"Bring me the Locksley brat!" The Sheriff’s bellow echoes through the walls of your home. "The one named Robin! The rest are yours." 

Your Robin Hood is not my Robin Hood, at least that’s my understanding from comments received during the development of this game. In point of truth, an enormous amount of research was conducted during the writing process, and none of its scholarly in the slightest. I watched all the movies I could find – missing out only on the 20s version with Douglas Fairbanks, and the one with Uma Thurman that disappeared in competition with Kevin Costner’s Prince of Thieves – read some of the books, and more of the comic books, saw the opera, and definitely went to the Renaissance Festival multiple times. My conclusion? There is no true Robin Hood.

There may have been a Robin Hood, living in the woods sometime around the year 900, but Robin Hood the legend is as flexible and malleable as he (or she) needs to be in order to tell a story where a lawless group does their best to remedy the economic injustices of society... Or maybe just to take back their land and become noble again, there’s that story too. And dozens of others.

Tangential Admission: I fell in love with choose your own adventure style books almost as soon as I could read. They were the best way for me to play tabletop role-playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons, when I couldn’t get anyone to come sit at a table with me and play pretend (this was a recurring problem that would persist into my 20s). There was nothing quite as exciting as the feeling that I was in control of the story, even as I got to indulge in the vivid imagination of someone else’s world.

Nocked! is full of swordfights and archery contests, just as you’d expect. But it’s also full of fairies, and dragons, and all the chockablock of English folklore and one author’s fantastical imaginings (mine, in case you’re looking for another author). My Robin Hood is your Robin Hood, even as your Robin Hood is unique to you. Slay the dragons, ignore the fairies, lose the archery contest, and walk off hand-in-hand with little John; the words are mine, but the world is yours. What story will you tell?

The Adventures of Development Robin!

Your vote will help determine the story I tell next week...

Escape from the Locksley Lands

The Sheriff of Nottingham invades your home. You know that your best chance of escape is to...

1. Sneak away into the forest.
2. Fight your way out.
3. Disguise yourself as a servant girl.
4. Summon your childhood unicorn companion.

The Adventures of Development Robin are complete. Follow the story in subsequent blogs, or read the most recent blog to take part in our new adventure, Marian and the Sheriff, beginning July 26th!

This is the Nocked! True Tales of Robin Hood development blog. Every week I’ll discuss some aspect of the game’s development, show off some art, and give you the opportunity to create an entirely new Robin Hood story.