Last November I chatted with Côme Martin about his work and games as part of our RPG Blog Carnival Indie TTRPG event. It was a great conversation. So great, in fact, that when Côme reached out about the brand new edition of Meanwhile, In the Subway I was happy to talk to him again. And icing on an already delicious interview cake, I was also able to speak with Nicolas Folliot, the graphical genius behind the look of the new edition.
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Brent: Thank you both for taking the time to talk with me. Côme, our readers will know who you are from our interview last year. But Nicolas, please tell the folks a bit about who you are.
Nicolas: First of all thank you for your interest! Côme’s game has been getting some attention especially from the English-speaking indie roleplaying community, so seizing every chance to chat about it in this scene is really a pleasure for us.
About me… I’m a 45 years old French graphic designer working on all kinds of projects for all types of clients and partners in publishing, gaming, and communication industries (mostly for printed stuff). After some time away from French role playing games publishing, I’ve been back for the last couple years, mostly through the indie scene. If I can mention some recent production, I’ve worked on Two Summers (Côme Martin), Sodalitas and Adventures on a Single Page (collab with Jan Van Houten through Jdrlab), Good Buy, Cruel World (a Brindlewood Bay Mystery by Michael Van Vleet), 12V12 (Jeremy ‘throthsof’ Smith), and also French stuff most of your readers unfortunately can’t enjoy (a Brindlewood Bay French version with Gulix, Trophy Gold/Dark French versions…). A very exciting era in my career!
B: Nicolas, what was your background in art prior to becoming involved with TTRPGs? And what brought you into that field?
Nicolas: I actually don’t have a proper art background: my studies were covering the whole book publishing process, so I learned a whole set of skills I got to develop later in different companies, sometimes far from the book industry – working for corporate stuff was a big but somehow rewarding side step.
As I got my diploma, back in 2001, it occurred to me that roleplaying games – which I’d been reading and playing for more than a decade at this point – were the most interesting kind of books, from an editorial and layout perspective, and I’d noticed just the right publisher to ask for an internship… that’s how I got my first job at Multisim, where the most beautiful and interesting role playing games were being created at the time (Agone, Nephilim…). They were also publishing the most famous ttrpg magazine (Casus Belli), SF and fantasy novels, video games strategy guides… so my first job was a dream job, where I had the chance to work with many talented people on all kind of products and skills (graphic design, layout, proofreading…).
B: Côme, the last time we spoke we discussed the origins of Meanwhile, In the Subway, but could you talk about that again to refresh our readers?
Côme: Sure! The idea for Meanwhile, in the Subway is linked to my everlasting love for the surrealist RPG Itras By. I’ve ran dozens of magical sessions with the game, each time trying to come up with a new way to play it: what if the PCs were all vampires, what if I ran a Christmas-themed session… and what if I ran a campaign entirely in the subway? We had a lot of fun with this last idea and I prepared a lot of random tables for it, so I figured I might as well turn it into a game. After a couple of exchanges with Itras By’s creators, I decided to write a standalone game rather than a supplement for the Norwegian RPG, and here we are!
B: At the time of the interview last year the project had just successfully completed Itch funding. For creators who might not know, could you describe that process on Itch? What were some of the challenges and benefits of funding the project in that way?
Côme: Itchfunding is definitely a different way to do things than regular crowdfunding. The reason for that is itch was not originally built to sustain such ways to promote your game, and still isn’t: it is and remains a huge library of games difficult to sort through, where new products can quickly get drowned by the stream of newer products!
There’s no true way to run a crowdfunding on itch: you have to cheat and offer your game at a discount price (even a 1% discount) so you can set up a financial goal for it. The real trick is that it implies you have to offer a finished products to customers, because they spend their money for a finished product, not for a preorder… Anyway, it was the good model for Meanwhile, in the Subway because I already had a v1.0 of the game (about ⅔ of the current content + a very ugly layout); I just needed the money to pretty up the game!
The other thing to keep in mind is that, because of the stream of products I mentioned above, your campaign will not be promoted like on Kickstarter, for example. So you have to rely on your own network to boost your project, which can prove a bit tiring after a while.
B: Meanwhile, Into the Subway underwent a massive shift in its design, from a fairly standard zine-style pdf to something decidedly not that! Can you both talk about what led to the decision to change? Were there other design possibilities considered?
Côme: The finished game is definitely not what I had in mind! For me, it was always going to be a zine-style PDF, with a layout maybe a bit all over the place: random tables placed on the arrival schedules of train stations, that sort of things. But then Nicolas started his lobbying to turn the game into a subway map and I just couldn’t resist!
Likewise, the game was not originally meant to be printed (my budget didn’t allow for it) but the finished product was so gorgeous, and all of my other games are available in print, so I took the unwise decision and went for it. It turned out to be a very profitable risk!
Nicolas: To be fair, Côme knew all along that I could be pushing one way or another: when we were working on his previous game, Two Summers, I just casually said one day: “Can you imagine if you could print it in full colors, instead of the sad grey zine version of it? Such a shame…” And that’s what we did.
When I began to think about the best way to honour this charming odd retro subway game, I thought I had to find a better format than a zine full of random tables. Something big, confusing and joyful. And suddenly it was just obvious: when you’re thinking “subway”, what’s the first useful and common document that comes to mind? No, not the tickets, I mean yes but designing a game on it is a different challenge I’ll deal with another time, no… yes, of course a map!
B: Nicolas, the map for Meanwhile, In the Subway is quite stunning. And for anyone who has spent even a moment in any subway system, immediately evocative. What was the process for creating something so stylistically fitting yet functional?
