Design With Audiences: Mister and Mischief's Playful Guide to Engagement | Episode 418

Summary

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Professor Game Podcast

Episode 418: Design With Audiences: Mister and Mischief’s Playful Guide to Engagement

Host: Rob Alvarez
Guests: Andy Crocker & Jeff Crocker (Mister and Mischief)
Date: November 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the power of designing with audiences—rather than just for them—through the playful, analog philosophy at the heart of Andy and Jeff Crocker’s zine, Infinite Right Answers. Rob chats with the duo (collectively known as Mister and Mischief) about their transition from large-scale immersive productions to the tactile simplicity of self-publishing a zine. Listeners get actionable insights into audience collaboration, permission for imperfection, and a design philosophy centered on confidence and generosity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

What Is a Zine? (03:18)

• Definition & Ethos:
  • A zine is typically self-published, handmade, and distributed with a DIY ethos.

    “Sometimes a zine is as simple as a piece of paper that’s folded and stapled and hand photocopied... There’s infinite ways you can make a zine. This one is somewhere between a zine and a book.”
    — Andy Crocker (03:43)

• The Infinite Right Answers zine is fully analog—not distributed digitally—and intentionally tangible and textural.

Why Make a Zine Now? (04:58)

• Andy and Jeff chose making over theorizing:

  “…either you become a thought leader and tour around... or... you make the thing. And we keep choosing to make the thing versus talk about making the thing.”
  — Andy Crocker (05:00)

• The analog format keeps the experience physical—mirroring the hands-on, experiential nature of their work.

Moving from Large-Scale to Lo-fi (06:55)

• Transitioning from immersive, in-person productions to printed form wasn’t about unlearning but rethinking how to present ideas:

  “This was everything right in front of you on a page that has to be printed out. I think required... changing how we approached presenting our thoughts.”
  — Jeff Crocker (07:57)

• Unlike interactive experiences, a printed zine offers just “one baton pass”—inviting but not controlling the reader’s interaction.

The Philosophy of Infinite Right Answers (09:29)

• Originates from dissatisfaction with binary interactions (e.g., traditional scavenger hunts) and platitudes like “no wrong answers.”

  “There are so many wrong answers in... improvisational setting... being racist, hurting somebody, breaking a thing... those are wrong. Don’t do it.”
  — Andy Crocker (10:45)

• The key realization: you can design for “infinite right answers” while still protecting boundaries and vision.

Designing With Audiences (12:56)

• Shift from “creating for” to “creating with” by initiating co-creation as early as possible:

  “If you can find it in yourself, how early can I pass this baton and how much can I trust them to pass it back to me?”
  — Andy Crocker (12:58)

• Tabletop roleplaying examples highlight how inviting player ownership leads to richer, more resonant experiences.

Navigating Collaboration and Boundaries (15:21)

• Not all aspects are open for co-creation; determining what to protect upfront is essential:

  “You have to decide: What are the things that you want to protect? …I’m not going to pass the baton for you to paint over a painting I’ve already made.”
  — Andy Crocker (15:21)

Learning from Failure: The Library Art Installation (17:11)

• Playtesting can still surface unexpected challenges—like people being too gentle with an interactive exhibit:

  “People were astonishingly overly gentle with it. They were so respectful of the library environment that they were not moving at a pace we expected them to.”
  — Jeff Crocker (19:22)

• Solution: Adjust the mechanism and expectations, recognizing that environment profoundly shapes user behavior.

The Importance of Imperfection (21:41)

• Imperfection signals approachability; it invites audiences to join in, not just spectate.

  “If you come off polished and controlled and perfect, then it’s a lot less easy to engage with the piece.”
  — Andy Crocker (21:41)

• The zine is intentionally filled with scribbles, unpolished diagrams, and prompts that say, "now you try."

Honoring Weirdness & the “Cutting Room Floor” (24:34)

• Nothing is wasted; even content that doesn’t make the zine is kept for “compost.”

  “I think we very much subscribe to, like, nothing gets thrown away. Everything is part of compost or ready for the next.”
  — Andy Crocker (24:34)

• Example: A difficult-to-explain core concept was eventually, with help, distilled into a simple metaphor: a bicycle.

