Modern (horror)
Self Published
2019
Complexity: Unplayable
Okay, at this point you might be thinking, “wait a minute, didn’t you literally just review Final Girl?” and no, I reviewed The Final Girl. Final Girl is a game I happened to stumble upon when looking up information on The Final Girl, and decided to review it because… well let’s be honest here, I basically have no standards when it comes to what games I review. It is of course another “what if a horror movie… was an RPG?” game, a specific genre that is apparently very difficult.
Character Creation: N/A
Players have their choice of six character types, each of which provide attribute adjustments, a weapon, and special ability. For example, the stoner has a bong that deals 1d4 damage with a 30% chance to get the killer stoned and can “toke” to heal 1d6 sanity.
Mechanics: 1/5
The basic mechanics here are roll 1d20 and “add relevant modifiers,” with 11 or higher being a success. And on a related note, there is no indication as to how such modifiers are determined. Characters have both Health and Sanity points; however, aside from specifying that monsters deal 1d10 damage, the actual mechanics of attacking and defending aren’t ever mentioned, and rules for losing sanity are completely absent. Basically, all I can really say here is the mechanics do work… but only hypothetically.
Writing and Presentation: 0.5/5
This game has the most serious case of “not understanding that the reader doesn’t already know the rules” syndrome that I’ve ever seen. Nothing is provided other than the most vague bullet points of the rules—which I can only assume roughly half of which are missing. It’s basically written like a first draft rough outline for a hypothetical game that someone is considering making, but is presented as a finished product for which currency could legitimately be exchanged.
As stated, the game is essentially a one-sentence introduction, five bullet points of rules, a table of character types, a table of monsters—with no stats—a table of win conditions, and four bulleted GM notes. There’s so little actually here that I can’t really think of anything to say about it. Um… okay, the cell spacing of the tables is pretty good, I hate when the text runs into the cell walls. I’m literally giving them a half point for having okay tables.
Final Remarks
Calling Final Girl a game would be incredibly generous, it’s more or less just an idea masquerading as a game. It might seem like I’m necessarily hard on what is presumably someone’s first attempt at game design, but it is very much that: an attempt. It is not a finished product, it is not a finished game, it’s not even a finished draft of a game, and yet the designer—who notably didn’t even credit themselves—released it commercially and if it were a finished product. And I’m forced to assume that it is yet another instance of “I’ve got an idea for a game… wow this is way more work than I thought it would be… oh well, I’ll just put up whatever I have, since the fact that I made it must mean it has value.”
Base Points: 2.5
Character Creation: N/A, Mechanics: 1/5, Presentation: 1.5/5
Adjustments: −1
Setting: N/A, Writing: −1, Content: N/A
Overall Score: 15% (1.5/10 Points)
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