What Is To Be Hero X About?

Imagine a world of superheroes. We can do that, we know Marvel and DC comic worlds. But instead of these heroes just having powers their powers are stronger the more people love them. That is the world of To Be Hero X. And Hero X is the hero who is most loved.

The show is all about those heroes and the ones who are in the top 10. They all want to be Hero X or at least will be taking place in the tournament to see who will become the new top ranked hero. The show is all about their stories and how they got there.

And I won’t go into more detail than that.

Who is To Be Hero X For?

Firstly, I do want to comment on fan service in this, because that will determine some of it is for you or not. But really, I like to do that all the time because people’s tolerance levels are different. There is very little fan service in this show, and it is never dwelt upon if it happens.

I think that this show is for people who are up for some fun animation. But there is more to the show than that, this is a show that is for people who want that slower build into characters and to delve into them at a deeper level. Is it heavy with plot, there is a lot of story throughout that connects to the whole, but it is also very focused on the characters.

What Didn’t Work For Me?

It is a bit jarring the first time you finish up the story with one character. Mainly because you get to like the character and then you move on to the next one. This is not a bad thing, but it is somethin to be aware of when going into the show.

It is also a bit tricky to keep track of the timelines and when it falls into line with certain characters. Generally you can make sense of it, but they reference events that might be occurring at a different point in other characters stories. And they do a solid job of giving you dates for things, but that is still a lot to remember.

What Worked For Me?

The animation on this show is amazing. And it should be, there are a ton of different studios working on this anime. And it shows in the different stories how there is different animation that is used. They are done to tell different and unique story beats and character stories. And there are some bonkers fight and chase scenes that use animation really well.

I also like the stories. Not all of them resonate with me quite as well, but how they intersect is really interesting. And the vast majority of the character stories are ones that I really enjoyed and I could connect with the characters. Each of them is unique as well and deals with some interesting things that unfold the larger story.

And without going into spoilers, I think the overall plot is interesting. This idea that the more people love you, the better hero you are is really interesting. And it has some very questionable implications to it as well that they dive into in the show. And where it ends, I think that is interesting and it makes me ready for a season two. I think there is a lot more world building that can be done around the main plot. But I suspect season 2 is going to focus a lot on the tournament.

Final Thoughts on To Be Hero X

This show definitely caught my interest throughout the whole show. I think the animation drew me in, but the plot and the characters really kept me there. It takes a bit to figure out everything that is going on in To Be Hero X. And I would say, there are elements that make me want to rewatch it right now to pick-up on some of the bigger story implications that I might have missed. To me, that is the sign of a good anime to watch because it kept me engaged and keeps me wanting more.

If it was one consistent animation style would it be as good? I think it would be. This is not an anime with style over substance but with the lead of BeDream making this and the animation partners, it rocks. And that is something else I didn’t mention but I feel like I always want to listen to the music both the opening and ending credits, but also the music in the show. The amount of time and effort that went into this show is very impressive and makes for a great show visually and story wise.

To Be Hero X is one of my top new anime this year. And you know from the last anime round-up that I have watched a ton of anime this year. So it is sitting pretty as a favorite.

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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 30 through 21

30. Icecool

I love my dexterity games, so a number have made it on the list. This is my highest pure dexterity game, though, there is dexterity in another game coming up. But Icecool is just about flicking your penguins around a board trying to get fish. Or you’re a hall monitor penguin who is trying to catch the penguins who are skipping class for a fish snack.

This game has a cute them, but I like how simple the game is as well. It is easy for anyone to play from adults to kids and everyone can do about as well. I might plan my shots more as an adult, but will that work better than the kid who just goes on instinct, who knows. Though, that is a nice element of the game as well, Icecool is not just a brainless flicking game. You can plan shows, figure angles and hope it goes your way. It won’t fairly often, but when you pull of an amazing shot, it feels great.

Buy Icecool

29. Lands of Galzyr

We’re moving into a bigger game and a story driven game. You’re going to see a number of those as we move up higher on the list. Lands of Galzyr, though, is not a campaign game, it is more of a relaxed story game to play. The game is simple, and you don’t play through a connected story. I am actually hoping for some story modules you can mix in, as an expansion, to create more of that connected narrative.

In Lands of Galzyr, you are an animal and you’re going off adventuring. To do that, you grab quests from towns and head out to their locations. With it you are doing daily events, if you don’t do a quest, and rolling dice for checks. The game is simple that way in what dice it gives you, and I really like that about it. I see what I can do and I do it. Plus there are key words that give you bonuses which I like. It lets you feel like you’re doing something special while at the same time not making the game too complicated.

