A little while back we spoke with Jamie Noble-Frier, an illustrator also known as The Noble Artist, who was working on his own game to launch on Kickstarter (here is the link to the campaign). Well the day has come and the game will go live this week on the 18th of September to the uproarious applause of all gathered!
The game
Here is a blurb from Jamie about Hero Master: An Epic Game of Epic Fails
There’s a dragon swooping over the sleepy valley of Snoozehaven. As one of the worst adventurers in the land, it’s taken you some time to realise what all the fuss and charred villagers are all about. Desperate to leave the failure fraught party you’ve been lumbered with, you look desperately to the mustering parties of adventurers, but it’s too late. As the dust settles, you look around to find the same dopey faces staring back at you. The halfling is actually asleep. “They are the worst”, you think, as you reluctantly you gather your belongings and set out on a more than likely doomed quest to seek out the dragon Crackletooth the Tepid. Hopefully the dragon’s hoard will give you enough bartering power to join a new party and finally leave these sorry idiots. Either that or you’ll get eaten. It can’t be any worse than being in this party…
Hero Master is a game for 2-4 players, set in a completely dysfunctional adventuring party where life is anything but co-operative. Get ready for some surprisingly deep strategy, take-that mechanics, hand management and a persistent squabble to be the leader of the party.
The Process
The reason why I want to give this game a bit of promo is that Jamie has done this campaign right. He hasn’t started a Kickstarter to ‘see what happens’ or to help develop a game, but rather he has the art ready, has been involved in Facebook groups all over (not just his own) and has been asking the people what they want. Now this may seem like a simple thing but it is something that creators seem to miss all of the time, they create something throw it at a wall and see what sticks, but Jamie is different. If there has been doubt in his process he has asked the audience, he has asked what they want and don’t want as stretch and extra goals and has listened when they have spoken.
The other thing that Jamie has done is play test, and extensively. The game has been tested at several conventions including UKGE and has met great acclaim over the last few months. Play-testing is at the core of what makes a game workable, as Steve Jackson told us, and is the difference between what stays in the shrink, or gets played once, and what becomes a favourite that hits the table often.
So here’s to Jamie for his upcoming Kickstarter, good luck, but given the work that you have put in thus far I don’t think that you are going to need it.
