#also apparently the other reason he took words from smaller queer creators was because people would listen to him as a cis white man

[thestarkster1465]

Haven't been following the James Somerton drama closely but it's become so ridiculous that it's funny

Is no one going to talk about the fact that he said that he thought it was okay for him to mention Vito Russo in the opening credits and then never mention him again because his book was out of print and Russo was dead....

And then in the same breath say that he was 'extending Russo's legacy' like my brother in Christ do you even hear yourself-

[kayawagner]

Gnome Stew Notables – Caitlynn Belle

Welcome to the next installment of our Gnome Spotlight: Notables series. The notables series is a look at game developers in the gaming industry doing good work. The series will focus on game creators from underrepresented populations primarily, and each entry will be a short bio and interview. We’ve currently got a group of authors and guest authors interviewing game creators and hope to bring you many more entries in the series as it continues on. If you’ve got a suggestion for someone we should be doing a notables article on, send us a note at headgnome@gnomestew.com. – Head Gnome John

Meet Caitlynn

Caitlynn Belle is a queer game designer and writer from Savannah, Georgia. You can find her Patreon at where she makes so many weird games about sex and feelings.

@auracait on twitter

auramakesgames.itch.io

Talking With Caitlynn

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work. 

My name’s Caitlynn Belle, I’m a queer games girl from Savannah, Georgia, and I mostly release small, experimental games through my Patreon (caitlynnbelle.com and at

kirigami

3) What themes do you like to emphasize in your game work?

Sexuality and identity, I think, are the big ones. I want games that represent me and I want to do my best to put games out that represent others. I want spaces to talk about sex in a safe and healthy way and I want to explore identity and self-expression and what it means to really dig into yourself and figure out who you are, year after year.

4) What mechanics do you like best in games?

I appreciate finding interesting ways to divine outcomes other than dice or cards, anything quirky that ties back into the theme of the game somehow (Jenga towers for tension / fear, for example), and to be honest, I really like just pure narrative storytelling. Games like Fiasco where the structure of the game enables you to just wheel out and say whatever. I don’t like randomizers much in the games I play – my friends and I are used to creating characters and arcs and just driving towards their conclusions with as few speed bumps as possible.

5) How would you describe your game design style?

Sexy and weird. Just like me. But for real, all I’m trying to do is give you interesting things to say and interesting ways to say it. I think if you have that as your foundation, your game stands a much better chance of being awesome. I try to be authentic in voice, so it sounds like me and the image of the game I have in my head is the same image you get in yours, and I try to let my excitement for whatever it is I’m giving you shine through.

6) How does gender/queerness fit into your games?

They’re all tools to tell stories about queer identity. There’s things you feel weird or like an outcast over that you shouldn’t, but there’s no media for you, nowhere to explore people like you, and I want to start normalizing the idea of having cool gay characters do cool gay things. All of these games are coming from a girl who’s still on her own adventures, figuring out gender and love and who she is, and I think those themes are apparent in the text. I know very, very few people who aren’t exploring feelings about themselves in at least some tiny capacity, who they are and how they’ll express themselves, and that’s a real, honest, vulnerable thing, and I really want to see those kinds of characters out there as well.

7) How does the process of making small games influence your design?

It lets me latch on to any tiny idea I get and give it a proper home and just enough space to breathe and be a thing. You get small ideas sometimes and they can’t fill a larger game – just these little inklings of plots or rules – but they fit wonderfully on a three-page game that focuses in on a single experience.

 You get small ideas sometimes and they can’t fill a larger game – just these little inklings of plots or rules – but they fit wonderfully on a three-page game that focuses in on a single experience. 

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There’s a lot of things that I couldn’t make into a larger product but I don’t think that makes them less valid. Like, I legitimately feel the 200 word RPG challenge that David Schirduan puts out each year has made some of the best games in our community, and I mean that sincerely. They’re beautiful, wonderful games, powerful and captivating, better than most anything in our collections or up on Kickstarter. But, making smaller projects lets you really focus in on what an idea needs and how you edit, and what you should be editing, and it helps strengthen your writing overall. I try to follow these small ideas to completion each month or every other month and it lets me play around with a lot of strangeness that would otherwise drown in deeper pools.

8) How did you get into games? Who did you try to emulate in your design?

I’ve been roleplaying and playing board games forever, so eventually I took the next logical step and tried to make a game I wanted to play that I hadn’t seen yet. My brother played D&D, and when I was little, I didn’t understand how they were playing a game with no board and why they were talking so much and all the funny dice, so even back then I was trying to pick apart social interactions to form it into a cohesive whole? Which I think sounds a little heavy for a little girl to be doing? But like, I just love taking things apart and seeing why they’re working the way they are, and why people make the choices they do. Once I got an idea of what roleplaying was I just kept doing it forever and ever! As far as who I try to emulate, my secret goal is to make a game that Jason Morningstar really loves. I really like Jason’s work, it’s well-written, thoughtful, and fun. I feel like he’s got a really good handle on how to present a product and how to structure play towards a type of story, and how to do that with as few tools as possible, and that’s something I really admire. I like to picture him as some kind of lich, and only by stealing his phylactery and drinking in his soul will I understand his methods.