My one downside, besides that connection of story, is that you can play it in a series. I did so on Malts and Meeples. You can see the first video below. But sometimes you stop with a quest in hand that you really want to continue. And that quest can carry over to the next game, but if you decide to stop there and reset, well, it’ll be open ended. But, their timer system does keep the game from just going on and on until you want to stop.

Buy Lands of Galzyr

28. Paper Dungeons

Paper Dungeons is another game that I played on Malts and Meeples. I’ll add the video in below for you to watch as well. But this is a roll and write game with a lot going on. And it is a roll and write game that tries to do more than just be about the numbers on the dice. It is about going into dungeons, fighting monsters, getting treasures, leveling up, crafting items, a ton of different things.

And each time that you play it you can focus in on a different area. You might want to go after the big boss because that’s a good number of points. But that means that you’re probably spending more time leveling up your adventuring party and traveling through the dungeon. You won’t be spending as much time getting gems and crafting items. It is a balance that I really enjoy in the game.

Now, it isn’t a perfect game either. Mainly, there is a campaign to this game, but there really isn’t a campaign to this game. It just gives you a number of scenarios with a little story between them that doesn’t matter or make that much sense. And there is no carryover, so you just play the same game multiple times. The upside is that where the boss monsters go in these different scenarios does change up how you may want to attack things and what items you want to craft.

Buy Paper Dungeons

27. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

And now another narrative game, technically three in a row, though, Paper Dungeons is pretty light in that area. Arkham Horror: The Card Game is going to lean back into that campaign more heavily and offer a lot of different story and variety.

Fantasy Flight has a great game on their hand, which is played out by how long the game has been going. And it works because they are smart about how they use their cards. They create unique investigators with fun mechanics that are only for them. And the different scenarios use cards to create locations, missions and monsters in different ways. It is something that they really did a great job of building out.

The game is a game where you need to explore, gain clues, and fight monsters. Sometimes some of those matter more than others, and that is some of the fun of the game. You need to figure out how your character, who might be a fighter, can support. And how you use your cards matters a lot. If I play a card, that costs resources and that card is for it’s ability. But when I do a check, I can also discard cards with symbols of the type i need on them to make it more likely I succeed on the challenge. I like the tension of when to hold back a card or when you need to play it.

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

26. Ohanami

Now we’re onto a much smaller game. Ohanami is a little card game where you draft cards and add them to columns keeping it in numerical order. That doesn’t seem like much, but it works for a very fun game because of how you need to play cards and how you score them. And I like the game at all player counts, that can’t be said for all the games on this list. But Ohanami is good at all of them, though the game does change.

There are a few things that work for me with Ohanami. Mainly how you draft, you pick cards and you need to add them to the top or bottom of your three columns. You can split them up, but if you don’t plan it right you’re going to create some big gaps in your numbers. So that’s an interesting challenge to the game.

But also the scoring is fun. The colors, there are four score different. Blue scores points all three rounds but fewer, and green scores only in rounds two and three but it scores more points and grey in only round three but is the most points. It’s a fun system. And then pink is going to give you more points the more of them you have, but it builds up so if you have two it’s only three points but three is six and so on.

Sold Out

25. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

This game was kind of on the list last year. I forgot to separate it from The Isle of Cats so it was low on the list, but I prefer The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw, at least until I can play Isle of Cats more. But the Explore and Draw, roll and write, version of The Isle of Cats is just easier to get to the table and simpler to play. That does mean that you are a bit more limited in strategy, but that negative is outweighed by the positives in my opinion.

In this game you are trying to rescue cats. To do that you need to fill in cats on your boat, and families (groups) of cats are going to give you points. But you can also get points for completing objectives, as long as you’ve gotten that objective checked off on your bonus scoring board. So it’s a balance of do you take cats, because you need them, or do you grab that bonus scoring.

And how you pick what to take is great as well. It is done in a four column by three row grid. And you pick one of those columns to activate. Everyone picks one of them in fact. And the one you activate, you use all three cards. So if you want to get that bonus scoring, you are picking a row with that in there. There are a few bonuses you can use to break those rules, but it’s a limited number and you can’t use them all, so when you use them is an interesting strategy to maybe grab an extra card for a bonus scoring or cat.

