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Joystick Heroes is a board game about playing video games - radical! Grab your friends and family and head to the arcade, where you’ll burn through tokens to play games and compete for the best scores. Each game tests different skillz, like your joystick agility or button-pressing prowess. Earn tickets, prizes, and power up your skillz. Kick butt on games in your favorite genre and win big by beating high scores. Challenge other wannabe heroes to 2-player games, grab a friend for co-op mode, and compete in arcade tournaments. The player with the most prizes when everybody’s out of tokens is the new Joystick Hero! Righteous!
At setup, create your arcade by laying out a number of Games cards. Each player starts with 10 arcade tokens. A round consists of 2 phases: (1) In the PLAY phase, choose any available Game card in your arcade, place 1 arcade token on it, and play it by rolling a number of dice based on the skills the game requires and your own skill levels. Use your hand of Power cards to boost your scores. Refer to the Top Scores chart and collect your winnings (tickets). (2) In the POWER UP phase, players spend the tickets they earned on skills upgrades or to purchase prizes.
When all players run out of arcade tokens, the player with the most prizes is the new Joystick Hero!
Joystick Heroes - Re-live the retro days!
- fun and family-friendly with accessible decisions for all ages
- attention to detail and throwback arcade art
- arcade-themed deck cycling adds thematic depth
- varied mechanics and ticket economy offer strategic choices
- prototype copy may not reflect final rules/components
- kid arcade competition and prize collection
- classic after-school gaming arcade
- instructional overview of rules and play flow
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- arcade_deck_cycle — A full deck of arcade cards cycles through whenever a player achieves a high score or a machine has been used three times
- cards_tipping_scale — Helpful cards players can play to tip the scales in their favor
- cooperation_and_competition — Cooperative games let you offer an opponent a ticket; contest games let someone jump in and battle you directly
- Cooperative Game — Cooperative games let you offer an opponent a ticket; contest games let someone jump in and battle you directly
- Dice Rolling — Roll one black die for each cube in the player's columns plus the white game die; combine results to determine score and winnings
- dice_rolling — Roll one black die for each cube in the player's columns plus the white game die; combine results to determine score and winnings
- Engine Building — Engine-building framework as the core gameplay loop
- engine_building — Engine-building framework as the core gameplay loop
- heart_push_your_luck — Heart on the game die allows a chance to push your luck for more score
- level_sequence — Gold premium games are played in levels; you must roll sequentially to pass levels 1, 2, and 3
- prize_spending — Spend five tickets on prizes needed to win
- Push Your Luck — Heart on the game die allows a chance to push your luck for more score
- ten_rounds_and_end_condition — The game runs for 10 rounds; arcades tokens run dry and the person with the most prizes wins
- ticket_upskilling — Spend two or three tickets to upskill a genre or a skill respectively
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Joystick Heroes is a fun family-friendly game with plenty of light decisions to be made to keep players of all ages engaged.
- attention to detail and throw back art on the arcade machine cards
- a full deck of arcades which will cycle through whenever a player achieves the high score or once the same machine has been used three times
- cooperative games let you offer an opponent a ticket and the chance of more bonus tickets from the bank later on to use their prowess in a skill you're weak in