[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00:01.60 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place. I'm your host, Jala Prendes (she/her), and today I am joined again by my brother from another mother across the pond, George from Three Sails Studios. Yay! 00:00:15.30 Jala Hi George! 00:00:15.53 George - Three Sails Hey, hey, thank you so much for being back. 00:00:16.58 Jala I don't know if I ever told you that I adopted you, but if not, congratulations, you are the proud owner of a sibling across the pond now. 00:00:27.40 George - Three Sails Thank you very much. I'm, you know, I'm honored, I'm touched. I'm appreciated. I'm here for the fun. 00:00:33.09 Jala So, for people who maybe didn't catch the first episode that you were on, I had you on to talk about your game Mappa Mundi and you are one of three members of Three Sails Studios, which is a TTRPG development and publishing studio. 00:00:48.52 George - Three Sails Yeah. 00:00:55.93 Jala Mappa was your flagship game. It was very successfully kickstarted. Our episode happened before that Kickstarter happened. For folks who have not heard that, that episode will be linked in the show notes. 00:01:08.50 Jala And you can actually go and buy it. You've got a link for that. 00:01:11.57 George - Three Sails Yeah, like you can actually go and buy it now. 00:01:12.22 Jala That'll be in the show notes. Right. 00:01:13.73 George - Three Sails Yeah, this is this is the first kind of proper recording I'm doing since it's been like fully available for sale. So it's very exciting. 00:01:21.23 Jala Yeah, I know. And I just got my copy in here recently and I was really excited. It looks fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. 00:01:27.91 George - Three Sails Doesn't it just? 00:01:29.40 Jala It's a great, great presentation. Beautiful box set. The one that I've got anyway with the book and all the cards and everything inside. 00:01:38.39 George - Three Sails Mm-hmm. 00:01:38.58 Jala Very, very cool. So yeah, you've kickstarted that and delivered it on a very tight turnaround. You got that out there. 00:01:46.07 George - Three Sails Less than four months. 00:01:46.60 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:01:47.19 George - Three Sails Yeah, less than four months from the day the Kickstarter finished to the day that like the end of the end of so fulfillment is done now. Like everyone has either got their copies or the copies are in the post. 00:01:58.51 George - Three Sails There's still a couple of people who were like outstanding on the Backerkit on the pledge manager side of things, but like we'll process those as they come through. But, you know, we've we fulfilled, you know, like. 1300 physical copies we you know from the day the Kickstarter finished we submitted the print files the next day so you know Kickstarter finished on march 4th print files went into the printers on march 5th we printed it freighted it to the UK and to the US and shipped it all out in less than four months and it's you know which is for people who aren't familiar with Kickstarter, that's like, it's almost unheard of. Like, it's very nearly unprecedented. 00:02:38.65 George - Three Sails And, you know, I kind of forget really how quickly we've done it sometimes because this was just, you know, it's our plan right from the start that we wanted things out before the end of June. And, ah some, you know, occasionally someone will be like, oh my God, that went by really quick. Thanks so much for getting it to me so quickly. And then, you know, a lot of Kickstarters aren't fulfilling for a year, 18 months, sometimes even two years after they finish. So four months is like, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's intense. 00:03:04.57 Jala As some people who have kickstarted before know, sometimes you get that solo developer who's still working on it 10 years later after you've kickstarted it. 00:03:11.53 George - Three Sails Yeah. 00:03:12.97 Jala So, that is all a thing, but you had planned it very well as we talked about it in the first episode about how you already had it done. 00:03:21.44 Jala You had that pretty much everything squared, before it even launched. So, and then you wrapped up everything else during that Kickstarter period so that you could turn around and publish it immediately. 00:03:35.66 Jala Which is smart. Now, you have also announced your next game, which is Gallows Corner, a peasant revolt game where you and your fellow players are lower-class people, and you are fighting to free your land from tyranny and ah the upper-class aristocracy and... and kings and such. 00:03:58.98 Jala So very appropriate material for release on the 4th of July, which is why I was so glad that you were available to go ahead and record this episode so I could release it, because we have an individual who is trying to be a king here. And so yeah, appropriate material, appropriate subject matter, wanted it out there ASAP. 00:04:20.82 George - Three Sails Yeah, I feel like revolution, peasants to eat peasants and working class revolutions are always relevant material, but July 4th and the US context at the moment does feel particularly appropriate. 00:04:31.74 Jala Right. Right. So in the last several months since the last time I talked to you, how have you been and Jeremy and Joel? Yeah. 00:04:41.30 George - Three Sails Yeah, we've all been really good. I mean, it's been it's been a really, really intense six months. like I'm looking back on the first six months of the year now, and... Obviously, in January, we were we were preparing for the Kickstarter. We were getting the book finished. In February, we ran the Kickstarter. In March, we started the printing. 00:04:59.50 George - Three Sails ah the end of March, I moved house, um yeah which was a lot. And then... You know, all of April, I was getting the house sorted out while we were, you know, while we were carrying on with getting Mapper sorted. And then in May, we started Fulfillment and we had UK Games Expo, which was very exciting. And then now we're in June and Fulfillment's finished. 00:05:20.61 George - Three Sails And obviously in the middle of that, because I like, i evidently I'm a glutton for punishment. We also announced Gallows Corner, and I've we've all been working really hard on that as well, getting that ready for um for release in February next year on Kickstarter. So, um yeah, it's been it's been a lot. like It's really been a lot. 00:05:41.41 Jala Right. 00:05:41.57 George - Three Sails And in addition to that, we have also we've also signed our first game as a publisher. So we're working now with a designer who's not part of, it's not an internal project, it's an external project. We've signed their project. We're going to be, we're I'm currently in the process of kind of project managing that and Jeremy's working on the development for that. um And we are commissioning artwork and I'm doing layout for it. And we're getting ready to publicly announce that later on this year. So next year is two Kickstarters rather than one. 00:06:15.71 George - Three Sails It's all really exciting, but it's all a lot of work. And obviously we're also continuing to support Mappa because, you know, it's only been out. 00:06:23.36 George - Three Sails It's only been out for like, it's only been people's hands for like a month. So we've got this to carry on pushing and carry on working with. 00:06:30.77 Jala Right, right. So very, very busy. Very, very busy. 00:06:33.60 George - Three Sails Very busy, yeah. Very, very busy. 00:06:36.09 George - Three Sails But busy, as my old Nan says, the only thing worse than being busy is the opposite, so... 00:06:40.72 Jala Yeah, absolutely. So what I missed saying earlier was congratulations on the awesome job on Mappa and the Kickstarter in general and you know how so successful the fulfillment and everything has been, which I'm sure well we'll talk more about that when we get to Mappa specifically, but like I'm sure with all the tariff stuff in the US and like the situation generally in the world, it's been kind of wild um trying to get everything done. 00:06:46.26 George - Three Sails Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's been... I mean, we were we were very, very lucky insofar as we didn't print in China. um we printed We printed our ah books in Turkey with a company called Megaprint, who have been absolutely amazing. 00:07:17.64 Jala Right. 00:07:25.15 George - Three Sails And so happy were they with the final product that they actually came to UK Games Expo at the last minute and were showing Mapper off all around the convention which was really nice. like They were using our product as their like flagship. Like this is look at Look at what we can do. like This is the example of what we but how we work best. 00:07:42.12 Jala Right. 00:07:44.77 George - Three Sails But printing in Turkey was it meant that we only got 10%. ten percent ta Well, we would have only got 10% tariffs, but we managed to get into the country during this 90-day pause. 00:07:57.12 George - Three Sails But yeah, so it's we obviously the tariff situation is absolutely awful. And I've got good close friends and colleagues of mine who were on the verge of kind of shutting down. 00:08:10.75 George - Three Sails And there are plenty of companies that have already gone to the wall just because of the uncertainty of it. 00:08:10.89 Jala Right. 00:08:18.63 George - Three Sails So it's obviously, not only is it heartbreaking for so many people, but it's also completely ridiculous, as we all know, like, there's no logic behind it. It's purely posturing and saber rattling. But we managed to avoid the worst of it. You know, it's because we were printing in Turkey. We were only at 10%, even if we like, and even if it came, because it's all about country of origin rather than where the company is based. But even if it would have been where the company is based, the UK only had 10% tariffs as well. So we yeah we managed to avoid the worst of it. But lots of our friends here in the UK, there's a big divide when it comes to printing products. That makes it sound like it's a contentious issue. It's just, it isn't. It's just where people choose to print. But most people, where they're printing RPGs, are choosing to print either in China or in in the EU. Normally Lithuania or Estonia or Sweden. 00:09:12.73 George - Three Sails So it's like Northern Europe particularly, is and Germany as well, is very, very good for printing. And we explored those options and both EU and China and ended up settling with Turkey and Megaprint because they were the one company we found outside of China that could do all three components, so the book, the cards, and the box for Mappa Mundi. 00:09:32.02 Jala Right. 00:09:32.69 George - Three Sails They were the only ones we found that could do it all in one place on one site. 00:09:36.35 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:09:36.51 George - Three Sails And that was really important to us because we didn't want to be moving. you know you didn't want the book in one place, the box in another, and the cards in another, then having to go somewhere else to be assembled. That seemed inefficient considering how quickly we wanted to do things. And so we went with Turkey and Megaprint, and they've ended up being... I mean, you you know, you've had your hands on the product. It's just one of the most beautiful TTRPG products that I think I've ever come across. And loads of our backers, loads of our community, everyone who comments on is like, oh my God, I've never seen something this nice. So, yeah, it's been a lot. 00:10:15.00 George - Three Sails And the tariff situation has been really difficult for most people. But for us, thankfully, it wasn't it wasn't too much of an issue. But it was just trying to help out your friends and help out your colleagues where you can, you know, stand in solidarity with the rest of your community as much as you can. 00:10:28.46 Jala Right. So I do want to say about the box for Mappa Mundi, like the whole the whole shebang is that ah it reminds me in some ways of something like the LUNAR video game back in the day when it was the remakes were released on the PlayStation by Working Designs. And I say that because Working designs did not have to, but they added a bunch of stuff as extra goodies that you got with the thing. And it was just like boxed and um presented in this very loving way for this game that they made. And, you know, Mappa is, you know, like the presentation of it, the detail, the attention to detail to everything, like the texture on the cards, the back of the cards having a different texture from the front and all this other stuff. And just all of that, just the feel of it, the experience of opening the box, there's the map on the inside of the box lid and all of that stuff is just fantastic. 00:11:21.49 George - Three Sails Mm-hmm. 00:11:24.01 Jala And it has that kind of love and care. that I relate to that one LUNAR release that I talk about. Like, you know, the remake for LUNAR, by the way, the company who did that is selling a separate thing that doesn't have the game in it that has extra crap, but like it wasn't boxed together with the game. It wasn't presented like that as part of everyone's experience of the game. And that's, that's lame. 00:11:46.22 George - Three Sails And that was really that that idea that everyone gets to experience it was really important for us for Mapper as well because like that that is the product. We don't sell the book separately. It's just you get the book, the cards, and the box all together. And I think back to nearly this time last year. So when we were at UK Games Expo 2024, which was kind of the end of May, the last weekend in May of 2024, which is when we were showing Mapper off for the first time, I was speaking. I got speaking to the RPG buyer for one of the big tabletop games distributors in the US. And I was introducing him to Mapper and talking about it. And he's like, so what's the product going to look like? And I was like, well, it's going to be a book. 00:12:27.96 George - Three Sails And then it's going to be like a tuck box for the cards. And they're going to be separate, but bought together. He's like, you can't do that. They need to be packaged together because otherwise someone in a retail store, the boxes are going to get separated and people aren't going to know, or someone's not going to know that they get one with the other. It's going to cause a whole lot of confusion. And I came back from Expo in ah in a blind panic, being like, oh my God, how am I going to get this sorted out? um But that conversation meant that Mappa is what it is now. 00:12:55.54 George - Three Sails And I'm so glad because the experience that people talk about, one of our Discord members was said they were crying when they opened it. They were so happy with the physical product that they genuinely got a bit overcome by emotion and were and were kind of crying with joy at how, uh, how pleasurable it was to, to experience. And that like, That's such a beautiful thing to hear because people, you know, we already know that people liked the game and loved the game because they've put so much, they've put money behind it. They've put, you know, we've seen people play it. We've heard all the feedback and stuff like that. But the physical product is that's the new thing that people are experiencing. And it's, it's, it's a real joy for all of us to, you to see and hear people getting so much joy out of this thing that we've made and put together. And I always swore, I swore to Jeremy and Joel. i was like, never I'm never making a game with a box ever again. Not after Mappa Monday. It was too much, too much. And then the feedback on the box, everyone was like, my God, the box, it's amazing. It's amazing. And so now we're doing a box with Gallows Corner as well. But I swore I wouldn't. And then everyone loved it so much that now i' now we're doing it. 00:14:06.91 Jala Right right, well that's kind of the way I mean like now you set a precedent for yourself unfortunately 00:14:13.01 George - Three Sails Yeah, now everything has to be as beautiful as Mappa Mundi, if not more beautiful. And we've got some we've got some very special things planned for Gallows Corner. Like it's going to be a cloth bound, a black cloth bound book with silver embossed foil on the cover. 