Buy Isle of Cats Explore and Draw

24. Metal Gear Solid

Now the one game on the list that is a bit of a cheat. I maybe should have taken it off, but I did play it a few times at CMON Expo is basically the final form. But Metal Gear Solid left a great impression on me, and I want to put it on the list. This is a game based off of the video game, so it’s not just a shoot the bad guys game, which is a lot of what CMON kind of does, but it’s a game of stealth as well because you’re not really equipped for all the bad guys to shoot you back.

The theme works well in this game and I do love a good game with theme. But the mechanisms of the game are some of my favorite. What I do on my turn is simple, I have action points that I spend on movement, attacking, interacting, whatever I need to do. Once I use my four action points my turn is done and there aren’t so many actions or special things that it’s hard to keep track of.

And the other thing that I really like is how they created the enemy AI. It’s again a pretty simple system that you go down and check a few things which tells you how the enemy moves. But there are special rules for if you made noise, so they think someone might be there, or if they can see you. If you made noise one of them will come and check on that noise. The others patrol like normal, if they can see you, they call run to you, so you better hope that you can shake them before they start blasting.

Retail May 2024

23. Clank! In! Space!

Now a game, like Icecool, that was in my Top 10 at one point and has now dropped a bit. 23 is still really good for Clank! In! Space! because I’ve played a good number of different games. But this is a deck building push your luck game and I really enjoy it. In fact, I enjoy both versions of Clank! that I’ve played, this and regular Clank! and I need to try Clank! Catacombs and Clank! Legacy as well.

Your goal is to get into the vault of the spaceship, grab a treasure and get back out. Of course, if everyone does that, how do you decide who wins. Well, on the cards you add to your deck there can be points. And the treasure or artifact that you’re grabbing, they give you points. The artifacts at the edge of the area, well, they give you a few points, but the ones further in, they are worth a lot more. Is it worth it to push further in?

And then there is the clank mechanic itself. Some of the cards that you play down are noisy. And those create clank which is basically health of yours in cubes. Those cubes go into a bag with Lord Eradikus’s cubes (it’s his ship you’re on) and when you cubes are drawn out it fills up your health meter. So just be careful, well, sometimes you don’t have a choice. And a lot of the time, it’s worth buying cards with clank because they are stronger/better than most.

Buy Clank! In! Space!

22. Marvel Zombies

Now another game that I got to experience first at CMON Expo, I now have all my stuff for it as well. I think it’s 10-12 boxes of Marvel Zombies. This is a Zombicide game, but you don’t have to play as the heroes fighting against the zombies. In fact, the core box has you playing as superheroes who have been turn into zombies fighting against SHIELD agents, heroes, and gobbling up the brains of bystanders like J Jonah Jameson and Okoye.

This is definitely a dudes on a map dice chucking beer and pretzels style of game. But that is what makes it fun. You get to be a zombie superhero who is trying to complete your goals but sometimes you need to eat some brains as well. And each turn your hunger increases. Hunger isn’t the end of the world though, it might mean that you need to eat brains sooner, but it also means that when you’re doing attacks they hit for more because you’re rolling more dice.

Marvel Zombies isn’t going to be a game for everyone, but for me, I like the plug and play nature of the game and how you can pick different zombie heroes to play as or to play as heroes. Or you can pick random heroes to be the bigger bad guys you need to face in the game. Overall just a fun time.

Buy Marvel Zombies

21. Sonora

Finally a game that is half dexterity but I’d say is really a roll and write game. The dexterity element is that you’re flicking discs onto a board. And where they land on that board and the number on your disc determines what part of the roll and write area that you fill in, your own personal board, you’re going to work on, and how much you can do.

Each area plays differently, and there are four. One of them is about racing to fill in large areas first. Another you’re circling cacti as you fill in Tetris shapes. Another has you going down paths and where you end is the points or power that you get. And the last one is about closing off areas for points and again more cacti, the whole thing has a desert theme for no real reason.

That roll and write area is great, in my opinion, because everything chains into each other. As you work in one area you’ll probably get a bonus, or maybe two, for other areas, and you then might get a bonus in those. And I just like how all of that goes together and sometimes it’ll take four minutes just to fill in everything on a turn because you can combo so much. It’s rare, but it is possible, so if you like combos, Sonora is a great roll and write style game.

Buy Sonora

Upcoming Streams

Let’s run through the stream structure like I normally do. You might already know the schedule but in case you don’t. Wednesday at 8 PM Central I stream either a campaign game, or with this time of year it’s my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. And join me next Wednesday for games 20 through 11, almost to the Top 10. It goes so fast, and now I have so many games that I want to play.

