This is your opportunity to pre-order the game One Child's Heart! Books, dice, tokens, and PDFs are all available. There are pivotal moments in every child’s life that shape who they become. One Child’s Heart is a tabletop roleplaying game that invites players to take the role of child welfare professionals participating in a new mental health care memory exploration experiment. The Central Limbic Engagement Recovery System (CLERS – pronounced, “clears”) brings characters into the memories of these key moments to give support and guidance to a child who needs both. Professionals help create connections and teach resilience to children who desperately need someone to care about them. The heart of this game centers on the power of a conversation. People that have a willingness to reach out to another human being in need have the power to effect real change. In this game, as in life, connections start by being brave and having a conversation. That can begin by simply asking, “Are you OK?” During the Memories, the Professionals interact with the child through conversation, finding ways to get the child to open up and hear the support the professionals are offering. The Professionals walk into the middle of a memory that they don’t have any context for, especially at the beginning of the game. They need to move beyond the surface of what’s happening to discover why the experience is so impactful to the Child find a way to build trust and get them to open up before the memory ends.
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Hey, unicorns!
Thank you so very much for all of your support, kindness, compassion, and generosity during this intense campaign. It's the first Kickstarter we've run and while it was definitely more intense than we thought it would be, it was entirely worth it and we can't wait to bring the game to you.
We're working with some amazing editors and people in the community to address concerns that have been raised, and we're excited to start polishing the text that doesn't need editing so we can move forward on the publishing schedule. As things progress we will bring you updates, let you know how things are going, and inevitably apologize for any delays in production. We have tried to give ourselves generous time, but alas, humans be humans and we hope you'll forgive us for any delays.
We're so thrilled and excited to bring this game to life. It's been an intense and transformative journey. From the first idea to Metatopia to years of playtesting to where we are today. Our community has been such a source of support and kindness, and we're so incredibly grateful for all we've learned, for all the support we've been given, and all the love we've been shown. One Child's Heart is a game that reflects those values we believe our community holds dear to themselves.
Our next steps are getting the edits done on the text, playtesting any changes, and beginning to get our stretch goal writers to write! We'll also be doing a lot of edits through the memories to get them down to exactly what you need to run the game, and work with Tim on making them into beautiful cards. Dice and tokens are ready to be ordered, so once we calculate final numbers, we'll begin that process as well. We have a few more art pieces to order for the final book and then we'll be ready to talk copy editing and layout!
We hope you're having a great Thursday, taking care of yourself like no tomorrow, and we hope you know that you are loved, important, and valued. We'll update you soon on where we are and can't wait to keep you posted on this amazing game's progress!
All our love,
Camdon and the Team
Happy Wednesday, amazings!
We're into our final 24 hours for the game and we're so excited with how things are going! It's been one hell of a journey and that journey wasn't taken alone. The idea that game designers live on their islands of genius is one we've tried hard to dispel by showing you all the folks that are putting work into the game with us.
Today we're going to talk about all the folks not on the core team that have helped us get to where we are.
Shayna Cook is an amazing human who helped us with accessibility editing and reading through the project.
Marissa Kelly for all her amazing advice on how to manage a project, how to get art, and for keeping us steady during the process.
Alex Roland for being a rad human and helping with safety in the game.
Avonelle Wing for all of her support from having Camdon as part of the scholarship to her on going love and care for him and for the project.
Sarah Richardson for stepping in to do some dev editing and for her unending kindness during the Kickstarter and game design process.
Melissa Lewis-Gentry for helping us understand Kickstarter, project management, and what to expect.
The IGDN for selecting Camdon as one of the scholarship winners two years and getting this journey started.
Wen Reischl for his continued and on going support and help with playtesting and the game development.
For Metatopia and its crew, so much support and love has come from that convention and that community and we thank you for it.
Mark Diaz Truman helped us understand Kickstarter and Backerkit and was a guiding voice on how to run a good campaign. Thank you for your time and endless wisdom.
To all the podcast networks who played the game and supported us, including One Shot Podcast, Backstory, the Misdirected Mark Podcast, Party of One Podcast, She's a Super Geek, and the Lounge, we're so grateful for your support and your time.
To all of our readers and consultants, Wen Reischl, Andi Fox, Bronwyn Friesen, Dev Purkayastha, Alex Rowland, Jess Paul-Ward, Brian Kurtz, Micki Bradley, Matt Humm, Menachem Cohen, Cass Reyfield, Beau Sheldon, and Jonaya Kemper, we thank you so much for your time and energy, you're nuanced and wonderful feedback, and all the help you've provided in addressing the game's content with compassion and keen insight.
To the lovely folks who playtested the game by being amazing Advocates, including Jerry L Meyer, Quincy Jackson, Mariam Ahmad, Joie Martin, and Yoshi Creelman, thank you so very much for your time and for your feedback.
To all the wonderful folks who spoke to us privately, publicly, and online in the last few days to express their pain, vulnerability, thoughts, experiences, and concerns about the game, thank you for your labour and time. We are in the midst of integrating your feedback and know the game will be stronger for it.
