Disclaimer: Barak Blackburn laid out one of my RPG projects.
Barak Blackburn is one of the best zinesters in the RPG scene. When I was running behind on my RPG zine, POWERED by the DREAMR, and floundering with the layouts, he came to my rescue and took care of the layouts. I’m in his debt, which helps because I’m also a fan of his work. That’s to say Barak is a giving soul and one of the most creative individuals in gaming today. He and Ellie Hillis (who is another profound game creator) of Denisty Media have another zine coming out through Kickstarter’s Zine Quest 3 and I wanted to talk to them about it, what magick they’ve discovered, and how COVID influenced this project.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Barak, you’ve done a lot for me and I appreciate it. You’ve got a new Kickstarter, what is I Remember When All This Was Trees?
BARAK BLACKBURN (BARAK): Trees (as we refer to it internally, akin to how that one Zeppelin album is called Zoso, and that Fiona Apple album is shortened to When the Pawn…) was really inspired by the world around us as much as anything, and taking time to appreciate it, and to be inspired and in awe of it. We are calling it a LARP, because it is live action, interactive interactions with the world around one, but it can also be about play and make believe.
EGG: Barak and Ellie, what motivated you to create this zine?
BARAK: It’s been quite a year, a struggle for so many in so many ways. Wrapping my head around games that are about conflict and violence is just not where my head is right now. I have developed many daily habits and rituals, if you will, during the past year, to keep me focused, but also to allow my mind to take a much needed break. This past fall, I was inspired to write letters to people, folks I know to various degrees. I really enjoyed the process of sitting down to write a letter, even though my handwriting is atrocious, and connect with friends far and wide. With each letter, I also tried to think of that person and connect with them in a way that went beyond just the writing of the letter. For one friend, I looked though old photo albums we shared, and pulled out some pictures of them from years ago, for another, I took time to watch the sunrise and think of them while doing so. Reconnecting with people, and with nature, in an intentional way has been one way I’ve found to give myself strength and a conscious rest as well. So, we wanted to create something that might inspire others, be fun to read, and if “played” fun and was memorable. The core ideas have been something we have been working on a while. One inspiration was a great article about what children carry in their pockets. It was such pure unadulterated joy and play. But, as we grow older, we often lose some of that sense of wonder and magick.
ELLIE HILLIS (ELLIE): I think the initial inspiration behind the project, and this happens for a lot of our games, was a show. In the case of Trees, I had been watching an Adult Swim show called Joe Pera Talks with You; the show has this sweet, distanced, sad, but warm and sincere sort of vibe. There’s a particular episode that aired early in 2020, “Joe Pera Helps You Write an Obituary,” and I think, while crying, I texted Barak about how much I wanted to make a game like this show. I couldn’t put it into words, but the sweet sincerity of the character, his oddness and slight separation from the rest of the world, his inherent connection to nature, just sort of spoke to me. I had no idea what the game would be, and my first stab at the title was “When I’m Sad, I Cry,” but I really love how it morphed from there.
Like I said, a lot of our projects are inspired like this: a feeling we get from some kind of media – a TV show, a movie, a song – that sparks something deeper in us.
After everything that’s happened this year, it felt wrong to do something sardonic or cruel. In general, our design philosophy has been to veer away from combat-heavy games; we prefer exploring gameplay that doesn’t focus or fixate on violence. In one way, it’s more challenging, but I think it’s also much more rewarding, both for us and designers, and for our players, to be tasked to think outside the box that a lot of TTRPGs put themselves in. As players, Barak and I tend to go for friendship based or nonviolent solutions, and we often see how that throws GMs and other players for a loop, so I think that’s expanded into our entire design approach.
EGG: Why a LARP?
