Exploring the Concept of Games Where Players Cannot Accomplish Anything

Transcript

This week on the Dice Exploder podcast, Sam talks with Ema Acosta about Change The World, a move from The Watch by Ash Kreider.

Some topics discussed include:

* The Watch: it’s depressing!

* The Watch and its gender dynamics

* A lot of people will never see this bit of design and that’s okay

* Balancing misery with hope and beauty

* “Just tell the players to do the thing”

* Inducing emotions from technical language

* “Rail shooter RPGs”

* Crying

Games mentioned:

* The Watch

* Night Witches

* Wanderhome

* Stewpot (currently unavailable)

* Our Traveling Home

* Blades in the Dark

* World Ending Game

You can find Ema’s games at ema-acosta.itch.io

You can find Sam @sdunnewold on Twitter, dice.camp, and itch.io

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