00:14:26.68 Jala ooo 00:14:27.62 George - Three Sails And then there's going to be a dust jacket with the artwork around it. And then that will go into a box. box and then at the bottom of the box where the Mappa Mundi cards would be there's going to be four a5 size zines which contain adventures because that was something that people were asking for Mappa Mundi they're like can we buy the adventure physical versions of the adventures and we just hadn't planned that because it was our first project and we wanted to keep things as tight as we could he says with a box and 70 cards to print as well as if that's tight 00:14:55.41 George - Three Sails But yeah, so with Gallows Corner, we're going to follow the same thing, but we're also going to make it possible that you can just buy the book on its own. So you'll be able to buy just the book if you want, but you'll also be able to buy the kind of boxed edition with all the zines in as well. 00:15:09.28 Jala Well, that's cool. 00:15:10.11 George - Three Sails But it's going to be real beautiful. 00:15:12.44 Jala Yeah, that's cool because like my first exposure to TTRPGs many, many years ago when I was 10 was they had a Dungeons and Dragons box set that had the Rules Cyclopedia. 00:15:24.67 George - Three Sails The red box, right? The red box. Was it the red box edition? 00:15:27.40 Jala This is the original D&D. This is not AD&D. This is the old ass edition. 00:15:30.95 George - Three Sails Okay, right. 00:15:32.77 Jala And it had a physical map. It had little character standees. It had an adventure in there, but it also had the rules, but like everything was all together in that little box. So you could just play the whole thing and it was all together. 00:15:40.88 George - Three Sails Mm-hmm. 00:15:43.58 Jala So that was my first experience of D and d was from this box that had all this stuff. And I still have my old D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 7,000 years ago. Like it must've been the early, early nineties at that point. Yeah. Cause like, In 90, I was eight. So, you know, I'm old as hell. 00:16:03.38 George - Three Sails You've only got eight years on me. And I feel 10, 15 years older than I am. 00:16:10.55 Jala So, well, that's only because you put yourself on such a tight schedule with this and, you know, starting up a company, you know, then. 00:16:18.23 George - Three Sails It's a lot. I don't know why anyone would do it, but. 00:16:18.88 Jala You're just starting up a company and moving house at the same time while you're launching your project. I mean, you know, decisions were made. 00:16:26.98 George - Three Sails We were supposed to be moving house it felt like the date fell through we were supposed to be moving either two days before the Kickstarter started or two days after it had started like we weren't and then it fell through at the last minute and we ended moving kind of the next month but like that was that would have been that would have been but too much I think even for me 00:16:46.14 Jala Right. Right. So insofar as Mappa and now Gallows Corner and all of that, I did want to ask, like, so now that you've gotten the Kickstarter out of the way for Mappa, that's all fulfilled and everything. And now you're starting with promoting and working on your next project. How do you feel that working on Mappa has set you up for success for Gallows Corner? I would assume because you've got the feedback, you've got the people who are already interested in your company. You've also got the experience of running the Kickstarter and all of that behind you as well. But just kind of overall, like how do how do you feel that helped? 00:17:28.09 George - Three Sails So I feel much more confident in my ability to pull this off, right? 00:17:34.26 Jala Right. 00:17:34.30 George - Three Sails That's the thing. Last year, was it was everything was speculative. I was trying things. you know i was doing things as I was trying them. So I was kind of learning what I was doing as I was going. So like advertising, for example, 00:17:47.15 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:17:47.51 George - Three Sails So appearing at conventions, advertising, doing podcasts. And, you know, I've done all of these different things before. I hadn't done advertising before, but I'd done all these things before in different capacities. Like, i you know, I used to be a YouTube content creator. So like, I know this, this comes very naturally to me. It always has done as I know it does for you as well. But like advertising was a brand new thing and we did all of our own advertising, like all of our pre-campaign advertising. I did all of that myself. And then when we joined the live campaign advertising, we used back a kit for, because they put money up front for you. And that, you know, like that's really helpful because we had no more money. Yeah. 00:18:25.89 Jala Right. 00:18:27.51 George - Three Sails Running the Kickstarter, it was the first time, you know, we had, we'd had the pre-launch page for Mappa Mundi up from kind of September of last year. But like suddenly, as soon as you click live, you suddenly see a whole part of the site you've never seen before. And getting used to that as money's coming in was quite difficult. But, you know, we've built, we spent last year building up towards Mappa Mundi and now we've, we've got this amazing community. And so I'm feeling much more confident about it this time round, but I'm still getting the fear. I'm so with Gallows Corner, I'm starting to get the fear. and it will go you know it will go in peaks and troughs until I click until I click live on February the 3rd next year. 00:19:05.63 Jala Right. 00:19:13.08 George - Three Sails And the closer we get to that, the closer together those peaks and troughs are going to be. um But you know, we're getting the pre-release guide. So what, one of the things we did for Mappa Mundi was releasing the pre-release guide. And I think it was, it was the first time, obviously it was the first time we'd done it because it was our first project. But a lot of people were kind of unsure about the approach because you will remember that we released the full rules for the game. Like you wouldn't have needed to go out and buy Mappa Mundi if you didn't want to. 00:19:38.28 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:19:40.99 George - Three Sails You could just use the pre-release guide. And we had all four character types in there and we had half of their skills in there, one of the 10 regions. You know, and I'm pretty sure that I said last time we spoke on mic that I was, you know, if you're generous with people, they tend to be generous back. Whether that's with their time, their money, or their attention, and ideally it's all three. but um So that worked really well for us, and we're doing the same thing again now for Gallows Corner. I was hoping that we'd have the Gallows Corner pre-release guide out already, but The post-Kickstarter process was incredibly intense, obviously trying to get everything out in three or four months. So I didn't have quite as much time to work on it as I would have liked. And Joel was busy finishing off joel was busy finishing off the artwork for Chronicles of the Wilds, which is our pre-written adventures PDF. Jeremy was busy finishing writing and editing that. So we didn't get down to it as quickly as I would have hoped, but we will have it out in July, i but by the end of July. and then we start advertising again in August and September, probably into October as well. And so essentially what we're doing is we're running the same playbook out again. We're going to try, you know, Mappa Mundi currently it exists as a data point in in the journey of our company. And I need to see if that was a fluke or whether it's repeatable or whether it's improvable. 00:21:07.12 George - Three Sails And I do that by doing the same thing again. so last year we advertised in in August and September. This year I will spend more money on that advertising because I know that I can do it. We are going to the same conventions, plus one or two more, we're showing off stuff there. So, to cut along a long, long, long ramble short, I'm feeling confident about it, but I will feel more confident once that advertising starts, and if the advertising is going well, then I will feel even better about it. 00:21:41.08 George - Three Sails The thing is, the real thing that I'm worried about is the thing that's given me the fear at the moment is Gallows Corner and Mapper Mundi are, they look very different. They're not actually that different in terms of like, but it's the same designer, it's the same developer, it's the same artist, it's the same process, but... the vibes are different. 00:22:03.10 Jala right 00:22:03.11 George - Three Sails Mappa Mundi obviously is a non-combat exploration and ecology RPG. Gallows Corner is a dark, gritty, peasant's revolt RPG about burning down England and rebuilding something in its place. 00:22:15.49 George - Three Sails On the surface, they seem very, very different. But actually, the mechanics for Gallows Corner are developments of the Mappa Mundi mechanics. I've taken they taken the things I really liked and tweaked them and changed them, developed them and put them into a new context. um And that core central tenant of Mappa Mundi, which is, remember I call it hope-powered, that everyday people can change the world if they just take action. That's exactly what Gallows Corner is. It's just the vibe is different and there's some combat in it. um So my real fear is like, oh, well, are the people who liked Mappa Mundi going to like Gallows Corner? And the answer is, well, some of them will and some of them won't. But I think one of the things one of the things that you do or one of the things that we've tried to do really conscientiously as a company is you want people to be fans of you as a company and your games, not just your games. 00:23:13.89 Jala Correct. 00:23:14.21 George - Three Sails So we're now starting to try and transition from being the Mappa Mundi guys to being Three Sails Studios and that is requiring quite a lot of thought and quite a lot of action. 00:23:20.96 Jala Yes. 00:23:23.46 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:23:25.46 George - Three Sails And I think we've done a pretty good job at ah people being fans of us and the company and what we're doing and not just of our games. And I think we will see a good number of people be like, that's the that's a new Three Sails Studios game. I'm going to go and support it even if the game isn't quite my cup of tea because I might find something I really like in there and I just want to support Three Sales. Yeah. And I balance that against, I think Gallows Corner is probably more appealing to a broader audience. There's fighting in it and people like fighting. There's revolutions and rebellions in it. And if the history of revolutions and rebellions and TTRPGs is anything to go by, people like them and want more of them. I'm in that in between state at the moment where I'm just not sure how it's going to go, but I'm confident. 00:24:22.41 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:24:23.67 George - Three Sails I really believe in the project. All three of us really believe in the project, People who've played it love it. The concept, the idea and the concepts behind it and the new mechanics that we're introducing are, yeah, it's hella fun. It's a really good time. And it's kind of dark. It's dark and gritty, but also hopeful and beautiful all at the same time, which is very Three-Sales Studios. 00:24:48.61 Jala Well, and then, you know, then there's me with my random thought process that I dropped in the Discord the other day where I took it and ran with it in a direction. And I'm like, okay, sorry. I just, I just took the idea of your game and ran off into a silly place. Don't mind me. 00:25:03.03 George - Three Sails But this is it. This is what we now this is what we love, though. like um i mean One of the reasons and we do this is to facilitate people's creativity. That's what TTRPGs are. I think of any of any artistic medium, they are the one that allows for the most creativity and engagement. like A video game is great. Video games are close, but they are still...They're limited. You're limited by the system. Whereas with TTRPGs, you're less limited by that system. The system is intended to allow you to play with it and mess with it and bring your own stuff to it. And as soon as we announced it, people were oh my God, you could do like a Scottish Highland Clearances one, or you could do like a founding of you know the Czech Republic. And there so you can slot it into so many different contexts because it's like an alt-historical game. 00:25:57.63 Jala And you can also take it and go into like, you know, to take the on-brand for Monster Dear Monster. You can take that and put it into actually all the aristocracy and all the, the King and everybody else. They're all like some kind of, of infected horror monster guys. And you need to also purge the plague or whatever at the same time. 00:26:16.72 George - Three Sails I love that. 00:26:17.25 Jala And yeah, add another thing to it, you know, add another layer to it. 00:26:17.80 George - Three Sails Yeah, love that. Absolutely love that. yeah Yeah. 00:26:21.86 Jala So, so yeah, yeah, that's very fun. So, um, So when you when you bring stuff to these games expos and things like that, you are demoing, like when you were demoing last year, for example, for Mappa, it was like a prototype. 00:26:38.57 Jala Did you have just like some basic stuff or did you already have it pretty well developed by that point? You know, like how is it going to look? And then also, how is it going to look when you're doing Gallows Corner when you're starting to do that? 00:26:49.18 George - Three Sails Yeah, okay. So we had with Mappa Mundi, we had the pre-release guide in place by the time we went to yeah UK Games Expo. 00:26:55.98 George - Three Sails And with Gallows Corner, we had what we were calling what we had we had the pre- pre-release. 00:26:57.98 Jala It'll be the same, right? Uh-huh. 00:27:01.18 George - Three Sails So we had almost everything from the pre-release guide, but missing loads of the artwork and not quite edited and laid out in the way that we wanted it. but we had something physical and the core rules were there and could be play tested and demoed. 00:27:12.35 George - Three Sails So demoing for us is really, really important. 00:27:15.59 George - Three Sails So UK Games Expo particularly, it so with conventions, you tend to be at you tend to find they're either buyers conventions or they're players conventions. 00:27:26.82 George - Three Sails So here in the UK, I can give you two examples. So UK Games Expo is a buyers convention. People are there to shop. And they want to demo games and they want they want to get their hands on new stuff, but they are there to buy things. 00:27:33.50 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:27:39.01 George - Three Sails Whereas another convention here in the UK called AirCon is very much a player's convention. You go there to play games and there are exhibitors there, but people aren't really there to buy. They're there to play over a whole weekend. And that's fine. That's absolutely fine. 00:27:54.23 George - Three Sails So at UK Games Expo, most of people's space is dedicated to retail. They're trying to maximize their retail area in the square meters that they have. 00:28:05.20 George - Three Sails We don't do that primarily because up until this year, we didn't have anything to sell. We had nothing to sell. 00:28:10.52 Jala Right. 