While at Gen Con, one of the main draws for me is demoing new products that are new to the market or soon to hit retail. One of the games that struck a particularly harmoneous chord with me was Herobits. Herobits is a non-tradeable card game which seeks to provide simple, yet enjoyable play that is accessible for anyone of almost any age.
The first thing that struck me about Herobits was its simplicity and ease of access. The man playing against me only had to give a brief run-down of the basic rules, and I was quickly into the game with few questions to be answered. The game essentially operates thusly:
- Each deck contains a hero character which is your only “soldier” to speak of.
- There are Upgrade cards and Instant cards, each pertaining to either Attack or Resist.
- On each turn, one can play a single Upgrade card which cannot bring your total number of upgrades above 5.
- After playing an Upgrade card, one may play as many Instant cards as one has Upgrades on the field in order to attack the opponent.
- It is now up to the opponent to play Resist Instants in order to bring their resistance up to par with the attacker’s Attack total.
- If the defender cannot stop all damage, he must remove cards from his hand or playfield equaling the amount of Attack that made it through.
- At the end of one’s turn, cards must be drawn to bring the total back to 7
Play continues in this fashion until one player has no cards on the field except for their hero, or until a player’s deck dwindles down to zero. Thus, it is possible for matches to last anywhere from 1-10 minutes, making it a fairly short and relaxed experience.
Each deck of 50 cards is illustrated by its own artist. There are currently only 3 initial decks by 3 individual authors. Hopefully with future releases this tradition will be able to be maintained, as its a very innovative way to retain integrity for each deck. With each deck centering around a single hero, it is nice to see all of the artwork uniform.
All in all, the game is a very fun and fast-paced alternative to more complicated money-sinks like Magic the Gathering and Yugioh. With such simple rules, the game is an excellent choice for children considering the mathematically based combat. The one-on-one combat offers a very unique Deathmatch feel which gives the player a definite space marine combat vibe.
Final Verdict – 8.5/10
