FIRST LIGHT discussion

[LucaRocks]

Kurgan had similar thoughts when I asked him about it on YouTube.

I am REALLY hoping we see WOM by late summer or early fall

[Kurgan]

Thanks to talismanisland on HeroQuestFans discord for sharing these links about the Fanroll First Light fancy dice:

https://gamersguildaz.com/products/fanroll-6ct-heroquest-first-light-d6-dice-set?_pos=4&_psq=first+light&_ss=e&_v=1.0 $17 for the tin of 6 dice.

https://www.archonia.com/en-us/product/508170/heroquest-board-game-dice-set-first-light-d6 yes, it will be available in Europe, €19.99

and:

https://www.aiegames.com.au/product/mdg-heroquest-first-light-d6-dice-set-18503.html

https://dungeonmarvels.com/heroquest-first-light-set-de-dados-de-6-caras-6-84126.html

Thanks DungeonMaster (from Germany) for sharing this link too:

https://www.fantasywelt.de/HeroQuest-First-Light-D6-Dice-Set

[Daedalus]

Scrolling through the Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread, I came across a post made during the Pulse campaign:

Ha! Yeah, anybody saying there is a real "schism" coming is trolling or paranoid. Sorry I misread your sarcasm.

If somebody doesn't want this, it doesn't harm me at all! If I hate it and somebody else loves it, my life is unchanged. We've all seen the fund-raising progress. I personally didn't contribute a dime (I don't join kick starters for products as a rule). Even if had decided to bash the project from now until "Fall 2021" it would still get released and people will still enjoy it. I'm relieved they didn't ruin it, and it is still theoretically compatible. Again, it could have been a lot worse. Many franchises have been "updated" in very controversial ways that have indeed led to divided communities and people getting bent out of shape, so thank goodness that's not happening here.

People on social media (which is a bad place to be these days it seems) seem to be making a big deal about this, and I agree, it's silly.

Regarding the price, I hate to say it, but they COULD make another adjustment to what I call the "normie" version of HeroQuest. Instead of these super detailed minis, they could just include 2d, cardboard standup minis and sell it at a bargain price (maybe include a coupon for the 3d minis in each box for those who want to send away for some or all of them). Since these days they cost more, they could do that and drive down the price for the "casual" player. Yeah, the 3d minis are a big part of the experience, but having a $100-150 price tag IS going to stop a lot of people from buying Hero Quest that might otherwise be willing to try it and become a life-long fan...

It's like:
Oh, you want to buy Monopoly? Well too bad, your only option is the Deluxe Set with solid wood, velvet lined board, 24K gold tokens and crystal dice. No cheaper version for casual players curious to try something new... !

ZombieCide did it, right? Cheap basic version anyone can get into, nothing more to buy... BUT option to get the special parts to trick it out and go full on hardcore hobbyist geek...

And yeah, UK gamers, don't pay $300+ for this only to have the real version come out 2 years from now or something. I like the idea of trustworthy people here buying extra copies and shipping at cost to our friends across the pond.

Good call, Kurgan!

[Daedalus]

Like most if not all of us, I hope First Light sees success. What I think would be a great follow-up would be a First-Light expansion. What I mean is a Quest Pack with 10 Quests in a booklet as usual, with a new rule or two (include scroll artifact cards, for instance). The monsters would all be cardboard standees to match the core set, and a few new tiles could also be added to spice things up. Maybe even add an alternate gender sculpt for a Hero miniature in each expansion.

Key point: The standee monsters should already be available as miniatures from another expansion. This way, the new Quest Pack would come in at a lower cost point, but more serious fans who have collected Rise of the Dread Moon for example could reuse those miniatures in new official Quests. New First-Light expansion purchasers could later upgrade to regular expansions for better minis as well. Best of both worlds = more market.

If I understand correctly, Stephen Baker has authored at least one more Quest series for Avalon Hill, so let's see it as an economy expansion! This way, a new generation of fans can be introduced to quality HeroQuest expansions that are true to the original game.

