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Heroes of the World

Now £8.49
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Discover the world around you through pictures. Guess and learn interesting facts as you challenge your friends in these unique trivia games. Share the memories of a family trip, relive your time at the zoo, or simply explore new and unfamiliar places. The visual based trivia format offers a new perspective on learning and fun.
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Category Tags , , SKU TTC-58466 Availability 3+ in stock
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Awards

Value For Money

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You Might Like

  • Really interesting facts – good for people who like knowledge/history
  • Different from many other games
  • Simple to play

Might Not Like

  • You might not know many of the cards
  • Not so many ‘heroes’ from outside USA/Eurpoe
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Description

History books are full of great women and men who have left their mark on humanity, from automobiles to antibiotics. Heroes of the World board game showcases important figures and their work, while the players collect points by recognising them and answering correctly to fascinating questions.

Quite some time ago now there was a light strategy game that looked not entirely unlike risk and was called Heroes of the World – but this Heroes of the World isn’t that Heroes of the world. Tactic make this game and you might have seen Arctic Race, Flags around the World, Crimes of the World and others. They have a pretty cool story and this game might almost be called educational, because at the same time as playing an incredibly simple game that can be over in twenty minutes or so, you also learn about some of the most fascinating people from history.

But if you’re picturing Trivial Pursuit then don’t, because it isn’t like that at all. For starters there aren’t any dice or a board, and there are certainly no cheese wedges. You will get quite a nice little double-sided map that shows you where (almost) all 200 heroes were born, and that has an image of each one on the other side like a kind of mugshot tapestry of awesomeness. Rather than the ones you might more usually see on Interpol’s most wanted list.

What’s In The Box And Who Can Play?

The box for Heroes of the World is pretty small, surprisingly so in fact which makes it great for taking places easily. Not as small as a single deck of cards but maybe only a fifth/quarter of the size of something like Splendour, or roughly one six hundredth of Gloomhaven. Inside you’ll find quite a lot of cards and six folded boards that each player gets one of. The cards have a photo or image of a person from history on one side, and ‘flavour text’ outlining who they were and what they did, as well as two clues that can be given to the person guessing on the other.

Up to six people can play at once, or it’s also a solid and quick two player game that you can sort of adjust to suit the knowledge of those playing. The box will tell you that games take 20 minutes or more but with only two players you could finish in somewhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how quickly you bash through the turns or how complicated you want to make it.

Playing

The deck of cards can be sorted into helpfully colour coded piles of six different categories and you should choose at least two of these to play with each time. When you’re making your choice of ‘heroes’ there’s a nice mix of…type? Each type/category is related to the sort of contribution the hero made to world history which gives you following choices: leader, icon, inventor, thinker, artist/author and fictional.

That last one seems to link due to the contribution the character has made to culture and includes a range from Father Christmas, to Batman, to William Tell – but more importantly also gives you chance to access the game without needing to have a specialist subject in world leaders of the past 2000 years.

Once you’ve chosen the categories that you want to ‘guess’ or identify then you shuffle them together, lay out four cards on your board and begin. If you can correctly identify a hero from youropponent’s board you win the card; if you guess correctly first time you also get two additional points (shown by taking two cards from all of the remaining and unused category cards); a correct guess after the first clue nets you one extra card, and after two guesses you just get the hero card itself. Refill the empty slot on the board and play moves to the next person.

Once all cards are used up from the play deck of heroes the game ends and you total up points. The twist in scoring is that of the extra cards you gained you only score a point if you correctly sorted it into the right category – eg if your additional card had a picture of Mother Theresa on it and you filed her under “fictional” then you wouldn’t score any points for it.

What’s It Really Like?

Well, the production value is great: the cards are interesting, colourful, well printed and it all fits neatly into a little play area with your A3 sized map being pretty cool. It plays quickly, is incredibly low stress, and is actually a very interesting game if you’re at all inclined to learn about (mostly dead) famous people. The flavour text on each card will have you learning quite a lot of interesting facts and expanding some basic knowledge of people who contributed to world history. Of course that’s also the downside.

If you’re not at all interested in that or know very little about historical figures from Charlemagne to Jacques Cousteau, then this is possibly not the game for you. Or at least, it’s a game that you may find less fun because you’ll rarely win any points. It clearly is a game that requires you to have a pretty broad knowledge base and that’s really, really cool for people who have learned or stored up some facts about one of those categories or who are just fascinated by it. The game says that it’s for ages 12+ and that may well be true if your twelve year old has that kind of knowledge – I guess you’ll know if you and your friends/family are likely to enjoy this kind of thing.

I really enjoyed playing but was completely stumped by many of the cards – I wouldn’t rate my own knowledge of famous historical inventors, leaders or…well actually many of the categories that highly. Truth be told that didn’t bother me but I can see how it would put some people off. Otherwise, there aren’t any niggles with the game – unless you want to take issue with the fact that the chosen heroes are mostly from Europe or the USA (a fact that becomes glaringly obvious as soon as you unfold your map).

It clearly isn’t the case that almost no one from Canada, South America, Africa, Asia or Australasia have impacted world history and that might seem a little but of an oversight. Perhaps even tone deaf if you felt so inclined. Mind you, perhaps that’s for future iterations of the game? I can see scope for more musicians, artists, sociological contributors, scientists, areas of the world that are under-represented etc to be added in expansions or more modern versions.

The Verdict?

By now you’ll probably know pretty clearly if this game is for you or not. I’d certainly play this again and have a whole group of people in mind who would love it. And I also have a group who would not at all. You get chance to talk during the game and you have to interact with your opponent because each round requires you to (at very least) tell them who you think a hero card is. You may even get to practise your listening skills as they read clues to you if you were wrong or simply didn’t know.

Perhaps most interestingly it might be a game that does some teaching and helps you to learn things you might not have before without even realising – and those opportunities can come fewer and fewer as we get older. If you want to compare it to something like Ark Nova or Wingspan then you’re going to be disappointed because it’s much more niche and unique than that. But this is a really nice game and if it sounds like it might push your buttons, then it’s probably going to push them with all its glorious little might.

Zatu Score

Rating

  • Artwork
  • Complexity
  • Replayability
  • Player Interaction
  • Component Quality

You might like

  • Really interesting facts good for people who like knowledge/history
  • Different from many other games
  • Simple to play

Might not like

  • You might not know many of the cards
  • Not so many heroes from outside USA/Eurpoe