We did science in STEM: Epic Heroes, the next game in our A-Z game shelf play-through.
STEM: Epic Heroes
Players: 2-4
Time: 15-30 Minutes
Designers: Aaron Hanna
Artists: George Doutsiopoulos
Publisher: Hologrin Studios
In STEM: Epic Heroes, players are sending out their scientists to complete the basic steps of scientific discovery: observation, hypothesis, experiment, analyze data and publish. Whoever can earn the most points by deploying scientists, locations, and equipment will win.
Game play
STEM: Epic Heroes is set-up by separately shuffling the Discovery and Hero decks of cards. Players are dealt a hand of 6 cards from the Hero Deck — they can discard their first hand and draw back up to six if they don’t like the first hand. Then, the top five cards of the Discovery Deck are dealt out face up in the center of the table. Optionally, players may decide to also deal out four Challenge cards to the table as an extra way to earn points.
The game is played in turns where each turn a player can do one of three actions: play a Hero card to acquire a new Discovery card, play an Enhancement, or choose not to play a card. To play a Hero card, the player must have a scientist whose specialty matches one of those available on a card in the Discovery row and they must not already have that type of Discovery card in front of them. (Discovery cards represent the different steps of the scientific method.) If they play out a Hero card and claim a new Discovery, they can optionally add one Location and one Item to the newly acquired Discovery, but, again, the specialty must match. If they choose not to claim a new Discovery card, the player can add a Location or Item to one of their already-played Discovery cards, following the rule that the specialties must match. It’s also possible for the player to not play any cards on their turn.
Once they’ve taken their action, the player will refill the Discovery row. If they did not claim a new Discovery, they must first discard one card from the row and then refill.
Next, the player has the option to discard up to three cards from their hand. Finally, they’ll draw back up to the six-card hand limit.
The game continues until a player has claimed one of each type of Discovery card: observation, hypothesis, experiment, analyze data and publish. Play continues until all players have had the same number of turns. Then players tally up their scores on their cards, and whoever has the most points, wins.
My Thoughts
I backed STEM:Epic Heroes when it was on Kickstarter for the (perhaps obvious) reason that I loved how the scientists were portrayed in this game.
It’s a fairly simple card game, and I love, love, love the art. A lot of thought and care went into portraying these scientists and making sure there was a range of faces. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself isn’t something I enjoyed. The game felt very on-rails because there was always one obvious choice on your turn — you always want to claim a new Discovery if you possibly can. In general, it felt like the game wouldn’t go any longer than five rounds … maaayybe six .. but each turn players are trying to get a Discovery if there’s one that matches the scientists in their hands. It was quite possible, though, to be unlucky and have no scientists in your hands or to have none that match the Discovery cards. In that case, if you were lucky, you might have a Location or Item you could place out, but sometimes that didn’t even work out.
I also quite disliked the Inspiration cards, which I didn’t even mention above. These are cards that you can play anytime to steal things from your opponents or disrupt their actions. I really hated these cards as they are against the spirit of collaboration in science and I never wanted to play them. During one game, I just kept drawing these Inspiration cards, and I would discard them at the end of my turn as soon as I could. But they kept preventing me from getting anything useful into my hand.
Three Quick Questions
How is it as a 2-player game? STEM:Epic Heroes is a bit lackluster at just two players. The central card market doesn’t move fast enough to make you need to adjust your card plays much, and it felt uninteresting.
How about the art and component quality? I absolutely love the art, and am super excited that I discovered that the game publisher has posters, stickers, and puzzles with some of the depicted scientists. The card quality itself is fine.
Will this stay in my collection? Sadly, probably not. This one just felt too lucky and on-rails for our tastes. It’s a shame, too, since I love the art and theme so much.
