When going through my (oh-my-gosh-how-large-has-it-gotten) itch library, coming across this is the recruitment letter that I needed. I entirely planned to pair the trifold with a travellers journal and start making a dent in my backlog, but having a fun gamified reason to do so will give my strange brain something to latch on to.
Just starting this and I am so exited for my reading journey this year. One of my wishes for 2024 is to play more solo games and overall to read more games even if I know before that I might not necessarily play them.
Glad that there is already so much fan made material and it definetly come in handy for my play through. Will advertise this in my gaming group as well just to see if anyone wants to join as well.
I love this game as a framework for collecting and engaging with all the wonderful things people have created in the world! It’s a great way to encourage not only consuming other people’s creative work but entering a dialogue and recognising the enjoyment their work brings.
I have a huge hoard of TTRGPs and board games in collections which I’ve yet to actually play, so I’m using this as a framework for exploring those, but I think it may also be really great for collating and engaging with others things. I’ve seen some fabulous reviews where people have used it for all sorts of things like albums and indie comics.
The game has actually prompted my first upload. I made myself a stylised notebook to keep track of my progress which I’ve uploaded to my page. It’s a PDF so could be used with a PDF editor, printed or uploaded so something like GoodNotes. The link is here - https://justlikeicecream.itch.io/heroic-archivist-notebook.
I did make a small rules tweak to make it better suited to my life - 500 points allows me to purchase my own pizza to ‘increase morale’.
Here’s an example record or a review I did whilst playing this game:
I absolutely adore the idea behind this game! it's amazing to have not just a tracking system for all my ttrpgs on here that i really need to get to reading but for it to be fun and dignified in a way that encourages community and uplifting more and more indie ttrpgs! this is the first time ive ever left a comment on a game like this but i am soooo excited to leave many more ! thank you so much!
Best game ever. Every ttrpg enthusiast should play it. I have a nasty anxiety writing comments (whyyy, creators love comments, even short ones, I know it myself, so whyyy) and this game helps me to overcome it. Priceless. Impeccable. I love it with every fiber of my soul.
I'm only in the beginning of a long, long path, but hey, everyone starts somewhere.
Also I suggest adding points for adding games to public collections, I for example like to see how people categorize my games. Also it's the most popular way to get at least some way of feedback for me, soooo...
Got this on the bundle, and it is an amazing way to gamify a behaviour that I already have, while also making it fantastic and placing goals to achieve. The system is easy, rewarding, and also very generous with the points, so you can confortably defend your archive. But it's important to seek the final goal of 500 points; since the levels are increasingly harder to get and at some point, the steady increase in the enemy hordes will be too much for you to keep up.
What I like most about the game is that it encourages people not only to hoard pdfs or materials, but to actually read them in a way that they can rate and have opinions about it (and now play them with the alternative rules). The fact that there is no mechanical penalty if the Legion wins one week makes it casual enough for people that have other things to do; but I will be substracting from my points if that happens. I already have an archivist level and I will seeking more.
The only real suggestion that i could give would be making the fillabe spaces in the PDF wider, specially for the Points. As it is currently, you can only see two digits, even when one of the goals is to collect 500 points
Whoah. Being able to lose points definitely adds some extra challenge. I'd also consider having the legionnaires lose a d6 after successfully sacking part of the library---that way they aren't endlessly growing more powerful while you're losing points---but this is optional. Definitely play on extreme difficulty mode if that's what calls to you!
For the fillable PDF, it was generously created by volunteers. I'm not sure I'm good enough at layout to mess with it, but I'll keep the lesson in mind for future projects and make sure the fillable fields on character sheets are wider.
Hi, I found this idea very useful and encouraging.
I instead, decided to focus on the more practical side of tracking the games to play/rate/comment… rather than on the playing side.
I created a very streamlined spreadsheet to track the fields of my interest and organize the games I am interested in playing online on my Twitch channel and create stories with it later.
Therefore, even though there is a wonderful spreadsheet already made to play this game, I made something for myself much simpler and adapted to my own needs.
If anyone considers they can use it to use it to their own needs, feel free to get it here:
Library Archivist / Bibliotecaria Archivista
Oh wow. I have apparently been playing this game for months, except for the legionnaire attack phase.
I've not been able to pay for most of the games I've played, I make use of community copies whenever possible and only if I feel like there is a huge chance of me enjoying the game, same as if I were going to buy it outright. So I review and play and write and rate to try to make up for it.
I've started to also post sample playthroughs under my reviews (excerpted to show enough of the mechanics, play loop, and general feeling without being too long or too spoilery). I think writing up a sample playthrough is +5 archivist points.
