Perhaps Guybrush takes into account future inflation though. He* says "never" after all.
How Quest for Glory's creators give players room to be themselves in Hero-U
“When we’re designing a game, it’s all about ‘What does the player want to do?’ What will they try?” says Lori Cole when speaking of the design ideas that went into Transolar Games' Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, as well as her many years working in adventure and role-playing games.
Created by Lori and Corey Cole, designers of the Quest for Glory series, Hero-U: Rogue to Redemptioncasts the player as Shawn O’Connor, a man striving to be Rogue of the Year while keeping up with university classes, exploring a haunted castle, making friends and foes, dealing with monsters, and solving devious puzzles.
“We think of these things as problems, rather than puzzles," says Corey Cole. "We don’t want to say there is only one way past this and you have to guess what’s on our minds and get it. We know players are going to use every tool at their disposal to try to find ways to solve the thing, and we try to make it so that as many reasonable things as possible work.”
This freedom to attack problems in a variety of ways offers a refreshing means of working through an adventure game, allowing players to feel like they’re using their character and skills to solve puzzles rather than finding out the single solution the developer put in.
Curious devs should note that this attitude, where the player’s creativity is emphasized in a large world filled with solutions, owes much to the developers’ experiences with another game that focuses on player creativity: Dungeons and Dragons.
With an emphasis on world-building and role-playing, the Coles feel they've created a game where the player can settle into a character within the world, looking for how they would solve its problems rather than guessing how the developer’s intended them to, tapping into that infinite possibility pen and paper role-playing games often offer, giving players a special, personal way of interacting with their game world.
Dungeons
“We always tried to make that experience that we loved in D&D in our games. The ability to do things, to try things that you never have – that’s what games and D&D were doing for us,” says Lori Cole.
Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption looks to make the player feel like they're solving its problems using their own plans. While, admittedly, these solutions all have to be put in place by the developers, there is no problem in the game that only has a single solution. There are means for the player to figure out, based on the kind of character they’ve built and what they’ve done, a solution to their current quandary.
Part of this comes from the developers’ work in creating an expansive world for their players to explore, and various things for them to do, implying an openness to the action. Not only does this give the player a feeling of being in a grand world filled with possibility, but it also implies, by the sheer scope of what the player can do, that there’s no reason to feel trapped as there are other activities and means the player can try out to get past a problem, or other things they can do if they just need to walk away from it for a while.
“Quest for Glory was an adventure/role-playing game. We’ve actually brought in a third category for Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. It’s an adventure/role-playing/simulation game. We have the day/night cycle where certain things happen at certain hours of the day. You need to get to classes on time and you need to get to supper. You need to get to bed at night,” says Corey Cole. “The player has to balance trying to pass their tests while being a real adventurer and a hero.”
“From the role-playing side, we brought in a Reputation system that lets you see how many friends your making and what your enemies’ statuses are. You can work to get as many friends as possible in the game if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy doing. We have a character sheet where you can find equipment, finding some goofy-looking gear for him to wear if you want to,” says Lori Cole.
Players are free to skulk through the castle, cracking locks and finding its secrets. They can fight monsters in the dungeons. Gather traps they can use to make combat a little easier, or seek out hidden items that will help them avoid fights altogether. It’s not even just a focus on pure gameplay rewards, either, with the Coles adding a great deal of humor and creative flavor texts for players to find.
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“Humor was always a hallmark of Quest for Glory, and we wanted to make sure we brought that back as well,” says Corey Cole. “This is a dramatic game, but also a comedic game. There’s a lot of puns and a lot of humor, especially with incidental stuff. If people are curious and they’re the explorer type of personality who click on everything and try everything in the game, they’ll be rewarded for that. Not so much in getting gold and glory, but in having fun reading all the little Easter eggs and messages peppered throughout the game.”
This was all key to that role-playing D&D feel. Players would be given a world to interact with, and then it would be up to them to figure out what they wanted to do within it. A player in a role-playing campaign might not be as interested in saving the world as they are in setting up a market stall and selling codpieces. They may want to learn the ways of the forest or study a goblin clan. It is about letting the player guide the game and making their own story out of the worlds the developer creates, a spirit which is captured by all of these play elements in Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. The player can choose how to spend their time, limited as it is.
