I. Dear Reader
Half a newsletter this week but unlike previously, this time it’s just this section and no links. Because I’m still travelling, I have been (blessedly) less online during that time. I’ve made it from Singapore to Malaysia! It’s not exactly a majestic journey. They’re neighbours. My flight basically started descending almost as soon as it was done ascending.
I’m ostensibly here for the Asian Board Games Festival but it’s mostly an excuse to visit the country and meet people. I’m being hosted by my friend, Aaron Lim, and his wife, Jeannie. Aaron’s been mentioned a bunch of times on the newsletter. He’s the designer of Spectres of Brocken, a mecha game of friends-turned-enemies, and Ithaca on the Cards, a storytelling game of doomed journeys that recently crowdfunded a lovely new second edition. Jeannie doesn’t design games but she does design merch for a support group she plans to start for Significant Others of Game Designers whose members she refers to SOGgy Dogs. It’s definitely mostly a joke.
The board game festival happens in George Town (sometimes called Penang, the name of the state). It’s a really cool city. A triple-threat: you get culture, history, and food. Within ten minutes of where I’m staying, which is an old historic neighbourhood that was all shophouses once (shops on the ground floor, homes on top), there’s an art exhibition by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic making fun of the airline Air Asia for using pictures of his work without crediting him and a Michelin star food cart serving noodles. Who knows what I’ll find if I walk more than ten minutes?
At the festival, there are a lot of boardgames but my highlight was trying out a jubensha or “scripted murder mystery” for the first time. Most people in the English-speaking world know jubensha from the People Make Games video on it. While there is English stuff coming out, right now, I don’t think there’s any available for general sale. I played one translated from Japanese called The Mystery of Sanada Island. It’s a really melodramatic mystery: friends reuniting at the island where one of them had a tragic “accident” many years ago. All the characters have some dramatic secret and some hidden reasons for coming. It’s a melodramatic story, reminding me a little of the (very popular) Japanese murder mystery novels I’ve read.
It feels more akin to muder mystery parties than a traditional RPG. But depending on the character assigned you pick, you’re trying to complete objectives which may or may not include solving the mystery. Everyone’s got their own sheets which contain information about their own activities and also give an incomplete picture of what happened on that fateful night. After that, it’s mostly a question of playing through the highly-structured phases: 15 minutes of group play then six minutes of private conversation in pairs of two. This tight structure ends in a vote about who the killer is, which decides the ending you get, a bit like in a videogame.
The whole thing got over in two hours so a highly streamlined taster experience for convention play. A more full-course jubensha might go on for much longer with whole booklets of character information to read and digest. Which isn’t easy by the way! There’s a learning curve in terms of absorbing and internalizing these fictional facts (“It takes 30 minutes to get from the beach to the observation deck”, “I saw Takeshi at the beach at 9.30”). Whether you’re here for the emotional melodrama or the analytical mystery solving, you’ve got to quickly adapt to the constant drip feed of hard-coded clues and facts about your character. It’s still probably easier for someone who hasn’t played an RPG ever, than say picking up Hearts of Wulin, which has a similar outcome.
The same group that ran this jubensha for me, Nightshade Tavern, have made their own English jubensha called Alpha Colony which is a sci-fi scenario where, instead of a murder, one of the group is infected a la The Thing. Sadly, there is no digital version available for sale but hopefully they put it up on itch soon. I’ve done my part for the world by planting that seed in their head! (Or at least nudging them along.)
Back to regular issues next week,
Thomas
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