Interview - Yvris Burke - TTRPG Game Creator - Jude's World

Today I chat with Game Designer and TTRPG Content Creator - Yvris Burke (Button Kin Games).

We discuss the Solo Journaling game Jude's World, TTRPG Creation, DM/GM Tips and Tricks and much more.

You can find Yvris and all of her associated content via the links below.

Website:
https://buttonkin.com/

Twitter:
https://x.com/YvrisDMs
https://x.com/GirlsRunWorlds

Other:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/buttonkin/judes-world
https://buttonkin.itch.io/
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?keyword=yvris%20burke
https://www.instagram.com/button_kin_games
https://girlsruntheseworlds.com/

Calibration Tools:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/114jRmhzBpdqkAlhmveis0nmW73qkAZCj

Please leave reviews on ITunes to help us to learn and grow as a Podcast

Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell
~~~~~~~~~~

CAST & CREW
Host: Adam Powell
Guest: Yvris Burke

Sound Design: Adam Powell
Edited by: Adam Powell
Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

~~~~~~~~~~
Website:
https://linktr.ee/snydersreturn
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIoZ8iiYCp919UHXUYGghbw
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=Roscoe%27s%20Chimkin&ref=search_box

Buy us a TTRPG Source Book: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SnydersReturn
Are you on DISCORD? Come hang out in our server! https://discord.gg/QgU5UNf Join us in the Snyder’s Return Facebook Group!

Visit https://www.patreon.com/snyders_return?fan_landing=true
~~~~~~~~~~~
Social Media:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReturnSnyder
Instagram -  Snyder's Return (@snyders_return)
Email - snydersreturn@gmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

Adam Powell (00:21.891)
Hello and welcome to Snyder's Return, a tabletop roleplay podcast. My guest today has invited us to create a world of angst, excitement and the unexpected. Where we become greater and lesser at the same time. A place which ensnares our imagination in a trap of sorts. Will you become a sports fan who is also a straight A student? A punk who loves movie nights or someone else entirely. Let's build a life and play the hand we're dealt and see if we can reunite lost love.

It is a pleasure to welcome TTRPG game designer, creator of Jude's World and Buttonkin Games, Yvris Burke. Yvris, thank you so much for joining me today.

Yvris (01:02.366)
Thank you for having me, what a slick introduction, loved it.

Adam Powell (01:05.475)
thank you very much. Well, less about me and more about you. Yvris, how did you yourself get into tabletop role playing games, please?

Yvris (01:08.19)
You

Yvris (01:13.982)
yeah, so I am that dreaded thing. I am a pandemic GM. I'm somebody who'd played a few times before 2020 and then actually ran my first game in person in February 2020 and then obviously went online after that immediately. So, and I've been running games since then and then I had been running games like probably about

10 months before I decided to join a game jam and create a little solo game called Bumbling, which did okay. Surprisingly well actually for like only probably actually the second game I created. The first one I don't count because it literally didn't function as a game. So yeah, did quite well, was encouraged and have carried on from there really. I still play all the time obviously but now I also make games, yeah.

Adam Powell (02:10.435)
Amazing. So before we go into more of your creative works, may I delve a little bit more into your GMing and playing? What systems have you been enjoying and are looking to enjoy within your own sort of private gaming spaces?

Yvris (02:28.158)
Yeah, so obviously because I've not been at this this long, it's not like the longest list, but I would love it to be. I have a two playlist that's pretty long. I have been running a D &D campaign every week for three years, and we're kind of reaching the final arc of that now and I'm kind of...

mixed feelings, melancholy, because we've really enjoyed it and it's a great group and gosh the commitment of three years of them playing every week, I know how lucky I am for that. But I am salivating at the prospect of playing different things, especially as somebody with game design credentials and aspirations. I know that I should play broadly in order to inspire my own work and be aware of what the genre is.

I've obviously done Powered by the Apocalypse stuff, Monster of the Week, Monster Hearts, things like that. Played a bit of Starfinder, which I really enjoyed. Yeah, gosh, I'm like blanking on things now. I have friends who run like mini conventions where we play lots of like indie systems that people have come up with on the fly. So I've tried a lot of...

Just like tiny systems that people have created and tiny weird things through that as well as like some of the more obvious bigger names. So, you know, not as broad as I would like in terms of experience, but getting there, getting there, picking up my experience and taking my learnings where I can find them.

Adam Powell (04:04.483)
Absolutely. Before we sort of move into your creative learnings, and it's something I'm actually very interested to talk to you about if that's okay. But before we go into that, where can we find you? Where can we support you? Where can we go and sort of check out all the wonderful things you do and are associated with, please?

