Kickstarter Spotlight #1 - Tricked-Out Hero

So on occasion, I will mention some games that I back on Kickstarter.  The game I will talk about today is Tricked-Out Hero from Prolific Games.  I have had the opportunity to play this game at GenCon for 3 years, and have thoroughly enjoyed it!

Tricked-Out Hero is a trick-taking game that combines aspects of Hearts and Spades with monster battles.  Before the game starts, each player selects a character card that has some unique abilities and starting statistics. 

Each game, 12 rounds of trick-taking are played, but the trump suit is determined by a card revealed prior to the start of the round.  At this point, each player has a chance to use an ability they have that could alter the way the tricks are captured (change the trump suit, go no trump, smallest card wins).  When the trick-taking is complete, players gain tokens based on the suit of the trick taken.  These tokens affect the monster battle that occurs immediately following. 

Each player fights a different monster that has a melee and/or magic stat.  Each player rolls a d8 and must roll above the stat they choose in order to defeat the monster.  If the player is not confident, they can spend some of the appropriate melee or magic tokens to add 1/token to the roll (must be spent prior to rolling the d8).  If the player fails to defeat the monster, they lose health tokens as stated on the monster card.  If the player gained any Spade tricks, the tokens gained increase the monster's stats by 1/token (mandatory).  At the end of the game, the player with the most gold (each monster has a Gold value that is gained when defeated), wins.

As stated above, I have played this game 3 times over the course of 3 years.  Each time I have played, I had a lot of fun (as did my wife).  This game was a day 1 back for us, and we both highly recommend this game to anyone that enjoys trick-taking games.

To see more about the game, visit their BoardGameGeek page.  If you would like to back the game or see more information, visit their Kickstarter page.

New Design - Changes Progress

At this point, I have made many minor changes:

1) Changed some building abilities.  Changes include decreasing some gold to food conversions, replacing the upgrade ability of the Blacksmith to allow upgrades when building new buildings, and some synergy tweaks.
2) Minor changes to a few event cards.
3) Larger player resource board.  Also, player resource limits have been introduced, with the limits for each year listed on the resource boards.
4) A few building costs have been changed.

Changes that I would still like to make for Version 0.0.3:
1) Make a larger player aid card that explains all actions available to the player, and answer some FAQs.
2) Change the player boards to more closely resemble building an old west town.
3) Update the rules to account for the changes made.
4) Potentially make a few more tweaks to building and upgrade costs.

Changes to make for future versions:
1) Basic art for resource symbols
2) Basic art for player boards and resource board
3) Layout revision for building cards and event cards
4) Basic art for building cards and event cards

If anyone reading this has playtested the game, please provide any feedback for changes.  I believe I remember most of the feedback, but would appreciate any comments in case I missed something.

Also, if anyone is interested in doing some graphic design for the game, please let me know.