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Columns > Unplugged > #14: Superheroes!
Look! Up in the sky! It's Dr. Matt talking about superheroic board games!  QuickStats Game: Heroes Incorporated Publisher: Quest Machine Designer: Sam Clifford Players: 2 - 4 Ages: 12+ Time to Play: 40-60 minutes MSRP: $40 ($34 at Gamefest.com) Heroes Incorporated is the first board game published by Quest Machine and Sam Clifford. Mr. Clifford left computer game development to start his own board game company because he wanted to create something beyond the standard solitary experience that playing video games often fails to provide. This was a good move for the rest of us, as Heroes Incorporated is a fairly quick-moving, interactive, and fun board game accessible by a wide age range. The game comes in a rather larger than necessary box containing high quality game components. There are city tiles used to generate a random game board, a set of twelve cardboard superheroes with accompanying data cards, wooden tokens to keep track of actions, plastic crime markers, a deck of research cards, and a score board. Each player begins with two heroes which are placed on the city tile grid. A number of crime markers are spread onto the board to represent crimes that need to be defeated by the heroes. The object of the game is to maneuver your heroes to the crime makers and then defeat them by rolling a die. Each city tile has a 1 to 5 value which represents the number a hero needs to roll to defeat the crime as well as the hero points gained by doing so. The first player to reach 36 hero points wins. The game is played in rounds of four actions. Every player takes their first action, and then players go on to their second action, etc￠ For her action, a player can either move a hero, combat a crime, play a card, or draw a card. At the end of a round, solved crimes are scored and all the crimes move in a random direction. Since crimes are fought during a round and scored only at the end of a round, one hero can wrest the credit for solving a crime by bettering the first hero's crime solving die roll, providing a little friendly competition. Each hero is unique in that they all have minor abilities to enhance their performance. Some can fly (move diagonally), others have an energy blast (combat adjacent crime without having to be in the same square), and others have a bonus to their crime solving rolls. Some heroes have a bonus action during the turn that might allow an extra attack, or movement. Most heroes have two powers, but a few have only one, more valuable power. This could include a bonus hero point per round, an extra card per round, or the ability to play gadget cards for free. Gadget cards are research cards that give one of your heroes another super power. The single glaring fault in Quest Machine's first publish game lies in its rules. At first glance, it is a welcome short three pages of text, drawings, and examples. However, in the interest of brevity, some of the fundamental rules seem to be a bit unclear. It would have helped to have some longer examples to round out the rules. I recommend rereading the rules after each of the first few times you play the game and obtaining the FAQ available at the Quest Machine web site. In the end, Heroes Incorporated is a very fun game. It is light and fast-paced enough to not bog down in decisions, while retaining enough strategic options to provide for some fun decision making. The fun increases if you play with people who take the theme to heart and give mild characterizations to their heroes - chasing crime (and each other) around the board. The full color artwork helps establish the comic book superhero theme. Even with four players, only eight of the twelve heroes are used at a time, so no game is ever the same twice. For fans of the game, expansions are planned and should easily expand the options. Check this one out if your family has a mild (or greater) interest in things superheroic. Genre: Family Strategy Score: 4.5 out of 5 QuickStats Game: Strange Synergy Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Designer: Mark Ahlquist and Brian Stormont Players: 2-4 Time to Play: 45 minutes MSRP: $30 Strange Synergy is a fairly simple little game where each player is given 9 superpower cards to distribute to their three heroes in any fashion they desire. Some cards are secret until used, while others are revealed to all. Heroes are then placed in a small arena with each player's team having a home base and one flag. The goal of the game is to capture an opponent's flag and return it to your own base along with your own flag. The game components contain 12 cardboard heroes with stands (3 per team), many game counters to signify the various effects inflicted on a hero, and a double-sided paper map. It would have been nice to have a cardboard playing field, since the folds in the paper can occasionally cause the heroes to tip over. The rules are fairly simple, with most character interactions resolved with the roll of a single six-sided die. Players take turns moving their entire team trying to knock out the other heroes. When a hero loses enough hit points they keel over and drop anything they were carrying, such as their team's flag. The heart of the game lies in the initial distribution of power cards and how you use them to create your superhero team. There are no limits, so one hero could have five or six powers while others might have only one or even none. The deck of power cards contains around 100 different special abilities. Some increase defense, some increase or modify movement, while others are attack powers. This deck is simultaneously the best and worst part of the game. It is quite fun to customize your very own super team from a strange set of randomly-dealt powers. No two games will ever be the same, as even a four player game only uses 36 of the possible 100 cards at a time. The downside to the random power generation can occur if you get some sort of unlucky deal. There seems to be a generous supply of attack, defense, and special cards, but occasionally someone will end up with a very defensive team with very little ability to attack. This can lead to a much slower game and can almost result in a stand-off as players might end up with a character who is virtually immune to any of the opposing team's effects. Strange Synergy is a fun game for people who enjoy small, tactical battles with a good bit of zaniness thrown in. While the powers are pleasurably diverse, once all the teams have been constructed, the level of chaos in the game is kept down to a level where strategy and planning can be invoked. Of course, the more players in the game, the more chaotic the battlefield will become. The rules are brief enough, even for the younger set, to make a short learning curve, but the combative style of the game seems to make it more suitable for light war gamers than for a diverse family. Reviewer Recommended Ages: 11+ Genre: Tactical Strategy Score: 3 out of 5 Kid Factor: Both games are fairly accessible, but I give the nod to Heroes Incorporated as the most likely to appeal to both genders and a broader age range. Strange synergy seems to feel (it is) more of a combative, pitched battle. Heroes, Inc. does have some direct player vs player interactions which help maintain the balance of the game. Individuals can "gang up on the leader" at times in order to prevent one person from getting an insurmountable lead. Strange Synergy is pretty much all combative, any gain won by one individual is almost always a loss for another. The style and setting of Strange Synergy seems to fit best the adolescent mindset, while Heroes Incorporated will find acceptance in a wider age range. Reviewer: Dr. Matt J. Carlson  Save 10% with SUMMER10OFF Code at Gamefest! You may have noted the recent addition of GameFest links to GamerDad Unplugged. While I would encourage you to frequent your local game store, if you can't find what you're looking for there, purchasing games through our GameFest links will help support GamerDad Unplugged. Their prices are very reasonable, and they're having a sale through September if you use the checkout code, SUMMER10OFF. The code will get you and additional 10% off your entire order.
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