With respect of course, Patrick O'Rourke said in the interview that they didn't have plans to do this actually. They don't want to end up splitting the fanbase between those who played First Light and those who started with the game system... by releasing expansions that REQUIRE First Light (as opposed to expansions that are compatible with both). . . .

. . . Presumably this hypothetical "First Light Expansion" would feature the Dragon and the "Caverns" board, right? Otherwise it would be already compatible with the GS since it features 100% the equivalent components as both versions of the game system previously released.

I think there may be those who fear that if First Light IS successful we'll see a parallel split between expansions like this or else that existing expansions will be re-released in "cheaper" format with cardboard. Both of those ideas were shot down at GenCon.

While it's true anything could happen (some boss at Hasbro could swoop down with some "brilliant plan" and ruin it all overnight, heaven forbid), I was re-assured by those messages direct from Avalon Hill. You can listen to those interviews on my channel where they sound off, on the record, against those ideas.

Though I didn't specify it, in my mind I was proposing an expansion that doesn't require First Light. This would mean that a Stephen Baker sequel to the events of First Light (which he says is already written) couldn't rely on the caverns side of the gameboard. I'd hope that through collaboration with Avalon Hill this was set as a parameter, but who knows?

Looking back on other Baker Quest lines, we know tying the lore together is an important element, so a First Light sequel is prepared. (Come on-n-n Skulmar!) We also know Baker Quests so far require very little in terms of new miniatures. The orange minis in Prophecy of Telor are basically included by Avalon Hill to meet an expansion expectation rather than fulfill play requirements of his Quest Pack. The online Quest was limited to minis from the Main Game System. First Light included exactly one dragon.

If Stephen follows form, a First Light sequel Quest Pack won't require many--if any--new miniatures. Of course, Avalon Hill could have asked for a Quest Pack that features a set of new monsters, which would be a welcome addition to the Main Game System. (Personally, I would like some of those to be Ratmen.) Assuming this isn't the case, I'm worried that his Quest Pack wouldn't be turned into product unless it can provide rationalization for Avalon Hill to attach transparently colored proxy minis. (Shadow monsters, for example,)
 

. . .The great thing about cardboard though is that fans who want to create more standees have a much easier time because they don't need a 3d printer to make minis that approach the quality of what's in the box. Anyone with any printer and some cardboard to use as backing and try their hand at it. So you can make standees for all the sets you own if you want, knock yourself out!

I like this thinking. I don't see this threatening their profits as buying expansions for their full content is still the way to go.

FL uses mostly standees to keep the complete box under $50 retail with the added bonus of the box itself not taking up so much shelf space, which makes it easier for a retail store like Target to stock it next to other games. It's not just about customers feeling "intimidated" by the size and price, but the store itself who values shelf space and moving product quickly.

The box size and price point are the factors here, so if you can imagine "First Light" being $50 on the shelf, you can just as easily imagine The Frozen Horror, the same version that was released two years ago, sitting next to it on the shelf for $45 (or less!). Hopefully that happens soon and who knows, maybe we'll see the big GS box on the shelf as well as the "Deluxe" version of what FL offers. And still there will be consumer choice for those who are not yet ready to take the plunge but just want to test the game out with the smaller box first to see if they like it and want more. . . .

Whether it's the Barbarian Quest Pack or Stephen Baker's sequel to First Light, I'm not confident block stores will be willing to offer additional shelf space to Hero Quest expansions. That's for dedicated boardgame stores and hobby shops to stock. Perhaps if First Light sells fabulously well I will be proven wrong. (I hope so) After all, Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord were commonly available back in the day. The problem is, there's a lot more competition for those shelves in today's boardgame market.

