth having that backup just in case, because it might not work for everyone and you might not get it quite right. And, by the way, anyway for some, yeah, with a multitude colors it's often hard to get something that works for absolutely everyone. So yeah, icon backup. Don't just rely on one. Even if you've tried to do it perfectly right on the first one, there's always the second one.
Rebecca Strang:	06:15	Mmhmm, yeah, and some people prefer to read icons anyway, just in general, as a memory trigger.
Janice Turner:	06:22	Yeah. I much prefer icons so Stu and I always have debates or we had lots of debates about, should we have icons or words on, for example, the role cards. And writing, I can't decipher it very easily at all. I have to read it carefully every single time. I can't speed read it very well. Though, I'm dyslexic myself, which is probably part of the reason, but an icon, I can get that really quick, like a trigger. Whereas Stu finds the icons somewhat hard to interpret, but he can skim read the text really, really quickly and he gets the grasp of it in that way. So ,that's great from a reading, say for children as well as learning difficulties or differences, but it's also great for all different languages.
Janice Turner:	07:03	And I know, so the cards that we use in this game are not a traditional card shape. Did you have any difficulty with coming up? Like did you know going into the, the, the puzzle in this was gonna use square cards or was that something that kind of evolved over the design process?
Janice Turner:	07:20	It just felt right thematically. I mean having a rectangular card to show a sector of space on a, a grid. It just didn't, it didn't feel right, thematically. It just, a grid worked better visually. And so that's, that was actually the reason for it. Plus it takes a little less table space up which is also a bit of an advantage as well. But, yeah. No, it just felt thematic. It felt right. And Stu, to start with, was like, "We don't like square cards. Why have you gone for square cards?" And then I was like, at the time time, it's like, "I really liked the square cards." Um, so yeah, it was more of a thematic decision than anything else. They're big enough that they're okay to hold in your hands. You don't ever hold many of them, so that should never really be an issue anyway. So yeah, it's thematic reasons I guess is the reason for it. And it looks much nicer. And the art we went for was very symmetrical. Well putting symmetrical art on a rectangular card just didn't quite feel right. So symmetrical and both vertical and horizontal as opposed to in one direction.
Rebecca Strang:	08:22	Yeah, no, I completely agree. I love, like you said, when you think of, when you're looking in space and you've, you think of grids when you're, you know, think of any sci-fi show you've watched when they're in space and they've got those square grids. It does feel like that with the cards that you've done. And so what do you think is the most memorable aspect of this game that players are going to walk away with?
Janice Turner:	08:46	Most people just say that it's hard. I love the feedback that's like, "I died on my third time and I loved it" kind of thing. So the, I guess the slight piece of advice and warning on this, unless you get really lucky you're unlikely to win your first game, probably not your second, maybe not even your third. But,. hopefully it'll keep you wanting to come back some more because you'll know how you can do better and each, as you play it you start understanding the strategies. And the strategy starts to set up. It doesn't start on the first round of the game. So there are really, really important decisions to be made during setup as well as every turn of the game. "Do I wait? Do I go? What's going to happen if I wait too long? Can I manipulate something? What's the probability the next card, I get out in my hand, is that going to help me or not?" And as you play it you'll start understanding the grid, you'll start understanding the probabilities. And I'm not talking about deeply understanding, I'm talking about gut understanding. This one comes up a lot kind of thing cause that's very much how I work. I probably shouldn't say this but I did an engineering degree a lot more on gut than memorizing the number of equations, but I got it right most times. Um, so that is how I sort of approach the games. It's a lot about guts rather than a spreadsheet with a thousand numbers in it. It's about "how does it actually work." Um, so yeah, hopefully it's going to be this discovery of strategies as you keep playing it and, wan to go back and refine your strategy to eventually win. And I think sort of people are saying it's taking them at least five if not 10 attempts to win, um, their first game. And then to sort of continue to refine the strategy, which is why the escape pod we actually explicitly say, "Do not play within your first game. Probably do not play with it in your second game, wait until you've got it." Because it's just too much to think about with your... as you're learning and evolving or strategy. Having that on top, which actually is for me, that's the best way to play, but it's just too much in your first couple of games, which is why it got stripped out and added as a variant and said, "Don't play this yet. It's just too much."
Rebecca Strang:	10:48	Yeah. And that's, that's part of the thing that I loved about Assembly too was um, I mean it didn't take me 10 times to win with assembly, but I definitely lost on my first, my first play through and it had that same feeling of, "Wow, I really want to play this again so I can change things. I know I messed up and figure out this puzzle." So it's great that that carries through in the sequel as well with Sensor Ghosts.
