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Spooky Games, part 1 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorders, I step out for a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm taking a walk on a break in between doing
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: grading and doing more grading. Thought I would stroll up
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to the library to return a couple of movies, see
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: if they had any movies I wanted to check out
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and chat with you about games. So I'm recording in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: mid October. You know, the episodes have been kind of
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: all over the place. The last one that I released
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: earlier this morning, I think I recorded almost a month ago.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I just was kind of hanging out waiting for a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: moment to come out. So who knows be this will
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: get out. I'll hopefully released this one in a couple
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of days, trying to get back to a more regular schedule.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But I was thinking about because.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: It's spooky seasons, I've been watching a lot of horror
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: movies as I like to do in October, and it
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: got me thinking about horror games. So I was like,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: surely I've done episodes about horror games before, and I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: went and looked, and yes, I kind of have. I
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: have a couple episodes that are called like scary games
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: or creepy games, and I've done a couple deep dives
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: where I'm connecting games with movies and sort of focusing
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: on horror.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: But I haven't done a ton of them.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: There are a lot that I haven't done yet, and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. So I spent twenty minutes going
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: through my collection and I grabbed put into a document.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Every game that I thought was horror was a game
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: where you're playing horror things or sort of spooky season
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: adjacent even if what you're doing in the game isn't
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: necessarily spooky, if the thing's in the game, the theme
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: of the game, the setting of the game, this spooky
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: season adjacent. I put it in there, and then I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: organized them into four lists. And those four lists are
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: horror games, spooky adjacent games, Cuthulhu games, and zombie games. Now,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: cuthulhu games and zombies games are among the two most
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: ridiculed themes in board game media.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I haven't heard it too much anymore.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I think we've moved past the moment when there were
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of Cthulhu games, or I mean it's better
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: said like the Lovecraft mythos rather than just Cthulhu but
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: or zombie games. It feels like we've moved past seeing
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of those and having people kind of get
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: upset when another one comes out. But I did sort
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of reflect on how many of those I have now
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in this list I've preferred for you. I also have
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a few games that are that I don't own, but
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I haven't done a comprehensive list of games I don't
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: own that fit in this It's just ones like ones
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I've played that fit in one of these lists, or
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: ones I want to play that fit in one of
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: these lists.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: And I'll probably think of.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: More as we are talking and walking, and I will
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: add them as I think of them.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So my plan is to start.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: With one of the lists in this episode, and this
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: is gonna be a four part series. I'll start with
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: one of the lists in this episode and talk about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: as many games as I can until I run out
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of time. Then I'll do the same with the second list,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: than the third list, than the fourth list. I don't
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: think these are going to be four back to back
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: released episodes, because I will also fill in there some
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Board Game Espresso episodes. I'm a little behind on telling
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: you about games I've played. I think the last Board
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Game Espresso episode I did was telling you about games
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I played in October or in August, and it's not October,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: so I'm always behind, and so I'll be catching up
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: with those in between. But probably for the next week
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and a half or two weeks, it's going to be
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: these four episodes. I'll call them my Scary Game Roundup and.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: The Board Game Espresso episodes.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: All right, so without further ado, let's begin the Scary
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Game Roundup. Scary Game Roundup Episode one.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Horror themed Games.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: As I said, this is the sort of most broad category,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: but the one that is specifically about doing horror things.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So what I'll do is I'll talk about games on
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: here that I like, and then as i'm running out
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of time, I will just list the other games that
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I have in this list, and you can look those
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: up on your own. So start with I haven here,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Betrayal at House on the Hill and Betrayal Legacy.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: These are games I've talked about quite a bit.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: If you've never played either of them, Betrayal at House
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: on the Hill is a staple. It is like playing
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a b horror movie and you don't know what the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: plot of the movie is until about halfway through when
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: suddenly it reveals itself.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It's a good time.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: It's always got room for an entertaining experience, and.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I highly recommend Betrayal at House and Hill.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: If you've played Betrayal at House in Hill and you
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: want something a little more engaged, I suggest Betrayal Legacy.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Those are both very entertaining. Designed by Rob Davio as