00:28:11.04 George - Three Sails So everything was all about getting people onto the stand and talking to them about the game. Last year's case, it was Mappa Mundi and running games all weekend. And It went down really well. Like the stand always looks busy because there are always people on our tables playing these games. And, you know, it's there's it's the metaphor, like no one puts money into an empty cup. If your stand doesn't look busy, no one's going stop by. And you can watch this happen in real time. Like one person comes up, there might be a quiet moment for five minutes and no one stops by. And then one or two people stop by and start flicking through a book. And then other people see them and more people come over. And then more and more and more come over and you get busier and busier and busier. 00:28:53.87 George - Three Sails And so by having games running on the tables all weekend, on the like in the stand, it we always look busy and therefore we always look popular. And people like people that look popular. So people come over. um And it's for us, it's good because it's playtesting in a real environment. Like it's us who are running the game. So we know what we're trying to do. 00:29:16.48 George - Three Sails But it's as close to a blind playtest as you can get without just sending the stuff out into the world. 00:29:22.21 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:29:22.49 George - Three Sails So we could we can see how people are responding to the mechanics in real time. We structure the adventures that we run so we're testing mechanics out and seeing how people are picking them up. So it's not quite as rigorous as like formal play testing is, but we do that before we you know we do that beforehand. 00:29:40.75 George - Three Sails But it's really, really good because by the time we get to UK Games Expo, the game is largely already designed. And so we're starting now the process of tweaking and finessing and changing. 00:29:52.06 George - Three Sails And so what we're really looking for is, are people enjoying it? Are they excited when they're playing it? Are they getting into it? Are they talking about it afterwards? That's really what we're looking for. It's like, it's the test. It's the real world test that we're looking for. And thankfully Gallows Corner went down excellently as I hoped it would. It went down really, really well. 00:30:13.87 George - Three Sails And we now start building on it from here. and We've got, you know, nine, what are we now? So it's, we've got six months, seven months, seven months, seven, eight months before we launch on Kickstarter. And it's just now the process of getting it as out there as we possibly can. 00:30:29.25 Jala Well, I mean, having that good of a response when that's like your pre-pre-release is great because that means that once you've got the pre-release available, you can also point people, look, if you like this, here's the pre-release also. 00:30:42.88 Jala You can, you know, sign up right now. Here's the QR or whatever to go sign up on the Kickstarter and all that mess, you know, like that's fantastic stuff. I also find that like just from my time going to video game conventions and stuff, every time that I come across like an indie ah place, because I always I go to our indie stuff when I go to big video game conventions. Like that's what I'm there for is to see what all the small creators are doing. 00:31:10.09 George - Three Sails Yeah. 00:31:11.99 Jala And anytime that any of those small creators have any little thing like a sticker or a magnet or whatever, like even just like a little flyer or something that has really pretty artwork on it. ah but has their information, like I will always take that and keep it. And like, you know, I still have stuff from conventions I went to 10 years ago, you know, a little magnet about this big that's on my fridge of the Hand of Fate guys that gave me the dealer from the Hand of Fate game, a little magnet and that's still in my fridge. And, you know, it reminded me, I was like, Oh, I need to go back and replay that game and talk to people about it again. 00:31:45.64 George - Three Sails So we do something similar. There's two I think the link to video game conventions is actually really important, especially for people like, but if I don't know if there are any aspiring TTRPG designers who are listening to this or people who are already in, but like the reason the pre-release guide is so important to our strategy for building up an audience around a game is exactly why it uses exactly the same logic as why it's so important to have a playable demo for your video game before you launch it. People need to get their hands on it. They need to know they want it. Because you if you don't want to be trying to convince someone the day you kick, go live on Kickstarter. That's too late. 00:32:23.73 Jala Right. 00:32:24.53 George - Three Sails Now, you will get people. Obviously, you're going to get people who see it and just like, no, I really like the idea. I'm just going to back that or I'm going to buy it on Steam or whatever it might be. But the way you build a strong, resilient community is giving them the thing that you're trying to get them to buy. Give it to them. And then we also like with the magnets that you got, but we also have we also do we give things away at the store. So last year with Mappa Mundi, we were giving away tarot sized cards, which obviously at the so they matched. They were similar, exactly the same size as the ones in the final game. And they had a QR code on my common followers here. Come and follow us there. um you know, launching on Kickstarter February 25, stuff like that. And then this year for Gallows Corner, we did bookmarks because who doesn't love a bookmark? That also had a QR code on, had the game's name on it, you know, launching on Kickstarter February 26. 00:33:10.65 Jala Awesome. 00:33:12.75 George - Three Sails And, you know, giving those things away is good because people, again, people like... People like having something tangible, but that is meaningful, that means something. 00:33:20.41 Jala Right. 00:33:20.97 George - Three Sails So like giving out flyers, complete waste of time because a flyer just goes straight into a bag. When you come home, and all the flyers go in the bin. But like a bookmark is usable. The tarot size cards we gave out last year had artwork on. They were phenomenal. Things that people wanted to keep. People came to us this year at UK Games X and was like, I've still got the card that you gave me last year. Like it's framed, it's here, it's there. 00:33:42.77 Jala Right. Right. 00:33:43.62 George - Three Sails So like, it's an important thing to do. It's really good for building that connection with people. And it's just nice. It's nice to give people things. 00:33:50.82 Jala Right, well, and then too, they can, you know, with the bookmark, they can you can be like, well, and then you when you get the game, you can use this as your bookmark in the game. yeah 00:33:58.00 George - Three Sails Exactly. ah Exactly. Mm-hmm. 00:34:00.65 Jala So that's very awesome. Very cool. So moving on to talking a little bit about like production, I'm curious about like, what kind of development tools do you use when you're working on this? Like programs, apps, whatever, you writing stuff down on paper using typical, like, what are you doing? 00:34:19.06 George - Three Sails So people at home won't be able to see this, but I'm currently showing Jala my A4 notebook. 00:34:23.44 Jala Your little notebook? Yeah, I got one of those for my projects. 00:34:24.62 George - Three Sails This is business ideation and concept notebook. 00:34:28.37 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:34:29.34 George - Three Sails So when I'm coming up with an idea, when I first up with an idea for a game, it goes into there. um And it exists in there until it's re until it's at a point where I'm like, no, this one is worth more development. And then it goes on to Google Drive. So we use we use Google Drive for all of our stuff because it allows us to collaborate. So all of our writing is done in Google Drive where you keep track of projects using Google Sheets. All of the business stuff's done in Google Sheets, like the financials and stuff. It's a good place for us to store artwork. It also makes it really handy for us to be able to share artwork assets with like content creators and reviewers and you know stuff like that. so Google Drive works really well for us. In terms of like other tools that we use, Joel uses Photoshop because it's what he's he yeah know he's been using it for years. 00:35:17.37 Jala He's been using it. Mm-hmm. 00:35:18.65 George - Three Sails He's been using it for 15 years. I've been trying to get him to switch. So I use the Affinity suite for, so when I'm doing layout and when I'm doing graphic design stuff, I use Affinity publisher for layout. I use Affinity designer for when I'm doing graphic design for adverts and you know Kickstarter pages and stuff like that. um and the benefit of affinity one is they've not forced AI on you, which is great. You don't like it's available, but you could just turn it all off, like immediately turn it all off and they're not charging you more just to turn it off. Unlike most other companies um and you pay for it once and that's it. You never have to pay for it again. 00:35:56.00 Jala That's beautiful because that's the reason I don't use Photoshop anymore because I had a copy of Photoshop and yeah, like they're just they're outrageous. 00:35:57.19 George - Three Sails Yeah. Yeah. 00:36:05.77 George - Three Sails Yeah, so we pay for Joel's Photoshop subscription now because it's a business expense and he needs it to do his job. 00:36:14.60 Jala Right. 00:36:15.80 George - Three Sails I've routinely or regularly tried to get him to switch over to Affinity Photo, but he's like, I've been using this for 15 years. It's burned in, everything's burned into his brain. So he'd have to relearn to do it all over again, no matter how similar it might be. 00:36:27.02 Jala And that'll slow down his production. I understand that entirely as somebody who had Photoshop and had to switch over. 00:36:34.08 George - Three Sails Exactly. 00:36:38.20 Jala I'm on Paintshop now because I have a like you buy it once you have it. So I have Paintshop and I use that. You know, like I understand that because like it is a process learning any new thing. 00:36:50.91 George - Three Sails I completely understand it. Like I know what it's like to switch from one thing to another. And ah that's because when you think all of the same tools are there, but they're mapped in different locations or they're stored in different places. And that's going to be crazy frustrating because you're trying to do, you're always going to be trying to use those same shortcuts. And I don't want to slow him down. 00:37:08.03 Jala Right. 00:37:08.88 George - Three Sails You know, we pay for his Photoshop subscription now. 00:37:12.09 Jala Right, right. Gotcha. So um you've already mentioned the Discord and the community a little bit, but I want to go ahead and give you a spot to actually chat and like gush about the community a little more and like what kinds of events or projects you have running or have run for folks in the server slash, you know for the community at large, that kind of thing. 00:37:32.73 George - Three Sails I mean, our community, our Discord community are amazing. Like, you know, you see this firsthand because you're part of that community and they are just, they're just amazing. They're so helpful. They're so excited. They're so supportive. 00:37:47.12 George - Three Sails It's really gathered steam since the Kickstarter and since people have started getting their stuff. It's as expected, it started kind of gathering steam and it's more active than it's ever been. So I have nothing but love for our community and I'm a big proponent of, of the fact that you, you get the community that you build. So we are very positive. We are very loving and welcoming and protective of our people. And as a consequence, the P everyone in there is exactly the same. We've not had one instance where we've had to even warn someone about anything. Everyone has just been like the ethos and the vibes in there are absolutely brilliant. And that's because we want, we wanted that community. So we actively set about building it. So something that started recently, we have two different Mappa Mundi narrators who are running play-by-post games of Mappa Mundi now, which is great. They're both kicked off in earnest. That's really, really good. So people who might not have a chance to play otherwise are able to sit and play um in in a different kind of environment. So one of our community members has physical disabilities that mean that he is um he finds it really difficult to do in-person games and live like Discord games like video call and stuff like that because it's exhausting um and so the play by post we made it a priority to make sure he was included in one of the play by post groups because this allows him to do things in his own time to engage with the game as he as you know on his own pace and so that's really good we're really happy that that's happening 00:39:31.75 George - Three Sails And yeah, just people, you shit we that we've got a little homebrew channel set up on the Discord now so people can share the things that they're creating for Mappa Mundi. Yeah, it's just great. It's just really, really nice. It's like a lovely place to be. And I'm in it all the time. like yeah it It's always open on my on my PC. It's always on my phone. It's just nice. It's nice spending time with people who've chosen to be there and who are excited about the things that we're creating. So yeah, it's lovely. 00:40:00.90 Jala Right, right. So that leads into another question of, so how do you balance working on the game projects and fulfillment and this, that, and the other with the interaction with the community that you've built up? Because that's always a trick. 00:41:01.89 George - Three Sails Yeah, I don't balance it. I just do both full force all the time. So I welcome, I physically, well, physically, I welcome, in like individually welcome every single person who joins the Discord channel. um Every person that joins gets a handwritten welcome message from me in addition to the general Discord welcome. And at one point, Jeremy was like, you're going to have to stop this at some point. You're not goingnna be able to maintain it. And I was like, no, it's important to me that everyone... even if they never respond to it, that everyone gets a personal welcome because it makes people, well, it would make me feel better. There's plenty of Discord servers that I've joined, um where you get an automated welcome message and a couple of people will put like ah a reaction on it or whatever. And then that's it. You're just left to explore these sometimes huge servers. 00:41:59.49 Jala Right. 00:42:00.15 George - Three Sails Um, And, you know, that, I think that's quite intimidating. Like it's, it's, it's difficult. And like, especially for me with ADHD, like I find Discord, Discord is like super addictive, but I can only manage a couple. 00:42:15.60 George - Three Sails I can only manage active membership in like three servers, including our own, because there's just so much going on. Unless you're on it all the time, you lose the thread of a conversation. And so the least I can do is, is individually welcome people as the, you know, as the studio lead and as the gate the creator of Mappa Mundi or whatever. The least I can do is personally welcome someone and be there to respond to their questions. But one of the things that when I talk about the server gathering steam is one of the nice things is is that community members now feel empowered enough to answer questions on our behalf. Like we don't have to be there to answer every question anymore. 