Richard Bartle, co creator of the first virtual world “MUD” in 1978 has taken to Kickstarter to launch a new board game project called “The Hopefuls” with Lucido Entertainment Ltd.
Richard first came up with the design for the game around 12 years ago as something he could play with his children. He knew he would need to have an appealing theme for them to be interested in it and quickly hit on the idea of a TV-style nationwide talent contest for budding pop-stars.
He designed an elegant mechanic for the game that was simple enough for the kids to pick it up, but with enough depth to provide a challenge. This was also important as he wanted to have fun playing it too – adults shouldn’t have to play games purely out of a sense of duty.
The decision to take to Kickstarter to bring the game to market was born out of a discussion with some other game industry professionals bemoaning the fact that games for kids today are generally nothing like what they were like when we were children. They’re either joyless educational games, or they have some gimmicky electronic component, or they’re “for girls” or “for boys”, or they’re glorified puzzles or quizzes, or they’re careless tie-ins to brands. If you wanted to put kids off playing boardgames for the rest of their lives, today’s boardgames would do it.
Boardgames shouldn’t be like that! They should be fun! They should involve strategy and imagination! They should be a way for all the family to get together and play, whatever their ages.
The Hopefuls on Kickstarter can be found at:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lucido/the-hopefuls-board-game/
For more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Richard Bartle please contact Geoff Lewis via email: glewis@lucidoentertainment.com
