Because I don't think it's necessary to put up a new thread for every game I play, but occasionally just want to write about a thing! By all means share your bits too, digital or analog.
I recently got into the Final Girl series. I don't like watching horror movies at all, but I'm perfectly fine if it's abstracted out to a game like this, and it's a lot of fun!
It's a solitaire game where you're playing the eponymous Last Girl Standing from any of many many horror movies, trying to take down the murderous whatever by managing time and action resources. The gimmick is that each module has both a killer whatever and a location, and you can mix and match at will. There are currently two series of 'feature film' modules filing the serial numbers off a bunch of different movies, and a third series due soon. I think the rules work well with the theme, it makes for a lot of cinematic ideas, and there are a lot of extra trinkets like miniatures and stuff that up the cool factor but are just cosmetic upgrades. Importantly for a solitaire game, it's fun to lose, 'cause it's hard, deliberately so!
After a number of games with the 'starter' Happy Trails Horror module (their riff on Jason) to learn the rules, I cracked open Into the Void, their take on Alien, and that's one I've been eager to try out once I got the basic rules down.
It's a faily complex map and killer combination, but the gameplay is super thematic - the map is of course the ship, and all the items are your keycards and gadgets and such (yes, there is a power loader); the killer is naturally the alien that evolves from hatchling to juvenile to adult as it happily murders its way along, completely with (potentially) acid blood, whip tail, all the fun stuff. Done a couple of runs at it now.
Astoundingly, my very first game was a win. The first time that's ever happened in my FG plays, and it's on this module? The odds are long to say the least. I accidentally cheesed it so hard I had to reread the rules, but: playing 'Ellen' (natch - good at searching for stuff), saved a couple victims, had some dice fails, thexenomorph evomorph evolved to its juvenile stats, and then after a couple more murders I pulled an event card that caused a hull breach in one particular space; specifying that anything entering that map space was killed. After a little more running around and a few more victim deaths, I drew a beacon item that the killer would prioritize above all else for targeting its movement and attacks for a couple turns. You can see where this is going. Ellen gets just close enough to fastball the beacon into the busted escape pod, then keycard a vent shut; the evomorph goes after the beacon and out the hole it goes, failing the "not really dead" check that both killer and protagonist characters get the first time they run out of health. Boom, victory?...after rereading the relevant rules a couple of times...yes, victory!
Second game was a loss, though at least it was quite a cinematic one. Using the other character in the set, 'Janelle' (a reference to the actress who played Vasquez, and gets better use out of tech items), and this one was a knock-down-drag-out. Lots more alien murders, throwing victims into escape pods, a couple turns of actual back and forth combat, using keycards to activate map gimmicks, the works. Genuine narrative tension when the evomorph disappeared off the map, popped back up halfway across the board, and evolved to its full adult stats in the span of like two turns plus an ambush card. I had a good position and setup, even mitigating RNG almost enough - but there was one card I didn't do the math correctly for and just flat ran out of health. Failed my "not really dead" save as Janelle slugged it out claws-to-vibroblade with the sucker in the flaming incinerator room. I got splatted, it had three HP left. Sequel bait to the max!
I recently got into the Final Girl series. I don't like watching horror movies at all, but I'm perfectly fine if it's abstracted out to a game like this, and it's a lot of fun!
It's a solitaire game where you're playing the eponymous Last Girl Standing from any of many many horror movies, trying to take down the murderous whatever by managing time and action resources. The gimmick is that each module has both a killer whatever and a location, and you can mix and match at will. There are currently two series of 'feature film' modules filing the serial numbers off a bunch of different movies, and a third series due soon. I think the rules work well with the theme, it makes for a lot of cinematic ideas, and there are a lot of extra trinkets like miniatures and stuff that up the cool factor but are just cosmetic upgrades. Importantly for a solitaire game, it's fun to lose, 'cause it's hard, deliberately so!
After a number of games with the 'starter' Happy Trails Horror module (their riff on Jason) to learn the rules, I cracked open Into the Void, their take on Alien, and that's one I've been eager to try out once I got the basic rules down.
It's a faily complex map and killer combination, but the gameplay is super thematic - the map is of course the ship, and all the items are your keycards and gadgets and such (yes, there is a power loader); the killer is naturally the alien that evolves from hatchling to juvenile to adult as it happily murders its way along, completely with (potentially) acid blood, whip tail, all the fun stuff. Done a couple of runs at it now.
Astoundingly, my very first game was a win. The first time that's ever happened in my FG plays, and it's on this module? The odds are long to say the least. I accidentally cheesed it so hard I had to reread the rules, but: playing 'Ellen' (natch - good at searching for stuff), saved a couple victims, had some dice fails, the
Second game was a loss, though at least it was quite a cinematic one. Using the other character in the set, 'Janelle' (a reference to the actress who played Vasquez, and gets better use out of tech items), and this one was a knock-down-drag-out. Lots more alien murders, throwing victims into escape pods, a couple turns of actual back and forth combat, using keycards to activate map gimmicks, the works. Genuine narrative tension when the evomorph disappeared off the map, popped back up halfway across the board, and evolved to its full adult stats in the span of like two turns plus an ambush card. I had a good position and setup, even mitigating RNG almost enough - but there was one card I didn't do the math correctly for and just flat ran out of health. Failed my "not really dead" save as Janelle slugged it out claws-to-vibroblade with the sucker in the flaming incinerator room. I got splatted, it had three HP left. Sequel bait to the max!
