Spread the Word: Truequest

Kickstarter projects have changed the way the internet works. Now, projects can start from nothing and be made into a reality through crowd funding. In the premiere of this new segment, Spread the Word, MaristPlayBoy discovers a card game that fell through Kickstarter’s cracks, but is more than worth your time attention.
I admittedly spend WAY too much time on the internet. When I’m not scouring twitter looking for potential interviewees for the Red Shirt Crew Podcasts (be patient; we’re working on it), devouring everything Escapist Magazine has to offer (Pub Club and proud), or immersing myself in the massive wall of videos that is That Guy with the Glasses (a site I frequent so much that certain friends actually groan aloud when they realize I’m about to bring it up again), I’m trying to find the next thing to occupy my time.

One of my newest hobbies is scouring Kickstarter or Indiegogo looking for projects that seem appealing, but haven’t quite hit the public consciousness yet. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to this Kickstarter craze, you really should. It’s nothing short of amazing what people have been able to fund through this site, especially where games are concerned.

Of course, all the sites I frequent regularly already extensively cover the big name stuff that ends up making more money than I’ll probably ever see, so that’s never all that interesting. There have been some great projects that we’ve recommended to you guys that were rather big, but to me, I’ve always enjoyed looking at the smaller projects and seeing what they had to offer.

Enter: Truequest, the card game. Full disclosure: the game’s creator, Jim Pranger, is the father of Chris Pranger, who you should all know from No Right Answer, Toy TMA, and his Media Sandwich podcast, and who is also a good friend of the blog. He first told me about his dad’s Kickstarter, and part of me did feel inclined to write about it if only to try to do a good thing for a good person. I mean, listen to the podcast they did together. How can you not want that guy to succeed? Still, I can assure you I wouldn’t give this game the glowing recommendation I’m about to give it if it wasn’t a truly great game on its own merit. And trust me, it’s a great game.

Truequest is a card game meant for 2-10 players (I was going to make a joke here about having a team of imaginary friends play the game with you instead, but Chris beat me to the punchline by a good 2 and a half years) for kids in that late elementary to early high school age that hopes to teach kids about historical figures while still being a whole bunch of fun to play. Each deck contains 50 quester cards, 10 quest cards, and 10 change history cards. Players start with five cards in their hand, with the rest staying in the ‘History Book’ (the deck). The goal of the game is to use your questers, which are historical figures ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Plato to Mother Theresa, to complete quests, which give you points. 100 points means a victory for the good guys, though the total point score needed for victory can be adjusted to make the game longer or shorter as you wish (reason #357 I love card games: flexible rules are flexible).

Questers have four skills (Age, Brains, Charm, and Daring) that are given values based on their historical competence in each area. For example, Moses has 10 Age and 10 Charm points for his wisdom and charismatic leadership, but only 2 Brain points (he did get them lost in a desert for forty years) and 3 Daring points (in the Biblical tale, God’s responsible for all that confidence he has with the Pharaoh, so Moses himself isn’t really that daring). A lot of attention has been put into matching characters’ trait scores with their historical background which, as a history buff myself, is a really nice touch that I think goes a long way towards getting kids to actually go to the computer and Wikipedia these historical figures at the very least. I mean, if I didn’t know who these people were at all, I’d definitely try to figure out what the pretty girl in battle armor did to earn ten points of charm and daring.

Time to put it into action. Let’s say I wanted to Win the World Series. Winning the World series is a quest that’s worth 30 points, requires a sufficiently Charming leader (baseball fans know how important charisma is in the dugout during crunch time) and needs some Age (veteran leadership is key) and Charm to complete. Since I already pointed out how Moses is perfect for these two stats, I’m going to use him as my leader (what a great draw I had, huh?). Over the next few turns, I’ll try to draw other questers that can aid me in completing this task. I’ll take Mother Theresa as a third base coach (8 Age points and 9 Charm points), Joan of Arc as a shortstop (2 Age points and 10 Charm points) and Marie Curie as the pitching coach (6 Age points and 7 Charm points). With their powers combined, I have more than enough Charm and Age points to complete the quest, and I’ll gain my thirty points.

However, something tells me my enemies aren’t going to just let me sit back and finish my quest with ease. Each quester has a bonus skill that can either help them on their quest or hinder the other players’ quests if they are made a quest leader. Moses’ B.C. questing bonus doesn’t help since baseball is very much a product of the 20th century, but one of my opponents could have a leader that decreases the age or charm scores of my questers, which would make it harder for me to achieve my goal. Strategy, as with any good card game, is the key.

The Change History cards are the true game changers, however. If an opponent plays one of these, the effects take place immediately and can disrupt the entire game. Mount Vesuvius’s eruption, for example, would send all my questers back to the History Book. These kinds of massive setbacks can really turn the table on your opponents, and they add a nice level of strategy.

The best aspects of this game, however, are the versatility that it brings. Want to expose younger children to this game that won’t necessarily get the deeper strategy of it? Remove the change history cards and forget about the extra quester skills. Looking for a more War-style game? Divide the questers into equal piles, then flip cards over naming an attribute. Highest at that attribute wins (There’s something so satisfying about Mark Twain defeating Alexander the great, at least to me).

My personal favorite aspect of the game is its versatility. Already included in the deck are a few blank joker cards that you can use to create your own characters for the game (why yes, I would like to add Harry Dresden and Captain Kirk as important historical figures), but his planned scope is far greater. In his Kickstarter video, Jim Pranger discusses creating tons of different card sets for different fields of knowledge, like a deck specifically for American history, or perhaps animals from the rainforest. The possibilities are really endless here, and I think that sets this product apart from other card games. If TrueQuest ever comes to fruition, there’s a good chance it can become a great learning tool for the future for kids while still being fun.

Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, the Kickstarter fell through the cracks and failed to raise enough money to meet its mark. That said, it’s far from dead. If you click here, you can see the game’s web page, which provides a nice contact form. I encourage all of you to go to the site, check it out, and, if this is something you feel is a worthwhile project, take the time to contact him and see what you can do to contribute to the cause. Truequest is definitely a game worth your time and attention, and as someone who heavily supports attempts like this to make learning fun, I definitely hope to see this game in stores one day. I know I’m looking forward to seeing Genghis Kahn work with Elvis and Queen Elizabeth to win the Civil War.