“The player is constantly pressured by only having a limited number of hours and days to do things. It’s a very deliberate game design that forces players to really think about how they want to allocate their limited amount of time,” says Corey Cole.
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It doesn’t hurt that, in making the player feel like they’re in a world open with possibility, it also enriched the game’s world and what made it special, allowing Lori Cole to create a realized place with her writing. “I’m an artist, and that means I have to write a game just the way I want it. That meant being able to do everything I wanted in the game. Trying to make it exciting and fun while having a variety of things that really made it special.”
“I’m more fond of role-playing games than I am of adventure games because the latter tend to have puzzles that snare you. If you can’t figure out the puzzle, you can’t actually continue to play the game. Our whole theory and philosophy for making Quest for Glory and Hero-U has been to make it fun and not have a thing that stops the player from going on and enjoying things. So, what we’re trying to do is bring in more of the roleplaying aspects so that you’ve always got something else you can do. If you can’t get through the secret door because you can’t figure out the stupid puzzle, then maybe you’ll leave it for another (in-game) day or ask another character how to get past it,” she continues.
By creating so many things to do, so many systems to deal with dangers and puzzles, and even just reams of text and descriptions for players to work through, the emphasis is placed on what the player wishes to do within the world, rather than a linear path through a storyline. It’s not the player working through a narrative, but a player creating their own narrative within the world, drawing upon that crucial difference that often exists between video games and pen and paper role-playing ones.
“We want the player to create the story through the way they play,” says Lori Cole.
Dragons
The issue with creating multiple solutions for players to use in a given situation is much more complicated in a video game than on paper, though. A skilled dungeon master can alter the path of a game of D&D on the fly, allowing players to find their own paths through the story when they move completely off the rails from a planned campaign. A preprogrammed game cannot suddenly change its programming to suit another solution to an in-game problem or cater to players working counter to how it was built, though, creating a daunting problem for developers who wish to leave solutions more open to creativity.
“As an experienced dungeon master, you come up with all of these ideas on what the players should do, and they come up with something else. It’s always that way. The trick with designing a computer game is that you can’t possibly cover everything the player will come up with, but you have to give them the feeling that they thought about something and came up with a solution that maybe you didn’t think of, and then let the game go with that,” says Lori Cole.
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“Although you did have to think of that, and you did have to prepare for it so that they could do something different,” she continues. “You have to really work hard to make the player feel like they’re in control. It’s a puzzle-solving game in itself. As the designer, you’re really coming up with these problems, and then you also have to come up with multiple ways to handle that problem from all sorts of approaches. It’s always a challenge, and it’s a lot like playing a game when you’re making one. You’re really trying to outthink yourself, and trying to find a way to get these wild ideas in a manageable form so you can get the game done sometime.”
It would be extremely challenging to create a game with all of the flexibility of a pen-and-paper RPG, but by having a handful of available solutions, they can still capture that feeling that the player is solving problems through their creativity. As an example, a monster can be made a lot less troubling should the player take the time to get to know them, talking to them and learning about their fear of a certain animal.
“During a silly session while we were throwing out goofy ideas, somewhere along the lines we came up with Protection from Panda items. We have several of those in-game. We have a monster in the game who is terrified of pandas, even though there are no actual pandas in the game. You can only appease him by trading him a Protection from Panda item or fighting him,” says Corey Cole.
Even combat can be made more open to interpretation, offering various fighting styles to use on monsters so that it becomes more about how the player approaches danger. “We provide tools so that players can figure out how to use them to solve problems. In combat, there’s a monster in your way. That’s a problem,” says Corey Cole.
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“Your character is not a superior warrior. He’s a rogue. It can be better to use the sneaky techniques at his disposal. We’ve got sleeping powder, traps, healing potions. You can buff yourself going in with agility pills and fitness pills. You can make your weapon temporarily magical. There are all these techniques available, and we don’t prescribe to only one given way to get past a monster,” he continues.
