Meet the Team: Brendan Quinn
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, May 13, 2019 at 07:14:39 PM
Happy Saturday, rockstars!
We're into the final 96 hours. We can't believe we're in the home stretch and we're all tired, excited, and also slightly terrified. We really can't thank you enough for being on this journey with us.
Brendan came onto the team as someone with such a beautiful heart, and someone who understand the importance of compassion, empathy, and love in crisis. When we were looking for someone to help make the perfect anatomical heart, we knew his skills as a designer would be amazing, and we also knew that this belief in the project and the game would shine through in his work. We're so grateful for his presence on our wonderful team.
Brendan Quinn is a graphic designer, gamer, and president of Tri-City Area Gaming: a 501c3 devoted to building communities and strengthening STEAM education through tabletop gaming.
What’s something you’re working on you want to promote?
I'm currently spending most of my time managing Tri-City Area Gaming: a 501c3 devoted to strengthening families and communities through tabletop gaming. We host over 200 free events annually throughout our southeastern Washington to help bring folks together in safe and welcoming environments. We're working with local school districts to develop curriculums for tabletop game development, and coordinating student-parent nights to introduce analog gaming as an activity that can bring families together without large money or time commitments. We're always looking for new members and volunteers. One of the best ways to get to know us is by attending our annual convention conFUSEcon (https://www.confusecon.com) over Labor Day weekend.
When’s a time someone reached out to you when you needed them that was pivotal for you?
My wife Sara was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2016. We'd met Cam shortly thereafter, and found out he'd gone through essentially the same thing. Cam immediately became a resource for knowledge and moral support for the both of us. On the drive up to Sara's first surgery, he'd recorded videos of him and his kiddos wishing Sara well and making her laugh. It added so much positivity to a situation where Sara and I were terrified, I'll never forget it. His actions helped us both out tremendously.
Thank you again for all your help and love these last twenty-some days. We're inching closer to having amazing writers join the team and new stretch goals have been added, including more memories and a book we'll make to host all the memories in!
Happy weekend, friends!
All our love,
Camdon and the Team
Meet the Team: Brian Kurtz!
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, May 13, 2019 at 07:14:16 PM
Happy Sunday!
Just three more days until we're done the Kickstarter and we launch into book production! We really can't believe it's been almost a month! We're excited to hit the final days on this journey with you!
Safety has been one of the most important aspects of One Child's Heart. We've had numerous incredible people help us with the safety section of the game. To that end, we're excited to announce that Brian Kurtz is joining our team to help our Advocates better understand the signs of trauma in players, and to be able to read a situation at a table to know when to take breaks, cut the game, or check in with folks.
Brian is a wonderful human with a kind, gentle, and loving heart. We're so thrilled he joined the project with a focus on safety and ensuring that people will be cared for during the game. His insights and love make him an important part of our wonderful team. We can't wait to work with him to improve the safety of One Child's Heart.
Brian P. Kurtz MD is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he is the director of the pediatric consultation-liaison psychiatry service and the director of the child and adolescent psychiatry residency training program.
We asked Brian to share more about himself with us.
What’s one way you want to see the world become more empathetic?
Sometimes doctors do a poor job of providing compassionate care to people with mental health conditions. Too often, mental health problems can seem alien and scary and the treatments mystical, but only because they haven’t really had a chance to learn about them. Doctors like to fix stuff, and it feels uncomfortable to hear a person’s problems without jumping in with a solution. Sitting with and just listening to people who are suffering isn’t easy, but it’s one of the most powerful things a doctor can do.
Who is someone who was important in your life as a child?
Lindsay Smith, the director of the choirs at our church. Our family loved to sing, although we were not very religious at all. Lindsay once cast me as the lead in a youth musical about Jonah and the whale. When he was leading little kids in song he sang in a falsetto so that the kids could match his octave – he wasn’t self-conscious and didn’t worry about sounding silly, he was just doing his thing. I was always impressed at his ability to manage a bunch of rowdy kids without ever getting mean or tough.
Thanks once again to you wonderful folks for joining us on this journey! We can't wait to cross the finish line with you!
We have more memories coming at $12,500 from Nell Raban, Laura Simpson, and Agatha Cheng. Then at $15,000 we have another 10 memories from Cass Reyfield, Joyce Chng, and Lucian Khan! Finally, at $20,000 we'll make a Book of Memories for all the stretch goal memories and backers will get an at-cost code for the book itself once complete!
Have a great Sunday and take care of you!
All our love,
Camdon and the Team
Meet the Team: Tim Rodriguez
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, May 13, 2019 at 12:54:35 PM
Good Thursday, unicorns!
One of the folks we've always wanted to work with joined our team as we discussed doing memory cards over and over. While it was one thing to have the memories printed out, it was a hassle to shift through all of them trying to find the one you wanted. Eventually, we printed them on index cards and like any true indie gamer, fell in love with that method.
