Beauty The Forge is a delightful solo game that thoughtfully tackles the topics of disability, accessibility, and assistive devices. In this game, players take the role of a famed dwarven blacksmith who has pivoted to assistive technology design.
The game is built on a very easy-to-learn Major Arcana tarot card system. At the start of each turn, the player draws two cards from the deck and checks the associated prompts. The first card decides the device you’ve been asked to build, and the second represents the creature that ordered it. After this, the player draws a basic outline of the person and the device in their journal before returning and shuffling the deck.
After this, the player draws another card. This third card represents the client’s personality and the specific customizations they want on their device. However, rather than consulting a prompt, the player may interpret this card in any way they wish, allowing the player to put their own spin on every job the dwarf does.
Beauty The Forge Is Thoughtfully And Deliberately Designed
The game also includes rules for group play. In the group variant, one player controls the dwarf, while everyone else plays the various clients who enter the shop. Each player designs their client and then describes what device they want to the dwarf, who has to draw it within five minutes. Once the dwarf has finished creating all of their clients’ assistive devices, the role of the dwarf moves to the next player, and the cycle continues again until all the players have had a chance to play the dwarf.
Beauty The Forge is a superb game whose purposeful design can be felt at each stage. One place where it is exceptionally noticeable is the game’s assistive devices table, as it contains a wide variety of devices, from wheelchairs and walkers to glasses and adaptive utensils, showing how varied assistive technology can be. Because of this purposeful design, the game would be an excellent teaching tool as the fantasy setup helps players look at assistive technology from a new perspective and guides them in a way that allows them to understand the importance of assistive technology and why it is crucial to have users of the technology involved in the design process from the earliest moments.
Jonathon Greenall is a freelance writer, TTRPG designer, and visual artist. They love creating and exploring the often overlooked corners of indie media, spotlighting things that dare to be different.