What other tabletop experiences have influenced our games? We’re not huge proponents of “all design is iterative” or “great artists steal” as overarching ethos, but we do love to weave a healthy thread of inspiration from other creations into our own. Find out what other games had their voice in the creation of Vindication, Unsettled, and Spirit Fire. Would you have guessed those influences? Are there others you would have assumed? Are there any games that *you* find particularly inspiring? Why? Let us know in the comments and we’ll let you know how right and wrong you are! What types of mindsets, mottos, strategies, practices, principles, lenses, tactics, and what not are at the heart of our game design mentality? What about theme versus mechanics? What is invisible design? What is a “sacred concept”? How do hostage negotiation tactics factor into our thinking? How do we choose what to keep and what to cull? We have thoughts! We think they’re pretty good. What other thoughts are good? Do *you* have thoughts? ….Are they good? Think those thoughts at us in the comments so we can have thoughts about your thoughts and we can get a whole thing going.

We're talking lore(s)! First, some real-life O-Neb lore, which ends up being more full of feels and substance than we would have guessed. Then, some make-believe Vindication lore, which ends up being exactly as full of oddness and hilarity as we would have guessed. In a format we will definitely be returning to, our producer throws cards from Vindication onto the screen in front of us and we improv/brainstorm possible backstories and personalities for each character presented to us. If we studied this episode closely, we'd probably learn some things about ourselves. But we're not going to. We know more than enough already.

Jam-packed with creative-thinky things, this episode dissects the traits of board game developers and all the depth, faux-depth, context, and contextless crazy logic trains that run through our "brains". We ponder quickly if these are good things (and decide: they totally are). Things then turn to a broader discussion on the struggles and agonies (excuse us, "nuances") of being a creative team. The standard array of weird tangents surface as well.