Heroquest boardgame and why it's so great

[Lagi]

What could have been

it could look good

 

[Ali Assa Seen]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream pointed out something so incredibly stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it: they just redid the characters over the original artwork - look at the arches and the smudge on the crack near the mage. They even copy pasted the flame onto the other side and barely touched it up after reversing it. Also the elf is about 12 feet tall. Fuck's sake, this shit's why I'm halfway glad mini companies don't try to recreate the old box art.

Spoiler

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The coverart didn't even need to be changed. There was zero reason to not just use the old art.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I am really curious what thought process led to this decision.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I am really curious what thought process led to this decision.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture...19th-century-fresco-with-DIY-restoration.html

 

[vonAchdorf]

From useable weapons (especially the dwarf and the barbarian) to unusable cartoon crap.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream pointed out something so incredibly stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it: they just redid the characters over the original artwork - look at the arches and the smudge on the crack near the mage. They even copy pasted the flame onto the other side and barely touched it up after reversing it. Also the elf is about 12 feet tall. Fuck's sake, this shit's why I'm halfway glad mini companies don't try to recreate the old box art.

To be fair the dude's an art teacher I think he's said, so it's understandable that he'd catch stuff like that.

The coverart didn't even need to be changed. There was zero reason to not just use the old art.

Honestly I've wondered that a bit too, unless there are rights/licensing issues with the original art. If they were making a Heroquest "Reboot" and making a beer and pretzels fast paced dice chucking dungeon crawler that kids and drunk adults can enjoy, I'd understand making new art. But this is looking like essentially a 1 for 1 remake of Heroquest, so why change the art? Especially if you're selling it basted on nostalgia. I could understand the models being different if they no longer have the old molds, and similarly I'd want fucking plastic dice instead of the painted wooden ones, but I dunno. Maybe it's to make the prospect of the crowdfunding look more appealing even though it's goddamn Hasbro so it's not like they're strapped for cash. Which I'm doing my best not to start foaming at the mouth over modern MTG pricing.

Inclusivity. If you notice carefully many characters are now women.

At least I like the female orcs.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream

Wait he's got one? That'd actually be a twitch worth watching.

 

[Ali Assa Seen]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream

Wait he's got one? That'd actually be a twitch worth watching.

https://www.twitch.tv/bardicbroadcasts

He doesn't stream regularly (maybe once or twice a month) so catch the VODs whilst they're up.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream pointed out something so incredibly stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it: they just redid the characters over the original artwork

Went and dug up where he talked about it. Good talk. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/753233397?t=00h45m52s

I kinda wish artbooks weren't so expensive so often. Got a few myself and I dig 'em, but they often end up being small run collector's items and even more painful, pirates rarely scan and share artbooks. I'd love to get the whole set of the Spectrum Fantastic Art annuals but even though a lot of those are reasonably priced (For artbooks. Like $10-20 for a softcover) some really shoot up there in price, and even though they've made nearly 30 of them I've seen maybe 1 of them scanned online. Not really related to Heroquest but art's got me bitching about art.

 

[Galdred]

I am really curious what thought process led to this decision.

Games workshop are a bit trigger happy when it comes to IP.
Done if the iconic characters on the box are chaos warriors (actually, the CW were what compelled me to get the game when I was 10), they could not keep them 1:1
Same for the iconic white dwarf.
So some redesign would have been needed, and mixing some new "fantasy art" with the old would have been even more jarring IMO...

I'm pretty sure their current illustrators would not have been able to draw the replacements in the new style.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

must be nice to have an art teacher that collects figurines like a manchild

 

[Galdred]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream pointed out something so incredibly stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it: they just redid the characters over the original artwork - look at the arches and the smudge on the crack near the mage. They even copy pasted the flame onto the other side and barely touched it up after reversing it. Also the elf is about 12 feet tall. Fuck's sake, this shit's why I'm halfway glad mini companies don't try to recreate the old box art.

Spoiler

I highly doubt it:
The nomber of steps on the stairs is not the same., and the lines on the ground are pretty different too.
Even the colors are slightly different, and it looks like the new one has less details, and feels more "plastic".
I think what happened is that the artist tried to copy the old image, but could only remake the background convincingly.

 

[Jugashvili]

Even the colors are slightly different, and it looks like the new one has less details, and feels more "plastic".

Digital painting was a mistake.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Everyone Ive asked told me that Heroquest is kind of a shit dungeon crawling game anyway, it was the presentation from the 90's that kicked butt, not so much the gameplay

 

[Johannes]

The Bard on his latest Twitch stream pointed out something so incredibly stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it: they just redid the characters over the original artwork - look at the arches and the smudge on the crack near the mage. They even copy pasted the flame onto the other side and barely touched it up after reversing it. Also the elf is about 12 feet tall. Fuck's sake, this shit's why I'm halfway glad mini companies don't try to recreate the old box art.

Spoiler

I highly doubt it:
The nomber of steps on the stairs is not the same., and the lines on the ground are pretty different too.
Even the colors are slightly different, and it looks like the new one has less details, and feels more "plastic".
I think what happened is that the artist tried to copy the old image, but could only remake the background convincingly.

The number of stairs is the same, lay off the crack

 

[vonAchdorf]

Everyone Ive asked told me that Heroquest is kind of a shit dungeon crawling game anyway, it was the presentation from the 90's that kicked butt, not so much the gameplay

I liked Warhammer Quest better but HeroQuest had its charm too.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

The coverart didn't even need to be changed. There was zero reason to not just use the old art.