Yvris (04:23.518)
So, I mean, I have a real hub in my website. So, buttonkin .com, nice and simple, has all the social links right there on the front page, has like a little mini form for subscribing to my newsletter, which I write monthly, and, you know, also has a link to the current Kickstarter campaign. So, buttonkin .com is the simple answer to that question. I'm on.

blue sky, Instagram, back on Twitter for the campaign promotion angle for now. Let's see how that goes. yes, yeah. I'm, you know, largely most, the best way to follow me is serve to follow the newsletter. Cause that's every month I kind of just update on, you know, and I write a diary of how the game development is going. I actually expose my process quite a lot through that as well as talking about, you know, other bits of things that I've

do. And yeah, of course also mentioning and promoting other people's stuff that I really like.

Adam Powell (05:23.043)
Yeah, of course. And so again, another quick question before we move on to another question. Button, Buttonkin. Where's that name come from? What was the inspiration for Buttonkin games?

Yvris (05:41.262)
So when I was a small child, I spent an awful lot of time at my grandmother's house. I had a single mother, single parent. So my grandmother was very involved in my upbringing and she's very crafty person, something that she passed on to me. I think that's kind of where I get my, I'll just make my own kind of ideas from as my grandmother. And she had this button tin.

that was full of all these buttons that she'd collected over decades, because she made clothes and things. And I used to spend hours playing with them and sorting them into little families and creating stories and kind of world building and creating drama between these different clans of buttons. So it was kind of like a very early rudimentary sort of form of role playing gameplay world building. And I kind of, when I was looking for a name for my imprint, I kind of just sort of thought, you know.

what's something that's from my history that's quite personal about how I write stories and make games. And that felt like, just felt right. It felt a little bit weird and unique. So yeah.

Adam Powell (06:48.611)
All right, well, thank you very much. The personal touch always adds so much joy and love to these things. And to understand where the names are derived from really helps connect. And what a wonderful story. I think many people have had the grandparent with the tin of odds and ends, should we say. It could be different for different people, but the buttons, definitely.

Yvris (06:58.846)
Mm -hmm.

Yvris (07:16.894)
She's fortunately still with us, but I do now have the button tin because she's 92, bless her, so she doesn't do the sewing anymore. So I have received the button tin and now have it in my house. So yeah. Yes, the passing of the tin, indeed.

Adam Powell (07:24.053)
Alright.

Adam Powell (07:29.859)
the passing of the tin rather than the torch. So, but with Buttonkin Games, you've mentioned you made a game which we don't count with just, and then you made Bumbling and you have made several others such as Drama Alarmers and others we can sort of move on and mentioned. What from Bumbling through to where we are with Jewsworld, which is the

Yvris (07:41.438)
You

Adam Powell (07:59.395)
kickstart project we will talk about shortly. What have you learnt the most of a creator? You mentioned sort of playing other systems and other people sort of ad hoc games as it were. What have you learnt the most as a creator, as a game designer through this process?

Yvris (08:20.51)
I think.

The main learning is something that you're always learning and I think I will be always learning. I don't feel like there's anything that, any aspect of game design where I'm like, I'm done, I have learned that thing. Everything is always an evolution but I think the thing that I'm evolving most consistently is just creating a system that's just enough to support fun and then leaves plenty of space for players to...

to build on that and to, you know, creating the perfect amount of inspiration, the perfect nugget of inspiration that people can then just take and do what they want with it. Because, yeah, just making sure that the game is to be played, that it isn't just like me and my ideas and my authorial voice overriding the intent, which is for the player to come in and for it to be their story. So yeah, that's...

I think that game that wasn't a game, the main problem with it was it, well, for one, it was kind of a board game because I hadn't quite internalized what exactly makes something an RPG. It had role -playing elements, but it was too crunchy. It didn't leave room. It didn't, it wasn't going to create moments for a person, either individually in their own time or between people. So yeah, that balance is always what I'm questing after.

Adam Powell (09:51.491)
well. Well, I don't know how you feel about Jews well, but but going through the preview copy you sort of kindly sent to me prior to this interview. I think you're close to hitting the nail on the head with this one. And so Jews well, then we mentioned inspiration and moments in time. This game that you've created, the solo solo journey.

Yvris (10:06.462)
Hopefully, yeah.

Adam Powell (10:19.363)
TTRPG that you've created very much lives within those. It has inspiration and around a moment or moments of time. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about Jude's world, please?

