Interview: Jake (Atarashi Games) & the Magical Land of Yeld
What it's like Kickstarting a 2nd edition
I recently met a ton of folks at the recent Indie Creator Summit, hosted by Goodman Games and BackerKit. As a way to help be a part of the rising tide, I’m highlighting a few of those creators. I’m kicking off a series of interview to talk about The Magical Land of Yeld: 2nd Edition. It’s an all-ages tabletop RPG with a focus on teamwork, exploration and shared storytelling. The new edition refines and polishes the easy to learn Yeld ruleset and offers new Jobs, new art and lore, new monsters and plenty of quality of life improvements!
Hi Jake. You’ve and your brother Nick are the creative minds behind Atarashi Games. What's it like working with each other as brothers? Any lessons learned about the collaborative process?
We've been working together since 2006, almost 20 years! When we wrote our first game together (Classroom Deathmatch) Nick was still a teenager! What we've learned over the years is that, at least when it comes to our games, we think so much alike that the design and writing process is very easy. We pass work back and forth, improving on each other's ideas. Its often hard to remember which one of us wrote a specific rule or designed a certain monster! As a result we've really learned to trust each other as writers and designers.
It looks like Atarashi Games works steer away from the "traditional dungeon crawl" style of games and takes a lot of inspiration from anime/manga. Some of the work aims to emulate "dating sim" style games, while others such as The Magical Land of Yeld takes is an isekai kind of game. What draws you two to create the genre specific games that you do?
We like our games to be about something. Each of our games takes a specific idea, sometimes really simple idea, and expands it into a playable game concept. We find that while larger sandbox games offer the possibility of an unlimited world and narrative, often they aren't designed to tell interesting stories. If you can do anything, you often don't end up doing anything neat! In Yeld we set out a very specific scenario and provide goals for the players to work toward and tools to get there. You are a group of children from our world trapped in a strange magical land, and you have to escape before you turn 13 and become monsters! Yeld doesn't give you an unlimited sandbox to do absolutely anything. Instead it gives you the tools to tell a more narrow but very compelling story. And you'll be amazed to find how much room you have within that seemingly narrow scope to do all kinds of neat things!
Similarly, if you're designing a game to emulate a specific genre or tell a certain kind of story, the game needs to be built from the ground up for that story or genre. Using a pre-existing system is a shortcut that very often does not pay off. We think that 99% of the time you'll get a better result if you design your game from scratch to suit your subject matter. This is always our goal with each of our games. We figure out the story we want to tell and then we build a game to tell it.
The first edition of Yeld back in 2016, and have crowdfunded multiple other campaigns since then. For the other creators out there, can you tell them something important about crowdfunding that surprised you along the way? Or maybe just tell them that the anxiety around running a campaign gets easier with practice?
The anxiety never goes away! Not for either of us, anyway! The process doesn't always get easier, either. In fact, every year crowdfunding a game or comic becomes a little more complicated, with more options and higher expectations. The good news is that after doing this a few times you start to feel like a grizzled veteran. One of the first lessons we learned was to not panic. Projects don't always take off right away, or sometimes seem to stall out for a long time. We discovered that its very easy to panic or fall into desperation or despair. After all, when you're talking about a project you love and that you've spent years working on, it can be crushing to see it not perform as you expected. What we've learned is to take a deep breath and wait and see how a project goes. Often it will turn around. Often it will spike when you least expect it. And you can always try again. Crowdfunding is full of successful comebacks and 2nd chances!
I imagine that designing also gets easier with practice. Your using those creative muscles and getting them stronger! What lessons have you learned between Yeld 1e and Yeld 2e? What's your biggest surprise and your proudest implementation?
Designing does get easier with experience. More importantly, it becomes easier to absorb feedback and recognize insights. In the original version of Yeld we tried so hard to make our rules clear and simple to understand. We used extensive examples as well as comic pages to illustrate how rules work. What we've learned since then is that no matter how clear we think we are, we can always be clearer. We can always find a way to simplify our rules or better explain them. For Yeld 2nd Edition we've spent a lot of time clarifying language and simplifying ideas. A game can never be TOO easy to learn and absorb. And Yeld has a lot of big ideas, so it needs to be easy!
I think our biggest surprise is how much we could improve our game. We're very proud of the original version of Yeld (so much that we're now giving it away for free), but we were surprised by how easily we could improve the game with small but meaningful changes. This is the kind of insight that years of feedback and experience brings. The biggest change we've made in Yeld 2nd Edition is hundreds of small quality of life improvements that really make the game's engine hum. A lot of them will be invisible to many players, but we think they'll notice that the new edition is easier to play, and easier to teach to new players.
Thanks for sharing, Jake! Anything that I didn't ask that you wish I did? Please share if there's something you gotta tell folks!
Yeld is an all-ages game. I think people often see "all ages" as "just for kids", but in fact Yeld was exactly the kind of game I wish I had when I was 12 years old, and exactly the kind of game I want to play today. Good all-ages stories, like Avatar: The Last Air Bender, The Hobbit, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and The Legend of Zelda are for everyone to enjoy, regardless of age. That’s our goal with Yeld. As a child, a teen or an adult you're going to find something in Yeld to love. You're never to young or too old to explore!
What you y’all think of Yeld? I’ve kept the newsletter very DCC/OSR focused so far, but am happy to take opinions on whether it should be opened up explore other ttrpg-related subjects. Leave a comment and let me know!
What else is going on?
Joseph Goodman on Rules As Written (2/23/24)
The founder of the feast will be on RAW this Tuesday (5PM Central)! We’ve got some questions prepared, but we’ll be taking questions from the live chat too!
Upcoming Interviews
Here’s a sneak peak at 2 crowdfunding projects, with interviews coming soon!