Then on Monday I stream at 9 PM Central time. It’s generally a solo game. Though I’ll also do pack openings for things But normally it’s a solo game and a one off for the game like a roll and write, or sometimes a game like Under Falling Skies or For Northwood, which was on the list today.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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How To Play Marvel Snap

Marvel Snap is a combination of two different things. It is deck construction and then lane battling. In a lot of ways, it is as much of a board game as it is an app game. We’ll talk about the app features and if they are worth it later.

In this game you create a deck of heroes ranging from 1 to 6 energy cost to play with. Then you take that into battle against other players. You try and gain majority of power, each character has a power, at two of the three locations out there. Many of the locations offer specific powers that bolster or hurt characters at the location, or change up how you can play characters. At the end of six rounds, gaining an additional energy per round, the person who controls the most locations wins.

The Heroes

Let’s start out by talking about the heroes in this game. I didn’t mention it, but a lot of the heroes have powers. For example, Quicksilver, a 1 cost card, always starts in your hand, because he is fast. Scarlet Witch swaps out a location after a specific round. Hulk just has a ton of power so he smashes.

I think that Marvel Snap does a good job with the characters. They all make sense with their powers, and some of them just don’t have special abilities. Generally if you have a power your cost and power are at a 1 to 1 ration or worse. If you don’t have a special ability you have more power. Hulk, for example, costs 6 and has 12 power.

Now, not all special abilities are created equal, though, those that aren’t tend to be more powerful. Some characters, Rocket, Star Lord, Gamora, all gain attack based off of the other player playing a card at their location. But not just at the location, but at the location the turn that character comes out. Others, like Captain America, give more generic on going abilities, like +1 power for each other card at his location.

The Locations

The other important factor in the game are the locations. I like them a lot in the game because it changes up each battle. Some of them are simple, every hero here gets +5, that’s not really anything special. Another, when it’s flipped, gives you a copy of another players card. Of course, they get a copy of one of yours.

One thing that is interesting is how the locations reveal throughout the game. On turn one, only the first location is known. Then turn two the next one flips and the final one on turn three. Yo can play blind to them, but it might mess up your plans if you aren’t careful. Or you might sneak a 1 cost card onto a location that only can have four or higher cost cards. There is a risk to placing it down blind, but sometimes that risk is worth it.

The Deck Construction

Deck Construction is a very important part of this game. You have a limited number of cards to put in a deck and a limited number of them that you can see. It is like Magic: The Gathering, in that you want enough low cost cards to get them them out early game, but not too many that you never draw your bigger more powerful cards. It is about find that balance.

The app makes deck construction fairly easy. But it does fall into an issue I have with digital Magic: The Gathering. When you are on an app, you can’t see all your cards as easily. Granted, with Magic, I used their database and a site you can build decks in conjunction with each other when I had decks for it. But with the digital deck building, it is a bit trickier.

It offers ways to search and filter cards. But until there is a nice built up database with search features, deck construction is going to be a bit slow. It isn’t bad early in the game when you don’t have many characters, but you add in characters quickly as you go.

The App

So, Marvel Snap, is an app game. That means it is going to do a few things. Firstly, it’s going to try and sell you stuff. Right now, there are not ads that pop up for other things. I doubt there ever will be. But there are adds to get people to buy in game things. The most notable is a season pass. It isn’t a bad price and does offer more unlocks and new characters. But if you don’t do it, it means that you likely are falling behind a little bit in collecting characters.

One important question I have is how those characters then will be released. In an app game I play a lot, Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, characters can be bought before they become farmable. What is that time table for Marvel Snap? If I miss out on Miles Morales now, do I need to wait a year to get him later? Or is it that I’m getting him a month earlier with the season pass? There is a balancing act for the company to get people to buy, but also not turn people off from the game.

And finally the unlocks or upgrades to characters. One of the ways you push up in the game and get more and new things is upgrading your characters. But are you really? Your character doesn’t get better, it just gets more “rare”. It’s an artificial thing in the game that only matters if you want fancier artwork, it is cool. But mechanically it doesn’t matter, it mainly just unlocks more things as you go.

Final Thoughts on Marvel Snap

Now, I say final thoughts, this probably more initial impressions. Why, because I wasn’t in the beta and the app just released yesterday. But I do have some concerns with the app. It is a game about getting characters you want and then deck construction. Most likely some characters, especially early on characters will lose value over time to play with. And the whole, unlock a 3D picture of what is already solid artwork isn’t reason enough to play with them.

