[GameHack] Kut-Up The Klown: A New Killer For Final Girl By Van Ryder Games

One of my favorite hobbies is playing boardgames. One of my favorite side-hobbies is tinkering with or adding new elements to those same games. I'll create new content or rules for them, or sometimes I'll tweak the game's components to make the playing experience more interesting. Today's project describes a new killer I created for Final Girl by Van Ryder Games.

A quick overview: Final Girl is a solo player game where you try to survive the onslaught of a crazed slasher from straight out of the movies. In fact, Final Girl is very modular with a variety of different final girls, slashers, and locations you can mix and match. In Season One, you have killers such as the masked cannibal, the puppet master, the poltergeist, nature's avenger, and the dream doctor. However, my favorite slasher genre is the killer clown (or "klown" if you will). So, using a basic template and limiting myself to 27 playing cards, I decided to create my own slasher. The following is a playtest photo montage of Kut-Up the Klown!

Meet "Kut-Up the Klown"! (Once called the Killer Kannibal Klown, until some folks pointed out the unfortunate "KKK" abbreviation. Cards have been updated since this photo was taken.) Whether he comes from outer space or the sewers, this creature's rictus grin and maniacal laughter freezes its victims in their tracks!

Where else but at the Carnival of Blood would be appropriate? And of course, Kut-Up pops out of the clown car to begin his rampage...

...running over to attack Laurie as she tries to get her bearings in all the chaos.

Some victims found themselves huddled in The Big Top. But then, EVERYONE ran there for cover...just in time for Kut-Up to bounce in and slaughter a few innocents. He then left to stalk Laurie...

...only to change his mind and pop BACK into the Big Top to kill more victims! Meanwhile, everyplace NOT in the Big Top, Laurie was saving everyone she could.

Kut-Up had taken a few hits from Laurie, but when his Dark Power was triggered, it was all undone due to his "magic trick" and he healed to full!

Laurie was one saved victim away from getting her bonus, so she sprinted across the midway, grabbing the last victim and getting them to the exit.

As long as she kept her strength up, she could use the sledgehammer versus the crazed clown, dealing an additional 4 points of damage! No more victims on the board, so time to go hunting...

Did I say no more victims? Well the next Terror card I drew was discarded if no victims on the board. Drew the next and it was discarded because there were no traps in the item discards. The NEXT card I drew was either take damage or lose victims! Since there were no victims, I took 3 damage! And it was the last Terror card, triggering the Finale!

Th-th-that's all folks! Kut-Up flew into a rage, but Laurie was safe on the other side of the midway. She was able to heal up before he came charging at her. (And no victims on the board kept the bloodlust track from spiraling out of control.)

They traded blows under the ferris wheel, but Laurie's retaliation kept sending any damage dealt back to Kut-Up. Then Laurie landed a furious strike with the sledge, doing 6 points! She lost a bit of health due to the use of the sledge, dropping it to the ground. But Kut-Up was defeated for good.

And there you have it. A custom deck of 27 cards brings a new killer to Final Girl! (You'll have to go find an evil clown mini of your own!)

Kut-Up the Klown can now be downloaded at Board Game Geek in the Final Girl Files section. Click here for the link!

Zombies Shuffle Back Home: My Reacquisition Of SPI's Dawn Of The Dead Game

Back in 1980, I was 13 or 14 years old and was just starting to discover what my hobbies and interests were going to be. I liked monster movies, and board games, and late night TV, and other campy-type entertainment. I hadn't yet discovered RPGs, but I was beginning to discover boardgames. But not just games like Sorry or Monopoly and Scrabble. I was starting to fiddle around with wargames. Even though I wasn't interested in combat or world history, I loved the simulation aspect of moving little chits around a map and rolling dice for outcomes. Names like Avalon Hill, Metagaming, and Steve Jackson were on my radar.

One day, I stopped by the local toy shop and saw what would become one of my deepest gaming loves: SPI's "Dawn of the Dead" boardgame (1978). Now at that age, I don't think I'd seen the Romero classic yet, but I had a friend with a Fangoria subscription, so I knew alllllll about it. A game that simulated a horror movie with cannibal undead? My mind reeled at the idea and I plunked down all of my pocket money for the game. My brother (who was likely 9 at the time) had no interest in the game, and we lived out in the country, so neighbors and local kids were nonexistent. But this game had a SOLO mode! I could play AGAINST the game. Once again, my eyes were opened to gaming possibilities I never dreamed of.

