I now have a version 1.1 of Giant Stone Head I want to play test - but actually getting round to that play test is proving tricky...... The fact that everybody at Magic Nerd Club is not battering down my door may well tell me something important in and off it self.
In fact things have got slowed up I've started working on another board game - Holy Writ. This one has not even got to version 0.01 yet but I'm hopeful.
But since somebody visited me yesterday I should do the honest thing and post more content.
A while back I promised to post why I really really hate a game called innsmouth escape and now seems as good a time as any other. Please bear in mind I played this game about 3 years ago - so if I'm sketchy on details that's why.
So briefly - Innsmouth Escape is a cthulhu themed board game - in which one of you plays a poor bewildered soul chased by the villainous deep one's around the most well known coastal village in Geekdoom. Hounded you attempt to free your companions before you are brought down and doom overtakes you all.
That sounds good - and indeed might be. It's not the game we've got. I remember clearly - checking the rule book with total disbelief when the person explaining the game told me a rule. When the human is finally brought into conflict with the deep ones they all get to roll a D6 and might inflict a wound. The human being as 12 wounds. After that conflict the human automatically kills every single deep one that's found him. Wipe them out. All of them.
As the human player moves around the board at lightning speed - he can uncover items - items of dark and sinister power that he can use. The deep ones on the other hand plod slowly forwards. Before the end we started assuming we were the carebears - trying to hug the man and bring him back to his sense while he raged and slaughtered us...... because
Thematically it would have worked if the human player had been an evil mage and those hot on his heels - the forces of law and order. Non-magical and utterly out of there depth. Trying to desperately track him down and finish him off before his evil plot could be completed.....
But lets talk about some of it's rules failings. Well firstly it claims to be for 2 to 4 players - but it's clear it's never been play tested for anything other then 4 players. Because it was just about balanced (if poor) for 4 players but a 2 player game simply cut the forces of the deep one by 2/3. Making the game impossible for the deep ones to win.....
So we've got all of that - and then - and then it messes up it's core game play. It's a hidden movement game. What's the core game play of hidden movement like scotland yard - a mental battle between the hiden and the chasers as they try and think "what has he done.....?" So when the pursers move like snails - and the human can literally move from one side of the board to another - that sucks. When it's a bloody grid board - so you don't have choke points or different ways of moving - that's even bloody worse!
As a deep one you had to scatter your people and hope he appeared in the same space as them. Once - ONCE - something happened - we got to see one of his cards and were able to work out he was going to be in one of three places - so moved to respond to that. And throw 12 deep ones at him. That he slaughtered - hid -healed up and went on like nothing had happened. That's the core bloody game play and they messed it up.
If I can't do better then that - I deserve bloody shooting.
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