I also really want to know the cadence of how characters are released. I bought the initial Season Pass, but I doubt I will buy anymore. It is a situation where I was curious about it to start and I wanted to know for coverage. But I try not to spend much if any money on app games. So now that Miles Morales or the next season pass character, when can I see them. Or are they always kept behind that season pass? If they are, that’ll kill the game.

But my concerns are more app based and how the company wants to make it’s money. The game play itself is a lot of fun. I liken it to Smash Up, but I think that other things, Land, Air, and Sea, for example are also good examples of a lane battler. It just has some of the randomness in powers that Smash Up has. But I like it much better than Smash Up, because I curate my deck.

The final thought is that I’m glad it is an app game not a physical game, but I wish it was a physical game. As an app game, I can most likely free to play eventually get most everything. But I’d love to get this to a physical table. I’d love to have the cards and build the decks. It’d just cost me more money because, well, it’d be a TCG (Trading Card Game) and buying blind packs would cost me money.

Have you tried Marvel Snap? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below or over on Twitter.

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The Reckoners Game Play

The Reckoners is a cooperative team where players take on the roles of the various Reckoners trying to take down epics, the supervillains. This is done in two ways. you either attack or research the epics. When you research an epic completely, that is finding their weakness and makes it easier to kill them.

As you defeat epics, they are trying to take down the population, find your base, and generally mess up your plans. And they are working for Steelheart, the biggest epic. Figuring out his weakness and being able to attack him at all only happens as you defeat the other epics, and he’s messing with you even more than they are.

If you research and damage Steelheart enough to take him down, you win the game. And the population hitting zero causes you to lose the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

The variety in the game is lacking. This is in a few different ways. The epics, while different, don’t feel massively different. It’d make the game more complex, but the game is pretty simple to learn. I hope the expansion gives them more things they can do. Also, Steelheart is the only big bad guy. And while you move from location to location, as does Steelheart, there is nothing unique about them.

Basically, the game does make the characters you play unique in a single way. But opportunities were missed to add in a little complexity, but also make the game more variable. I played with six people, that means every character is in play. So even then, there isn’t variability in a six player game. The expansion does add more Reckoners you can play which will change up the game. Same with more epics, and more bosses to fight.

What Works?

The simple game play is very good. Mainly because everything happens at once. You roll your dice, keeping some Yahtzee style, each time. And the same for using the dice. Once everyone is done rolling, you spend your dice all at once. It’s a bit chaotic, but the only slow moments are going through what the epics do and everyone can help with that.

The actions are simple as well. You can research, deal with henchmen, attack an epic, get money to buy more gear, get a wild card token, or contain an epic. Researching and attacking I’ve already talked about. Money to buy stuff makes sense. The wild card is basically a free action next round. Containing is the trickiest, but not that hard. It means that the epics do less when they activate. And you can do that to any epic or Steelheart, if you are at their location.

The production of the game is also amazing and it helps the game. The artwork is extremely good. The dice are nice and chunky and easy to read. Plus there are many Game Trayz to hold the locations, sliders for the epics and Steelheart, and spots to slot in dice as you keep them and spend them. Is it an over the top production, most certainly, but it is really nice and it is easy to get to the table.

What Do I Want To See In More Plays?

Well, I only have experience at the six player count. I want to try this at a lower player count. The scaling in the game makes sense, so I want to see how well it works. Plus different difficulties. We beat it on easy on the last possible turn before we’d have lost. So it is challenging on easy. Granted, we could optimize our play better. So normal seems like an interesting challenge as well.

I also want to see how different the game feels. Will I do the same things each time? Is the game a limited puzzle with limited shelf life? Is the expansion needed to keep it fresh? I definitely could see if I played the game a lot, it being one that loses steam as time goes by.

The Reckoners Initial Impressions

I like this game a lot. I think after one play I rate it as an 8.5 out of 10. It is a very accessible cooperative game. The packaging, the huge box and all the trays and things, it makes it look way more intimidating than it actually is. I could pull out The Reckoners and play with most people. And while the theme won’t come across that much, it is still a fun theme to work with.

It reminds me a bit of the Dresden Files Cooperative Card game when it comes to theme. If you know the source material, the theme is there. If you don’t, it is still a really good game. This one I think is even more accessible than that one is. And does the theme better, but just slightly. And as you learn the theme, you might want to read the books because of the game.

Have you played the Reckoners? What are you thoughts?

