Tag Archives: board game

Zombie Fluxx

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Zombie Fluxx

The wonderful cover to Zombie Fluxx

My wife is not really a game player, which is a bummer because I own over 500 games! She does have a few she enjoys, like Lords of Waterdeep (a Dungeons and Dragons worker placement board game) and Scopa (a traditional Italian card game), for example, but in general she’s difficulty to please with card games.

It’s especially frustrating when you set a big game up and by the end of turn one she might say,’ nope, I don’t like it.’

What is funny about playing with my wife is how she learns rules. Her only question is always, ‘how do I win’ and then she observes how the turns go and follows everyone else’s lead.

Introducing her to the card game Fluxx was hilarious, because at the beginning, you don’t know how to win.

Fluxx is one of those games that is a great game by itself, but has several ‘re-skinnings’ that incorporate various themes into its basic gameplay, which is that you start with three cards, you draw one card, and play one card… unless another card in play tells you to do something different.

In the game, you have various types of cards:

New Rules are cards that can change the basic rules of the game, like draw 4 (instead of draw 1), Hand Limit 2, which means if you have had to draw 4 cards, then played 1, you have to discard cards until you only have 2, or Double Agenda, which tells you that there are two goals to choose from… but what are the goals?

Goals are how the game ends. They will feature two keepers, like one called We’re All All Right, which makes the win conditions that you need two ‘friends’ as keepers. The goals can change during the game though, so play as many keepers as you can.

Keepers are cards that you keep in front of you which may lead you to a win condition, but some goals claim you must have no zombies as keepers, which is difficult… but zombies can be removed…

Creepers are keepers you play immediately with no exception. You can win with a zombie in front of you, so you need to be looking for weapons cards to get rid of them.

Actions are basically cards that you play, and do whatever they say, the results usually being to your advantage.

Play continues until one play is able to complete the goal a card is offering, and this can be done by have the appropriate keepers, or even playing a goal card that allows you to win.

The artwork on the cards is very much of the standard Fluxx type, but it is function and the zombies are appropriately zombie-ish. This game also has the option of removing the zombie related cards so it can be played as a regular game of Fluxx.

It’s a very simple game, and this one’s horror theme isn’t a game that drips the horror genre, but it’s fun enough, and easy to play and can be enjoyed even by non-gamers like my wife!

Score: ***

Selfish: Space Edition

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Selfish: Space Edition

Selfish: Space Edition from Ridley’s Games

Winning.

It’s why we play games, right?

Who cares about sportsmanship and fair play when you’ve got blood on your claws and the taste of victory in your mouth!

I can honestly say that once of the best things that’s happened to me whilst playing a board game was after executing a particularly cut-throat move while playing Food Chain Magnate, which is an absolute BASTARD of a game, my daughter said to me, ‘ how could you do that? I’m your daughter?!?’

I told her that as her father, my job is to teach lessons, and this one was ‘trust no one’.

A game set up and ready to play

We are pretty competitive in my house with board games, to the point that when my wife sits down to play a game, she doesn’t ask ‘how do we play?’, her first question is ‘how do I win?’ (which made for a hilarious rant when we played Fluxx). That’s not to say we don’t have fun playing co-op stuff, but as long as my wife is leading the charge, all is good.

This game, Selfish: Space Edition (there’s also Zombie, Star Wars and Disney Villains editions), from Ridley’s Games is a perfect game for a family who enjoy being a little bit ruthlessness!

This card game has a concept that is quite simple: you are an astronaut trapped in the darkness of space, and you need to move the six spaces it takes to get back to your ship, which would be fine, but you only have six canisters of oxygen and it takes two to move, AND you have to finish on the ship with at least one canister left, and if my maths is correct, that means you are already in an oxygen deficit.

Have no fear though, dear space person, what you do have is a bunch of horrible things you can do to other players like siphon their oxygen, or shoot them with a laser to send them back a space!

The cards even have threats on the back!

Gameplay is really simple: on your turn you draw a card, then, if you wish/ can, play as many action cards as you wish, which will make your opponents lives miserable unless they can reply with a ‘shield’ card, and then you have to make the decision on whether you stay where you are, costing one oxygen, or travelling one space, costing two oxygen.

