A quick post tonight: I did another play through of this solo boardgame based on 80’s horror flicks. This time it’s Poltergeist: you have moved in to Creech Manor and very quickly discover that it is horribly haunted. So you do what any self respecting tenant would, and call the Association for Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena right? http://www.assap.ac.uk
Obviously not! Instead you plan to flee in terror but suddenly notice you are missing little sister Carolyn and her adorable cuddly toy Mr. Floppy. So you run back in, where a poltergeist is slaughtering your friends and family (should have called ASSAP) and having quickly checked there is nothing on the TV set about searching for Carolyn.
The good news is she is hiding in either the attic, garage or closet. The bad news is the poltergeist tears through the house killing everyone and being a ghost you can’t hurt it. All you can do is run and search desperately and if you are superhuman save some of the innocent victims from the horror on the way.
A quick reminder: you can’t play this “movie” expansion without the Final Girl core set. Expect to pay about £17 to £20 for that and the same for this supplement. Unlike pretty much any boardgame ever you can’t play Final Girl without an expansion (in most cases they are add ons to a core game). So is it worth it?
I rarely play solo games but I have got quite into Final Girl. It’s fun, frustratingly hard to win and delivers a tense atmospheric experience very much in genre. I do recommend reading the rules carefully and maybe watching a YouTube video on how to play but once you learn it is a lot of fun.
So did I defeat the poltergeist? Of course not! After the poltergeist came for me through the house leaving a trail of corpses I found Carolyn hiding in a closet; I was struck by lightning in a sudden storm, the house kept shaking and an unnatural wind blew up reducing my movement to a crawl but I made it downstairs and almost to an open window: only to realise I’d lost Carolyn. I ran back found her again, and the poltergeist finished me off as I fled back to that window and safety!
And the worst thing – three bloody ghosthunters turned up on a random event card and while they were faffing around with their EMF meters on the ground floor I was being slaughter by supernatural evil in the attic. Just like the Roman Road case in fact – but that’s another story!
"And sometimes he's so nameless" 