Zero to Hero
- Board's Eye View
- Jun 27
- 2 min read
Zero to Hero is a tactical trick-taking game designed by Martin Wallace and published by Wallace Designs. Trick-taking is usually associated with card games but Zero to Hero doesn't use cards; instead players form their hand by drawing wooden triangles from a bag. This gives the game a very distinct look, tho' the triangles are numbered 1-13 in four colours, so in fact just like the four suits of a standard pack of playing cards. The wooden triangles aren't just a gimmick, however, because players are able to see the colours of each other's triangles but don't know the values of those triangles until they are played.
What distinguishes Zero to Hero from other trick-taking games isn't so much its use of wooden pieces in place of playing cards but the way in which tricks are played and scored. The game comes with a number of scoring tiles and you select at random seven of these to flip and show the points to be won for coming first and second on each trick, and that can include negative points for winning the trick...
The other unique feature in this game is that the 3-5 players don't have to follow suit. A trick is won by the player who played the highest number in the colour that has the highest number. So, for example, in a three-player game, if Player 1 leads with blue 13 and Player 2 follows with orange 5, then Player 3 would win the trick if they were able to play any orange triangle of value 9 or more, and in that case it is Player 2 who would take any points offered for second place as they'd have the second highest triangle in the winning colour. The exception is that tiles of value 2 automatically win a trick if they are the only tile of their colour.
Tho' no-one knows what value triangles other players have, they can all see at a glance what colours other players are holding, giving rise to tactical play based on deduction... Players can also see how many points they all have, so you may well deploy 'kingmaker' tactics to support another player to gain points at the expense of the player who is in the lead.
Martin Wallace's design doesn't just rely on 'stop the leader' tactics. It also incorporates two other interesting catch up mechanics. In the second and subsequent rounds, the player in the lead draws and plays with seven triangles for the round's seven tricks but other players draw additional triangles so have more options available to them for each of that hand's tricks. In addition, any player who begins a round with zero points can take the Zero to Hero marker. If they end the round with 5 points or more, they'll have gone from Zero to Hero and they're declared the winner regardless of how many points other players have racked up. It's a way of ensuring that even a player who is trailing others can still be in with a chance of stealing a win.
