The art style of Hero Academy is distinctive and engaging

Do you own an iDevice and love Strategic RPGs or board games? If so, you owe it to yourself to try the iOS Game of the Week on Talkingship this week, Hero Academy.

Hero Academy is made by Robot Entertainment, who at the time are not exactly a household name in gamers’ minds. However, they’ve also produced such well-received titles as Age of Empires III, the divisive Halo Wars, Age of Empires Online, and the recent critically-lauded title, Orcs Must Die. Clearly this is their first foray into the world of iOS gaming, and it is a homerun.

Hero Academy is a turn-based strategy game, with the same type of asynchronous multiplayer that gamers may be familiar with from Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends, and their counterparts. It plays like a board game, where one player sets their pieces, adds modifications, moves, attacks, or heals, and sends the turn to their opponent who can respond in kind. Each player can make five moves in one turn (each of the above mentioned actions counts as one move), and it becomes a strategic mindfuck trying to figure exactly what five things should be done before the opponent gets their turn.

There’s no time limit by which one player needs to respond, so games can take days to complete, but can be completed at each players’ leisure. If a game isn’t moving quickly enough for one player, they can begin a game with another player and play both, as a master chess player would play multiple boards at the same time.

Hero Academy is now available for free from the App Store. The free version comes with one (of currently two) teams and is ad-supported. However, purchasing the other team currently available removes the ads forever, and is an absolutely worthwhile investment. Check it out, and send me a game invite if you do! My username on Hero Academy is Fisherman.