How It Started Vs. How It’s Going. Open Heart Games— Our First Year!
It’s the last week of December. A special time of year. Time seems to behave differently, and we are filled with a sense of reverence as we have completed another circuit around the sun. The excitement of a new year full of endless possibilities seems to electrify the very air. We gather with loved ones and raise a glass to everything that happened in this past year. We celebrate our accomplishments, mourn our losses, congratulate ourselves on our achievements, and forgive ourselves our failures. We’ve had an exciting first year in business and we’ve learned a lot. In the new year, we look forward to continuing to build our community, raise money for our local children’s hospital, and come up with new and exciting ways to engage with our wonderful group of gaming-enthusiasts. Thank you for being a part of it. Let’s look at all that we have accomplished together in the past 12 months.
At the end of December 2020 we made our grand debut as entrepreneurs, finally launching Open Heart Games after months of planning, researching, dreaming, and daring! When the pandemic put a dampener on our in-person gaming sessions, we began doing a lot of gaming online. After speaking with some close friends about opportunities on Roll20, Karington decided to form Open Heart Games and lend his skills (honed from years of experience running games for guests and providing high quality customer satisfaction) to provide a high caliber gaming experience for game-enthusiasts of all walks of life and in a variety of locations. When Karington pitched this crazy idea to Abigail, she agreed to lend a hand, working hard to see a longtime dream of her husband’s come true. To build a community of game-enthusiasts, we knew we had to have a large online presence. Together, and with the help of many good friends, we have spent this past year building and maintaining our website, blog, Twitch Channel, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube Channel, and Merchandise Store. Karington creates the content, while Abigail coordinates all of the scheduling and posting required.
As a young child, Karington was diagnosed with a congenital heart disorder known as an Atrial-Septal Defect (ASD) which required him to receive lifesaving open-heart surgery at the tender age of 2 years old at Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Therefore, as part of our mission we planned to donate a portion of our monthly sales to Extra Life, benefiting our local children’s hospital Carilion Children’s. And we knew we wanted to host events where 100% of the proceeds would go to benefit Extra Life!
We launched our first campaign in January with Dungeons & Dragons 5E: Rime of the Frostmaiden. In March, we launched our second campaign. Dungeons & Dragons 5E: Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. Also in March, Karington hosted the first Game Master Ask Me Anything (GM AMA) for Open Heart Games. Via Facebook Live, Karington answered questions from game enthusiasts looking to hone their craft as both players and Game Masters and we had a good turnout and a great discussion. We would go on to host this event 2 more times, in June and in September.
Open Heart Games celebrated August by participating in Extra Life’s Tabletop Appreciation Weekend with our first live-streamed 12 Hour D&D Marathon! Our first event where 100% of the proceeds went directly to Extra Life. Karington ran the classic module, Against The Giants! This module comes from Tales From the Yawning Portal and was updated for D&D 5E. Our goal for our first year in business was to raise $1,000 for Extra Life. With this marathon, we reached $1,150!
In October, Karington represented Open Heart Games, hosting and participating in a panel at a local gaming convention, Crash City Con. Karington and several other veteran Game Masters tackled the topic of Game Mastering Online vs. In Person. The content was terrific, and we even had it filmed and put up on our YouTube channel. Also in October, Karington and several friends began streaming a weekly campaign every Thursday night on Twitch. At this time, we are running one of the first modules produced for D&D 5E, and one of Karington’s favorites, Tyranny of Dragons. If you would like to check us out on Twitch, you will find us every Thursday evening from 8pm-11pm EST.
In November, we held our second 12 Hour Marathon; this time in honor of Extra Life’s Game Day. [Karington again ran the classic module, Against The Giants! This time with Frost Giants!] After beating our initial goal of $1,00 with our first marathon over the summer, we had raised the goal to $2,000. Imagine our ecstasy at beating that goal too! By the end of the marathon, we had raised $3,296 for Extra Life, benefiting our local Carilion Children’s Hospital!
At the writing of this article, we have raised over $4,000. We are overjoyed at the success of our business in our first year. So what can you look forward to in 2022? In addition to our continuing campaigns which should be wrapping up sometime in the spring/summer of 2022, we will be offering more new and exciting content, more charity events with community participation, safely attending more in-person events, offering special online player appreciation events, and more! With our first year well under our belts, believe us when we say, the best is yet to come!
Take Heart!
Karington & Abigail Hess
Founders of Open Heart Games
