Ghostbusters International

Join me in checking out Ghostbusters International, the second edition of the award-winning Ghostbusters role-playing game, which isn’t winning any awards.

Horrorlogic

Modern (horror)
Self Published
2019
Complexity: 2

Horrorlogic is a game self published on Tumblr that I found via Reddit, and of course I am reviewing it as I can’t pass up a horror game and have literally no standards for what I will review on this blog. Basically, Horrorlogic is another one of those games that tries to adapt horror movies into a tabletop experience. A very specific category that includes the highest rated game I’ve reviewed, and one of the lowest. So let’s see where Horrorlogic falls in that range.

Send in the Clowns

Retro (horror)
Fat Goblin Games
2017
Complexity: 2

Send in the Clowns is a bit of an odd thing, it’s a special edition of vs. Stranger Stuff focused on clowns. It’s also, I believe, the third game I’ve reviewed from the deluge of Stranger Things/It-inspired games that have appeared in the last few years. So let’s check out Send in the Clowns, a game of creepy clowns, and creepier plagiarism.

Slasher Flick

Join me in checking out Slasher Flick from Spectrum games, possibly the first tabletop RPG to accurately emulate the slasher genre.

Final Girl

A Stereotypical RPG
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.

The Final Girl

Modern (horror)
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.

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.

The House Always Wins

Modern (comedic, horror)
Self Published
2018
Complexity: 1

The House Always Wins is a game about characters in a house, trying not be be killed by said house, and failing. It seems that this game was made as a student project, as there is reference to material being added “post-in-class-presentation,” but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on it. The fact that is is a non-commercially-distributed product means I’m going to go easy on it.

Clown Helsing

Modern (comedic, horror, vampires)
Self Published
2015
Complexity: 2

Let’s try something different, shall we? How about a game about vampire-hunting clowns? No, that’s too different? Well too bad, you’ve already started reading the vampire-hunting clown game review so you might as well buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Clown Helsing is--as previously stated--a game about clowns who hunt vampires. Why clowns, why vampires, why anything? You’ll just have to read on to find out. Or I guess you could just read the book, but then you’d be missing out on my whimsically meandering commentary.

Cannibal Contagion

A Horrific Survival Comedy Role-Playing Game
Modern (comedic, horror, zombies)
Alliterated Games
2008
Complexity: 3

So it occurs to me that my ‘horror’ game reviews have been almost entirely focused on splatterpunk/slasher/gorefest type games and not suspenseful, psychological, ‘real horror’ games. I have no plans to change that.
Cannibal Contagion is a zombie survival game, although it specifies that it can be about other things than zombies—provided said things are effectively zombies, like the demons in Demons—but really, it’s clearly intended as a zombie game. It’s probably worth noting that while this is a digest-size book, it also weighs in at a meaty—pun intended—200+ pages.

Herzfuck

Modern (horror, occult)
Left Hand Publishing
2017
Complexity: unplayable as presented

Here’s the thing about edginess: a little bit is tolerable, a moderate amount brings back cringe-inducing memories of angsty teenage antics, a lot is just sad, and an extreme amount becomes comical—whether intentional or not. I find that things with “fuck” in their title tend to fall into the latter two categories.
Herzfuck is yet another one-page role-playing game, which puts the players in the role of… well just kinda regular folks trying to stop a cult from summoning the titular “ancient demon of sex and murder.”

Shriek

The Game of Teen Horror
Modern (horror)
Deep7
1999
Complexity: 2

When I first saw the cover art for Shriek I had really high hopes for it. At this point I’m assuming you’ve glanced back at the cover and have now returned expecting some sort of explanation that makes me not seem like a crazy person. Well, I can’t make myself not seem like a crazy person, but I can explain that making a game based on cheap horror films actually look like a cheap horror film is a great idea. But I won’t get too much into that right now.
Anyway, back to reviewing. Shriek is another ones of those one-page RPGs that I’ve taken to reviewing as of late—also I realized I haven't reviewed anything from the ‘90s. So this is going to be another short review.. Unless I go off on some weird tangent, which is always a possibility.

Ghost Stories

Horror Mystery Adventures
Modern (horror, occult)
Politically Incorrect Games
2003
Complexity: 3

Y’all ready for some spooky ghost story themed role-playing? Well then Ghost Stories, I guess technically does offer that, but it’s really more of a general occult horror game. That being said, it does have something to offer in terms of some casual spooky gaming.

Evil Dead: Swallow This!

[d20 Modern supplement]
Various (comedic, horror) [fan game]
Self Published
2003

BAM! Surprise bonus review—well, actually I guess I don’t really have the audience for anyone to be surprised or not surprised by this bonus review, but I’ll just pretend like I do. Anyway, I came across this document while doing research for Evil Dead D6—yes, I actually do research on these things—and it seemed interesting, so I decided to review it. But since it’s so short, I decided not to count it as a regularly-scheduled review.

Evil Dead D6

Various (comedic, horror) [fan game]
Self Published
2002
Complexity: 2

Now you may be asking why I, some weirdo on the internet, would be reviewing a fan-made Evil dead D6 system conversion from 2002 and originally distributed via a—surprisingly still operational—Tripod site, when there’s a perfectly good Army of Darkness role-playing game from Eden Studios. And if you are, then you obviously don’t understand how I do things around here.
As stated, this is a fan game, which generally means I’m going to be uncharacteristically nice in my review because the creator never expected anyone to pay for the game.

Blood!

The Role-playing Game of Modern Horror (second edition)
Modern (Horror)
Postmortem Studios
2006
Complexity: 4

It’s time to start the Spooktober festivities with a spooky horror game. Blood! Is a game that more-or-less seeks to emulate modern horror films—or since the original came out in 1990, horror films of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Both versions are also notably British, which I guess is only relevant if you know about the banning and censorship of horror films that was going on there in the 1980s. Anyway, video nasty history aside, Blood! is a game with a lot to offer, some might even say too much—I would be one of those people. Let’s just say there’s a reason I added a complexity rating to my review format.

Schauermärchen

A Very Scary Little Game

Historic (horror)
John Wick
2005
Complexity: 2

Introduction
Schauermärchen—which apparently is German for “horror story”—is a game about children trying to not get murdered in a nightmarish landscape. That description should more-or-less tell you if this is the sort of game you may be interested in.

The most interesting thing is what a complete little package this is; combining a system, setting, and story all within a 16-page booklet. Given that this is a stand-alone entity, I’m going to be trying to avoid anything that might spoil the game for potential players. If you want to be extra safe in that aspect, avoid the Content section.