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I am not going to tell you everything that I got, only that it was a lot. I know the number, it was 18 different expansions for Sentinels of the Multiverse. A lot of them being smaller little character packs like for Ambuscade, Chokepoint, and Miss Information. Those smaller character packs, $1.25 each. But there are other expansions as well like Shattered Timelines & Wrath of the Cosmos or Oblivaeon that are discounted a ton as well.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a superhero game where you take on the role of superheroes to defeat a supervillain and their schemes. From the nefarious Baron Blade and on. Unlike games like Marvel Champions, Marvel Legendary, DC Deck Builder, etc. this is not a standard comic IP game, this game was created with it’s all new and “unique” characters for the world. In the game you use your deck of cards to get abilities into play to be able to handle bad guys and other threats as well as take down the main villain. Now, this sounds a bit like Marvel Champions, but each characters deck is set, so you aren’t doing the deck crafting like in Marvel Champions. This means that everything is going to be on theme or the character you are playing, versus the aspects in Marvel Champions.

That’s all that I picked up, but I do want to point out a few games that Greater Than Games has. The first is Lazer Ryderz. This is a silly little game that is basically the light bikes from Tron, but you aren’t just trying to crash the other person. Though, that can be some of your strategy. It’s a fun and light game and on a super good sale at $15. Another is Homebrewers, this game is one of my favorite games. It is a fun little engine building game where you are competing to become the best homebrewer. It has a great theme and plays really fast. It gives you room to come up with a strategy, but also keeps you thinking on your feet. And finally is Medium. This one is a little party game where the players are trying to connect the two words on their cards by saying a word and hoping to match the other person. If they don’t they try again with the words that they just said. It’s a fun concept for a game that can lead to a lot of laughs.

What good Black Friday game deals have you found?

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What I am talking about is how series are crafted and issues that can be ran into when creating a series. Like most of these topics, it’s come about because I read a book, watched a show, heard something about a game, or something along those lines that I thought is important and could be done better than it is often or sometimes anyways. I also want to get out of the way, I don’t think this book, Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 1) was a bad story and poorly written and not worth anyone’s time, I just have some issues with the fact that to get a full books worth of story, you’re going to have to continue the series, Arsenal felt like an opening act.

Let’s start out this article with wondering if you should even be writing a series. I do think there are multiple reasons to write a series and I think there are some that do it fantastically. For example, Harry Potter, that makes perfect sense to be a series and not just tell Harry and Voldemort’s story in a single book. It would have felt rushed and there is a lot to explore in the world that Rowling does a good job doing in that series, no comments about the other stuff she’s doing now. She had a clear vision for each book and a clear story to tell in each book as well as clear elements of the over arcing story that she was telling. The Dresden Files does the same thing very well with clear stories but after the first book or so, a clear plot running through all of the books. Maybe you just have to have a main character named Harry who is a wizard to write good series (if there’s any piece of advice to take, this is it, I’m sure).

However, in Arsenal, it didn’t feel like that was the case. The first book was the opening act of a larger story with no real tension to the story. You had an idea of what the overall story for the series is going to be, but the first book fell flat on delivering it’s own contained story. One could argue that it’s Arsenal’s story of her joining the superhero team, but there isn’t tension surrounding that part of the story as it’s resolved quite quickly in the book and her probationary period doesn’t seem like a situation where she’s ever not going to become a full member of the team.

Beyond having a number of self contained stories, it could also be that your story is just too epic to tell in a single book. There’s a danger with telling a single epic story like this, though, you have to have some sort of plot to drive the story for each book in the series. Again, Harry Potter and The Dresden Files do a good job of that. That’s actually one of the non-trope based knocks I have on The Warded Man as the first book of the Demon Cycle. While there is some plot that drives the book throughout that seems like it is the main plot of the first book, it falls into the trap of not having much of a plot for the book and focusing only on series plot instead. I think that is some of why it had so much exposition and backstory for all the characters that felt like it was overdone.

I’ve already talked about it some, but when you’ve decided to do a series, trilogy or longer really, there is one huge thing that you have to do to make sure that each book feels like a complete book. This is the part I really want to drive home. Even though you have the most epic story for your series, each book in the series is going to have it’s own complete story as well. An obvious example of something that most people know about that fails to do this completely is Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, after a smashing success with the first movie, they planned on several more of them and decided with Dead Man’s Chest that they didn’t need tell a complete story because they were going to wrap it up in At World’s End. Viewed together, they make a good complete story, however, when you were spending money to get see Dead Man’s Chest in the theaters you felt like you were ripped off because you had to come and see the next one to fully get the whole story.