9) What one thing would you change in gaming?

How games look. We’ve got this vision of a roleplaying game as a thing with character sheets and dice and rules for doing skills and progression towards conflict and violence. There’s very little space for games that don’t want that – games that have weird formats or physical requirements, or that don’t want to tell stories about conflict and fighting, or games that don’t want to engage in long-form campaign play. They don’t get the same kind of attention and it makes for a drab, textureless playing field. I would really like to see games that just throw everything out the window and tell more personal stories, or find other ways to engage in narrative besides the same tools we’ve been using for decades.

so many games!

10) What are you working on now?

A million billion things – I’ve got a collection of tiny games about goblins, and they’re all dealing with things like intimacy between friends, processing death, body image and self-esteem, consent and boundary issues, etc. I wanted to take a traditional mindless monster and show them in vulnerable moments. My bigger project though is a game about telling the story of a world left to grow outside of its bounds after society left it: you play as the landscapes and memories instead of people (as it’s an overgrown apocalyptic jungle at this point) and build a narrative about what life used to be. It’s proving really challenging, because I have to consider how one might portray blades of grass or forgotten songs, and what that looks like in play! But I think it’s a sweet game and I hope people will like it!

11) Who/what games are some of your influences?

Jason Morningstar’s stuff for telling stable, structured, fascinating stories out of sparse, thoughtful tools – his larp Juggernaut is absolutely excellent and is easily one of the top ten storytelling games of all time. Ross Cowman, especially Fall of Magic, because Ross’ games capture a sense of wonder and heartbreak that just destroys you. We play Fall of Magic once a year and every time it’s just this fucking experience, this thing that sends chills down your back and keeps you up at night. It’s so good. Everything Ross touches is gold. Meguey Baker’s wonderful seasonal games are just magic, too, just dripping with mischief and wonder and crystalline imagery. Emily Care Boss’ romance trilogy, for taking romance seriously and giving you just really fucking great games to explore them with, Epidiah Ravachol’s Vast & Starlit for just being the most concentrated genius you can fit on a business card, I could write entire essays about that game. Ben Lehman, though I don’t get to play his games as often as I like, he always writes things that make me stop and reconsider what I’m doing and how it could be better, just these great little bits that form a much greater whole. I could really go on and on naming all these people I love. Everyone makes great games. Play every game.

Thanks for joining us for this entry in the notables series.  You can find more in the series here: and please feel free to drop us any suggestions for people we should interview at headgnome@gnomestew.com.

Gnome Stew Notables – Caitlynn Belle published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[swipestream]

Gnome Stew Notables – Caitlynn Belle

Welcome to the next installment of our Gnome Spotlight: Notables series. The notables series is a look at game developers in the gaming industry doing good work. The series will focus on game creators from underrepresented populations primarily, and each entry will be a short bio and interview. We’ve currently got a group of authors and guest authors interviewing game creators and hope to bring you many more entries in the series as it continues on. If you’ve got a suggestion for someone we should be doing a notables article on, send us a note at headgnome@gnomestew.com. – Head Gnome John

Meet Caitlynn

Caitlynn Belle is a queer game designer and writer from Savannah, Georgia. You can find her Patreon at where she makes so many weird games about sex and feelings.

@auracait on twitter

auramakesgames.itch.io

Talking With Caitlynn

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work. 

My name’s Caitlynn Belle, I’m a queer games girl from Savannah, Georgia, and I mostly release small, experimental games through my Patreon (caitlynnbelle.com and at

kirigami

3) What themes do you like to emphasize in your game work?

Sexuality and identity, I think, are the big ones. I want games that represent me and I want to do my best to put games out that represent others. I want spaces to talk about sex in a safe and healthy way and I want to explore identity and self-expression and what it means to really dig into yourself and figure out who you are, year after year.

4) What mechanics do you like best in games?

I appreciate finding interesting ways to divine outcomes other than dice or cards, anything quirky that ties back into the theme of the game somehow (Jenga towers for tension / fear, for example), and to be honest, I really like just pure narrative storytelling. Games like Fiasco where the structure of the game enables you to just wheel out and say whatever. I don’t like randomizers much in the games I play – my friends and I are used to creating characters and arcs and just driving towards their conclusions with as few speed bumps as possible.

5) How would you describe your game design style?

Sexy and weird. Just like me. But for real, all I’m trying to do is give you interesting things to say and interesting ways to say it. I think if you have that as your foundation, your game stands a much better chance of being awesome. I try to be authentic in voice, so it sounds like me and the image of the game I have in my head is the same image you get in yours, and I try to let my excitement for whatever it is I’m giving you shine through.

6) How does gender/queerness fit into your games?

