There are plenty of reasons for staffers to get excited about Lock & Load—getting in a few games of WARMACHINE and HORDES, seeing hot new releases on the tables for the first time, the big announcement panel with loads of exciting preview art, sharing our passions in various seminars and events, meeting new folks, seeing old friends from around the world, and so much more.

One of the things I was really excited about this year at Lock & Load was seeing players get their hands on Heap for the first time. Though I’d certainly seen plenty of playtest games, I was curious to see how our hard work would stand up “in the wild.”

Fortunately, I was not disappointed in the least—the player reaction to Heap has been everything I hoped it would be. Not only did plenty of folks pick up a copy at the store but games of Heap cropped up throughout the Red Lion over the weekend. I saw a game of Heap taking over the lobby, another taking over an unused corner of carpeting, and naturally, games taking place on spare gaming tables.

One of the big goals for the Bodgers Game line of products is to have broad appeal. This requires a different balance of skill, luck, and player interaction than a hobby miniatures game like WARMACHINE. In Infernal Contraption, the level of player interaction is cranked way up. Not only do you choose a player to target with your crazy machine each turn, but you can use sabotage cards to mess with your opponents’ machines as well. At times, managing the players can be as important as managing your hand or the configuration of your own machine.

Heap also captures a good deal of player interaction with all sorts of effects you can use to endear or vilify yourself in the eyes of your opponents. There’s certainly a share of luck involved in which suits of cards you draw as well as which combat icons are on those cards. For an easy-to-learn card game, however, I’ve also seen players exhibit an impressive amount of skill.

Ultimately, players can approach the game from a casual standpoint, allowing Heap to appeal to plenty of gamers who may not be interested in the complexity of hobby miniatures games. Yet they can also approach the game very competitively, using feints, deceit, and cunningly timed plays to catch their opponents off-guard.

Though you’ve really got to get in a game or two for the full effect of Heap, the gameplay video is a great way to get a jump-start on this new Bodgers card game. This is not the video we posted a couple months ago giving an introduction to Heap but a new video (narrated by yours truly) that delves into numerous aspects of gameplay. Check it out here:

Competitively and Casually,
-DC