Yvris (10:35.134)
sure. It's a kind of... It's a solo game. It's tarot based. It is a... It's designed to create a kind of coming of age story. You know, the protagonist is a 12 year old whose parents have announced that they are breaking up and who has decided that they are not going to just accept that and they're going to try and get their parents to get back together.

That's the main sort of, you know, that's the main plot of the story that you're going to tell is this attempt by this preteen to bring these two people back together. A thing that they are wholly unqualified to do as all preteens are. So it's a learning journey for them about the complexities of love and relationships and, you know, the fact that their parents are people actually, which is a thing that we all.

you know, as humans commonly have that experience at some point, that kind of aha moment. And I think, yeah, so it's about that, but it's also intended to provide like a slice of sort of preteen teenage life, you know, major milestones and moments in this character's life as they grow and develop. So the intention is that the character has two goals. One is to get their parents back together and the other is to develop into a happy and well -rounded teenager.

And the way the game is designed, it's hard to do both, essentially. So it's always a bit of a trade -off, which is intentional.

Adam Powell (12:08.995)
It sounds amazing. And what were some of the inspirations because that sort of the parents reuniting sounds very familiar to them and may have sort of rung a bell in the back of other people's minds as well. What were some of the inspirations that you drew on to create Dudes World?

Yvris (12:27.39)
So like the initial inspiration was a game that was popular recently and it's an incredible game and I don't like I keep mentioning it to people as like the inspiration for this and it sounds like I'm being a bit sassy about it but there's a game called It Takes Two which is a co -op game where you play as two parents of a preteen who have been turned into dolls and have to work together to solve puzzles.

and under the guidance of a speaking self -help book. I only played the first chapter of this game with my partner and it was really good fun. It's a beautiful game, well done. The mechanics are excellent. It was really good fun. But at least in the initial chapter, I felt like the story was these two have to fall back in love or they'll be dolls forever. And I was like, whoa. And it reminded me of obviously the old parent trap films like the Lindsay Lohan and then there's the 1960s one as well.

That was a remake of. And it just kind of got me mulling on this topic because, you know, full disclosure, my parents are divorced. They broke up when I was eight. Not an uncommon experience. And I always, yeah, I always found those narratives really strange. Like the, at no point in my childhood did I want my parents to get back together. That just was not a thought that I had. And I...

I think I've posted on social media about it, like, who are these stories for? Who's writing these stories? You know, is this like wish fulfillment for somebody or is it? And I feel like on another level, I feel like there's almost like a slightly conservative edge to the stories, that it's a little bit like marriage at all costs. And, you know, I feel quite strongly that divorce isn't always a bad thing. Like sometimes that's the best, that's the best you can do. And, you know, you can do that.

better and worse ways. There's always a story there. Everybody's parents breaking up story is different. And it's formative if it happens to you at those ages. So yeah, I just felt like what does that story look like if you allow for the complexities and vagaries of actual real human emotions? What does that story look like? Really, if you take the Disney of it all away, what actually would happen?

Adam Powell (14:25.379)
Hmm.

Yvris (14:53.438)
if a 12 year old tried to set their parents up, you know. Yeah, that's, believe it or not, that's the short answer. I could write a PhD on this topic because I have so many thoughts and opinions on it.

Adam Powell (15:07.019)
Well, maybe we can have time for that on another interview in the future. It's all good. It's all good. So you mentioned some of the complexities, the balance and the trade offs. So within Jude's world, then how do we build Jude's life? And Jude, as you mentioned in the book, is sort of

Yvris (15:10.718)
Yeah, for sure. I'll keep it brief for your sake, yeah.

Adam Powell (15:32.323)
Gender free in that respect you you assign a gender to do that you align with or you choose to represent through your own solo journaling, but how do we build Jews life and I'm gonna stick with that. How do we build Jews life?

Yvris (15:49.214)
Yeah, I mean that's a good word because I do have a, you know, the character creation process is heavily wrapped up in this tarot spread that I've designed that you, that's called the Build a Life spread, which is, you know, before you really start playing the game and doing the journaling part, which is the main bulk of the game, the setup involves doing a special tarot spread that helps you answer some set questions about

the history of this family, you know, about the two parents, how they met and got together, you know, stories from Jude's early life. And I'm actually really pleased with how that turned out. I think from my experience of playing it,

myself, I really felt, and every time I had different answers to those questions, who these people are, how they came to know each other, because I did a different tarot spread and the card said different things, but I did every time go into the next phase of the game, the journaling game, feeling attached to these people and feeling like, I just told a little love story about this little family and now it's breaking apart. And that helped me kind of get into the mindset of this.

