Shining Moon Episode 07: Writing Games I

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast, Episode 7. Today we’ll continue our series by asking questions about writing games, particularly roleplaying games. This is a subject dear to my heart, because I’ve spent twenty years of my life playing RPGs, mostly in written form, in play-by-post games. I am a big proponent of how they help to develop writers’ skills at worldbuilding, characterization, and plot.

My guest today is Eran Aviram. 

Eran's been part of the gaming industry since 2002, as a writer, editor, translator, designer, shop owner, publisher, event organizer and professional GM. Today he's part of Son of Oak's team, working on City of Mist, Queerz! and Metro:Otherscape, translates Savage Worlds into Hebrew, and self-publishes single player games on nnesk.itch.io. His main passion is turning more people into players, and then giving those players the tools that’ll help them enjoy their games more.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Transcript

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hello and welcome to Shining Moon, a speculative fiction podcast episode seven. I'm your host, Deborah L Davitt. Today we'll continue our series by asking questions about writing games, particularly role-playing games. This is a subject dear to my heart because I spent 20 years of my life playing RPGs, mostly in written form and play by post games. I'm a big proponent of how they help to develop writer skills at world-building, characterization and plot. My yesterday is Eran Aviram. Eran has been part of the gaming industry since 2002 as a writer, editor, translator, designer, shop owner, publisher, event organizer, and professional GM. Today he's part of the Son of Oak's team working on Crystal Hearts, obviously, but that's not one of theirs. City of Mist, Queers, and Other Metroscape. I have to say that I absolutely adore City of Mist. We've been playing that one for about... five months now and that is just a fabulous, fabulous game. I will want to talk about that more. He has translated Savage Worlds into Hebrew and has self-published single-player games on nnesk.itch.io. His main passion is turning more people into players and then giving those players the tools that they'll help to help them to enjoy their games more. Welcome Eran and thank you for being on the podcast. I am really looking forward to this conversation.

Eran:
Hello, yes, welcome. Thank you for letting me be here. And as everyone at home can probably hear, I have an accent and I will try to be as clear as I can, but I am expecting to be asked to repeat stuff and that's okay.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That is perfectly fine. I just finished two episodes with people with accents and they were all lovely and they were all easy to understand. I expect nothing else from this. So, let's start with Crystal Hearts. Crystal Hearts is a fun, fast-paced game set in a world in which certain people, the agents of an organization called Sin, have superpowers fueled by crystals that replace their hearts. It's based on the Savage Worlds game system. And as I said, I've been playing in a Crystal Hearts game for about a month now, and I can attest to how much fun I've been having in the world that is the game's playground. As I understand it, Crystal Hearts development was sort of a circular thing. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Eran:
Yes, so at the beginning, many, many moons ago, it's around 2004, which is almost 20 years ago from when we were recording this. We sat a group of friends who were looking for something new to play, and I think that the latest game that came to our hands at the time was BESM, Big Eyes, Small Mouth, which is a game designed for anime and manga style play.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
It wasn't super awesome. It was based on the point-based system where you buy powers and abilities and the like. It was sort of like a GURPS light. And there wasn't actually a lot going on there as far as I remember beyond that. But it was fun enough and there was enough in there that made us feel like an anime sort of spirit and thing. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
we, as a group, five of us, sat down to talk about what the world is going to be like, because BSM doesn't come with an established world. And I had a basic idea to start with. There's a song in Hebrew about people with a heart of stone. There are stones with the heart of people and there are people with hearts of stone. It's from a song. And it made me think about how maybe there are people with a heart of stone. Literally, not like in the very metaphorical way that the song talks about There

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
we were very much into anime at the time and I think it was full metal alchemist and there was Naruto as well at the time and I'm still into anime and one of the things I like most about it is how every anime world the good ones have a very specific metaphysics to it

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
And uncovering the secrets of this metaphysics is like half of what is going on in the story. Unlike,
for example, D&D or Shadowrun or Pathfinder, actually it happens a bit in Pathfinder, but

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
in D&D the metaphysics don't matter. That's not why you're there. In these sort of stories, in Iron Man, like once the story is done, basically all of the secrets are also out. The secrets about how the world actually works.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That is one of the things I love about Crystal Hearts is that there's always another layer of secret. There's always another twist.


Eran:
Exactly. That's totally part of it. We, so that was one thing that we liked. We liked having a world that we will need to understand as a big part of what we're doing. But the other thing that we needed that was crucial that I do believe I came up with was we needed something to go after. We needed a reason to adventure.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
When you want to play a group of people going around having adventures, there must be a reason for them to actually, you know, not stay at home and farm or whatever.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
So that was crystals. We said everyone has a heart that is made of stone inside of them. That's just how the world is. You know, that's how things are. In the world of Naruto, for example, there's a thing called chakra and you can just channel it. And that's just how things are. So in this world, everyone has a heart of stone and that's just how things are. And there are also crystals out there that are, for some reason, completely compatible with heart stones and gives you superpowers when you put them in. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
you play as people who, well, will think about why they are working together, which is another big question, but for some reason

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
they're working together and they go around and they try to hunt these super-duper crystals. and you know what will be awesome? They can change them around. So you can actually change your set of superpowers around. And that was awesome, everyone thought it was a great idea. And this is something we thought about together, that's no longer just me. And everything else is also no longer just me. Like there was a demand to have more Tomb Raider energy,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