Flash-forward 8 or 9 years later. I'm now in college. My well-loved and well-played copy of DotD went to campus with me, still complete (though the box was held together with tape by now). The campus game center was my second home, and by now I had discovered D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and other RPGs, so boardgaming happened a lot less for me. I had a bit of money troubles (as all college kids do), and the gamestore owner - knowing of my DotD game (and its collectible value even back then) - made me a generous offer. So I sold it off without regret. Ok, a LOT of regret. 

Over the years, this game's always been in the back of my mind. I loved playing it. Sure, there are a ton of solo zombie boardgames now with better production, better rules, and deeper gameplay. Hell, you can even download and create your own fanmade DotD game, if you wish. But I really wanted to get this back in hand. Recently, I had a stack of trade-ins at Noble Knight - one of my favorite online gamestores - and they had a used copy of DotD available. That's all I needed to know. My trade-ins were sent in, approved, credit was was spent, and now I have SPI's Dawn of the Dead back in hand - where it shall remain.

I plan to spend the next few weeks getting reacquainted with the game and trying to keep Fran, Peter, Steve, and Roger safe from the zombie hordes invading the Monroeville Mall. And the game will have a place of honor on my shelf next to other cherished games from my youth: Mayfair's Family Business (1989), Mayfair's Encounters (1982), and Dark House's Dark Cults (1983).

[GameHack] Improving Game Pieces For Reanimator By Dynamite Entertainment

One of my favorite hobbies is playing boardgames. One of my favorite side-hobbies is tinkering with or improving those same games. I'll create new content or rules for them, or sometimes I'll tweak the game's components to make the playing experience more interesting. Today's project describes the tweaks I made to my copy of Reanimator by Dynamite Entertainment.

A quick overview of the game: You (and a few friends, if you have them) are assistants to Herbert West as he attempts to perfect his reanimator serum. You roam the streets of Arkham, picking up ingredients, research, and corpses for your ghoulish experiments, while avoiding the city watch (as well as any undead you've accidentally let loose). You play through three acts for each player, then attempt to improve the serum. At the end of six rounds, you have one final experiment to finalize the process and either create the perfect formula...or die at the hands of the undead horde you've unleashed.

The game has many nifty 3D buildings that represent the town of Arkham, which is a neat selling point. However, the rest of the components are tokens and chits to represent your health, sanity, the undead, tomes you find, etc. Even Herbert West and the city watch are simple standees. This will not do. So I purchased some bit and pieces here and there and here are the improvements I've made to my "raising the undead" experience:

First, you start with six health and six sanity tokens. Why fool around with 12 easily-lost tokens when one red and one blue die can make an easier-to-use substitute. Just use them to countdown toward death and/or insanity.

For the cadavers/undead, I bought some generic zombie figs. (They glow in the dark too!) If they're laying down, they're cadavers used in experiments. If they're standing upright, they're undead now walking the streets of Arkham.

Tome and ingredient tokens? Feh, how about 3D tomes and small satchels instead! Picked these up from Gamecrafter's Board Game Candy site. (Got the zombies there too.)

For Herbert West and the city watch, I grabbed a couple of DC Heroclix from eBay. Shown here are a Cadmus Scientist and Police Sergeant. I'll swap out their bases for regular mini bases later, but they are a LOT better than the standees.

The Kickstarter for the Reanimator game had a gamemat you could buy that represented the streets of Arkham. I've checked and the mat is no longer available. So I picked up a generic cobblestone gamemat from Frontline Gaming. (Usually used for mini games.)

Put them all together and you have a more immersive Arkham to explore as you play!

Just don't let the city watch track you down and end your research!

[Review] Maquis Solo Board Game By Side Room Games

In your small French village during WWII, the Nazi occupiers walk the streets, policing the population and fighting the Resistance. But you will not stand for this oppression. You bravely fight for your country; hidden in the shadows, you strike; you are a member of the Maquis.

Maquis is a solo adventure board game by Side Room Games, makers of another fantastic solo game, Black Sonata. In Maquis, you have two weeks to complete two random missions from the Mission deck. You place your Resistance markers on the board representing your village, attempting to gather up supplies and weapons to complete your objectives. However, as you do so, the civilian police walk the streets, looking for dissidents. Sure, you can kill them, but then they are replaced by heavily-armed soldiers, increasing the challenge of the missions.