The Essential Takeaway: Confidence & Generosity (27:42)

• If you remember one thing, let it be "the bicycle":

  “The bicycle represents... the two key elements... confidence and generosity... When people are not feeling confident, that is when they are the least generous.”
  — Andy Crocker (28:04)

• This principle applies everywhere: with collaborators, playtesters, and the audience. Cultivating both leads to healthier, more creative collaborations.

Universal Application (31:24)

• The philosophy of Infinite Right Answers extends beyond immersive theater—to blogs, recipes, dinner parties, and any creative endeavor.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Co-Creation:

  “How early can you engage with an audience and make sure that they have a little bit of that ownership?”
  — Jeff Crocker (13:27)

• On Audience Gentleness:

  “People want the library to love them as much as they love the library, and they just want to do right by the library…”
  — Andy Crocker (19:42)

• On Imperfection in Design:

  “We wanted it to feel like the way that we talk to each other… So pretty early on, we say in the piece, ‘now you try’ and there’s… a place for you to interact…”
  — Andy Crocker (23:31)

• On the Core Message:

  “If you practice generosity and you go like, okay, I’m going to play test this. It’s not ready yet… But I’m going to force myself to be generous in this moment. And then you get through that, you will be more confident, and then the next time you will be more generous…”
  — Andy Crocker (28:25)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:18 — Defining a Zine; Analog Format
• 04:58 — Why Self-Publish? Making vs. Talking
• 06:55 — Shifting from Live Experience to Print
• 09:29 — "Infinite Right Answers" Origin
• 12:56 — Audience Co-Creation & Passing the Baton
• 15:21 — Setting Boundaries for Collaboration
• 17:11 — Failure Stories: The “Too Gentle” Library Install
• 21:41 — Valuing Imperfection in Play
• 24:34 — Creative Editing and Metaphors ("The bicycle")
• 27:42 — The Lasting Takeaway: Confidence & Generosity
• 31:24 — Universal Application ("Not Just for Theater")

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Resources & Further Exploration

• Mister and Mischief Website:
  www.misterandmischief.fun
• Instagram: @misterandmischief
• Newsletter: Occasional and informational; sign-up via their website.

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Conclusion

This episode invites creators, teachers, and innovators to embrace imperfection, co-creation, and a design mindset that balances confidence and generosity. Through tactile analog creation, open-ended engagement, and stories of both success and failure, Mister and Mischief share a potent philosophy for meaningful audience engagement.

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For more episodes, resources, and the Professor Game community, check the episode description. Listen. Learn. Apply play to your strategy!

Transcript

[Andy Crocker]

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[Rob]

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[Jeff Crocker]

Well qualified credits end and balance due.

[Rob]

If you pay off early or cancel.

[Andy Crocker]

Contact Us There are so many wrong answers even in an improvisational setting. If you are with another human being in a room, there are 100% always wrong answers.

[Jeff Crocker]

It doesn't mean that there isn't space for right answers and those are still infinite.

[Rob]

So there are many right answers in different situations and we'll know more about what Andy and Jeff are discussing. But as you know, as you know right now we are in this setting which is the Professor Game Podcast. And here we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification, Game thinking and game oriented game inspired solutions to help us in the process of creating engagement, retention, loyalty and motivation. I'm Rob, I'm a consultant, a coach and I'm the founder of Professor Game. I'm also a professor of Gamification Game Based Solutions at efmd, IU Business School, EBS University and many others around the world. And before we dive into the interview, if you're struggling with retention, if you're struggling with churn loyalty in your business and you are looking for ways to make sure you keep those users or those players, you definitely will find our free resources useful. Click on the description and get them right away. Engagers welcome back to another episode of the Professor Game Podcast. We have a couple of repeat guests this time. Not just one, but two repeat guests in a single episode. So they were one of the few and very selected of those who come in couples to an episode and now they're coming once again. So Mr. And Mischief, are you prepared to engage?

[Jeff Crocker]

Absolutely.

[Andy Crocker]

Born ready.