Moving faces it’s own challenges though, as space is a treacherous place, and every time you move onto a new space space, you may face things like Cosmic Radiation, which steals an oxygen from you, a Solar Flare, which stops you from doing any actions while it is immediately behind you. It’s not all bad though, Useful Junk let’s you draw an extra card, potentially getting more oxygen, or Wormhole allows you to swap places with another player, potentially getting forward a little bit.

The threatening space cards

Each game only lasts about 20 minutes, but it’s SO easy to set up and play, that it even has a minimum age of 7 as it’s suggested age range. The art is simple, but still engaging and the ‘dead astronaut’ cards are both funny and kind of sad.

We have a lot of fun with this game, and I possibly will buy some of the others as there are minor changes depending on which game, for example, in the zombie one, the dead players return as the undead! I have little knowledge of the others so I can’t comment on them, but I could always do with more games!

If you are having a games night, this is a great entree game or wind down game. Simple to learn, fun to play, but it doesn’t have a great deal of substance… still, seeing someone one space away from winning and running out of oxygen is a guilty pleasure, especially if you have a spouse as focussed on winning as mine is!

Score: ***1/2

A game in full play!

Pitchstorm Party Game

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Pitchstorm

The game Pitchstorm from Skybound Games

There’s one thing that every single person whose ever watched a movie have in common: they have suggested a different angle or ending to a scene, or to the whole movie itself. Movie goers are all potential movie writers or directors. Seriously, every time you see an interview with a modern filmmaker they talk about how they were influenced by *insert name here*, and that’s exactly the mentality that this game preys upon.

Sure it is easy to come up with a better ending, but how easy is it to come up with a pitch for a film on the spot? If a movie producer came to you and said,’ I hear you’ve been talking smack about my films, YOU come up with a better idea!’, could you do it, or would you just blather on and watch them and their multimillion dollar investment walk away…

Pitchstorm is a party game that gives you that opportunity… well, without financial offer anyway.

An example of the Character Cards

The rules for Pitchstorm come in two different ways, one for 3 to 5 players, and the other for 6 to 12, so as a party game, it can be suitable for a small table or a large gathering of people. The rules are only slightly different as the second offering makes it a team based game.

The concept is very simple. Each player (or team) have to pitch an idea to the player acting as ‘the executive’, who then picks the best pitch and that player (or team) received a point.

An example of the Plot Cards

At the beginning of the game (for a 3 to 5 player game), one player as picked as the executive, and they get to draw three cards from the ‘Notes’ pile. Next all the players get to draw three cards from either the Character or the Plot pile. Each player, in turn has to pick one card from the deck they DIDN’T pick from initially, for example, if a player drew three plot cards, they now pick one character card.

After they have their single card, they have to pick one of the three cards in their hand and have 90 seconds to pitch their movie to the executive. However, and the 60 second mark, the executive picks one of their notes and tells the pitching player that this has to be added to the pitch. The executive picks the movie they liked the most and that player keeps their ‘note’ card as an indicator of one point. This goes around the table until everyone has had a turn, and the winner is the one with the highest amount of note cards.

An example of the executives notes

In a larger game, teams of two, each team player either takes three character or plot cards and place them at the same time for the concept of their film. During the 60 second pitch, performed by both players, the executive team, who have note cards each, will place their note cards so the players have to adjust their pitches twice with the new information. The scoring is the same as above except for the team.

The final goal for this game is variable, as you can play it as long as you want but just as long as each player/ team has had an opportunity of being the executive.

NB.: there is a Pitchstorm timer app available on the App Store.

Pitchstorm is a fun game for a big group, but only if every one is compliant with the concept. Like bigger games like Dungeons and Dragons, if a person is not INTO playing the game, they won’t just have a bad time, they will drag the entire game down. It is, essentially, a storytelling game and that story/ joke telling skill set is one necessary for a fun time. This is a game for people who love to be creative and loud and funny.

Not reviewed but available are 7 expansions: Pitchstorm NC-17, Pitchstorm Date Night, Pitchstorm Superheroes, Pitchstorm Animation, Pitchstorm Creature Features, Pitchstorm So Bad It’s Good and Awards Season. Most of these are simply entertaining the tropes that the name suggests, but Awards Season also adds Award Cards, which give bonus points.