Combat is so open to players coming up with their own solutions that it can be avoided in its entirety. “We made it actually possible, although it is by far the hardest problem in the game, to play through all of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption and never fight in combat.”
These combat options, as well as having other areas the player can explore or activities players can take part of, work within the systems of games to allow for that feeling of discovery, storytelling, and creativity that makes pen-and-paper role-playing so compelling. It gives the player that sense that they’re carving their way through the game’s problems in a manner of their choosing, and turns them into agents of the story rather than moving through a narrative on rails.
This is what draws the Coles to add so many play elements and pieces of text to their games, creating that feeling of being a part of a realized place where the player has an effect. Would be colossally challenging to create a game that could handle anything the player wants to do, but there area realistic ways of making the world feel grand and the player to feel that they have choices within it. Through offering options on what to do, multiple ways to realistically handle problems, and even just hints of a full world beyond the game, it creates that feeling of involvement within the player.
“That’s part of the motivation to play. To see what you can find – to find new things and test new things out," concludes Lori Cole. "The magic of a game is that you can’t lose as long as you play. You can’t make a mistake that you can’t undo or can’t find a way around."
Spooky Fun at Hero-U
Treats?
Halloween Sales!
In honor of the Nights of the Dead, Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption is on a 3-day sale on Steam at 40% off! https://store.steampowered.com/app/375440/HeroU_Rogue_to_Redemption/.
There is also one week left in the 35% off sale on gog.com (https://af.gog.com/game/herou_rogue_to_redemption?as=1649904300). We're trying to support both sites equally, but the rules and processes sometimes makes them a little different.
This is a perfect time for your friends to get a copy of the game on either site, or for you to pick up some unique Christmas gifts for your family and friends. It’s an equally good time to mention the game and the current sales on social media.
Halloween at Hero-U
Noctes de Mortuis - Nights of the Dead - are an important Fall event at Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. They are a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead becomes stretched thin. With the proper preparation, communication with the dead becomes possible at this time of year.
Halloween has always been one of our favorite holidays. What’s not to like about creepy decorations, people in costumes, and candy? This year Lori and Corey will celebrate with a live stream on the Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption channel on YouTube. We’re still setting it up, but what could possibly go wrong?Oct. 31 from 1 pm PDT until probably 1 am on Nov. 1.
The channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfcyQnbZEKMxYd9VCy1Px0A. We also have some Hero-U video teasers and trailers there.
Treats and Tricks With Lori and Corey
The event will include a “slow play” of Rogue to Redemption - looking at all the jokes and clues in the first room or two. We’ll also have Quest for Glory and Hero-U trivia quizzes, giveaways, “ask us anything,” and much more!
Check and Update your shipping address on BackerKit!
We’ve begun shipping physical rewards promised in the Kickstarter. If you’re expecting anything, please visit https://hero-u-adventure-role-playing-game.backerkit.com/backer/shipping right now and make sure we have your correct shipping address.
If it’s wrong, make it right! We hate having $10 - $50 worth of postage wasted because of a wrong address. (Hint: The shipper will contact you, and you will be responsible for paying the postage on the re-shipment. Nobody wants that to happen.)
We’ve shipped the Wanted Posters. The custom paintings are printed and going out soon. Poster prints are next. We’re shipping these items separately because they’re the wrong shape to go out with a game box.
We’re finalizing the contents of the DVD in the boxed games. They will go out in late November to early December along with patches, lucky coins, keychains, and such.
The Yearbook is still delayed, and will probably go out in the Spring. We’re working on a Hint book and strategy guide. It won’t make it onto the boxed game DVDs, but when it’s ready, we’ll put it up on BackerKit for people who ordered it.
We’ll also offer a DLC pack for sale on Steam and GoG; it will contain the soundtrack, hint book, art book, and bestiary.
Thank you for helping to make Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption a reality! Keep talking about the game on social media so that more adventurers and role-playing gamers can find us.