Eran:
to raid tombs, which I think is the reason we went for adventuring in the first place. It's not like every RPG must be about an adventuring, you know, sort of lifestyle, going around and to new places and hunting new stuff and fighting monsters. But we wanted this because someone wanted, someone at the tomb raiding, I remember it, Indiana Jones style, going all over the place,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
uncovering old things, fighting, not Nazis, but something, you know, similar, fighting the bad guys.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
And... We also wanted... And we wanted some other stuff. I, it was 20 years ago. Who remembers? We wanted some other stuff as well. Eventually the point is we sat down and played it. We actually played it for maybe six sessions. I don't think it went any much further than that. But Eyes.GM had to develop the secrets behind everything. What is actually going on. So I sat down and developed something. And that's it. For many, many years after that, it just stayed as a thing that was developed. in one of the Google Docs, actually there wasn't even a Google Docs at the time, in a

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
word document somewhere or whatever. And then 10 years ago, something like that, Aviv and I started a web comic.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
Aviv Ohr is the artist who works with me, who was in that group, who I do believe came up with the tomb raiding stuff. She loves Lara Croft. And...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm

Eran:
And webcomic was about board games and tabletop games, and it was a weekly strip. I think we, I no longer recall, but I think we did two strips per week at upto4players.com. And we did it for two years, maybe three years. And it was great. It was fun. We enjoyed ourselves. We got a big audience. We got... shared by some of the bigger names because we're good at what we're doing frankly if I if I do say so myself We did a good job But we also didn't get any money out of it. And though it was a lot of work, obviously for the artist more than me. When you just have to come up with some strips for a week, it's not like it takes five minutes, but obviously it takes more time for a view. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yes.

Eran:
she also needs to get money for rent and food and living and stuff. And we sort of got tired and we decided we want to tell a story and we wanted to commit. to specifically role-playing games. We were

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
very much into board games before that. And we wanted to do something big that we will feel, I don't know, accomplishment, that we would feel that we are doing something creative. I think we just ran out of juice for the daily strips, for the funnies.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
And we sat down. And both of us, I think probably it was one of the first things we both agreed on. We should probably just bring Crystal Heart back up. That was the general thought. Because we both remembered it. It's not like we don't have other things. I have like three or four other worlds that I think are very much worthy of a web comic. But this one has two things really going for it. First, it's already pretty much developed. And second, it's so colorful. It's so

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
colorful. Everything about it is colorful. The crystals are colorful. There are five nations, well, lands, each of them with its own color or whatever. And you go over the place and you see all sorts of action scenes. Everything that Aviv likes to do. Which is important, because without anyone backing us, we have to run on our own motivation.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes, indeed.

Eran:
So it had to be something that Aviv would like to do and that I would like to write. So yeah, definitely, Crystal Heart. And we sat down and it started and it was awesome. Well, actually it was pretty fine compared, I've re-read everything a few months back because now we're writing the final chapter. So in order to make sure that everything is tied

Deborah L. Davitt:
consistent.

Eran:
up nicely,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
I had to make sure that I didn't leave anything just untethered and not in the midst. So I started at the beginning and read through everything. And the beginning isn't that good.

Deborah L. Davitt:
No!

Eran:
 Now that I can compare, it was five years ago, right? So, and obviously

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm

Eran:
both of us became much better at telling long form stories, at telling this character, at creating one page comics. We publish a page every Monday. The first pages look primitive compared to what Aviv can do today. It's in...

Deborah L. Davitt:
That's unfortunately inevitable with any webcomic, any long-term storytelling technique. You learn so much by the doing, by the end you look back at the beginning and just go,

Eran:
Definitely,

Deborah L. Davitt:
what was I doing?

Eran:
I think I have nothing against it. There's even a page on TV drops for this. I think it's called Art Evolution. And it first of obviously it makes sense, but second of all, I'm not saying anything bad against it. It has to happen. That's how you get better.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
And next time, if we're starting another project, it will be the same. We will start really good because we're much better

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

Eran:
and it will become much, much better by the end five years later.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
And that's fine, I'm fine with it. The main point that I'm going for, however, is that it, despite losing a lot of the audience, because most people are not interested in

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh.

Eran:
watching, that's how it is, that's how it is. We knew that we're going to lose a lot of audience, but that the audience we'll keep will be, hopefully, hooked and we would be a lot more, you know, a much more core audience, people who are into

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
it. and not just occasionally watching. So we used to have thousands and thousands of views, like on the tens of thousands per, I don't know, maybe a week or something. And we'll probably get a fifth of what we used to have. And it's fine. Actually, I don't want to say it's great because all of everyone, I mean, I want more people to see what I'm doing. But it's fine because obviously it is working. a year and a half

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
after we started, we already did a Kickstarter. We thought we aimed for 12,000 pounds, we got it in the first day, and we got,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
yeah, and when we weren't sure if we're going there anyway, and we got to 26,000 by the end. So,

Deborah L. Davitt:
very nice.