[lestodante]

I have to say I like the First Light "operation".
They had a change of style in the board, very colorful, which remember me the 1989 version more, while the actual one looks a bit "grey" for me.
There is a nice improvement in the quality and style of the 4 heroes miniatures, seems they understood how to sculpt them in a single piece with, requiring no assemble and no glue (less cost of production). Maybe only the elf is assembled (the arms), I should see her in real life to realize.
The furniture tiles looks very colorful, although all of us prefer the plastic ones from the 2021 edition, but these new tiles look beautifully painted, they hired a better artist this time.
The double side board is also an improvement which finally allows us to change or classic sheme in custom quest creations.
The new questbook by Steven Baker will be surely interesting to play.
I appreciate they decided to change the early AI generated cover for this pack to a new one, painted by a real artist.
The dragon... well, it sucks a bit for me, I don't like this miniature at all. The one from The Crypt of Perpetual Darkness was a better sculpt, although it was blocked over a pillar. Luckily I have a worth replacement for it.
Since I already have the 89 version of the game with and a pile of vintage Citadel miniatures I like so much, I will consider to purchase this version to upgrade my system, being now able to use the new tiles and the new cards.
Using the old miniatures on a larger squares board will also be a great improvement for me.

[Kurgan]

Short version: HeroQuest = Game System (in whatever form) + expansion you're currently playing
As it is, First Light references characters and events from the Game System (2021/2022). So theoretically you should be buying and playing that FIRST (and at the same time). However as Doug explained, this is not required at all. He fully expects there will be some who only buy FL and then go right into the various expansions in whatever order they choose. He understands (and even encourages) people to play them in whatever order they like, and doesn't expect every single customer to buy every single expansion box (as much as that would be great for their bottom line, it's just not a realistic expectation even if those particular boxes continue to be widely available indefinitely).

FL does "cut corners" to save money in some obvious ways, but more so the changes seem designed to shrink the space occupied on the shelf more than than to just make it cheaper. They might have also had the end goal that it would still cost more than your big box expansions sending the message that you get this first before those. And yes, at this price many more who wouldn't otherwise buy it will do so simply because it is cheaper.

Longer version:
Storylines can be referenced all they want. Drop in characters, reference events, do whatever you like, the point is that their pattern and stated goal is not to require you to play the expansions in a certain order or for one expansion to require some other expansion be owned (even if doing so could enhance the experience potentially).

Thus you never have to buy or play MotM to enjoy ROTDM. You never ever have to play Kellar's Keep in order to play Return of the Witch Lord, etc.

Thus you would never need to play First Light even if events, characters, or rules referenced in it get brought up in some future expansion. Agreed with that point.

If they were to write a future questbook that "required" the use of the Hearthkin Horn as some kind of essential plot point, then I would expect for that item to simply be listed within the expansion and explained (easy, because it doesn't have a physical card in First Light where it is introduced). If that expansion required a dragon, then I'd expect to find a Dragon in the box. If it used Caverns, then there would be Caverns in the box, etc.

I approve this system because otherwise you set a complicating factor that will possibly "intimidate" some new players who see a series of boxes where one is prerequisite for another and another down the line (not just an initial purchase and then any or no expansions as you wish) making the real initial investment exorbitant in their mind. Oh HeroQuest? That's not $135... it's more like $435! Like Doug was saying, you might never get to the expansion you really wanted to play with your group because you're getting bogged down in playing earlier adventures you didn't want to play or don't enjoy as much. Instead the system is setup so that while it's nice to play a few quests to get your bearings with the "easier" GS and then launch into the storyline, you can jump around and do whatever you like without too much problem so long as the book you're playing begins at the beginning in terms of gameplay progression.

As to whether stores will move to stock other things besides First Light under the HQ brand on a regular basis, that remains to be seen, but Hasbro (and AH) are clearly hoping it will be successful enough this will convince those bigger retail stores to expand. These stores can move a lot more product than those FLGS stores can be expected to move. In theory this could make HQ really blow up again, beyond anything we've seen in 35 years. Good luck to them (and to us)! Even if it doesn't, it will still potentially get more people to look into the brand. Even without a flier in the box explicitly advertising the other expansions (which would be foolish to omit) the QR Code will lead them to the page to download the App, which if they get that, will show them there are other expansions and they may begin to wonder where to get those, check out the main hasbropulse page, etc. Maybe Target will be deluged in calls from customers demanding they start stocking those boxes, and desire a cut of that action. Here's hoping!