00:42:53.33 Jala Right. 00:42:53.37 George - Three Sails Because people know what's going on, and that's really nice. um like that's The community is beginning to become self-sustaining, which is a really important step for it, rather than just us having to drive it all the time. 00:43:05.24 Jala Right, right. And I've seen that kind of transformation. Like I pop in and out because as you say, there's 7,000 servers out there and I'm part of a lot of them. And, you know, like I can't actively be in every server at every time, but like I do pop in and out, off and on. And, you know, I've seen the changes over time as the community has kind of been more and more cohesive because people start to become acquainted with one another and with you guys. So then you've got some core members that are always active in there that, that know the stuff and are happy and comfortable to, you know, step up and say something, you know, as needed to respond to new people. 00:43:45.50 George - Three Sails Yeah. And that's great. that's I love that. Again, it's work to get to that level. You have to make people feel comfortable and empowered. And when they do, they then start to try and make other people feel that way. And that's you know that again, that's what we're all about. 00:44:00.20 Jala Right, right. So how do you think the growth and this like reach, you know, this expanding reach that you've had has affected you, it yourself personally? 00:44:12.59 George - Three Sails I mean, I love it, mate. I love it. Like, this is... I mean, it it's... For me, this is... itch it It's physical proof and physical feedback that what we're doing is working. 00:44:22.98 Jala Right. 00:44:23.14 George - Three Sails You know, I've spent the best part of the last two and a half, three years getting to this point. And... it's paying off. Like my hard work is paying off and I love that. And I, I want to keep it going. Like it's, you know, all growth should be sustainable. You know, we, you know, of the things that sinks a company quickest, especially a new one is, is taking that money that you get on Kickstarter and just blowing through it on, you know, like, you know, I could have quit my job. I went down from, So you will remember from the last time we spoke that like I was working three jobs, like three, i was working a full-time government job. I was working the studio full-time and I was doing like seven days a week, two or three hours a day editing academic journals. And after the Kickstarter, I took my government job down to two days a week because i was like you know cause I'm still not getting paid by the studio yet. There is money to pay me, but that would be a bad use of the money because we we yeah we need that money to continue to grow. So rather than because I don't need to pay myself, we're able to plow that money straight back into the business to keep it growing. And, you know, sort of like proof in this being that we're going from one game this year to two games next year. And we're able to do that with the money that we got from Kickstarter. But, you know, I could have quit my job, my government job, and started taking money out of the business to but to make up for that. But we'd have, you know, we'd have made, we wouldn't have made it as far as we as we can do now with just paying Joel and we're starting to pay Jeremy as well. So, yeah, having that, like, if you're If you're too ambitious, if you overreach, you you know you're signing your own death warrant. 00:46:08.10 Jala Right. 00:46:08.54 George - Three Sails And you see companies that, it's what we call catastrophic success on Kickstarter. A company will come out of nowhere and make a million, two million, $3 million, dollars and they're not be able to deliver on their project because they massively over-promised. And they went out and bought they went out and rented an office and they went out and hired 10 full-time members of staff. And within, you know, that money, the money goes quick. This is what I've learned. So, you know, we made 70, just shy of 76,000 pounds on Kickstarter. And then we've done late pledges and we've earned some more. And then we sold, you know, we sold a really good number of copies at UK Games Expo. But like, just let's say that that initial, we'll call it 76,000 pounds just to be, you know, just for round numbers sake. It is amazing how quickly that 76,000 pounds went down to 20. And I'm talking like days. And that money, you know, we need to, the company needs to live on that money. The company needs to but put two more games together because of the way we use Kickstarter, which is we use it once the game is finished or nearly finished. 00:47:23.63 George - Three Sails we have to make games off the money that we have, not the money that we raise on Kickstarter, if that makes sense. So most people would get a game to 20, 30, 40, 50% finished, then go to Kickstarter and then use the Kickstarter money to finish the project off and then and then physically print it and distribute it. And then hopefully have some money left over to make their next game or to really start their next game. We did the more risky option of getting everything done up front and then hoping that we could... have enough money to print it, hopefully cover the expenses um and have enough money to plow back into the company to grow it. So like, that's the position that we're in now. But getting ourselves out there and seeing um seeing how people are responding and seeing the hard work paying off is immensely gratifying. Like it's, you know, I knew what I wanted. I knew where it could be. I knew where it could go. It massively exceeded our expectations on Kickstarter, like 76,000 pounds for a first project. I kept saying to Joel and Jeremy in the weeks running up to the Kickstarter, was like, lads, I think maybe we can do 50,000. If all the chips fall our way, if we get really good luck, maybe we can do 50,000. We were at 40,000 after three days, three, four days. So yeah, it feels like the hard work is paying off and, but it means you can't rest on your laurels with it. And you know, well, I can't anyway, I can't rest on my laurels. We have to do it again and then again and then again, and we have to put the company into a sustainable position where it can look after itself or it can pay the three of us and, and support new games and hopefully start bringing on more people. 00:49:07.81 Jala Right. 00:49:18.47 George - Three Sails you know, we have big, big ambitions and we're now starting, you know, obviously we're publishing, we've published our own game and Gallows Corner is going to be the same, but now we're bringing on another designer and we're bringing their project to life. And Jala, you are going to love it. I can't talk about it now, but you are going to love it. It's so good. And it's something, it's something that I've been, it's been on the card since February of last year. So when I was play testing Mappa Mundi's pre-release guide, I was playtesting it with some friends in the UK Tabletop Industry Network Discord who I hadn't long met. 00:49:55.11 George - Three Sails And another designer up here in Manchester, then playtested their game the following week. And Mappa Mundi's pre-release guide, we hadn't even publicly announced Mappa Mundi yet. like People in the in the in our circles knew about it, but we hadn't publicly announced it. And I playtested this game and I said to the designer, i was like, look, 00:50:15.08 George - Three Sails I realize that you you're going to take this around to the bigger publishers, as you should, because it's great. And anyone who snaps it up is going to be really lucky. And I was like, you know who the fuck am I? like I'm no one. But if no if they don't want it, I want to publish it. And he was the other designer was like, yeah, okay. You know, I'll keep that in mind and took it round. And we kept talking about it over the year. And then in January of this year, they came back to me and they're like, let's do it. I want you to, but I want you to publish it. And we got it all set up and we, you know, we're, we're working on getting it ready and we'll be announcing it kind of October, November time. But it's so good. It's so good. It's really, really excellent. And we've committed to spending the money that it needed that it deserves. We've committed to spending what we're calling Mappa Mundi money on it. You know, just because it's someone else's design doesn't mean it shouldn't get the same treatment that we do with all of our games. So we've really, you know, we've got, we started working with artists on it because Joel is not going to be the artist on this one because he's too busy with Gallows Corner. And then we'll be too busy with what will then be our fourth game. 00:51:23.09 Jala The next one and the next one. 00:51:24.43 George - Three Sails Yeah, the next one, the next one. But it's already... super fun and I can't wait to announce it but we need to let Gallo's bed in first so exactly yeah 00:51:36.08 Jala Right, right. That way you you're not announcing too many things at once and then people are just, you know, their attention gets divided and anytime you divide attention too much, like, you know, you're going to lose somebody. So yeah. About the Mappa Kickstarter. So what was your most memorable or favorite thing from like the whole experience so far with doing the Mappa stuff? 00:52:01.46 George - Three Sails Oh, I loved, I loved it. All of it. I really loved all of it. Like it was, it wasn't stressful because we funded so quickly. Like it was, we funded in 58 minutes, which was like mind blowing. 00:52:14.05 Jala I know. Uh-huh. 00:52:16.28 George - Three Sails And like, I clicked. So this was when we were in the old house at this point. And I sat in my office, which was like a box bedroom, like sat in the office. And, God, I was so nervous. I was so nervous. We launched at 1 p.m. UK time. So i had i taken that I took the whole week off work. um And i was so i was on the Monday, i was sat there like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, what am I going to do? What am I going to Last minute checks of everything. Tuesday morning rolls around and I and i barely slept. And I was having nightmares about it, like anxiety nightmares about it. Like I had the night before, this is the Monday night. I went in a few hours of sleep that I had. I had this anxiety dream. I clicked go live, but none of the information was on the page. 00:53:06.35 Jala Oh, no. Oh. 00:53:07.40 George - Three Sails And I was just like, oh God. But I woke up and I was convinced that it had happened and that I'd lived the whole Tuesday already and that I'd messed it up. So it was it was a lot. But then on Tuesday, I clicked go live. And within five seconds, it was at £3,000. And I was like, all right, this is this is good. This is going well. So that was great. That was really, really good. 00:53:31.48 Jala Yeah. And I will say like that day, I definitely like I was mad because I got the notification, but I think I was in a meeting or something for work at the time. I don't remember. There was something going on and I couldn't go in there right away. And I'm like, dang it. I'm like number 30 something. Oh, that was like within five minutes. 00:53:45.32 George - Three Sails To be fair, number 30-something. 00:53:52.69 Jala And then, you know, I remember too, I was racing in there to say, you can find it. But somebody else had already put, I'm like, oh, I'm too late again, man. But I was in there. I was in there on that day, looking at it and encouraging you guys. 00:54:07.31 George - Three Sails We were so grateful for your support, mate. So that was that was a real highlight. Another real highlight was seeing the first... books being printed. So our customer rep, our project rep at Megaprint is a woman called Noor. And Noor is the most amazing human being. she is She's spectacular. Like I asked, made a huge demand from them, which was like, I need these books. I'm delivering the files to you on March the 5th. I need these files approved. I need them tested. I need them printed. And I need them here in the UK and on a boat to the US by the 5th of May. Two months. And if it was just a book, that would be ambitious. But the fact that was a book and the cards and the box was really ambitious. And they did it. like Every single bit of it to the highest possible quality. We've had like one or two issues where cards were bent, but we just resend those out. But for like we printed 3,000 copies of that but at that game. And we've had... like not even 1% error rate. So it's, it's, it's been spectacular. So seeing like when Nor sent me the videos of the books, like rolling off the production line, like that was, I, I cried. I was over the moon with it. And then my friend, another friend of mine here in Manchester, her name is Ivaris Burke. She is an incredible designer, TTRPG designer, and a really, really good friend of mine. And I saw her... 00:55:38.23 George - Three Sails We launched on the Tuesday and then we had our Manchester UK Tabletop Industry Network meet up at the pub on Saturday. And by the... set We hit £40,000 while we were at the pub. And you me and Joel were there. And Ivaris came up to me and she was like... She turned up a bit late and she came in. She gave me this massive hug and she was... genuinely teary when she said she's I'm so proud of you like all of this hard and that just that was that was a really beautiful moment of like you know your community and your friends coming together to celebrate your successes as if it's their own successes and that's what I love so yeah there were lots and lots of standout moments but they were three really good ones 00:56:19.22 Jala Right, right. So I think at this point, I want to talk a little bit ah about Gallows Corner, unless you want to say if you have anything else you wanted to say about Mappa. 00:56:28.76 George - Three Sails No, no, no, no, I'm all good. 00:56:28.88 Jala I mean, we already said you can get your grubby little mitts listeners on to a copy of it. The link will be in the show notes. You can listen back to the entire episode dedicated Mappa. um I'll have that in the show notes as well for you. Like there'll be plenty of links for you to go check out, of course, a link for Gallows Corner's Kickstarter page. So you can get notified when that launches. All of that will be in your show notes for this. um Otherwise, I'd like to focus on that since that's the new big the thing. 00:56:55.80 George - Three Sails Let's do it. 00:56:57.29 Jala So I'm just going to read some stuff that's off of your page of, of you know, all of that. 00:57:01.13 George - Three Sails Yeah, please do. The last time you did this for Mappa Mundi, I got tingled. So I'm hoping it happens again. 00:57:06.88 Jala Well, this is just, you this is just your copy. This isn't the same as the other one, because this is not written like, you know, from a person telling you this is your job kind of thing. It's a little bit different. But Gallows Corner is a new alternate historical TTRPG system that challenges players to do one thing, change England by any means necessary. Players take on the role of the lowest in medieval society, peasants in the working classes, and pit themselves against the crown, nobility, and church in a struggle for the soul of post-plague England. A rules-light, narrative-first system, Gallows' Corner empowers players to challenge the powerful, the greedy, the tyrannical, and build a new version of England. A love letter to community, resistance, and imagination, Gallows' Corner knows that a better world is possible, and gives players the tools and the agency to bring a new world to life. With its trades and jobs system featuring eight trades and 48 jobs to choose from, characters in Gallows Corner are what they do. Use the tools of your trade to fight injustice and remake England as you see fit. 00:58:17.05 George - Three Sails I got the tingles so it worked. 