Eran:
I mean, doubling what, I mean, more than anything, it proved to us that we were right. there is a core

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
audience. They are into this. They are interested. They want to pay us money for the thing. Just to make it clear, the Kickstarter was not about the web comic almost at all. We solved through it some printed issues. We printed the first three issues, the first two chapters as standalone issues. Mostly to have something to come to conventions with. We love coming to conventions. But as a web comic, there's very little that we can actually offer unless we print something.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
So we printed the issues and stuff like that. And no, it was about the game. The Kickstarter was about the actual game. We asked around a bit if people are interested. We, because our Kickstarter, sorry, because our web comic was in the world of Savage Worlds, it used Savage Worlds, it explained Savage Worlds as a system.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
I said it's in the world, but of course, Savage World doesn't have a core world. It's a generic system. But because it explained it, we got from Pinnacle Entertainment, they just sent us an email like several weeks after we started, an email saying that they made that into an ACE, which is how they call the people that are official third-party publishers that are authorized to create. It's not, it's... It doesn't take a lot to become an ace in truly. I mean, you just need to prove that you're doing a good work, but mostly you need to also publish a Savage World thing. And we didn't, we just made a web comic. But in order for, they loved the web comic because we are actually pretty good at explaining rules.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
And we are explaining all of the rules through the web comic and they loved it. So in order for this to be, you know, completely official, it's not like we became the official Savage World webcomic, not at all. But now there's no risk, you know, lawyer-wise, no reason to bring any lawyer around

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah

Eran:
for the fact that we are explaining the rules for Savage World in a webcomic that does not belong to Pinnacle. They just made us an ace and that solved everything. And that also meant that we can just publish Savage World stuff without any need to worry about licensing.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Nice.

Eran:
So... that really pushed us toward the Kickstarter. And then we realized we were not completely sure we know how to write for server trolls because we haven't played a lot of it. We just liked it and we played it and we thought it fits the system for the game

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah

Eran:
or what the characters are playing, but we haven't actually played a lot. So we sat down and played like, I think since the webcomic began, we sat down and played 50 Feathens, which is famous and... wonderful, wonderful world for Savage Worlds, created by Shane Hainsley, I'm pretty sure, the guy behind Savage World. And we played through all of it, till the end, up to heroic level, probably legendary, I no longer remember. And it was a lot of fun, and it taught me as a GM, how to write for Savage Worlds, and high-level Savage Worlds and the like. And now I felt good enough to sit down and actually write something that became, eventually, the core book for Crystal Heart that went to Kickstarter. and people bought it and people are still buying it. It's available through DriveThruRPG.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes. I will say that just as a side note is that one of the things that I really appreciate about your website and the comic is not only are you telling a story about the players, you're telling a story about the characters and the game at the same time. So it's a multi-level comic, but then you have the blog underneath it which explains why you're doing all the things and how the rules work and that was enormously helpful for understanding how to play. So I wanted to thank you for that.

Eran:
Excellent, good. I think that during the first or second chapter, people asked us to literally explain exactly what is going by the rules. So I did that, but after a few chapters in, not only did we stop doing that completely, in the final two chapters, we barely even mention actual rules. Only when it's important. At the beginning, every rule was a big deal, but now we don't even mention. show many rolls, only when it's important to the story. And what I like best is how the audience is into it. They accept this change. We were careful with it. It's a big change. It doesn't maybe feel like a big change while you're reading through it, but actually it is for a comic that at no point did we say that this is happening. We just stopped slowly doing that because I personally feel it's better for the story. if we don't stop for every thing. Thankfully, the audience is cool with it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, it made sense and as I was going through, now that I think back on it, yes, there was quite a bit more incidence of the dice rolling early on, but it is a gradual thing and now it's there for emphasis and I think it works beautifully.

Eran:
for emphasis exactly.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Right? So let's ask the next question, which is, you've already mentioned that the Hebrew song that gave you the inception of the idea, but what other books or movies or comics gave you inspiration for Crystal Hearts, particularly for the superpowers?

Eran:
Okay, so the core thing is probably materia from Final Fantasy VII. If anyone

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
ever played Final Fantasy VII, they will recognize crystals as materia that you slot into a person instead of into a piece of equipment. That's basically, I don't wanna say it's exactly the same thing, it's not, but it's basically the same thing. The idea of slotting them, of each of them having different colors and different abilities and sometimes good stuff and sometimes bad stuff at the same time.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
that originated there. Another big influence was Naruto. Because

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
in Naruto, which it's the first time I was exposed to it, it's not like the first thing that ever did it. Every person has their own unique, like probably single power, everyone has a single thing they know how to do.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
It's also seen of course in My Hero Academia in almost every Shonen Jump. anime, you would see something like that. Everyone has a single ability and they just use it in creative ways. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
you could maybe say that X-Men works the same way but I don't think so. I think that in, for example, in My Hero Academia there's a person who's basically a frog. She's a frog and she solves everything by being a frog. But there's also a person, that's just how things are. But there's also a person who is... For example, able to create stuff out of herself, create new objects, she pulls them out for herself. And that she saw everything by creating new objects.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
And that's what crystals are about. Crystals are in essence an attempt to make the player, to give the player the possibility of being creative with cool powers. However, there are also some specific powers that each crystal come from if you want to be more

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
X-Men and just shoot lasers and not think about how to use the lasers in a creative way. You just want to shoot some lasers. Crystals went through several iterations, obviously, until we arrived at what we are today. And I'm very happy with what we arrived at. I think crystal channeling as a power source is a creative, useful way, useful thing for... Savage worlds in general that doesn't work like other power sources

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
and is, it succeeds in what it aims to do. It needs some more tweaks probably beyond what we started with. But at the core, the idea that there's a theme which gives context to what you can envision and create and also limits it, it's really, that's the thing. That's what Crystal is about. They have a theme.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, exactly.

Eran:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
We've already covered world building. When you started writing outside, for people outside of your home game, did the world change remarkably for that or did it stay true to itself?

