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Last week I received an email by someone called Josh Wooten, who asked me to have a look through his game and see what I thought. All I can say is I don't normally write about games that are not due to be on Kickstarter anytime soon, but seeing what he has done changed that and I just had to share it with you guys. The reason will be explained later.
First we will learn more about the man and his game.
Who is Josh?
In the opening stages of a conversation I like to explain about myself and get to know the other person, so when Josh contacted me we started talking about how we got into gaming and our families. From the off his story intrigued me..
Josh introduced himself: "I am 34, I grew up in Georgia and I have four children. I am an ex US navy veteran."
This left me thinking, how does someone with such a busy life even get into games?
Josh explained: "I fell in love with games when I went to visit a friend and he had Heroes Quest! I could be a magician wielding powerful spells or a Barbarian with rock-crushing strength? Sign me up!
"I have always enjoyed Fantasy, I have read and re-read Tolkien and Salvatore. The stories of the misunderstood or the underdog doing great things really appealed to me."
During this conversation I found myself more and more engrossed in what Josh had to say and what came next really made me glad that he contacted me.
RPG Games
See I love RPG's on home consoles and Final Fantasy games are among my favourites, but after becoming a father I cut down my free time dramatically.
A 40-hour campaign that used to take me a week or two now takes 12 months or more. RPG's in board gaming is a similar affair. I am yet to play one due to the fact I know I won't get the best out of it due to time restraints.
Take Gloomhaven for instance, the game appeals to me massively but I just know I wouldn't have the time to enjoy it. Set up times and finding a group willing enough to sit and play often enough is another drawback for me.
Josh also has the same thoughts as me but does his new game have the answers?
"I love RPGs but it takes too long to set up, and it's difficult to gather friends regularly so I was looking for a way that I could play but without committing hours and hours even before the game started. A cousin had an idea but wasn't in a position to make it a reality, so after fleshing out the idea and giving him some money for his time Heroes Cove was born"
Heroes Cove
I won't go into great detail here as I want to cover the game just before it launches on Kickstarter. I will aim to give you an overview and an idea of how this RPG will differ to those long
campaigns that require hours and hours of dedication.
In this game you are a young adventurer who has just left home, heading out on a new adventure. Choosing you character is not a long process and can be done in two easy steps. During the game's setup, each player draws two race cards from the deck and chooses one. Next, players select their class in the same way.
In an average four player game you will complete a different amount of quest cards and this can be changed and adjusted allowing for longer or shorter games as required.
The above is really what got me hooked! A RPG where the time is spent playing and making moves not discussing what your character is, what it does and what your 1000 unlockable skills are. So in essence this is a game made for role-playing fans that are short on time, if done correctly this game will be awesome.
A lot of RPG's cut off a large amount of their target audience due to time constraints. If this can become a game that is 100% scalable then it will sell in the thousands. I will be play testing this game in the future so look out for a review, fingers crossed its as awesome as it sounds.