During setup, you place the morale marker next to the board. With each day, the morale of the town drops, and the military presence grows stronger, so you must complete your missions before it becomes impossible to do so. You then draw two mission cards and lay them at the top of the board, effectively adding two new "spaces" to the board. Each mission has different objectives, ranging for the simplistic "Officer's Mansion" (tag graffiti around the board to increase morale) to the difficult "Assassination" (kill all of the civilian police force). You place your pieces on the board with your objectives in mind. Need food? Stop by the Grocer's. Need a weapon? Take some money to the Fence and buy one. Need something in a hurry? Call in an airdrop at one of the Radio Towers, then race to the Field to pick it up. After each round, you must be able to move via a cleared path back to the Safe House. If your marker cannot do so, they are arrested and out of the game. (Fortunately, you can recruit more Resistance soldiers at the Cafe.)

Another interesting tactic is to use money to open new Safe Houses on the board, so if you are cut off, you can take refuge there. You can also use money to set up other resources on the board such as a Counterfeiter (print more money), Propagandist (increases morale), or Informant (provides intel). In fact, some missions require you to set up an additional resource as the mission cannot be completed with them (a Chemist's Lab is the only place you can get explosives, for example).

In the game shown here, my missions were "Officer's Mansion" (graffiti in three locations on the board, then tag the officer's mansion last) and "Aid the Spy" (bring weapons, money, and food to the hidden British operative). I tackled the graffiti first (shown by the yellow markers), but three of my operatives were arrested in the process. Fortunately I had recruited the cafe patrons to the cause and still had two to assist the spy. Sadly, while delivering the weapons, both recruits were out on the streets and were cut off from escaping back to the Safe House by two patrols that set up at the Grocers and Pont Leveque, ending the game.

This solo game is fantastically designed and incredibly replayable due to the 14 different missions you can undertake. The decisions you make each round directly affect future moves and actions, so the game never feels random or directionless. Thus far, I've played six games, but I haven't won yet, though I've come close. But that's life behind the lines as a member of the Maquis! Viva La Resistance!

[GameHack] Improved Character Playing Pieces For Wayward Board Game

Here at The Savage AfterWorld, I'm always coming up with little DIY projects for my favorite boardgames. I refer to these projects as "GameHacks". This weekend's GameHack is for one of my favorite boardgames of recent years, "Wayward: The Choose Your Own Adventure Boardgame," which I reviewed earlier this year.

One element I really admire is the look of the game. The gameboard is a thing of beauty with myriad colors and details shining throughout the artwork. Just take a look at a few rooms of the dungeon:

But although the gameboard is amazing to look at, the playing pieces -- although nicely sculpted -- are a bit too bland for my tastes. Each of the players are the exact same sculpt, with the only difference being the color. Also, each player's gold-tracking piece is identical to their gameboard piece which feels a bit flat to me.

See what I mean? 

I wanted player pieces that were just as exciting as the game itself. Figures that looked like they came from a fantasy adventure game. Then it dawned on me -- that's precisely what D&D 4e was all about: nifty-looking figures moving around on a gameboard of sorts. So I went to Noble Knight, and bought a small assortment of single loose D&D 4e miniatures -- the ones made of plastic and pre-painted. Once they arrived, I painted the ring around the base with a unique color. Then, stopping by the dollar store, I bought a cheap chess set and painted the pawns with a matching color to act as the respective player's gold-tracking icon. Here's the results:

Now my game's playing pieces are as dynamic as the game itself. I think I paid less than $2 for each figure and the pawns were literally one dollar. I already had the paints at home so, all said, this project cost me less than $20. The D&D figures work well with the game, and I can see them being repurposed for other games of a similar theme. So look for me with my Wayward game set at a convention near you!

[GameHack] Build A Better Zombie Horde For Escape: Zombie City

As part of International TableTop Day, I wrote an overview of Escape: Zombie City. Now, I really like this game a lot, but to be frank, the zombies that came with it are a bit lacking.

First up: many other zombie boardgames comes with actual zombie figures for use with play. Cardboard cut-outs placed into plastic standees strikes me as a bit cheap-looking. (Also, the player and van figs are physical wooden props, so why not the zombies you fight/flee from? My other issue was that the coloring used to differentiate the power of the zombies (red, yellow, and green) was applied very lightly. As a guy with severe color-blindness, this made the zombies nearly impossible to identify during the heat of play. I needed zombies that were RED, YELLOW, and GREEN. So I decided to Build a Better Zombie Horde.

If you're color-blind, these are identical -- except for the numbers, of course.

