Hero Realms is a fantasy-themed deck-building game that is an adaptation of the award-winning Star Realms game. The game includes basic rules for two-player games, along with rules for multiplayer formats such as Free-For-All, Hunter, and Hydra.
Each player starts the game with a ten-card personal deck containing gold (for buying) and weapons (for combat). You start each turn with a new hand of five cards from your personal deck. When your deck runs out of cards, you shuffle your discard pile into your new deck. An 80-card Market deck is shared by all players, with five cards being revealed from that deck to create the Market Row. As you play, you use gold to buy champion cards and action cards from the Market. These champions and actions can generate large amounts of gold, combat, or other powerful effects. You use combat to attack your opponent and their champions. When you reduce your opponent's score (called health) to zero, you win!
Multiple expansions are available for Hero Realms that allow players to start as a particular character (Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Thief, or Wizard) and fight cooperatively against a Boss, fight Boss decks against one another, or compete in a campaign mode that has you gain experience to work through different levels of missions.
- cooperative campaign with RPG-like progression
- wide race/class options with race/class balance
- persistent character advancement across sessions
- flexible solo and cooperative challenge content
- cooperative deck-building with RPG-like progression and collaboration
- Fantasy quest world with continued story through campaigns
- campaign-driven, story continuation across sessions
- Star Realms
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Campaign progression — completed sessions carry over character improvements to future plays.
- cooperative play — players team up to defeat enemies and advance the campaign together.
- deck-building — players build a deck of cards to develop power and acquire items from the market.
- experience and character progression — gaining experience to permanently upgrade skills and abilities.
- pvp card duality — cards can be used in campaign mode or flipped for PvP play.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the thing that really differentiates Hero Realms is that cooperative play mode with the campaign
- you get together with your friends each of you chooses a character you battle together against bad guys
- you gain experience which you can use to upgrade your skills and abilities and permanently improve your character
- you can take the characters that you built up in the ruin of sand are and you can go directly from there right into the Lost Village with all the magic items and the skills that you advanced
- sorcerer... it's going to be a ton of fun
References (from this video)
- strong digital implementation
- campaign mode
- smooth transition from Star Realms design lineage
- hero-based combat
- fantasy deck-building
- Star Realms
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- campaign mode — story-driven progression in some versions
- deck-building — build a deck of heroes and spells to defeat opponents
- digital experience — AI and online play; strong digital implementation
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Our world needs more good humans.
- Be kind to one another.
- Imagine that everyone I'm dealing with is having the worst day of their lives.
- This is July — Bipoc mental health awareness month.