Gas Mask Games
2012
Complexity: 1
If you’ve been following me at all, you may have realized that I like horror movies, and in particular, slasher films. So obviously I’m all about games that attempt to bring the slasher experience to the game table.
The Final Girl is such a game, although it is specified to not specifically be about slasher films—the genre from which the title originates—as much as any horror in which it is generally expected that the majority of characters will die. As such, the general concept of the game is one of everyone dying except one person.
It’s also something of an odd game, specifically in the fact that characters and the role of game master move around between players throughout the course of the game. Also in other ways, but if I explained everything here in the introduction you’d have no reason to read the review.
Mechanics: 2/5
The game starts with each player making a number of characters—specifically, the lowest number that when made by each players results in a total number of characters equal to or greater than ten—this is done by just writing down a basic description, like “Josh the absent-minded stoner,” or “Heather the no-nonsense luchadora.” Once the ‘cast’ of characters is assembled, there are three ‘introduction scenes’ in which nobody dies. One player assumes the role of GM and sets up the scene, then everyone—including the GM—choose a character and just kinda have “free role-play” time. The main purpose of these introductory scenes is to form ‘relationships’ between the characters, which are limited to ‘friendship,’ ‘rivalry,’ and ‘screwing,’ the specifics of which will be discussed later. Once it’s been decided that there’s just kinda been enough of that, the scene ends, GM duty is passed to the next player, and the next scene happens. After three introductory scenes, the game finally gets to the murdering, with a special ‘first blood’ scene.
From this point on, the acting GM assumes a more traditional role, playing the killer and narrating the scenes. For the first blood scene all non-GM players must select a character with no defined relationships, and the GM kills them all. No, seriously, no mechanics, no checks, just “okay, let’s get rid of some of these characters.” In subsequent rounds players can choose any of the remaining characters, and there actually are mechanics for me to discuss. These scenes start like the others, until the GM decides to get murdery, at which point each player draws one card from a standard deck, plus one for each relationship their character has, with the GM taking the remaining cards. When it’s time to kill, the GM can target one, or all characters, and flips the top card in the deck. Each targeted character can play a card from their hand, if it’s value is higher than the killer’s card, they are not killed, if they don’t have a higher value card, they are dead. This is where the character relationships come into play, having a friendship with a character allows you to play a card from your hand to overrule theirs and make them not get murdered, and a rivalry allows you to play a card to overrule the GM’s card so that the character does get murdered—screwing allows for either. This goes on until there’s only one final character remaining. Then GM duty is passed, everyone else pics a character and the next scene occurs. This basically continues until there is only one character remaining, then I guess they win.
So, I have a lot of thoughts on this. The shifting GM duty and pool of characters are an interesting deviation from the standard role-playing experience. However, my big issue here is that the whole game seems kinda directionless. Even with a defined premise beforehand, having the GM and characters change every scene seems like it would more or less kill any chances of having any kind of coherent story beyond “there are people; they die,” and it seems like the general idea of the game is “role-play about nothing until everyone gets bored, then start murdering them.” I take specific issue with the first blood scene though, it’s literally just burning through a group of characters. Like why should I, as a player, have any investment in a part of the game that boils down to “pick a character to remove from play?” especially after three scenes of “directionless role-play with characters you may or may not use again, until everyone gets bored.”
Those issues aside, the actual game—once you finally get to it—isn’t bad, the mechanics seem quick and easy. It does however feel more than a little like the killing is the intended game, and everything leading up to it is just “well we need to have something more than that.”
Writing: 2/3 [•]
This game is basically well written, rules are explained well, examples are provided, all the necessary stuff. The thing I want to note though is the introduction, which is just the author going on about how they “consistently hate the survivors in horror movies,” as they’re “always the ones you completely expect,” then goes into a whole “what if we decided who lived and who died?” thing which to me, just feels like trying to justify the existence of the game.
Presentation: 3/5
The layout is okay, it has a professional look to it and is presented in the smaller format of which I am so fond. It is basically just text and headings for the most part, all the breaks are intentional, but it ends up leaving a lot of white space. And while that’s not a huge issue, having some illustrations would have gone a long way in helping to set the mood for the game, as the text generally does very little to that end.
Final Remarks
The Final Girl is a game that does something different, but does feel a bit like another one of those games that tries to be different for the sake of being different. I think it’s one of those things that needs to be looked at for what it is, and that is a system for playing individual scenes where people die. It’s another situation where there are strong concepts, but the actual implementation of those concepts is somewhat lackluster.
Base Points: 5
Character Creation: N/A, Mechanics: 2/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: +0
Setting: N/A, Writing: +0, Content: N/A
Overall Score: 50% (5/10 Points)
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