Tabletop gaming is getting another crowdfunding curiosity: a narrative-driven dungeon crawler titled A Tale of Bravery developed by Sweden-based studio Barsark Entertainment.
According to the official press release, A Tale of Bravery is set in Britain, 20 years after King Arthur was mortally wounded and taken to Avalon. The knights of the round table have been dissolved and the fabled castle of Camelot lies in ruins. Four adventurers will discover an ancient evil, and through their bravery, might be able to stop it.
At first, it appears that A Tale of Bravery is just another co-op dungeon crawl experience. Pick your character, explore the map, fight enemies, repeat. There even appear to be persistent elements like character growth, making it seem closer to tabletop RPG module. However, the game will be narrative-driven, featuring 50 different branching scenarios as your group plays. A Tale of Bravery is following one of the hotter trends in tabletop games - that of a hybrid game. A Tale of Bravery will have an app for running thorugh all the different stories and scenarios. However, unlike most hybrid games, it will allow you to play it fully analog as well with books covering stories, and character progression, turning the app closer to something like a companion app.
Barsark Entertainment's lead designer, Erik Lindstrom explained the project as such, "We are going back to the roots of the fantasy genre with this game. The story of King Arthur is the original epic fantasy tale. Our goal is to let the players experience an engaging adventure together through the evolving story, and at the same time provide them with exciting strategic decisions in the epic battles that inevitably occur."
While A Tale of Bravery will be coming to Kickstarter at a later date, there is a print and play demo available on their official website. The materials include a demo rulebook, questbook, and questbook components for free. The demo boasts 4-5 hours of content.