Nicolas: Thanks! I had never designed such a thing, so it definitely was a challenge I embraced. I went through many tests, failures and improvements. I think the front page went through 3 or 4 forms. I’d looked at many transit maps, before taking markers and trying to figure out how I’d do mine. I obviously had different requirements, cause I had to display more than 400 stations, on 4 lines, all on a single page. The first versions were pretty messy, before I figured out an esthetic and clean solution: circles. From there, it was almost done – at least that’s what I kept saying to Côme for some weeks after that eureka moment.
I have to acknowledge that kind of process can only grow if you’re lucky enough to have indulging partners. I couldn’t be more grateful for Côme’s infinite patience and trust, which allowed this weird little thing to come to life and grow, and make its parents proud.
B: Do you think other TTRPGs could benefit from embracing thematic style choices as far as art and layout go? Are there any creators or publishers you think are doing a great job of doing so?
Côme: I’m immediately thinking of John Batts, whose games are probably the best examples out there of marrying content and appearance in the best of ways, and who’s never resting on their laurels! Then there’s MÖRK BÖRG, of course, though it’s more of a unique, unreproducible experience in my opinion. And Rae Nedjadi’s games, and, well, a lot of other people actually!
In general, I definitely think that some games would benefit from moving away from standard layouts and trying new things; but I also understand that it’s a difficult process, one that requires a professional layout artist, and those don’t come for free!
Nicolas: Obviously, to me art and graphic design are crucial for role playing games. Whether it’s online or on a shelf, the game’s cover is usually the first impression people will get of your game, so being catchy and/or evocative can be precious. It can be in-your-face or subtle, clean or dirty, silly or dead serious, as long as it conveys your game’s personality. And you don’t want to let go that feeling once the reader opens your game, so layout design is very important too, and maybe even more cause there you have to keep being entertaining and evocative, but also useful, informative and didactic!
When I came back into the ttrpg scene, a couple years ago, I discovered the indie-DIY scene, one-page adventures, or even games! Zine and pamphlet formats, which were starting to spread on itch.io… All this was very exciting to me, cause having stepped out of ttrpg for some years I wasn’t aware of this variety, and was expecting mostly heavy books as usual – as in: like the ones I was still working on in the late 2000s.
Among all these discoveries I pretty quick stumbled into Nate Treme’s production. I really loved what he was putting out, it was just the right amount of gorgeous and cute and weird, and most of all I enjoyed their experiments with formats. Mostly small and even tiny stuff you could print, cut, fold and play at home, but always just the proper fun format for the purpose. I found it very inspiring.
I also love everything Games Omnivorous are creating. From their awesome Manifestus Omnivorous to their experiments on formats: Undying Sands and its cardboard hexes, vinyl soundtracks with modules on LP sleeves, Mausritter box sets… and I really wish there eventually will be a reprint of 17th Century Minimalist and its Mini Adventure Folder.
But I received a different, more violent slap in my face, the day I got my hands on MÖRK BORG. I’d backed this game cause it looked cool, without knowing much about it or even about OSR in general, but when I looked at this shiny yelling book in all its physical glory, I was really astonished. I’d never seen anything like this before, going that far, screaming and shouting at my face with a thousand gorgeous and disgraceful fonts, and yet still managing to be so attractive and easy to read and handle. I know it’s not for everyone, and we may have seen too many not-always-successful covers of it by now, but I loved it and I think this masterpiece was a real turn in role playing graphic design.
B: Speaking of other creators, Nicolas, what games are you most excited by right now? And Côme, it’s been a year, anything new on your shelves?
Côme: It’s now out yet, but I’ve been working on Feathered Adventures, a BoB-inspired game in which you play anthropomorphic birds going on light, pulp adventures, like in a certain cartoon (but don’t tell the lawyers). It was successfully crowdfunded in the spring and should be delivered to backers in the fall, then publicly released in spring 2023. There’s also a two-players mini-RPG, She Traveled / She Stayed, where you play urban witches meeting 30 years after their last adventure. It’s a small game but I’m quite proud of it!
Nicolas: By now you should have guessed I’m waiting for Games Omnivorous’s second “Hex-n-Screen”, Bottled Sea, and MÖRK BORG cyberpunk sibling CY_BORG. But it’s hard to stay focused these days, as there are new exciting games coming out or being announced every week or so… My next favorite game will probably be released tomorrow and I haven’t even heard about it yet.
B: What projects do you both have coming up? Anything you can tease or talk about?
Côme: Oh, I’m always keeping busy! I’ve got quite a few projects in the oven at the moment, let’s see… First, there’s Broken Cities, which will come out in French this fall and in English some time in 2023: it’s a GMless, card-based game in which some players play Travelers, going to a mysterious City to fulfill a quest, while other players share the role of the City, in need of the Travelers to fix its problems. And then I’ve got another card-based game in which you describe a grand hotel, a mini-RPG revolving around the stereotypes of the French farce… Plus a couple of other projects it’s too early to talk about! Always keeping busy, as I said…
Nicolas: Guess who’s working with Côme on both Feathered Adventures and Broken Cities? Lucky me! I’m also busy with Jan Van Houten on an OSR-ish module about a windless coastal region, which we’ll probably release in the coming weeks, and we’re always working on Sodalitas’ next version, our Adventures on a Single Page next season with exciting guests… I might be cooking stuff with Guillaume Jentey too (whom I’ve worked with before on FORMS). Too many projects to mention here really, probably too much on my plate but that’s part of the fun I guess?
B: Thank you again for talking with me! Where can folks find you if they want to see what you’re up to?
Côme: You can always hit me up on Twitter, check out my games on itch, or come talk to me on my Discord server!
Nicolas: I’m always on Twitter too, but you’ll find glimpses and shortcuts on my page nicolas.folliot.net
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Thank you again to Côme and Nicolas for talking with me. Check them out at their links above. And please grab a copy of Meanwhile, in the Subway, you will thank me.