this protagonist who doesn't want that to happen, essentially. So, yeah. There's also like a little fun, you know, those like memes where you have like the A to Z and it's like, look up your first and last initial and you have like a little fun approach to that for creating like a very basic tagline for each character. Like you said at the beginning, like Jude might be a punk who loves movies or, you know.

their parents, one of their parents might be, you know, an indie bopper who loves spicy food. Just, just little, like, little flavor details using this kind of meme format that I feel is appropriate for a game about a 12 year old. To just give them like a first, like foundational, this is kind of a little bit about who they are before you get into basically writing their history through a tarot spread.

Adam Powell (18:03.811)
And you mentioned tarot, and clearly many games have many different styles of mechanics, whether it be tokens, dice, so on and so forth. What was it about the tarot and the major arcana that sort of drew you to use tarot as this sort of tool and mechanic within the game itself?

Yvris (18:26.713)
Well, I'm far from the first person to use tarot in a solo game. I'll acknowledge that. Like it's a popular choice for a way of generating story and that just makes perfect sense really, doesn't it? I mean that's what the cards are for, essentially. I mean I've been aware of tarot cards for a long time. I've had my own set for a long time. I've got a couple of sets now.

especially now that I'm developing a tarot game, I keep looking at sets and like I'm gonna end up with a collection at this rate. But I've always liked tarot as a means of exploring a problem. I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but I...

love the art of them and I love that I can ask a question, do a spread, look up the interpretation of the cards and then it just gives me a new route into something that I might be stuck on. Because the cards are designed to tell a story, they're designed to be flexible enough that they prompt but not so specific that you go, no, that's not a thing. They are designed as a divination tool. I mean, if you want to be cynical,

They are also designed to be used by people who want to act as if they know your future. And for that they have been evolved over time to become this thing that... And the reason they are popular is because they are useful for that. They are flexible. They provide a prompt.

they don't get in the way of what you want to do with that information. There's a lot of different ways to take an individual card. So it's that thing again, of they are just like kind of an ideal tool for a designer who wants to be like, here's a prompt, here's a steer, here's something that helps you put some guardrails on your creativity, but it's still your creativity and you can kind of flow it where you want with it.

Adam Powell (20:23.683)
You mentioned the guardrails and to sort of stick with the theme of guidance, should we say, solo journaling games can be very self reflective, very immersive. What guidance would you have for someone that was playing when they pick up and we'll get to the Kickstarter shortly, but when they pick up a copy of Jude's World, which I'm sure many, many, many people will, how to play and it

Yvris (20:49.758)
Fingers crossed.

Adam Powell (20:50.851)
I'm sure they will. And how to play and experience the game safely in that respect.

Yvris (20:58.43)
That's a good point. Yeah. I think for me, I would not advise using it to retell the story of your own experience, right? Never have I used the game to rehash or relitigate my own parents' stuff. It's definitely more of a, you know, keep it fictional, keep these characters separate to your own life.

And you know, the prompts help you do that. Like the prompts help you create new people, essentially. I think it's good before you go in to be aware how gritty and real you wanna go with things. I know on my playthroughs, there is the opportunity when you are playing the game for things to go wrong between the two parents, for them to have an argument and fall out. I think on my playthroughs, I have

You know, the game prompts you, like, what did you find out about their relationship? What bad thing is causing them to fight? I think on my playthroughs I have actually actively had to be like, okay, now I don't want to go too deep here on like anything too wild, but that's a sort of player's choice. It's your voice, it's your story.

you know, do you want to go more Disney, more comedy, more wacky hijinks, or do you want to go more deep drama? I sort of tread a line between the two where I keep it pretty PG, like pretty like 90s sort of cut, like 90s sitcoms made for teenagers, but that 12 year olds would end up watching, you know, like there were a lot of those in the 90s that were young teenagers.

Adam Powell (22:40.035)
Hmm.

Yvris (22:47.358)
being cool and charismatic and having interesting lives. And of course, as an 11, 12, 13 year old, I would watch that and absorb that so much because you just wanted this guidance of how to go about becoming that. And they always tread this line where there would be serious issues that came up sometimes, but there would always be a resolution. There would always be a heart to heart with an adult. There would always be a coming home moment.

in the story that kind of put things back on a bit of an even keel. We've learned our lessons and now we are ready for another episode. So I think that's kind of part of the reason why a lot of the aesthetic and a lot of the references for the game are those sorts of shows, because I feel like that's a steer and a guidance on tone, is that yes, you can have serious things happen. You can have things that are about, you know, the flaws of people, the complexity of relationships, but you can also...

