Game Design Challenge - The Hero's Journey

The Hero's Journey is a writer's template that can be applied to many of the tales and lore throughout history. It involves recognizing common patterns in plots. In 1949 Joseph Campbell released a book on comparative mythology. He discusses the theories behind the hero’s journey and helped to develop its outline.

The basic outline of the hero's journey.

Ordinary World: This step refers to the hero's normal life at the start of the story, before the adventure begins.

Call to Adventure: The hero is faced with something that makes him begin his adventure. This might be a problem or a challenge he needs to overcome.

Refusal of the Call: The hero attempts to refuse the adventure because he is afraid.

Meeting with the Mentor: The hero encounters someone who can give him advice and ready him for the journey ahead.

Crossing the First Threshold: The hero leaves his ordinary world for the first time and crosses the threshold into adventure.

Tests, Allies, Enemies: The hero learns the rules of his new world. During this time, he endures tests of strength of will, meets friends, and comes face to face with foes.

Approach: Setbacks occur, sometimes causing the hero to try a new approach or adopt new ideas.

Ordeal: The hero experiences a major hurdle or obstacle, such as a life or death crisis.

Reward: After surviving death, the hero earns his reward or accomplishes his goal.

The Road Back: The hero begins his journey back to his ordinary life.

Resurrection Hero - The hero faces a final test where everything is at stake and he must use everything he has learned.

Return with Elixir: The hero brings his knowledge or the "elixir" back to the ordinary world, where he applies it to help all who remain there.

While the hero’s journey was written with folklore and mythology in mind it has been adapted time and time again to include modern movies, books, and even games.

When it comes to games the hero's journey can be a bit more difficult to see. Especially board games. The game Call to Adventure from Brotherwise Games. It’s one that adapts a type of hero’s journey story. Going from the origin, motivation to the end of destiny. The players select and attempt to acquire story elements to make their story complete.

So where does this come into play with today's Game Design Challenge?

We’ll take a set of heroes through the hero's journey step by step. A hero’s journey doesn’t have to be one person going through the journey. It could be a group of folks. A dungeons and dragons party perhaps.

The Ordinary World
Where do the players start? Where does their story begin?
Would their journey begin in separate stories? A journey beginning where each player is doing their own things when fate brings them together perhaps?

The Call to Adventure
What draws the players together and out on an adventure?
Does the king summon them? Does a guild of bards send a message to the players asking a request of their sleeping princess?

Refusal of the Call
Players going off the rail
This one might be difficult with player characters in dungeons and dragons style setting. Perhaps the players get sidetracked with other mini-quests. Perhaps some of the players choose to go a different path.

Meeting with the Mentor
Along the way, the journey has many folks to help out.
The players come across someone with a lot of knowledge. Perhaps the party comes across a retired party who has been on a similar quest. Perhaps the party finds a wizard to lend some knowledge. Dragons can be an interesting twist. Unless you have a party who likes to kill first and ask questions later.

Crossing the First Threshold
The players finally venture forth. What brings them out of town on their journey?
The players are called away. They must make the first steps towards the journey. How do we push our players to venture out? Perhaps some kind of a signal to the players that the journey is progressing even if they are not actively pushing it forward. This could make the journey more difficult pushing the danger further down the story to near impossible danger.

Tests, Allies, Enemies
That which doesn’t kill us hurts like hell, will it be our friend?
The players are challenged. Does this challenge come with the meeting of friends? Perhaps the players find an unusual ally that could help them out?

Approach
The party must change its plans.
The party’s path is blocked by something. Perhaps the party had to seek out an elder but that person has died because of their delay.

Ordeal
The big bad evil guy reveals themselves.
The players face the bad guy. Perhaps this happens unexpectedly sooner. The plot twist it could be an ally they made earlier perhaps.

Reward
The players receive something that helps them with their final quest.
Perhaps the players receive a potion to awaken a sleeping king? Perhaps the players discover the final piece to a spell that they need to end a long drought.

The Road Back
The players head home.
Perhaps they run across a few other challenges along the way. A party that was dispatched shortly after the main party decides they want the reward for themselves.

Resurrection
In a plot twist, the heroes find themselves in a dire situation
The players end up in a challenging situation. Perhaps the reward is cursed and the curse must be destroyed before it can be used.

Return with the Elixir
The curse is lifted and the players return home.
The players manage to rid whatever challenge that was facing them. They return home but things are different now. They are heroes.

Where did your story end up? What adventure have you written?
While this was geared towards an adventure game it could be adapted to an interactive story using Twine. It would be interesting to see it done as a card game.

Thanks for taking the time to go through this Game Design Challenge.
Joe DeMarco a single father, freelance writer, game designer, quality assurance software tester, and business analyst. I am a big-time gamer, and really enjoy checking out all kinds of games available. Putting my curiosity to the app store I find random games to check out.