tabletopgaming.co.uk 49MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Build wants to make a clear statement about
sustainability, and the Locketts’ commitment to
ensuring the message is heard goes beyond the
world inside the game.
“We want it to be as sustainable as possible
because obviously it’s a game about sustainable
development,” says Lily. “So there’s no point
having it all made out of plastic. We’ve been
wanting to make it out of cardboard and wood
and things, which is quite hard. Especially as
plastic is obviously the cheapest option.”
“We didn’t want to have a box that you opened
up and there were plastic pieces in it,” Martin
adds. “It just did not seem like the right message
that was going along with the ethic of our game.”
e creation of Double L as a publisher emerged
from the family’s struggle to nd an established
label that re ected their steadfast position.
“Alot of those big companies – not all of them- but a lot of their priorities are keeping it low-
cost, which then we think could potentially get
on to using plastic and everything,” explains Lily.
Martin agrees: “We would’ve lost control of
our ethical stance.”
Now planning to self-publish Build after a
planned Kickstarter this year, Double L sees
Lily involved in the “big decisions” alongside
Martin. It’s been a learning curve for both.
“Very quickly we realised that we were going
to have to be working much more smaller,
more a ordable scale,” says Martin. “So Lily
and I have been having conversations with
manufacturers about balancing cost and our
ethical choices about components.”
He turns to Lily. “ e sorts of things that you
as a 13-year-old have been involved in, this
decision-making and this prioritisation, it’s
not the sort of experience that many of your
contemporaries are having.”
Lily laughs.
“I sometimes think, like, when I’m 25 or
something and I’m starting to go into the world of
working and jobs and stu , if I’ll still be doing this
or if I’ll be doing something completely di erent,”
she says. “Not many people can put on their CV
that you basically ran a company when you’re 13.”
FAMILY BUSINESS
Martin and Lily’s infectious drive to design
has spread to Lily’s younger brother Tim,
who has his own sci- game, Airlock, in
the works as one of “loads of games”
that Double L hopes to publish inthe future. (Tim alone, Martin says, is “forever
generating ideas”.) Also on the list is Zombies on
a Bus – inspired by “the iconic scene in every
zombie movie where they get a yellow school bus
and race through the city,” Lily explains – and
Children of the Night, a “supernatural high-
gothic hunt around London” that originated as
a complete rules overhaul of another game by
Martin. (“Crap,” he calls it. “Dad!” Lily exclaims.)
e family continues to avidly play games,
now with the added consideration of where
their next idea could come from.
“We’ve got so many games! We have a shelf
and we’ve got to have another one because it’s
full,” says Lily. “I’ve not played them all, but it has
made me think, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea!’ So then
I’ll write it down and we’ll have a little meeting
and be like, ‘We want to incorporate this.’”
Meanwhile, they’re already researching the use
of vegetable matter to 3D print environmentally-
friendly miniatures for a future game
“ at apparently is what we do in our family
now,” Martin laughs as he rattles through the
extensive list of plans.
As for Lily’s Geography homework, she admits
that she never handed it in – though her tutor has
promised to back the crowdfunding campaign
that Lily says will launch “when it’s ready”.
“She keeps asking me when it’s going to be
on Kickstarter. She doesn’t really understand
the whole thing, but she wants to be supportive
about it,” Lily says, laughing: “I haven’t even got
her as my Geography teacher anymore! She was
talking about retiring soon, I was like, ‘I’d like to
have it nished before you retire!’”“We didn’t want to have a box that you opened
up and there were plastic pieces in it,” Martin
adds. “It just did not seem like the right message
that was going along with the ethic of our game.”
e creation of Double L as a publisher emerged
something and I’m starting to go into the world of
working and jobs and stu , if I’ll still be doing this
or if I’ll be doing something completely di erent,”that you basically ran a company when you’re 13.”FAMILY BUSINESS
Martin and Lily’s infectious drive to design
has spread to Lily’s younger brother Tim,
who has his own sci- game,
the works as one of “loads of games”
that Double L hopes to publish in