Soon as we decided on cards as a stretch goal, we contacted the amazing Tim Rodriguez. Tim is one of those rare humans who personify love whenever you see him. He has such kindness and compassion for everyone he comes across and is always there to comfort someone who needs it. Beyond his beautiful heart, he's also an incredible game designer and designer of cards. He was our first choice and we were so delighted when he agreed to join the project.
Tim Rodriguez designs and publishes tabletop board games and roleplaying games as co-owner of Galileo Games. He is also a voice interface designer, an avid bicyclist and musician.
We asked Tim to share more about himself with us.
Hi Kate,
What’s something you’re working on you want to promote?
I’ve just joined a team to make a film about teen suicide, and how it affects survivors. I can’t say much more about it right now, but it’s one of the most important things I’m working on at the moment.
Who is someone who was important in your life as a child?
My Grandfather. He was a botanist. He taught jungle survival in WWII, traveled the world, taught and ran arboretums in New England. Above all he was always kind, and sharing his knowledge.
We hope you're having a great Thursday and taking care of yourselves! We're heading closer and closer to our next stretch goal and we can't wait to bring more folks onto the team to write memories!
All our love,
Camdon and the team
Let's Talk Mechanics!
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, May 13, 2019 at 12:53:08 PM
Hello all!
We’re getting closer to the end of the Kickstarter and I want to share some of the reasons behind the design of One Child’s Heart. You get a peak behind the curtain of my brain!
The dice mechanics of the game, particularly the failure consequences, took a long time to fine tune despite their simplicity. It was important to me that they capture a sense of the unpredictable nature of working with kids and give players the opportunity to make a thoughtful choice about who carries the burden of the mistakes made by their character.
I know that when I interact with the world, I sometimes cause unintentional harm. Taking a moment to make a purposeful decision about how I react to that helps me care for those around me and shapes who I choose to be. The game does its best to capture some small part of that.
I remember volunteering in an elementary classroom where I asked a group of children a pretty tough question. There were a few guesses but no one was even close until one of the kids blurted out the correct answer. This particular child was a favorite of mine despite, probably partially because, of their constant pushing of boundaries and testing adults. I didn’t even hesitate when I said, “Great job! I’m proud of you!”
It was a simple statement that ended with the child needing to be physically removed from the classroom to cool down because things quickly escalated to them throwing a chair. It was the kind of thing I would have loved to hear when I was their age. Without the context of their life I didn’t understand that statement would be such a triggering thing for them to hear. What they needed from me, and got going forward, was a simple, “That’s right,” and moving on to the next question.
In the game, players roll a small pool of dice, called an Approach, which are totaled together, to meet or exceed a target number set at the beginning of each memory. Player’s have three options when they roll below the target. Let’s break down the three options and why they work the way they do.
You can have a failed roll result in a loss of trust between you and the child. Mechanically this mean that you take a -1 to the total of all future rolls in the game. This penalty stacks each time you choose this consequence. In the story above, things were never quite the same between that child and I again. I tried my best to show them it wasn’t an issue for me, but we never got back to that same level of comfort.
In choosing a loss of trust, you are deciding that your Professional will carry the burden of your failed roll. Because it stacks and persists across memories it can be difficult to recover from if you have multiple failed Approach rolls. This is the most commonly chosen option in playtesting.
Alternately you can choose to have your words trigger an unintentional traumatic reaction. The Advocate will roleplay that and you see the emotional consequences to this person you’re trying to help. You roll a d6 and that number is added to a group trauma total. As long as the total trauma doesn’t meet or exceed the permanent damage threshold there is no permanent damage to the child. The maximum threshold is five points per player added together (4 players= 20-point threshold).
This option is the most mechanical advantageous because it doesn’t affect your ability to reach out to child. The entire burden is carried by the child as additional emotional damage inside of an already traumatic memory. Will you choose to let a child carry that because it makes your job easier? That’s a question the game forces you to answer.
Finally, you can choose to betray your professional ethics. This is the only circumstance where you can turn a failed roll into a success and can only be done once per game per Professional. A player decides, with agreement from the Advocate, on how their Professional has turned their back on a core piece of how they do their job in order to make a connection. The Clergy member might communicate a crisis of faith, the Psychiatrist could break confidentiality and use the real name of a patient that the Child knows, or the Therapist that prides themselves on their professional demeanor might break down in tears and embrace a child.
Mechanically, the Professional permanently loses one d6 on whichever Approach they were rolling. This is can put them at a major disadvantage for the rest of the game. They will also describe why this moment has such a big impact on how their Professional sees themselves moving forward.
Will your character change a core piece of themselves in order for the short term gain of one person? What will that cost the people they work with in the future? These are the things this option is designed to have people think about.
Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!
All my love,
Camdon
Meet the Team: Our Artists!
almost 5 years ago
– Sun, May 12, 2019 at 07:13:14 PM
Good Wednesday, dear ones!