Tricky Treats
This year, we spent Halloween in the best way possible – with our fans.
We did a live stream and chat from noon to midnight with fans from all over the world. It was a slow play through Hero-U, and we only got as far as day 9. I want to thank all the fans who joined the fun and helped to make our Halloween event great. What surprised me was that some people even donated money during the event. I didn’t realize that was even a thing, but it was a welcome surprise. Every bit helps. So thanks again to everyone, and we’ll do this again!
I was expecting that during the 12 hour session that we would have discussions about our upcoming projects. Turns out, there wasn’t that much time for it. We had so many other things to talk about in chat. So here is an official status report of what we’re doing at Transolar Games.
Making Stuff
We received samples of the Lucky Coin from Geekify. It’s a metal coin suitable for opening complex safes hidden away in mantelpieces or for playing a game of ‘Heads or Tails.’ Our coin is placed on our mantel so we’ll always have it there when we need it.
We sent out all the printed “Wanted Ads” to the Kickstarter supporters. The backer portraits have been printed and should be shipping soon!
We’re in the process of printing our CDs and DVDs for the boxed version of our game. The manual and box cover are ready to print. I’m still working on the Art Book – it’s a major exploration of the way we did art, and a beautiful book in its own right. Then there’s still the Yearbook to finish up. Ah, and all the Backer Wings and the Monster Lairs Backers need their special awards.
We’re also planning to run a crowdfunding campaign to determine whether to do a conversion of Hero-U to the Nintendo Switch.
So there’s still a lot of work before we are finished with Rogue to Redemption.
Wizard Way
We are already working on the magic-filled sequel to Rogue with a female protagonist named Nona. JP has done the character designs for all the new characters and Al is working on the 3D models. The plot outline was created before Rogue was started, so we had a head start. We also have a spell list and the major rituals that our Wizard students will need to accomplish. It’s a good start to the project.
We will be refining the game play of Hero-U as we go along. We will be making sure that the combat system is optimized for casting spells rather than setting traps. You won’t have to spend half the game sneaking from place to place. And there will be plenty of freshly baked oatmeal-coconut biscuits for tea!
We are planning Wizard Way for a 2020 release.
Summer Daze at Hero-U
In the meantime, while we’re in the planning stages on Wizard Way, we are (also) doing something completely different. Set in the semester just before Rogue to Redemption, Summer Daze at Hero-U is a 2D Adventure Tale where you will have the choice of who you want to play.
You play as either a Wizard or a Rogue student who has been ‘volunteered’ to take charge of the Harvest Festival just before the semester end. It’s a chance to save the day and your grade. There are many kooky characters at the school… Who knows? You may meet and woo the girl or guy or Minotaur of your dreams. (We won’t judge you!)
JP has almost completed the backgrounds for the game and Al is busy with character design. We’re planning on releasing this game next year. Keep an eye on Summer Daze for more details about Summer Daze at Hero-U.
Hero-U Steal or Deal
In addition to those two computer games, we have also designed a Hero-U board game. It’s a mixture of Clue, Monopoly, Cosmic Encounters,Talisman, and a card game. (In other words, we threw together the games we love and this is what we got!)
It’s currently in the prototype phase and will need a lot of testing. If it proves to be fun, then you may one day be able to share your love of Hero-U with your friends.
Tasty Testing
In addition to all the other things we’re doing, we are also talking with fans about creating a recipe book for Gloriana. This will involve everyone who wants to cook and try out new taste sensations. Once we make the recipes, we’ll need a lot of taste testers to make sure our recipes are tasty and that we aren’t just having Macaroni and Cheese for supper instead. So everyone in invited to help make this Recipe Book.
More to Come
But wait… there’s more! We have plans for streaming playthroughs of Quest for Glory, more Kickstarters, other types of games… We are updating our websites and adding more gifts to our shops. We’re talking about Trivia contests and Scavenger Hunts. So many ideas and so little time in which to make them all…
Want to keep up our wacky ideas and impractical plans? Join us on the Facebook Hero-U page Facebook We’d love to meet you there.
