We have a game developer on board, ready to begin production on an online version of Star Heroes. Our hope is that we can raise the level of capital necessary to produce an online version of the game during our crowdfunding campaign. Fingers crossed!

A trading card game is a unique, life skill building game that allows two or more people to compete against one another in a fun and friendly way, utilizing their skills in strategic thinking and understanding. Trading card games require socialization, competition, and sportsmanship, elements of human nature that we believe should always be encouraged. The trading cards themselves can also be traded between players, helping to build an understanding of fairness, market value, and negotiation. The beauty of trading card games is that they are always changing and adapting to the new realities of gameplay, incorporating new elements of ongoing storytelling and character realization. In a trading card game, players begin with a deck of cards. This can be a preconstructed deck or fully customized deck utilizing additional booster packs that can be purchased separately. These additional packs allow the opportunity to adapt your playing style, create new strategies, and expand your options. Trading card games are a fun, exciting, and ever evolving game without an end.

Star Heroes is a space and science fiction trading card game set 300 years into the future where 2-4 players compete against one another to explore and ultimately conquer the solar system. Elements of science and history based on our lived experience in the spaceflight industry are interwoven into the narrative arc of the game.

A video guide will be released when we have completed our Beta Testing as up to this point, the gameplay may change. When the details are finalized, an informative video guide will be published.

When our crowdfunding campaign launches, you will be able to purchase any of our four available starter decks which include everything you need to start playing. From there, should you wish to alter your strategies and develop new, fun ways of playing, you can purchase additional booster packs.

The universe is in a constant state of flux, and is, in a word, chaos. There is order, sure, but without imbalance, impurity, and uncertainty, the universe would simply not exist and we wouldn’t be here enjoying trading card games—the very thought! We wanted to bring this element of our very existence to Star Heroes. We love trading card games but one of the things that always bothered us was the element of predictability. We as players can tell quite quickly what kind of deck we are up against and formulate strategies on how to counter it, but by incorporating a rogue faction, the cards of which can be incorporated into any deck (for a price), it removes that element of predictability and instils a sense of chaos—and who doesn’t love a bit of chaos, every now and again? Not to mention that when humans finally expand out into the solar system, there will always be rogue elements who will not abide by the rules—pirates, thieves, rebels, and the like. So, it makes sense from a story and gameplay point of view to include them.

Again, absolutely. We can’t give you any specifics, of course, but the solar system is in a state of flux, and new factions will inevitably rise in the power vacuums left by our warring factions. Then also consider that as we expand out into the universe, it seems only logical that eventually we will come across other species. Star Heroes is comprised of six key aspects: domination, protection, exploration, achievement, research, and sabotage. Our current factions engage in two of these aspects (i.e. achievement & sabotage, exploration & research, etc.), but there are many other combinations to work with, and we plan on working with them!

The creator of Star Heroes is a writer, so it is very much a key focus. Frankly, a game without a story bores the life out of us—we need that element of storytelling to really enjoy a game. As we expand Star Heroes, you will find that the story will also evolve, Star Heroes will come and go, the factions will expand out into the universe and uncover things you could never dream of—how could we not focus on story when we have such an incredible, unknown abyss to explore? But one must be careful as in the darkness of space, there are things we may not wish to come across, or worse, come across us.

No. We do not use AI in our trading card artwork. They are all completely human-made.

