Triangle Agency (Part 1)

Bad things come in at three; telework request denied

Triangle Agency is a game by Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland. Game material and content is reproduced here for review purposes and is owned by Haunted Table Games. Triangle Agency benefited from crowdfunding.

1. Every Individual Component Is The Best

In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we do not find bad or good useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgement that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical term, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgement.

Ludo

Clean, magazine-like, big chonky book, Triangle Agency is exactly what has become expected of hyped indie TTRPGs in the current era, with all this implies.

Brad

Very clean and sure in its art direction and aesthetic, it lays itself out and speaks to its own layout in an extremely efficient and effective way, I have absolutely zero complaints.

2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At

Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly breakdown, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.

Lucrécia

Triangle Agency had one hell of an uphill battle to gain me. I looked at its clean, grid-obsessed, corporate-slash-magazine look, the supraminimalism of so many TTRPGs, and it immediately put me on my back foot; the marketing was stylish, gimmicky toys included in the campaign, was undistinguishable from so many TTRPG Funko Pops. The emulated genre, what awaits you beyond this veneer? Not only I am remotely interested. The resolution mechanics and apparent engine? Further pushed me into the direction that this was another bloated project, a pun/bit that would be nice for a one-to-fifteen pages TTRPG for a funny one shot but was twenty or thirty times more than it would overstay its welcome.

And you know what? When I sat with it on its terms? I started groaning, but as I kept groaning, I realized I was not groaning at the game. I was groaning with the game. That was the point, that was what the game was all about. It had immediately won me over¹. The Corporate Memphis in aesthetics and language, the soaking into so many psychopolitical derangements that have leaked all over TTRPGs… they are there for a purpose. That is the uncanny horror of anomalies made mundane, appropriated by capitalism. But I get ahead of myself.

Back to this point. Triangle Agency is quite approachable if you do so on its terms: it requires for you to play the role of anomaly-turned-agent, an asset co-opted and captured by capitalism realism. The mundanity of corporate evil, and accept it can literally warp reality. Once you accept the absurd of this, you are in for a ride.

The way the book is presented, and during first reading and/or flipping with it, it is full of graphic noise, busy pages, visual and textual bits that overstay their welcome. You would think this would be an obstacle for the game, an accessibility issue. I have found it is actually more accessible than most. The actual important information is compartmentalized and highlighted, and the actual pages you need to reference to learn and during play have nice diagrams and infographics, leaving the Memphis visual gags to the side and staying on point. It ends up doing better at conveying information/organizing references than the average TTRPG; in many ways, it reminds me of most editions of Paranoia: rules are simple and conveyed net and clearly, with the rest of the books being filled with art, bits, set writing or pages after pages of forms to set up the tone.

Triangle Agency stands out how it talks about safety and comfort; it centers its discussion on what will happen as part of its conventions, assumptions and mechanic, and prioritizes a local culture of safety on those topics — exactly the kind of thing I wished to see more of.

Brad

When I first saw Triangle Agency’s ad on Kickstarter I was so much of a hater Lu had to bully me into reading it.

Once again, I’m glad she did.

Triangle Agency’s is incredibly approachable, like a nice big comfy bed. It lets you into itself with an easy smile and relaxing manner, one of the few times that a slightly familiar tone works, and that’s because as Lu alluded to above, it’s a lie. Triangle Agency’s saccharine and peaceful tone belies the things it’s telling you even as it points them out to you, it is truly a wondrous magician’s trick, but more on that later.

On art, I think it is important to mention that in addition to Lu’s correct assertion that it carefully avoids cluttering around important information, the art is amazing, pieces leap off the page! From the spreads that show your archetype down to the chapter art.

3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About

Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and creates a common space for creation.

Ludo

Triangle Agency is a game of Monsters and Operators, focusing on the nightmare of corporate culture. Think Control by privatization getting to the Oldest Retail Market or something like Lobotomy Inc.

You are anomalies entreated to protect reality and save the world… for profit! Get your funny gun and briefcase-shaped Pokéball and go capture more anomalies. Hopefully, they can be turned into Products, who knows, maybe they may join you as employees?

Brad

You are the Agency’s approved monster hunting squad, your mission is to bring in wayward threats to reality and carefully imprison and harness them to bring about a better product for our shareholders. You can even earn points for a meal plan or something from the company reward store! A funny mug!

4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About

What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists on a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.

Lucrécia

Triangle Agency is about capitalism realism, identarian recuperation-slash-capture and the psychopolitical nightmare that infiltrates everything in life to make everyone a petit entrepreneur whose entire life is commodified.

The Agency takes your mundane life, your anomalous nature and presses it into service. It keeps hammering you into acting on its terms: get a briefing, look for an anomaly, confront the anomaly, get pack for pizza party, repeat.

Over, and over and over. Not to increase the wealth and control of the Agency, but to give it all the control and wealth.

But hey, you get to change Reality and make goofy bits happen, so how bad can the job be?

Anomalies are cracks in the capitalism realism of Reality — “Stability”. It is something as simple as a thought, a thought that is not compatibility with the Stable Reality. This queer thought becomes the Focus of Change, of Chaos, of Alternative to reality — latching to a host, playing with the laws of reality and causing general havoc. That’s Anomalies; all of them are this, either the things you fight or capture or the player characters you play.

So, in Triangle Agency, you are the good boy, the weirdo assimilationist, that plays their role, the hog wearing diapers; you work to recuperate other transgressive behavior into service of capital. And you get little treats! Oh, if Triangle Agency does not know how to play with the gamer instincts, to give them the funny bits, the delicious treats, all that they keep being the good puppies, yes such a good puppy. Don’t you love going to walkies to get another new dog? Yes, you do!

As things get Critically Stable.

Brad

Triangle Agency is about so many things, but the interesting thing is that it’s about how much more important it is to be polite and nice than to do good.

The Agency has a distinct corporate voice that definitely feels like it is doing its best to be kind, inclusive, and polite, even as it indicates that any break from the status quo should be punished as harshly and swiftly as possible, within the confines of that dread monster Policy.

The Agency makes sure to warn all possible field people of every danger, and then explain that hunting them down and risking your limbs and minds is your only option, that there will be a swift and harsh punishment, but it makes sure that these points are polite and formal and could be delivered with a smile!

This should haunt you, the things you are saying should make you feel bad or worried or nervous, but they are so nice about it that it is disarming, just let the jargon and pretty arts distract you from the fact that you will be punished if you die on this job after we bring about your reanimation.

You don’t have to be nice, you just have to say a nice thing. Don’t mention the dangers, just focus on how the team will prevail, with a smile and a sweet voice sell people whatever you need to, and let everything just come together.

With a nice voice you can buy and sell the future, and that’s all the Agency wants, your future, to buy and sell. Don’t worry, we have a dental plan.

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1. If I ever seen a point in favor of the method, it is this one. Folks, never underestimate the game of approaching art on its own terms if you ever are going to critic it.