Explore a Tragic Tale of Romance in the Vampire Duet TTRPG To Feel Your Warmth

Today we’re talking with Elliot Davis of Moreblueberries and Many-Sided Media about To Feel Your Warmth, the upcoming sequel to the tragic zombie-themed two-player TTRPG The Time We Have. The new game, which began crowdfunding this week, is about a romantic pairing in which one partner has turned into a vampire and has only a few hours before the sun rises…

TTRPG Insider spoke with Davis about the game’s inspiration, how it evolves the original game and more.

1. What inspired The Time We Have...and by extension To Feel Your Warmth?

Elliot Davis: The Time We Have began with an idea for a solo game: a journaling game about processing someone turning into a zombie. It lived as that idea in my notes app for a year or two before I realized it wanted to be a two player game with a split deck of cards. That idea would eventually evolve into the inclusion of the door and what happens if our two players are seated on opposite sides of it. Still, I was not compelled to write the game until I found the specificity of it being about brothers. Similarly, To Feel Your Warmth finally became a project I had to see through when I found its own specificity in being about two people in love. 

Mechanically, both games take heavy inspiration from Alex Roberts’ For the Queen, the game that showed me what is possible with a game made up of only cards with prompts. Alice is Missing is another key inspiration for how it showed what is possible in roleplay when you apply hard limitations to what players can do.

2. What inspired the decision to explore this setting/mechanics as a vampire compared to the original zombie-focused game?

Elliot Davis: The first nugget of inspiration came from the movie Sinners. The way the film depicts the barrier posed by a vampire’s need to be invited in immediately inspired me. I had just written The Time We Have a few months prior to seeing it, and so my brain went right to “oh, what about a vampire hack of The Time We Have?” But honestly, I had said everything I wanted to say about the relationship of brothers with The Time We Have. A 1:1 vampire hack would have been treading the same ground. It needed to cook and marinate until it became about lovers rather than brothers. From there, the vampirism of it all became more fun to explore.

3. What does that vampirism add to the story narratively and mechanically in contrast with its predecessor?

Elliot Davis: So narratively, there is an immediate difference between vampirism and a zombie virus: a vampire (at least in most mythos) retains their individuality. We aren’t dealing with a condition of certain death/loss of identity. So the question for the game became “what in the premise is creating that same inevitability that makes this a conversation and a game worth playing?” and that’s when the game began to emerge. A single night before the sun rises, an attempt by the vampire to convince the human to join them, and a final question of “do you invite them in?”. 

In that question, there is an immediate need for a mechanical change from The Time We Have: an invitation requires a response. While The Time We Have ended with a single question, To Feel Your Warmth ends with two. The vampire is presented with a question of their own: “Do you accept?” Now we are dealing with branching options for the ending in a way The Time We Have never dealt with so directly.

Within the game's prompts, the biggest differences stemmed from the fact that I am exploring a very different relationship. As you read the questions in this game, it becomes clear right away: this is a breakup conversation.

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Deciding to Break Up with a Vampire

4. How have the mechanics evolved? Will those evolutions be used in future variants of To Feel Your Warmth?

Elliot Davis: The biggest mechanical difference is the fact that the door is open in this game. Playing on opposite sides of an open doorway changes the nature of play and roleplay in a massive way. There is a safety in not being able to see your play partner through the closed door that To Feel Your Warmth takes away. The invisible barrier created in the setup portion of play feels heavy between you.

The other major difference came in the silent cards. The Time We Have’s Infection cards both informed the infected player’s roleplay and the game's pacing. Perception cards represented sounds, smells, and other sensations from the other side of the door. To Feel Your Warmth replaces perception cards with Longing Cards: silently read cards that prompt a feeling or memory of fondness for the other character. Infection cards were evolved into Timer Cards, Fear Cards, and Hunger Cards. Timer Cards are the central pacing mechanic, with two shuffled into each player’s deck and the game ending when the third is drawn over the course of play. Fear Cards are in the Human’s deck and prompt silent thoughts of your partner’s monstrous transformation. Hunger Cards are in the Vampire’s deck and prompt silent thoughts of your want—and at times, need—to consume the other. The Hunger Cards also play into the ending. The Vampire is told during setup that if they encounter 4 or more Hunger Cards during play, they know that they will kill their partner if invited in, adding further stakes to their own ending question of “Do you accept?”.

With these two axes of a door/doorway and a mix of spoken and silent prompt cards, the evolutions in To Feel Your Warmth have given me a path towards future changes to the formula in other variants. What happens when both players are on the same side of the door? 

5. Are we going to see other monsters used in future games based on this ruleset?

Elliot Davis: I have a running joke about the third game in this trilogy being the “Father-Son Werewolf game” but in actuality I don’t have any concrete plans for other monsters at this time. If I do make a third game in this series, I think it will be because I have found my way to a new, specific relationship that interests me and that I want to explore, rather than a new monster. 

That said, I have been noodling on a ghost concept and an eldritch horror concept. So we’ll see.

6. What are you excited for fans to discover in this game?

Elliot Davis: The most exciting thing for me about To Feel Your Warmth is the breadth of directions the story can take, which I am excited to discover as more people engage with it. In playtesting, I have already been delightfully surprised by the turns stories are taking. There is even the chance for a happy ending in this game! 

On a more heady design front, this game has been an exercise for me in trying to encourage roleplay of character interiority. I hope that players find themselves thinking as their characters during play. For the Vampire, a fun motivation that keeps emerging in playtesting is to lie to your partner in character. Lying in character is wild! It means you are thinking about your character’s internal thought patterns. I’m excited for players to discover that level of roleplay, to feel comfortable and encouraged to embody these characters fully, and to have so much to debrief with their partner after play that they can’t wait to run the game back with switched roles. 

You can back To Feel Your Warmth on Backerkit now.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].