[Rob]

Jeff and Andy Crocker, welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you back.

[Jeff Crocker]

Thanks for having us back.

[Rob]

So Engagers, if you want the full you know, original interview with all the questions we know we always make. You can definitely find that, you know, in the description of this episode. For sure it'll be linked there. We talk about some of the failures, mistakes, lessons learned, favorite games and all sorts of jazz. But today we're going to talk about something slightly different. We're here today to talk about the. Let me see if I get this right because to be honest, it was the first time I heard that we're talking about a zine. Zine, Zine, zine. So it's kind of a magazine, but not a magazine. It's a zine. What's the difference? Let's start with that.

[Andy Crocker]

Well.

[Jeff Crocker]

Well, good. That's a great place to start. Well, typically a zine is something like self published and homemade. Very much like a DIY ethos. Nice and distributed. This is like one unit above a zine in that like we're sort of.

[Andy Crocker]

I mean not. There's no hierarchy.

[Jeff Crocker]

There's no hierarchy. Oh, sorry, I meant. Yeah, we've added, we've put a little bit more.

[Andy Crocker]

No, what I would say is it's like sometimes a zine is as simple as like a piece of paper that's folded and stapled and hand photocopied speed. Sometimes a zine is closer to a comic collection. There's infinite. A bajillion ways you can make a zine. This one is somewhere between a zine and a book.

[Jeff Crocker]

Sure.

[Andy Crocker]

So. But it is self published. It does have a lot of the creative spirit of a zine of we're gonna make it ourselves. It's not under a publisher. It's just folks that have something to say that want to share it with people. Yeah, there's a long history of zines.

[Rob]

Okay, okay. The long history for sure. Interesting. So you've both worked on, you know, immersive productions, even with giants, you know, Disney, Universal. And now you make a zine. Tiny, potentially analog, but not this time. Well, is it analog this time? It is, it is.

[Andy Crocker]

It's completely analog. And we're not doing digital distribution at this time.

[Rob]

So tiny analog lo fi format. Right. Next move. How does that come together for you?

[Andy Crocker]

We talk a lot about. We have a lot of people ask us how we make what we make and they have a lot of questions about it because traditionally what we make is experiential by design. It's like you have to be there in person and to explain it takes a lot of words. And we, we felt like we were at this crossroads of either you become a Thought leader and tour around and nonstop and like write a book about how you make the thing, or because we're parents and we're busy people, you make the thing. And we keep choosing to make the thing versus to talk about making the thing, except with lovely humans like you. And so we didn't have time to make a book or go on a book signing tour, but we did have time to put our thoughts down in a creative way, put our fingerprints on our theories and share them with as many people as possible. Jeff, would you agree with this? Because it's awkward if you don't.

[Jeff Crocker]

That is exactly what the intent was. And the intent to make it sort of analog was sort of again, that sort of self publishing ethos of like wanting to be the ones that got to do it, take a lot of care in it and have something that people could hold because that is still experiential. Like getting something, finding a place to sit down a coffee shop, your bedroom park, you know, a street corner and read something is still an experience.

[Andy Crocker]

I think that having it be something that you can hold, that has texture, that you could write in was the closest, also the closest way that we could talk about how we do in the way that we do it, which is often analog, textured and irl, if you will.

[Rob]

Did you have to unlearn something to work on this from your, you know, bigger projects that you've and stuff that you've done to. To get to something like this, unlearn? I don't know if that's a, That's a left field question.

[Andy Crocker]

I know it's a great question.

[Jeff Crocker]

It's a great question. I think. I feel like the answer is yes. Ish. Like there's the yes and no of like definitely putting thoughts of how you convey ideas in a sequential format. This required a slightly different approach and understanding to how that's done. We know we are very comfortable and capable of doing it in person. Lots of people all at once or in person. Small amount of people all at once. And having an environment and having other parts and pieces attached to that, whether it's scenery in a setting, whether it's actors and characters. But this was everything right in front of you on a page that has to be printed out. I think required. Yeah, that's a great question, Rob. I don't know about unlearning, but definitely changing how we approached presenting our thoughts.

