I got this email a couple of days ago to let me know that the game Heartbreak & Heroines was no longer going to be funded, and presumably not made.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caoimhe/heartbreak-and-heroines-rpg
I talked about this game in this post, and I mentioned then I was excited about it.
Almost immediately the controversy started.
There were many posts and threads on RPG.Net including a number of banings, one of which was the author.
Then even more controversy started.
I wont get into the details, but here are some links.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?584800-H-amp-H-System-Notes-and-Development
http://errantgame.blogspot.com/2011/07/well-this-is-disturbing.html
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?585252-Recent-Off-Board-Allegations
I don't pretend to know what happened really. The allegations are ugly.
The only thing I do know for certain is now this game is not going to be funded. That likely means it won't get made.
This is a shame really.
There seemed to be some very interesting game design elements and I liked the idea of a game.
This game, and other games that try to do something different like Blue Rose, are needed in this biz.
If anything the various RPG.Net threads, and the speed in which it made it's goal in donation, demonstrate that a game like this is needed and desired by many.
Hopefully someone else will pick up the challenge.
7 comments:
So what exactly is the problem with the concept here? It sounds like a great chance to have a fantasy rpg that does something wait for it -
Original! Oh my a game that teaches things from the feminine point of view. The horrors.. Sheesh, I really hope that someone picks this up & it takes off. This is the kind of game that's needed today. :)
@ Needles: There were some accusations, early on, that "feminism" was being used strictly as a gimmick to sell the product. And there were some claims that "heartbreak" was a stereotypical motivation for women to go adventuring (despite the fact that it wasn't meant strictly in a romantic sense).
But from what I can tell, only a few self-entitled individuals ever alleged that the concept itself was the problem.
It's too bad it didn't move forward in spite of the criticism. It would have been cool to hear what people thought of it in actual play.
@ Jay: It wasn't criticism that killed the project. Someone made serious criminal accusations against the author.
Yikes! I missed that--I hate to ask you to wade through all the threads, but if there's a link somewhere you're already aware of I'd check it out.
Thanks/BTW
The errantgame link has some info. And as I don't know any of the parties involved personally and don't have any concrete evidence, that's all I think I should say about it.
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