| Reviewer | Reviewed On | Publisher | Designer | Published In | Rating |
| March 7, 2004 | Immersion Games | Not credited | 2002 | 3 |
| Buy It Now | More Info |
Wow! Very rarely do I read rulebooks as convoluted as this one. I read them several times, and am still not sure that we are playing the game correctly. However, I don’t think it matters much – the game just wasn’t very fun to play. The components were a mix of good and poor quality – which threw off how the board looked. Supposedly the game was going to give players the feeling that they were running for their lives, with only a few options. That part worked – I felt like I had one or two options per turn, the rest of the game played out for me. Maybe they can make a computer version, and I can just turn it on, then come back and see if I won.
I’ll try to explain the rules, but the rules are a mess, so if I mess them up – not my fault! A large board, consisting of a 121 square grid, is placed in the middle of the board. A bunch of “courage” tokens are placed face down and shuffled up, each of them placed on squares on the board with an “X” on them. There are two courage chips for each player in the game – 16 total. Each player puts the camper of their color in the middle of the board, as well as the two psycho playing pieces (although they are lying down – still “dead”, I suppose) A bunch of tiles are mixed up in a bag, and a stack of psycho cards is placed after the last player – where the “computer” person playing the psychos is sitting. A pile of mountains, lake pieces, blood markers, 2 dice, stack of cabin cards, stack of event cards, and a pile of trail blaze tokens are placed near the board. The scariest player goes first, and then play proceeds clockwise around the table.
On a turn, a player (usually) can turn over one tile and place it on the board – in front of their camper piece. She then moves her camper onto it, and rolls the event die. (On the first turn, two tiles are placed down, and no event die is rolled). Depending on the tile piece, the player may be able to move off in one, two or no directions next turn.
When the event die is rolled,
- if a question mark is rolled, the top event card is picked, read, and followed.
- if it is a single hockey mask, this means that a psycho is summoned. The top psycho movement card is drawn, and the corresponding psycho guy moves the amount of squares on the card toward the player drawing the card. If the psycho is off the board for some reason, they appear in the player’s space.
- if a player rolls the double hockey mask symbols, the closest psycho moves towards that player, using the same method as above.
- if a question mark in a box is rolled, the top event card is followed, and the player also gets a “reserve tile”, one they can save for a future turn.
A player can, instead of drawing and playing a tile, try to blaze a trail through the vegetation “walls” on the tiles. They announce which way they are blazing and roll the event die. On a question mark, they place a trail blaze card down, and place a new tile in the new space, if necessary, rolling a new event die. If the hockey mask is rolled, however, the psycho, hearing the player trying to blaze the trail, will move towards them.
If a player runs into another player, the two roll the 12-sided die, with the player having the higher roll pushing the other down, giving them a wound. That player then loses two turns, and the pusher can decide whether they want to switch seats with that player.
After the last player goes each round, the psychos move, by drawing the top psycho movement card. The card shows how far the psychos move, and in what direction. It is possible for psychos to move off the board, making them more deadly, as they can sneak back in for surprise attacks. If the psycho bumps into a camper, they fight. The player controlling the camper rolls a 12-sided die, comparing the results to a fight table printed on the back of the book. If they roll a five or less, they take a wound, putting a blood marker in front of them to mark this. If they roll an “11” or “12”, they knock out the psycho, and take them off the board (temporarily). If a player takes three wounds, they must knock their person over, and lose three turns, removing a blood marker each turn.
Event cards are drawn often throughout the game. Sometimes they cause new terrain to appear on the board, such as a mountain or lake. A die is rolled to determine where these terrain pieces go, and the appropriate terrain is placed there, blocking all future movement in those spots. If a cabin is found, a cabin piece is placed on that spot, and the player draws a cabin card (equipment card) to see what they find. After that, cabins are worthless, except that players can heal all their wounds there. Cabin cards can give players all kinds of benefits, such as weapons, to help them in fights, etc.
To win the game, the player must find their “courage”, one of their matching courage chips. If they find another player’s color, they just place it back down secretly where they found it. When they find their own color, they must get off the board. To do this, they must somehow make their way to the edge, then blaze a trail through the vegetation on the edge of the board. If they do this, they win!
Some comments on the game…
1.) Components: The components are a mixed lot, and show that the game was independently produced. The cabin pieces are, without a doubt, brown colored Monopoly hotels. The character pieces are pictures of a screaming girl (who appears to be topless) and a running boy – both on stickers that are stuck to plastic stand up pieces. The mountains are really nice, being nice, large plastic rocks that jut up from the game board. They are so nice that they stand out from everything else. The cards seem to be printed on a computer printer, but are still fairly nice, although rather dark. The tiles are okay looking on the board, if a bit bland. The biggest problem with them (and the lake tiles) is that they are WAY too thin. They are thinner than most playing cards, and have no backing – it just being white. The courage chips are black tiddly winks with stickers pasted to one side. All of this fits in a black, sturdy box, with pictures of the screaming kids being chased by the Jason-look-a-like. The box is the best thing about all the components, which are, at best – mediocre.
2.) Rules: I already mentioned that the rules are confusing – even with a sheet of quick start reference. All through the rulebook, there is mention of a rule, then telling the reader that they will explain it later. I do not like flipping back and forth through a rulebook. I found that the game was a little confusing to teach, because people had a hard time figuring out what to do (me too!) The rulebook, again printed out on a printer, looked okay, but ARG!
3.) Strategy: I had a hard time figuring out strategy to this game. Each turn, you have one or two choices. Then, the event die, the tile drawn, the movement of the psycho, the event cards – everything stinking thing in the whole game is random! Is there anything you can do to change this? NO! You just sit there and take your licks. If one player luckily finds their courage, and then manages to get lucky tile draws, the game can be over in about five turns (it happened). Everyone else just sits there and stares, wondering how on earth this is supposed to be fun. On the flip side, a player can continuously keep turning over courage chips, not finding the one they need – and the game can drag out forever. I’m sorry, I cannot talk about strategy in this game anymore, it just drives me crazy. I think I’d rather play Candyland – well, not really, but still!
4.) Theme: I thought that the game would appeal to teenagers, since they are usually the ones who like this movie genre. The theme went over like a dud, mostly because the game play was so bad, but even more because it’s just too easy to knock the psychos out. And when the psycho does “kill” a player, they don’t die – but lose three turns (oh the fun!). Having cabins that are smaller than the player, and mountains that are twice as tall, as well as ugly pieces running all over the board doesn’t help. Theme is a good idea, but poorly executed.
5.) Fun Factor: For adults: none. For kids: not much. For adults and kids mixed: Pieces of the game will probably be flung at one another out of boredom.
6.) Players and Time: I was excited when first seeing the game, seeing that it supported up to eight players. This is a good thing, except a player can muff up on their turn, then wait a LONG time until they go again. Especially if they lose two or three turns. The game length can be really short - 10 minutes – or really long – 90 minutes.
I suppose that you can tell that I wasn’t enamored by this game. I thought that it probably wouldn’t please the strategy gaming crowd (it didn’t) but that it might please the teen crowd (still didn’t). Sadly, I can’t think of any group to recommend this game to. Even if you like these old “scary” movies with hack-and-slash in them, this game does such a poor job simulating them that I can’t recommend it at all. Just turn off the lights and play tag or something. You’ll probably have more fun.
Tom Vasel
Contents copyright© 2006-2012 Tom Vasel