014 – Bringing Sign Language to Tabletop Gaming with Rich of Hatchlings Games

Today’s guest is the creator behind the game of Inspirisles and Hatchings Games, Rich Oxenham. He is creating games to promote deaf awareness and help you learn sign language: both BSL and ASL. In our conversation, we went over how the game is going to work and how it will teach you sign language. We also chatted about the Kickstarter process, like how they began the campaign with a budget of only 1000 pounds but ended up raising a whole lot more and the impact that had on the development of the game. We spoke about working in a community center with teenagers, the effect of playtesting during lockdowns, and we learned about what’s next for Hatchings Games. I’m pretty excited to snag a copy of this game once it’s available, which sounds like it should be in June. I think y’all will really enjoy learning about Rich and his projects.

Before we jump into today’s episode, it’s business time. First up, we just released a new map pack on DM’s Guild for Candlekeep Mysteries. Brenton went through the whole book and decided on 16 locations that he felt could use a battle map. He spent several weeks preparing them for you, and it’s our first publication where the maps are in full color, not just black and white. So that was pretty exciting for us. You can find it by either going to DMsguild.com and searching for Lightheart Adventures as the author, or you can go to lightheartadventures.com/shop to find all our DM’s Guild and DrivethruRPG publications in one spot.

Next, we do have a Patreon for Lightheart Adventures and Roll Play Grow. You have options on whether you’d like to follow the adventurer track, which will get you maps and adventures, or the merchant track, which gets you some fun bonuses around this podcast like contributing questions to upcoming guests, a project spotlight on the show, and more. You can also support the show by subscribing, sharing with your friends and leaving a review! Reviews are super important for this show to be able to grow, so if you’ve been hanging out and you like what you’re hearing, please drop me a review on your podcast platform of choice. Honestly the only review i’ve seen out there on apple podcasts is from before this show even dropped its first full episode, so I would very much love to hear from y’all and see if we can get that review number up.

Okay, it is time to meet Rich!