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Craig Van Ness Q&A Thread

@Craig Van Ness First of all thanks for all your fun work on Heroscape and other games and for joining this site and answering questions now that 1/2 your NDA agreement is null.

I wanted to ask you since it has been 10 years if you can let the cat out of the bag:
Who was responsible for "Hot Lava Death" going on the Volcarren Wasteland box lid tab and how long did it take for Hasbo to find out?

I know it must have made someone at the company mad enough that they ordered it to be covered it up with a sticker at the factory. AFAIK, in a BoardGameSpeak 2004-12-07 Podcast (cannot find a download for it now) someone yelled "hot lava death" and I guess it became a running joke among the Heroscape creators, but who decided to put it on the box and did the actual graphic design for it? I don't know if either your exiting NDA or just whoever did it's pride prevents you from telling, but was hoping you can let us all in on the joke.

I think this is a question for Rob...
 
I'd like to hear a little about Battleship Galaxies. How much was planned, what was the reason it didn't survive, do you truly feel the two fleets were balanced in the base game?

Tai-Pan,
This game system not launched properly. We had 3 years of expansions planned. 8 factions.

If the expansions came out it would of made the game a much more balanced.

IMO, It didn't survive because we didn't launch with expansions and there are other reasons that I can't really talk about.

Awe man don't tease us like that. I love that game. 8 factions?! That would have been amazing. There is a severe lack of space combat games with hex maps and simplified rules. Battleship Galaxies was so perfect for that. I really hope you guys seriously consider delving into that genre for one of your future games. I would buy all the stuff. Thanks for the answer!
 
When do you consider a game successful?

Just curious. I know you must consider 'scape to be successful...but why?

Look at this site. Heroscape was and is successful. It depends how you define success. As a coach of many sports for my kids, I like John Wooden's (famous basketball coach) definition.

"Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

While at Hasbro, I made every game I worked on the best that I could with the time I was given. And I had lots of help from many talented people!
 
This is a silly question, but its one that I've debated with a few people. When you pronounce the name "Krug", do you have a short u sound like bug or a long u sound like dude? Btw, there is an excellent French champagne called Krug which uses the long u sound.

Not a silly question at all. It's a great question. There have been a couple threads already (here and here) about how to pronounce Heroscape names, but nothing official.

@Craig Van Ness, was there ever a list made of phonetical spellings for Heroscape names? What would be really cool is if we had sound files with someone speaking each name. I imagine you're pretty busy with the new company, but if it was your voice speaking the names, that would be even more cool. :)

As far as spelled pronunciation goes, I like the way they do it on dictionary.com.
Recording myself saying all the Heroscape names could take a while. Maybe I could just clarify the ones that are in question.
 
Are you interested in playing in a round of Curse of Ne-Gok-Sa?
What is Curse of Negoksa?

Ne-Gok-Sa, named after the Marro character, is a game on this forum that's a bit like Werewolf or Mafia, only everyone plays as a Heroscape figure. You have to join a special group to play, but that's just to stop the rest of the forum from being clogged with people posting while playing this game
 
I'd like to hear a little about Battleship Galaxies. How much was planned, what was the reason it didn't survive, do you truly feel the two fleets were balanced in the base game?

Tai-Pan,
This game system not launched properly. We had 3 years of expansions planned. 8 factions.

If the expansions came out it would of made the game a much more balanced.

IMO, It didn't survive because we didn't launch with expansions and there are other reasons that I can't really talk about.

Some things a man would rather not know....
 
I'd like to hear a little about Battleship Galaxies. How much was planned, what was the reason it didn't survive, do you truly feel the two fleets were balanced in the base game?

Tai-Pan,
This game system not launched properly. We had 3 years of expansions planned. 8 factions.

If the expansions came out it would of made the game a much more balanced.

IMO, It didn't survive because we didn't launch with expansions and there are other reasons that I can't really talk about.

Some things a man would rather not know....

Tell me about it. Six more factions would have been pretty fantastic.
 
Craig,

First off I want to thank you for taking the time to answer so many questions. It really speaks to your authenticity and passion for your games.

Secondly I want to thank you for standing by Heroscape over the years. I remember seeing the first master set and Mimrings artwork during the 2004 holiday season. I knew I had to have it. It was the only thing on my Christmas list. I was 11. I then joined Heroscapers in 2006.
This game and website, as many here can attest, changed my life and gave me an escape in an otherwise turbulent childhood. Quite simply put, your game was a savior for me and I will always be thankful for that.

On a less sappy note I do have a question!
I am a big sucker for story development. What was the basic train of thought while developing the basis of the Heroscape storyline?
I love the idea of it being Sgt. Drakes journey. But how did this soldier's story get infused into a traditional lore, like Valhalla and the Kyries. Which is very Norse.
 
I can't believe I never noticed this thread existed. Craig, thank you so much for making my favorite table top game of all time.

