Inside Herosphere
by
Dave Feldman

The Champions

It all started with the Hero fans.

About twenty years ago I was introduced to Champions, the Super Roleplaying Game. I immediately took a liking to it and haven't been the same since. I've played several other RPGs (role playing games) throughout my life, but nothing came close in style and versatility.

When Champions expanded to Hero System and proved it could handle every other genre out there, I knew it would take little effort to shore up an endless interest from my friends. I was mostly right. Once someone could take the time to learn the basics of the system, they were hooked. But many were too impatient to work with Hero's advanced mechanics. "It takes too long to make characters and play them in battle."

Our main circle of friends continued using it endlessly. And in time we discovered how fun it was to simply play out battles with no GM as well. We would set up a map, create our characters, and spend the rest of the evening in a big battle royale. Eventually we found ourselves constantly deciding weekly on traditional campaigning or strategy gaming. The possibilities were endless.

New Beginnings

Last year I left my CTO position at a multimedia firm and began my own, DexCard, Inc. DexCard has focused the majority of it's contracting in corporate presentations, web sites, and CD ROM design. While we've created and developed at least a dozen games in our "fun time," we've never produced one professionally.

After 9/11, our primary client had to do some regrouping and delayed many of it's current projects. This gave us some time to test market a few ideas of ours and spend a little of our reserve for pet projects. While backing up a bunch of old programs I came across BattleChampions, an old game I had made about nine years ago based on the Hero System. It's language was obsolete, but it's program logic wasn't.

I found herogames.com last fall and discovered the Hero System future was uncertain. I wrote an email to the owners and explained we were interested in discussing a possible contract to develop Hero System software. There was no reply.

Things would likely have ended there if it wasn't for the forums. There I found a legion of intelligent, creative fans discussing everything Hero. But the most astonishing thing was their sense of community and loyalty. Even after a number of setbacks with the long awaited Fifth Edition of Hero System, their support for the system was unwavering and unconditional. Had I not been hooked on a couple of threads at that time, I would have missed the big announcement in December that Hero had been bought by a new group of enthusiastic investors.

Enter Steve Long

One of the new principle owners happened to be the writer for the Fifth Edition as well, Steve Long. He seemed very energetic, imaginative, and determined. I figured it would be worth sending an email his way to propose the same offer of software development.

Steve wrote back in interest but wanted to see what we could do. After a couple more exchanges I was completely confident he took his commitments seriously and would be worth putting together a demo for. DexCard went to work creating the source code that would later become Herosphere.

After demonstrating our work to Steve and his colleagues, we were ready to negotiate a contract. The catch was that DexCard would have to find it's own operating costs and finance the first version of Herosphere. We considered how much work would go into developing the Hero System entirely and what it's projected hours came to. As anyone who understands the system would know, the task would be extremely daunting. So we agreed on developing a "Basic Combat Edition" for the first version. This would also give us the opportunity to put out a computer game by this summer, rather than next year. Best of all, everyone who would buy the first version, could upgrade to the next.

The Beginning of Herosphere

We put together a project plan that included a character creator and battle management module. But soon enough it expanded to include a map creation, options, and a "GM Mode" module. With this new plan there were endless possibilities for both traditional play and GMless combat as well. There would be the long list of maneuvers available, basic ranged attacks (energy blast and RKA) and the ability to simulate just about anything else in GM Mode. We were confident that Hero players who tried a completed demo would quickly understand it's value.

Like Hero Games, DexCard is a small team of dedicated professionals. Moreover, we are all Hero fans ourselves and have talked often of producing Hero System software. Now that we have the ball, we will complete our objectives and deliver Herosphere: Basic Combat Edition by this summer.

How successful will this program be? To tell you the truth, we have no idea. We've committed to the risk and believe strongly in it's potential. But in the end, the answer lies with the same people who introduced me to this great RPG... the Hero fans.