I know there are many places online where you can buy ready-to-go zombie figures for use with other zombie games. (The Bag O' Zombies for use with Zombicide comes to mind.) But for this project, I didn't want cookie-cutter zombies who all looked the same; No, I wanted an assortment of different zombies in different poses who stood just a touch bigger -- the size of little green Army men, in fact.

I did a bit of searching online, I found a 60-piece zombie playset filled with an assortment of undead -- just what I was looking. I then gathered up some white poker chips, epoxy, plastic primer, three tubes of acrylic paints, and some double-sided foam tape.

My staging area for my soon-to-be-released zombie horde.

First I sorted out 20 zombies in interesting poses I liked, then I glued them to the poker chips for a stable base. After dusting them with the primer, they held the acrylic paints well.

A few zombies both pre-painted and post-painted.

For the fist/bat icons, I scanned a few of the original figures, then trimmed the icons down in size (removing the "X" as superfluous). I printed them onto thin cardstock, covered them with a layer of clear tape (to protect the imagery), then stuck them to the bases with foam-backed double-sided tape. This both "lifts" the icon up for easier reading, as well as adheres to the irregular shape of the poker chip base.

Compared to the originals, I like my zombies a LOT better for gameplay!

 And my Escape: Zombie City "new-and-improved" zombie horde is ready to storm the table!

During gameplay, you'll need to draw these blindly out of a box rather than the cloth bag provided with the game, but I think these are going to see a lot of use in future games!

[Int'l Tabletop Day Review] Escape: Zombie City by Queen Games

Welcome to The Savage AfterWorld and International TableTop Day! We're participating in a multi-site "Boardgame Review Bloghop" today, so zip down to the bottom of this post to see who else is participating. And now, on with my overview!

Most boardgame enthusiasts by now have probably heard about and/or played Escape: The Curse of the Temple by Queen Games. This frantic, real-time, dice-rolling, adventure game is great fun for would-be Indiana Jones-types as they hurriedly roll dice, explore the tomb, retrieve the treasures, and try to get out alive before time runs out! But what if you prefer "less Raiders" and "more Living Dead"? Well Queen Games' recently released Escape follow-up will slake that zombie hunger!

 Escape: Zombie City is Queen Games' newest entry in their real-time, dice-rolling, exploration-and-escape game series, and it has quickly become a favorite in the Sniderman household. Gameplay is similar to the first Escape game (explained later), but in Zombie City, the game is divided into two distinct phases. (First, you'll want to pop in and play the enclosed CD soundtrack which acts as both a 15-minute timer as well as a nifty ambiance soundtrack.)

During the first phase, players spread out from their church stronghold into the zombie-infested city. While running through the streets and exploring the town, you'll need to scavenge up several specific items necessary to escape: first aid supplies, food, weapons, etc. During all of this, zombies are rising from the grave, attacking the players and wandering the streets back to the church. If three manage to enter your home base, your base is overrun and you lose immediately! So simply avoiding the zombies isn't enough -- you'll have to destroy them, spending valuable time in the process.

The red and blue players team up to fight a red zombie while the white player contends with a yellow zombie that popped up on the new area he entered. (No thanks to the zombie card shown!) Meanwhile the green zombie is just one step away from walking into the church to the right!

Every five minutes of real-time when the zombies groan with hunger, you must race back to the church to both drop off found supplies and take shelter from the undead horde. Fail to do so, and you lose the use of one of your precious dice for the rest of the game! Hopefully during the chaos, you'll be able to find the road that leads out of town as well as collect enough supplies to make a run for it! When (and IF) you do, phase two begins...

During phase two, you load up the beat-up church van and try to drive out of town. At this point, the streets are overrun with undead, and the players must now fight together as a team to get themselves, the van, and all of their supplies to the exit ramp and out of town. Movement slows to a crawl as EVERY player must successfully move along with an extra movement rolled for the van. Any zombies you encounter must be fought rather than bypassed or fled from. And by this time, you have a scant few minutes before time runs out!

The yellow van is loaded with supplies and ready to head out to the exit in the upper left of the photo. But the road out of town is loaded with zombies! Good thing they're escaping, as two zombies managed to enter the base as shown in the lower left next to the zombie card pile.