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: one of the developers, as well as Mike Sellingker, but
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the actual designer of Betrayala House on the Hill is
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Bruce Glasgow, who also designed Fantasy Realms.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Speaking of Mike.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Sellingker, I also have on my shelf Apocrypha Horror Apocrypha
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Adventure card game.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: This is a horror themed game which I.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Think is really It looks really neat and I can't
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: bring myself to get rid of it because it's got
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: all this cool art and theme and cards. But every
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: time I try to play it, I don't understand how
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to play, and I get stuck. It does have a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: heavy solo mode, so at some point I'm just gonna
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: bust it out. And try it, and I keep holding
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: onto it because it's not gonna sell for very much.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: So it's really just am I willing to hold onto
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: it a little longer to try to make it work
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: or not, And so far I am willing to do that.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So it's got this.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Neat It sort of builds on the Passfinder Adventure card game.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Mike sellingker at Loan.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Shark Games designed that, although I think that was for Paizo,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and the idea is that you have a character. As
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: you play the adventures, You're going to develop that character
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: over time, it's going to get stronger or whatever. So
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it does look really neat, and I would like to
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: play it. I just have to get my mind around
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: how the scenarios work. And there's a big learning curve,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: so once you play it, you got to keep playing it.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So that's Apocrypha Adventure card game. I've talked about a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Touch of Evil many times, so I'm not going to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: talk about that today. Vagrant Song is one that's on here.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about getting rid of it, but my
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: wife said, let's hold on to it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Play it again. It's about excuse me.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: It's about a group of hoboes on a ghost train
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: fighting haints or you know the appellation word for ghosts.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: The art is really cool.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It has a sort of cup head vibe to it, which,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: of course, the cup heead vibe is the vibe of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties cartoons, and I really like the look and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: feel of it. I did like the one game that
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: we played, but it wasn't a hit with my son,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and so we kind of put it away. We haven't
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: gone back to it yet, and it's been long enough
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: now I would have to learn it again, but it
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: is definitely on my list to try again. I have
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: two shark games on here, Jaws and Shark Island. Shark
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Island is a I think it's Richard launiis game which
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: was widely panned, but I thought was kind of fun
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: where you are hunting a shark and it is basically
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: just Jaws, but it doesn't have the name Jaws on it,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and it mixes all three Jaws movies Jaws one two
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and three or one two and three D in the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: kinds of things that can happen. It's got this weird
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: fighting mechanism based on Blackjack, which is kind of goofy
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and the parts are neat the thematic design is really good.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: It's just the gameplay itself, particularly the battling the shark part,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: is pretty weird, doesn't quite click, but I've held on
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to it because the look of it, and I want
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to try it again before it goes away.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I also do have Jaws, the game based on the movie.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: This one is a much more straightforward, direct adaptation of
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the movie Jaws. One player plays Jaws, the other player
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: plays the or the other players play the humans who
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: are fighting Jaws, and it's a hidden movement battler game.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Pretty good, really good adaptation of the theme. Horrified is
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a game I've mentioned a number of times, and you
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: should check that out if you haven't. Also have both
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the game from two thousand and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Board game from twenty sixteen
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: on here. Buffy the Board Game is pretty entertaining as
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a pandemic style co op where you are trying to
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: save the residents of Sunnydale from one of the bosses.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It's the kind of game they'd be fun to play
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: once every couple of years when you're feeling like playing
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a Buffy game. The Bloody In is one of my favorites.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: This one is about running a family. A family running
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a hotel, and you're trying to make the most money
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: by murdering the guests at the hotel, stealing their stuff
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and hiding their bodies, or recruiting them to be your
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: minions in murdering other guests later.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: It's an economic game. It's like a euro game with
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: resource management and.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Multi use cards, but it's also about murdering people who
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: stay at your hotel.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: It's a great mix of themes.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And I really like it, so definitely play that if
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you get a chance.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: That's the Bloody In.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I did get this one cute little game. A friend
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: of mine picked it up, I think in Hong Kong.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's called Julchen und du Monster. It's a German game
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and it's only published in German, although I did find
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: an English translation of the rules. In this game, you
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: are a child trying to hide in your dreams from
