HEROQUEST - COMPANION APP discussion

[Kurgan]

The honor system once again.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Thanks HispaZargon, always seems obvious after someone else has pointed it out!

Just completed "Lair of the Orc Warlord" and "Prince Magnus's Gold" this afternoon/evening, some immediate thoughts, get them whilst they are fresh

Prince Magnus's Gold aka ‘the long walk’ – 100+ steps on a single die - seriously that is terrible quest design - is in desperate need of some secret doors or something or a mechanism for introducing Wandering Monsters like rolling a 1 on a single die or double 1 on normal movement!

Jumping an already sprung pit should be easier but not automatic 2+ maybe 3+ , but potion of speed and swift wind could make that automatic

Considering a “Skip Turn” option, if it is your turn and you cannot move or take any other actions then “skip” to be put to the back of the queue

Ulag died in a single hit (same as Verag in the Trial previously) as did Gulthor although he did at least get an attack in first – extra BP for Bosses that are basic monsters - both killed by Barbarian on steroids, sorry "Courage"

Is Courage too strong? – in the base game at least potions tend to have an instant or “when you next …” single action only effect whereas spells that have similar effects to potions tend to have a potentially longer period of effect, until certain conditions are met, so it doesn’t make sense to limited the courage spell to a single action or it becomes the same as the Potion of Strength so I'm considering just restricting Courage to one extra attack die rather than two.

Wiz made good use of his spells by fire balling a troll (Fimir/Abomination), lifts the line of sight restriction and just allowing spells to be cast on targets that the Wizard can see is certainly a good idea, I'm sticking with that

As the Wizard starts with a Staff under my ruleset that chest in Lair of the Orc Warlord first quest yielded 4 daggers instead, one each.

Elf bought a x-bow between quests a little frustrating in the first half of the quest but got a few shots in killing a couple of monster later on

Dwarf bought a helmet - Shield to 125, Helmet to 150 - considering switching the costs of these around as Helmet is better as you can always combine it

Wizard acted as money lender as usual recouping some gold from the Barbarian and lending to the Dwarf and Elf

The tactic of Barbarian and Wizard pairing up and the Dwarf and Elf doing the same is working out well, we start out together and then split when the dungeon allows before coming back together when needed for the final room, or any tough nuts to crack before then.

All in all a good session but both Quests seemed fairly easy (although Troll/Fimir as Wandering Monster was not nice) perhaps that was just after the benchmark set by the Trial!

[Kurgan]

Sounds like a major fault in having an automated Zargon is no accounting for homebrew calls to smooth over the rough edges.

See the Rescue of Sir Ragnar, the Anti-Climax for similar issues.

Kids may be happy to roll to the door perfectly safe but adults get annoyed and ask to end the quest early even though the rules say you have to get to the stairs to get your reward(s).

The Rallying Horn, some lucky potions of speed, Swift Wind and of course hidden rooms full of monsters that Zargon activates when the alarm sounds are all part and parcel of making these quests much more interesting/fun rather than boring once you've found your goal.

Jumping pit traps becomes easy once you find the Rabbit Boots (but sadly only one of those in the quest packs by default...). I sell the Whip as an alternative for pits at least.

Another homebrew rule is that when there are no monsters about, Zargon generously allows the Heroes to each make their full movement (12 squares unencumbered, 6 if they are Sir Ragnar, a hero carrying a chest, or anyone wearing Plate Mail) per turn instead of having to roll for it... but with my homebrew rules above, that brief respite without monsters is short lived...

I use the Evil Wizard Deck (which I added a few cards to, including giving my chosen monster doubled defense where appropriate... from drinking an evil potion) but even I recognize that having your health chipped away turn by turn from random events isn't very satisfying so I propose extra rooms of reinforcements laid out ahead of time that Zargon can use to jazz up certain quests like that. It's not wrong for the Heroes to have an easier quest now and then but like you said, it can get boring or anticlimactic in your group, so I understand.

In our group we always observed that potions "stack," and spells read like they say on the cards. Courage is indeed very powerful when used properly. Certain maximalist interpretations were clarified in the 2021 version (Line of Sight is what counts). However I made one tweak in our group to make it more useful... "at the end of his turn" meaning a Hero could kill all the monsters in his sight then use his movement to rush into the next group of monsters so the spell wouldn't run out. Technically it should end the moment he is out of LOS of monsters, which means bad guys can just run away to break the spell (guaranteed to raise groans from your heroes).

Consider the harder quests to come...

But you have certainly highlighted the weakness of the App and Zargon's limited options/AI imagination.

[Kurgan]

"ZARGON" posted a small update from Avalon Hill's twitter.

[Sargon]

I don't know if this has been mentioned anywhere already, but it would be great if the app had an option to switch between the old (1989) and new (2021) rulesets. I doubt that would ever happen, both for legal and for logistical reasons (what would Hasbro have to gain by creating an app for the old game?), but it would be really cool to be able to use my old game system together with the new app.

[Kurgan]

That would be very cool. Who owns the copyright of the 1989 & 1990 EU Rules? You'd think either Stephen Baker or Milton Bradley in which case Hasbro would be able to use them. They could just link it from their page, even if not everyone would use them.

In the meantime can you pretty much just pretend and use the app with your game in an EU rules compliant way? I hadn't thought about that.

I guess it wouldn't account for searching for treasure in corridors, but since you have to draw the card yourself anyway, you could just do that. And when it's time to kill a monster, just say the monster is dead if he takes any damage (no multi-body point monsters). I guess a couple of the enemies would have an extra square of movement that they normally wouldn't have. You could ignore the extra defense that the monsters didn't have in the EU edition to compensate. I guess the traps/secret doors simultaneous search thing couldn't really be simulated and the trap behavior would be a little different.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I am currently using the App with my own house rules that are broadly US standard with some enhancements from the EU version and the App is "loose" enough to get away with or around most of the differences (for example I use a combined search in rooms covering treasure, secret doors and traps so when a Hero opts to search in a room I just go into the actions and click 'search for secret doors', then click 'search for traps', then click 'search for treasure' - job done - even if a touch annoying)

That said I would like the backwards compatible feature for the EU version that you are suggesting, but I can't see them investing the dev time, the audience that would benefit is too small and for commercial reasons they would prefer those to go out and spend their cold hard gold on the new version

[krize]

Anyone else get the problem with no text showing ? I had to install from apkpure since I am in Norway, but I get this issue on both my phone (Samsung A6) and on Bluestacks/Memu Android emulators... This is with the latest v1.3 version, on the first 1.01 version it works with text showing ... Any solutions for this ?

[Kurgan]

I never got the app to work with bluestacks (couldn't even install it), so you got further than I did! (for reference, the video I posted of the app was me borrowing a family member's smart device).

[krize]

How i did it for v 1.0.1
Download: https://apkpure.com/heroquest-companion ... t/versions , v1.0.1 and then drag the file into the bluestacks windowd after Bluestacks is finished booting, then it will start installing, make sure you have enough space on the disk Bluestacks is installed to.. You can also use the Memu emulator https://www.memuplay.com/ V 1.2 just kept installing but got nowhere, 1.3 installs fine but do not show any text ...