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah, I think I would also say like we are very used to. And this is sort of what the, the, the minifesto as we're calling it is about. Is that like in our work, when you're in real life with someone, when you're in conversation. You know this because you have conversations all the time.

[Rob]

Usually. Yeah.

[Andy Crocker]

Good at them. Yeah. Is that like. It's. It's the. It's the taking turns. It's the passing back and forth. It's the act of listening. It's a very fluid. And there's space to pivot or adjust as you go. But this is like. Well, it's printed.

[Rob]

It's.

[Andy Crocker]

Now it's in someone's hand. It's like one baton pass. As opposed to. We're used to multiple baton passes throughout an experience. This is one baton pass. We made a thing and we give it to you and then goodbye. We hope you enjoy. That is a part of our brain we don't work as often.

[Rob]

Makes sense. Makes sense. So then, you know, I'm not sure if I already mentioned it, but the name of the zine is Infinite Right Answers. And it reminds me always of the Infinite Game. It's in fact a book from a friend which is called Infinite Games or something along those lines. It's a. It's bold. Right. Infinite Right Answers. You know, what's. What does that come to? Like, maybe, you know, is it a hard truth for you guys? You. You ever question this? Like, what. What does that. What does Infinite Answers, Infinite Right Answers for you look like?

[Andy Crocker]

Well, it. The origin of it, I think came from maybe a pathological and probably like, unnecessarily strong feeling I have about scavenger hunts because I was doing, like, we. We were talking. We. This. We've worked with museums in the past and stuff, and people, like, often want a scavenger hunt. And there's something about it. They serve a great purpose. Like. But there are certain kinds of scavenger hunts that are like, go find this sticker in 12 places in the venue. And I have like, this visceral. And I was trying to describe why I didn't like that style of interaction. A seek and find. Like, why. I don't. I. And. And I think we were having this conversation and I was like, I don't. I don't like the fact that you're like, you either found the sticker or you did not find. That was very binary. It's. This is where it started from, but then it morphed into something else. Do you know where I'm going with this?

[Rob]

I do.

[Andy Crocker]

I was gonna pass the baton, but no, still holding it. And this was paired with another visceral probably over emotional reaction, which is like the hatred of like, no wrong answers.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yes.

[Andy Crocker]

Like, everybody, like, just. Just, like, throw something out. It's fine. No wrong answers. There are so many wrong answers in any. Even in an improvisational setting, if you are with another human being in a room, there are so there are 100% always wrong answers. Being racist, hurting somebody, breaking a thing, causing harm to a community, causing harm to a piece of art. Like, those are wrong. Don't do it. So I think the combination of feelings around scavenger hunts and feelings around no wrong answers, guys, then we were like, well, what do we like?

[Jeff Crocker]

Right. It doesn't mean that there isn't space for right answers. And those are still infinite. There's still an infinite amount of right answers, even though there are wrong answers in a sort of open experience.

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah. So, yeah, it became like sort of a philosophy, a design philosophy, which was like, can we design for infinite right answers while protecting things like both, you know, big C consent, but also, like, artistic consent and. And protecting the creative vision? So, yeah, can you design for infinite right answers knowing that there will always be wrong answers became one of the threads of, like, everything we do. Yeah, pretty much.

[Jeff Crocker]

And I think, as you noted, Rob, it makes a bold title.

[Rob]

Makes it even better. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. I like it. I like it. You've. You've also, you know, from our chats before and the interactions we've had, you like to talk that you. You about creating with audiences rather than what most people tend to talk about, which is designing for audiences. What's. What's the small shift that a creator or a teacher can make, you know, this week or in their next session to start creating with rather than creating for.

[Jeff Crocker]

That's a great question.

[Andy Crocker]

Well, I think it's sort of that idea of the baton pass too, which is like, if you can find it in yourself, like, how early can I pass this baton and how much can I trust them to pass it back to me? Is a great, like, if you think about it like a workout, like a great exercise would be, like, how. How early in this interaction that I'm having with someone can I pass this baton? She said, realizing she's been talking way too much.