Eran:
world changed remarkably, I would say. Yes. When you write to people, if you want people to read the stuff that you create and actually use it, you have to, you have to write for them. You can't just use

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
what you did. Well, in Crystal Heart, we never actually played it. It's important to explain that we never ran Crystal Heart as a home campaign. We ran one shots, we ran many campaigns, we ran some play tests. of the campaign that is in the book, that is offered in the book. There's a campaign of eight, I think it's called adventures or Savage Days? I don't, I don't remember. Anyway, it's eight scenarios, one after the other,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
that form a plot point campaign in the Crystal Heart book. I think it's pretty fun. I wouldn't say it's the best, frankly, but I think it does showcase a lot of what's possible and works good with Savage World in general and the Crystal Heart specifically. And we only ran the beginning of it and we created stuff. Therefore, most stuff created was not from our personal game but directly for the book.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
The main most important thing with every word that entered this book was, it was like, I want to say the core pillar of design here that we also shared with the editors that we bought. is this needs to be completely usable by the GM, should she choose

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
to use it in whatever way. So for example, for each of the lands, we provide, I think very little information, maybe two pages per land, which are, you know, that's the geography, but only about two pages. And I think that in those two pages, including graphics, we provide everything you need. so you can come up with new stuff for that land without telling you, hopefully, anything that you don't need. Like I don't need to tell you who is the current governor. It doesn't matter. I don't need to tell you perhaps where is the seat of power and what conflict is going on there because you want to know what's interesting, right? You want to know...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
What's usable in your game? Where to put your players? What to put against them? Why should they come here? What emotional triggers can I have in this location that can be used during an adventure? How can I surprise the players when they are here?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
How does this culture of this place behaves in a way that is unique and obviously different from other cultures in this world? So with... don't get into a lot of details, even about the history. The history of each place is a sidebar,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
which is like 800 years ago, which is the beginning of history. And then we have a long time ago, some time ago, and right now. And that's, I mean, we don't give much more than that in the terms of specifics, because the specifics don't matter. You can do whatever you want in your game. You just need to know, for example, in the country of Masaya, how came... How is it that there's currently a conflict between the tribes there? The clans, sorry. What's the reason that they are against each other? What brought the current situation to... Well, what created the current situation? So I need to explain, you know, two generations ago and before that. And now you see, and that's like a line about each of them. And that's enough. That's usually enough. I hope.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I think that it opens the doors for other people's creativity in a very useful way. I also wanted to do a shout out about the art, because I know that Aviv does that, and I think that the art in itself tells a story. And I wish she had been able to be here for this, because I would love to have talked with her about how the art tells a story, how the art creates the world. But obviously she couldn't be with us, but I wanted to definitely shout out that the art is fantastic.

Eran:
I want to talk a bit about Aviv. First of all, Aviv is a co-developer of everything in this book. She reads everything, she approves, she gives suggestions, this book and the comic as well. I write the scripts, but I do it based on understanding with her. She changes stuff, she offers stuff, just to make it clear. Yes, Aviv is the art, but she's also everything else, up to and including rules. It's not like, she's not like as big as a designer like me. but she reads every crystal, for example, and offers suggestions,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Beautiful.

Eran:
and she can imagine what's going on with it, and she's really great. She offered, I think, at least a third of all of the crystals we've created so far are her ideas

Deborah L. Davitt:
Wonderful.

Eran:
originally. So that's first. Second, what you said is absolutely correct. First, everything in the book is only Aviv. She was insistent on not letting anyone else do art for this, which makes a lot of sense. This is her art style. And her art style is definitely a part of this world. Not only does it makes everything consistent, it also, just like you said, it's part of the world building. When you look at how she, for example, shows a fraud steady, oh, it's never going to happen. Why did they call that? Okay, so Fjordstadtian here that has so many weird lenses on her, and she has weird glass shoes or whatever. And yeah, I never wrote it anywhere that they walk with weird glasses. But you look at this and you understand, oh yeah, they are all mad scientists, every each and one of them. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehehehe

Eran:
I don't need to say that once it's written. What? Sorry, of course, once it's drawn in this way.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
Each of the lands... because it's so important to us that each land has a theme and its own atmosphere and emotional, you know, sort of keys. The art for each of them, shows it out. There's a single art piece for each of them in the book. And it's only a third page and it's enough. You see it and you get it. Once you see the islands and this beautiful open harbour with flying birds in the sky. You get it! You get it. Aviv is really good at what she does. And I'm very thankful for having her both as a best friend and as a collaborator on everything that I'm doing. And that's it, Aviv. Once you're hearing this, you should know I love you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh, this is wonderful. I'm going to switch gears here a little bit because here on Shining when we've been recently having conversations about writing in your second or your third language. Do you write directly in English or do you start in Hebrew and then self-translate into English is my first question.

Eran:
it's so much work to translate, so I prefer writing it in English. I generally write ideas in Hebrew, usually in Google Keep. When I just have them, I just write them out in Hebrew, the core idea of what I'm thinking about, and then I copy it into the document and build the English paragraph around that. I try to think, I mean, all of the terminology is in English, and it's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
positive for it. to state, for example, there is technically a word for crystal in Hebrew, it's gavish, but we would never ever think about calling it something else, even in my mind, other than crystal. And also like crystal works in Hebrew, it's transliterated exactly as crystal. So that actually, that's cheap, that's easy. But for example, the lands, we don't, you can call them in Hebrew something else, but I won't. They are the lands with a capital L even, and that's... It's simpler if everything is kept in the same language all the time.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
And even if it requires me in mid-sentence in Google Keep to change to English to right-lands, or even if it makes me in Google Keep write the entire sentence in English to avoid changing in the middle to right-lands, because Hebrew is right to left, and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
sometimes that messes up the reading. if you switch in the middle, because some programs think that this means it should all be aligned to left or aligned to right

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh god.

