kyriakosmods | HEART GAMES

WHAT ARE HEART GAMES?

Heart games are a special type of game, run less often than others due to the amount planning and preparation put into them. Essentially, a set number of characters (anywhere from 3 - 10) will have their teammates and CR traverse into their hearts. Inside they will interact with a physical representation of that character's heart/soul, be able to learn about that character, see their memories, leave their own mark with their actions taken and words spoken, and most importantly in some cases, be able to change things in a character's heart that can affect the way the character acts/feels/thinks about something.

This means, if you want to run a heart game, you'll be writing your own game in a sense - though heart games are more like a text adventure. And while heart games can be small, characters can be complex and require lots of different sections depending on how you choose to run yours!

CREATING YOUR HEART GAME

A heart game is made up of locations. What those locations are are entirely up to you and how you want to represent things for your character. If you think a casino best matches your character, the whole heart could be a casino! A casino could also be a part of your character's heart if there are other rooms and aspects you'd like to use in creating a heart game.

For example, if one played Harry Potter in Kyriakos, you could set up an area on a street! One house on the street to investigate could be the Dursley's house where memories and feelings about growing up are. Next door could be Harry's parents house where his memories and his feelings of their death/his fate are kept. Next door to THAT could be his team's dorm, where a lot of his Kyriakos-based memories are kept, and at the end of the street could be a big old Hogwarts castle where those memories/feelings are. Heck, you could add a quidditch pitch across the street and have a set of traintracks with the Hogwarts Express running behind it if you please. There are no set rules to how you can set things up, so use your imagination and think about places, items and things that represent your character and how they feel about various things.

NPCS & ITEMS

You can absolutely have NPCs in your heart game! From canon, as well as from Kyriakos. They can give characters hints on where to go or what to do, offer them advice, or even just act as information dumpers about things you want to showcase in your heart.

You can also scatter items any and everywhere in your heart if you so please. Items that show memories when touches, items that hide keys to other areas. You want to give your players things to play with, so it's a good idea to have a lot of flavor text ready!

Using the same example as above, in Harry Potter's heart, Dumbledore would serve well as an NPC that gives out hints and advice. Harry's wand could represent his feelings about magic when touched. You could even toss a snakeskin somewhere in the heart that when interacted with, represents his fear about his ability to speak to snakes he accidentally inherited from Voldemort. Touching a broom could show a character the memory of Harry's first quidditch game. Remember hearts are all about representation, so you can be as subtle or as metaphorical as you want with things.

HEART CHANGES

One option when creating a heart is the ability characters interacting with it can change things from inside. They get to touch things, move things, speak to NPCs, break things, and more, and this can affect a character on the outside! Always keep that in mind when planning a heart, and avoid making certain things breakable if you'd rather not having parts of your character altered heavily.

That said, while parts of characters can be broken, some can be fixed. So if your character is having an issue you want to OOCly make easier to deal with, you could make it an important part of the heart game.

Going by the same Harry Potter example as above: Harry's wand represents his feelings on magic; Harry loves magic! But what if a heart runner broke the wand in his heart? That could change his feelings on magic entirely. Or, say Harry has an item in the Gryffindor common room that represents his love for his house and his loyalty for them. What if a character moved that item to the Hufflepuff dorms in the heart? Harry might have an existential house-crisis when he wakes up.

On the other hand, consider Harry's fear of Dementors and what they represent. Perhaps you could set up some way for the characters in your heart to be able to fight some representation of it, that will alleviate Harry's fears a bit upon waking.

TRUE HEART

The true heart is the center, the core of your heart game. It's the final destination for the players in the heart, and shouldn't be easy to get to. That's because the true heart being your characters core is their true, ideal self. It's them as they are without their baggage and worries. So while more open characters might have slightly easier ways to get to the true heart, a character who pushes away may have more things required doing in order to get close to it. Seeing as the true heart is also the core, its protections are also a way to ensure who your character is at their center can't be accessed and potentially ruined easily.

SOME ADDITIONAL NOTES

Remember again, you're pretty much writing a text adventure for other people to play in! So having things pre-written (areas, memories, items, NPC dialogue and possible reactions to things, etc) will help loads and move things along smoothly.

Consider your character's quirks and abilities! You can give characters temporary powers in your heart game. Or, of your character is possessed by a spirit, that spirit can totally be interacted with.

You can always ask around and look up other heart games run in the past if you'd like to see how other players created theirs! The playerbase will be more than happy to offer not only their games to read, but explanations as to why they did certain things that they did to give you an idea of things. Never hesitate to ask!

Lastly, much like game running, how your set up and run your character's heart is up to you. It's all about representation and symbolism and a way to showcase who your character is and how they work inside. Do what you feel best as there is no right or wrong way to create one! Have fun with is, that's the most important part of this.