Hypeswap: Uncharted Hearts Review

All the unexplored stories in the hearts of people you haven't met

And now, for something completely different…it’s time for a HypeSwap.

We were introduced to this idea by Tomas Gimenes Rioja - and the idea is simple - but something that should be a lot more widespread. Indie designers exchange games, read through it, and hype each other’s games up. Without a marketing budget, it can be hard to get eyes on your game - or even to get people who’ve played them to review it. Getting someone else hyping your game up, while getting to dive into a new game to help out a fellow creator? It’s a win-win.

Tomas has already reviewed our game, Love is on the Cards, in this lovely thread here. t’s time to get into Uncharted Hearts, by Lady Azulina and Tomas Gimenez Rioja.

“Draw maps, leave blanks.”

It’s one of the main guidelines from Dungeon World - the very first TTRPG I ever played. It’s wonderful advice for worldbuilding. So much that is good in TTRPGs comes from discovery, and from improvisation. From establishing things about the world you never expected to put down, decided by the table, creating something that perhaps have only been created in that moment.

To that end, Uncharted Hearts is a great worldbuilding game to play. It guides you to and through those blank spaces, giving you tables and charts to help you fill those spaces up. Like all good worldbuilding games, it is written for those who are excited to explore the unknown and guides them through creating their own worlds there.

What makes Uncharted Hearts stand apart is its focus - it lies with the natives of the land you are exploring. They’re the game’s priority. Uncharted Hearts is less about where you may find abandoned ruins, or where tri-tentacled monsters are most likely concentrated, and more about the people whose homeland you are traipsing through. It’s an aspect of exploration in storytelling that’s often overlooked - when discovering new lands, there are a people who have been there, far longer than you, upon whose ground you are trespassing until you’ve earned their trust.

The game requires you get to know the community - what’s most important to them, and creating a “Star Chart” to track how well they’re faring along those lines, or how their priorities may be changing, over time. The game also has a “Trust Meter” mechanic - a way to track how close you may be getting to individual natives, and how much that factors into the community’s trust as a whole. Gaining their trust prioritizes not just aiding them, but getting to know them, their culture, their beliefs and their priorities - both as an individual, and as a member of a larger culture.

It’s a short, efficient game - you have a page and a quarter discussing mechanics, with the rest of the second page being taken up by tables - but it’s a game that’s rife with potential. While the game can stand on its own, it has a lot more potential to be mixed in with your home game, especially if it’s one that has exploring new lands as a focus.

With how Western-centric most TTRPGs are, it’s easy to overlook just how much their gameplay inadvertently lends itself towards colonizational themes - just look at the Critical Role controversy. While this is a small game, it’s one that asks players to slow down, and think about the people whose lands they’re wandering through.

We both highly recommend checking it out - and as a reminder, you can find it here!