BARAK: When we did Hi-Ho! (a single person LARP) we wanted to broaden the definition of what a LARP can be. Ellie and I have done panels at numerous conventions about roleplaying versus roll-playing. One of the examples we use is a quote from the David Mamet movie Heist: When asked how he figured something out, one of the characters, who claimed to not be smarter, replied “I tried to imagine a fella smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, ‘What would he do?’” When we roleplay, no one asks us how we fly, or how we cast magic missile. When we roleplay we can be anything we like, right? By nature, I’m fairly quiet and keep to myself. I’m not likely to strike up a conversation with somebody while standing in line. However, I can assume the role of someone more extroverted and find the strength to do it. So, if I am playing a role, I can push myself to do things I might not normally be comfortable with. This is how we approached Hi-Ho!, with the basic idea – go out into the world and bring some joy to people. It’s such a basic idea, but we often cannot get out of our own way to execute it. Trees operates similarly, it’s about assuming a new role, or realizing this role was within you all along, and going out into the world, this time to appreciate the world, to make art, to perform random acts of kindness and weirdness. If one has a regular gaming night, and one plays for 4 hours, what if you spent those 4 hours playing a different type of game? If it is snowy out, go out and make snow sculptures for others to enjoy for 4 hours, or spread that time out. Create or do something that will inspire others.
ELLIE: In a way, LARP was the only thing that felt right. This is a game that is played in life – it goes beyond just sitting down at a table. It’s an immersive scenario, and it asks more from you than the regular rolling dice type of game. It could be a case of language failing us in having the perfect words for what the game is, but I think LARP kind of sums it up nicely.
EGG: This is more than just a LARP, you’re including other game elements, correct?
BARAK: Yes, one can play with others, what would be more fun than a group art project or performance? What about a journal where you can spend time to write or draw? Wander to a new place and take pictures. Sample a new food from somewhere. Try a new recipe. Make cookies for someone.
ELLIE: I would say, this is sort of the least gamified game we’ve made. In the same vein as Hi-Ho!, but with the ability to play with others. It doesn’t use traditional gaming mechanics, but it has traditional gaming concepts; things like hidden languages shared only between players in the know, or words that mean something special to the people who have read the book. Because the project is evolving as we are crowdfunding it, it’s a bit nebulous, but there are definitely multiple elements, both from the game design world, and also from the worlds of theater, improv, performance art, magic, and so on.
EGG: What magick have you discovered as you’ve played this game?
BARAK: As we have developed this game, we have been playing it as well. Our Zine Quest 2 Kickstarter (Let’s Make A Mary Sue! LMAMS) was something we had a ton of fun working on… until the world shut down. It was intentionally designed as a project we would work together on, trying new recipes, creating fun characters, etc. Ellie contracted COVID, and even without that, being apart from each other proved to make the project less enchanting and difficult. We finished LMAMS and wanted to do something for ZQ3, and realized we had both been “playing” this new game to a degree. Writing poetry, taking pictures, finding joy in the world, while also always being aware of the difficulties so many have faced and are facing. I was a poetry major in college, and I’ve enjoyed writing more again. More, I’ve enjoyed dedicating myself to finding time in each day to reflect, create, learn, and grow with intent.
ELLIE: Having COVID was rough. I’m over 9 months in recovery, and still dealing with symptoms (luckily very minor ones, mostly just phantom smells and occasional exhaustion and chills). COVID really put things into perspective for me, and I found my outlook changed a bit. I took more time to pay attention to things, like the color of the sky, a pretty rock I found on the ground, sharing a new song I liked, taking pictures of cool graffiti, or drawing more, just for myself. I bought myself flowers more often, because I found they made me feel good. I started paying attention to my body more, with exercise and affirmations. I cried a lot doing yoga. Because COVID really affected my depression, I worked hard to appreciate the small things that brought joy, either to myself or others, which is sort of the backdrop of Trees.
LMAMS was really hard to finish because of everything Barak said, and because I wanted it to be happy. I was pushing myself for it to be positive and empowering and fun and peppy when I wasn’t in that headspace. I love LMAMS, and I think it turned out exactly as I wanted it to, but I feel like, with Trees, that headspace isn’t required. It feels easier to make right now, because it’s a bit lower key and more meditative.
This morning, my significant other made coffee, and for the first time, I was able to smell it while sitting at my desk. That’s the kind of magick we find in the book. It can be bigger than that, but something that small, I promise you, it’s truly magical.