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the monsters that are chasing you in your dreams. If
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you can hide through the night, you win. As a player,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you are trying to hide. One player is trying to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: hide the child, I believe in the other player is
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: trying to get the child with the monsters, I think,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: or it's the other way around. You're all trying to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: get the child and the game is hiding it. I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: don't in factly remember. It might be like a mix
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of things, like at the start of the game you're
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: all trying to find the child and kill it, but
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: if you draw the child then you have to try
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to hide it from the others.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: It's got a little bit of trying.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: To read what other players are doing, a little bit
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of memory game, and it's very cute.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So that's a Jewels monster.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Terrors of London is a game about monsters murdering people
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: in Victorian London.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I haven't played it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It's a two player card battler that a friend gave me,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: so looking forward to that. One Till Dawn is a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: push your luck vampire game where you are vampires going
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: out on the hunt and you're pushing your luck while
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you try to munch on different people, and then you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: have to get back and go to safety before.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: The sun comes up. If the sun comes up, then
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: you of course lose all your There's.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: A contemporary game called The Hunger from Richard Garfield that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: has similar gameplay values and it's really good.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I like The Hunger quite a bit. As I think
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: about it, I might want to add that one to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: my collection. Actually, it's got a nice push your luck element,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a little bit of competition, but nothing too fierce, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting. So The Hunger is not one I own,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: but is interesting. Nonetheless, Till Dawn, like I said, is
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: a push your luck game. I think it's Richard Launius again,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: although it could be Kevin Wilson or somebody else of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that ilk. It comes in a coffin shaped box. It's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit janky, but not too hard to understand,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and it's good for larger groups, sort of like Ink
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and Gold but for vampires. Next up we have Terror
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in Maple City. This game is a horror game in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: so far as the idea of giant monsters destroying a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: city is horrific, but you play the giant monsters and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. This one was teetering right on
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the edge of for me of a game that's about
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a horror be me and a horror thing in a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: game that's spooky adjacent, which I put a bunch of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: games in that category. So it's not unreasonable to say
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: this game could end up in this spooky adjacent category.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It does feel like it's close to that anyway. That's
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: terror in me Equal City. I have two games on
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: my list that I haven't played before. That's Abomination the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Air of Frankenstein, which is a game about being one
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of doctor Frankenstein's students and building your own Frankenstein monster.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It's I would put it in the.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: In the horror category rather than horror adjacent because you
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: actively enact a lot of like really gruesome stuff. There's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you actively enact the stealing of body parts, and apparently
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it's really gruesome, so I would put it in the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: horror category. And Ha haka Oko or hannah Oko or Okahana,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: which is a game about a ghost haunted a house
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to find the ghost.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: But the whole thing is that she's in a box.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: It's like in the style of The Ring or The Grudge,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: with like a very scary Japanese ghost haunting you in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: menacing ways that are very eerie and creepy, something that
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: we don't see a lot in American horror movies and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: really hard to do in board games, but looks pretty
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: neat and something I would like to try.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: The one other game I don't own.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: That I put on this list is The Nightcage. I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: did review that at one point I thought it was
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: okay but not great. The Nightcige is the game where
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you are trying to escape from a some sort of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: supernatural prison and you just have a candle to light
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: your way and if your cannon goes out, you die
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: or something. And then finally, Fury of Dracula is perhaps
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the quintessential horror movie game. Eerie either Dracula trying to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: menace Europe and do your thing, or you are the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: hunters trying to catch Dracula and cause him no end
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of grief. It is a big, bombastic, silly game with
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: interesting strategy and great theming, so everything you'd want in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a horror game.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So that's my list of horror adjacent games.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I would ask for your suggestions, but I'm gonna caution
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you or just mention that I do. Like I said,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I do have three more episodes coming. One that's specifically
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: cuth Space Cuthulhu focused, one that's zombie focused, and then
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: one that's about horror adjacent games that are sort of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: thematically related to horror but are not horrific themselves, So
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: let me know what you think of these titles, and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I'll look forward to hearing from you after the next episode.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me, I have your next walk is
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: as cousnant as mine want.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Bye bye. Brought to you by rattle Box