Ughhhh maybe...it is not really a bad game. Exploration is interesting,the time part is annoying but you could use cheatengine and ignore it.
I've got a GOG key, if you want, Roxor.
The Hero-U Holiday Special
Happy Holidays from Hero-U
As I write this, Thanksgiving has passed, Chanukah has started, and Christmas and New Year’s are altogether too close. It’s a time of celebration, but also of recovery and preparation for the next chapter of our saga. We hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday season.
We are making one significant change in communication. For the last six years, I’ve been posting here on our Kickstarter pages. Lori has been writing and illustrating a separate blog on our .net web site and now on www.hero-u.com. Going forward, I plan to just post quick rewards updates here. The main Quest Log will be on http://hero-u.com/leaders/. The main focus there will be our upcoming and in-progress projects.
Bring Me a Figgy Pudding
One of our most frequent requests has been for a Nintendo Switch version of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. We are working with Fig to crowdfund a “port” to the Switch. It’s currently in the Backstage Pass pre-support stage, which requires signing up for Fig’s Backstage Pass. The project will go public on Tuesday, December 11 at the same URL.
If you are interested in the Switch version, or just want to support our efforts to expand the Hero-U audience, drop by the campaign page. You can find the project at https://www.fig.co/campaigns/hero-u. Please let your Switch player friends know about the campaign. If it’s successful, we will be able to bring Hero-U to the Switch and have a great headstart on possible PS4 and XBoxOne versions.
Physical Rewards Status
We are working with Geekify to fulfill our physical rewards such as boxed games. I had hoped to get those out in time for Christmas, but we aren’t quite going to make that due to issues getting the installers on the disks. Boxes should start going out in early January, arriving in January and February 2019.
Geekify has already shipped the Wanted Posters and custom paintings to backers who have those images in the game. They have the assets for everything except postcards (which Lori and I will handle) and the Yearbook. However, there is considerable lead time involved in printing, packaging, and shipping 1200+ packages.
Lori and I have also put the Yearbook on hold. It will ship separately, likely in March or April. Basically, we have to redo most of the layout and make it suitable for printing. We want to get these to backers - and off our checklist - as soon as possible, but it’s most important that we get them right.
Please check in at https://hero-u-adventure-role-playing-game.backerkit.com/ any time you move or change your email or other personal information. Postage rates have risen dramatically since we began work on Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, and we really hate seeing boxes returned due to a bad or out of date address.
If your address is locked (because we’ve already sent you a partial shipment), contact support@hero-u.net with your new and old information so we can update your account manually.
The Hero-U Yearbook
Future Hero-U and Transolar Games Projects
As you might guess, until we’ve fulfilled all of the promised Kickstarter rewards, our attention is split between those and our upcoming projects. There’s more detail at http://hero-u.com/leaders/, but here’s a quick summary of what we’re working on and have in the pipeline for the next two years:
The board game is “done” as a first draft, but we aren’t currently prioritizing it. We’ll slip additional work on it into the schedule where we can. That will also apply to the cookbook - oft requested and a passion project, but not in our core game space.
- Rogue to Redemption Interactive Hint Book and Strategy Guide
- The Art of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption
- Crowdfunding campaign on Fig to port Hero-U to the Nintendo Switch
- Fulfill the rest of the Kickstarter rewards
- Redo the Yearbook and send it to backers
- Summer Daze at Hero-U
- A Hero’s Feast - Fantastic Recipes from Gloriana
- Hero-U: Wizards Way
- Hero-U: Steal or Deal board game
We will probably do Kickstarter campaigns for some of these projects, but we will wait until they are farther along before doing that. We are deep into art production on Summer Daze; once we add some content, we’ll be ready to show it off for crowdfunding.
Dates on all of that? You can expect the first five items between now and June 2019. We’re targeting Summer Daze for late Spring 2020, although we will complete it earlier if we can. Wizards Way is a much larger project that will require crowdfunding and possibly additional investment. It’s much too early to set a release date for it.
Happy Holidays and we’ll see you again in 2019!
