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Playability Podcast

Episode 14: Comanauts (Jerry Hawthorne)

Run time: 11 minutes, 47 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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Music intro:	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 I'm joined today by Jerry Hawthorne of Plaid Hat Games. Jerry designed Mice and Mystics and Tail Teathers as well as Stuffed Fables, which was the first game from his new Adventure Book system. This year, he's launching the second game from that system, Comanauts. Welcome to the show, Jerry.
Jerry Hawthorne:00:33	Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jerry Hawthorne:00:34	Yeah, we're happy to have you. So my husband and I are a few stories into Stuffed Fables right now and we are really loving it. So I'm excited to learn more about the next game in that Adventure Book system. I know Comanauts is going to be taking on some more mature content and it looks like the recommended age is even increasing from 7 to 14 and the play time is a bit longer. So can you give us some details about Comanauts and its development story?
Jerry Hawthorne:01:01	Sure. I guess I'll start off with the genesis of the idea behind Comanauts. Several years ago when I was, uh, working in a different industry, I had a client of mine who was a clinical psychologist and we used to talk a lot and I just found his profession to be fascinating and I also enjoyed his unique outlook on the world. And one day we were having a discussion and um, he had discussed that the things that, that you repress in life, those things that happen to you, those, those moments of trauma that you try to forget and you try to repress by the act of repressing them basically makes them more powerful. And then to make it more descriptive for me, he said that it was like you take a mob boss and you throw them in jail, you put them in jail, but they're still running their organization from prison and now they're untouchable because hey, you can't do any more to them because they're already in jail. And that idea just sort of stuck with me where it, when he associated these bits of trauma that might hold you back in life, he associated those with mob bosses and I started to think, wouldn't it be cool if you could have a game where you could get together with your friends and you can take on these challenges that hold people back in their lives? That was where the idea came from for Comanauts.
Rebecca Strang:	02:10	Okay. Yeah. That definitely sounds very interesting.
Jerry Hawthorne:02:13	Yeah. So it basically in Comanauts there's this genius who has the answers to saving the world and it's a big adventure that takes place inside of this person's mind. But basically what you're doing is, he's in a coma, he's been zapped with some weird dark energy from his machine and his machine is malfunctioning and it's supposed to provide this clean energy for the whole planet. And if the machine melts down, then it'll destroy our planet. So they use this experimental technology and they send the players inside the mind of this genius. And uh, he's had a very, very troubled life and he has a lot of psychological scars in his life. And you basically go into those realms of his memory or his imagination and you take on those inner demons of his and you fight them for him in hopes of, you know, having a contact with his inner child and maybe finding the answers to saving the world or maybe even bringing him out of the coma.
Rebecca Strang:	03:05	Interesting. And so two things that I really love about Stuffed Fables are Stitch's Fables, that kind of sets the theme as you begin each section of that story, and then the Talking Points that are included at the end that are really helpful, particularly if you're playing the game with kids because you can talk about all of the big ideas that you hit in those stories. So will we be seeing versions of that in Comanauts?
Jerry Hawthorne:03:28	We didn't include any versions of that in Comanauts and we sort of left it up to the players to kind of interpret things the way that they, that they want. It's, we tried to, um, instead of being so specific like with Stuffed Fables where we were, had a specific message for each story in Stuffed Fables, we wanted this one to be more open ended so that the players would have to sort of learn more and discuss amongst themselves and generate dialogue so that they can learn more about the coma victim as they play.
Rebecca Strang:	03:58	Sure. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Especially with the, the more mature content and upping the age for this one, too.
Jerry Hawthorne:04:05	Yeah. And when I say mature content it's really not that there's anything really, you know, vulgar or, or whatever in there, it's just that it's not, it deals with some subject matter that probably would be lost on a younger players.
Rebecca Strang:	04:19	Sure.
Jerry Hawthorne:04:19	And probably, you know, since you're looking back over this person's life and all of the adult style troubles that are plaguing him, it really, it just wouldn't be something I felt that children would really engage with, I guess.
Rebecca Strang:	04:33	Sure. And so when it comes to accessibility with games design or game play, what does accessibility mean to you when you're approaching games?
Jerry Hawthorne:04:44	Well, it can mean many different things, but uh, personally for me as a designer, when I think of accessibility for my games and stuff, I try to think of, you know, having the game be made so that the broadest amount of different kinds of people can play it and feel not only represented but also they can also engage with it, with the actual mechanics of the game. I don't try to make it, you know, I don't try to tailor make my games for a highbrow audience or for this audience or that audience. I try to be as broad as possible so that you can bring more players together with a variety of ages and a variety of backgrounds.
Rebecca Strang:	05:21	Sure. And I know you mentioned, you kind of came into this with the discussion you had with your friend, so were there any steps that you took or any precautions that you considered kind of approaching the topic of mental trauma and dealing with this topic?
Jerry Hawthorne:05:39	Sure, yes. I mean, first of all, for years I've been reading as much as I can about modern psychology and the way that the emotions work and the way that the mind works and stuff, but keep in mind that this isn't like this sort of comprehensive, you know, package of psychological workshop type stuff here.
Rebecca Strang:	05:58	Sure.
