NOMNIVORE GAMES
Nomnivore Games caught our eye because they were advertising inclusive games specifically for dyslexia. It was refreshing to see a card game that was inclusive of those who have learning disabilities and who struggle with reading. Table Top RPGs have been one of my favorite genres of games. I’ve played countless hours of Dungeon and Dragons as well as popular alternatives like Pathfinder and other homebrew rulesets. Seeing a fully fleshed-out TTRPG at MAGfest with the leading developer allowed me to quickly learn what made Emberwind unique. At first, I did not play Emberwind but I decided to because they had a demo available.
The demo did not take very long to understand because of my experience with similar games. Emberwind, to me, is the next evolution of TTRPGS. Most veterans of the genre will agree that the most mundane part of a TTRPG is combat. Combat can be slow, clunky, and can become an optimization-heavy experience with little to no gain. Emberwind solves this issue brilliantly with an adaptive combat system where all nonplayer character actions are deterministic, and there are various ways players can battle depending on their experience and complexity level. Basically, Emberwind has solved the issue of having differing experience-level players sitting at the same table by allowing them to interact with the same combat instance in different ways that are engaging and rewarding.
Emberwind’s art style is gorgeous: you quickly gain a sense of the world by looking at the art in the rulebook. All the splashes and character art look extreme because they are! The developer revealed that popular artists for Wizards of the Coast (responsible for Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering) and Riot Games helped with the artwork. I recommend Emberwind as an alternative system to DnD because it is beginner friendly and only takes around 20 minutes to learn how to play or run a campaign. Emberwind is a great game for anyone who is looking for a system that makes combat more enjoyable, especially for someone coming from something like DnD 5e, which is a more digestible system but lacks any real depth under the surface.
I was also able to sample another one of Nomnivore’s other games, Dungeons and Dinos — the newest edition to their game lineup. Dungeon and Dinos is a cute family card game inspired by DnD where players build the story and quest themselves by playing cards in a semi-competitive/semi-cooperative game experience. Nomnivore makes a variety of inclusive tabletop games that are worth exploring for everyone!
Sarah: This is Sarah. I'm here with Nomnivore Games. Who am I talking to today, and what do you do?
Derek: Hi, Sarah. My name is Derek. And I am, I guess, the lead designer at Nomnivore Games, where I like to put together a lot of really cool tabletop games designed for a bunch of different audiences. I'm actually a mental health professional turned into a game designer. So we're trying to make sure that we have a seat around the game table for literally everyone.
Sarah: So that's actually what got my attention for you guys at first because your one sign said that it was dyslexic friendly and ADHD friendly? I think was also the other one. Or was it? So just, I guess, tell me more about that. Like, that seems so cool to me.
Derek: Sure. Yeah. I'm happy to tell you about that. There's been an interesting kind of movement — it's a really young one in gaming — where there's been a recognition of like, for example, younger kids, maybe even adults, that are struggling to get into being able to play games because there are so many barriers of entry. This is known as accessibility: to come up with all these ways to kind of help support that type of thing. So it's always really, really great to be able to, you know, bring people around a table to be able to enjoy things together rather than ever leave anyone out. And I, I've always thought of gaming as a really good avenue to help provide mental health care to people. From things like helping you create memorable experiences, support groups, all that type of stuff, where you really had to make that game accessible to everyone. So a great place to start was really to open it up into all the neuro divergences: so things like ADHD, and dyslexia are rather common. We also touch base on things like making sure that people who are sight-challenged can also play because we include braille with some of our games, too.
Sarah: That is amazing. I actually don't think I've ever heard of braille being included in any sort of board game/tabletop game. And I know that's been something that, as somebody who doesn't necessarily play a lot of tabletop or card games, I've noticed that, like, if you don't know how to read or see even, you're at a huge disadvantage for so many of these games.
Derek: Yeah, that's definitely true. But the accessibility we're talking about isn't just about, let's say, physical disabilities or neuro divergences. We also make sure to produce games that also support your mental health. So some of our games, like our RPG, are also really good at handling things like high anxiety or stuff like PTSD. And we're really, again, always just trying to make sure that you're always able to have a fun time, no matter what your experience is, no matter where your interests lie, whatever age you’re at, or whatever experience level — and to do it together as a group.
Sarah: I love that. So before we started our interview, you had mentioned to me something about your games going to some sort of mental health charity. Can you elaborate on that?
Derek: Yeah, I can definitely elaborate on that. All the games that I work on are ones that are designed specifically to try and provide care to people. And as a result, you know, they're also really fun games just on their own. But as a result, all the money that we make is basically subdivided into a couple of purposes. One of the things that we do is you put that money towards supporting developing new content for the game, and new games in general, to make sure that more people are able to access things like mental health, fun games and just their friends that they literally couldn't interact with. The other portion of the money that we have goes towards supporting different groups that need that help. And we don't look at mental health as an isolated thing. We look at it as a holistic thing where sometimes that could just mean having food on your table to eat because, I mean, of course, you're going to be struggling with something like depression if you are worried about your next meal. So we'll direct our funds towards different groups and whenever needs need to be met, and whatever limited way that we can support them. And currently, all the proceeds that we're making aren't going to supporting and sustaining the company, it's going towards Ukraine, because I think just about everyone else forgot they exist. (laughs)
Sarah: Yeah, I thought about that. Recently, somebody had mentioned, I think in Final Fantasy, that they had paused something in Final Fantasy 14 Because of Ukraine, and I was like, “Everybody kind of stopped worrying about that for a bit. That’s not good.”