Score: ***

Stupid Deaths: The Frightfully Funny Game

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Stupid Deaths: The Frightfully Funny Game

Stupid Deaths from University Games

Once, there was a movie starring future all-round-adorable-guy Keanu Reeves, and in that film was a character called Socrates, who once said:’ Death may be the greatest of all human blessings”.

He was possibly right, and I suppose we’ll all find out eventually, except for those who end up suffering Stupid Deaths, who may find out sooner than they would like… and for our amusement.

Stupid Deaths is a 2 to 6 player game that FEELS like a trivia game, but isn’t.

In Stupid Deaths, the board has 24 spaces set in a circle, and at one end of the board is a green space, where you, the player, will lay your coloured token, and opposite is a red space, where Death awaits, hungry for your life.

In addition to your player piece, you are also offered an extra life token, and two coffin shaped cards, one with ‘TRUE’ written on it, and the other with ‘FALSE’.

The VERY thematic true/ false cards

The gameplay is really simple! On each turn, one player draws one of the three hundred cards, and reads the horribly stupid death that some poor soul has endured. The other players decide, using their true/ false cards, where their belief of the text lies. If they are correct, they get to move one space, if they are incorrect, Death moves one space towards them. If every player chooses incorrectly, the person asking the question gets to move two spaces. Play continues with the card reader going around the table so each player gets to do it.

An example of the stories on the cards

If the Death token reaches or passes a player, that player has been ‘touched by Death’ and is out of the game UNLESS they have an extra life token… remember, the one you got at the beginning of the game… in which case, that player get to go one space in front of death, given an opportunity to stay in the game.

The winner of the game is either the first to reach the red space, or is the last one standing after everyone else has had Death surpass them.

I always have an issue with games that are not on-point with their theme, and I have to say that this game looks does match its theme. It has a stark aesthetic that works perfectly, with skulls and coffins all over the place, and a predominantly black board, and a pretty cute little Death standee. All of this is packaged in a pretty cool gravestone shaped box.

A game ready to be played

NB: there is a cheaper version of the game with the same name that comes in a coffin shaped tin, but it has no board or pieces and only 90 cards. It can be played by itself, or the cards can be added to this version for more deaths to choose from.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? It’s not. To its credit, Stupid Deaths does know it has a limited lifespan, as regular gamers will start to remember the cards and that reduces the competitiveness of the game, but it’s not very expensive, so if you aren’t too worried about world wide resources, I guess it’s ok value? Seriously though, you might get 8 games out of it before it starts to get a little samey.

The other thing is the mechanic of player elimination. Once a player has had both their lives lost, they don’t get to play the game anymore. I understand that the game shouldn’t run much longer than 20 or 30 minutes, but who wants to sit on their hands during a board game night. Player elimination is the opposite of fun.

Also, the box suggests 2 to 6 players: at 2 players this game is absolutely terrible; you would honestly be better watching 30 minutes of Fail Army on Youtube, which would garner the same ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ as the stories on these cards will.

Whilst the cards a funny and the black humour is suitably dark, it’s not much of a game. It feels like someone watched a Darwin Awards video and went ‘ I could make a game of that.’

Score: *

Blockbuster Party Game

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Blockbuster Party Game

The VHS styled cover for Blockbuster!

As Conan said about the best things in life,’ pick your movies, see them in the comfort of your home, and hear the amazing stereo sound!’… well, he said SOMETHING like that.

Tragically, the days of the video shop have passed, and I have to say, even though I prefer to buy my physical media rather than rent them, I do miss walking up and down the aisles of my local Videoezy, Videomonde, Blockbuster or even the good ol’ smaller solo video stores, though I was usually there to raid their ex-rentals.

Blockbuster is the name that everyone remembers more than any, I’m sure, and this game appears to be a trivia game, which can unfortunately squeeze out people who aren’t big movie fans, but it’s not.

The Blockbuster Party Game is a party game for 4 to 10 people, who in my family’s experience, plays best with 8, and it’s not a trivia game, but it is about movies.