Eran:
And sometimes that shifts the location of the English and the Hebrew and switches it around. So a
sentence that will go

Deborah L. Davitt:
I had never even considered this.

Eran:
you would never know. English speakers don't even know that this is a thing that happens, but it is so common in Hebrew. I'm going to assume that in Arabic as well. Terrible. So I can either literally write lands in Hebrew letter or I should probably write the entire thing in English in the first place because going midway is tricky.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay. I know that you have translated Savage Worlds into Hebrew. How difficult was it to go through this entire game system and do the translation? Were there any pitfalls for you in the translation process?

Eran:
So first I should note, I lately translated Savage Walls. I also translated D&D and Exalted and Pathfinder.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh my god.

Eran:
Yeah, yeah, I'm basically the translator to Hebrew, which is not a good thing to say

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

Eran:
about the Hebrew market. If there is a single person who is the one that translated everything, there's a problem in the market.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Eran:
So for example, the next Savage Worlds book is not translated by me. I was approached by the producer and I told them, I would rather not do that. Let's get someone else so we can start training a new generation. Thankfully, we found someone. She's great. I love that she has so many opinions. That's awesome. But back to your question. I've been translating things, specifically role-playing games to Hebrew for the past 20 years. I have It's a problem. I have so much experience in it that I'm not sure where to start even discussing it. It's just what they do. You know, it's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
just how things are for me. I know how important it is to keep, also I work as an editor for Sun of Oak and City of Mist. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
terminologies, consistent terminology is everything.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
And I have five main I would say priorities in translations of role-playing game terms. I'm being very specific because I don't want to claim too much. But

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
I do think I am probably the authority about translating role-playing games to Hebrew. That doesn't mean I'm definitely the best that can be, but I think that these five priorities are probably the best that anyone currently has to go by. I don't know if it would interest you to know what they are. Would it?

Deborah L. Davitt:
It would, honestly.

Eran:
and I would need a second to bring them up.

Deborah L. Davitt:
You have to understand that when I was writing for Hewlett-Packard, I was writing technical documentation and everything I had to do was in global clean English so that we would translate things to 26 different languages after I got done with it.

Eran:
Eh.

Deborah L. Davitt:
So everything had to be extraordinarily clear, the terminology had to be consistent, and everything had to be just right so that the machine translation would take the first pass, then the actual translators would take the second pass and make it not machine translated anymore. And they would make it clearer and better and more flexible for their end users.

Eran:
I think there's a lot of, it wouldn't be surprising, but there's obviously a lot of similarity between translating. a manual, any sort of manual, and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
role-playing games. I said before that I am pretty good with explaining rules.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
I think, I mean, we know how to explain Savage Worlds, for example. We also have, we haven't mentioned it, but not only does Up to Four Players, the comics for Crystal Heart, explains how to play Savage Worlds during the first chapter, we also have a two-page summary of just all of the rules of 7 worlds in comics form. I mean,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
not all of the rules, but you know how to play them. And we have one for fate and we have one for city of mist.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I love that.

Eran:
And they are very good and everyone thinks so, including the people behind them. And the reason they are very good is, I've been working as a translator and editor of

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah

Eran:
role playing games and rule books of board games for the past 20 years. So I know how to do this. That's basically it. Give me a second to find the five... categories, but I can start with the first one. The first one is usability. Above everything else, it needs to be simple to use. So for example,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
there might be some awesome, there might be some words that when you translate them, there are several options for, like,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
I can think of one right now, but there are, I assure you, there are words that you can translate in several different ways. And when you do so, you can choose one, for example, a translation that is, okay, I'll give you an example. The word Bard, which is a class in DND, can be translated, and also in Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, which is what we translated.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
We didn't translate the general Savage Worlds, we translated Pathfinder for Savage Worlds,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
which is great, by the way. So in that, obviously, there's Bard. So it can be translated to troubador, which I believe is also a word in English that you can use.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes, yes it is and it's originally out of French, so.

Eran:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Orgy out of French and it's in, you use it in Hebrew. Another one is Paitan. From Pute, which is, nevermind. It's a Bardic thing

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

Eran:
to do. So you can go with either of them, Troubadour or Paitan. And one of them is shorter.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

Eran:
One of them is short, okay? And that sounds like... a small thing and one of them sounds so sophisticated, troubadour. Great!

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

Eran:
But one of them is short. And you can also translate paladin, again a class, to, well the original translation for D&D 3 20 years ago that wasn't my translation, the core book was translated by someone else, was aluf kodish, which is basically a holy champion.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
And that's two words. Oh, you can go with just aluf, just champion. And of course you can just go with Paladin. And that's one word compared to two. And that's therefore it's better.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
It sounds like little things, but it's all little things. All

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
of the considerations are little things. I can't say, if it was easy, there wouldn't need, there wouldn't. There was no need for me or for a profession of a translator, but it's not easy. You need to make all of these small decisions. Usability, and I still haven't found the others, but generally speaking, obviously universality. So for example,if you use a single word, not only does it need to be used everywhere in Hebrew, you also sometimes, for example, turn them into a verb. or that way around, you can also do it in English. You turn a word into a verb or whatever. And it needs to be clear. We don't have, for example, capital letters in Hebrew. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
in English, you can say move as a capital letter, and then suddenly it's a term. And you can say spend your move to do whatever. In Hebrew, it can't walk. It can never walk because there's no difference between move and move.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Interesting. That is actually really interesting.


Eran:
Right? So we have to use something else. It can't be just a translation for move. It needs to be something more sophisticated, but not too sophisticated and hopefully not too words. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh my god.

