Status of the Development of Silverheart
- Karl Otto Kristoffersen
- Aug 2, 2023
- 5 min read
As of this writing, I have spent 274 hours of a 400-hour budget developing Silverheart. The roleplaying game now has a finished first draft, and is moving on to proofreading and playtesting. This post describes big and small things from the development process so far.
Focused Work
In September 2022 I pitched the idea of writing an educational roleplaying game for Kongsberg Municipality's 400-year anniversary. In October the same year I presented a progress plan to the project group, and in November we signed a letter of intent that secured the formal basis for collaboration.
Since Silverheart is going out to the 9th grade at all lower secondary schools in the municipality in the anniversary year 2024, development has to happen in 2023. The project must therefore be completed in one year, from start to finish (unlike Kvad where I spent five years). That calls for working systematically.
When I presented the development plan to the project group, it looked like this - with four rough phases of three months each. 12 months in total.
Concept development, research - Read books, papers, articles, and visit places
Write the first draft - Compile and distill the most important information
Playtesting and revision - Proofread text, structure, layout, and game engine
Production - Print books, maps, order dice and boxes
At the end of May 2023, after a good 200 hours of work, we agreed that we believed in this, and signed the formal collaboration agreement.
Hour Budget
Based on the experience with Kvad, I made a fairly detailed hour budget. The budget totals 400 hours, fitting for a 400-year anniversary. It breaks down into six different items, which I fill in hour by hour.
The biggest item is writing the first draft, at 180 hours. That is almost 50% of the budget. Along the way I have had to adjust the hours up or down in some items (including writing the first draft), but the total of 400 hours stays the same.
Research
The task of gathering information has been a joy. I have read books, attended lectures, and visited historical landmarks. A side effect of learning more about the town is being able to pull out fun facts in various settings. It is great fun to see the mining town from a new perspective!
The literature list forming the foundation of the roleplaying game includes, among others:
Kongsberg sølvverk 1623-1958: Kongenes øyensten, rikenes pryd (Odd Arne Helleberg)
Kulturhistorie Bergstaden Kongsbeg 1624 - 1957 (Sølvverkets Venner)
Med bergmannen i fjellets dyp (Erik Engebretsen & Gunnvor Thingstad Bøen)
Sakkerhusene til Sølvverket (Bjørn Ivar Berg)
Der skal byen ligge (Forlaget Langs Lågen)
Berglege Henrik Rosted og levekårene på Kongsberg på slutten av 1700-tallet (Øyvind Larsen)
Mordet på maskinbygger Roolfsen (Maurits Hansen)
Det er Tiid at Vi Vogner - arbeideroppløpet på Kongsberg 1795 (Gina Johansen)
Qvindernes medfødte Ulyst til Arbeide og Virksomhed - en undersøkelse av kvinnene på Kongsbeg 1770-1805 (Maria Landstad Pedersen)
De høye landene (Matthijs Holter)
Fra Vestfold til Miklagard (Matthijs Holter)
I have also visited the mines, the discovery site, the Norwegian Mining Museum, Kongsberg church, and attended a lecture with historian Bjørnar Sandvold. During the summer holiday I was also in Copenhagen where I visited Rosenborg Castle. It is said that much of the Kongsberg silver may be found there.
The Design of the Book
The ambition was for the book to be an A5-size booklet of 30 to 50 pages. But I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen. The raw manuscript has landed at a good 100 pages, and the format has been expanded from A5 to US Letter. That gives the book larger pages, with room for more information, larger font, and more illustrations. US Letter is the standard format for many roleplaying books, such as Dungeons & Dragons. The book is as wide as A4, but a bit shorter. The downside is that it can feel a little large in the hand, so it may end up like Kvad with US Trade - but we'll see.
The proof copy was ordered as "print-on-demand" through Lulu. I ordered a total of 5 hardcover books with color interiors, which cost a good thousand kroner altogether, including shipping. It was a relatively simple process to order, so you can easily experiment with your own projects. It is something "else entirely" to hold your own product in book form!
Illustrations
I want a book that is rich in illustrations. A book where the visuals reinforce the text in a good way. It will be a combination of historical illustrations with open licenses from the National Museum, paintings by my father, plus reuse of illustrations from various artists who have previously illustrated other books about the mining era in Kongsberg. The contracts are not in place yet, so I am still holding back a bit on the information here.
Map
My younger brother Geir Sæterbakken got excited about the project and offered to use his graphic skills to modernize an old town map from 1797. Alongside his day job, he is also a prominent YouTube figure, with over 20,000 followers and millions of views. Geir is already well underway and the map looks really great! It is going to be an absolutely fantastic aid for the players.
Reference Project
Right before the summer holiday, after I had sent the first draft to print, I was made aware that Sølvverkets Venner had previously carried out a similar project. From 2000 to 2005 they put together a binder to be used for learning in schools. One of the illustrators I am in dialogue with had contributed to that very project, and I have been allowed to borrow the binder for reading. After skimming through it, I am even more certain that Silverheart will be a user-friendly book that supports the goal of the game: the participants shall learn about Kongsberg at the end of the 1700s, while having fun.
Game Design
I am writing the book for the game master, that is, the one who runs the game. In the first instance, that means 9th grade teachers in lower secondary school. They will lead the play process for the students/players, who shouldn't need to prepare much before the game.
When it comes to dice, it has to be simple! The players deal with only one six-sided die. Rolling high (4-6) is good, but rolling low (1-3) usually means trouble.
Before landing on this, I had considered various solutions with difficulty levels, the option of adding more dice as the character developed and improved, and so on. But when I tried to explain this to my wife, who is my foremost sparring partner, I quickly realized it was too complicated. If I couldn't explain it clearly to her in a single simple sentence, it wouldn't work for 14-year-olds either.
The game master has a handful of other dice combinations to work with, as tools in the toolbox. But it is important that complexity doesn't get in the way of the goal of the game, which is to hold a creative conversation where you learn about Kongsberg at the end of the 1700s.
The Road Ahead
From August to October, development enters its third phase, which is about playtesting the system and revising the text. So far, close family has taken a look at the manuscript. Beyond that, I have gathered a small team of skilled people who will review the first draft, including several historians specializing in the time period or historical Kongsberg. From a teacher's perspective, my wife is well underway going through the text. I can already tell there will be quite a bit of work revising the book, but in a good way!
As for playtesting, Silverheart will be played at two different conventions. I am coming to MidgardCon in September, and RegnCon in October. Just sign up! Beyond that, I will announce playtesting on the rollespill.info Discord channel.
Want to try Silverheart, or help by reading the manuscript? Let me know!
Send me an email at karlokri@hotmail.com or get in touch on social media.
This is going to be good, more to come!
-KO
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