They’re all tools to tell stories about queer identity. There’s things you feel weird or like an outcast over that you shouldn’t, but there’s no media for you, nowhere to explore people like you, and I want to start normalizing the idea of having cool gay characters do cool gay things. All of these games are coming from a girl who’s still on her own adventures, figuring out gender and love and who she is, and I think those themes are apparent in the text. I know very, very few people who aren’t exploring feelings about themselves in at least some tiny capacity, who they are and how they’ll express themselves, and that’s a real, honest, vulnerable thing, and I really want to see those kinds of characters out there as well.

7) How does the process of making small games influence your design?

It lets me latch on to any tiny idea I get and give it a proper home and just enough space to breathe and be a thing. You get small ideas sometimes and they can’t fill a larger game – just these little inklings of plots or rules – but they fit wonderfully on a three-page game that focuses in on a single experience.

 You get small ideas sometimes and they can’t fill a larger game – just these little inklings of plots or rules – but they fit wonderfully on a three-page game that focuses in on a single experience. 

Share

Tweet

+11

Reddit

Email

There’s a lot of things that I couldn’t make into a larger product but I don’t think that makes them less valid. Like, I legitimately feel the 200 word RPG challenge that David Schirduan puts out each year has made some of the best games in our community, and I mean that sincerely. They’re beautiful, wonderful games, powerful and captivating, better than most anything in our collections or up on Kickstarter. But, making smaller projects lets you really focus in on what an idea needs and how you edit, and what you should be editing, and it helps strengthen your writing overall. I try to follow these small ideas to completion each month or every other month and it lets me play around with a lot of strangeness that would otherwise drown in deeper pools.

8) How did you get into games? Who did you try to emulate in your design?

I’ve been roleplaying and playing board games forever, so eventually I took the next logical step and tried to make a game I wanted to play that I hadn’t seen yet. My brother played D&D, and when I was little, I didn’t understand how they were playing a game with no board and why they were talking so much and all the funny dice, so even back then I was trying to pick apart social interactions to form it into a cohesive whole? Which I think sounds a little heavy for a little girl to be doing? But like, I just love taking things apart and seeing why they’re working the way they are, and why people make the choices they do. Once I got an idea of what roleplaying was I just kept doing it forever and ever! As far as who I try to emulate, my secret goal is to make a game that Jason Morningstar really loves. I really like Jason’s work, it’s well-written, thoughtful, and fun. I feel like he’s got a really good handle on how to present a product and how to structure play towards a type of story, and how to do that with as few tools as possible, and that’s something I really admire. I like to picture him as some kind of lich, and only by stealing his phylactery and drinking in his soul will I understand his methods.

9) What one thing would you change in gaming?

How games look. We’ve got this vision of a roleplaying game as a thing with character sheets and dice and rules for doing skills and progression towards conflict and violence. There’s very little space for games that don’t want that – games that have weird formats or physical requirements, or that don’t want to tell stories about conflict and fighting, or games that don’t want to engage in long-form campaign play. They don’t get the same kind of attention and it makes for a drab, textureless playing field. I would really like to see games that just throw everything out the window and tell more personal stories, or find other ways to engage in narrative besides the same tools we’ve been using for decades.

so many games!

10) What are you working on now?

A million billion things – I’ve got a collection of tiny games about goblins, and they’re all dealing with things like intimacy between friends, processing death, body image and self-esteem, consent and boundary issues, etc. I wanted to take a traditional mindless monster and show them in vulnerable moments. My bigger project though is a game about telling the story of a world left to grow outside of its bounds after society left it: you play as the landscapes and memories instead of people (as it’s an overgrown apocalyptic jungle at this point) and build a narrative about what life used to be. It’s proving really challenging, because I have to consider how one might portray blades of grass or forgotten songs, and what that looks like in play! But I think it’s a sweet game and I hope people will like it!

11) Who/what games are some of your influences?

Jason Morningstar’s stuff for telling stable, structured, fascinating stories out of sparse, thoughtful tools – his larp Juggernaut is absolutely excellent and is easily one of the top ten storytelling games of all time. Ross Cowman, especially Fall of Magic, because Ross’ games capture a sense of wonder and heartbreak that just destroys you. We play Fall of Magic once a year and every time it’s just this fucking experience, this thing that sends chills down your back and keeps you up at night. It’s so good. Everything Ross touches is gold. Meguey Baker’s wonderful seasonal games are just magic, too, just dripping with mischief and wonder and crystalline imagery. Emily Care Boss’ romance trilogy, for taking romance seriously and giving you just really fucking great games to explore them with, Epidiah Ravachol’s Vast & Starlit for just being the most concentrated genius you can fit on a business card, I could write entire essays about that game. Ben Lehman, though I don’t get to play his games as often as I like, he always writes things that make me stop and reconsider what I’m doing and how it could be better, just these great little bits that form a much greater whole. I could really go on and on naming all these people I love. Everyone makes great games. Play every game.

Thanks for joining us for this entry in the notables series.  You can find more in the series here: and please feel free to drop us any suggestions for people we should interview at headgnome@gnomestew.com.

Gnome Stew Notables – Caitlynn Belle published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames