The Yaruki Zero Games Podcast’s first interview is with Clay Gardner, designer of OVA: Open Versatile Anime. In this interview Clay shares his insights on the game’s development and publication, as well as his experiences interacting with the fans and his future plans for the game.
Yaruki Zero Podcast #3 (25 minutes, 34 seconds)
Show Notes
- OVA is available in PDF form from RPGNow.
- R. Talsorian Games did lots of anime games, and V-Max magazine.
- Clay’s first favorite anime: Record of the Lodoss War
- Battlemaster High, the freeform RPG thing that was the original inspiration for OVA’s system.
- Dream Pod 9‘s Silhouette System was another influence.
- OVA’s artists include Svetlana Chmakova, Dupuy J. Dee, Niko Geyer, Kelly Hamilton, Min Kwon, Lina, Chihiro Milley, Diane Michie Neill, George Panella, Allie Strom, Elly Susanto, and Hans Tseng
- OVA has some errata. Check here for info on the upcoming revised version.
- Infernal Funhouse’s RandomAnime.
Next Time
The next episode, #3½, will be a reading of the first chapter of Slime Story: The Legend of Doug, the novel I’ve been working on based in the same setting as the RPG of the same name.
This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.
Yaruki Zero Games 
Hi ho fellow TRPG enthusiest! Thank you so much for the mention in your latest podcast. That we very cool of you. Really great interview by the way. I was never a huge fan of OVA as a game but I may now give it a second look as I like what Mr. Gardner had to say.
So Nechronica eh? Looks and sounds intriguing. You’ll never guess what I found yesterday at Book-Off (a Japanese used-book/manga/ video game/cd/dvd store in NYC). I got the Al-Shard Gaia Advanced Rule Book for $5. Yep, five bucks. Mint condition. Its a 2800 yen item. So sweet!
Which reminds me…what can you tell me/us about ‘Make Your Kingdom’? I’ve been seeing it mentioned a lot in Role & Roll Magazine and on the net but not much about the rules or premise.
Thanks in advance and keep up the unsung awesomeness,
AD
Barking Alien
I might be able to field this one.
In the world of Meikyu Kingdom, a great world shaping curse spread throughout the land, turning every location into a dungeon room. The player characters represent the staff of a small kingdom that is reclaiming territory. Players choose their class (King, Knight, Vizier, Servant, Ninja and Oracle) along with a job type (Adventurer, Explorer, Witch and so on) add their stats together, and finally chose a power card from both their job and class. Cards play a big role in the game- every item, monster and skill is represented in cards (which you can print out, copy, or buy a full color set)
Gameplay is represented in two phases- a Kingdom phase where the players manage, build and gain resources from their kingdom (name is generated randomly from a table) and then the Dungeon Phase, where the PCs explore the dungeon to complete their assigned quest.
Rationing exploration and supplies must be done carefully, because your kingdom is still going and still requires resources even if you’re not around. Once the quest is completed, the final map of that particular dungeon can be used to expand the PC’s kingdom and build facilities to add new effects and abilities to the characters.
Think a simple dungeon crawler meshed with Sim City with a cute comedic spin on it- the Vorpal Bunny is a girl in a bunny suit toting a chainsaw and the tutorial comics are hilarious once you get to the critical failures.
That sounds crazy cool! What is the connection (if any) between this game and ‘Kingdom of the Labyrinth’ and ‘The Endless Dungeon’? I was checking out a blog by artist Hayami Rasenjin (SATASUPE, Make Your Kingdom) and he seemed to be implying they were related. Of course my inability to properly translate means I could be way off.
AD
Barking Alien
I’d have to take a look at the blog, but I suspect you’re talking about different translations of the name of the world Meikyuu (Make You) Kingdom takes place in. It’s called the 百万迷宮 in Japanese, which literally means “million dungeons”, but “Endless Dungeon” would be a good idiomatic translation. There’s also a spinoff card game (of which I translated the third installment BTW) called “Meikyu Conquest“.
The folks at Adventure Planning Service have said they want to do an English version, but there’s no telling when it might come along, and I get the impression they’re very busy with various projects (including stuff like pimping their card games at Spiel Eissen and working on video games). At some point I need to find the business cards I got at Gen Con 2008 and e-mail them to see how they’re doing.