Jerry Hawthorne:05:58	What it is, it's an adventure where we purposefully leave vague any sort of mentions of any kind of personality disorders or anything like that, so it's not a clinical sort of exercise. It's more of a philosophical journey where the intent is that the players could play it and it would make them think about the things that hold themselves back in life. The way that the psyche works is when you encounter the things that you do in your daily life, at the end of the day, when you're asleep, your brain will, it'll basically timestamp all the information that it received that day and it'll file it away in chronological order.
Jerry Hawthorne:06:33	Anything that's not significant enough to last very long in your memory banks will get immediately shredded, but if you suffer anything traumatic, and I shouldn't say the word suffer because you can have positive traumas as well. You can have things that happen that are positive, extremely positive or you know, or very negative. Anyways, these things, they don't get timestamp. They don't get filed away in your emotional memory banks the same way as your typical memories and because they're not timestamped, whenever your mind wanders to those memories and thinks upon them, it'll feel fresh, like it happened just, you know, days ago or it will feel very fresh and very raw.
Rebecca Strang:	07:12	Mmhmm.
Jerry Hawthorne:07:12	And so that's basically the concept that I want people to play with and think about and contemplate and share with each other is this idea that because of these things aren't timestamped, they're going to always feel fresh and we just need to learn how to embrace that and add it to part of who we are and move on.
Rebecca Strang:	07:31	Yeah, and that's one thing that I really like about the system so far is you know, there are bigger questions. You can have those discussions after you play the game if you want to. And if you just want to have a good time having an adventure, you can do that too.
Jerry Hawthorne:07:45	Yes, it's, it's very much an adventure and it's not always doom and gloom either. There's bright moments. There is a, as you get to know more and more about the main character, you know, your empathy towards his life should grow and each time you get done with a game session, there's an ending. Whether you won or not, you're going to have an ending is going to move you on or move you forward. So, uh, and, and you'll read those and you can and you'll get a bigger understanding of where the players fit into this person's experiences.
Rebecca Strang:	08:18	Great. And so if you had to pick one thing about Comanauts that was your favorite part of the game, what would that be for you?
Jerry Hawthorne:08:25	My favorite part of the game is throughout the game, part of your main goal is collecting clues, and, or hopefully having an encounter with the inner child of the coma victim. And it's through this inner child, it's basically that you're always searching for an interaction with this inner child. If you have a successful interaction with the inner child, they'll give you a little totem that will allow you to travel to a different portion of the coma victim's psyche. But the way you interact with the inner child is, he will give you a vision and that vision is like a little card with a little bit of on it and you'll read the vision to your fellow players and you all have to sort of discuss it amongst yourselves which emotional, you know which emotional trauma that this particular vision matches and it's not as easy as as you might think because there some emotional nuances in the game.
Jerry Hawthorne:09:12	For instance, if you're trying to hunt down the inner demon that's holding him hostage in his mind and that inner demon is shame, but you're in the portion of his memories that deals with guilt, it can be very, you know, they're very similar. What's the difference between guilt and shame? Those kinds of little things that the game allows you to explore in sort of a natural way through discussion, it allows you to learn more about your fellow players, but also allows you to sort of remove some of those barriers of talking about trauma and talking about the emotional health and mental health. So I love those little bits of fiction. In that moment when I, when I observed people playing the game, I really am, I really dig that moment where they're trying to figure out, okay, which one does this sound like?
Rebecca Strang:	09:58	Yeah, I love that. That sounds like a very unique play experience too.
Jerry Hawthorne:10:03	Yeah, I, yeah. Um, it's, it's very much an Adventure Book game that uses very similar mechanics to Stuffed Fables, but the storytelling is completely different and it does take a little longer to play and the playtime is variable depending upon, you know, how quickly you figure out where you need to go and how quickly you tune into these emotional clues that you're receiving throughout the game.
Rebecca Strang:	10:25	And this one is also going to be two to four players?
Jerry Hawthorne:10:28	Yes ma'am.
Rebecca Strang:	10:29	Awesome. And so what's the timeline for the release of this game?
Jerry Hawthorne:10:33	It just released last week.
Rebecca Strang:	10:35	Last week. Okay.
Jerry Hawthorne:10:36	Yes.
Jerry Hawthorne:10:36	Awesome. So people can start looking for that and getting it to their tables right away.
Jerry Hawthorne:10:41	Absolutely.
Rebecca Strang:	10:43	And so for anybody who wants to keep up with you and the projects that you're working on, where can they find you online?
Jerry Hawthorne:10:51	I'm, probably Twitter is the best way. I'm @mice_guy on Twitter.
Rebecca Strang:	10:57	All right. So they can find you on Twitter and then the Plaid Hat Games website as well.
Jerry Hawthorne:11:02	Yeah, our old dinosaur of a website, we're, all of our contact information is on there and I mean anybody feel free to reach out to me. I'm not, you know, I don't put up a barrier between myself and any of the people who like to talk about games or engage with my games. That's what I do this for.
Rebecca Strang:	11:18	Awesome. Sounds great. Well, thank you, so much for coming on the show today and talking to me about Comanauts, it sounds fantastic. I can't wait to dive into it myself.
Jerry Hawthorne:11:28	Thank you. Thank you.
Rebecca Strang:	11:29	And so for our listeners, if you have any questions or comments you'd like to share with us, you can email us at playabilitypodatgmail.com, or find us on major social media platforms @playabilitypod. So thanks for listening and I hope this episode helps you play with a new perspective.