I'm keeping my expectations modest for now, so I'm not assuming there will be an entire shelf devoted to nothing but HQ and contain all of the retail products anytime soon. But FL next to the latest expansion? Absolutely. Maybe a big sale around the holidays of the GS and some other stuff too? Makes perfect sense. Savvy customers will already be going to the FLGS to get "everything" they can anyway, this is for the normie/casual potential customers. Once they realize what HQ is and start getting interested in buying that's a great thing to stock. Plus there will be those who think it looks great and want to buy an expansion with it immediately. It might be they're buying a gift for the HQ fan in their life and grab it without thinking, but at least there's new content for that person as well. I stopped into a local Target recently to see what it was like and they seemed to have multiple Warhammer "starter" type sets as well as D&D type boxes available, so if the HQ brand ever gets big enough that is totally reasonable to expect to see someday.

They didn't go as cheap as possible on this one... they certainly could have taken us back to 1990's (or modern Warhammer) sensibility and given us figures on sprues (even with 0-1% assembly required as in classic HQ other than the ones that involve ogres!). They wouldn't have to give us any plastic minis at all, just cardboard standees. Instead they went with a hybrid, so it seems the smaller form factor for the shelf (and enticing hardcore players like us to still buy) is what's going on more than just saving cash on materials and production costs. They're still putting linen finish on the tiles and cards... they've still got thread stitching on satin finish full color booklets. If they were just out to cut corners they could have ditched all that as the originals didn't have that! Other than the bare fact of standee monsters and flat tile furniture, the only other area where they obvious skimped or downgraded to save cash was with the thinner board with its plainer texture. Thank goodness we didn't get blank cube dice with stickers (like that "HeroQuest Card Game").

PS: Prior to the release of the 2021 remake (recall, we had to wait an entire YEAR between the end of the haslab crowdfunding campaign and boxes being shipped out!) I went over to Boardgamesmaker and had them print me a quad fold, matte finish, blow up of the classic 1989-1991 board scaled to 1x1 inch squares. I wanted to see for myself how the furniture, minis, etc from the classic HQ looked on it (and I was convinced there was no problem). I still use this board for all my streamed HQ games, whether using classic, remake, or homebrew components (or some combination which is more often than not the case these days). It all fits fine. The only difference is whether the HeroQuest logo is on the the right edge of the board or the bottom of the rectangle (which works fine for my setup, I'm sitting at a square card table). From what I hear of the durability of some of those remake boards, I made the right decision keeping it in the box!

[Daedalus]

Bringing up Target is a good example of how HeroQuest may be marketed. Hopefully, their bigger games selection will see HQ expansions.

You had mentioned how First Light conserves cost without skimping while maintaining a smaller shelf footprint. I'd like to expand. This old post from the Lobby introduces the issue:

Hi all! I was around when HQ was being advertised in gaming magazines and comic books. But of course, being a kid in the Philippines, it was next to impossible for me to get ahold of the game, despite all my begging!
. . .

I have family in the Philippines and can share that the game market is thin. Similar markets surely exist around the world. I realize Hasbro is after profits, but I can't help but wish that more kids could experience the fun of a dungeon crawler, which HeroQuest could satisfy especially well. With that in mind, what would HeroQuest need to look like in order to sell in the Philippines and elsewhere?

Shipping matters, so weight is critical. My wish list for less fortunate kids includes a compact, lightweight, cheap HeroQuest game. To achieve that, a version of First Light can be reduced in quality while still remaining the same core game. Think back to the various starter Dungeon & Dragons boxed sets of the 90s. Those presented an immersive experience with heavy paper components (maps, gamescreen, character cards, monster standees or tokens) and a few Hero Minis. The 2008 starter set improved on this with card tiles. What could a bargain-bargain First Light alternative look like?

