I wrote more that my fair share of design dev blogs pre and pre-pre-launch that disappeared into the ether. So I’m reposting the pertinent ones  here, for the curious and the brave, to talk about my thoughts and design process for Nocked as I developed it over the last 6 years.

You Ruined My Robin Hood

Your Robin Hood is not my Robin Hood, at least that’s my understanding from comments received during the development of this game. In point of truth, an enormous amount of research was conducted during the writing process, and none of its scholarly in the slightest. I watched all the movies I could find – missing out only on the 20s version with Douglas Fairbanks, and the one with Uma Thurman that disappeared in competition with Kevin Costner’s Prince of Thieves – read some of the books, and more of the comic books, saw the opera, and definitely went to the Renaissance Festival multiple times. My conclusion? There is no true Robin Hood.

There may have been a Robin Hood, living in the woods sometime around the year 900, but Robin Hood the legend is as flexible and malleable as he (or she) needs to be in order to tell a story where a lawless group does their best to remedy the economic injustices of society... Or maybe just to take back their land and become noble again, there’s that story too. And dozens of others.

Tangential Admission: I fell in love with choose your own adventure style books almost as soon as I could read. They were the best way for me to play tabletop role-playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons, when I couldn’t get anyone to come sit at a table with me and play pretend (this was a recurring problem that would persist into my 20s). There was nothing quite as exciting as the feeling that I was in control of the story, even as I got to indulge in the vivid imagination of someone else’s world.

Nocked! is full of swordfights and archery contests, just as you’d expect. But it’s also full of fairies, and dragons, and all the chockablock of English folklore and one author’s fantastical imaginings (mine, in case you’re looking for another author). My Robin Hood is your Robin Hood, even as your Robin Hood is unique to you. Slay the dragons, ignore the fairies, lose the archery contest, and walk off hand-in-hand with little John; the words are mine, but the world is yours. What story will you tell?