00:58:21.48 George - Three Sails This is how I know I'm writing good copy. Like it's good copy yeah and a great voice. That's it. that's it 00:58:26.49 Jala It's just that good, a good combination. So yeah, ah love, love, love, love all of that. So um you know we talked a little bit about it in the first episode together, but your intention is to bring your personal ethics to the table and create games with meaning, not just personal meaning for you, but meaning that you're hoping to have resonate with the community and kind of bring people together under kind of like the same sort of umbrella, the same sensibility, right? 00:58:39.98 George - Three Sails Mm-hmm. 00:58:55.19 Jala So the moment this was announced, my immediate thought was this is precisely what people need right now. And I think I just messaged you or put it in the server, I don't remember which, and was saying exactly that same thing. I was just like, this is exactly what people need right now. So when you incorporate your ethics into your games, do you have ah particular intentions or wishes for players in specific? 00:59:17.32 George - Three Sails um I mean, I think any creator, any writer does, like any writer puts, like is bringing, you know, is bringing something to the table that they want people to receive. But, you know, me being ah an ex-literary scholar, I'm aware of the intentional fallacy. And, you know, you can't, you know, we don't, we don't read into a text necessarily. We don't presume to know what the author thinks or thought or intended, even if it's clear what they did intend. It actually doesn't matter because it's about how it's received is the important thing. 00:59:46.14 Jala Exactly. 00:59:46.43 George - Three Sails Now, Gallows Corner, Gallows Corner is difficult to receive in any other way. Right. It's specifically that, you that line is a love letter to community resistance and imagination. When we were at UK Games Expo, I was talking to people about it and I was comparing, you know, when I was talking about Mappa Mundi and Gallows Corner, I was like, Mappa Mundi was my love letter to everyday people taking action. 01:00:13.18 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 01:00:13.56 George - Three Sails Everyday people in extraordinary circumstances say, I will go. ah yeah pick you know Choose me to go. I'm going to go and do this. Gallows Corner is this is exactly the same thing, but it's also but also like a love letter to my working class rage. And that rage changes things. The five-day work week, the weekend, eight-hour work days, the end of child labor, All of these things are working class, that have come out of the working classes and come out of working class movements and unions. And, you know, I am just, even as an anarchist, like, you know, anarchism and unions have a, unless you're an anarcho-syndicalist, we have odd relationships with unions because we often consider them to be like too close to political power. We prefer tend to prefer affinity groups and stuff like that. But saying that I have been a member of every single union that I've been eligible to join, I've been a member of that union. Gallows Corner is...Ethically speaking, it's trying to show people that you can change things. Exactly the same way Mappa Mundi was. is You can change things if you just do something. Yeah. 01:01:26.38 George - Three Sails And I'm certainly not the first TTRPG designer to do this. Just off the top of my head, you've got Rowan Rook and Deckard with Spire, which is a kind of an anti-colonial look at this process. Also from Rowan Rook and Deckard, you have Voidheart Symphony. They've just crowdfunded the second edition of that. And then from Soul Muppet, also here in the UK, you've got Mad as Hell, which was designed by... Yeah, designed by Eevee. And it just... It looks absolutely great. Now, what... Oh, and then you've got Why We Fight as well, which is designed by two friends of mine. Why We Fight looks really... 01:02:50.32 George - Three Sails It's kind of a solarpunk game. It looks absolutely excellent. 01:02:53.18 Jala Awesome. 01:02:54.18 George - Three Sails Yeah, so Gallows Corner like fits into this tradition of like let's explore resistance and insurrection and rebellion and different ways of organizing things that's well-established in TTRPGs. Now, the difference is... 01:03:10.19 George - Three Sails so Spire, which is an excellent game, um is a fantasy. It's elves and dark elves. Dark elves have been oppressed and ah oppressed and colonized by elves, and Spire is the city, this huge city that they all live in, and you play as dark the dark elf resistance. Mad as Hell and Voidheart Symphony are both set in our contemporary moment um which is very important it's really important to shine that light on what's happening now and they're both kind of set within reason they're set in the real world they're fantastical versions of our real world um Gallows Corner like the question is, is why did you choose 1376? And like, it's a specific year. Gallows corner takes place in a specific year. It's 1376, which is five years before the actual peasants revolt happened here in England 1381. Some people ask me that, they were like why like, why then? Why this particular historical moment? And one, obviously it's five years before the actual Peasants' Revolt, but two, it shows you that nothing has changed. Like the same, think about it, right? Think about a medieval peasant. Think about a landlord who owns where you live and an employer who doesn't pay you enough to live on. So you're always hungry. You are having to choose between food and heating. um The country is owned. that There's a king. There's still a king. The aristocracy is still in full force. So here in here in the UK, the aristocracy still own an inordinate amount of land. Like the actual aristocracy who still exists, who still sit unelected in our House of Lords, which is our upper parliamentary chamber. Like nothing has changed. The rich are still extracting wealth from from the poor and the working classes, the working class labor is still being exploited. People are still in 2025. People are still having to choose whether to eat or whether to heat their homes. You know, like it's that's the reason I've kind of chosen it. What? And yeah it's obviously it's a really evocative. It's an evocative time period. Right. But the one that people actually know very little about. Everyone has an idea about what late medieval England looks like, but very few people actually know anything about it. But it is strikingly similar to what life is like now. 01:05:44.12 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:05:44.26 George - Three Sails um And I think that's one of the things I want players to realize and people who are engaging with the game to realize is that actually, despite all of the material improvements that we've had, the underlying system is still basically exactly the same. and that you change that by means you were told not to use. Be polite, engage with elections. Every five years, go and vote for your member of parliament or your senator or your house representative or whatever it might be. Go and do that and write a petition and phone up your representative. You know what? Fuck that. It doesn't work. None of the things that we have achieved 01:06:26.03 Jala Right. 01:06:28.77 George - Three Sails in the UK, in the US, in Europe, all across the world, none of the things that have been achieved for the betterment of people who are a oppressed has been achieved peaceably, ever. Like I defy anyone to name me one because they just they just don't exist. And like, you know, you will I think you'll remember like when we were talking last time, like I was talking about my PhD, my PhD was on radical American politics. And The reason why Martin Luther King, you know, it's Martin Luther King Day, that's a whole, that's a federal holiday, although even that's under threat now, right? It's a federal holiday. Even though Martin Luther King was America's most wanted, like top of the FBI list, assassinated by the CIA, like his brand of resistance, of nonviolent resistance is more palatable to the establishment than the alternative, which was, you know, black power and black liberation through armed struggle. But Martin Luther King was like, these two things can't exist without each other. They both have to exist. So it's like the rehabilitation and the co-option of struggle as now good things in inverted commas after the after the state has been forced to concede to them. Those lessons need to be learned. Like the CIA assassinated Martin Luther King and now he's now he's celebrated every year as a public holiday and he's held up as like, this is the way you change things, which it isn't. That's not how you change things. 01:07:54.61 Jala Right. 01:07:54.92 George - Three Sails They just say that because things won't change and it keeps people in line, but it keeps people feeling... It's a pressure release valve. People feel like they're doing something, but nothing is actually changing. There's no real threat. So Gallows Corner is it has that baked into his DNA, which is you have, sometimes you have to burn things down. Like that might be the extreme option, but there are ah what we call the diversity of tactics that all of these things need to happen all at the same time. But beyond that as well, it's also like, it's a love letter to my heritage and my people. Like I grew up, you know I come from a long line of working class people. I saw a comedian describe it the other day as I come from, um, old, no money, um which I thought was really, really good. I come from old, no money. This is my culture and my heritage, one part of it. And that's not celebrated or recognized or, or written about like, you know, these you are playing as illiterate for the most part, illiterate peasants. Like the best you can hope to be is like a minor merchant, like a market trader. The best you can hope for, yeah some people are going to be scribes. They can, they can read and write, but like most people can just sign their name, read their name or whatever. You are playing as people who are overlooked and downtrodden and oppressed and it's not miserable. you know what I mean? it's good 01:09:26.89 Jala Right. 01:09:27.42 George - Three Sails Gallows Corner is not, it doesn't revel, it doesn't treat being working class and being poor as miserable as a miserable existence. It can be a miserable existence. there are plenty of There's plenty of times in my life where I've been like, my God, this is awful. Like, you know, no food in the house, no money in the bank account, bailiffs knocking on the door, the heating's turned off because we can't afford to turn it on, electricity's been cut off. It can be miserable. but it's also where the where beauty and community and creativity and collaboration come from. 01:09:59.80 Jala Well, it's also where you build strength because people, strength and resilience, because, you know, very identifiable with that. 01:10:00.08 George - Three Sails Exactly. 01:10:08.15 Jala You know, there have been times that my family has been in a house where we don't have any furniture or electricity because we couldn't afford it, you know, and that kind of thing. So, you know, that's something that a lot of people have experienced. But because you go through hardships like that, that builds your strength, that builds your resilience to be able to um you know, take action or do whatever it is that you need to do moving forward. 01:10:31.66 George - Three Sails but it also helps you it also helps you help others like one of the things that I've described so i you know like going through the university system and academia I'm surrounded by a lot of middle class people in fact almost exclusively by middle class people and most of them are very lovely people. But one thing I noticed, like moving from one, moving between these two spheres is a lot of dissatisfied, middle-class people dissatisfied with their life, despite having all the comforts that I and my friends and family didn't have, right? And I couldn't work, for the longest time, I couldn't work out why. I was like, why are they so why are they so dissatisfied? Do they not know how lucky they are? And then suddenly it hit me, it hit me that whenever I was talking to middle-class people, they were always talking about what people better off than them had, right? They were always comparing themselves upwards. Whereas with the people that I grew up with, we were always comparing ourselves downwards rather than saying, oh, I wish I had this and I wish I had that. The Joneses across the road have got two cars and we've only got one or they go on two holidays a year and we only go on one. Everyone I knew and grew up with was always like, well, at least we don't have it as bad as that person does. We compared ourselves downwards. So we weren't always looking down and thinking, my God, at least at least we've got what we've got, rather than being like, I want this and I want that. And because we were looking downwards, it made us more generous and compassionate. It meant that we weren't protective over what we did have because we wanted more. It meant that we understood that people had it even worse than we did and that those people needed help and support. 01:12:11.96 Jala Right. 01:12:11.92 George - Three Sails And that's what we did. And so, so for example, I was really lucky that there were no, there was no addiction in my family. There was no drug addiction, no alcohol addiction, anything like that. And had friends who did have that in their families and that was Like in that, no matter how poor and hungry and cold and scared of bailiffs and social services we might have been, I didn't have to watch family members go through active addiction and all of the all of the stuff that comes along with that, which was all of my stuff plus more. And so we were always looking. We said, well, at least we don't have that. And so like we always... we always look at charity figures and donation and yeah charity donation figures and church donation figures in terms of the proportion the proportion of income that people in poverty donate versus what people above the poverty line donate. The proportion of it, obviously more money comes from higher up the higher up the chain, but the proportion of income is always bigger from poor people. We give more relative to our income. 01:13:20.10 Jala Right. 01:13:21.55 George - Three Sails And so get what I want from Gallows Corner is I want people to like, people who haven't been through this, who haven't been working class, who haven't like so materially struggled in the way that a lot of working class people do. I want those people to embody this experience and see that actually it's not misery, that there's beauty and creativity and collaboration and solidarity there. And then I want people like me who have been through it to see their lives being represented in a way that is more accurate to our experience rather than rather than the misery and the gloom and the you know the exploitation that we normally experience when our lives and our cultures are depicted. 01:14:03.74 Jala Absolutely. Right. 