Antihero

I just read about it on RPS, and it won’t be entering EA until the beginning of next year (according to the developer). But Goddammit, I want to play this now.

yeah it looks like very well

That seems like it will be worth checking out, what a great little idea for a game!

I started following this turn-based boardgame heist thingy after stumbling into the trailer last Summer, and emailed the developer. Yesterday I received a notice that the Beta (they call it First Access) is available for $10, so I snatched it up.

It’s not yet feature complete (there are only 4 maps, and single player is limited to the tutorial and skirmish play. A campaign is planned. The game supports local multiplayer and async play), but it is stable and already a hell of a lot of fun.

Essentially you control a Master Thief and his/her henchmen, exploring the board, carrying out assassinations, robbing mansions, and conducting all sorts of skullduggery to earn victory points. There are two kinds of buildings on the map - Estates and Commercial Buildings. Estates can be robbed twice for much-needed cash, and infiltrating Commercial Buildings earns you either resources (gold and liquor) or a buff of some kind. At the start your Thief can only take two actions/turn but that can be increased.

Resources can be used to purchase buffs and unlock Henchmen. Each Henchman has one or two abilities to be utilized, and be used once per turn. Urchins infiltrate, Gangs are your muscle, Sabotours allow you to screw with your opponent by booby-trapping attractive-looking targets, etc.

Victory points are earned by successfully carrying out assassination quests, blackmailing the church(!), infiltrating specific targets and so forth. First to 6 VP’s wins the game.

It’s surprisingly polished for a one-man development house. As I said, it plays well and there are no game-breaking bugs that I’ve seen, although there are some balance issues that need addressing.

Coming soon to Steam (there’s a page but no way to buy it yet), you can grab the current build at itch.io

I’ll echo @tgb123 comments–it really is a lot of fun, and I expect it to be better balanced as the player base increases. If you want to try it now, though, keep in mind that there are a limited number of keys available for purchase at the itch.io link above (currently, 151 keys remain) and it will cost more than $10 when it hits Steam. You’ll also receive a Steam key for your $10 once it launches on Steam.

EDIT: For those wanting to play asynch MP with email turn notifications, my Antihero online handle is Mysterio!

Expect my challenge.

I remember reading about this game for iOS. Is there a launch day for mobile devices?

None that I’ve seen.

I love that the game includes scenarios that add new twists to the core formula.

If somebody has the time to set up league play I’d be up for it. I don’t, as this is my busy season with work.

I’ll probably pick this up sooner or later. I’m trying to stay away from early access, but if you guys actually get some regular multiplayer rolling I could probably be persuaded to jump in now.

Is the AI good enough right now for the single-player skirmish to be fun?

The developer says no, but I found it challenging the one time I played it so far. I eked out a win, but just barely.

Speaking of the developer, I just challenged him to a game. This ought to be interesting.

I love the fact that turns can be finished pretty quickly. It reminds me of Chaos Returns, which is a good thing.

It is very easy to trick right now. It just serves as an experimental tool to get used to the mechanics of each “scenarios” (well, maps) in my case. Fun experiments, although.

If anyone wants to humiliate me (albeit slowly, I am shick and can’t promise being focused in any way), my handle is Left Empty (with a space) in game.

Picked this up on Mysterio’s recommendation. Thanks for the heads-up too @tgb123. Once I’ve played the tutorial I’ll start throwing a few challenges out. I’ll probably end up waiting till it’s content complete but I can’t resist having a dabble now.

90 keys remain!

Devs commented yesterday:

We’ll be launching iOS and Android versions later next year

I learned enough playing imaginary Internet friends to be able to beat the AI handily in a skirmish game, so take that for what it’s worth…

Pro Tip:

It’s not enough to just infiltrate a Church for the Victory Point. I learned the hard way that you have to hold it. If your Urchins get evicted later you lose the VP.

I wonder if a Saboteur can plant a booby-trap in a building you’ve infiltrated. I’ll head over to the boards and ask.

I think I’ve seen the AI do this. Also, in the tutorial, when it talks about using the Gang to evict Urchins, it notes to beware of traps. I’m assuming that’s the main purpose, to protect Businesses that contain 3 Urchins if you expect your opponent to attempt to evict them within the next two turns.

Also, did you notice the shape of the banner above a Business changes based on whether there are 0, 1, or 3 Urchins in it?

I just heard from Tim (developer) and you’re right. I haven’t noticed any change in the shape of the banners, but I haven’t been looking for that either. I’ll check it out later when I play.