My only fault I think is that as a result of being sick constantly I am really, really slow. ^_^; But it is just how I do things.
I don't think I want to incorporate the legionnaire attack phase. I just like seeing number go up.
You can definitely skip the legionnaire attack phase. Way more people than I expected have played this, so there's lots of room for librarians to just focus on research instead of library defense.
Also I'm totally willing to count sample playthroughs as regular reviews, with +5 points per paragraph. Just +5 total doesn't feel like it's enough for the work.
Oh, and buying games isn't required to play Heroic Archivist. It's always appreciated, but I don't want money to be a barrier for entry. Reading and reviewing is always super appreciated!
Oh wow, thank you! I'm glad lots of people are playing this, it's a very good gamification of what I feel is the best of what the itch.io community can do for each other!
Heroic Archivist is a love letter to the indie game community. It creates fictional reasons and a gameplay experience to reward reading, rating and reviewing games, creating engagement and bonds between designers and their peers.
The game presents us with the task of caring for each other's creations and stories, to reach out and tell each other about the experiences we had with the words and worlds created by our fellow humans. And most importantly, it does this with the explicit intent of keeping knowledge and curiosity alive.
_______________________________________________
As an additional bonus (not counting towards the review here), I'd like to suggest two alternative rules for getting Archivist Points, inspired by the energetic feelings that this game gave me:
Alternative Rule - Archive Explorer: if you play an indie game you reviewed, and write to the auther to tell them about your experiences with it, you gain +5 Archivist Points per paragraph of measured and thoughtful feedback. If you do it during its playtest stage, you gain an aditional +3 Archivist Points per paragraph written this way.
Alternative Rule - Archive Contributor: if you design new material for an indie game you reviewed, and share this new material with its author, you gain +5 Archivist Points.
(As Richard Kelly must've figured out by now, these new rules are just a trick for me to gain more points! Haha! Soon, the legionnares shall bow before my newfound powers!)
An old brass bell sounds frantically deep in the library.
+58 Archivist Points!
That's +10 for each alternate rule.
Also (with your permission) the alternate rules are now canon. And I'd like to add an extra +45 points to Archive Contributor. If you're okay with that, it raises your total to +108 Archivist Points.
Either way, thank you for the lovely review, and those are fantastic alternate rules. I dig them a lot!
Oh my! That's cool! Thank you, I'm off to a great start! These legionnaires won't know what hit them!
(Also, I guess I should tell you to check your twitter DMs for a surprise. The alternative rules weren't the material I meant to say I made, technically! Hehehe)
Copy-pasting this here because itch.io treats reviews and comments as different, apparently!
As someone who loves to browse (and collect and horde) all the fascinating stuff in this community, more than I'll ever have time to actually play, I love this idea. It's a great concept and great execution.
I don't know how to view reviews so posting this here so other people can find my tweaks for the google doc! I had something similar going for a while but it's sometimes overwhelming without an outline, and it's super fun to have a little cute rpg/story to go along with your reading!
A cool little framework for working through my pile of games, and the suggested google doc is nice for tracking everything.
I made a few tweaks to the google doc to automate point management:
Made Spent Points automated with the following formula: =((F5+H5)*5)+((B11/2)*(B11+1)*5)
changed the formula for Archivist Points so that it updates based on spent points, making the field "available points": =sum('Review Log'!G2:G)-F14
I'm trying to figure out how to add +-1 buttons to the Archivist Level and Medals boxes, I'll update this once I have those worked out. (This appears to involve using scripts, so I probably won't add this.)
Just enough nudge to make remembering the importance of reviews fun, with a mechanic that means the longer you play, the more you'll want to leave reviews!
If you're here, I assume that you and I share a very similar hobby: Reading RPGs! Probably more than we could ever play in our lifetimes! Which is great; there's a lot of fantastic games out there and it's really energizing to see what creators are doing for the hobby.
This little meta-rpg is a way to gamify something you're probably going to do already. Read RPGs. Leave ratings. Write reviews. Level up. Repeat. I think it's fun, and I think everyone should be doing what they can to leave ratings and reviews for others. Now, you can do that and protect your own magical library.
I think it's such a cool idea I made a google spreadsheet you can use as a character sheet / logbook. Grab it here by making a copy into your own google drive. It even automates stuff for you, to get things out of the way so you can get back to reading RPGs and reviewing them!
A clever and charming game to get the player to read and engage with many ttrpgs, all the while encouraging more community between those who play ttrpgs. I especially enjoy the suggestions for modding, and will be taking full advantage of those possibilities.