Finding art for One Child's Heart was going to be a feat. Fortunately, we had the help of Jabari to connect us with some amazing people. Between their help and meeting people through Deviantart and other artist websites, we found an amazing group of artists we're so thrilled to work with.
A.M. Sartor
A.M.Sartor is a freelance illustrator that resides in Seattle, WA. She graduated a very long time ago from Cornish College of the Arts, and since then has worked in video game development, children's/YA books and a myriad of other commercial illustration projects. Her work is a mix between traditional and digital media and has been featured at Krab Jab Studio, Light Grey Art Lab, Ghost Gallery, Every Day Original, Spectrum and SI-LA Illustration West.
We ask A.M. Sartor to share more about herself with us.
What’s something you’re working on you want to promote?
I am currently working on an interactive picture book called "Stumble On or Begin Again" that deals with the topic of childhood depression through fairy tales. While it's a very personal project and not intended for general consumption at this time, I think it relates to One Child's Heart. It can be viewed (in development) here. I also have a patreon where I come up with a myriad of projects, it can be viewed here.
What’s one way you want to see the world become more empathetic?
It is difficult to think of just one way. The stories we tell ourselves as a society through mass media are often times lacking in empathy. Finding an independent developer trying to change that narrative is refreshing, and I would like to see more projects like One Child's Heart come to fruition.
Hope Doe
Hope is an American artist currently residing in Mie, Japan. With her interests in Japanese traditional arts and growing up in a western culture, she creates a unique blend of the two influences. Her work has a strong sense of narrative, which contains a tinge of mystery and the unknown. Her artwork is often molds humanity with the natural world giving the sense that humanity is one in the same with nature, and shouldn’t be a separate entity.
Her works contain a variety of mixed media, including graphite, oils, and watercolors.
What’s one way you want to see the world become more empathetic?
I would love to people more involved with nature. Taking care of pets, plants, and growing your own food helps build your sense of empathy. Especially with animals through children.
What’s a time when you reached out to somebody regardless of the success where you were really proud of yourself for doing so?
I am a teacher in Japan, and I was a homeroom teacher at one point. As a homeroom teacher, you have parent teacher meetings as well as student teacher meetings to talk with the student one on one about their progress or problems they might have. I had a student who was worried about her future. She wanted a creative job either in photography or art. But her mother wasn't supportive of this desire and her mother often put fears into her and tells her the possibility of failure is too high. So, I told her my failures and success, and all the possibilities she has in the creative field. And I told her that as long as she had the passion and will to continue after failure, she will have success. She started crying and when she did I told her that she is crying because she cares about doing art enough to cry about it. After I left the school, she messaged me and said how much those words meant to her and that she would never forget them.
Elwira Pawlikowska
Elwira Pawlikowska (Evi) - born in Warsaw, Poland, 1985. After graduating from Warsaw Faculty of Architecture she has been working as a freelance illustrator and concept artist. Nevertheless architectural studies had a great impact on her artworks.
She works mainly with traditional media (pencils, ink and watercolors), however she also incorporates digital technique in her illustrations. Evi's works varies from children book illustrations to music album covers and video games designs.
She finds her inspiration in works of Old Masters (L. da Vinci, G. B. Piranesi. A. Durer), fantasy books, heavy, melodic music and long walks in the woods.
What’s something you’re working on you want to promote?
In my spare time, I’m working on a coloring book for young adults and adults. It is a collection of various atmospheric buildings and environments, from ancient ruins and Gothic cathedrals to haunted ships and steampunk houses.
Complex, linear drawings are hand-drawn in ink. They will be printed on a high-quality paper, that would allow to color them with pens, pastels or watercolors.
For me making this kind of drawings was the best way to escape from overwhelming reality. Everyone, who would like to forget for a while about the surrounding world, would be able to move to imaginary domains by participation in creating them.
What’s one way you want to see the world become more empathetic?
Seeing a human being behind all the little things in our daily lives. Most of us living in a contemporary world depend on other people in a greater extent than we are aware of. It concerns both a cashier in our local supermarket and factory workers that sewed our clothes in the other part of the world.
This awareness could easily lead to empathetic behaviors, even very simple and not requiring much effort, such as wishing a taxi driver a nice day or buying Fairtrade products.
Babs Webb
Babs Webb is a Colorado based Illustrator and sculptor with an affinity for the occult and unknown. Through strongly symbolic visuals, she strives to convey the visceral emotions that push the boundaries of our humanity; a shrewd clash of psychology and fantasy.
Who is someone who was important in your life as a child?
My mother. She came from a broken family and yet she was full of so much love and loved her children more than anything.
What’s one way you want to see the world become more empathetic?
I wish the world would become more empathetic towards those who were not given the tools to grow up to be law abiding people. Second chances should not just be given to those with money.
We're trucking along towards our next stretch goal of having Nell Raban, Laura Simpson, and Agatha Cheng create new memories for the game! Thank you for all your support, love, and generosity. May your day be filled with love and sunlight!
All our love,
Camdon and the Team
