Interview with the authors of An Indie Game Anthology

For a few weeks we have been talking with curiosity about the Kickstarter project An Indie Game Anthology and we have therefore decided to find out more about it with an interview with the two authors.

Elisabeth Chai-Pra-Dit-Kul and Steffie de Vaan have kindly answered our questions and below you can read their statements.

An Anthology of Indie Games seems to be a very personal work, in which you put a lot of yourself. Is it right? Is this your main purpose when you create something? Sharing something about yourself?

The anthology definitely has a lot of us in it. All the games were ideas we had simmering, but never brought to fruition for one reason or another. It was a great creative exercise to just create without having to worry about if something would be commercially successful or not. Not all work I create has to be about me in some way, but everything I do does have a hint of my personality in it. It is hard to completely scrub yourself from the work, in fact I would say it’s impossible.

This work was made by the authors, but the impression is that they are so close that their styles is almost the same. Did you do it on purpose or is it your natural similarity?

Steffie and I like a lot of the same things, but we do have different styles. However, we worked together and edited each other’s games, so it makes sense that they feel unified in some way. Our goal was to create unique games with a similar format, in layout and introduction at least, so our Patrons knew what to expect from month to month.

Can you tell me something about how you two met and how you realized that you could work together so well?

We both met freelancing together and I realized that she lived in the Netherlands too. The Netherlands is a small country so I was excited to meet someone else in the same field as myself and the same circles. After that I hired her to work for my company and the relationship grew from there. I guess when you meet certain people you just know you are a good match and Steffie and I mesh creatively very well together.

12 games for 12 months. Have you started 2018 with this idea in mind or you just wrote when you felt and the natural result was it?

Before we launched our Patreon we had a few games already written, which we indeed did in 2018. The goal was to give ourselves some lead time later in the year to create the other games. We wanted to make sure what we released reached a certain level of quality and that often takes more time.

Why 2019? Is there any specific reason why you chose to celebrate every month of that year with an RPG?

No reason to be honest. Steffie and I just wanted to keep working together in some meaningful way and so it turned out 2019 was the year!

Some of the twelve RPGs are very particular. Did you take inspiration somewhere or is it just your creative talent?

We drew from a lot of places, for example I wrote Bloody Demon Slayers as a response to another RPG supplement I wrote about menstruation being destroyed–that made me angry so I thought why not turn it around and create another game about menstruation? We’re also inspired by TV and popular media, for example Steffie was inspired by the TV shows Dark and Twin Peaks for her game We Die Here, she took the essences of those shows and boiled them into an amazing gaming experiences.

Some of our followers were hoping for an italian translation. Will it be possible? A girl also told us that could do this work.

Right now we don’t have any plans on translating the anthology, that said if someone wants to talk to use about localization we are certainly open to it.

What are your plans for the future? Any other RPGs project?

We will be continuing our Patreon together. Also, my company will be coming out with a new supplement for our game Afterlife: Wandering Souls and a new game for our WITCH: Fated Souls game line. You can find more about on our website.

If after this interview you still have curiosities about An Indie Game Antholgy, do not hesitate to let us know!