01:14:06.35 George - Three Sails That was me fully on my soapbox there, but... 01:14:08.94 Jala Yeah, well, I mean, 100%, I'm right there with you. Because my family has been of varying amounts of income, generally speaking, because my dad worked as a contractor for, you know, his entire existence. So sometimes there was work, and sometimes there wasn't. And, you know, for when we were little, my mom had to stay at home to take care of us because we couldn't afford but for her to work would have been just to turn it. 01:14:38.22 George - Three Sails More expensive. 01:14:39.75 Jala Yeah. Would have just turned out money to pay someone else. And that's all that would have been. So, you know, like that's, that's definitely an experience that speaks to me individually, but I know speaks to a lot of people as well. 01:14:48.03 George - Three Sails Yeah. Yeah. 01:14:53.57 George - Three Sails Yeah, it's just, it's me raising the black flag again. Like, Gallows Corner is me raising the black flag again. 01:14:59.60 Jala Right. 01:14:59.65 George - Three Sails But, you know, it's important. Like, it's important to me that, you know, that this... this this experience is is is is properly presented. In the same way that we worked with cultural consultants with Napa Mundi, it was important that we accurately, even in a fantastical setting, it's important that we were accurate and respectable with what we were doing. And in this case, like I'm writing directly from my own experience. And like, I'm from Essex in the UK originally, that's where I grew up. And before I came up here to Manchester, it was, i you know, I did, I, you know, I went to Cambridge for my undergrad, but but that's across the border into the next county. And a million miles away culturally from, from where I grew up, despite only being a 45 minute drive. I spent 21 years in Essex and South and East London. And my family are all South and East London via Ireland and stuff like that. Like, it's, you don't see this depicted and Gallows Corner is a real place in Essex. Like it's a roundabout now on a motorway. And you hear about it on travel, travel updates on the radio every single day. Gallows Corner snagged up for a mile or whatever. But like, I'm writing about real places and real things that happened and allowing people to realize that whether they're, whether they grew up in England or whether they, whether they didn't to inhabit these real places and these real events and to experience them and to realize that actually something that happened nearly 700 years 650 years next year it will be, something that happened that long ago is immediately relevant to their current experience. 01:16:45.59 Jala Right, right. And, you know, here in the U.S., we have, you know, the to date when we're recording this, which is really close to when this is releasing, so it's fine. You know, the Supreme Court over here is more or less saying none of the lower courts can overrule anything that they say, which ah since they're in there for life in the Supreme Court, that means... No power. You know, no power is there. ah Whatever power there was for the lower courts is now being revoked. And ah there are a lot of people who are trying to do nonviolent protests who are being beaten and disappeared by. 01:17:23.01 George - Three Sails Yeah, literally black bagged and disappeared. 01:17:23.30 Jala by right now and everything like that. And yeah revolution, I don't know if I mentioned this the last time when we were talking anarchy and in general things like that, but I have said for years and years and years that this country has been way overdue for a revolution for a long, long time. So another one, you know, but again, you know, part of that conversation is whatever you build back in its place is going to go sour again, because it's going to be the same gathering of power, you know, every single time. 01:17:45.19 George - Three Sails Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's the difference, right? That's the difference is. So one of the things I've written, one of the lines I'm really, really proud of in Gallows Corner is there is one England, there are many Englands and like what you are playing, what you are trying to build is a version of that England. 01:18:08.12 Jala Right. Mm-hmm. 01:18:12.21 George - Three Sails Like, you know, This is true of the US. It's true of any way you go. So the US, I think this is particularly true of the US. Like what's true in one place is completely false in another. Like one thing, you could say one thing about one, you could anything you can say about the US is also false. Anything you could say is true about it is also false because there's so many people because it's so, it's so polarized and it's so split and it's, you know, it's geographically incredibly different as well and culturally and historically different. And, What Gallows, what I'm trying to do with Gallows Corner is allow, is provide people the space and the permission to imagine that better world. Like, it's like, you know, like in the copy that you read out, let me find where it was. Gallows Corner knows that a better world is possible and gives players the tools and agencies to bring and bring a new world to life. Like that's what this is. And that's what that's what games are. Games are, they are imaginations of different things and explorations of those things. And they are not they are not, despite some people might like to think so, but they are not a substitute for getting out and doing something in whatever capacity you can. But they are a way by which you can imagine what you want to be, to exist. They are ways that you can think about and practice those things. And I think that's really important. 01:19:42.73 Jala Well, and not only that, but when people are playing Gallows Corner and they are collaborating with their friends, you know, that they're playing with while they're actively playing the game and they're talking to each other, either in character or out of character or whatever they're doing, they're having these discussions about what does your ideal look like for this? You know, and they're having those that attention drawn to this exact idea, which can then be directly true translated into their actual life. 01:20:15.09 George - Three Sails Yeah. Like what that that question of what do you want the world to be? What does your best world look like? Or even what does what does a slightly better version of the of the world look like is so important. And you are like the state is actively set up to make you think that this is the best it can possibly be. 01:20:37.68 Jala Or it's also trying to distract you like a lot of stuff in the US you know, a lot of things that Trump does is done to distract you from the other things that he's doing, you know? 01:20:49.50 George - Three Sails Yeah, yeah. 01:20:50.51 Jala And so there come complicity, they want you to be complicit to just be, to be convinced this is it, to be convinced that you the only way you can do anything is a nonviolent means. 01:20:50.60 George - Three Sails Like that's what the culture war stuff is. This is what culture war means, right? 01:21:04.89 Jala And, you know, you have to work within the system, which, of course, if the system is deeply broken, you that's not going to get you anywhere, you know? And the system is actively being broken worse, like continually made worse currently. 01:21:12.01 George - Three Sails Yeah, or to change language, I would argue that the system isn't broken. The system is working exactly as intended. 01:21:22.04 Jala Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 01:21:24.03 George - Three Sails It's like and the system is working exactly as it's meant to work. You're just not meant to realize that that's the way it's meant to work. You're supposed to think it's broken and think it can be fixed. But actually the system is designed intentionally in this way. And I remember when I i when i was lecturing on ah lecturing on this stuff, I would say to students at the start of a course, I was like, I am going to sound at different points like a conspiracy theorist, but I have receipts for all of this. Like I can prove to you that this is why this, that this is the way that it's supposed to work. And like Gallows Corner... lights a torch and says, fuck that. Like, it's like, we're going to go out and we're going to change things. And we are going to like, that's the mission, right? The mission is, you know, overthrow the crown, overthrow the church, overthrow the nobility. Fine. Do that. But do it because you're trying to put something, you're trying to do something different. And like Gallows Corner can work in a variety of ways. Like the scope of Gallows Corner can work in a variety of ways. Do you want to like, go over all of it go through all of England and like burn down the manors and raise an army and march on London and behead the king. If you want to do that, and if that's your version of change, all power to you can absolutely do that. But equally, if you want to liberate one county and model a different version of life there, you can do that as well. And then defend it from those who would try and stop you from doing that. You can do it on all of those scales and anything in between. um Like, again, it's allowing it's giving players the space and the tools to do this, but then giving them the permission to do it. Like with shaping, so shaping from Mappa Mundi is coming into Gallows Corner as well, um just because I love it so much. And what we were talking about with shaping is that, you know, TTRPG tables have been doing shaping. Good tables have been doing it forever since RPGs began. But no game had given players the explicit space and permission to do it so that GM couldn't run roughshod over them. They're like, no, we're allowed to do this. And that's what Gallows Corner is doing as well. It's giving you that space and that permission and that encouragement to bring this new world into being. 01:23:45.30 Jala Well, and again, like, that's something that can therefore like as players are playing the game. they have the capacity to take that kind of shift in consciousness from their real life where their government and everyone else in society is trying to tell them, no, you know, you don't have power to change the whole. And then it's counteracting that, you know, at least in this game world where, you know, some of that DNA can potentially, depending on the percentage, true just escape the game world and come into the real world and give them permission to start thinking about applying it, you know, in in the real world as well. 01:24:29.73 George - Three Sails And that's for me, you know, as an insurrectionary anarchist, we don't think about we don't think about revolution from the top down. We think about it from the bottom up. Like, you change you start off by changing who you are. You change yourself, and then you start to work with the people around you and the houses around you and the neighborhood around you. And as you start to implement change there, as you start to help change be implemented, I should say, it starts to spread. You show that a different way of living is possible. We call it propaganda by the deed, and that used to be throwing bombs into banks in the 1800s. And it's slightly different now. um But you know it's like it's showing that like if the state is leaving people hungry, then feed them. Show that it know that you don't need those state structures to do that. And that's what Gallows Corner is encouraging. you don't start you know You're not lords and ladies and you know the aristocracy or the gentry or whatever. You are starting from the bottom. You are unknown, illiterate peasants. And you are going to change things because you can do that. We've gone right around the houses with this. But if I want people playing Gallows Corner to do anything, is I want them to realize that the change starts at the bottom and it starts with you. 01:25:44.17 Jala And I really like what you just said there where you were saying that the change starts within you and you have to change as a person first because that is so important. And I think a lot of people who are frustrated with how things are going these days don't understand that like on a fundamental level, they're kind of missing that step. Like they're just looking for the exterior first when they really need to understand that it actually has to be inside before it goes anywhere else. 01:26:13.98 George - Three Sails Yeah, because you have been...Since the day you were born, this system has been conditioning you into a certain way of being. You have to work to do that. People talk about it about decolonizing the self, right? To take it into a different struggle. You have to decolonize yourself before you can do that work anywhere else. It's the same with class. It's the same with class as it is with race. You have to... You have to take the boot off. You have to take the boot off your own neck. yeah you like Your own boot is on your neck. Like ideologically, you have to take that off. And if you are even considering this, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself. Because despite and in a lifetime of society conditioning you, you it still hasn't broken you. You are still capable of recognizing that this isn't right, that something is wrong. And just recognizing that is the first that first process of like the change comes from within and then it starts to show without. 01:27:16.58 Jala Right. So shifting a little bit, I wanted to ask, so when you're coming up for your concepts for your different games, so you had Mappa Mundi and then when you were working towards Gallows Corner, you showed your notebook, you got your notebook and that's where you put all your different ideas and everything. So from that, I would gather that you're not just like, yes, I definitely have an idea that I absolutely want to work on um this one specific thing. And then like, you just know that that's the one that you're going to work on initially. 01:27:47.13 George - Three Sails Sometimes I do. So Gallows Corner was one that was immediate. I was like, no, that's... It still went into the book because I need to spend time, slow time concepting it and like writing by hand is that slow time. But some games... I just know immediately. Mappa Mundi, knew it immediately, even if I didn't know what it was going to look like. Gallows Corner, I knew what it was going to look like, and I knew immediately. And then our game number three, which will actually be published game number four. that Jeremy sent me a challenge. 15 minutes later, we decided that that was going to be our next game. And so like sometimes you know, the way that I talk about it is a game doesn't come out of my notebook and onto our Google Drive unless I can visualize what the trailer for that game looks like. I can't remember who it was that said it. It was a video a video game creator of some kind. I can't remember who it was. They said that if you can't imagine, if you can't see the trailer in your head, the idea is not good enough to pursue. It's not worth pursuing. And I have as someone who had done that prior to hearing that, I completely agree. If you can't see what the trailer looks like, then the game, then the idea is not exciting enough. It's certainly not exciting enough to sustain you for the process for the, like for how long you're going to be, you're going to spend working on it. And if it's not exciting for you, how the hell is it going to be exciting for anyone else? Cause you need to sell it to people. um And there are there are exceptions to that rule. Of course there are. Like I'm not saying to people, oh, well, if you can't see the trailer immediately, it's not worth working on. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is within a reasonable amount of time, if you can't be like, oh my God, this is this is how I'm going to sell it. This is how I'm going get people excited about it. If you can't see that relatively soon in the process, and then move on to another idea. We all have all these ideas all the time. Exactly. 