This is actually why I haven’t continued Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero) yet, because I don’t know that I want to spend Audible credits to continue a story that I know I might have to listen to all of them to get the full story. It’s the idea that I have to do something to really get the story and that there is a very specific amount that I have to spend on the story. If you were to stop after book three of Harry Potter, sure you wouldn’t have the full story of everything that happens in that magical world, but you’d have had a good experience with those stories. It’s the same with the Dresden Files, now obviously, you’ll get more out of reading the whole story, and the same was true with Pirates of the Caribbean, but as an creator, it isn’t your job to force people to give you money to get a whole story. They should be getting a whole story every time, because that’s what they’ve paid for. Then if you’ve written your story well, people are going to want to come back and people are going to recommend your story to others. While I am mentioning Arsenal and that might get some of you interested in reading it, I’m not going to recommend it, because it fails at this tenant of creating a good series and I can’t with good conscience recommend that people spend their money on the whole series to get a whole story.

So quick recap as this wraps up. Make sure that you actually need a series to tell your story. If the over arcing story isn’t so big that you need to, don’t draw it out. You’ll end up with a lot of filler that people don’t want to read and turn people away from your series. Also, and most key, make sure that every book has a self contained story to it. Every book should feel like it’s reached a conclusion and that the consumer got their money’s worth.  And finally, if all else fails, name a wizard character Harry and go from there to see what happens.

What are some of your favorite series, either movie, books, or anything else that you think does a very good job?

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Superman: The Son of Krypton, and for much of his time, he thought that the last of his race. Sent to earth as a young child, Superman was raised by two human parents before finding out how truly different he was. Superman lives up to his name, in that he is about as powerful as any hero out there. He is the Man of Steel, he can fly, he has X-Ray vision, and is generally pretty immune to most things. So, how do you make an interesting story off of that? I would argue that is where the movies have struggled greatly, it is hard to make that interesting a story when you hero is basically all powerful, but where good Superman stories work isn’t about something being stronger or tougher than him, but someone being able to manipulate him and put him into a situation that isn’t nearly as favorable as he tries to keep make himself appear. As an alien, he just isn’t completely sure of his place in humanity and often anointing himself the protector of humanity he gets himself into troubles because he can’t live up to the level of good that he and society hold him to.

Batman: Probably more famous than Superman, Batman is the terror that flaps in the night… wait, that’s Darkwing Duck, but Batman is the Dark Knight, he considers himself outside the law, seeing governments become corrupt, and he brings justice to the bad guys, often by sending them off to jail, but he is able to operate outside the law. In the real world he is rich kid Bruce Wayne whose parents were killed in front of him as a young kid. He has used that to fuel his desire to clean up the streets of his Gotham and turn it the great city that his father wanted it to be. However, Batman seems to attract villains (it would be boring if he didn’t), and he attracts the real crazy villains. Batman, at times, can be a fairly straightforward character, but his villains are unparalleled in either DC or Marvel.

Wonder Woman: She is a princess on her own island and part of the race of Amazonians. Her race and lineage are based off of that of Greek mythology. She leaves her island after an airplane pilot crashes there and needs help to be taken back to civilization. Once in humanity as a whole, she realizes that she can do good with her lasso of truth and bracelets that can deflect bullets. She strives to provide justice not as much through violence and destruction but through reconciliation, or at least she did originally. My experience with Wonder Woman is primarily based out off Justice League and most interesting when she is part of the group. I’m sure that she has some very good solo adventures, but many of her villains are Justice League villains, or not that great in terms of villains.

Green Lantern/Hal Jordan: I’m specifying which Green Lantern, because there are several of them. Hal Jordan was an airplane pilot and a bit of a thrill junky. His life was a struggle though as he followed in his father’s footsteps as a pilot, facing the demons that came along with that since his father has passed away in a plane crash. That didn’t stop Hal Jordan, but his life changed when an alien crashed onto Earth and was dying. He passed on a green ring to Hal which turned him into the Green Lantern. The Green Lantern is a major player in the whole DC Universe, going far beyond Earth, fighting other alien races, and struggling the skirmishes between the different lantern colors. His stories often are the Earth or Universe shattering events, and a lot of the time in the larger cosmic and DC Universe events that involve all the characters, the Green Lantern is one of the main players.

That is just a start on superheroes from DC. Are you looking forward to the Wonder Woman movie?

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“What a great day. Eight days ’til Christmas! I feel like celebrating.”

“And look at that…I’m already dressed for it!”

“But what should I do?”

“I’ve got it!”

“It’s family picture time!”

“Probably better gather some other folks who are already dressed for the occasion. Hey, guys!”

“You look perfect, Soranik. Come with me, please!”

“Hey there, Mera! Come on down, we’re gonna do something fun!”

