Custom Heroes is a card-crafting, climbing trick game in which plastic cards are added to sleeves in order to modify the cards already in those sleeves.
Please note: Custom Heroes is shipped with a protective plastic film on each card which should be removed prior to play. Once removed the colors will be more vibrant and it will be easier to see cards in a stack inside a sleeve.
The players attempt to win rounds by getting rid of their cards as quickly as possible using the classic climbing trick mechanic. e.g. If a player leads with three 4s then the next player must play three of a kind of equal or higher value. When all players pass, the last player to have played cards leads a new trick with whatever card or set of equal cards they want. Go out of cards first for first place, second for second, etc.
However, you also have advancements you can sleeve onto your cards. These may increase or decrease the value of the cards, or even add new abilities such as turning a card into a wild or reversing the direction of the values (i.e. you are now playing lower numbers instead of higher) or making cards count as multiple copies of themselves, etc.
But since all of the cards are reshuffled and dealt to start a new round, the changes you made may end up with someone else (and vice versa), and the common distribution of values will begin to change and shift over multiple hands. Thus, a good strategy must factor in not just doing well in the current hand, but also managing your resources (card advancements) over multiple hands and maximizing their impact though well timed plays.
You earn points and more advancements based on your end of round position. Be the first player to go out each round and gain the most points, but draw fewer new advancements for the next hand. To win a player must first get to 10 points, and then win a hand.
Inspired by the public domain game Daihinmin
GTS Preview 2017 - Custom Heroes
- The game is quick to play.
- The fewer players, the better it is to go out early.
- Players can lose points.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Drafting — Advancements are drawn from a bag.
- follow the leader — Players lay sets or single cards and then play follow-the-leader until everyone passes.
- Hand Management — Players use upgrades to change their cards to make their sets work better.
- point threshold — The game is won when a player reaches a threshold of ten points and wins a round.
- Set Collection — Players lay sets or single cards.
- Take That — One upgrade is a negative card ('head of lettuce') that reverts a card's value.
- Trick-Taking — A two to six player trick-taking follow the leader style game.
- Trump cards — A trump card upgrade can be placed on any card and will trump any play.
- Variable player powers — Players have secret upgrades behind their screen that can be used to change cards.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- hello and welcome to GTS business
- thank you for showing me this I hope anyone has any questions just put through the comments below we'll get back to you as soon as possible but otherwise thanks for watching and we'll see you next time guys
References (from this video)
- Great if you like customization
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Shelf 16 is kind of a an odd mix here
- This shelf has twice as many games as most shelves
- one of my favorite two-player games, but it's very difficult to learn and play
- Fantastic abstract strategy game
- Such a classic game and I like it a lot
- I don't know why I like it so much, but I do
- one of the most beautiful dexterity/party games there are
- There are so many games on the shelf