Invincible: The Hero-Building Game Design Diary 1 – So, You Want to Be a Hero

May 23, 2024

Now available for pre-order!

You are 17-years-old. You’ve got colleges to apply to, classes to skip, and crushes to look dumb in front of. You have only the foggiest notion of what kind of person you’re going to be. And you just found out you have super powers. Now what?

If you’re Mark Grayson and his friends, the answer is, “Now you’re going to have to figure it all out in the midst of a barrage of life-and-death encounters with some of the most dangerous supervillains alive, whether you’re ready or not.”

Invincible: The Hero-Building Game throws you into just such a series of high-stakes slugfests. Since we announced the game last summer, we’ve gotten plenty of questions about it. So today we’re going to start answering them, giving you a first look at what this game is all about.

What the Heck is a Hero-Building Game, Anyway?

Invincible: The Hero-Building Game is a fast-paced, push-your-luck “co-op” game that challenges players to balance fighting evil with growing as heroes, through a unique combination of tableau-building and bag-building.

Invincible aims to pair the fun of constant progression with dramatic and exciting gameplay with an entirely new system. Here’s how it works:

You’ll start the game with a small handful of powers laid out before you, capable of damaging villains, rescuing civilians, and thwarting villainous schemes.

To use them, you’ll have to draw cubes of the same color out of your bag. Along the way, you’ll draw black cubes, which represent your hero pushing themselves to the limit. They can be placed on any kind of power, but draw too many and you’ll crash and put yourself in danger.

Many of your powers will also generate “confidence,” a resource that you’ll use each round to add new power cards to your tableau. Play your cubes right, and you’ll have exciting new options available every round.

With more than 100 unique power cards, there are countless distinct builds to explore and combos to discover. You’ll also be able to add new cubes to your bag, making it more likely you draw what you need to use your most important powers.

For us, having this growing arsenal of powers laid out on the table helped capture the fantasy of being a superhero. Your powers are a part of you, and they’re always there – but that doesn’t mean you’ll always pull them off, especially if you push yourself too hard.

Okay, So What Do I Do With These Powers?

You save the day of course! Though that might be easier said than done.

Each game you’ll face a number of villain cards, whose abilities will usually threaten to damage the heroes and endanger civilians ( [! SYMBOL] ).

If enough civilians are endangered they’ll start dying, so you’ll want to stand in front of them to protect them, and use rescue powers to get them to safety – this being Invincible you probably can’t save them all, but you’ll lose if the body count gets too high. But you’ll also lose if you’re collectively knocked out three times, so you’ll want to be careful about taking too much damage.

You could use thwart powers to stop the villains from activating… but you’ll often need those to complete the goals on your episode card.

Episode cards define your win condition for the game, and what challenges you’ll face along the way. In the case of Heads of Slate, you’ll have to stop Doc Seismic from destroying Mount Rushmore by thwarting the three abilities on the card – each of which is tied to a specific zone. Which could leave you with some tough choices if the enemies aren’t lining up where you want them to. Touch choices are part of the hero gig, I’m afraid.

Hide and Go Boom meanwhile only requires you to survive long enough to win… but to do that you’ll have to figure out where Doctor Exclaim has hidden his gravity bombs, and get the people in those zones to safety in time.

There are seven episodes in all, each with its own gameplay twists. You can play them in order in a light Campaign Mode, or just grab your favorite and play a stand-alone game – they’re all designed with replayability in mind.

What Do I Do When It’s Not My Turn?

Huh, that’s kind of a weird third question, hypothetical person, but we’re glad you asked! The answer is: Nothing…because it’s always your turn.

Invincible uses a free-form timing system that lets players pull their cubes and play their abilities in whatever order they want.

Players are free to find the pace that works for them – whether that means a frantic melee with the chaotic energy of a superhero slugfest, a tense collaborative problem-solving, or, most often, a mix of the two.

When Do We Get to Hear More?

Very soon! Next week, we’ll be taking a look at our starting heroes and the Combo mechanic. See you then…and get your pre-order in now!