Heretic Operative Reviews

Remember That Which Sleeps? Yea. This is the little brother. And unlike his deadbeat no-show older bro, Heretic Operative actually exists. But yea... buy it on sale. I re-purchased it during the Steam Summer Sale 2020. If there's still a "refunded" notice at the top of this review, it's obsolete now.

A many-layered digital board game with lots of interesting game mechanics. Quick play sessions (30 mins) make this easy to pick up and play, but I feel like there is a lot of depth to master!

Heretic Operative is worth a buy if you like Pandemic, Arkham Horror, or Talisman and are looking for a solo digital board game. The tutorial is non-existent, and the game is very hard, but when you do win a scenario, it's very satisfying. Would love to see more games like this from C Prompt Games.

Excellent game if you play it properly. Originally, at release, I played it the wrong way by rushing things which made it feel like each games was over way too quickly. Now that I revisited it years later, I realized that you're meant to play it slowly by taking out the cultists rather than trying to beat them to victory. This makes for a vastly different, and much more interesting game. If you rush, it feels like only a few things are worth actions and many seem pointless, but in the slow game the usefulness of certain actions changes completely. Still, only a few of the "stories" seem long enough to feel like a "proper" game to me. Most are over way too quickly even with my new playstyle and could use a few more phases. Really interesting spin on a fantasy setting, I especially like the "flesh abomination" story. The variety of mechanics, especially spells, keeps the game very fresh even when replaying the same story, and the different cults change the context of each game to a surprisingly high degree. Same goes for the main operatives. Still, each time I played the game intensively for a while, it amounted to some 9 hours per "season" before I felt I'm done for a while. I'll likely revisit it again a year or two later. So whether it's worth your money depends on how you feel. It's not exactly an expensive game for what you get, in my opinion.

I rarely write comment on steam although I have played more than 100 card, tactical or dice games. This one for me is very special in my heart. The missions are unpredictable due to dice and card element plus you could go to so many hero options. The difficulty and the learning curve could turn some but I recommend start on easy and learn well the places and the objectives. The game really combines all three of my favourites elements like dice, board and cards in very polished UI. More time you put in the greater the reward. Thank you developers.

Maybe if it's on sale for <$5, but... 1) It's very much a digital single player board game - draw some cards that tell you what happens, roll some dice to see if you die (probably yes), repeat. 2) As others have mentioned, it's very RNG based. 3) It's very busy, giving the illusion of complexity, but most of it is clutter. You CAN do any of a hundred different things, but 99 are useless in the immediate sense. You only get 2 action points per turn, which, if you're VERY lucky, is enough to accomplish the exact right actions to survive to the next turn. There's no real strategic options, because any sort of long-term planning will just get you killed in the short term. 4) As others have mentioned, nothing is explained anywhere. You're just chucked into the deep end, and after drowning a few times, you figure out which buoy to swim towards and ignore the rest.

Fun game. It basically throws challenges at you (which you can pick before the game starts), which you in turn master with a hero of your choice, and the use of spells or items. Some of these operatives are better suited to a specific challenge than others. You get to pick one of these heroes or so called operatives before the game starts, but there are many more on the playing field, waiting to be picked up by you as you play. The real fun in this game lies in figuring out a long-term plan on how to beat the challenges. Even the same scenario can play out vastly different depending on the character you pick. After picking some of the easy mode constellations (for example, one requires you to have two of the resource "lore". There is a hero that generates lore just like that, i.e. auto-win), I voluntarily chose some combinations that I knew would be hard to beat. For anyone struggling with the game initially, I recommend picking an easy scenario and travel to all the locations, memorize what kind of people can be recruited where, wait a few turns on these fields to get a feeling for the adventure cards in these locations etc. It took me an hour or two at most, and after that I already had a pretty good grasp of what I could get where, and how I am going to use that in a long-term strategy. Some tips: 1. You appear to always start with a random spellbook. Use it at your earliest convenience. 2. Spending a few turns in the Museum District will eventually unlock two shops: One for spellbooks, and another for rare items. Both are invaluable, especially if RNGeezus mocks you with a blood magic spellbook on startup. 3. Spending a few turns in the Elven District, you eventually get several events that allow you to "befriend" the elves. That has no immediate effect. AFTER they are befriended though, there are - several - different events that can permanently increase the "arcane" stat 4. Easily overlooked, right in the starting location, the hideout, there is a recruitable named "mentor", who grants a chance to raise the tranquility stat. You should foster at least one "high-sanity" mage for almost every challenge. 5. Tool Tips, there are a lot of them, and taking the time to read them makes a world of a difference. 6. In the Harbor District, you will more often than not get the opportunity to get a rare item for a real low price. A few of these rares are real game changers. Given some patience, you will figure out more of these as you go, and will eventually realize that you can exploit the playing field in whichever way you want once you figured out how and where.