The game is played in 2 teams, in 2 rounds. In the first round, a card is drawn from a deck titled ‘Head to Head’ and from each team, a representative is chosen to play in this round. On the face of each Head to Head card is a description of a movie, like ‘Movies with a Dragon’ or ‘Movies with a Dog’ or ‘Movies with a Giant Monster’ etc, and over the course of 15 seconds, timed with a supplied timer, each representative has to give an example of a movie that fits the description. For example, in that last example, King Kong, Godzilla, Gamera and their Kaiju comrades. The two go back and forth with titles, and the person who hasn’t answered when timer goes off is the loser.

Examples of the head to head cards

The winner of the round now draws 6 Movie cards, which are quite simply, coloured-coded by genre cards with the names of movies on them. The winner then picks the 3 cards that they think will be the easiest for them to communicate to their team, each card being picked to reveal in three different ways:

One Word – where you can only describe the film with a single word.

Quote It – describe the movie with a single quote from the film.

Act It – you have to perform a charade of the movie title.

Examples of the movie cards

The winner then has 30 seconds to perform those actions on the cards, flipping them over if the team guess correctly. If they do it in LESS than the 30 seconds, they can then attempt the opponents cards!

It’s then the opposing teams turn, and they have the same rules. If they finish quick enough and the opposing team still have face down movie titles, they can attempt to steal them.

There is also a special rule where once per turn, if one side has three of any colour genre, they can steal an opponents card for their collection.

These rounds continue back and forth until one side has collected a full set of the 8 coloured genre cards.

Ready to play!

The game is fun, and as it’s not a trivia game, an average to below average knowledge of movies is enough. The films picked are blockbusters (geddit) or well-known films so there’s very few opportunities of someone not knowing the answer.

The design of the game is quite thematic with the board being the car park outside a Blockbuster, there’s a street sign that performs no purpose other than to represent the theme more. The supplied timer is a clever gadget that runs for 15 seconds with a single touch, and 30 seconds when held down to activate.

The whole thing is quite gimmicky in its presentation but it also has problems. The replica video case doesn’t close completely, the car park board doesn’t lay completely flat and the cards are not great quality.

Also, it being a party game, it will sit in your games cupboard until you have enough people to play it, which is a minimum of 4! I consistently only have 3 players playing so it’s hard for me to get it to the table.

It’s a fun game and there are heaps of options (200 hundred movie cards!) so the game has quite a fair bit of longevity, especially if not played over and over with the same group. There is also two different music versions of the game: a UK version called Top of the Pops and a U.S. one called MTV: The Throwback Music Party Game. All three were published by Big Potato Games in 2020.

Score: ***

Unmatched Jurassic Park: Ingen Vs Raptors

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Unmatched Jurassic Park: Ingen Vs Raptors

The cover to Unmatched: Jurassic Park

In 2002, in the wake of the Star Wars prequels, the merchandising machine for George Lucas’ franchise went into overdrive, making everything from pyjamas to action figures, and in this case board games.

Milton Bradley/ Hasbro came up with a game called Star Wars: Epic Duels was a card based miniature game designed by Cthulhu: Death May Die’s Rob Daviau and Craig Van Ness, who made the iconic and much sought after Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit board game… seriously, if you have one, I want it!

Unfortunately, Epic Duels disappeared, but Restoration Games unearthed it, dusted it off, removed the Star Wars skin on it and came up with an updated version, now called Unmatched: Battle of Legends Volume 1, a card based miniature game that had two players pitch characters like King Arthur, Alice (from Wonderland), Sinbad the Sailor and Medusa in..ahem… epic duels against each other.

Velociraptor card art
Muldoon card art

As this was an epically fun game, that also had beautiful card art from the people at Mondo, best known for amazing posters and soundtrack art, and minis from Punga Miniatures, of course expansions started to emerge, and very quickly we had characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Marvel comics, Bruce Lee (!!!), other older literary and mythological characters (like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, the Invisible Man) and in this case, Jurassic Park.

Unmatched Jurassic Park is the first of three JP based expansions, one other having a T-Rex vs Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm and an Alan Grant one announced, and has us pitch the big game hunter Muldoon up against three velociraptors. I call them ‘expansions’ but technically, every game of Unmatched that has more than one character in it, is a game in its own right, and can be played without any of the other editions.