[Jeff Crocker]

I think that's exactly right. Which is how early can you engage with an audience and make sure that they have a little bit of that ownership? You sort of get an understanding. I think the kids call it a vibe check. Know sort of where they're coming from, even though as sort of the facilitator or creator, you know where you want to be going either in a hard story world of like, this is a story I'm telling, there is an end I need to get to or more of an open world, like I can't wait for us to all create this ending together. The best example I can use is tabletop role playing games in that there are plenty of opportunities where you're like, this is a story, we're gonna live through this story. But I need you to slay this monster, this creature or something versus the possibility of like, I wonder what these people want to do. Do they want to go slay creatures and monsters and dragons or do they just want to go explore and talk, go to taverns and talk?

[Andy Crocker]

I mean, are you thinking of Sunday's adventure that we had?

[Jeff Crocker]

We play, we play a role playing game with our daughter and another family and it's primarily like there's no combat. Like it is all our daughter really.

[Andy Crocker]

Wants to do combat.

[Jeff Crocker]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Andy Crocker]

There's some violence.

[Jeff Crocker]

There is some violence. But like typically. But as I'm usually the one that GM's it and so understanding what sort of the energy that they are always sort of pushing towards is that sort of co collaboration from an early stage of like, all right, now I know what kinds of things they're always going to be interested in. But it also means when you get to a place where, I don't know, you have to fight, it makes it all the more impactful for them because this group typically doesn't want to fight.

[Andy Crocker]

And we did spend like several hours on a show. We spent a whole day, we just went shopping for magical items. That was the whole day. We didn't do anything. We just shopped. It was great. I have no money left. I exchanged a lot of gossip for magical items. But I was gonna say the other thing about like with TTRPGS is like a great example of like there's so many different styles you can GM with and some folks are co creating earlier and more often than others. It's just a style thing and we like a lot of co creation. The other going back is like the very first thing that you have to do is decide what are the things that you want to protect, what are the things that you're like, we're not going to change this. So I'm not going to pass the baton for you to paint over a painting I've already made, for example. So yeah, it's a style thing. This is a long answer to a short question, but that's it.

[Rob]

Was a good question. No, it all makes sense. And speaking of this, and you know, I'm big on talking about failure, right? And I'm not talking about romanticized failure. TEDx Talk failure. Oh yeah, I did this and then now I am like the king of the world thanks to that failure. I'm asking about, you know, and, and you guys, I'm sure, I'm not saying you fail often. That's not what I'm saying. But, you know, given that the nature of what you guys do, there must be some, some more difficult points, right? Where, where, you know, things are as you were describing, they're going somewhere and somebody wants to paint over the painting and every, every now and then, of course, within certain restrictions that might actually happen. So I wanted to ask about one of those times when, when it went south and you know, you, you recovered from it, something happened and, and maybe how you got back from that and maybe, maybe. Is there a zine, A zine version of, of this discussion?

[Andy Crocker]

Actually, there. I'm sure there's plenty in the, the zine of like, lessons we had to learn when. Because, because we're creative partners and married and have a kid and like, we have, we collaborate on so many things. We do have, like, I've like constant every day. We do have a lot of shorthand. And so getting our shorthand into longhand for another human being to understand. I'm trying to think. I feel like there had to be examples where we're like, this makes perfect sense. And someone was like, what?

[Jeff Crocker]

I, I think failure, I think is all the little. I think from an early stage in working together, we knew that like, playtesting was really important. And yet we continue to learn as we play test things, the parts that we've missed or haven't tested or thought to test. And those always create interesting moments of scrambling to solve something. The best example I can use. Recently, since last we talked, Andy designed a whole art piece, experiential art piece for the Los Angeles Public Library. And it's interactive. You come to the library and you have to check out a special box and it leads you on an experience in this, this library branch. It's really cool. It's called the Bureau of Nooks and Crannies.

[Andy Crocker]

Thanks. It is cool.

[Jeff Crocker]

It is cool. And this is, you know, this is a great example. We built these, some of these boxes and we tested them with our friends and colleagues and still we told people, great, you're going to have to do this one interaction. And when it finally got installed in place inside the library, People were astonishingly overly gentle with it. They were so respectful of the library environment that they were not moving at a pace that we expected them to. We thought it'd be like, oh, it's a slot. You put the thing in the slot.

