Summer in Woodlake

Modern (horror)
Self Published
2019
Complexity: 2

Summer in Woodlake is a game about friendship and coming of age against the backdrop of a long-forgotten mystery in a small town. An extremely-specific genre that’s become weirdly popular in RPGs in the last few years for some reason.


Character Creation: 2/5
Summer in Woodlake is “powered by the apocalypse,” and uses the basic playbook concept with some differences. Players have the option of five playbooks for character types like “The College Dropout” and “The Younger Sibling.” The playbooks provide… well pretty much nothing other than questions for defining your relationship with other characters. However, characters also get a background which provides their attributes and gives them an option of one of two special moves. Players can also optionally define ‘resolutions’ for their character, some unresolved issue that they want to work out with another character.
So basically, with ten backgrounds, each of which has only a single option for attributes and two move options, there are only twenty total character variations. What it comes down to is the playbooks don’t really provide anything, and the backgrounds provide what is usually in the playbooks, so it really seems like the two should be switched.

Mechanics: 3/5
Since this game basically uses the standard ‘moves’ format of Apocalypse World, I’m not really going to get that into it—I literally reviewed Apocalypse World so I wouldn’t have to do that—but I will get into what’s different. The biggest difference is that characters harm is marked in five regular boxes instead of the contrived hard clock design—which incidentally, was still hit points—and the addition of a ‘breaking points’ system, which is basically an additional system specifically for mental trauma. Sanity systems can be a tricky thing to work out in horror games, as it can often end up crippling a character just for experiencing the setting. Here I think it’s fairly well handled, it’s pretty easy to lose your sanity, and doing so makes a character basically lose access to half their attributes, but the way the game works out that’s not really as bad as it sounds. A character can still function with the penalties, they lose half the stuff they can do, but are still somewhat functional—provided you don’t mind playing a character in the midst and aftermath of a mental breakdown.

Writing: 2/3 [•]
Overall, there’s nothing really noteworthy about the writing. There are however things that are specifically noteworthy. Summer in Woodlake reflects something of a recent movement towards more “inclusive” language. That might not be the exact word, but it’s the best I can think of right now. One small detail is the use of pronouns as the only indicator of a character’s gender, which when you think about it is the only part that’s really relevant for the vast majority of role-playing game situations. There’s also a section on “safety at the gaming table” which discusses the importance of establishing the boundaries of players involved. While just a good idea in general, it’s something of particular importance for horror games. It allows all players to feel comfortable that they’re in a safe environment, while giving the GM a guide for exactly how far they can take things—as opposed to having to err on the side of caution.

Presentation: 2/5
Nothing special here, two column text in an 11×8.5 inch format. The text is more-or-less conveniently laid out, and there are few errors. There’s a few pieces of stock art, they’re pretty much just “general spooky” type things, and just not too aesthetically coherent. My biggest issue is that like half of the graphics are sepia tone, while the others are black and white, and one even has blue it in. Like I said it all just feel really non-cohesive.

Final Remarks
Summer in Woodlake is another one of those games that I don’t really know how to sum up. It’s not bad, but also not great, of the recent influx of Stranger Things/It-inspired games it’s definitely on the better side, and would probably be a good option for someone looking for that experience without having to get into anything too mechanically deep.

Base Points: 7
Character Creation: 2/5, Mechanics: 3/5, Presentation: 2/5
Adjustments: +0
Setting: N/A, Writing: +0, Content: N/A

Overall Score: 47% (7/15 Points)