“Heya, Daredevil! We’re doing a Christmas photo. Wanna come?”

“Er…sorry…silly of me to forget you can’t see me waving…my bad.”

“Okay, everybody; tall folks in the back!”

“Sorry…not you, little guy.”

“Now, everybody act like you like each other…heh heh…”

“Looks pretty good! But something’s missing…”

“Ah! You’re right, Mini-Link…we need more light!”

“Ooh, this looks promising.”

“Gaaaaaaaah! So bright!!”

“There…much better!”

“Sorry, Louise…you’re cute, but we’d never be able to see everyone behind you!”

“Alright…everybody ready?”

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!”

Love and laser beams,

The Nerdologists

Today, we’re continuing on the topic of board games — Kristen and I host a board game night every second Saturday; our most recent one was this past weekend, and this time, we played Legendary. Legendary is a deck-building game in which you team up with your fellow players to defeat an evil mastermind.

As a deck-building game, Legendary is similar to games like Dominion. But unlike Dominion, it’s played either cooperatively or as one player vs. all the rest (in the latter setup, the single player takes on the role of the Mastermind). As players of Legendary, you are higher-ups in S.H.I.E.L.D and are recruiting your superhero team. You are going up against a mastermind and trying to stop them from completing their evil scheme. In our game, Blade, Captain America, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Elektra, and Iron Fist were the heroes we could recruit. We were going up against The Kingpin as the Mastermind of our game, who wanted to take over the Daily Bugle, and for some reason, we wanted to stop him.

On each turn, the player whose turn it is flips over a villain card and adds that villain to the city. There can be up to five villains in the city before one of them escapes. Next, the player looks at their hand of six cards, which they can use to either recruit other heroes to join their team or play the heroes they already have to fight against a villain who is in the city. Or, if it is a really good turn and they draw well, players can use their cards to fight against the Mastermind. The heroes you buy can combo off of each other to improve how hard you can hit or how much influence you have for recruiting heroes. These are the basics of game play, and you are constantly adding cards to your deck as you go, trying to make it stronger and better so you can build up enough points to punch the Mastermind.

This is a fun game, albeit one that starts off kind of slow. During your first handful of turns, you spend a lot of time building up your deck. Once you’ve done that, the turns start getting longer, but at that point, players can do a whole lot more per turn. In our case, while we did end up defeating the Mastermind, our cards didn’t combo off of each other all that well, so it took a long time to build up enough cards to make something happen. The slow speed of the game, especially early on, is one of its weaknesses. It is so hard to hit the Mastermind that you feel like you might as well have skipped the first five rounds and just added heroes to your deck.

However, you are playing with superheroes, which is a lot of fun. As someone who has read a lot of recent comic books, I know who so many of the heroes in the game are, and in our case, I noticed that we ended up building a team of heroes who were all somehow related to Hell’s Kitchen (Daredevil’s area of New York and the area that Kingpin often has his hands in), which made our session work well thematically. And all of the friends in the group we played with are as nerdy as we are, so we were able to talk about recent movies and shows featuring the heroes from our game, and got to give some of the group a lesson on characters who were new to them, like Iron Fist.

But even though the game revolves around heroes, the gamemakers missed out on the one thing that could have made the pace of play a non-issue. If they had built in a story element to the game, you wouldn’t even notice that the first few turns are slow. As it is, there is a Mastermind who can do a little bit, but often doesn’t make all that much sense story-wise, and the scheme, while cool, is always the same for a big part of the game. If the Mastermind could change tactics and take different actions, it would feel like you are playing out a comic book story. For example: the group stops the Kingpin at first, but he comes up with a new plan, and they have to stop him again as it builds up to his ultimate scheme. It would be a lot of fun that way, would teach players about some of the bad guys from Marvel, and would make the game more engaging for those who don’t know as much about the characters and how they interact within the world of the comics.

Overall, I really do like this game. It’s built for someone like me, though that means it wouldn’t necessarily be as appealing to a casual player. I love the complexity of the combos and how the heroes interact. However, the combos in this game are more complex than those in Dominion, and while you can help your teammates strategize how best to play their turn, I think that Dominion is more fun overall, and certainly faster to play. But as I said, I really do enjoy this game. I have fun playing it and figuring out how to build the best deck of cards that I can. But there is a definite learning curve and a steep time commitment involved with playing this game. It’s one that’s probably best to play with a group of more serious gamers, or with people who really like games that are built more on logic than on luck.

Overall Grade” B-

Gamer Grade: B+

Casual Grade: D+

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