01:29:49.24 Jala Right. Well, and it could also be something, a case where you have the idea, but it's not quite the way that it needs to be yet. And like, it needs a little bit of work. And then, once you add this one element or you think, you know, think of it in this different angle, suddenly then it falls into place and then it's ready, but not until that point. 01:30:07.25 George - Three Sails So that's what happened with Mappa Mundi. So Mappa Mundi, I was in love with the concept right from the start. But in terms of how it worked, it took it that took some time. But the i had i knew the idea was like i was... I was so excited about the idea the even if it didn't all click into place immediately. And I think Gallows Corner didn't click into place immediately. It's taken work and workshopping. And some of the ideas I initially had for it have fallen by the wayside and new ones have come in. But it's that core idea needs to be exciting enough, that core premise. If you boil it down to like one sentence, this is how I'm going to get people excited about it. then then that Then for me, it comes out of the notebook and goes onto to the Google Drive and then it starts proper work. And that's when I tell Joel and Jeremy about I'm like, right, this is it. but I've got a new one. Because otherwise I'd be just messaging them all the time with all the ideas and why. Like the idea is the easy bit. It's the work that's the important thing. 01:31:06.05 Jala Oh, right, right, for sure. Like, um there is one of the various Discords I'm in has a um channel just for like members, creative projects and stuff. And there's this one guy who's very excited about making a video game, but has like various random ideas all the time and does like a few sketches and gets excited sort of about it. But like, it's not a fully formed thought yet, you know? And then ah he drops that and then does something else and then gets real excited for a little bit, does a little bit. And then again, not fully formed, doesn't have enough of it there concrete, you know, to, to work with. And then it just kind of moves on. And it's like, I don't know if that guy will ever get a project off the ground, but if he does, it's going to, going to need a little bit different of approach, you know? 01:31:50.80 George - Three Sails Yeah, I really empathize with that guy's position. It's like that's classic ADHD right there. That's 100% ADHD down to the ground. And as a studio of three people, two of whom have ADHD, like it's a real thing. This is why I found the notebook really helpful because I can spend that slower time. So I get the initial huge burst and I'll write like three or four pages of the notebook. The ideas just start flowing out. But then I have to consciously spend the time to work on it more because if I don't, it will fall away. And then it was just a nice idea. But I have to...The work is the important thing. And like spending some time putting that stuff together is the hard bit but it's also the beautiful bit like it's that's the bit where you really start to see something blossom and it's yeah i love it i love it and that and that you experience that repeatedly throughout like the first time i see ah piece of Joel's artwork for a project and I'm like oh my god this is it and then and then you know when we start putting you know when pages start coming together and mechanics start getting fully formed. And then seeing people enjoying it and responding to it. Like it's just, you know, it's all of it is work, but there is joy. There's joy in labor. There's dignity in labor. Unfortunately, that that's often stripped away and exploited, but you know exploited out of existence. But like I have chosen to do this work. And so I find the dignity and joy in it. 01:33:25.89 Jala Mm-hmm. Well, and then, you know, it's, it's really a magical thing where if you are creating something and then you put it out there into the world and then other people are continuing and iterating upon that with their own and with a TTRPG, you're getting that all the time. 01:33:38.47 George - Three Sails Exactly. Yeah, it's the fundamental part of the the experience, right? 01:33:47.95 Jala Right. I mean, like for me, I'm working on this little textventure game. That's my own little solo project I'm doing and all of that. And I'm excited about it. And some people are, are you know, like play testing it as I'm working on it and things like that. But I mean, like ah when I finally put that out into the world, that's like a text venture game. And, you know, like, yes, that involves a lot of reading, a lot of and engagement from the player to absorb all of this this lore and world and characters and everything. But like that doesn't kind of turn around and have the same kind of feedback loop that you get with something like a TTRPG. So I expect that when I drop that out into the world, that's just going to be crickets. I might hear one or two people say, oh, that was fun. 01:34:30.04 George - Three Sails Well, I'm already looking forward to it. 01:34:30.15 Jala So, but I mean, like, it's just a different thing. My point in mentioning that is really like, it's the unique medium of doing a TTRPG is that you get these iterations and these different versions, these different ways that people are taking what you've made and then making it their own and adding their input with their experiences and their ideas. And, you know, like that's a very cool and very like kind of neat ongoing collaborative thing, you know? 01:35:04.59 George - Three Sails Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:35:05.93 Jala So what is like, ah I'm always very excited about people's excitement. So what is most exciting to you about this so far? 01:35:22.10 George - Three Sails So beyond what we've just spoken about, I've got this mechanic that I really, really love. Oh, I love it so much. It's called the retinue system. So, um, There is combat in Gallows Corner and but because you because the setting kind of demands it, right? The setting demands that there's danger, demands that you fight back to defend yourself. But you are peasants. You are not trained. One of the jobs is a soldier, so you will have had some training and some experience, but like you're still you know you're not a soldier anymore. And even when you were, not like you had full plate armor. You were lucky if you had some cloth and a spear. I was trying to work out, I was so i was trying to experiment with a lot of different stuff early in the concepting phase. And I was like, okay, so combat needs to be very dangerous. Like if you start fighting earlier on, you are going to die. And I was like, you know, like player a death, like character death, you know, is it's an inevitability of the system. So I was like, but need a way to mitigate that. Like, I don't want you to have to constantly be creating a new character. So how do I mitigate this? And then two of my favorite TV shows are Sharp, which was in the nineties. It's like Sean Bean's breakout acting role. And it's incredible. It's set in the Napoleonic Wars and it's amazing. um And then there's the last kingdom, which was on BBC and then on Netflix. Now, both of those are they both Sharp and the last kingdom are based on the novels of Bernard Cornwell. He wrote both series and, In both of these things, you have the main character. So in Sharp, it's Richard Sharp, who starts off as a sergeant and ends up becoming like a major. in the in the you know He gets a battlefield commission after saving up but yeah Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington's life. And he has what are called the Chosen Men. So he's got his group around him. And then in The Last Kingdom, the main character is Uhtred, who is Saxon-born but raised by Vikings. And he has his followers around him all the time. And I love that dynamic, right I love the idea that you that like the ride or die people who are with the hero all time. And then suddenly I came up with this idea. i was like oh God, that's what I want. I want every character, every player to have their own retinue, a group of people who are who follow that character specifically. And I was like and then that solved my problem so i didn't want to do leveling up i didn't want to do experience points like Mappa Mundi i didn't want the character to level up so i wanted so i needed i had a couple of different design problems to solve was like right how do i make combat deadly and difficult but not having you constantly having to remake characters and taking away the feels bad moments of your player character dying and also how do I do the no experience points, no leveling up, but still you get better. So one way that I solved the second question was like your jobs, the trade and jobs. So you get better, like each trade, there are eight trades. Each job trade has six jobs. You start off with one trade and one job. You can unlock new jobs in that trade. As you do that, your trade dice levels up, like in Mappa Monday, the dice level up. And as you get as you practice your job, you your job dice levels up as well. that was an easy So that was a relatively easy solution, but one that I'm really proud of. It's kind of like a JRPG trades and jobs system that I really, really love. Because as we all know, I'm a terrible slut for JRPGs. 01:38:58.05 Jala I can see on your wall, you've got Final Fantasy type stuff up. 01:39:01.02 George - Three Sails Yes, there's Final Fantasy VII, Princess Mononoke, and Metal Gear Solid over on the side. 01:39:06.43 George - Three Sails So... but then how So then how to solve the problem of like, how do you get stronger? How do you get better in combat, for instance which is normally what leveling up allows you to do. So then I came up with the retinue system. So what you do is as you become more well known, as you gain what we call influence in Gallows Corner, you can start to recruit what we call retainers. And these are people who will follow you around. and they can they are their own fleshed out characters. They have their own jobs and trades, their own skills, their own dice. They fight with you in combat. So they add more combat, that you're rolling more combat dice because they're there fighting alongside you. You can use their skills to solve problems because they you know you might be a farmer and they might be a blacksmith. um So they're going have different skills that you don't have. So you can use them to solve problems. But then, when you are about to die, you get to make what I'm calling the cinematic choice. So this happens in Sharp and it happens in The Last Kingdom all the time. When the player character is about to die, the player makes a choice. Do they let their player character die and then they start playing as one of their retainers? The retainer becomes the new player character. Or do they let the retainer jump in the way at the last minute and die in the hero's stead? So you lose a retainer and you suffer some like emotional trauma, but you get to keep your player character alive. And I love this system. People are getting really excited about it. 01:40:34.64 Jala Well, that's cool because that means that if you choose to let your character that you rolled die, then that means that you can then take on, like, whatever is your MVP from your retinue, you can take on their role and actually be that character moving forward and then, you know, kind of write their story as they move forward and try to take the place. 01:40:53.78 George - Three Sails And those stories are interlinked as well though, right? 01:40:55.72 Jala Right. Uh-huh. 01:40:56.22 George - Three Sails Because the retainer only exists in the world because the player character existed in the world and they've shared they've shared a journey together. So the retainer, it and right then how do i like how do I then play as a retainer who shared this time with this original character? How does the retainer deal with their death and take up their mantle and go and carry on the fight? And I love, I just love it. Of all the mechanics that I've put into it, that's the one that I like the most. 01:41:19.65 Jala That's awesome. That's really cool. And this is not nearly the same type of thing, but I always have to refer back to a video game in my brain because I've been doing video game podcasting for so many years. It reminds me in some ways of something like Dragon Force, which is a Sega Saturn JRPG where you are playing different characters who are the heads of different kingdoms, but then like you have your armies of people, your little guys, and you know like you can switch out what types of characters that you have for each of the different armies, you know like different types of armies and everything like that. But you also have your little retainers and stuff that are along with you. And while you're playing that, you find that there are your ride or dies that will be there for you no matter what. And then there are some that you just have to keep giving stuff to because they are they are just, you know, fussy, high maintenance, they just whatever. And then they just, so like, I can imagine a situation where, you know, you've got your retinue and maybe this is a newer character that hasn't really like gotten emotionally attached to you yet or something. And you're like, I'll let that character die. You can make those decisions. 01:42:32.98 George - Three Sails Who's gonna die? 01:42:35.00 Jala Right. Right. So I mean, like that actually adds to like, it's not a moment of real, like it's not levity per se, but those kinds of decisions that you can then think about later and use that to develop your character in one or another way. And then like, if you choose your least favorite guy, you know, you're your least useful guy, your newest guy, whatever the case may be, um you know, then your character has to respond to that, you know, like what, what does that change within your character if they, you know, if like, granted the character didn't choose, you know, for the guy to jump in front but you as a player know that that happens. So like, that's going to have to work its way into how you continue to develop your character as you proceed through the game. 01:43:21.10 George - Three Sails Exactly. And so it's' it's, you know, this is a very mechanical thing, right? But it's, it's as with all of our stuff, it's narrative first. It's a narrative choice that you're making, really. Like, do you want your player? Because, you know, the characters, characters are characters. Your player character doesn't have anything... anything that your retainers don't have, like they're not like the chosen one or anything. They're just, they're just other people, but it's ah but the narrative. It forces a narrative choice of, do I want to let my player character live and deal and the character deal with the guilt of someone dying in their place? Or do I want know, do I want to let that person die because it was their time and then have the retainer take over the mantle of the person who's leading this struggle. And like, there's, it just, I had to solve a mechanical problem and I solved it narratively and mechanically and I'm really proud of it. 01:44:19.34 Jala Right. Well, again, it's like the way that that will influence the overall revolution that the all of the characters that are playing are trying to you know undergo, ah then that those decisions that each of the individual characters make in those moments, you know the players rather, make in these moments um allows for a lot of um just kind of like organic shifting in the face of what that that looks like and how that plays out. You know, because the disposition of your one original guy is not going to be the same as the disposition of the next guy who, you know, takes over the mantle or whatnot. So, and the disposition of your original guy can change depending upon what happens to them during the whole thing. 