It started on the wall.
House of Heroes grew out of a real problem in a real home: how do you get kids genuinely invested in the work of running a household? Not tricked. Not managed. Actually invested.
The physical system came first.
We tried apps. We tried sticker charts. We tried timers and point systems and chore wheels. Nothing created real buy-in. Then we put a map on the wall and let the kids move tokens. That worked. Everything since has been an effort to deepen that initial thing — the physical presence of the game in the shared space of the home.
The whiteboard is the campaign.
The current system runs on a printed map, a set of player tokens, a tracker sheet, and a whiteboard. The whiteboard is where everything lives. Active quests are written there in marker. When a quest resolves, it gets erased. When something unexpected happens, it gets written down. The kids add their own notes. The board changes every day.
This is version 3.
The V3 map introduced the S-curve route — 26 spaces winding through six landmark zones. We've rebalanced the coin economy three times. The tracker has been redesigned twice. The branch at Space 14 is an accident that turned into the best mechanic in the game. We keep iterating because the household keeps changing.
The app supports the system.
The digital platform at app.hoh.quest is a companion to the physical system, not a replacement for it. It handles persistent account state, HealthTrack integration, and campaign logging. The physical board stays the center of the experience. The app is for parents who want to track things digitally, not for kids who just want to move their token.