In an internet that is increasingly algorithm-driven, where the most engagement is what is rewarded, this is a lovely breath of fresh air that encourages engagement with things the player really loves.
Pick it up! And why not leave a review while you're at it?
be right back - I’m updating all of my socials to include my archivist level
Heroic Archivist is a framework for gamifying the noble work of reading and reviewing things that could be easily forgotten. Receiving a review from kumada1 is one of the highest possible honors in my friend group, and I think the idea to package up and share that power and that privilege with such warmth and such a fun frame (and the promise of personal pan pizza) is just really really cool.
When I was in middle school, I spent a few months checking out every single Beatles album from my local library system so I could have a complete set. It was really important to me that I had all of the albums on my silver iPod Nano (which had gotten really gunky because of a melted screen protector). At some point during that mission, I found out about some of their uncollected singles, fan records, live recordings, and bootleg tapes, and realized that because of these forgotten and abandoned bits, it would probably be impossible to build that full set. I looked around the library and thought about all of the loose ends and forgotten artists, and felt sad. This game feels like a tool and an encouragement to fight that sadness.
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Comments
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When going through my (oh-my-gosh-how-large-has-it-gotten) itch library, coming across this is the recruitment letter that I needed. I entirely planned to pair the trifold with a travellers journal and start making a dent in my backlog, but having a fun gamified reason to do so will give my strange brain something to latch on to.
Thank you for this.
Glad you liked it!
+18 Archivist Points!
Just starting this and I am so exited for my reading journey this year. One of my wishes for 2024 is to play more solo games and overall to read more games even if I know before that I might not necessarily play them.
Glad that there is already so much fan made material and it definetly come in handy for my play through. Will advertise this in my gaming group as well just to see if anyone wants to join as well.
Glad you're enjoying it!
+18 Archivist Points!
I love this game as a framework for collecting and engaging with all the wonderful things people have created in the world! It’s a great way to encourage not only consuming other people’s creative work but entering a dialogue and recognising the enjoyment their work brings.
I have a huge hoard of TTRGPs and board games in collections which I’ve yet to actually play, so I’m using this as a framework for exploring those, but I think it may also be really great for collating and engaging with others things. I’ve seen some fabulous reviews where people have used it for all sorts of things like albums and indie comics.
The game has actually prompted my first upload. I made myself a stylised notebook to keep track of my progress which I’ve uploaded to my page. It’s a PDF so could be used with a PDF editor, printed or uploaded so something like GoodNotes. The link is here - https://justlikeicecream.itch.io/heroic-archivist-notebook.
I did make a small rules tweak to make it better suited to my life - 500 points allows me to purchase my own pizza to ‘increase morale’.
Here’s an example record or a review I did whilst playing this game:
Thank you kumada1 for such a lovely little game!
This is incredible! I've added a link to the notebook under Updates, and the layout looks gorgeous!
+32 Archivist Points for the review and +250 Archivist Points for the rad supplement, for a total of +282 Archivist Points!
Thank you so much!
I absolutely adore the idea behind this game! it's amazing to have not just a tracking system for all my ttrpgs on here that i really need to get to reading but for it to be fun and dignified in a way that encourages community and uplifting more and more indie ttrpgs! this is the first time ive ever left a comment on a game like this but i am soooo excited to leave many more ! thank you so much!
I'm glad you liked it!
+13 Archivist Points!
Best game ever. Every ttrpg enthusiast should play it. I have a nasty anxiety writing comments (whyyy, creators love comments, even short ones, I know it myself, so whyyy) and this game helps me to overcome it. Priceless. Impeccable. I love it with every fiber of my soul.
I'm only in the beginning of a long, long path, but hey, everyone starts somewhere.
Also I suggest adding points for adding games to public collections, I for example like to see how people categorize my games. Also it's the most popular way to get at least some way of feedback for me, soooo...
I hadn't thought of that, and I like it a lot!
+23 Archivist Points for the review, +10 Archivist Points for the new rule, and the new rule is now canon.
Archivists can gain +5 Archivist Points for adding games to public collections.
Got this on the bundle, and it is an amazing way to gamify a behaviour that I already have, while also making it fantastic and placing goals to achieve. The system is easy, rewarding, and also very generous with the points, so you can confortably defend your archive. But it's important to seek the final goal of 500 points; since the levels are increasingly harder to get and at some point, the steady increase in the enemy hordes will be too much for you to keep up.
What I like most about the game is that it encourages people not only to hoard pdfs or materials, but to actually read them in a way that they can rate and have opinions about it (and now play them with the alternative rules). The fact that there is no mechanical penalty if the Legion wins one week makes it casual enough for people that have other things to do; but I will be substracting from my points if that happens. I already have an archivist level and I will seeking more.