I just want to write this review to give some support to a game that deserves more love and attention. A lot of the negative reviews seem to be from players who have less time in the game. And while I wouldn't say that they have a more shallow understanding of the game mechanics, I think that their assessment of the game is a little bit unfair. I'll address that in turn. Anyway, Heretic Operative is a fantasy digital board game in which you play as a group of outcast magic users (magic is outlawed in the game's setting) dedicated to stopping the advancement of a dark cult that is plotting the end of the world. There are a number of different cults to play against which change the nature of the gameplay significantly. For example, the storm cult spawns lots of cultists in the harbor district; summons a kraken; and can cause flooding at points of interest in the game. By contrast, the beast cult spawns numerous bestial hunters which try to murder your operatives. There are also multiple scenarios to choose from, and your objective varies between scenarios. An early scenario causes eldritch gates to spawn in random locations. You are tasked with closing these and later defeating an otherworldly cthulhu-like horror to win the scenario. A later scenario involves apocalyptic torrents of flame falling from the sky, destroying locations and killing all helpful npcs if you do not intervene. You choose an initial starting operative to begin the game. Operatives have three basic skills--arcane (magic), social, and physical skills. There are numerous ways to increase (or decrease) your skills during game: through random events at locations as well as by items your characters obtain and via npcs. You can also recruit other playable operatives at locations during gameplay. The basic gameplay loop is that you move your operatives between points of interest while collecting resources--influence and gold--to recruit helpful npcs, recruit other operatives, purchase powerful items and spellbooks. You also work to power up your operatives to help fight off the cult. Many interactions in the game have "challenges" associated with them. These are basically dice rolls that determine success of your actions. There are challenges associated with each of the basic skills of the operatives--arcane, social, and physical. If your operative has a higher value in the stat associated with the challenge, it will be easier to succeed. Different locations have different types of challenges associated with them (arcane, social, and physical). Your other major goal is stopping the advancement of the cult. The cult starts with cultists in one or more locations on the map. If you allow the cultists to linger in a location, they will generate a cult site that increases the power of the cult and can block or kill useful npcs from being recruited by you. There is a sort of "doom track" counter in the game. If the cult has more cult sites and cultists, this doom track will increase faster. If it gets too high, you lose. One of the interesting facets of this game (both mechanically and thematically) is that casting any magic spells will cause "corruption" in your characters. Magic has a great cost in this world. If an operative's corruption becomes too high, he/she will essentially go crazy and will be lost (the character will turn into an enemy that your other operatives must defeat). There is also a stat called tranquility, which decreases corruption every turn. Characters with a higher tranquility recover more corruption each turn. However, certain spells, items, or events may decrease tranquility. If a character's tranquility becomes negative, he/she will actually gain corruption every turn. Some of the most powerful spells in the game (from the "night" magic school) cause extreme damage to enemies or provide extreme map/gameplay benefits (i.e., there is one that basically resets the doom track to zero) but at such a ruinous corruption cost or cost to tranquility that you may end up having to sacrifice the character. Now, to address the problems that some others seem to have with the game: There is only one map in the game, but it changes slightly from scenario to scenario. I will allow that this probably does limit the game somewhat, though I think this allows for a tighter, more "bespoke" and balanced experience. I do wish that there was a second map or others. Still, I have gotten more than 20 hours of gameplay out of the game and I am quite satisfied. Others have stated that some of the locations and actions that you can take on the gameplay map are not as useful as others, as you only have two actions you can take per