It’s hard to believe, but Novel Not New had its sixth anniversary in 2023! When I started the show with Em and Six at the tail end of 2017, it was out of a place of frustration. Plenty of mainstream gaming outlets wrote off visual novels entirely, then acted as if recent, metatextual VNs were doing something different than the decades of VNs that preceded it (spoiler alert: they weren’t). If nothing else, I wanted an excuse to educate myself on a genre I enjoyed, then discuss the games I played with friends. If a few people tuned in along the way, I’d consider it a nice bonus.
We kept a solid, three-person podcast structure going from 2017 to 2022! Em and Olivia were both fantastic co-hosts, each bringing their own energy to the discussions. Eventually, both of them had to step away for understandable reasons: participating in a monthly game club takes real work, from playing on a deadline to podcast prep. Since we were short a third chair, Six and I reinvented the show by turning it into a guest spot, hitting the ground running to ensure there was always a person (and game) ready and waiting.
In August 2022, we went through our second major shift that year: Novel Not New moved from the Abnormal Mapping network to Scanline Media’s Patreon, turning into a perk for supporters who threw us $5 or more every month. Again, this was a decision made due to the difficulty of running a monthly game club. You wouldn’t believe how much time goes into planning, scheduling, and executing a monthly show. Attaching a dollar amount to our efforts made sense, and every one of our backers has helped us justify continuing this show. Thankfully, our audience was more than willing to come along for the ride, and I couldn’t be more thankful for their support.
2023 was a unique challenge in itself. It was the first, full year of Novel Not New that would feature one guest every month, and we were determined to never be in a position where we were scrambling for guests at the last minute. To that end, we made a few key changes to our approach:
-Invite guests to the show months in advance. I’m not talking 1-2 months before the show: we’ve scheduled some folks 5-7 months before we planned to record. In fact, I could tell you what we’re doing for August this year if I wanted to! (But I won’t: you’ll just have to be patient.)
-Ask the guest what they’re interested in playing, then do our best to accommodate that. It makes podcast prep feel less like work for our guests: after all, if they already wanted an excuse to play the game, aren’t we giving them that excuse?
-Our modern opening segment swaps the question from “What games have you been playing?” to “What stories have you experienced lately?” We all do so much more with our time than playing games, and reframing the question so it includes books, movies and television leads to more interesting answers! It also ensures that guests don’t feel pressured to have another game they’ve been playing before they appear on the show. Sharing what you’ve been up to should be fun, not busywork!
That isn’t to say our new methods are foolproof! We have to be extra careful when scheduling that far ahead: any number of emergencies or other life events could suddenly make our guest unavailable, and even with spreadsheets, it’s all too easy to make scheduling mistakes. We almost made it through 2023 without any slip-ups, but we’re all human here – mistakes are inevitable. But our advance scheduling also makes these errors easy to correct. In the end, we’re better off for planning well in advance!
There are also times when guests don’t know what they’d like to play and discuss off the top of their head, which makes sense. After all, what comes to mind when you hear the words “narrative game?” It could be a classic visual novel, but RPGs, third-person action games, and even deck builders can fall into that category! Thankfully, Six and I have an extended list of dream games we’re more than willing to offer guests when they have trouble deciding. After all, when you’ve made it your business to tackle as many interesting story-heavy games as you can, you’ll inevitably build up quite the reading list.
Throughout this latest iteration of Novel Not New, I’ve pondered one question: how long can we keep this up? Having a constantly rotating third chair (or fourth and fifth, for our rowdiest episodes) leads to this general sense of instability, worrying that there will be a bad month or two that sends the whole thing crashing down. But in those moments of self-doubt, I’m reminded of the number of minor crises and sea changes that this podcast has weathered before. Novel Not New is a surprisingly resilient show!
More importantly, 2023 showed me that this new format works. We got through a whole year of guests, and looking at our calendar, 2024 is almost in the bag for us, too. With Six as my copilot, along with a number of wonderful friends who are eager to dig into narrative games with us, I feel confident enough to say that Novel Not New is doing just fine. We have plenty of years ahead of us: after all, the next narrative adventure is always just around the corner….
