#8 Interview with Jimmy Shelter
We had a chat with Peter Eijk (aka. Jimmy Shelter), the man behind the Monster Mind Blog and games like A Visit to San Sibilia.
Peter Eijk, better known on online places like Jimmy Shelter or MonsterMind, is a game designer and code writer. He wrote games like — A Visit to San Sibilia, Pine Shallows, In the Margins, Hiria: The Eternal City, etc.
Mario | La esquina del rol: Peter Eijk, welcome to La Esquina del Rol. I'm very happy to be able to talk to you. Ever since I read your interview with John from Exeunt Press, I knew I want to talk to you at some point, and coincidentally the opportunity came with the same game that was discussed in that interview. hahaha what a coincidence, I just realised!
Well, I'd like to start this interview by asking you who Peter Eijk is and what he finds in RPGs that keeps him doing interesting things for all of us?
Peter Eijk | Jimmy Shelter: Thanks for the invitation! I love your interviews, and I'm honored to be interviewed.
I'm Peter, but I go by Jimmy Shelter on most online places. I'm from the Netherlands living at biking distance from Amsterdam with my partner, two kids and three chickens. My day job is writing code.
I've been playing roleplaying games for a long time. I joined some classmates in their D&D campaign in the early 90s, using the D&D Rules Cyclopedia before switching to AD&D.
While in college I discovered online forums were people were discussing and playing play by post games. I tried some, but found it a hard medium to get a game going. In real life games were a bit sparse during that time. I felt a bit self conscious about having such a nerdy hobby. So, most my play was through collecting and reading roleplaying books, but without a group I slowly fell out of touch with the hobby, with my books winding up in a box when we moved.
Coming back to recent years: we had to hurry up with our home office suddenly due to the pandemic and after we finished, I unpacked some boxes and found my gaming books... I started selling some of them (GURPS and AD&D mostly), but kept a few. I joined some online groups again to sell my stuff, and then I learned about ZineQuest!
ZineQuest really opened my eyes about what TTRPGs could be and do. Rules light, very specific, solo, coop world-building games, so many different takes on what could be achieved through games. I backed quite a bunch, discovered TTRPG Twitter, Discords and, very importantly, game jams!
I published my first game jam entry in March 2021, and my first bigger game, A Visit to San Sibilia, a solo journaling game later in June, and I never stopped making games since.
I had been writing before, mostly short stories, but writing games clicked in a way that writing fiction never did. (To be honest, San Sibilia first appeared in a short story before it became the setting of a game).
Mario: I notice that making games is very important to you, almost a hobby in its own right hahaha! I like that a lot and, also, I like that you design solo roleplaying games!
I was looking at your website and social networks. I noticed that you are part of the Good Sleep Collective and I have that name stuck in my mind because when I translated Skyrealms I read that you, as a collective, were listed in the acknowledgements.
What is this collective, what does it pursue and how did it form into what it is today?
Peter: The Good Sleep Collective is a small group of TTRPG designers, writers and artists from Europe. We started at the end of 2021. We noticed we were often disconnected a bit from spaces we were in, due to timezone differences. It can be intimidating to log on to a big ttrpg discord and see hundreds of unread messages, and it can also hard to log off when it's getting late and the discussion is still on going.
Our objective is to create a small, supportive, diverse and uplifting private space with people with compatible time schedules (hence the Good Sleep!). We have about 25 members. The main thing we want to have is a safe space to post work in progress, and to share each others projects online. We have done some collective projects, but that's not the main goal.
Mario: oh! Very Nice! I love the idea, communities of designers are always great.
Back to you, as a game designer. Why did you decide to design solo RPGs?
Peter: Necessity! Well, that's part of it. When rediscovering roleplaying games in 2021, I learned about solo journaling games and got quickly fascinated by them. I loved how with cleverly crafted prompts, you can allow players to create such immersive, and original experiences.
For me the reading games and imagining of possible ways to play them has always been as much a part of play as actual playing the games. And creating prompts and tables for solo games for me also feels like play in a way.
While I've been creating solo games for a while, I saw solo games and group games as separate for a long time, seeing solo gaming as more introspective and group play as social.
Recently I was reminded of when I bought my first game book, the D&D Rules Cycloplodia. I asked in the game store if I could also play it alone, and I was told, yes, for sure! But I never found a way, it felt like I was missing something. A few months back I slowly started to learn more about HOW people were playing group games (or at least games I thought of as group games) in a solo mode.
Watching some youtube streams, and learning about oracles, and especially seeing/hearing how people used them, suddenly made it click for me. This was the impetus for my recent blog series about the elements of solo games, and the creation of solo procedures for Pine Shallows and the Passkey system.
Mario: Nice! I love your answers to my questions. You mentioned a lot of talking points for this interview with your last answer. Ha ha ha! But let's go step by step. First, let's talk about solo journaling games.
From what you've learned as a solo journaling designer, what is the philosophy and principles under which you currently design your own solo journaling games?
Peter: For my solo journaling games there are a few things I try to achieve. The first is having a specific ending. A lot of solo journaling games don't work towards a goal or ending, and while that makes picking them up anytime or pausing them easy, in my experience often play then peters out. That felt a bit unsatisfying.
When I encountered The Machine by Fen and Adera Slattery, I knew I wanted a similar feeling of an impending end. In A Visit to San Sibilia you know your visit to this ever-changing city will end at a point, and likewise in Hiria: The Eternal City you either catch up to your prey or they escape permanently.