turn (later you can increase this to three actions). I actually think that this is not true at all. You are really only limited time-wise in the last two scenarios (the Apocalypse Scenario and the Astral Fate Scenario). However, on the others, you have plenty of time to explore various options. And honestly, some of the more peripheral locations, such as the Elven Archive or the Forbidden Isle, can give very strong bonuses to operatives that you park there; these more than make up for the extra action points you spend to reach them. Some others have also commented on the randomness. Again, I think this is a rather unfair criticism. You can see in advance what sort of challenges will be found at a location (arcane, social, or physical) and the relative difficulty level. Taking an operative with 0 or 1 social to the cathedral (where there are high level social challenges) will result in really bad outcomes. Similarly, taking a character with little arcane skill to the lost temple will probably result in high damage to the character or loss of tranquility or even death. But you know this in advance. Yes, sometimes you do get bad dice rolls, but the game never seems unfair and is usually not too punishing with bad outcomes. Also, there is an additional resource called "fate" which allows you to reroll dice in some circumstances, mitigating bad rolls significantly. The only time that I think RNG really plays a large roll is in the apocalypse scenario, in which you will have a lot of hard challenge rolls to rescue people at locations/perform evacuations. You may fail a lot and you probably won't be able to save everyone and your characters may take damage and die. Still, I don't really mind this because I think it fits with the scenario. It's the hardest scenario in the game and you're not supposed to be able to save everyone. You're supposed to make hard choices about where to go and sometimes sacrifice operatives. One last concern that others sometimes bring up is that the corruption mechanic seems too punishing. As I mentioned, spellcasting increases corruption and it can be easy to lose spellcasters to corruption if you have them slinging tons of fiery death every turn. Additionally, some have stated that certain spells are not useful--such as the "night magic" school--due to high corruption costs associated with them. But again, I think that this fits mechanically and especially thematically with the game. You're not supposed to cast that universe destroying power bomb on a low level grunt. Certain spells are so powerful and dangerous that the taint of them can never be washed away. You need to save the really powerful stuff for boss battles and you may need to sacrifice operatives sometimes. Anyway, they have also added lots of ways to reduce corruption; for example, orbs of fate can reset a character's corruption to 0; the mentor at the hideout can decrease corruption or increase tranquility; parking an operative at the Forbidden Isle can result in lots of opportunities to reset corruption or reset negative tranquility. Anyway, hope that helps. I urge you to check this game out. The developers have clearly put a lot of time and thought and love into crafting a great game.

I've only played it for a bit, but it has a very strong tabletop vibe to the game, but from people who are very passionate and knowledgeable about the world of TT gaming. It has some puzzle elements and there's definitely some math involved with making sure you use your movement and action points optimally, but overall a really fun game. The art style is solid and consistent, the rules are good and the mechanics are a tool-tip away. Give it a shot, it's a lot of fun.

Massive potential here. As noted by others, lack of a manual is deadly. Why, for example, are operatives red and unrecruitable? This seems a pretty important resource for the game to leave unexplained. Now, some have called for a tutorial but for my vote, the gaming crowd for this kind of game would prefer an actual manual which is much easier to do than a good tutorial which is actually quite hard. Or, at minimum, keep working on more useful tooltips. On a very practical note, the game opens in a very confusing way. It took me forever, for example, to figure out where my action counter was. The shame here is the number of people that might get lost instantly. The encouragement from the developers to "explore" is a bad cop out for a poor starting experience. Hoping to give this a thumbs up down the road. I want to explore this game once the core mechanics become more transparent. Let's face it... this is a flavourful board game. We need to know the rules.