Review: Heroes Die

[chiefprimate]

Heroes Die

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Game Chief Review FORM
(one review per email, and use the game’s title as the Subject Line)

REVIEWER NAME: Michael Selvaggio

1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 5
Feedback:
All elements are met. The ingredients of Actor, Steel, and the 2hr format are acceptable. The idea of team is not done well. To say opposing forces sharing a commodity (the actor) is not an expression of team is false. The use of steel is a push, ok but not wow. I like the premise of the game but is this RPG when a character is passed from player to player. This is more of story in the round than a RPG. This game reminds me of a book called “Dream Park” which I liked.

2) CLARITY (1-10):4
Feedback:
It is clear that the designer expects the players to do all of the creating in this game. For a theatrical game were are the props, the sets, the union, the scripts, the budget, the political heavies (War Lord, Wizard, Monk, gossip columnist). There is little or no backdrop. The player is expected to create all this form and function. The game elements are a mystery. So much is assumed to be understood and I fell the implied card rules will work nicely but the text dose not present them.

3) COMPLETENESS (1-10):4
Feedback:
I had to add to the text to play this game. Problems I found. Where are the fixed game items (props), card ply is unclear, taking turns and hierarchy of the three players what dose the trumps do? This game in it’s present form is a first draft at best. What constitutes a “Highest Hand”? Are we talking poker? What is a task? Are they rated? What are my overall goals? Do trumps affect ties?

4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 4
Feedback:
This is a game that is too open ended. The three way struggle is good but not developed. The use of cards in a game like this is unnecessary. Better to have a set amount of resources carefully used as production continues. This game is playable only with tolerant people who are more willing to be in a story telling environment than a RPG.


5) SWING VOTE (1-10) 4
Final Feedback: This is a first draft. To me this game is better suited to be a board game or a card game. Each set of cards could be another arena, the warlord’s deck, Wizard, Cyclops etc. I love the premise not enough meat on the bones.


TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 21

[Doug Ruff]

Here's another formal review for the competition.

Note: "First Impressions" don't affect final scores. They're just there to give an impression of what leapt out from an initial viewing. I'm hoping this is useful to anyone who's planning on publishing and selling their game.


Doug’s Review of Heroes Die, by Alexander Cherry

First impressions: Interesting setting and the intro ‘blurb’ is well written. Neat stats for a roleplaying game, use of suit matching looks interesting. Hmm… this game could be over quick.

Analysis: After reading this game through, I did a quick Google for the book it’s based on, also called Heroes Die. The game appears to be a faithful adaptation of the setting, to the extent that I’d call it a licensed game without the license, as it were.

The premise that players share narration of a single protagonist (the Actor) is unusual – it’s the sort of thing that gets discussed a lot but rarely gets implemented in a game. It’s also well handled, and the author has included a good structure for the movement of narration rights between the players.

In addition, there is a very useful reminder to players (alongside the stat descriptions) that this game isn’t about whether the Actor protagonist succeeds or fails at their tasks; it’s about the impact of their actions on their reputation.

Generally, the text does a good job of explaining the premise of the game, what it’s about and how to play it. This was another game that was easy to read and review, and this judge is grateful for that!

However, the clarity of the text also makes it easy to identify the flaws of the game. There are two primary areas where the game needs serious improvement, in my opinion.

Firstly, it’s entirely possible for the game to end with the very first challenge of the game. The Actor starts with two stats at rating one, and it’s possible for one of these stats to drop to zero as a result of the first challenge. This means the game is over. Although it’s unlikely that anyone would want to deliberately do this, when you’re dealing with hands of 5 cards each, it’s entirely possible that someone could accidentally end up in this position.

Secondly, and more seriously, I feel that the resolution system undermines the story potential of the setting material. Although individual conflicts have their own narrative consequences, they are subsidiary to the question of “what do the audience/the directors/the populace think of me?” As a concept, this is cool, but the implementation is, in my opinion, flawed.