EGG: I’m glad you survived COVID, Ellie. That’s an amazing story.
Switching gears, you do a lot of original, innovative zines and zine formats. What are you planning to do with with one?
BARAK: So, our local print shop is always amused when I drop stuff off. For this project, we are hoping to go even smaller than previous ¼ page projects. Personally, I love micro-zines. Ellie and I one time found a 1/16th page zine out in the wild and it was such a lovely surprise. We are not there yet, zine-wise, but are hoping this one will charm people similarly. The goal is to create something that if someone saw it on a table or little bookshelf somewhere they would want to pick it up and wonder what the heck it was. Staying within the confines of our limitations, while finding new ways to create something unique is always a wonderful self-imposed challenged. But, going back, I know that others with far larger budgets and resources available to them love going larger and full color, we intentionally create zines that are more DIY and frankly end up being cheaper to produce and distribute.
ELLIE: For this zine, I definitely wanted to experiment more with the art we include. We use a lot of fair use images for most of our books, but LMAMS was one of the first books that included almost entirely original artwork. When I made zines in college, they were a very cut-and-paste combination of pictures printed off a computer and pictures we took ourselves. I started taking a lot of pictures that gave me the right vibes for Trees, and I want to use those in conjunction with fair use images to get more of an old school vibe. Sort of a modernized reclamation of traditional zine visuals.
EGG: You’re a huge booster for zines, what are your thoughts on Kickstarter’s Zine Quest 3 so far?
BARAK: I love it. Frankly, much of it seems to be harkening back to old school B+W D&D stuff, but I’ve seen so much cool art and themes, and many of the games that are not Old School adjacent still have a real edge and great voice to them. Last year we added a trade tier to our project and are doing the same this year, in the hopes that we can all share our projects with one another. ZQ1 saw me spend more than we made, supporting all the projects, so that was a bit untenable. I would love if folks took us up on the trade level (It’s $1, but we reimburse the money, and on the honor system, trust we will get a zine in return) because zine trading is part of my DNA and blueprint for zines.
ELLIE: The Trade tier we have is one of the coolest things. Some of the people who Kicked our project last year at that tier sent us extra zines they made in addition to their games, and just seeing what people made and how they made it is really amazing. I think the amount of diversity you can get in Zine Quest is amazing because it’s a fairly low scale buy in as a creator, and it allows people to really express themselves.
EGG: Beyond this zine, what else are you working on?
BARAK: In January, we did a Make 100 project (we did one in 2020 as well, but someone else did a very similar project and happened to work at Kickstarter, so their’s got a bit more promotion). It wasn’t a game, but we will be extracting parts of it for Trees. The project was an excerpt from this cookbook that my mother long ago created by hand. The story of what happened with it is complicated. However, I have one of the photocopied copies of it, and it’s a real work of passion and magic and oddness, and whenever I have shown it to people, they were always intrigued. So, we went through and are pulling about 100 of the recipes, and are annotating and compiling them. As for games, a while back I compiled a list of all the ideas and projects we have on the back burners, and it was over 10. I am not sure which we will decide to complete next, right now, personally, I’m enjoying pulling Trees together, and that’s a win.
ELLIE: I know I am excited about whatever we have coming. For me personally, I’d like to wrap up work on some more traditional games I’ve been percolating on, including BFFs: The Game of Magic, Adventure, Sparkles, and Hugs, a game that we’ve been working on since 2015, and Small Town, a tentatively [Powered by the Apocalypse] game about the lives of small town inhabitants inspired by a certain TV show.
EGG: Thanks for talking to me. Where can fans learn more about your project and follow you?
BARAK: We both have twitter accounts [Barak here] and [Ellie here], but cannot guarantee anything exciting there. Our website, where you can find information about all of our products is [here].
I Remember When All This Was Trees: A Zine Quest 3 Project from Density Media
End Date: Sat, February 27 2021 11:36 AM EST.
“A LARP experience designed to tap into the magic of your own existence.”
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