The box need be no larger than a slim D&D starter set box, perhaps even less if squared off. The two-sided gameboard could be a heavy-paper folded poster, or else it could be reduced to 6 square poster board tiles. Other tiles such as the spiral stairway or skull markers could be made from the same poster board. Poster board could also be used for the cards and Zargon screen. The monsters could be made into standees with plastic bases, same as First Light but optionally from poster board. The furniture could also be done optionally as poster board card tiles, similar to First Light. The Heroes are probably best kept as minis, but even they could be traded in for standees. The Instruction Booklet and Quest Book can be kept largely the same, though the full-color art should be simplified to just a few colors. The card backs can also have coloring simplified. The dice could be printed sides or even stickers applied to blanks-yikes!!, but maybe the standard dice should be supplied by Avalon Hill as they are already under production.

While all of these changes would certainly repel most of the serious fans, the affordability of this no-frills edition could reduce the cost enough to make HeroQuest affordable purchases for parents of kids around the world. For this separate, less-affluent market, a half-cost First Light could be just the ticket. I don't think this is what Avalon Hill is after, so I imagine a different company would need to step in with a Hasbro license, similar to what Estralia had done with the Brazilian edition. While I don't see this as likely, in the best of all worlds it would happen. Hell, until a couple of years ago, most people believed that Hero Quest would never come back . . . now look where we are!

[Kurgan]

I think the First Light situation will be interesting to see play out. It could potentially be more impactful than the Haslab campaign, because that was simply bringing HQ back to a limited number of people. The retail version didn't split the community because the rules and lore were very close... virtually the same, as the North American edition of 1990. It seems the new HQ has been cheerfully accepted outside of the US despite different official rulesets being used elsewhere (other than Brazil, which has yet to get the remake edition).

While FL is not intended to remove the Game System, and the rules are still virtually the same (many small tweaks to core components which were not so tightly clarified before on paper but still the same basic core ruleset and lore), it will be in the hands of many more people. The potential is there that it could attract a vast number of new players who could in theory have different desires, wants, and needs than the existing fanbase and "outvote" us based on their numbers with Avalon Hill, who is trying to cater to the broadest number of their customers. Hopefully not though, hopefully the general appeal of HeroQuest remains consistent even if it becomes more available, and this in turn only makes it easier to get the other expansions which will not suffer in terms of production as demand increases (potentially a lot) for the basic game. I don't think a schism will form between the "new fans" who get into the game based on First Light and the rest of us, but it is at least in the realm of possibility.

Even if Hasbro were to get new leadership (or if HQ itself were to be outsourced to another publisher though if they were given complete creative control they might mismanage it if they didn't share the same vision as AH), I don't think much would change here either. While anything is possible, it seems the general movement of the fandom in reaction to the product will continue along its current trends. Even if the company were to change direction radically, and if worst case scenario it were to change so much it lost its connection with the fans, the old community would simply continue as it has, and that untapped market would be noticed by someone and picked up elsewhere, even if it took another thirty years. I think we're here to stay, and HeroQuest the franchise is here to stay as long as its viewed as profitable.

[Daedalus]

If Hasbro were serious about keeping HeroQuest on as an evergreen game such as Risk, I think there would need to be more internet support to generate awareness. Back in the day this was accomplished with Saturday morning commercials. Were the Quests of First Light or something similar to be converted into Heroscape-like animated shorts for YouTube or Tic-Tok consumption (or wherever kids get their culture, idk), that would go a long way toward growing the youth market, I expect.

[Kurgan]

I've had similar thoughts about their marketing and expanding. While it's kind of cool to get fancy dice tins (I don't like that they're "limited edition"), they could spend money putting out commercials that could be run in front of social media, in movie theaters, etc. special displays at stores, demos (with giveaways) like they did very briefly earlier this year, and getting things setup in other international markets (hint: priorities those countries that had HQ back in the day, who may have a slumbering fanbase waiting to be awakened!).

Hasbro seems to be losing ground (allegedly?) so making smart decisions with their IPs that are successful is all the more important these days. They can't just assume the loyalty of their customers anymore, it has to be based upon quality, support, and outreach... based on stability and honesty. Marketing is like communication there, and while the viral marketing is very helpful, it's not enough.