basically have a good relationship with a parental figure. There's guidance in the game that after an episode where the, after an event where the two parents fall out, Jude ought to have a heart to heart with one of them that gives them some context and gives them some grounding and brings back that feeling of safety, you know?

Adam Powell (23:48.419)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (24:07.587)
Yeah, so almost no matter the challenge, there was an arm around the shoulder sort of.

Yvris (24:12.414)
Yeah, things might be hard, but ultimately there's nothing in the game that suggests that, you know, though they are breaking up, that Jude's parents aren't loving parents and, you know, trying their best, essentially.

Adam Powell (24:22.339)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (24:28.227)
That's amazing, amazing stuff. And for those who have been inspired to pick up Jude's World, at time of recording, we are in Kickstarter pre -launch, if I'm not mistaken.

Yvris (24:40.254)
We are in pre -launch. Launch date for the campaign will be 6th of August. So later this summer, it will go live and it will run for a month. Standard Kickstarter campaign. So yeah, we are in pre -launch. If this goes out when we were still in pre -launch, please do follow. And one of the best things you can do for an indie designer you're interested in is follow their Kickstarter. That number is exposed and...

in terms of like the marketing thing that we unfortunately have to do, big number good. So yeah.

Adam Powell (25:10.819)
Absolutely. So, well, I've signed up to be notified and that the numbers is steadily heading towards and I'm sure we'll have no doubt go into the 100 plus and hopefully into the hundreds and beyond.

Yvris (25:16.254)
thanks.

Yvris (25:26.014)
Well, I am doing a thing where if it goes to 200, then I will actually expose some selected entries from my actual authentic teenage diary that I found and read. I'm doing a bit of a promotion. If it gets to 200 plus followers on the pre -launch, then yes, I'm going to take some edited and selected excerpts from my diary and read them out on a video probably.

details to be decided, but if you want to watch me embarrass myself, please follow the pre -launch.

Adam Powell (25:53.987)
I was gonna say...

I respect your bravery of exposing potentially interesting moments of your earlier life.

Yvris (26:04.734)
Yeah, just exercising some demons, you know?

Adam Powell (26:09.507)
So while we wait for the Kickstarter to go live, please scroll down for that link and notified. And if you're listening during the launch, then scroll down for the link and support the project. And if you're listening after the Kickstarter is closed, let's go down, follow the link and purchase the game or go to buttonkingames .com and pick it up from there. I imagine it will go on your itch, which is something I was going to bring up in a moment. So while we wait, again, at time of recording.

Yvris (26:30.654)
For sure, yeah.

Adam Powell (26:36.547)
for Jude's World to go through the Kickstarter progress. While we wait in pre -launch for Jude's World to go through the Kickstarter process, what else can we enjoy? We've mentioned some of the games already, Drama Alarmers and Bumbling, but what else have you got for us on your itch page, for example, that we can pick up today?

Yvris (27:02.654)
Honestly, I think Drama Llamas is probably the thing I would point most people to because that's the biggest project that I've done. It's a group game, it's not solo, it's something a little bit different. I'm proud of it. It was a Kickstarter that I did. It was my first Kickstarter and I fulfilled it last year. Worked very hard on it, it's got some incredible art and it's, you know.

Adam Powell (27:09.155)
Hmm.

Yvris (27:29.918)
a very fun, silly game. I've never played it and not cried laughing. And that's, you know, that's me bigging up my own game, but it's, it's true. That is what happens when I play that game. so I definitely recommend that. I like other things that I've done have been smaller scale. Like I have, I have like a lot on there that I did called Righteous Jaunt, which is kind of Adventure Time inspired, but it's designed for you to kind of go out into your own environment and create an adventure on a walk.

It's a fun read. I have my own monster manual in there of such stat blocks as a fly tipped, a sentient fly tipped mattress and an angry seagull and a horde of landlords or a swarm of kids on bikes. Things that you would see in an urban environment that might make you feel a little anxious. The idea is that you go on a walk and you're combating despair.

and generating hope. So yeah, that's a project that I took quite a lot of time over and then yeah, has not been as big, but I didn't kickstart it. Other things I've done have just been standalone adventures and things like that. As I say, I'm quite new.

Adam Powell (28:45.699)
You're quite new, but you do have a number of, should we say D &D 5e, I was going to say just 5e, but D &D 5e adventures created for us to sort of pick up and run in our own home games. Were they inspired by your own home game or of these things that have sort of come to you separately through the creative process?

Yvris (28:59.166)
Yeah.