The miniatures can be painted or left unpainted as I have done

This game is very easy to play… you don’t need to be very clever girls (geddit?)… and is started with two players deciding whether they want to be Muldoon or the dinosaurs. Once decided, the players place their starting minis, and in the case of Muldoon, their Ingen employee chits, on the board, collect their deck of thirty cards, their player cards and their life counters, they then draw seven cards each and get ready to rumble. This seven cards is their hand limit for the game, so if at the end of a turn they find themselves with more, they have to discard down to that limit.

On each turn, the players have to draw one card, and then have a choice of actions:

– move: each mini can move up to its limit shown on the player card, unless they have a card in their hand that boosts their move limit.

– scheme: you may play a special effect card onto one of your chosen minis

– attack: using your cards, the player may attack another player if they are within range. To perform combat, the attacking player takes a combat card from their hand and place it face down in from of them, and the defender does so with a defence card. Both players reveal their cards and the defence score is removed from the attack score, and the remaining points are the damage taken. Some cards do have additional effects, so they also take place, potentially diffusing or increasing an attack.

A game set up and ready to play

This moving, scheming and attacking continues until the character mini is reduced to zero health, in the velociraptors case, all three being reduced to zero. The three versus one might seem unfair, but Muldoon has ranged attacks, Ingen employees to distract the dinosaurs and traps to corral them, or catch them.

One thing I didn’t mention with the other sets of Unmatched is they are completely mixable and matchable. You want Buffy the Vampire Slayer to fight Muldoon? Do it! Dracula versus the velociraptors? Go for it! Every set can be played against each other, so buying many sets is a must, especially when all those Jurassic Park ones are finally released!

At my place, we even used a round robin generator to create the matches for us – let me tell you, I was pretty angry when Bruce Lee beat my velociraptors, though I expect that he probably could.

The box interior is designed for easy pack up!

Even though this review is for the first Jurassic Park version Unmatched, it really is a review for all of them. Throughout the series, of course some characters are better than others, but it’s not just the specs for the character, it’s also the way the player plays. I have been beaten with characters that I didn’t win with, so play style comes into it a lot.

I love this game. The art is fantastic, the minis are beautifully designed and executed and the gameplay is simple enough for it to be accessible to gamers of any level to play it, but once you’re in, it becomes a thinky exercise that almost chess-like in its execution. Weirdly, for a game that spreads its mechanics across various themes and franchises, each character is true in its play style to its theme; a difficult exercise to execute well. Heaps of fun, buy it.

Score: *****

Psycho Killer Card Game

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Psycho Killer

The amazing box for Psycho Killer

David Byrne from Talking Heads once said;’ Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est, fafafafa fafafafafa better, run, run, run, run run away.’ It doesn’t mean anything in regards to this card game review, but he did say it… on SEVERAL occasions!!

There’s nothing I love more than a tidy little card game that is easy to learn, and the teach can be taught in minutes. The reason I like this is that it’s nice for my wife to have a card game or two in her hand bag, and when at the pub, it can be whipped out for a quick few rounds.

Unfortunately Psycho Killer from Escape Tabletop Games doesn’t come in one of those little boxes, but to their credit, they have put the base game into a box that will eventually fit the expansions if you choose to buy them, and I guess if you want to, you can just throw the original deck into a smaller box for travel. Also, and I have to point this out before I go any further, the box is in an awesome replica of a VHS tape, which is very thematic for the game. It just proves that even though I think I’m nostalgia proof, I definitely am not!

(NB: the expansions to date are a zombie expansion, another called Gratuitous Violence and a drinking game addition called ‘Bloody Mary’.)

If one of these comes out of the deck, you’re all in trouble.

The game does fit that previous criteria though, as the short instructions take minutes to read, and the play explanation takes even less, so if you do decide to whip it out and introduce it to people who haven’t played it before, you’ll be up to your guts in no time. This game is a clear example of it not being the size that counts, but what you do with it instead.

In Psycho Killer, you play potential and eventual victims of a slasher who wants you dead. The winner is determined by who has the less injuries at the end of the game, which is determined by when the fifth psycho killer card is drawn from the draw pile.

