Santa vs. Santa

Modern (fantasy)
Mystic Ages Publishing
2015
Complexity: 2

Okay, so my last attempt at reviewing a holiday-themed RPG didn’t turn out incredibly well, but just because one thing goes poorly doesn’t mean something similar will go similar poorly right? Alright, yes, I’m being a little sarcastic but honestly in the lawless land of web-published RPGs you can’t know how good or bad something is until you dig into it. Which is precisely what I plan to do here.

[New Rating System]

I've finally gotten around to updating my rating system, which I will explain in brief here with some more explanation after the break.

Games will still be rated on the same six criteria, but points will be awarded differently. Character Creation, Mechanics, and Presentation will still be rated out of 5 points to determine the "Base Points." But now Setting, Writing, and Content will now be rated out of 3 points and rather than being part of the total Base Points, will only provide an adjustment as follows.

3 = +1, 2 = +0, 1 = -1, 0 = -2

Also, the adjustment from Writing may be applied directly to the points for Presentation and displayed in the "Writing and Presentation" section when I don't really have anything to say about the writing.
All existing reviews have been updated to the new system, if you want to see the new ranking of all games you can view the list https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/246251

Revenge Of The Turkeys!

Modern (animal, comedic)
Dread Vector
2017
Complexity: 1

So it occurred to me that every Spooktober I review thematically-appropriate games to go along with the season, but why don’t I do the same for other holiday seasons? Well obviously because Halloween is a holiday that has an entire genre associated with it, whereas other holidays are much more specific and any games that would fit them thematically would have to be specifically made to do so, and likely be a slapdash mess of concept over quality… yeah, that does pretty much sound like most of the games I review.
Note: This is also the first test of a somewhat radical change to my rating system, which will hopefully make the overall score more reflective of the overall quality of the product.

Dead Halt

Join me in checking out Dead Halt, a weird retro cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game set in the 1996 of the early 80s.

Here Come The Monsters!

The Game of Gargantuans
Modern (giant monsters)
Deep7
1999
Complexity: 2

Here Come The Monsters! is another 1PG game from Deep7, like Shriek!—of which I have a generally positive opinion—and Exosuit A-OK—of which I have a generally negative opinion. It’s also a game about giant monsters, which just happen to be my favorite kind of monsters, so reasonably this should also be a thing that I like.

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.