Quodd Heroes Review

Release year: 2019.

Number of players: 1-6.

Game time: 30-90 minutes.

(Note: This review covers the first edition of the game.)

 Let's start with the components. The box here is just huge. It is even bigger than "Gloomy Harbour"; only the complete edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse can match it in size in our collection. It takes up an entire shelf in the rack. Overall, one of the biggest board game boxes out there. It is also thick, strong, beautifully illustrated, and also shiny and pleasant to the touch.

 Inside, you'll find plenty of components that more than justify their price tag. The quality of the cards varies from fair to very good. All the illustrations are great. The colors are bright and cheerful. The minks of the cube heroes are high-quality, with elaborate details. My friend painted the cubes; in decoration they look simply luxurious. The playing fields are clear and nicely illustrated. Overall, the components deserve the highest praise - they are stunning.

 Let's go to the actual game. In terms of gameplay, Quodd Heroes is much worse, in my opinion. To begin with, we bought the game in German, skipping the kickstarter. I've downloaded the English rules, so it shouldn't be a problem, right? Here are just a few points in the rulebook that are described differently and contradict each other in different languages. Even more frustrating, the two rulebooks included are not very well structured and leave many questions. Many ambiguous points are not explained in any way, so you will have to spend time looking for answers on BGG (however, you must give credit to the developer: he is active on the forums and answers questions in detail). But there are still many questions, and most likely you will have to resort to home rules. Because of this, there is much more downtime between turns.

 The mechanics of Quodd Heroes are very interesting. You can roll your cube hero in any perpendicular direction: it will move there and turn a new face up. Each facet has its own ability (and they can be improved during the game). Planning a move is basically thinking about what you're going to do when you land a certain face up and how to get there.

 From the closest analogues, RoboRally immediately comes to mind - a rather chaotic and random game. Quodd Heroes tries to get even more chaotic with a reduced playing field that encourages or even forces cubes to crash into other cubes. When your cube crashes into another cube, it triggers a certain effect, depending on the game mode and objectives. However, this slows down the game every time. Usually players plan where their cube will move and how it will apply its face, but because many playing fields are very tight, crashing into someone else's cube destroys all their plans and forces them to rethink their move, and this process is slow. And this leads to a very large and very annoying downtime - with the aforementioned rules issues in mind.

 Let's move on to game balance. It is simply not there. This game was clearly not designed with balance in mind. Depending on the map/mission chosen, the character's power can vary from "obscenely broken" to "presumably incompetent". From what I understand, the developer thinks that Quodd Heroes doesn't need balance because it's a gameplay fan, which I disagree with. Enhancement cards also make their chaotic contribution, ranging in power from "moderately useful" to "crazy broken" (for example, I got an enhancement that allows me to flip my cube to any limit once per turn - a ridiculously overpowered ability). And here are the maps of events. Some negative events can spoil the entire game for certain characters, while others can be easily ignored. So, winning in this game depends primarily on luck.

 Quodd Heroes is a game about pure chaos and luck, but not in the good sense of the word. I could understand such an abundance of randomness if the game was aimed at a children's audience, but it is too difficult for children (no wonder the box says age 14+) and at the same time too slow for such a chaotic process.

 Judging by the quality of the components, the developer tried very hard. You can say he put his soul into the game. I have friends who enjoyed Quodd Heroes, and the game will definitely gain its niche audience. But personally, I gave her a chance more than once in a different company, and she definitely did not suit me.

Overall score on the BGG scale:

3/10 - bad game: probably won't play again.

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