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah. A part of this is. I mean, we can spoil this. There is a part of it where you. It's the finale.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah.

[Andy Crocker]

Where you put a piece of paper into a slot. That's it. That's all you have to do. And.

[Jeff Crocker]

And, yeah, there's a mechanism in there.

[Andy Crocker]

That triggers some magic.

[Jeff Crocker]

Triggers some magic.

[Andy Crocker]

Oh, my God.

[Jeff Crocker]

Oh, my God. They're so gentle.

[Andy Crocker]

No one will. They just, like, they'll just gently. Because people want the library to love them as much as they love the library, and they just want to do right by the library, and they want to do. And so.

[Jeff Crocker]

And that's great, by the way.

[Andy Crocker]

It's great. We love it. We love a library. But people's gentleness would actually prevent it from triggering. Yeah.

[Jeff Crocker]

When we were. When we were testing it in our house, we had a bunch of people come in, and it was in our house. Great. Put this in. Put this in.

[Rob]

We're not testing it in the library.

[Jeff Crocker]

And then when we got to the library, we just watched people be so gentle and basically, like this, as they put things in this slot, like, it didn't trigger the thing that we were trying to do. So we've made some adjustments that we've had to do in person, and it's. It's delightful. But it was a weird mistake that we never would. We probably never would have guessed.

[Andy Crocker]

Well, I think. And. And as we, like, did paper prototypings, if we saw that behavior happening, but it was so. It's so alien to us because usually you're just, like, in an escape room. You're like two fingers of pressure, only, like, please don't rip the lamps off the wall to look for a clue. If you're in, you know, designing a children's museum, you have to design it.

[Jeff Crocker]

For basically the most powerful force of nature on the planet, which is a middle school field trip.

[Andy Crocker]

Everything's gonna break. So we were shocked whenever. When the problem was everyone being gentle.

[Rob]

Interesting. Interesting. I love that. I love, you know, problems that come out of the blue, essentially.

[Jeff Crocker]

So.

[Rob]

You mentioned, you know, scribbles on receipts of the zine, diagrams that are unpolished. Absurdity. Like, what's the role of imperfection? Right. When inviting people to play instead of perform. Right. What's imperfection? Look like. And what do you suggest people to do in those spaces?

[Andy Crocker]

I think it's really. There's a couple things. I think it's really important to lead by example. I think if you come off polished and controlled and perfect, then it's a lot less easy to engage with the piece. Stop me if I'm wrong. Don't stop me. No, I mean, I think let's use, like, performance. For example. You want to make an interactive performance. If you have two actors doing a scene. Ba ba ba ba da ba. Very clever, hilarious lines. And then they just turn to the audience and are like, what should we do next? The audience is gonna be like, what? No, I. You are clearly two actors talking to each other. I am not an actor. I'm just what is happening. But if we engage and are a little imperfect, a little less slick and a little less memorized, more learned, um, it's much more of a acceptable invitation for all kinds of learners, all kinds of folks. Whereas only a certain kind of person is, like, excited to interrupt a scripted, slick, you know, perfectly timed scene. So that would be the performance version. I think, with this, we tried to do the same thing on paper.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah, I think. I think that's. It's. That's exactly right. Um, I think that's why the sort of zine mentality spoke to us was because it's purposefully, you know, handmade. It is, you know, us trying to get our thoughts together. It's not fully realized in perfect diagrams. It's a lot of. Lot of scribbles and thoughts. But there's. There's a little bit of everything we wanted.

[Andy Crocker]

We wanted it to feel like the way that we talk to each other and the way we joke and our sense sensibilities and invite people to come along. So pretty early on, we say in the. In the piece, we're like, now you try. And there's just, like, a place for you to. To interact with the. With the book itself.

[Rob]

I love it. I love it. And, you know, are there any sort of exceptions to this? Like, was there a part of the zine that, you know that you almost cut for being either too weird, too rough, or that you were just about to and then said, no, we have to stick to our principles. Did something like this ever happen?