The only real suggestion that i could give would be making the fillabe spaces in the PDF wider, specially for the Points. As it is currently, you can only see two digits, even when one of the goals is to collect 500 points
Whoah. Being able to lose points definitely adds some extra challenge. I'd also consider having the legionnaires lose a d6 after successfully sacking part of the library---that way they aren't endlessly growing more powerful while you're losing points---but this is optional. Definitely play on extreme difficulty mode if that's what calls to you!
For the fillable PDF, it was generously created by volunteers. I'm not sure I'm good enough at layout to mess with it, but I'll keep the lesson in mind for future projects and make sure the fillable fields on character sheets are wider.
+23 Archivist Points!
Did a video review of Heroic Archivist here!
+110 Archivist Points!
Hi, I found this idea very useful and encouraging. I instead, decided to focus on the more practical side of tracking the games to play/rate/comment… rather than on the playing side. I created a very streamlined spreadsheet to track the fields of my interest and organize the games I am interested in playing online on my Twitch channel and create stories with it later. Therefore, even though there is a wonderful spreadsheet already made to play this game, I made something for myself much simpler and adapted to my own needs. If anyone considers they can use it to use it to their own needs, feel free to get it here: Library Archivist / Bibliotecaria Archivista
This is a really cool way to organize an RPG collection!
+63 Archivist Points (if you want to use them)
Thank you!
Oh wow. I have apparently been playing this game for months, except for the legionnaire attack phase.
I've not been able to pay for most of the games I've played, I make use of community copies whenever possible and only if I feel like there is a huge chance of me enjoying the game, same as if I were going to buy it outright. So I review and play and write and rate to try to make up for it.
I've started to also post sample playthroughs under my reviews (excerpted to show enough of the mechanics, play loop, and general feeling without being too long or too spoilery). I think writing up a sample playthrough is +5 archivist points.
My only fault I think is that as a result of being sick constantly I am really, really slow. ^_^; But it is just how I do things.
I don't think I want to incorporate the legionnaire attack phase. I just like seeing number go up.
You can definitely skip the legionnaire attack phase. Way more people than I expected have played this, so there's lots of room for librarians to just focus on research instead of library defense.
Also I'm totally willing to count sample playthroughs as regular reviews, with +5 points per paragraph. Just +5 total doesn't feel like it's enough for the work.
Oh, and buying games isn't required to play Heroic Archivist. It's always appreciated, but I don't want money to be a barrier for entry. Reading and reviewing is always super appreciated!
+33 Archivist Points!
Oh wow, thank you! I'm glad lots of people are playing this, it's a very good gamification of what I feel is the best of what the itch.io community can do for each other!
Not here for the points, just letting everyone know that you should get this game and become a Heroic Archivist yourself!
And if you really need an incentive beyond being an integral part of the community, there's also Pizza!
5 Stars!
Thank you!
(+23 Archivist Points)
Heroic Archivist is a love letter to the indie game community. It creates fictional reasons and a gameplay experience to reward reading, rating and reviewing games, creating engagement and bonds between designers and their peers.
The game presents us with the task of caring for each other's creations and stories, to reach out and tell each other about the experiences we had with the words and worlds created by our fellow humans. And most importantly, it does this with the explicit intent of keeping knowledge and curiosity alive.
_______________________________________________
As an additional bonus (not counting towards the review here), I'd like to suggest two alternative rules for getting Archivist Points, inspired by the energetic feelings that this game gave me:
Alternative Rule - Archive Explorer: if you play an indie game you reviewed, and write to the auther to tell them about your experiences with it, you gain +5 Archivist Points per paragraph of measured and thoughtful feedback. If you do it during its playtest stage, you gain an aditional +3 Archivist Points per paragraph written this way.
Alternative Rule - Archive Contributor: if you design new material for an indie game you reviewed, and share this new material with its author, you gain +5 Archivist Points.
(As Richard Kelly must've figured out by now, these new rules are just a trick for me to gain more points! Haha! Soon, the legionnares shall bow before my newfound powers!)
Archivist Points Tallying...
Tallying...
An old brass bell sounds frantically deep in the library.
+58 Archivist Points!
That's +10 for each alternate rule.
Also (with your permission) the alternate rules are now canon. And I'd like to add an extra +45 points to Archive Contributor. If you're okay with that, it raises your total to +108 Archivist Points.
Either way, thank you for the lovely review, and those are fantastic alternate rules. I dig them a lot!