Derek: Yeah, I wouldn't say it's good. But at the same time, I also understand that there's quite a bit of need out there. There's always a good cause, like your local children's hospitals and making sure, let's say, your own kids are ok. Like, all that makes sense. So, just like that, there are going to be limits on what we can do too. But we do want to make sure that we're making the extra effort to do whatever we can, whenever we can.
Sarah: And love that. And I'm sitting here looking at a role-playing game and something that has dinosaurs. What games do you, either you in particular or just your whole company, and what games do you guys make? What are these games? Plug them a little bit for me.
Derek: Yeah, sure. We do a lot of different games, but we are kind of a young studio. We're known for our card and role-playing games, and both are of the tabletop variety. We do know that people are looking at playing these games with further and further distances and so forth. So all the games aren't designed only run on the table. They can actually be played online as well.
Sarah: Oh!
Derek: And we do include both versions with everything so you'll be able to enjoy it whichever way you want. If it was not included because it's already free in some format, you can just find it there. The casual card games we design are good for audiences as young as the ages of let's say, five and up. And they're really fun. The simple experience is that even if you have ADHD, dyslexia, or whatever, you can get down and play together in a quick little game. They are not only fun, but we've also been told often that they're great ways to lose all your friends.
Sarah: (laughs)
Derek: On the other hand, we have an epic role-playing game called Emberwind, which is built like no other game on the entire market, at least not to our knowledge. What we tried to do was we tried to first make a roleplaying game that was super accessible. So the typical barriers of entry are people don't know how to read the individual rules, they don't want to read individual rules, they don't have a dungeon master, that type of stuff. So we decided to make it as simple as targeting to a single sheet of paper for roles and then also make it completely modular. So if you're playing this game, you don't have to play, I guess the way I put it is, you're not playing our game so much as you're playing your game. You pick and choose the things you want to put into it to create the exact experience you like and everything you don't like to throw away.
Sarah: Oh!
Derek: This is really cool because we took that idea and turn that up to 11. This means that if you don't have a DM for example, you can play it without one. And let's say your friends that are playing with you want different rules, they can play with those rules, and you can still play together. And it plays both as a dice game, or we have card-based mechanics, you can play it on your table or online, multiplayer or single-player, and so on and so forth.
Sarah: That's so cool that Emberwind has so many avenues, I was gonna say because it's online — but the fact that you have dice options. And I'm looking at these sheets, and it's kind of amazing how much that you can fit into a sheet of paper because I remember D&D being a barrier entry for me and my experience. I had somebody say, “Well, you don't know anything about it. You need to read the whole book.” And I sat there, and I read the whole book, so I could join their campaign. And that's something that if you're not into reading, and you're maybe struggling with reading or don't have access to a full guidebook that's keeping you from doing something. So that is absolutely amazing to me that there's something like this on the market now.
Derek: Thank you so much for saying all that. I'm really sorry that you had such jerkish friends that made you read the entire giant rulebook. Usually, what happens is the DM gets thrown under the bus, and they're told to tell you all the rules that you need.
Sarah: Yeah.
Derek: But we're gonna close any of that. We tried to basically circumvent that. So like, the typical barriers of entry, aren't there. If you have an interest in role-playing, you can make it purely about roleplay, if you like the content, you can do that or even mix and match. The whole point of this game is that we want to make sure that anyone can play, which is why even the design of everything from character sheets to the orientation or books are done in a way to make it so that people who either can't or don't like to read can enjoy it. We've got a lot of reviews from people who do have ADHD and dyslexia that they can play this game. We've also had people with very high anxiety say, “Guess what? This is the first time in like a decade I'm actually able to play this type of thing and roleplay with my friends.” And that's the type of thing we really want to hear. That's the reason why we're putting in all the effort and all this type of work because we want to make sure that you're having a good time no matter who you are.
Sarah: I love that. All right, we will wrap it up a little bit. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, or to somebody in general, what is some advice for the crowd?
Derek: I look back to myself when I first started and I said I was going to start doing all this game stuff and tell myself, “I'm an idiot. Don't go do that.” That's not to say I don't like all the stuff I'm working on and all the lives that are hopefully being possibly affected by all this. It's really just saying, “Oh man, you really have no time to do anything else other than game design when you get into this life.” It’s to the point where I feel like I work on games and that I don’t even get to play them anymore. And I definitely don't get to sleep as much as I want to.
Sarah: (laughs)
Derek: So yeah, really anyone who's listening who wants to get into this type of thing: just makes sure you understand that this is going to be a life of a lot of coffee if you take this route.
Sarah: And then I don't think I mentioned this but we are at MAGFest 2023 — and if you're listening to this podcast, or interview, you probably know — and it is currently like 1:30 AM in the morning, and we’re doing this interview. So the gaming world really does not rest for anybody. (laughs)
Derek: No, not at all. Especially because this is my third day in a row like this, with over 20 hours on the show floor.
Sarah: Well, thank you for still taking the time to talk with me and for this interview. It has been such a pleasure, Derek, and I really hope to see some more from Nomnivore Games in the future.
Derek: Yeah, thank you so much, especially for taking time to talk to me when you're so very tired too. (laughs)
Sarah: (laughs) And with anything else, do you want to plug? Socials or websites or anything else that people should go to or know?
Derek: Yeah, sure. If people want to find any of our stuff, the easiest way to find us is going to be on any of the socials where you can find us @NomnivoreGames. That's really the word omnivore with a little cute and N in front of it. Or if you're looking directly for, let's say, the role playing game, you can find that by simply Googling something like Emberwind.
Sarah: Alright, sounds great. Thank you again.
coverage by
GARRETT
interview by
SARAH BEE
transcription by