Venture Society RPG
Answered by Heather O’Neill
Tell us about your game.
Venture Society is an all-ages, non-violent roleplaying game focusing on building social, emotion, and communication skills.
You are an animal in a world of animals that used to be at war. A few brave animals from each region laid down their swords in the name of peace and formed the Venture Society. The Venture Society is a worldwide organization dedicated to helping others and encouraging harmony with your fellow animals, and you’re invited to join.
The added benefit of Venture Society is that professionals like therapists and teachers can use the game as a fun activity while building the child’s emotional wellness, communication, social awareness, and personal strengths. Parents can also use the game to work on specific skills or address things going on in their children’s lives by selecting specific adventures to deal with it (like bullying, puberty, grief, anxiety, etc).
What was your inspiration to create the game?
I personally wanted to make a roleplaying game for kids for a while. Plus, for many years Tim, Brian, & I talked about using games as part of the therapeutic process, but that many are TOO focused on therapy and aren’t actually fun.
Tim Grant & Dr. Brian Quinones own GATE (Gaming Approaches Towards Education, https://therapyinplay.com/) which uses play therapy for children on the spectrum or with social or emotional struggles.
When the pandemic started, we decided it was time to make the fun kid-focused RPG we’d been talking about. We worked on building the world and adjusting the polymorph system to our needs for a few months. Then we brought in Erin Gilbert who is our education specialist which really helped add that perspective to the design of the game.
When should we expect to see it?
We launch on Kickstarter Tuesday 9/13 and end on Thursday 10/13. Our promised delivery is September 2023 to the Kickstarter backers and expect the game in retail stores by October 2023. Follow or back the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9thlevel/venture-village
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