When it came to the development of the factions in the Star Heroes universe, we asked ourselves a very simple question: What matters to us as a species? What would happen if the Earth was destroyed, it’s land not longer able sustain life, the air toxic, the environment and natural world decimated, what would matter to us beyond survival in this apocalyptic world? The answer we came to was identity. Throughout human history our sense of identity has been so palpable that we are often drawn into conflict with those we consider opposite to us. Whether that conflict is physical, idealist, or even religious. So what would happen if those factions broke away and left Earth, their home, behind? They would take that identity with them to the greatest extent possible. In their exile they would then find themselves in an ideological vacuum chamber, where this sense of identity is not challenged, questioned, or contradicted. They would double down, or so to speak. This is where the foundation for the factions came from. Each faction has their own identity—whether that is militaristic and tyrannical, curious and explorative, dogmatically religious and superiority-based, a combination thereof, or something else entirely. Each faction has taken their sense of identity with them to new homes in the stars. In Star Heroes you will find very human elements amongst the factions, you may even recognise a few names and titles, ways of connecting them to their past, but one thing is certain, you will understand them to some degree because you too are human. We expect many players will identify with some factions more than others, but we do hope they will have the curiosity to play the other factions as well to get a real sense of the Star Heroes universe.

To a large extent, yes. It would have been too easy to simply create a universe out of the blue, giving names and descriptions to cards that sounded correct, but made no sense in the real world, such as a parsec being used as a unit of speed instead of a unit of distance—WHY GEORGE LUCAS, WHY?! Cough, ahem… anyway. We have direct spaceflight experience as our work has quite literally launched to and from the International Space Station, been exposed to the vacuum of space and been bombarded by radiation from the Sun. Our pedigree is one of the things that separates us—we know space, intimately. We wanted to draw on that experience for Star Heroes. You will find that the story of Star Heroes, the cards, their names and uses, and everything in between draws on the science and history of our world today—there are, of course, still going to be futuristic elements because they are living 300 years into our future and we have accounted for that, but the foundation is on solid scientific and historical ground.

Yes. There will be two releases of the Star Heroes game, first editions available only through our crowdfunding campaign, followed by a standard release. There will be option available for game store owners to purchase both first editions and standard release editions when the time comes.

At the moment, Star Heroes is not available for public sale as we are in the Beta Testing phase of our launch. This is the time when we are testing the game for balance, feel, and narrative. When the Beta is complete, we will launch our first release on a crowdfunding platform. If you would like to stay up-to-date on this release, please follow us on one or more of our social media channels.

Yes. For our initial crowdfunding campaign, there will be a dedicated pledge option for game stores to acquire first editions. For ongoing releases, there will be a different way of acquiring first editions, both by the general public and game stores, but we will discuss that in the future, prior to the second release. We promise that it will be fair!

This one is very important to our creator as he happens to be both. He loves playing but also loves staring longingly at his collection—is that weird? It sounds weird. Weirdness aside, it was very important to find the right balance. Firstly, there will be two booster boxes available right off the bat: standard and collector. The standard booster box will comprise of 24 packs with each pack containing 11 non-foil and 1 foil card. The collector booster boxes will comprise of 12 packs with each pack containing 12 foil cards. Every card in the set will be available as both foil and non-foil—perfect for collectors. The collector packs will contain our coveted Astra cards with a genuine piece of spaceflight material embedded within, as well as serialized chase cards. The standard packs will not contain Astra cards, but will contain unserialized, non-foil versions of those same cards—so they players will not miss out on any cards. Secondly, each new release will have a limited first edition run, followed by a standard edition intended for general release. Our crowdfunding campaign will all be first edition, with the general release following after the fact and being made available to game stores around the world. This combination of factors allows our collectors to sink their teeth into while also giving our player base what they want—affordable, available cards.

Yes.

The simple answer? Foil cards cost double that of a standard card to produce. There is quite literally no other reason.

The material in question is sourced from our parent company, The Space Collective. The Space Collective has operated for over 14 years in the spaceflight sector and have even launched five of their own to the International Space Station. Many of the materials used in our Astra cards were flown aboard these or previous, historical missions and come with a lifetime guarantee of authenticity.

We already have a set of faction pins available to anyone who wants them during the crowdfunding campaign, and we will expand on that as we go. Personally, we have always enjoyed the additional merch from trading card games that we have played. Especially when that merch is one of our favourite characters. You will most definitely see this from Star Heroes too.