State of the Game Room 2024 Update

How do you like my new AI generated characters? Yeah! If they can use it on First Light, then why shouldn’t I on my website! In case you’re wondering, they are Elvyler the Barbarian, Ellariel the Elf, Bilfor the Dwarf, and Sigmon the Wizard. Anyways, that’s not important. On with the Game Room 2024 update!

Elvyler’s Game Room 2024 Update

Wow, it’s June already. The year is really flying by. Thought I would jump in really quick and give an update on what I’ve been working on lately. I’ve got some pretty big projects on the go, and some announcements to make. Instead of addressing each one separately, I figured I’ll just talk about them all in one post

Organized Competitive HeroQuest

Against the Ogre Horde released, and with it came an entirely new way to play HeroQuest. Tournament Mode!

Back in the day, I played a bit of X-Wing Miniatures game, and I followed some tournaments Fantasy Flight Games had going on at various conventions, events, and game stores. Those days are long behind me, and my X-Wing collection gone as well.

Looking back on those memories got me thinking that it would be really cool to organize similar HeroQuest themed events. HeroQuest doesn’t really work very well in a tournament format though, not until Against the Ogre Horde came along.

I’m pleased to announce that coming sometime in the near future will be: “unofficial” organized HeroQuest tournament play:

Feel free to check out the World’s End Tournament website: www.worldsendtournament.com.

The website is currently under construction, but will be operational hopefully by the end of the summer.

At the World’s End Tournament website, you’ll be able to sign up as a contestant to search and register to participate in tournaments being organized near you; or sign up as an organizer where you’ll be able to setup and organize tournaments at a venue or local game store. Organizers are also responsible for submitting event results for inclusion to the leaderboard.

The tournament is 100% based on the tournament rules published by Avalon Hill in Against the Ogre Horde and will be available in two exciting formats:

1. Heroes vs Heroes
2. Monsters vs Monsters

At this time, there is no plan to include a Mixed format. I would really love this, but unfortunately, it would require a custom, fan made, rule set for roster creation. To keep everything fair, for now the plan is to only use the official rules provided by Avalon Hill, which, are stacked in favour of the heroes.

I’m also toying around with the idea of running virtual tournaments online. So far, I think it would work using TableTop Simulator, the only problem I have now is, it’s difficult to source 3d models that are suitable to represent every miniature in the game. If anyone is able to help me out with that, it would be very appreciated.

Stay tuned for more exciting news coming about the World’s End Tournament!

Loretome – A HeroQuest Glossary

This is a new area on the website that has been under development for some time and will forever continue to be a work in progress.

Loretome is live, check it out when you have a chance!

I thought it would be really cool to have a place dedicated to the story and lore of HeroQuest! I went through several ideas: uploading a post that straight up contains all the lore text from the game (I didn’t want to get on Avalon Hill’s bad side), rewriting all of that same text in a story with my own characters (Would have been safe, but man, I don’t have the time for that! I started, but had to quit). Then I finally settled on this, a glossary.

You might think “well, hey! a glossary, that’s like the same amount of work, rewriting everything right!?”

Yes. And, no. It is a lot of work to rewrite everything, and I can’t do it alone. So, I have enlisted the help of AI to do the hard work.

First, I compiled all of the current text related to HeroQuest. Everything from Mentor’s notes at the beginning and end of each Quest Book, all the way down to the names of characters and monsters in Quest Notes. It’s all in there, compiled into one document. This document, I used to train a GPT model. The GPT model, is now an expert on all things related to HeroQuest Lore.

Slowly, like 2 or 3 glossary items per week, I’m adding each term, generated from my AI HeroQuest expert. The only problem now, I don’t trust it. I need to ensure that all of the information being generated is accurate. As you may know, large language models, like ChatGPT, are prone to “hallucinations”. Sometimes they make up their own information.

So, instead of content creation being my bottleneck, now reviewing all the info is my bottleneck. So if anyone is interested in helping out with that, shoot me an email: elvyler@elvyler.com!

Currently there are a handful of topics that have content, but the majority of the pages are incomplete or under review.

On top of all that work, I’m also adding some of the larger Loretome entries to YouTube as a Visual Glossary. They’ll look something like this:

I have a pretty large list of topics. I’m hoping to maintain a schedule of 1 video atleast every 2 weeks, but we’ll see how that goes for now.

Info for New-to-HQ Gamers

Someone on HeroQuestFans Discord recently posted an IGN link that had a list of all the contents in HeroQuest. I thought that was pretty cool, but also kind of incomplete.

We now have our own version of this page, here: Getting to Know the HeroQuest Game System.

I decided to take this page one step further. Included is also a very brief rules summary that contains information that is friendly for people who might be new to the game.

So if you have any friends who are new to the game, or are not sure about it, you can send them here, hopefully the information will be helpful.

On top of that, I am working on similar sub-pages that go through each of the expansions. So far I have Kellar’s Keep and Return of the Witch Lord finished. These pages will also explain any new rules that are introduced in each expansion and someday, they might even include some tips for playing those expansions.

Website Redesign

Coming up sometime before the year is over, I’ll be working on a website redesign and rebranding. I’ve been using this same layout and design for the last 5ish years now, and I think it’s time for a change. You may have noticed Elvyler’s signature floating around a few pages over the last few months. That’s part of my rebrand and will be integrated into the new logo once it’s completed.

Elvyler Game Studios

As you all know, inflation sucks. Things are not cheap, all things, rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries…. websites, videos, AI subscriptions.

I’ve never asked for donations, I don’t even have a way to donate on the website. And I don’t intend to ask for donations, but, I don’t want to prevent anyone from donating if they so choose to.

I have some free downloadable resources available, I’m going to be moving them into an online store.

If you would like to browse my products and resources, check out: Elvyler Game Studios.

These resources, along with some new ones that I just finished creating, are going to be available to purchase.

Now, I acknowledge that some people may have already downloaded some of my resources, so you might be upset that they got them for free. Don’t be upset. I’m designing my store for the purpose of allowing people to donate to the cause, if they want and are able to. For the most part, items will be set up with the option to “pay-what-you-want”, similar to how it works on DriveThruRPG. This way, you can pay a bit of you can, but if you’re not in a position to pay anything, that’s fine too.

I’m not looking to make millions off online sales, I’m simply trying to offset some of the costs of running the website and creating the content.

To kick things off, I’ve developed a couple new resources, here’s my favourite one so far:

I specifically designed this tileset to use in Rise of the Dread Moon – Quest 1: Ancient Waterways Within. This quest features a new feature with flowing water, here’s how it works (spoilers):

I am planning future projects to make it into the Elvyler Game Studios shop. These will include things like tile sets to use in HeroQuest and other games, and custom quests and quest books for HeroQuest.

I even have a full game or two in the works, though these are probably years away from completion.

Currently the online store is very slow, clunky, and just not very good. It’s due to the limitations of my current design and one of the reasons I’ll be working on a redesign.

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Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or concerns, or just feel like saying hi!

Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again soon.