It was too good.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Everyone Ive asked told me that Heroquest is kind of a shit dungeon crawling game anyway, it was the presentation from the 90's that kicked butt, not so much the gameplay

It's in the beer and pretzels category. Lots of dice chucking and RNG swings so if you're sat around playing with some friends and you all like laughing and talking through how the rolls pan out it's good fun, and it can make some nice use of the materials available with the static board and placing tiles/furniture. But in pure mechanical terms you're probably better off with just about any modern dungeon crawler. Would be somewhat similar to Talisman (Though not AS random) for if it's something you'd have fun with. Like vonAchdorf mentioned, Warhammer Quest is pretty similar to Heroquest only with more meat to it and using a tile-based dungeon rather than a static board. And the coolest part of Warhammer Quest is basically the entire thing is random. Quests, events during travel/town, dungeon generation, etc. Kinda wish I hadn't beat both my Heroquest and Warhammer Quest copies to hell since they're expensive collector's garbage now, but that's just par for the course for heavily played games that have gone through decades of moving. It's probably I didn't lose them.

 

[Galdred]

The number of stairs is the same, lay off the crack

That is true

However, given how details in the old and new compare, I am still pretty sure they were redrawn:

New arch to the left, and old one to the right

New floor on the top, and old one on bottom:

Everyone Ive asked told me that Heroquest is kind of a shit dungeon crawling game anyway, it was the presentation from the 90's that kicked butt, not so much the gameplay

Regarding the gameplay itself, I just played it with my daughters this weekend, and it held out pretty well.
I don't roll to move out of combat, and make repositioning free between rooms (I obviously replaced all the characters with female characters from Descent: Journeys in the Dark).
It allows you to have adventures without taking hours to weight your options every turn (Gloomhaven), or to calculate all Line of Sight to limit monster spawning (Descent).

I think the game only needs minor adjustments to remedy its main issues (which are that it encourages player to camp doorway and snipe monsters with the crossbow):
- give some monsters ranged attacks
- introduce overlod tokens (like in Advanced Heroquest) or cards (like in Space Crusade/Starquest) during combat to encourage them to move fast
- monsters can be freely arranged by the GM in a room, they can also move the lighter pieces of furniture(because it is a shame that they serve no purpose otherwise!)

Most modern crawlers play like a race against time, but in Heroquest, it feels more like a PnP RPG Dungeon crawl, in which you are struggling to make do with the little available resources you have (your spell and potions deplete as you go, and your body points too. ).

Of course, I'd rather play Descent 1E with a group of gamers, but with a few houserules, HQ is still pretty solid IMO (at least, my daughters love it, and it is a much better option than most of the other games they'd play with me!).

The combat system with its custom dice is pretty good, and was used in Heroscape and Magic: Area of the Planeswalkers, which are pretty solid games.

HQ has been a much better experience than Mice and Mystics for us (despite being aimed at kids, MnM had me browsing the rulebook for obscure specific rules in every single encounter), and I'd rather play it than Descent 2nd edition (because at least, you are supposed to kill monsters in HQ, and not race to the objective and ignore monsters).

 

[Snorkack]

Holy Graf Zeppelin, the less said about this HQ remake, the better

But does anyone know what the modular dungeoncrawler is that the dude in op's video briefly mocks at around 2:00? Sword&Sorcery maybe?

 

[vonAchdorf]

Holy Graf Zeppelin, the less said about this HQ remake, the better

But does anyone know what the modular dungeoncrawler is that the dude in op's video briefly mocks at around 2:00? Sword&Sorcery maybe?

Looks like Warhammer Quest.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Orc bard at 3 million, eh? As much as I like the idea it doesn't really fit with Heroquest's sword and sorcery theme that well. Especially since (Judging by the mini and bit of art) it looks like they're going more for an "Entertainer" bard rather than "Greasy rogue that hides his sleeze behind entertainment" bard. Heroquest isn't grimdark or anything, but it doesn't feel appropriate for the first kind of bard. It's a dungeon crawling game with almost no action between dungeons, even Warhammer Quest had more going on in towns and while traveling. A slimy thief that uses the title of bard as an excuse for his wandering feels like it would slot better into a dungeon crawl, but I'm nitpicking just on one model mockup so eh.

Stretch goals aren't super exciting I gotta say. Extra minis are always nice (Although the only mini that bit the dust in my Heroquest was the elf. Knocked off the table and then stepped on when a friend was getting out of his chair to pick it up. RIP elf) but not all that thrilling, and quest books are cool but you'd need a pretty fucking hardcore group of Heroquest fans to want to get through all the dungeons anyway.

 

[Galdred]

Indeed, who thought that : more base monsters in different poses + support heroes would be a cool stretch goal?
Reprinting the other expansions (and making them more playable maybe, as they never got tested before printing) would have been much better.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Orc bard at 3 million, eh? As much as I like the idea it doesn't really fit with Heroquest's sword and sorcery theme that well. Especially since (Judging by the mini and bit of art) it looks like they're going more for an "Entertainer" bard rather than "Greasy rogue that hides his sleeze behind entertainment" bard. Heroquest isn't grimdark or anything, but it doesn't feel appropriate for the first kind of bard. It's a dungeon crawling game with almost no action between dungeons, even Warhammer Quest had more going on in towns and while traveling. A slimy thief that uses the title of bard as an excuse for his wandering feels like it would slot better into a dungeon crawl, but I'm nitpicking just on one model mockup so eh.

Stretch goals aren't super exciting I gotta say. Extra minis are always nice (Although the only mini that bit the dust in my Heroquest was the elf. Knocked off the table and then stepped on when a friend was getting out of his chair to pick it up. RIP elf) but not all that thrilling, and quest books are cool but you'd need a pretty fucking hardcore group of Heroquest fans to want to get through all the dungeons anyway.

"Oh no I dropped the mini, better stomp around a bit to find it"