Next is the very fine line between giving players prompts that are open enough for them to create their own story and world, and consistent and thematic enough to evoke a certain type of story.
When encountering actual plays and stories of people who played A Visit to San Sibilia I do see very common themes in peoples interpretations, but I am really surprised by the different directions players have taken their stories. It's so awesome to see what people do with your games!
For Hiria: the Eternal City I also tried to add a bit more player agency, which is something largely missing from journaling games: you draw or roll a prompt, interpret it, but there's not much choice. I tried to add a bit more places where a player can chose between different actions. It's up to the players if I succeeded with that!
Mario: It is very interesting what you mention, the idea of a specific ending, the curation of prompts, and the player agency in journaling games. So interesting! The first one was not clear to me before until now. Thanks for that.
The second point I want to talk about is a bit of a meta reflection. I've been reading your blog on analyzing solo procedures, and it seems wonderful (and I invite my readers to read your blog).
But, what have you learned from all these reflections on designing solo procedures for games that are not specifically for solo play?
Peter: For most roleplaying games you don't actually need that much extra work to be able play it solo, a small game loop and an oracle to help you answer any questions you might norally ask your GM. Of course with the addition or more random and oracles table you can make the experience smoother, but the basic elements are reasonably simple.
I'd advice any game designer to try it out, as it's a great tool to be able to playtest games!
Also it's great fun. I have to take my daughter to her sports two times a week, and I've been playing a solo game of Eco Mofos with just my phone (for rolling dice), a notebook and the rulesbook and it's a blast. A great way to kill some time in a relaxing way. Beats doomscrolling!
Mario: oh! Nice! Eco Mofos is so rad! I love that game!
Well, something we explore in these interviews is creativity and the creative processes that our interviewees follow. So, how do you approach your creative process when you design games?
Peter: Even as a kid I wanted to become a writer, I've always loved stories and creating them. But with a full time job and two small kids it's hard to find time. Somehow I always was thinking, when this happens, or when that changes, that is when I'll have time, but it never felt like enough time to actually start.
Four years ago, about a year before I started working on games, I did have a realization that I could wait until I had time to write, or I could just write in the time I did have.
I started doing the 100 Day Writing Challenge by Tim Clare, which is a great way to get started writing. Each episode is about 20 minutes long with a 10 minute exercise in the middle. A lot of exercises are very simple, just to get your creativity going, also very helpful for game writers.
Long story short: this is still how I work. A few nights a week I find a bit of time and work very piecemeal on a few projects. A few words, a few entries for a random table, one or two pages of layout. Sometimes I try to approach it a bit more structured, but to be honest, always tinkering on a few different projects might not be the most productive, but productive is what I am at my day job, this is something I do for fun!
Mario: Of course! A lot of what I do, like La Esquina del Rol, I do for fun and I totally understand what you're saying. What I have learnt over the last 4 years in this project is that the best time to do things is always now.
Talking about what you have done so far, what can you tell us about what you have written? What games can we find on your itch page?
Peter: Of course!
There is a bit too much to mention them all, but I can mention my bigger games.
A Visit to San Sibilia and Hiria: the Eternal City are both city focussed solo journaling games. What can I say, I like weird, ever changing cities. Especially San Sibilia has a special place in my heart, it being my first 'real' complete game.
With Pine Shallows I set to to create a rules light game inspired by movies like the Goonies & series like Stranger Things & Gravity Falls. In Pine Shallows you portray small town kids going on adventures and solving mysteries.
If you like the genre of Kids on Bikes, but are looking for something less crunchy, check it out! I just released a solo supplement for it, so it's now playable as a group, either with a GM or coop, or on your own. It includes a setting and enough random tables to provide enough material to play hours and hours.
Besides those games, it's mostly small adventures, jam entries & experiments. Creating stuff for game jams is a great way to get started as a game designer!
Mario: I love your Pine Shallows game, I recommended it in my monthly news in Spanish.
Well, finally Peter, what are you working on now that we can know about, can you share us some scoop?
Peter: Thanks for the recommendation!
As usual I'm working on a few things at the same time. I've been playing Eco Mofos solo recently, which sparked some ideas. I'm working on an adventure for it, which required some chase & vehicles rules, so I started with those. That's my current project that's closest to completion.
Next to that I have two other major projects. The first is another solo journaling game: The Unease, in which you found an artwork by a long forgotten artist. The artwork has a weird effect on you and you slowly uncover more of its history. The idea of the Unease has been with me for a long time, but I still haven't cracked how I want to do this mechanically.
Another one is the Forevernever, which would be the second Meddlesome Kids game, after Pine Shallows. The Forevernever is inspired by portal fantasy like Oz, the Narnia Chronicles, Neverland, Labyrinth, etc. I actually started on Pine Shallows and the Forevernever at the same time, but focussed on finishing Pine Shallows first. The current version is almost 3000 words, but the system evolved quite a bit while focussing on Pine Shallows.
I wouldn't dare to predict which I finish first, but I'd love to hear which of these people look forward to the most!
Mario: Oh I'm really looking forward to those games!
Peter it's been really awesome to talk to you and get to know you a little bit more as a designer.
It's been very interesting and fun, thank you so much for your time!
Peter: Thank you so much for giving me this space!
I'm loving the interviews you published so far, honored to be among these great people!
And he is Peter Eijk (aka. Jimmy Shelter). See you next time!
Thanks for inviting me!