The regular cards

Play is simple. To set up, take the cards with black backgrounds (these are the psycho killer and bad event cards) out of the deck and deal 7 cards to each player. Shuffle those black cards back into the deck and place that deck as a draw pile in the middle of the table.

Each turn, players play as many cards as they can from their hand, and finish their turn by drawing a card from the top of the deck to replenish their hand. If the card is a psycho killer card, they, and everyone else at the table have to play all their Injury cards, which determines how many points they have, and after the 5th psycho killer is drawn, the person with the lowest amount of injuries, wins!

Simple right? The curliness of the game comes from the fact that the other cards you play can see you moving your injuries to other players, checking the cards in the deck to see if you can avoid them, reversing the state of play and other such devious things that help you avoid injury. There is also a catch up mechanism too: if you have more than 10 injury points during the game, you are ‘left for dead’ and it gives you an advantage of being able to hold some of the black cards (not the psycho killer) in your hand until it’s strategically better for you to play.

I really like the theme of the game, and the fact that the design of it all fits well in with the VHS generation, and there is plenty of horror in-jokes or Easter eggs or whatever they are called these days for the big horror fan, and even the minor one. The good thing is that the theme doesn’t disturb the gameplay so if you aren’t a horror or movie fan, like my wife, it doesn’t get in the way of a fun game. I guess this also means the theme isn’t important, but I admit I did purchase this game because of it.

A game of Psycho Killer in progress

If I am to criticise this game for one thing, it’s the ‘when to play’ code on the cards. Thematically, using the emblems for ‘fast forward’, ‘play’, ‘eject’ etc to describe when each card has to be played is smart, but it’s not immediately accessible, and those casuals who aren’t big movie fans will ask on several occasions what it means, so be prepared for those questions!

All in all, Psycho Killer is a quick fun family game with a very non-family theme. Game length is random as you never know when those psycho killer cards are going to pop up, but the cards make it tactically fun as you cross and double cross your friends and family, allowing them to get more injuries than what you have, aiming towards that lower score at the end.

Score: ****

Jekyll Vs Hyde

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Jekyll Vs Hyde

The cover of Jekyll Vs Hyde

Of ‘classic’ genre literature, it’s probably H. P. Lovecraft and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are the most represented in board games. For Doyle, it’s the puzzle aspect of Sherlock Holme’s stories that make for a good gaming cornerstone. As for Lovecraft, unfolding mysteries filled with bizarre aliens and maddening monsters make for a lot of fun too.

Sure, there and games revolving around Mary Shelly’s The Modern Prometheus (better known as Frankenstein) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but this little pocket-sized gem, Jekyll Vs Hyde is a card game based upon the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

This game is a tactical, trick-taking game and is about the internal turmoil that Dr. Jekyll constantly goes through every day, and how he has to maintain an even balance to retain control of his body, whereas Mr. Hyde just wants chaos.

A game set-up and ready to play

This game is played with a simple game board that represent the distance between insanity and sanity for Jekyll and Hyde, with a single miniature representing both of him, that starts on one side of the board, and through point scoring slowly moves across the board. Hyde’s mission is to get the token all the way to madness whereas Jekyll’s is to maintain balance. The game is played across three rounds.

The game starts with the Hyde player issuing ten cards to each player, and returning the other cards to the box. The cards come in three suites, greed (green), wrath (red) and pride (purple) and on each turn of the first round, the Jekyll player goes first, putting down one card, and then the Hyde player playing one.

The first colour that is put down sees a token put onto the board as the ‘weakest’ colour, and as other cards are played, each following colour becomes stronger.

Basically, the winner of each round is determined as such: if the Hyde player puts down the same colour, the highest of the two cards wins. If the Hyde player puts down a stronger colour, as determined above, the stronger colour wins. If someone puts down a potion card, the colour the other player put down activates the special abilities of the ‘strength’ tokens, which could be swapping hands, resetting the strength cards or taking one winning pair with the other player, and the highest number wins.

Each time a player wins a trick, they win the two cards and put them to one side. At the end of the full round, the amount of pairs are compared, and the marker moves along the board the amount of spaces that the difference is between the two scores. For example, if the Hyde player has 7 and the Jekyll player has 3, the marker will move 4 spaces.