Craig, I'm currently looking to try and have custom combat dice made for Aquilla, and Valkrill, because they never got flag bearers. I know you don't work with WotC, or Hasbro anymore, but do you have any suggestions on how to get approval to use the Heroscape dice symbols legally? Any help with this at all would awesome. If I can get the go ahead to do it legally, I'd send you your own set of the dice if you were interested.

What did you personally think of the addition, and theme for the general Valkrill?
Leaf_It,
You could reach out to WOTC or Hasbro about using the logo. Worse they can say is no.

At the time Utgar had plenty of army cards. I think introducing another evil character was a good idea.
 
First of all, even if you cant answer my questions- Thank you for the great game. Heroscape has ruined gaming for me in the best possible way, since now if a game doesn't have amazing, varied, pre-painted minis and strategic rules that are also extremely simple to grasp, and therefore teach- its hard for the game to hold up!

I read through the thread, and dont think you've answered these. If you cant answer or go into too much detail, I understand, of course.

First, storywise, was there somewhere you're disappointed we didn't get? Marro uprising etc. ?
When I turned Heroscape over to Wotc, the story was in good shape, mainly because Colby was writing it. As far as somewhere we didn't get- it would have been nice to have an animated show...one that followed the journal.
chaoserver said:
Second, are there any specific units you are particularly disappointed we didn't get to? Something like Cyprien's Cavalry.
We were working on growing many of the armies. One thing we also were looking to do was grow the offerings from the different time periods. More rev war cards. More WWII cards. We had some american civil war sketched up. More cowboys. More medieval cards.

chaoserver said:
Third, when designing units, how much did you account for multiplayer? A unit like Runa which is terrible in 1v1, but creates fun scenarios as soon as there are free for alls going on make me suspect it plays a factor.
Yes, certain units are much better in multiplayer. We always kept an eye on this. I always liked Theracus.
 
Craig, did the Heroscape Design Team ever get a direct acknowledgement from Higher that shipping two Orm's Return for every Road to the Forgotten Forest was a mistake. I know that it was reversed in later printings and large expansions, but I was just wondering if you guys got a direct statement from someone that they understood what a mistake that turned out to be.

Yes, we knew that was a mistake. We recommended 2 of the forest pack for every one big figure pack. Somethings are under your control and some are not. Players buy more of the expansions that could be repeat purchase items.
 
I can't believe I never noticed this thread existed. Craig, thank you so much for making my favorite table top game of all time.

Craig, I'm currently looking to try and have custom combat dice made for Aquilla, and Valkrill, because they never got flag bearers. I know you don't work with WotC, or Hasbro anymore, but do you have any suggestions on how to get approval to use the Heroscape dice symbols legally? Any help with this at all would awesome. If I can get the go ahead to do it legally, I'd send you your own set of the dice if you were interested.

What did you personally think of the addition, and theme for the general Valkrill?
Leaf_It,
You could reach out to WOTC or Hasbro about using the logo. Worse they can say is no.

At the time Utgar had plenty of army cards. I think introducing another evil character was a good idea.
Oh I have reached out several times. The answer was always no.
 
Craig, did the Heroscape Design Team ever get a direct acknowledgement from Higher that shipping two Orm's Return for every Road to the Forgotten Forest was a mistake. I know that it was reversed in later printings and large expansions, but I was just wondering if you guys got a direct statement from someone that they understood what a mistake that turned out to be.

Yes, we knew that was a mistake. We recommended 2 of the forest pack for every one big figure pack. Somethings are under your control and some are not. Players buy more of the expansions that could be repeat purchase items.


There seems to have been a similar mistake made with the release of Common Squads and Unique Heroes. Once Squad-Scape caught on as a strategy, everyone wanted multiples of the commons and maybe some of us bought a second pack of the heroes. I can remember seeing several heroes packs still on the store shelves or finding them in the Clearance aisle when all of the 'good' common squad packs were long gone.


I always felt that the figure distribution in the expansion Waves was poorly handled. For example, I personally purchased ten packs of 4th Mass and 10th Reg for reenacting Revolutionary War era scenarios, but in the process, I also obtained ten sets of Anubian and Badru wolves that I did not want - five of each would have been sufficient, hehehe.


In hindsight do you think that the British Red Coats and Colonial Militia squads should have been packaged with two Unique or Uncommon heroes such as a Captain/Lieutenant and Quartermaster/Sergeant accompany them instead of the wolves? Perhaps even a second squad of sharpshooters or rangers that were related thematically? And I mean this question as a pattern for all of the production runs, i.e. (IMHO) Taelord and Runa should have been packaged with the Minions of Utgar, etc.
 
It seems like Heroscape really drew from Viking mythology. Whose decision was that? I'm not complaining, Vikings are awesome, but I was just thinking about how many Viking references there are in the game and they are all over the place, from the faction names, to various units.
 
Allow me to be the billionth person to thank you for helping to create one of my favorite games bar none.
And I have to ask...who first came up with the concept for the Marro? They're my all-time favorites.
 
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