Eran:
it's not super difficult, but there are many edge cases. Okay, let's say it like that. Also, it needs to be actually something that someone would say.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
So we had a problem with Warlock and which... and sorcerer. In Hebrew, there aren't many words for a person who uses magic. And we

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
basically already use the both of them. Wizard is ashaf, and all of the rest are either kosem or mechashef. And that's a problem. That's a big problem. It's been an issue that has been troubling us, I say us because while it's technically true that I translated all of them, there was always a producer above me that made the final choice about such things. So over the last 20 years, this world changed between translations. So currently, Sorcerer is Kosem, but also 30 years ago, Magic User was Kosem, when the first D&D was translated to Hebrew, many, many years ago

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh God, so you have no way of making it generic. You have no way, there's no generic term.

Eran:
There is no generic term for sorcerer, no. Or for warlock,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh boy.

Eran:
or for witch, all of witch exist. I mean, warlock is in D&D 4, and we call them mechashef. But witch is mechashefa, or mechashef. That's for the gendered term. Everything is gendered in

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
Hebrew. You can't have non-gendered things, because...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm. That's the way the language is.

Eran:
Can I use the F word?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehehehe

Eran:
It's terrible, it's terrible, it's terrible. But that's how things are. By the way, this is something of a decision that I didn't make, but I'm very happy that is now commonplace. A player is almost always male, while the GM is almost always female.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
Now in Hebrew, it's like, it's a common practice these days, including in things that I had nothing to do with. And that makes me very happy that we found some solution that not everyone is male everywhere in every way because many other are. All of the classes are male, for example.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh God, including

Eran:
Well,

Deborah L. Davitt:
the witch.

Eran:
including witch, yeah, no, but which is male in Pathfinder as well.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh god.

Eran:
It's a... whatever. That's the world. That's how things are.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Let's talk about your new projects, Caregiver and Otherscape.

Eran:
Oh, okay, sure. Sure.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I took a look at Caregiver because I love the concept of solo player games, basically journaling games. I've played parts of The Thousand Year Vampire and a couple of others. And they're just wonderful sort of zen writing exercises because you're not, for me, a lot of my time is spent. Okay, I want to write a short story for this call. I want to write a

Eran:
Good.

Deborah L. Davitt:
short story for this anthology. And sometimes the joy of writing just for yourself is gone when you're constantly trying to match a market or something like that. So writing in a solo journaling game is just fun. It's just a pure endorphin rush of, okay, and here's the next thing that happens. What happens to your character as a result of that? It gives you back the freedom that you had before you became a professional writer.

Eran:
That's really interesting

Deborah L. Davitt:
So talk to me

Eran:
because

Deborah L. Davitt:
about CareGiver.

Eran:
I dislike writing. I don't like it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

Eran:
I don't write for myself. I don't enjoy it. I enjoy the flow, I think.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
And exactly like you say, writing for someone else is always harder.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
But for example, I wrote for myself when I wrote Crystal Heart and that was fun. And I like writing stuff like that. But the whole point behind Caregiver and the previous game I made before that Menagerie of the Void, Both of them are available in PDF, in NNESK, et cetera. Well, actually, Caregiver isn't yet available, but will very soon be. The whole point about them is that they are not journal in games. They are, I would say, semi-journal in games. I mean, you can write a journal if you want to, but I tried as much as I can to avoid requiring you to sit down and write, and instead

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
create the rules and tables and stuff that would help you have an experience and a story that does not require you to literally turn it into words on a page.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Fantastic.

Eran:
So Menagerie is a story about, Menagerie of the Void is a story about how you are kidnapped to become the caretaker of a strange zoo in space by aliens that are long gone. And just the old machines are running this place and you are giving orders to the machine, but you don't know how and you can barely do it. And eventually this place will go down and all of the creatures will either get loose or die. sucked into some void or some of them will destroy others and you will die as well and everything will be gone. It's a game about the toleration and ending unavoidable unstoppable ending with the tiny little hope that maybe things can I mean there is a win condition. It's extremely unlikely and that's not the point. The point is experiencing how you fail. I think it's I think it's an antagonist. This is the story of how you fail. So that's the point of that game. And you write everything on index cards. And you don't need to write a lot. You just write like the explanation for what, what strange creature is in this place and what strange creature

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
sits in that place and stuff like that. Lots of the game is rolling on tables. Actually it's drawing on cards because I like, I like cards more than I like dice.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
I think they're better in many ways. I mean, better is a very problematic word to say when you're a game designer. They have different features compared to dice.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha!

Eran:
And I like the features of cards. And I like what it makes you feel when you draw a card compared to when you roll a dice, for example.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
In Caregiver, you play as a healing spirit that helps a group of heroes on a journey. It's very much inspired by games like Eye of the Beholder and Might and Magic from many years ago. I don't know if...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yes.

Eran:
the audience remember or knows them, when you are not playing as actually a person, but as a whole group. As the player sitting in front of the computer, you see a whole group.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
These days in Baldur's Gate, and in those days in Baldur's Gate, there was a single

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
character and everyone around them. This is not that game. You are not playing a single character. You are the player behind that is looking at the group, sort of,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehehehe

Eran:
the whole group, and you don't control them. They do what they want. dice, the awesome dice and the cards show what the players, sorry, what the characters are doing, what the heroes are doing, and you can't control them. You are only a tiny little healing spirit that tries to help. And you can only slightly push at different places, like maybe warn them in time before the monster attacks, or maybe help this injury heal faster so it won't fester and become an issue later on. And... In the Kickstarter, I imagined it to be a short zine. Menagerie was 22 pages, I think, maybe 26. It became 70 pages because

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh my!

