The story behind Giant Robot Hellboy and how to use him in solo mode!

After announcing Giant Robot Hellboy yesterday, today we’ve got some more details on how he plays in the game and the storyline behind this mighty machine!

Giant Robot Hellboy is a huge, stompy robot controlled by one player, designed for solo play by original designers, Needy Cat Games. GRH is effectively the equivalent of a whole team of Agents! To keep things interesting, he works a little differently from normal.

Instead of a single Agent board he has a set of System cards, each one governing something different (attacking, defending, surveying surroundings, etc). Each round you have to divide your action cubes between these systems (you get more than normal, to make this more fun) then spend them in the Agent phase to make actions and activate special abilities.

That means you have to make some interesting decisions - you can throw all of your actions into attacking, but then you'll miss out on defending. And what if you then defeat all the enemies with a single titanic fight action? You'll be left punching the air and wasting loads of precious actions.

One of the most interesting parts of Hellboy is the table talk during the Agent phase, as players try to figure out what the best course of action is. In a solo game you don't have other players to discuss things with, but the added wrinkle of having to plan in advance makes things just as interesting.

Speaking of keeping things interesting, each system is targeted separately, meaning the robot gradually gets worn down as its systems go offline (fizzing and sparking everywhere while the camera wobbles, no doubt).

We’ve also got a little background on the story behind Giant Robot Hellboy too, courtesy of Mike Mignola. That’s right, he’s actually written a backstory for the robot!

Discovered in a cave in Japan in 1972—Apparently built by a secret group of Japanese scientists (purpose unknown) and abandoned in the '50s.

Turned over to American government as a worthless curiosity after examination showed no sign of how to operate it and apparently no power source.

It was eventually discovered (quite by accident) that if Hellboy could be put into a deep trance (not easy to do) he could mentally “inhabit” the robot and, somehow, bring it to “life”.

Retired carnival hypnotist Gordy Sloke has more luck that anyone at performing the trick of transferring HB’s mind into the Robot. A difficult operation and not one that HB enjoys but something that can be tried in emergency situations.

Surely we’re not the only ones that want a Giant Robot Hellboy comic?! How awesome would that be. In the meantime, you can create your own Giant Robot Hellboy storylines by ordering the model below.