01:45:03.62 George - Three Sails Of course. 01:45:06.10 Jala You know, is this your brother that just passed away for you or who, you know? 01:45:08.69 George - Three Sails See, that's it, right? you Yeah, that's it. They could be family members. They could be people that you've grown you've grown up with that are as close, you know, that are friends or as close as family. They could be strangers who you've helped and who were like, well, I owe i owe you, so I'm going to follow you along. And like, you know, it's a terrible, brilliant film. But ah one of the really big inspirations for Gallows Corner is Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. um like I was brought up on that film like i just love it i can quote it start to finish i absolutely love it and like you know Kevin Costner's or you just not even attempting ah in a way I'm glad that he didn't attempt an English accent because it would have made it even worse but like the merry robin hood and the merry men that's a hero and the retainers like it's the group that follow them around and like it's suffused into English medieval history and the literary tradition that you have someone who has a band with them. And so I wanted to, like I wasn't even thinking about it in that way to start off with. Once I'd started designing, i was like oh, actually, it's quite an elegant solution because it captures the feel of the time as well. 01:46:18.81 Jala Right, right. And that is that's super, super cool. Well, um we've already talked a little bit about like you've mentioned and when I was trying to do my pre pre-show research and stuff, I was looking up at about the cloth bound book thing that you were talking about and that you wanted to um have that be like purchasable on its own versus, you know, like the more deluxe version of it and things like that. What else are you willing to share about this campaign? I know it's really, really early, but is there anything else interesting you want to share about that? The plans for that? 01:46:52.36 George - Three Sails I mean, I think, I mean, it's basically, it's kind of already out there already. Like I said, so the Clothbound book with the embossed silver foil cover plus the dust jacket. So you get the artwork on the front. 01:47:02.56 Jala Uh-huh. 01:47:03.36 George - Three Sails It's going to be really luxe, you know, like one of the people were saying today on the Discord, they're like, this is the one of the most touchable games I've ever seen. i love the description touchable. And people are like, the paper feels really good. The cards feel brilliant. The box is excellent quality. So you are going to get all of that again. Because we are saving money, so the cards it turned out were the most, for Mapper Money, were the most expensive part to produce. They were the most expensive component. um And so we're not doing cards this time because they don't make sense for Gallows Corner. But instead, like I said, instead of the cards, we're doing those four pre-written adventures. We are already talking to some amazing designers about writing some of those on our behalf. So I will write one. Jeremy will write one. We'll have at least two others. We are this time as well. We are bringing more people in to do additional writing for the actual book. So I was talking to my friend Ben today. Now, Ben, I met last year at UK Games Expo. In fact, I met Ben the week before UK Games Expo, another industry event. But then we hung out. you know, but most evenings at UK Games Expo last year. And Ben is amazing. And, you know, England has 46 historical counties. Now I have to write a page for every single one of those counties. And that's a lot. Some of them I haven't ever even been to, let alone lived in. And so what I'm doing is there's a lot of people who are really excited about it. And they're like, oh, are you doing this place? Or are you doing that place? And I'm like yeah, I am. Do you want to do the writing for it? And I've asked him to put me pictures together. and Ben lives in Oxford, which is at Oxfordshire. And Ben sent me the pitch for the Oxfordshire page today, plus a two page spread for like a story hook for that region. And oh my God, is it good? Like Ben has dug up this historical event, called Saint Scholastica's day and it's a real historical thing that happened in oxford in like in the 1300s and ben is going to do two-page spread on like 20 years after the original Saint Scholastica's day and like it's going to be so good like I was sat here this morning i was like really tired i was trying to work on the pre-release guide I was stuck on a moment and then Ben sent me that pitch and I read it and just, it was immediately flooded with energy. So you're going to see lots of different voices in the book, which is really good. You're going to see some amazing adventures. um those adventures will be physically available as a five zines. They're going to look really, really good. you can So the individual book will be available on its own. That'll be the kind of normal, like standard pledge. You'll then be able to get the book in the box with the four printed zines as the kind of like in inverted commas deluxe pledge. um But you'll also be able to buy those zines individually if you just want one or two of them as add-ons. So one of the things we did with Mappa Mundi was we did the low income pledge. so we like So we had the digital edition was 15 pounds for the PDF, but we also did a low income edition, which was also no questions asked because we're not cops at 10 pounds. So we're going to do that again this year, oh this this time, because we think that was really well received. It's a really important thing to do. And we are also, we did social impact stretch goals in Mappa Mundi. So we ended up donating two and a half thousand pounds to an elephant sanctuary in Thailand based on the number of backers that we got. And we are going to do social impact stretch goals again. I'm currently deciding between two things. We are either going to be doing, we are either going to be giving money to a food bank charity here in the UK, we are going to be giving out bursaries to TTRPG, working class TTRPG designers to get their projects off the ground based on the number of backers that we get. So it's gonna be one or one... I am more inclined towards the bursaries, and this is the first time I'm mentioning this publicly. I'm more inclined towards the bursaries, but I need to work out how that will work um because it's more work involved than it is for us making a donation to a food bank charity. But we will do that anyway because it's the right thing to do. So yeah, that's where the campaign is at the moment. We've got people already lined up who want to run actual plays for it, which is brilliant. Yeah, it's going to be good fun. It's going be good fun. 01:51:45.12 Jala Awesome. Very cool. So you said that the Gallows Corner launch is going to be next February, it's going to be a year to the day, more or less. 01:51:53.95 George - Three Sails Yes. 01:51:56.50 George - Three Sails It's 364 days from the launch of Mappa Mundi. So someone asked me the day before Mappa was due to launch. So on that Monday night, someone was like, oh, so when are you when are you launching Gallows Corner? I checked the calendar. I was like, oh, today, next year. So yeah, it's quick. 01:52:16.17 Jala Right. Well, it'll be here before you know it for sure. And you're going to be like, oh my God, was you know scrambling, scrambling, I'm sure. But like, scrambling I say scrambling, but you are constantly working. 01:52:23.59 George - Three Sails We'll get there. 01:52:28.00 Jala All of you are constantly working all the time on this. So I know you will be well prepared when you get there, even if you feel internally scrambling, you know? 01:52:31.56 George - Three Sails Yeah. 01:52:37.12 Jala So yeah, if you were to summarize what Three Sails as a company is about, what would you tell people? 01:52:45.22 George - Three Sails Ooh. 01:52:46.73 Jala hehe 01:52:47.64 George - Three Sails So we are we are a working class led TTRPG design studio and publisher who gives a shit about working class voices and gives a shit about putting games from ah that give a different experience out there. That's really what boils down to. like we are We are committed to giving people um the best possible experience with the games they buy from us, and that but that's not just limited to the play experience. It's, as we were talking about, it's like the physicality of the product as well, the community that exists around it, empowering people to create their own things, and trying to elevate other designers. Like, you know, the core of the company is me, Joel and Jeremy, and Joel has started calling these BBK games, Bickers, Blum and Kilpatrick games. So every year we're going to be doing a BBK game. So Mappa Mundi was last, was this year's, Gallows Corner is next year's, as one, two more planned at least for the next year and the year after that. um But with this new project that we're publishing, like that's us trying to, like right from the start, I knew I wanted us to publish other people as well, that it wasn't just a vehicle for us. And this new, like I said, this, this game that we're publishing is hella fun. It's super gay. um It's just, it's so, so weirdly, it's shockingly, it's shockingly close to the central core thesis of my PhD, which like it's, but yeah, really strange. But it's, yeah, we're working with an excellent designer who is super talented. And this game deserves to be big. And we are putting our money where our mouth is. And we're going to make it. I'm going to sell the hell out of that game because it deserves it. And our the designer deserves it. And we're in a position to do that for that designer because that designer otherwise wouldn't bring this game to market or not in not in ah not in ah the way that...They want it to be bought to market. 01:54:56.00 Jala Right. Not to the scale and not to the, right. 01:54:56.26 George - Three Sails So we're going to do that. Exactly. So we're in a position to do that and we're putting our money where our mouth is, but we're also putting our time where our mouth is as well. Like we're spending significant time on this project as well. 01:55:09.23 Jala Right. So you said that was going to be via Kickstarter as well. So I think that that'll be like after you finished the fulfillment for Gallows Corner, maybe. 01:55:12.95 George - Three Sails So our plan is our plan is the Gallows Corner will be February and will be fulfilled by this time next year, like Mappa was. And then we will do the next, that that other project we will do in September. And then we will fulfill it in January because um shipping over Christmas is obviously horrible. So we want to, you know, in order to try and um sort things out, we might we might manage it before Christmas. Certainly, we would have probably printed it before Christmas. But like freight shipping to the US is, you know, because we do all our stuff in Turkey, the stuff that comes to the UK gets driven here. um It gets loaded onto the back of a lorry and it gets driven over. And that's quick and it's easy it's relatively cheap. But to the US, it's sea freight. And so like... we will probably start trying to send copies over to the U S in December. Like once all of the big stores have done all their Christmas shipping and stuff, yeah know, cause they're not, they're not freight shipping in December. It's too close to Christmas for them to do that. But we will, you know, like towards the tail end of December. So we aim to fulfill that in January. And then game number four, we'll be launching on Kickstarter in February, 2024, 2027, sorry. 01:56:30.75 Jala That's a tight turnaround schedule. But I think trying as much as people would love to have it by Christmas, the thing is, is that usually during that time of year, people are very, very busy, and they're not going to be able to spend time with the materials. And also, at least here in America, the shipping becomes far more unreliable during that time of year because of all the other, like the volume that the post office is trying to deal with or the carriers in general are dealing with. So, you know, I think for the number of things that could potentially be lost in the mail or damaged in the mail, it might be better to do it in January, but you know, whatever comes through. 01:57:15.80 George - Three Sails And it's also, it's a nice, it's a nice thing to break the January blues as well. Like getting a new TTRPG that you backed a few months before getting that come through your door in early to mid January is going to help break that post new year's blues that everyone gets. Cause you've already paid for it, right? It's been paid for It came your bank account. So you've got, you get something new that it feels like you haven't had to pay for 01:57:36.81 Jala Right, right. So yeah. So at this point, this is about the point where I'm like, where can people find you? Where can people find your games? Of course, we're going to have all the links in the show notes. But you can say it out loud for people who prefer hearing it and Don't want to read the show notes. 01:57:50.17 George - Three Sails Yeah, absolutely. So Mappa Mundi, you can go to MappaMundiRPG.com. That's where Mappa Mundi lives on the internet. Through there, you can buy the products. You can click links. It will take you to our Shopify account, our Shopify store where you can buy the Mappa Mundi book, box and cards. ah For US customers, it's For u k customers, it's For EU backers, it's 70 euro, I think, pretty sure, 70 euro. And yeah, so you can find that Mappamondayrpg.com. You can find Gallows Corner at gallowscornerrpg.com. You can go there. You can sign up to the mailing list. If you're on the mailing list, you'll get the pre-release guide the day before anyone else gets it. And you can also go to the Kickstarter pre-launch page for Gallows Corner and you can follow us there. That would be really helpful. You can join us on Discord. You can find us on BlueSky. You can find us on Instagram. I think that's all of our socials. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it. So we're at Instagram and Discord and BlueSky. We're just at Three Sails Studios. 01:58:59.42 Jala Right. Right. And of course, ah for folks listening, you can find me anywhere that I might be found at Jalachan, including Jalachan.place where you found this episode and all of the others. 01:59:10.62 Jala And before we head out, I just wanted to thank you again, George, for coming on and talking about all this. I'm super jazzed about all that you've got going on and that everything went so successfully. 01:59:21.28 Jala But when I talked to you the first time, I'm like, oh yeah, this is going to be so like, I know, I already know, you know 01:59:28.40 George - Three Sails Thank you, mate, as always. 01:59:28.77 Jala But I'm glad that you did see everything through as successfully as you did and that you've already got so many plans going for the future and um you know are investing back in to the creator you know creators, not just you guys, but like the creative process to the company itself so that you're building a stable foundation for moving forward and continuing to produce games for everyone. 01:59:55.72 Jala So thank you so much. 01:59:56.82 George - Three Sails Well, mate, thank you sir thank you so much. You know, I've always, literally always got time to come on Jala's Place. Always, always, always got time. So you, whenever you want me, I am here. So thank you for having me as always. 02:00:08.02 Jala Well, thank you so much. And thank you to all the listeners for hanging out with us for these couple of hours talking about all things Three Sails Studios. So until next time, take care of yourself and remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]