Yvris (29:07.198)
Yeah, so no, they're separately and I haven't I haven't done content for D &D for a while. But it is where I kind of started out. Other than writing a solo RPG for a jam, I also did the storytelling collectives like how to make your own adventure thing. Shout out storytelling collectives, they are great. So I did their course and was part of like a graduating class of people who made their first adventure. So I made this adventure that was a

about a magical oil rig type situation. There were a few people in that class who did like ecological theme things. Obviously it's on a lot of people's minds. So there's that. It's the first adventure I did. It sold okay and it plays, I have played it. And then the biggest thing I've done for D &D was this haunted house adventure called A Fame Mystery of Glandorn, which...

was completely standalone. My intention at the time, being a new designer, my intention was I wanted to write my own module, which ambition I have backed off on as being way too big and way too ambitious. And I since have kind of backed away from creating so much for D &D, I'm much more, you know, creating for indie games now, especially since all the OGL stuff, it's just, it's a bit of a minefield.

Adam Powell (30:29.507)
Yeah.

Yvris (30:32.094)
But that is like a best seller on DM's Guild, that haunted house mystery. It does very well, it still sells and I don't do active promotion on it. So I guess people are into haunted houses. But yeah, now I ran that for my current group when we were still flirting with, we're not gonna do a campaign, I'll just do a short thing. We had a friend who was running a Starfinder campaign that we were all in.

Adam Powell (30:39.939)
Hmm.

Yvris (30:59.038)
But he had some life stuff come up, so I ended up running that for people. And then that finished, and then I just admitted that I was happy to run a campaign for them all, which is how my three -year campaign happened. So yeah, it's standalone, but yeah, it was kind of the nugget that began the campaign that I'm still running.

Adam Powell (31:01.731)
for us.

Adam Powell (31:09.443)
you

Adam Powell (31:20.451)
Amazing. So outside of your work on Jude's World, the games you're working on and releasing through Buttonkin Games, where can we find you on a actual play or sort of live stream basis?

Yvris (31:41.79)
Yeah, so I haven't streamed for a while, but I did some work with Girls Run These Worlds, who have a YouTube channel and a Discord and are very active on Twitter, I believe. I did a few different things with them. So I did one of their first one shots when the channel started, ran my Till Vale committee adventure that I also have up on itch. I also ran a short campaign of Drama Alarmers to promote the game, which was really good fun.

and ran a campaign of Inspire Isles as well. I don't know if you've had Hatchling Games, yeah. So I ran that, like a six session campaign of that for them, which is all up on YouTube if you do want to see me GMing. Yeah, I've since gone back into like full -time employment and I do miss streaming and I do enjoy it. So I might look up doing some of that again soon, but it is a lot of prep like.

Adam Powell (32:17.027)
Yeah.

Yvris (32:40.446)
so much work goes into it that people don't even realise. So yeah, no, it's really good fun. I have done it. I will do it again probably, but for now I'm on a little hiatus with the streaming for sure.

Adam Powell (32:53.059)
Fair enough. Well, I will still make sure there are links to the content that you have mentioned there through there. And so you have so many creative outputs, some, as you mentioned, you've dialed back to you to sort of work or other commitments as these things may go. But with Jude's world now sort of in Kickstarter, pre -launch at time of recording and going through that process, are you working on a thing next?

Have you already sort of picked something out as the next project?

Yvris (33:24.094)
yeah, for sure. Yeah, the way I am resisting working on the next thing, like with all of my will, because like most good, well most middling or whatever, tabletop designers, I didn't get into this to do marketing, but I do have to do that, right? I have to do that. I just wrote like a newsletter about this this month, like...

I, it's my second time around doing Kickstarter, so I feel a bit more confident with the marketing angle. I've got a few more ideas about how to go about it, but it does take focus and you do need to work on it. But of course it not being my main skill or something I feel super confident with, the temptation is always to be like, but I want to be writing, but I want to be writing. And I have obviously an idea that I've been.

just resisting, just putting little notes in a file, just putting little notes to the side continually to work on that. It's another group game. So I went solo group, solo group. So I'm just back and forth with those. I'm excited about it, but it's so, so draft stage at this point that there's not much I can say. But it is just, in a way it is helpful to have something else to work on because it gives perspective.

you know, whenever I'm worried, and you do worry when you're doing a Kickstarter, of course there is like this fear of, what if it fails? Which, you know, it happens. It is nice to have the creative work to go back to, which is the reason I do this is like, I love the creative work. I love the writing process. I love the play testing process even. So it's nice to have that to dip into, but you do have to...

make sure that you're not taking away from the current game in order to do that, you know?