[Jeff Crocker]

I'm sure, but I can't think of anything on the cut.

[Andy Crocker]

We more expanded than contracted. But I'm sure there's something on the cutting room floor.

[Jeff Crocker]

Good question.

[Rob]

Especially on the side of, you know, this is too imperfect or, you know, that. That kind of. Because you were talking exactly. For that, like, we want it to be intentionally imperfect and so on. But then, of course, eventually it's a zine and you reread it and you go like, this needs some rewriting. Or this. Oh, this is a bit too far. Or, I don't know, did that happen or were you tempted to do it?

[Andy Crocker]

That ended up, at least on the, like, post it note for later. I mean, because I think we very much subscribe to, like, nothing gets thrown away. Everything is part of compost or, you know, ready for the next. We do literally have, like, a bucket of ideas that got cut. So I think some of the things that ended up in the bucket are maybe some things that had more to do with specifically performance or producing or, like, literally tippy tap writing. I think everything in here ended up being stuff you could leverage for anything, whether you were having a dinner party or making an interactive theater piece, which is basically the same thing. That's the most terrible example. Whether you're making a cake or making a cake. That was not helpful. I need a better scale.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah, I think that's accurate.

[Rob]

Yeah. Amazing.

[Andy Crocker]

Anything else? Too imperfect?

[Jeff Crocker]

I think it was. I think, like we've said, like, it was. The challenge was it has been easier and easier for us to talk about our ideas on how to build a kernel into an experience, but then putting that into putting that on paper, and then, like, you're saying, rob, like, have it be. You could keep reading it, and every time you're like, yes, this makes sense. Yes, I understand this. What was that? Oh, right. I understand this. That was. The challenge, is making sure that it was understandable for as many people as we hope it is.

[Andy Crocker]

I think the thing that has the most drafts, because I saved them, because there's, like, a stack. So we spent a day talking to a friend of ours, Unique Trapman o', Brien, who's brilliant. If you don't know him. Everyone should. He's amazing. He was staying at our house, and we were at the kitchen table, and I was trying to describe this thing that Jeff and I had a shorthand for, and there is just a stack of papers of absolutely, like, nonsensical infographics that we were trying. Like, is it a Venn diagram? Is it a flowchart? Is it, like. Is it an. A picture of an atom? Like, we're trying, like, all of this stuff, and there's. I still have them. There's, like, just a stack of attempts to explain this feeling. And then one of our collaborators Regan Chanel was though. Can I. Can I spoil this?

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah, we can spoil it.

[Andy Crocker]

Can say that Regan was just like, oh, it's a bicycle. And we were like, what? Yeah. So it took us. We were. We drew a million versions before Regan took one look at it and was like, oh, you're talking about a bicycle.

[Rob]

So for those of you not seeing, it was literally a bicycle.

[Andy Crocker]

Yeah. No, it wasn't a Venn diagram. It wasn't a chemistry.

[Rob]

No. It's not something that looks like a bicycle that you interpret. No, no, it was a bicy.

[Andy Crocker]

It's a literal bicycle.

[Jeff Crocker]

It's a bicycle.

[Rob]

Cool. Cool. So if somebody right now flips through infinite right answers and only remembers one idea of everything that's there a week later, a week or a month later. Take whatever time you want. What do you hope that thing can be?

[Andy Crocker]

This is like the Newlywed Game. Are we gonna pick the same thing?

[Jeff Crocker]

I think so.

[Rob]

I mean, that was not my intention, but it could be fun as well.

[Jeff Crocker]

No, I think there's. I think there's a lead. I think, obviously the notion of there are wrong answers, but that doesn't preclude you from designing for infinite right answers. But I think the thing we hope people remember the most is the bicycle is.

[Andy Crocker]

I was gonna say that too, but I was worried that you'd be like, it's not the title, is the thing.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah. Because the bicycle represents a concept Andy has talked previously about, which are the two key elements to consider when making decisions as you build something, which is confidence and generosity.

