An Interview with Ennio

Mario | La esquina del rol: Hey Ennio! Welcome to La esquina del rol! Thank you for accepting the invitation, How is everything?

Ennio: Hey! I'm doing well, thanks for having me.

Mario: It's a pleasure to having you here. I'd like to start this interview by asking you who Ennio is and why he's doing such cool TTRPG stuff for all us?

Ennio: I’m a TTRPG and layout designer from Puerto Rico. I started off with writing D&D adventures and now I'm making my own games, which are typically short form solo or duo games.

As far as why, that's a tough one! As a kid, I moved around a lot so it was hard to make connections. I found that, through gaming and collaborative story telling, it was a lot easier to make those connections. Working on TTRPGs now might be an extension of that. There's a lot of creative folks in the TTRPG space and its fun to see what they're working on and hear their stories. Honestly, I make things I like and hope its cool!

Mario: I've been a fan of Solo RPGs for a while now and the truth is that I got to know them thanks to Covid because I played more with a group and online before. But in your case, how did you approach solo role-playing games? Did you know them first as a player or as a designer?

Ennio: I had a similar experience! Switching to online play didn't work for my regular gaming group, but of course, I still wanted to play something. I started with a solo 5e adventure, which was ok but it was missing something. I only really got into solo games after playing Ironsworn, love that game! After that I dove headfirst into solo games, Her Odyssey and RUNE, being some of my all time favorites.

Mario: A months ago I interviewed Andy from Pandion Games. He told me that for his new game Substratum Protocol he was working a lot with playtesters. It was a nice surprise to know that you were among them, how has that experience been?

Ennio: Oh Andy's great! (Buy Andy's games They are neat!) Yeah, Substratum Protocol is incredible. I didn't get to playtest it as much as I would have liked though. Unfortunately I got got caught up with other things at the time.

One thing that stood out for me was how organize and clear the material was. The text was solid and easy to read through, which made it fun to pick up and play. It was also very visually appealing, which I love!

By the way, Andy played a pretty big part in making physical copies of Bloodless happen. I hadn't worked on physical copies before that point and he gave me some super useful advice on printing and reaching out to publishers. I would have made a lot more mistakes with that first print run, if not for his help.

Mario: Oh! Yeah! Andy from Pandion Games is a great person. Also, he was one of the people who supported a lot the micro-crowdfunding we did to edit the Spanish edition of Liminal Horror. I am very grateful for all his support. Besides, he is sincerely a very kind person and always open to talk about many topics.

Well, back to you… One of the goals of my interviews with game designers is to unravel their design processes. With that in mind, I wanted to ask you how you approach your game design process?

Ennio: That's incredible! I didn't know that.

I'm a very visual person so I typically start by gathering images or video references that loosely fit the idea for the game. I also create an idea document, its a page where I'll put in random concepts and lines of text. That document is very messy and I don't always use what I put in there but it helps me get the game out of head and on to paper.

Afterwards I start the outline of the first draft, pulling from my references and idea document. I tend to jump around the draft a bit, filling out the sections of the outline that interest me the most first. Once everything is on the page, I start editing, and making sure its all cohesive. My second draft is much more legible, and less chaotic then the first draft.

I do have a hard time writing in general, which is funny to me since I'm choosing to spend a lot of time doing it. I often get stuck trying to find the perfect way to say things. Somethings that helped me a lot recently is switching to working on the graphics or the layout of the game during the writing process. So if I hit a block, I'll open up Affinity, turn off my editing brain, and draw a bit, which usually helps clear up the block.

Mario: It's interesting how you get out of those creative blocks that are very common. I remember once I read that Diogo "Old Skull" Nogueira said he liked to work on more than one project at a time because it allowed him to do just that, if he got stuck he would switch between projects and keep working.

Well, I would like to talk a bit about your game Bloodless that thanks to you we now have it translated into Spanish. I have to admit that the approach is very interesting and the mechanics work very well for the concept of the game. How did you come up with the idea of Bloodless?

Ennio: Thanks again for translating it! Bloodless came about because watching a lot of Vampire the Masquerade playthroughs and the series What we do in the Shadows. Pretty much every episode involved one or more characters getting mixed up in a dire, though sometimes comedic situation, yet they would always barely make it through, often time landing in a more dangerous situation. I had an idea floating around for a while of a game with a fixed time limit, so those two concepts just clicked.

During this, I found that the Caltrop Core game jam was going on. The light mechanics made it an easy fit to what I wanted to do. Plus it helped that the jam had a deadline, so I couldn't spend too long trying to get it perfect, and just make a game.

Mario: Nice! But, for those who don't know Bloodless, what is the game about and how do you play it, Ennio?

Ennio: Bloodless is a solo journaling game where you play as a vampire, but instead of being a powerful creature of the night, your character starts off at a low point. Its a survival game where something drastic happened to your character recently you're trying to make to a safe area to recover.

The game starts off with character creation where you decide who your character is, what they are known for, and why the ended up in trouble. Gameplay is split up into six rounds where you roll on a table for prompts and build out a narrative. At the end there's one final roll that determines if your character makes home safely or not.

Mario: The truth is that I really enjoyed translating bloodless. I think it is a good game to take with you and play it in the time you have available. I highly recommend it to my readers. Moving on to another topic, I know you are working on a new game. What can you tell us about what's coming?

Ennio: Thank you so much! My new is called Crux, and its solo ttrpg inspired by roguelike video games that's themed around mountain climbing. The title is a term that often comes up when climbing, its the hardest part of a route, a high point, or challenge to overcome. And that's my goal for the game. I want trying to overcome a difficult challenge again and again is a core mechanic and you're rewarded for doing so. Ideally, it'll be a game that's meant to be played multiple times.

Right now, its still in its early stages. I'm still working on the outline and its going to need a lot of playtesting. The current main mechanic is "building a mountain" out of a deck of cards. Each suit represents a unique obstacle and the value of the card determines the difficulty. The deck is setup in a way that each round gets progressively more difficult. You have character skills that can change the deck a bit though there's still risks involved. I like this sort of mix of luck and skill base gameplay. We'll see how it turns out!

As my own challenge, I decided to make all the art in this game myself. I'm not a professional artist by any means but I can make a few doodles here and there. Figured it be a great way to improve my own skills and put a more personal touch on this game. Plus I enjoy the process!

Mario: The premise of your new game is very interesting, I'll be watching to see where it takes you.

I'd like to know a little bit about what you're playing now and what game you're looking forward to coming out this year?

Ennio: Due to a lack of free time, I've been reading through games more than playing them. Some of favorites so far are Gubat Banwa, Hellwhalers, and Lordsworn. I'm trying to setup a game for Last Train To Bremen, just got to sort out everyone's schedule. If you haven't played that one, I highly recommend it! Its based on Liar's dice and has a self contained storyline, so its perfect for a one-shot.

I'm looking forward to Godkiller and Pelogos! Both games have ashcan versions out right now, but the full release coming up sometime this year and I can't wait.

Mario: Nice! Very good choices, I like several of these games. It has been very interesting to learn a little more about you and I hope to talk more about your new game in the future.

I would like to end with a great tip for our readers. I know that you are an autodidact in layout design and that you usually use affinity publisher. At some point we talked about this on X I think. But what advice do you have for people who are just getting into the design field and want to start experimenting?

Ennio: Thank you so much! I really enjoyed this conversation. Yeah, I think you've said it there. Start playing around and start experimenting!

I think its vital at the beginning to just throw stuff on a blank page and see what shakes out. As you go, you'll start figuring out what interests you and what you want to do. Looking at references and calling out what appeals to you helps with that. Afterwards, make your own stuff and do the same!