Adam Powell (35:19.587)
Absolutely. I did read some of your blog posts on Buttonkin Games website. Very insightful, very entertaining for the... I hope you were going for entertaining because I chuckled a few times.

Yvris (35:29.822)
Thank you.

Yvris (35:33.886)
I can't resist making jokes. It's, yeah, not always good ones, of course, but I do have to make jokes for sure.

Adam Powell (35:42.947)
all part of the fun. So one thing I've sort of want to ask you and you mentioned you've GM'd Drama Alarmers on stream and you've had the same, and congratulations, the same D &D game running for three years and ongoing or soon to be coming to a close. So with respect to that from your own personal experiences, what have you learned through DMing, GMing and what

And I realize everybody's experience is slightly different, but what could you share with us to sort of give us some inspirational impetus or some guidance to help with our own games?

Yvris (36:27.134)
Sure, yeah, let's see, so much. Gosh, like, I think everybody who GMs, I mean, maybe there's some people who nail it first time, but surely everybody who's GMs, like, and especially because I'm only like four years in, I very much remember the early sessions and I very much remember the mistakes I made and the way that, yeah, the things that I have had to pick up and learn. I think

confidence and trust in your own abilities is a big thing, like willingness to trust that you can improv, willingness to trust that you can carry something, while also acknowledging that you don't have to carry the whole thing. A lot of the time, you know, it's about the players carrying part of it as well, and they are more satisfied with the game when they get to do that. I think when I started I had a little bit of sort of frustrated novelist syndrome.

you know where it's getting that again that balance of how much do I prep and how much do I just leave space and these days my prep for a session takes like an hour at most and that's just because I like to like write lore so it's it's not it used to take me ages it used to take me ages because I used to do that whole like

if they make this decision, then I'll do this, and if they do this, then I'll do this, and try and cover every possibility instead of just trusting that you can know the world and know the basics of what you want them to find and just go with whatever from there onwards. So I'm always trying to move more and more to that ideal of like, don't be too rigid with your planning and just...

Adam Powell (38:04.739)
Hmm.

Yvris (38:18.718)
know what you need to know. And yeah, that's always what we're trying to do, right? We're always trying to cut down on the planning time, just because we're all busy people and it's hard. As much as I do occasionally like to just sit for two hours and write about the world, because it's my own home brew as well, the three -year campaign. So it's my own world, so I get to indulge in that way, but it's learning how much of that is self -indulgent and how much of that is just what's actually going to be exposed to the players.

Adam Powell (38:24.451)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (38:35.843)
Yeah.

Yvris (38:48.766)
I think the thing I'm working on at the moment is just letting them make mistakes. I'm very like, I'm very risk averse as a person in general. So, and I tend to be very sort of like, no, got to keep people safe. But you're not supposed to do that as a GM. You're supposed to be like, no, just go ahead and make the silly mistake. You know, just go. I'm very sort of, I'm trying to work on when a player says, I want to do this thing, not immediately going.

Adam Powell (38:59.299)
Okay.

Yvris (39:18.046)
Are you really sure about that? Because blah

Adam Powell (39:19.427)
You

Yvris (39:43.934)
I'm conscious of it and working on it. I record my sessions so I can watch them back and take notes instead of taking notes at the time. I watch them back on like double speed so they don't take too long. But that's, I don't take notes in the moment I watch the sessions back and that's how I sort of go, ooh, in that moment I really should have just let that person take the floor or I shouldn't have intervened there. I should have just let them go with it.

Adam Powell (39:48.739)
wow. Yeah.

See ya.

Yvris (40:08.958)
I find that really useful actually and fun. Like I like watching back our sessions. It's my friends having a good time together, you know.

Adam Powell (40:16.483)
So I'm guessing that, and this is a guess, because you obviously will correct me if I'm wrong, but that's an online game then. Right.

Yvris (40:24.318)
Yeah, yeah, due to some weird quirk of fate, I'm in Manchester, most of my players are in Scotland. So I have a lot of Scottish friends, love them dearly, but they do have to be so far away. So yeah, that's, I mean, that's another goal for this year is find more people in Manchester who want to play games, but that should be easy enough if I find time.

Adam Powell (40:38.563)
Yeah.

Adam Powell (40:49.315)
Absolutely. Well, the UK TTRPG scene, it seems to be sort of really pulling together and growing from what I've noticed from various discords. We're in at least one of them together. So have you seen the same sort of, I was going to say resurgence, but that sounds like it was there to start with escalation. No, that's also the wrong word.

Yvris (41:05.085)
Mm -hmm.

Yvris (41:16.606)
Surgeons? Yeah, Surge.

