While at Gen Con this year I was lucky enough to corner Nicholas Yu for a brief interview. The transcription of the interview is below and you can always subscribe and listen to the podcast. We talk about the stand alone expansion for Hero Brigade, which is live on Kickstarter right now. We also talk about some of the gritty details about working with Game Salute.
Board Game Authority: This is Richard Miles, with Board Game Authority. I'm at Gen Con 2014 and today I am with...
Nicholas Yu: Nicholas Yu of Zucchini People Games.
Board Game Authority: Thank you, Nicholas, for taking time out of your busy Gen Con schedule to sit down and talk to me today. Zucchini People Games has two games out right now that are on store shelves?
Nicholas Yu: Just Hero Brigade’s out. Eternal Dynasty should be out later this year, maybe early next.
Board Game Authority: So, I say two because I'm looking at two games right now on the table in front of me. Beautiful cards on the table for Eternal Dynasty. The artwork looks phenomenal. The cards, is this the final size of the cards?
Nicholas Yu: Yeah, the final size they're going to be jumbo oversize cards, bigger than tarot cards so...
Board Game Authority: So these cards are almost the size of my hand. That artwork takes up a full three quarters of the card, beautiful, beautiful artwork. I really like the simplistic template of the cards so that the artwork is more paramount…
But you have a stand-alone expansion for Hero Brigade. Tell us about that. What's the name of it, when will be seeing that, and like the good juicy bits of why we want to pick that up.
Nicholas Yu: Hero Brigade II, is a standalone expansion, currently going with Hero Brigade II: Hero Harder but I haven't decided on that yet. Just going for a funny subtitle keeping with the lighthearted nature of the first game. There are some new elements that are going to be introduced, which I actually brought, called Plot Cards and these modify the combat. Some of them are like global enchantments in Magic. A lot of them are just special things that effect what happens during the game. Like, this is the Bounty Hunter. When your characters get defeated when she's out, she actually collects your defeated characters instead of them going into your discard pile. So you kind of have to manipulate your fighting around that. And some of them are just other ones where the villains are trying to break in, the heroes are trying to stop them, and if the villains accomplish the plot then their science characters are rewarded and things like that. So just little extra things that change up the course of the combat so it's not just fighting back and forth. People liked the fighting but they were like, 'We want more.'
Board Game Authority: Right, understood. So now there's not just some more “I hit you, you hit me”, there's a little bit more going on.