One the one hand, there isn’t enough spotlight in the game as written on how to actually recreate the genre material. That in itself isn’t a problem, because you can say “that’s not important”. This may or not be the author’s intent, but the rules definitely downplay the importance of the Actor’s actions in Overworld. Personally, I think that’s a shame, because Overworld is cool, and the consequences of the Actor’s actions on Overworld and its citizens deserves some spotlight.

On the other hand, even if you do throw out the whole of Overworld in favour of an in depth examination of the Actor, some of the most interesting conflicts have already been taken away from you. The system doesn’t support narrating arguments between the Actor and his production crew, or public reaction to the Actor, because the whole game is set in Overworld. Similarly, you cannot narrate the dramatic discovery of the Actor’s true identity, because this ends the game. This is the biggest flaw of the game in my opinion. A setting that talks about the risk of having your cover identity blown screams for the exploration of this theme in play.

What’s left is an unusual situation where the narration is about the actor’s actions in Overworld, and the mechanics are about the Actor alone. It’s not horrible, in a way it’s intriguing, but in this judge’s opinion it doesn’t work. It’s just too… narcissistic an experience to be truly satisfying. Even if, as a real-life “resting” actor, I find it somewhat apt!

Which is a pity, because the core of the game is rock-solid: the basic card-play mechanism is sound (apart from the possibility of early Game Over, which is easily tweaked.) Highest cards wins narration, but failure to follow the suit matching rules has consequences: this could offer some interesting dilemmas. Do I play the high card that doesn’t match, and take the hit to my reputation? Or do I play the low card that does match suit, and lose control of the situation?

The setting is also excellent, and the author has clearly given thought as to what elements of that setting they wish to explore and how to go about it. I just think it’s the wrong choice, and that more attention needs to be given to Overworld itself.

Underneath these major issues are a few minor niggles that require more thought. Without going into great depth:

- I think the author has forgotten to explain the exact role of the Spade suit.
- “Highest hand” (for who goes first) is not defined, is this best card, or highest total of cards?
- Can the Producer also challenge, and if so, do they get to play two cards? I think the answer is “yes” to both, from a literal reading of the rules, but this should be made more clear.

This is a long review, not because I want to pound away at the game but because I think it is a flawed gem that deserves serious appraisal. There is an absolutely fantastic game in here waiting to get out: for example, I can see each episode of the game being like a town in Dogs in the Vineyard – and as Dogs is one of my all-time favourite games, I mean this as high praise. I hope very much that the author will continue to develop this game into publication.

1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 2

Feedback: Why such a low score in this area? Firstly, the author has completely failed, in my opinion to utilize the time restriction. Not only is it possible for the game to end early, there are options for extending the game length and for multi-session play. So I do not feel that I can award any marks in this area. the bizarre thing here is that the book the game is based on has a very strong “time is running out” element as part of the fiction (stay in Overworld too long and you die!), and the author didn’t decide to incorporate it.

As for ingredients, only Actor is strongly implemented, Team is barely implemented (shared narration isn’t quite the same thing), and the use of Steel is, bluntly, a cop-out. So I’m only awarding 2 points here.

2) CLARITY (1-10): 7

Feedback: Generally, this game is clear, and as I said earlier, the text does a good job of explaining what the setting is and how the rules work. The author also uses paragraph breaks intelligently, to ensure that information is presented in small enough pieces to digest easily. Despite minor concerns with the clarity of some of the rules, I feel justified in awarding a high 7 points in this category.

3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 7

Feedback: The complete omission of an explanation for the Spade suit hits the game hard in this category, but beyond that, it is easy to play the game from beginning to end, and a high rating of 7 points is deserved.

4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 5

Feedback: This is a tricky one to call. On the one hand, the game is more or less playable as written, and on a “could play” basis, rather than a “would play” basis, does OK. However, I feel it suffers because of the dissociation of the mechanics and the setting. If this game had been about generic “you’re actors in a studio” it would have scored higher than the 5 points I’m going to give it, but I would have liked it less than I do!

5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 6

Final Feedback: Again, another tricky call. The fact that I care enough about the game to want it to succeed puts it in the top half of the scale. The fact that I would not want to play it at all as currently written means it’s only just there. 6 points

TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 27 points

[rpoppe]

[Graham Walmsley]