Eran:
there's, yeah, I wasn't expecting that. The Kickstarter was a lot, I lost eventually. I cost so much money to create all of this because more than the Kickstarter put in because I also changed art direction in the middle. I can tell you how not to do Kickstarter. I can tell you how to,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha

Eran:
how. what I did right with Menagerie and what I did wrong with Caregiver. And hopefully next time I'll do more of the right and less of the wrong. But I think that the venture product, what is coming up with Caregiver when it's done, is going to be great. I think it's a great game for a very niche experience, but I think it's going to work, yeah. But these are my things, and there's also the Sun Oak of Oak things, which is not me.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that would be the Otherscape. That is Sun of Oak, correct?

Eran:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And that ties into, as I understand it, it's very similar to City of Mist, which is a tag-based role-playing game. And I have to say that it's one of the most fun gaming experiences that I've ever had. I am currently playing a split personality person, a librarian by day, and Morrigan goddess the rest of the time and the morgan is currently winning in terms of who is in charge of the body most of the time so

Eran:
So what do you like best about City of Mist? I'm curious. What you said it's most,

Deborah L. Davitt:
I have...

Eran:
what's the fun? Where's the fun for you?

Deborah L. Davitt:
For me, it is the absolute freedom I have to build moves out of the tags,

Eran:
Mm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
because the tags are just vague enough that you can make a case for things to the GM, but they're specific enough that you can tailor them to the person that you are playing and make a person out of them and you can just develop the character just beautifully. And my GM points out that I am the person who always will do the change the game move to start with because that allows me to do so much more and to leverage so many more tags. And I'm basically the only person at the table who's doing it. I'm like, why aren't you guys doing this? This is the way to make

Eran:
So

Deborah L. Davitt:
it better.

Eran:
there's actually a reason why probably the only one, you, it's rare for people to use change the game. I know we're getting into terminology, but generally speaking, I'll explain. In City of Mist, you use tags, it's Powered by the Apocalypse. I would say vaguely because it moved, maybe

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
not vaguely, but it moves a step away from, maybe two steps away from power by the apocalypse games, but the core is still there. You roll two dice, two d6s, six or less is a miss. which doesn't mean that you didn't succeed, but it does mean that the MC, which is Master of Ceremonies, can activate a hard move, which is things get bad. There's seven


Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes,indeed.

Eran:
to nine, which means you sort of succeeded, but also something is bad. And there's 10 and plus, which means everything's great. And to the role of these two dice, you add the tags. You have many tags. You have four themes that explain who your character is. Each of them has several power tags. There are also weakness tags. There are also story tags. You can add everything that looks like it would be directly relevant to what is going on. And change the game is the move that allows you to create new tags. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
according to the situation, so the reason you are using it like that is there are eight moves. Change the game is only one of them. And so it seems to many new players like it's just another thing they can do. When in truth, it's a core thing that... should be done a lot. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes it should.

Eran:
In, for example, Otherscape, there are only four moves, and one of them is called modify, and it's basically change the game. And there are only four moves in otherscape, which is based on the city of mystery loaded engine, which makes everything sharper and more precise. And generally speaking, there's resist, which is I don't want this to happen to me, which is, you know, it's the saving throw. It's not a move that you do. It's a move that happens to you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
There's check, which is everything. Anything that you want to do and just want to do it is a check. Struggle, which is I can't do this with a check. Like for example, if you want to enter a high security building, maybe overcoming the door at the front, it's, I don't know, bolted or something, maybe it's just a single check. But maybe there's a big security system going on, actually. that also tracks you and also tries to fight you and there's an AI or whatever, that's a struggle. And we're getting

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
into trying to maximize its limit, which is, or it's called Spectrum in City of Mist, but okay, that's a different thing. And the final thing is Modify, the final move. Modify lets you to create new stuff and it is always recommended to use Modify. Use Modify and then you can check and struggle like crazy because you've created awesome, amazing and story tags that you can now use for your fun. So it's the right thing to do from the perspective of a minmaxer. And it's the fun thing to do

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

Eran:
for the perspective of person who just like to create awesome new stuff in the story. So yes, I'm sorry. I don't remember what was the question. It's such, I like City of Mist exactly for the reason you said. I also wanted to ask you. One of the things about City of Mist is that themes change. You lose themes and then you create new themes and that shows how your character evolves, which is something that is very rare in role-playing games. In most role-playing games, your character sheet shows your current situation and it stays static. Maybe, I know, it goes up when you level up or the like. But City of Mist is based on the concept that your character changes according to narrative decisions that you make because...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Exactly.

Eran:
because you go against or you go with the identity or mystery of the theme and therefore it will change. Is the thing that happens to you? And as a writer, is the thing that you enjoy about having

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
character that evolves and can go through, for example, an arc under your control.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yes, I love that. At the moment, my loose plan is that I'm going to be gaining and losing my mythos theme that is currently Phantom Queen, and I'm going to be leveling up through the meta currency that way. That is the loose plan. However, as the narrative takes place, I might very well stop holding back, which is another move that you can

Eran:
Man.

Deborah L. Davitt:
make in City of Mist. and I might lose my fourth theme, which is my only logos one left, and I might go

Eran:
Oh,

Deborah L. Davitt:
full avatar.

Eran:
ready. Okay, okay,

Deborah L. Davitt:
And

Eran:
okay.