Adam Powell (41:17.603)
growth surge, the surge of...

Yvris (41:22.718)
of groups. Yeah, I think we're getting it together. I think when I started, I was conscious of not really having a community so much. Like I had my players who were my friends who transitioned into being people I played games with because I went, hey, do you want to play a game? And so yeah, that's who I knew. But I think I really felt that as like being relatively

new to games and trying to make games is that I have not been playing for 20 years, like a lot of people, and I don't have that sort of like broad group or network of people who I've met through the hobby. So I've been keen to be more part of a community. And I, yeah, certainly for me recently, the Tabletop Industry Networking Group, that's the Discord, We're in Together, UKTin.

has been really great. Like there's monthly meetups in Manchester for designers and we've got a little group who go along every time and some people who hop in and out, but it's been really great to meet people who are in a similar boat, indie designers making games, just have those conversations. Frequently we meet up and we talk about complete nonsense, but it's still nice. We help each other out. We play test each other's games, we help on each other's stalls.

Adam Powell (42:44.067)
Yeah.

Yvris (42:49.79)
play testing a game of my friends at UK Games Expo this year on his stall, because I didn't have my own stall this year. That's something to consider for next year. So yeah, no, it's nice. I just think that kind of community and network growing is a really positive thing. One of the great things about our community as well is that there's people of all levels of experience. There's people who are even newer than me, and then there's people who are really

Adam Powell (43:17.155)
Hmm.

Yvris (43:18.558)
quite well established there who are very generous with their time and their knowledge, which is so lovely to see, you know.

Adam Powell (43:25.731)
Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of community and growth, would you like to remind everybody where we can find you and all the things that are associated with Blaze ZEVRIS?

Yvris (43:36.126)
Sure, yeah, buttonkin .com. Just the homepage, it's right there, is the link to the Kickstarter form to subscribe to the newsletter. You can also click on the blog tab and see all of my past newsletters. I've been writing for about two, at least two years now, every month, a newsletter, which has evolved over time, but recently it's been my development diary for the current game. So you can follow that through and see what the inspirations were.

what sticking points I've come up with. If you're a designer, then hopefully that's interesting to you. If you're not, then maybe it's still interesting to know how this stuff gets done. And also it's the place to find out what I'm doing next because I will post there. Also the website has all the links to my socials like Twitter and Blue Sky and Instagram and Tumblr I'm on as well now. I think there's a bit of a resurgence of.

people coming back to Tumblr. I think we're all diversifying a bit just because we're all a bit aware that platforms aren't maybe going to be around forever, but we'll see. But yes, Buttonkin .com is the place for everything to do with my games.

Adam Powell (44:35.491)
Hmm.

Adam Powell (44:48.387)
I will make sure that link is down in the description below. So please go down and follow that link and the other links I put in there to support Yvris and Button Kin Games and the Kickstarter for Jude's World and all the amazing games and projects that you're part of and have or are working on. Yeah, they're words. They made a sentence. So we have discussed a number of different topics.

I'd like to think we've covered a wide variety of topics, but is there anything that we haven't brought up at this stage that you want to bring up now here at the end of the interview, please?

Yvris (45:32.83)
I think there is, you know? It's all about the current game. I'm very focused. I'm laser focused. Follow the Kickstarter. That's the focus. I'm very goal -oriented, so that's where my brain is right now.

Adam Powell (45:47.779)
That is all right. And that is something I respect. So as mentioned before, please go down, follow those links. Ivar, I'd love to get you back on the show in the future when your party game is done or further developments or if you get back into streaming, if you ever want to come back for a one -shot or something like that, I'd love to get you back on the show in the future if you'd be willing to join me, of course.

Yvris (46:07.646)
I would love to come for a one -shot. Any chance I get to play I jump at it, like, because I am, you know, I'm only four years in but I'm already a Forever GM so if you've got a spot to play I am there.

Adam Powell (46:20.035)
That is something we can sort out separately to this interview, but yeah, I'd love to get you back on for a dedicated interview, should we say, or even some amalgamation of the two things, if that sort of works out in the future. All right, well, thank you so much, Yvris, for joining me today. It's been such a pleasure to learn about Button King Games. Jude's World Kickstarter, currently in pre -launch, will be going live on August the 6th. So if you are listening before it...

Yvris (46:32.958)
You know where I am.

Adam Powell (46:48.355)
Please get notified if you're listening during, please go and support. If you're listening after, please follow the links and purchase from itch or button kin games .com. Yvris, thank you so much for your time today.

Yvris (47:01.15)
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.