Final Girl: Starter Set

*** Core Box ***

(A 5 for now, but could be a 6. Will never be a 7.)

A buddy with Too Many Games has a kind heart and the best lending library, so I gave FG a shot.

I have mixed feelings. The game's at its most entertaining when it's brutish and short, and most of my delight is squeezed from Event and Terror cards - not the base system.

Per most indie releases, there are issues: instruction and reminder cards that don't match, ambiguous phrasings, and a designer who insists his customers aren't reading the rulebook(s) closely enough.

*** Happy Trails Horror ***

Don't get the love for this one. I played [url=https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/307686/final-girl-carnage-at-the-carnival]Carnage at the Carnival[/url] as my first movie, and this (my second) was a huge step backwards. The butcher is dreary and uninspired, with a predictable card strategy to wear him down.

Fun events, but you only see one per game. You'll see as many as three events in the Carnival, which ups the entertainment significantly.

It's understandable from a teaching perspective why HTH would be bundled with the Core as a starter experience, but if I'd played this first I'd have dropped the franchise and never tried another scenario.

Hans gets a 2 and the camp location gets a 6. Average rating = 4.

• Panic at Station 2891
• Into the Void