decay. - Five Minutes, Not 5e Transcript

A thumbnail image for decay. by Seren Briar, with art by Smiling J

Transcript

DANIEL COPPER: Welcome back to Five Minutes, Not 5e, my name is Daniel, otherwise known as The Copper Compendium, and I’ll be your host! Here I chat with the designers of lesser-known tabletop role-playing games about games they created, drilling down into the core of what makes their game tick. I’m joined today by Seren Briar! Would you like to introduce yourself, and the game we’ll be chatting about today?

SEREN BRIAR: Hi, I’m Seren Briar (they/them), I’m a queer game designer who mostly focuses on horror and the emotional experiences that games can create. Today I’m excited to talk to you about decay., a party game where you play as sentient mushrooms that have teeth.

DANIEL: What genre is the game, and what are some relevant cultural touchstones?

SEREN: It’s a horror comedy, with a lean towards body horror. The closest cultural touchstone would be the Gremlins franchise, but instead of being terrorised by the gremlins, you’re the gremlins doing the terrorising.

DANIEL: How many players is it for, and how long does it last?

SEREN: At least three players, one of which will be describing the world, while the others play as the mushrooms themselves. It’s a pretty quick game, usually about an hour or two depending on how many players you have.

DANIEL: What do you need to play, and how quickly can you learn?

SEREN: All you need are a handful of six-sided dice, which are really cheap and come in so many common board games, and implements to write on and with. You can learn in just a few minutes: the game is only one page and one of my goals was for it to be a game you can just pick up and play while hanging out at a party or something.

DANIEL: What might a typical session involve?

SEREN: As I mentioned at the top, you play as sentient mushrooms with teeth, trying to destroy a small, populated location. You can either eat the population – Consume – or infect them with a fungal disease – Spread. You don’t have arms, so you’re these little mushrooms with legs and mouths running around sowing chaos. The body horror comes into play when you Spread. The game includes a progressive disease that the infected undergo, from being able to understand you to finally rotting away, with a new mushroom rising from the remains.

When you fail a roll to Consume or Spread, your target can try to attack you. You have a dice resource pool that you gain by Consuming, and can use to make your rolls easier.

DANIEL: How have you made it accessible to beginners, and people with specific needs?

SEREN: In a recent update I made the layout more plaintext, as well as updated the organisation of the rules structure. The rules are incredibly simple, so there’s not a whole lot to keep track of. I also rearranged some of the bookkeeping, so it’s not all on the person describing the world, and sillier play is encouraged, which I find a lot of beginners gravitate towards.

DANIEL: Thanks, Seren, for chatting with me about decay.! I hope this interview helped those of you listening get to grips with the game’s themings and play and I look forward to hearing from those of you who check the game out!

Where can people find you and your games, Seren?

SEREN: I’m on Bluesky, @faefatalegames.bsky.social, and my itch is faefatale.itch.io — that’s F-A-E-F-A-T-A-L-E. I’m not hugely on social media, so my Bluesky is mostly a combination of sometimes games-posting, and other times showcasing cool things I’ve cooked lately.

DANIEL: You can find those links, as well as links to the transcript of this entry and links to the game, in the video description [below, here]. If you want to find games with similar themes or gameplay to this one, there will also be links to relevant playlists.

And that rounds out this entry of Five Minutes, Not 5e! If you want to hear me chat further with Seren about decay., check out the Beyond Five Minutes episode, where we’ll delve into inspirations, writing with restrictions, and why they chose to update the game. Until then, thanks for listening, until next time!

[End of transcript.]

Links

The Game and its Designer

Get the game: https://faefatale.itch.io/decay

Check out Seren's games on itch.io: https://faefatale.itch.io/

Follow Seren on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/faefatalegames.bsky.social

Relevant (YouTube) Links

decay. - Beyond Five Minutes: https://youtu.be/4Y2hmTUlFCM

decay. - Beyond Five Minutes Transcript: https://thecoppercompendium.co.uk/decay-beyond-five-minutes-transcript

Horror: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CB3e1RL3ba99hq4hQ_x--Gs

One-Page: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CAMC2bWmQX13_T3_iirjkoz

Party Games: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CA3JTf6HXBmxTrhpJ14RhBB

Single Session: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsLJ-CI8A8CCvMCwKjot2cwDzU1vDw35U