Like its predecessor, each player constantly rolls five dice, attempting to make matches that will allow them to perform actions. Matching a pair of "getaway" icons allows you to reveal and place a new city tile or enter an area previously exposed. "Fist" and "bat" icons let you scavenge for necessary supplies and attack the zombie hoards. Be careful, as "panic" icons become locked and unusable unless you can unlock it with a "caution" roll. It sounds simple enough until that looming 15-minute countdown begins, then it becomes a frantic dice-rolling free-for-all.

Complicating things are the zombies and the zombie cards. With each new street section exposed, a player must draw a new zombie card. Some cards cause one or all zombies to move toward the church. Some cards cause a zombie to explode out of the ground in the section the player's now in. And other cards cause zombies to pop up throughout the city! There are also injury cards -- such as a broken arm (you must play with one hand only) or bitten by a zombie (lose a die). Also zombies come in three strengths. The weak "green" zombies are easily defeated, needing three fists or bats to put them down. Moderate "yellow" zombies need four fists/bats to stop them, and the hearty "red" zombies require all five of your dice to show fists or bats. With the stronger zombies, you'll need other players to run to your aid as you can then combine your dice if you're in the same section. However, while you pool your fighting resources, you lose time scavenging for supplies. And the clock is always ticking down.

rawwwrrrr...grooooannn....unnngghhhrrrr

Unlike Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Escape: Zombie City adds a new dimension to the gameplay as the gameboard is now alive (in a manner of speaking). Players are not just trying to gather supplies and escape to win...now they must also defend their base from an ever-approaching -- and ever-growing -- zombie horde. And as the timer ticks down, more zombies enter the game, staggering towards the church, cutting off the players' hope for Escape! If you enjoy the quick-paced exploration mechanic of the original game, Escape: Zombie City adds a great new element with the approaching relentless zombie horde as well as horrifying zompocalypse theme to the game. Good luck, and try not to get eaten!

Be sure visit these other International TableTop Day "Boardgame Review Bloghop" participants!

Channel Zero – Thunderstone by Alderac Entertainment

Fractalbat – The Hills Rise Wild by Pagan Publishing

The Gibbering Gamer – Dragon Dice by SFR (formerly TSR)

Random Encounters (From Ohio) – Nano Bot Battle Arena by Derpy Games

Troll in the Corner – Star Realms by White Wizard Games

The Savage AfterWorld – Escape: Zombie City by Queen Games

Sign Up Today For The Int'l TableTop Day "Boardgame Review Blog Hop"!

Just a reminder that I'm lining up bloggers who want to participate in a first-annual International TableTop Day "Boardgame Review Blog Hop"! TableTop Day will be coming up on April 11, and I'm fielding interest from bloggers and web gurus who'd like to post a review or overview of their favorite boardgame on that day. If you have a website, blog, G+ feed, whatever, and you'd like to participate by talking up your favorite boardgame on April 11, drop me an email at gameagain at gmail period com and tell me your blog's name, its URL address, and the boardgame you'd like to feature that day. On April 11, I hope we'll have many participants telling us about many boardgames they enjoy! Sign up now!

International TableTop Day "Boardgame Review Blog Hop" Call For Participants

International TableTop Day will be coming up on April 11. This recently-founded event is a day where folks come together to celebrate tabletop gaming together. Gamestores will be hosting events, and gaming groups will gather in dining rooms, gamerooms, and basements around the world to Play More Games.

As a way of contributing to this event, I plan to assemble a blog hop of bloggers' boardgame reviews that will go live and run during the day-long event. What do I have in mind? I'd like to see the gaming blog community post a review or overview of their favorite boardgame. It can be a current favorite, a classic tabletop game, an obscure gaming relic -- any game that you would like to promote and talk up. (Though I'd like to steer clear of The Current Hotness in games and would rather focus on those games that never seem to be in the spotlight).

If you have a blog and would like to participate, drop me an email at gameagain at gmail period com and tell me your blog's name, its URL address, and the boardgame you'd like to feature that day. I'll post a weekly update of participants as the event draws near and will set up a blog hop Linky. Then, on April 11, we should see a plethora of boardgame reviews, previews, and overviews, giving readers a nice cross-section of games to peruse they might not otherwise have heard about or given a chance. We're a month away, so sign up now if you'd like to participate!

Milton Bradley's 1980's Mad Max Boardgame AKA "Thunder Road"

I saw an auction on eBay for this boardgame and it brought up all kinds of '80s gaming memories. This simplified "Car Wars" clone was the closest we got to a mainstream, post-apocalyptic, Mad Max boardgame. So who here owned it?

 

And here's more information at Board Game Geek: Thunder Road by Milton Bradley