[Andy Crocker]

And the idea is that oftentimes when people are not feeling confident, that is when they are the least generous. And when people are the least generous, like, and you're just looking at someone being, you know, unable to collaborate or unable to release control, that oftentimes you can go like, oh, no, you're scared. Okay. And so you can kind of treat both right. If you practice generosity and you go like, okay, I'm going to play test this. It's not ready yet. I can't control it. These people are going to experience it and it's going to be a hot mess. But I'm going to force myself to be generous in this moment. And then you get through that, you will be more confident, and then the next time you will be more generous. Or if you're like, I feel like I'm giving too much away. Like, I just feel like I'm losing the thread and that there are seems people are kind of answering these ways that are harmful. Well, you build up your confidence, find out where you need to have more training, control, et cetera, et cetera. So confidence and generosity, which is why you can see why we, like, had to draw, like, a million pictures of it to explain its relationship, is at the core of all of it. I think it's the most applicable because it applies when you're at the beginning of the design process.

[Jeff Crocker]

Yeah, it applies to everything.

[Andy Crocker]

It applies to when you bring on, like, collaborators. So let's say you're a narrative designer and you're bringing on folks to do the visuals. You have to approach that with confidence and generosity. If you're controlling everything that the visual designer is working on because you're scared that the story isn't solid enough, that's not going to make for a healthy collaboration all the way up through rehearsal. If you're doing a live experience, how you train your actors, you're training them for confidence and generosity. And then if they do that, then the people experiencing it will then go on to feel confident, be generous and be generous. And then when they're bringing somebody, is it, let's say it's a more traditional game. The people, the best people that are explaining how a game is played to somebody else are the people that are confident and generous. I know this game. I love this game. I want you to have this experience so I'm going to be clear in the way that I'm onboarding you and on and on. And then maybe people are just like nicer Pumas and then maybe we save the world. I don't know.

[Rob]

Seems beautiful. Beautiful. I love it. I love it. A good way to focus on these things. Jeff, Andy, it's being an absolute pleasure having you here. I don't know if there's anything you'd like to highlight before we wrap things up. Anything? We haven't said anything. I haven't asked because, again, as I said before we started, I didn't really completely read the magazine or the magazine. Come on, Rob, you can do better. The zine. The zine. I did not read the zine.

[Andy Crocker]

The Not a Book. You can call it the Not a Book.

[Rob]

The Not a Book.

[Jeff Crocker]

Is there anything else? I don't know. I hope people get one and are excited about sort of reading through a approach to a creative process and sort of the elements that we think go into building that confidence and generosity of your own work, whatever that may be. Right from the very beginning, we say this is not for just like, in person, experience experiences or immersive theater. It is for if you're making a recipe or a blog. Does anyone have blogs?

[Andy Crocker]

Yes. So many people have blogs. Blogs are back, baby. Right?

[Jeff Crocker]

It can be for a dinner party, it can be for a band. Like any of these things like it is. It really does speak to what it means to be creative out in the world.

[Andy Crocker]

I agree with everything you said.

[Jeff Crocker]

Oh great. Well, keep it.

[Rob]

That sounds absolutely amazing, guys. Where can people find the magazine? More about your work, what you're doing, or if they just want to get into your world deeper? How can they? How can they do that?

[Jeff Crocker]

We are at mrandmischief.fun www.misterandmischief fun and then typically our social media of choice is Instagram where we are misterandmischief.

[Andy Crocker]

Plus we have a newsletter that is both occasional and and informational. So everyone should sign up for that on our website. On our website.

[Rob]

Amazing. Amazing. Thanks again for coming back for explaining everything about your zine. Not book, not magazine. Amazing. Amazing. Have a great rest of your day. And engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today at least, it is time to say that it's game over. Hey engagers, and thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. And since you're interested in this world of creating motivation, engagement, loyalty using game inspired solutions, how about you join us on our free online community at Professor Game on School. You can find the link right below in the description, but the main thing is to click there. Join us to platform platform called Skool. It's for free and you'll find plenty of resources. There will be up to date with everything that we're doing, any opportunities that we might have for you, and of course, before you go on to your next mission, before you click continue, please remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

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