The card art is absolutely fantastic

This is repeated 2 more times, with the Hyde player winning if the marker hits the other end of the board, and Jekyll wins if it does not.

From a tactical point of view, this is a quirky little thing as far as it’s gameplay is concerned. The Jekyll player wants there to be as little distance between the two scores, and so they may have to sacrifice winning hands to equalise the scores, but the Hyde player wants as much distance between the two scores as possible. This makes the game very much a game of concentration as you calculate how close or far your opponents score is.

The design is very thematic as well. The images of anguish and terror on the cards are thematically on point, and the board is low-key so as not to distract from its purpose. The marker, a bust of Jekyll on one side and Hyde on the other is a weighty little metal thing that makes the game a little more lux than it’s price may suggest.

The amazing metal mini-bust of Jekyll and Hyde

It’s a really fun game that is thematically on point, and not just a great addition to any gamer’s collection, but will also slip nicely into any coffin-shaped handbag, for a trip to the pub or a friend’s place.

Score: ****

Board Game Review: Horrified

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HORRIFIED

HORRIFIED is from Ravensberger games, and designed by Prospero Hall, the game design team behind Ramen Fury, Villainous, Jaws and the Funkoverse games (amongst others), and in this game, the players play a variety of heroes, who are helping defend a village against the threat of a collective of monsters from the Universal Monster movies (Dracula, the Wolfman, the Monster of Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Invisible Man).

The objective of the game is to beat the monsters by achieving a variety of objectives before they terrorise the town too much, shown by the ‘Terror track’, which goes up every time time they kill a hero or villager, or if you run out of cards in the ‘monster deck’.

The game is set up by the players selecting their hero, each who have a variety of special abilities, and what monsters they wish to fight. The instructions suggest that in the first game you play you should use the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Dracula. Also each player gets a ‘perk’ card which allows them a little extra something special, like a movement bonus’ once per game. Also, 12 item tokens have to be distributed to their respective locations.

Each turns sees one player performing how many actions they can do, as declared on their player card, which can include move, collect items, guide villager, deliver items to various locations (which will provide you the tools to defeat a monster),defeat monster, exchange items with another player or your special ability.

After the player has taken their turn, a monster card is revealed from the monster pack and indicates various threatening things the monsters can do. Basically, most things they do, if not deflected by a player, causes the terror track to go up by one, which you don’t want to happen. The monster cards also increase the amount of items on the board, and can also reveal the location of a villager, who may be killed by the monster if you don’t save them by taking them to their safe house…. yep, yet ANOTHER mission that if you fail will cause the terror track to increase!

Each of the monsters has different condition to defeat them:

Dracula – smash his 4 coffins hidden throughout the board

Creature from the Black Lagoon – send a boat to the lagoon by delivering items to the camp

Invisible Man – deliver clue items to the Precinct

The Frankensteins – stop them from meeting until they have both learned to be ‘human’ by giving them items as gifts

Wolfman – find a cure by delivering items to the laboratory

Mummy – solve the puzzle by delivering items to the museum

After you have solved these quests, the simple thing to do next is to kill the monsters, usually by landing on their space with a particular amount of items tokens, or in the case of the Frankensteins, getting them to meet so they can fall in LOOOOOOVVVVEEEE!

This is a co-operative game, but for those who love to play buy don’t get an opportunity too often to get together with other gamers, this also has a solo mode. The miniatures for the monsters are also pretty cool and are dying for a lick of paint.

It would be remiss of me to not point out the awesome art work, reminiscent of the great artwork from Basil Gogos, the artist behind the covers of the legendary horror movie magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.

This game is a great alternative to board game legend Pandemic from Matthew Leacock and plays very similarly but with the far less scary threat of the Universal Monsters rather than, in a Covid-19 world, a killer virus. It’s also a fair bit easier, though I must say my gaming group smashed a two-monster game, but got smashed by the three-monster game. Actually, people who like Pandemic will either think this is a great alternative or far too derivative. We love Pandemic at my place and having a Universal Monster alternative for the horror aspect of it, is pretty cool.

Score: ****