On the design of tiny things

I don’t know what it is about small and tiny products. The portability is certainly interesting but moreso than that, the promise of a hard punch coming from a small package always fascinated me.

I was always collecting things, from stamps when I was a child to tcg cards to comic books, then vinyl toys and strange finds. I get a little obsessed about creating a series of games that would look like a collection of casette tapes or vinyl toy blind boxes or sticker packs.

Having dabbled in indie record labels and limited edition things in the 2000s, I remember fondly the idea of creating a product that feels like treasure, of telling a story not only through the chosen media but through the product design itself.

Even earlier, in the mid to late 90s, I used to connect to BBS systems locally and find my first artzips, filled with modules (music files similar to midi files) .txt stories and poems and ansi art.

I have always kept this desire to create strange artifacts like those. Unassuming boxes and containers that have a suprising amount of thought and passion left to seemingly wait forever to be exhumed.

In games, we treat players more as consumers, so we put a lot of thought into user experience, user interface, product design etc. Rightfully so, but in the process I often feel like we lose awe and discomfort.

In board games, Oink games and Grey Gnome come to mind (buttonshy as well) as projects that value the collection of products as well as the individual ones, and that seem to want to cram in a lot of bang for your buck (although, my fascination for these types of products is not related to any kind of quantity-quality cost analysis). They do not shy away from mystery and potential that the boxes promise.

In the ttrpg sphere, and one of the reasons why I decided to write about this, there are the One-page dungeons, One page RPGs (the yearly jam is starting soon) and trifolds.

This time of the year is when I start designing some one page things for these contests and jams. Most of these ‘products’ serve as explorations and experimentations into very specific ideas, so I never really think about the end consumer when it comes to creating them. That is an interesting part of this conversation and one that keeps being tossed around in my head : are games art? Personally, I view zines and ttrpg books as artbooks. They rarely, if ever, serve their intended purpose. Just like the Sea Zombie cassette mentioned earlier, I listened to it once, the object itself having more value as a found treasure than what it was intended for.

In these experimentations I have found some cool mechanics, ideas and tones that are worth the time I invested in them : the weird area control resolution mechanic in The Last Question or the visual portion of encounter creation in The Vacant Lot.

As I start thinking about something for the One Page Dungeon contest, I cannot turn away from the UI / UX portion of game design I was mentioning earlier if I’m to go classic map with an interesting twist. It has generated ideas that have become larger than one page and sticking to that limit has been frustrating and fun at the same time.

In the next month or so, I’ll be toying around with all these ideas and attempting to create new one page rpgs, my first official one page dungeon and hopefully a few other tiny things. They will be available through our itch page.

I think the reason I enjoy these tiny collectibles so much is that they are often feats of creativity that are punk in a way : loudly unhindered by limitations, standing strong despite the margins.

Thank you for reading! You can always reply to this email if you want to chat some more. Also, come by the discord channel and say hi.

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