Deborah L. Davitt:
the various people who I'm playing with are very invested in trying to stop that from happening. They're telling me, no, don't investigate that theme. You need to work on your logos. You go ahead and do that in downtime. We'll do the investigation. They are so scared of what's gonna happen when this death goddess goes completely nuclear on them. And yet, all I do is help you. All I do is help you.

Eran:
Interesting. Okay, well, I, let's, I, you will, will you talk about it on a future episode? I don't know how to track what's going on in your game. I'm curious to see what's, you know,

Deborah L. Davitt:
I will, absolutely

Deborah L. Davitt:
And if you like, I can let you know when she goes nuclear.

Eran:
It's a curious thing. There are several actual plays of City of Mist.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
Generally speaking, going Avatar is rare. Going Slipper is even rarer, although I think

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
that if I would play a character, I definitely will find my way towards Slipperhood. That's the sort of style I am. I think it would interest me to play a game about disempowerment and...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mmm.

Eran:
dropping down. It's sort of like with probably Menagerie. I want to see the characters suffering until they forget who they are and what is important and only drown in their walk or something like that.

Deborah L. Davitt:
interesting.

Eran:
And maybe then, you know, woke up. I mean, that's not the end. Like, Avatar or Slipper,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Exactly!

Eran:
that's not the end. It's the end of an arc, maybe, but it's not the end of

Deborah L. Davitt:
Exactly.

Eran:
the character. And I would like to see, I don't know, I would like to see what happens next. So that's probably what I'm going to do.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That is what keeps me playing, is what happens next. We've got a really fantastic GM, his name is Gary Moss, I'll give him a shout out here. And

Eran:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
he is one of the best I've ever seen at developing long-term stories and including twists that take us all off guard. And

Eran:
Wonderful.

Deborah L. Davitt:
there have been people who have told me that I'm the best GM that they've ever seen. And I say that he is the best GM that I've ever seen. So I love playing with him.

Eran:
I think that Brennan Lee Mulligan is the best GM that I've ever seen, but I don't know.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Well, this is before the days of YouTube having all the professional GMs and getting to watch them. They are an education in themselves.

Eran:
Yes, agreed. Anyway, regarding your original question, I'm working on Metro Otherscape, which is the next game, as we said, after

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
City of Mist. And it's basically Shadowrun. I mean, it's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Nice.

Eran:
the future. It's a crappy future. It's a cyberpunk, crappy future,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ha ha ha!

Eran:
where there's no meaning and there's the noise. It's sort of like the mist, the noise, of everything distracting you and taking you and your inability to... keep up with the

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
constant changes and so many things and so much happening and mythoid, but it

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
really goes so much deeper into being a cyberpunk game. There's much less investigation. City of Myth is noir and you're investigators and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Eran:
there's no, in otherscape, you are meant to go around possibly shooting at stuff all the time or being shot at all the time or... jump into a moving vehicle, all sorts of action stuff, which is

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
one of the reasons it's a lot shorter in manner of,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
you know, again, tightening up everything. So there's more room for terribleness around it, I would say. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
I'm currently, we're past the midpoint of editing, which I know nothing about what it says about the production. It's a big company and I only do editing. I only know what is

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
in my... little

Deborah L. Davitt:
I understand.

Eran:
window. But I think the first chapter is out to the backers. I hope so. It should be. And it's good. I like this game. It looks like a good game. I would recommend this game.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I took a look at it and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. So that is something that we might play with later on when we were supposed to at some point or another get back to our Blades in the Dark game because

Eran:
Ooh.

Deborah L. Davitt:
we were left in a cliffhanger and it would be really nice to get back to that as well. So

Eran:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
we'll see. There's too many games to play and not enough time to play them all, unfortunately.

Eran:
There's a wonderful new playtest from, I believe it's from Evil Hat, of a new game based on Blades in the Dark, which is a fabulous system, but I do think that in many ways, Blades is sort of like a apocalypse world. It's the first of its kind, and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
future iterations are getting better at doing Blades than Blades was, which I have very few bad things to say about Blades. I think it's brilliant. game and brilliant design all over. But I do think it could be better. And for example, there's a game coming out soon. The play test is available for free, I believe, which is about War of the Worlds. It's exactly War of the Worlds. It's not even sort of like, it plays

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha

Eran:
over 15 days always, the same 15 days ever since the invasion begins and until it ends. And...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
Every hour matters. It count, you count

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Eran:
the hours. You can have a base, or maybe you are running across the English countryside trying to get back home, or maybe all sorts of things. There's a variety of things that can happen in the game, but it's basically about this. It's called as the sun forever sets. And I would

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh,that's an evocative title.

Eran:
recommend people checking it out. Yeah, yeah, it was created by this woman. that I think she did it as just her own thing. And I think it's available on her itch. Just search for as the sun, as the sun forever sets. And now the play test is also available and becoming better and soon goes to Kickstarter. And I'm definitely investing in it. My wife is a professor for English literature specializing in London and fantasy. and urban

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Eran:
fantasy in London. So I would, and she like, knows so much about HG Wells, and she's so good with early 20th century science fiction in London. So I would love her to run this for me. I would love it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Sounds like fun.

Eran:
Yes, amazing. I will recommend anyone to read this. It's an interesting design at the very least. again

Deborah L. Davitt:
The fun sun forever sets, and I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up because I've taken an hour of your time at this point. So thank you so much for having been on the podcast. It's been an absolute delight speaking with you. Next week on Shining Moon, we'll switch topics to the topic of space opera featuring Michael Johnson, M.V. Melcer, Dave Walsh, and John Wilker. See you then.