White Wizard Games broke into the board gaming scene with an addicting and easy-to-learn card game about space combat and exploration. Star Realms would go on to get a number of expansions alongside a top-notch mobile game port.
Following the success of Star Realms, the company looked to CEO Rob Dougherty’s past as a Hall of Fame Magic: The Gathering player and created Epic. This card game plays similarly to Magic, but doesn’t feature thousands of cards or the need to spend a good chunk of money to be competitive.
Now the time has come for White Wizard to create a third game, and it seems the game makers have decided to mash concepts of their two games together. The result is Hero Realms, a fun twist on Star Realms that offers way more depth and expansion like what you would find in an RPG.
“The base set of Hero Realms is based on the Star Realms engine,” Dougherty told iDigitalTimes. “A Star Realms player will look at it and pick it up super fast.”
Hero Realms will begin a Kickstarter campaign in about a month, but Dougherty already knows what will be available right away, and what’s coming to Hero Realms down the road.
“[Hero Realms] base set will come with four starting decks for $19.99, so you’ll be able to play two to four players out of that single box,” Dougherty said. “It’ll be a larger box than Star Realms, about twice the size. It will be a higher quality box though, a high quality board game-style box.”
On launch, there will be five different character packs players will also be able to use. “Character packs allow you to play the game as a class, so a fighter or a wizard or a thief or a cleric or a ranger,” said Dougherty. “The character pack will come with a specialized starter deck that’s unique to that character.”
Special boss decks will also be available right away. Dougherty said these decks will be very powerful monsters like dragons. “Those are designed to be played against multiple people, so you get three players versus the dragon, for example,” he said. “The dragon will have a larger and more customized starting deck, a higher hand size, much higher health and special ability cards.” These boss decks can even be played against each other if you and a friend want to re-create a giant monster battle.
Dougherty also knows cool expansions that will be coming to Hero Realms later as well. “Down the road, when we do our first set of expansions, we’ll be introducing cooperative campaigning,” he said. “We’ll have campaign decks, and these will work like modules for a role-playing game. They’ll be automated, so players will play against the game.”
These decks will have different challenges and missions players must complete. “When you play a session with your friends and you complete a mission, you’ll gain experience points,” said Dougherty. “You can spend these experience points to improve your character, so the next time you play, your starting stuff will be better.” Players will be able to buy new items such as new equipment, skills, better cards for your starting deck and more.
Dougherty knows that White Wizard will make these expansions regardless of how well the Kickstarter campaign goes. If things do go well though, the expansions could be coming sooner than anticipated. More money raised means some of it can go to hiring more designers to help out. “We’re making that stuff either way, it’s just a matter of how long it will take us to get it until it’s right to go,” Dougherty said.
So what do you think? Are you excited to play a new game from White Wizard Games? Have you played either Star Realms or Epic already? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
