Apollo 47 is a one-page RPG with 1,199 additional pages of flavor text

You’ve seen those movies with people talking into headsets. Maybe it’s a heist film and someone’s crawling through an air duct, or it’s a science fiction film and a lonely astronaut is hurtling toward their doom. Whatever the context, that’s the vibe that game designer Tim Hutchings is trying to recreate with his latest project, Apollo 47 Technical HandbookA one-page, tabletop role playing game that includes 1,199 pages of flavor text. It’s … a bold choice, to say the least.

But Hutchings isn’t just some random developer. He’s the author of, among other things, The Thousand Year Old Vampire, one of the most critically acclaimed solo journaling games ever made, a concise and introspective investigation of how the long arc of history weighs on a person’s soul. He’s also an assistant professor of game design at Bradley University, responsible for molding young minds and ushering them out into the larger game development industry. A new game from Hutchings is sort of a big deal, even if it’s a weird one. Well, maybe especially if it’s a weird one.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

“I pride myself on being an odd jobs person,” Hutchings told me during a recent interview. “Yeah, I used to have — and this is one of my sad secrets — a pretty vigorous showing-artwork-in-galleries-and-museums life. That is still what I do. I do these same things but with a smaller sense now that I’m a parent. [I’m a]Television commercials and strange high-end video posts [production] guy. Last night, I was opening credits on a Netflix feature movie. […] All kinds of shit.”

Designing games is the work that he enjoys most.

“The only reason I make games is because games satisfy a need, the creative need, that art never did,” Hutchings said. “And so I bring art thinking — for better or worse, and all the self indulgences and miseries that includes — to the way I think about games.”

With this in mind, Apollo 47 viewed as a commentary on current TTRPG state. This book’s existence raises the question of why we would need hundreds upon hundreds of pages of books to play with pretend friends. It’s that question in part that brought Hutchings from a game with one page to a game with 1,200. He said that it took three years to achieve the perfect balance. Below are some excerpts taken from the conversation. They have been lightly edited for clarity and conciseness.

Polygon: It was stated that you became dissatisfied in the art world and decided to go into games. What are the things that art never brought us that you’re bringing with games?

Tim HutchingsYou are correct, but I don’t bring anything worth it to the table. Just doing what Moe Howard did. Three Stooges falls on his side and he’s running in a circle on the ground and pivoting on his shoulder. This is what I do, and it makes me laugh. As I do this, many things seem to fly out of my hands and others are able to follow suit. That’s what happened. It was an accident that I made a highly popular role-playing video game [called Thousand Year Old Vampire].

With some art shrapnel.

This was just an accident.

I have been sent by you Apollo 47But it was done intentionally. But what is it?

That’s a one-page role playing game. You’ll see it at the very, very, very beginning. It’s a small checklist page with redactions or strikeouts. You will find support information on how to do it correctly, as well as ideas for things like name and place names. And then the other 1,170-ish pages are NASA manuals, in no particular order, that all relate to technical aspects of the Apollo missions, which you can, if you’re so inclined, use as prompts to drive your play.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Please tell me about how this idea came about.

It was fascinating to me how headset users communicate with each other. Like we’re doing the heist, and you’re telling me that I’m crawling through the air ducts. There should be one to my left, and then I’m directly above the bank vault, right? That’s what you’re telling me over my headset, and I’m saying, “Well, there’s bars, and I can hear scrambling in the ductwork.” And so we have these exchanges, like in these films and things, and that’s such a cool space, and I wanted to play in that space.

I kept making these games that just weren’t working, and then at some random point about three years ago I wrote Apollo 47. Then it was just a game. It was then a great book. Because again, that stupid art spin demands that the things I make have multiple reasons to be around; that they are aware of themselves; that they’re saying things I think are interesting about format and form. And so this tremendously bloated book for a one-page game was when that game clicked as a thing for me — as an object.

What is the best way to solve conflict between two headsets that are about one person and another? This was something I struggled with often. Which of these problems can you create? And what could I create to solve them? But then I suddenly realized, “Oh, fuck! It’s this NASA headset thing.” It’s not astral projection psychologists from the 1960s and 70s — which was one version of a game like that I made, where they’re describing going through astral projection with one person saying, “Do you see, do you know this shape?” and the other person describing their astral visions, right? There’s so many weird formats.

I don’t work hard. I’m not good at anything. I don’t iterate. I don’t do all the shit you’re supposed to do.

When I think about it, the vignette I remember is Flying Airplane, and the white zone and the red zone parking where they’re talking over the PA system. And what appeals to me about this is there’s the chatter of what they’re talking about, but then there’s what they’re actually feeling and what they’re actually emoting; what they’re actually trying to communicate to each other about their own interpersonal situation.

Which meta layers were created during playtesting? How have you players been talking to each other during playtesting?

I am not a subtle or smart or a person-with-great-depths. They don’t seem to have deeper conversations. But also, I’m not very bright or attentive or tuned in. So I’ve never seen people really dig in, in a deep metaphorical way to have multiple discussions. When you actually play this, it’s really absorbing for me — that’s my understanding of how people play it — in the moment.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

You’re not being a character. You’re in this weird, tiny, verbal space that you’re trying to push into. People keep changing and morphing the words and doors open and suddenly they expand and there’s something else to do. I don’t think there’s a space for subtle, third-tier play. It’s possible, though.

You want the players to take away something from this experience. You want players to leave this session with something to remember, grow from, or take back to the next one.

I think one of the really big — because again, my “secret art agenda” is like a Hollis Frampton-esque ability to sit with silence; to sit and just watch systems quietly express themselves, and not have to have anything break the pattern or the system or anything happening. We’re going to watch Zorns Lemma, which is a film where you just watch letters, things that shouldn’t show letters scroll by on a film screen for 30 minutes. What is a game equivalent of that that’s still engaging? Perhaps this is it?

That’s a huge reach for me to say that. But I think again, sitting quietly is a really important game skill that I don’t think most games encourage, and this is a game where you can do that. I also think that it’s a really buzzy, hard game to power with our brains. And that’s fun for me.

It’s also a uniquely Zoom-friendly game, I could totally dial up my friends and play the shit out of this and have a good night.

My favorite game [of Apollo 47]The only game I played was texting back and forth via my phone. It was super fun and very satisfying.

It’s not that it needs a communications medium, it means whatever communication medium you have, the game can be modified to be people using that communication medium. It’s possible to stick notes to trees in the park and have someone check them regularly. We would be just like astronauts leaving messages at waystations.

When you play the game, you’re not faking another communication medium. When we play Dungeons & Dragons we’re faking that we’re walking through dungeons and chatting and doing that kind of talk. When we do all these other things we’re faking these other spaces. With this, we’re in this space. We’re in whatever space we’re in, whether it’s the phone, or a video chat, or whatever.

Wow! Wow! If we’re playing this at a table in person, we are faking being on the radio. It’s the best way to enjoy it. Damnnn.

Apollo 47 Technical HandbookIt is also available in a digital PDF format and as an actual book. For materials costs, the minimum order must be $33.24

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