And finally, to all our amazing playtesters. Thank you for playing the game and sharing space and stories with us.
We've got a 20 hours to go! Thank you for being on this journey with us, our friends, community, backers, and supporters. We couldn't have endured this journey without you.
All our love,
Camdon and the Team
Hi friends!
A lot of people ask me, "Where did you get the idea for One Child's Heart?"
The original idea started in a notebook that I have filled with games notes. The goal of the notebook was to write down everything that came into my head without judgement or editing. It's filled with weird, emotional, wacky, and sometimes barely coherent thoughts and prompts for designing new things. Sometimes it's as simple as a name or a particular mechanic.
It's there that I first wrote the name One Child's Heart and mechanics for a very different style of play. It's an idea that I toyed around with several times but never took to the next step. It was a game that I wanted to make but wasn't sure that it would ever find an audience.
Fast forward to late summer of 2017, calls are starting to go out for the Indie Game Developers Network (IGDN) Metatopia Sponsorship. The IGDN partners with Double Exposure, the event's organizer, to bring designers, primarily from marginalized communities, to the Metatopia Game Design Festival in Morristown, NJ. They provide travel expenses, a hotel room, and tickets to the event. Your game is tested, seen, and discussed by other game designers from many backgrounds.
I submitted an application thinking that there was no chance that I would be chosen and One Child's Heart was the game I said that I would bring to playtest. I was chosen as one of that year's cohort and then found myself needing to make an actual playable game.
During the month leading up to the convention, while writing and playtesting, my youngest son found himself in a mental health crisis. I almost didn't make it to Metatopia. There was support of my family, friends, folks from the IGDN, and the owners of double Exposure that helped get me there. Ultimately it was my son that said the thing that got me on a plane, "Dad, please go. I don't want you to miss this and I promise I'll be here when you get back."
The game takes pieces of my childhood, experiences I've had volunteering with kids, the stories of loved ones, and the realities of working with children to try to teach people without those experiences the importance and power of moments of stopping, listening with empathy, and empowering a child to understand that the struggles in their life aren't their fault.
The game has been playtested by average folks, psychologists, spiritual leaders, foster kids, foster parents, social workers, teachers, and many more. Their voices and feedback have helped the game grow stronger. One Child's Heart is designed to have the space to tell as many different stories as possible. Between the memories that are included and the ability to create new ones, the world players will visit are as limitless as the variety people humanity has to offer.
After over a year of writing, traveling to conventions around the USA to run the game, and getting help from a ton of people the game is finally here on Kickstarter. Thank you for your part in this journey and bringing this game to the larger world!
Hey folks!
We've been hearing a lot of people be upset about the rules, as we explained them, in an update a few days ago. To that end, we'd like to clarify some rules, and also note that at no time are we not open to feedback and workshopping with people. It is a high impact game, and as creators, we want to ensure, to the best of our ability, that the game is doing its best to be safe and thoughtful.
There's been a concern raised that the Professionals are deliberately harming a child. We realize we didn't communicate this well, and we're sorry for the hurt that caused.
At no time can the Professionals deliberately traumatize or harm the child. During a fail, the Professional may accidentally trigger the child. This is a normal part of working with and even just being friends with people who have been traumatized. You say the wrong thing, even if it's a positive or benign thing, and it touches on their past in a way that triggers them.
This is not the Professional deliberately hurting the child. This is not the Professional neglecting or ignoring the child's pain. It is entirely unintentional, but as we can't predict what will trigger someone, it is something that can happen on a fail.This can only happen so many times before it is no longer possible for the child to work with you, and that is what the Permanent Damage Threshold is.
We have heard and understood that this terminology is upsetting, and are going to look at it before the rules of the final game are done. We are still finishing some of the final rules, and have added this to the things to be looked at. Thank you for drawing this to our attention.
If a player were to engage the game in a way that had their Professional deliberately or unintentionally harm the child, and enter into a space where harm was being done, there are instructions in the game to have the Advocate (GM) pull the Professionals out of the memory and talk about what they were doing that was harmful. This way, the players don't get to be cruel, harmful, or hurtful to the child.
Also, the child is played by the Advocate (GM) who in turn decides how the child responds to all of the options. They decide how they respond to having a moment of connection, of losing trust, and what being triggered means. At no point does the player or their Professional get to decide how the child responds to them.
The game has been playtested and engaged with by multiple childhood abuse survivors and child welfare professionals. At no point did we proceed without consulting people who have been and continue to be impacted by this very real topic.
We are not married to any title or words or measurements in the game. We are happy to discuss this and any part of the game with anyone who has concerns. Both Camdon and myself are accessible via Twitter, or I can be reached at [email protected] to talk about the game, its mechanics, or why we made certain choices.
We hope this helps clarify the rules and demonstrates that the Professionals are not deliberately hurting or harming the child. If you have further feedback, please do not hesitate to speak to us. Again, we apologize for the confusion, the fear, and the hurt that we've seen as a result of our earlier post.
All our love,
Camdon and Kate