Oh my! That's cool! Thank you, I'm off to a great start! These legionnaires won't know what hit them!
(Also, I guess I should tell you to check your twitter DMs for a surprise. The alternative rules weren't the material I meant to say I made, technically! Hehehe)
Uh...I have no idea what the appropriate number of Archivist Points is for this, but I'm setting the minimum at +250.
I'll get things uploaded right away.
Copy-pasting this here because itch.io treats reviews and comments as different, apparently!
As someone who loves to browse (and collect and horde) all the fascinating stuff in this community, more than I'll ever have time to actually play, I love this idea. It's a great concept and great execution.
Thank you!
(+18 Archivist Points)
Glad I found this comment because I didn't know that! I have some copy-pasting to do.
I don't know how to view reviews so posting this here so other people can find my tweaks for the google doc! I had something similar going for a while but it's sometimes overwhelming without an outline, and it's super fun to have a little cute rpg/story to go along with your reading!
A cool little framework for working through my pile of games, and the suggested google doc is nice for tracking everything.
I made a few tweaks to the google doc to automate point management:
I'm trying to figure out how to add +-1 buttons to the Archivist Level and Medals boxes, I'll update this once I have those worked out. (This appears to involve using scripts, so I probably won't add this.)
Itchio is a bit strange about reviews.
As best as I can understand it, you can see the reviews you left, but no one else can---not even the project's creator.
Unless you leave your review in the game's comments section instead of using the review box.
It's weird.
Anyway, +35 Archivist Points, and please take another +30 AP for refinement tweaks to the google doc and an invaluable service to the library!
Just enough nudge to make remembering the importance of reviews fun, with a mechanic that means the longer you play, the more you'll want to leave reviews!
Thank you, MarshLynx!
+13 Archivist Points
If you're here, I assume that you and I share a very similar hobby: Reading RPGs! Probably more than we could ever play in our lifetimes! Which is great; there's a lot of fantastic games out there and it's really energizing to see what creators are doing for the hobby.
This little meta-rpg is a way to gamify something you're probably going to do already. Read RPGs. Leave ratings. Write reviews. Level up. Repeat. I think it's fun, and I think everyone should be doing what they can to leave ratings and reviews for others. Now, you can do that and protect your own magical library.
I think it's such a cool idea I made a google spreadsheet you can use as a character sheet / logbook. Grab it here by making a copy into your own google drive. It even automates stuff for you, to get things out of the way so you can get back to reading RPGs and reviewing them!
Whoah, that's cool as heck.
Can I feature this up top or tweet about it?
Also I'm not sure how many Archivist Points to award for creating a google sheet, but please accept +50 for a valuable service to the entire library.
Definitely feel free to feature and/or share it! I am just in it for those sweet sweet Archivist Points (and helping the community)
Sounds good! I've added the link to the page text, and I'll tweet about it directly.
That sheet is so cool! I've already made a copy, really awesome that it's all automated too!
oh my gosh I can't wait to level up
be back soon with a review in hand! c:
This totally counts as a review if you want!
+15 Archivist Points, +3 more if you left a rating.
I have a proper review for you!:
A clever and charming game to get the player to read and engage with many ttrpgs, all the while encouraging more community between those who play ttrpgs. I especially enjoy the suggestions for modding, and will be taking full advantage of those possibilities.
In an internet that is increasingly algorithm-driven, where the most engagement is what is rewarded, this is a lovely breath of fresh air that encourages engagement with things the player really loves.
Pick it up! And why not leave a review while you're at it?
left on the ratings screen ;]
Ah! I just saw this, and I'm sorry about the delay in responding.
+30 Archivist Points
be right back - I’m updating all of my socials to include my archivist level
Heroic Archivist is a framework for gamifying the noble work of reading and reviewing things that could be easily forgotten. Receiving a review from kumada1 is one of the highest possible honors in my friend group, and I think the idea to package up and share that power and that privilege with such warmth and such a fun frame (and the promise of personal pan pizza) is just really really cool.
When I was in middle school, I spent a few months checking out every single Beatles album from my local library system so I could have a complete set. It was really important to me that I had all of the albums on my silver iPod Nano (which had gotten really gunky because of a melted screen protector). At some point during that mission, I found out about some of their uncollected singles, fan records, live recordings, and bootleg tapes, and realized that because of these forgotten and abandoned bits, it would probably be impossible to build that full set. I looked around the library and thought about all of the loose ends and forgotten artists, and felt sad. This game feels like a tool and an encouragement to fight that sadness.
Heck yes.
That's +23 Archivist Points. Invest them however you wish.