Janice Turner:	11:16	You know we've added in something called a low memory mode. So throughout the rules there are little snippets on how to refine the difficulty down a bit and just make it that little bit, well, leaning easier. Um, so you can really fine tune the game play to your tastes and how you enjoy playing it, based on that, and not feel like you're doing something wrong. So you have like the core game, which you can eventually work up to, you can do all these sorts of tweaks as you go along. And I suggest sort of like paying the introductory with all of the low memory light mode to start with and then slowly take them out depending on which bits you like, which bits you feel you can remove. Um, so yeah, that's what we've, we've done in there to make it a bit different. Plus they've got different layouts and we've got the escape pod and we've got ways to tweak the deck to increase and decrease difficulty.
Rebecca Strang:	12:02	Yeah. And I loved the notes that you had throughout, um, letting people know, "Hey, it's okay to change this to suit the level that you need. You're not playing it wrong. You're not breaking the game. It's built for you to kind of customize to the level that you want."
Janice Turner:	12:17	That was a, a big lesson we learned actually on Assembly was, uh,we got playtester feed back that would say that "We sat in silence. The game was really boring. I hated it." And I thought, uh, "Well why nice did you do that? Why didn't you just change the rules and play so that it was fun and then tell me how it was fun." And then, and then I thought, "Ah, some people don't like doing that. I hadn't even thought of that." I did, I played the rules that are most fun for me, and thematic for me and if I don't like the rules I'll change them so that the games fun. But, giving people permission to do that not only it takes away some of the thinking for people forcing how to do it, but also for those that want to follow the rules as they all set out exactly, it gives them permission to do it and it gives them ideas and how to change it without feeling like they are playing it wrong. Um, which I know is the thing. People don't like playing games wrong. They like playing exactly as written. So you have to be really careful that you can, you don't exclude people by being, I guess in some ways, too precise, but at the same time that you don't lose the game by being not precise enough and leaving too much uncertainty.
Rebecca Strang:	13:22	Yeah, definitely. Um, and so the Kickstarter for Sensor Ghosts, has been successful and funded. So for people who are, who may have missed that and want to get a copy for themselves, are you going to be doing preorder like you did with Assembly?
Janice Turner:	13:39	Yes. So we will have a preorders opening ,yeah, at some point in the latter half of July. we need to get it all set up, but yes, we will have preorders this time as well. It'll probably be a shorter window. It will be one, two months tops. Although, we have a late delivery. Oh, by late, I mean sort of later than I would like sort of a January delivery date. We are really pushing to try and get this out early. So, um, I probably shouldn't say this. My, my internal target is to have it out in October, November. Um, and that's, that's the deadline I'm working to. It gives us plenty of time for things to go wrong I guess as well. That's a, that's another learning is that things go wrong, which you completely outside of your control that you can do nothing about. Um, but at last time we got games out mid-Octoberr. Um, yeah, mid October to late October they started getting sent out and we didn't actually get the files to our manufacturer until late August. So this time we're aiming for, um, files to be in a month earlier. And so hopefully games will be a month earlier as well, but there's always potentially hiccups along the way.
Rebecca Strang:	14:50	Fantastic. And where can people follow you online so they can catch those updates when you send them out?
Janice Turner:	14:57	Online? You can find on Twitter, my personal account is Dravvin. D-R-A-V-V-I-N. Um, and uh, if you want to follow Wren Games more generally it's Wren Games, W-R-E-N Games, G-A-M-E-S, across both, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And then there's also WrenGames.co.uk for our website where you can find our newsletter to subscribe to. And we don't spam you. It's like once a month if we get 'round to it. So it's about every four to six weeks, generally is the update. Um, but uh, generally quite long. Sorry. Sorry about that.
Rebecca Strang:	15:29	Information is good.
Janice Turner:	15:31	Yes, it's skim and read the bits that are interesting and not the rest, but we find, it's uh, we try to give interesting content rather than just Hhey, go buy our latest game." It's normally more sort of like the "designing to be inclusive" started as a lot of different things that we sent out in our newsletters, which we then ultimately collated together into a single, blog article which ends up on our website. So you're on these letters you get to read out thinkings first.
Rebecca Strang:	15:56	Fantastic. We'll, yes, everybody should go out and follow Janice and Wren Games so you can get those updates if you missed the Kickstarter so that you can preorder Sensor Ghosts. And Janice, thanks so much for coming back on the show and talking with me. It's always wonderful to talk with you.
Janice Turner:	16:13	Thanks for having me on. And yeah, have a lovely weekend.
Rebecca Strang:	16:16	Yeah, you too. And for our listeners, if you have any questions or comments you'd like to share with us, please email us at playabilitypod@gmail.com and you can find us on major social media platforms @playabilitypod. Thanks again for listening and I hope this episode helps you play with a new perspective.