‘Horror’ Themed Games In My Collection

TopXX Games

It’s that time of year when people start getting ready for Halloween and all things spooky.

I’ve never been that into it. For me as a kid growing up in the UK in the 70’s it was always penny for the guy, and bonfire night. Halloween was never a big thing back then.

I have fond memories as a kid of family gatherings, fireworks, baked potatoes, hot dogs, and dark cold autumn nights lit up the flickering glow of bonfires.

I don’t know when things changed. But it seemed all of a sudden trick or treat was a thing, shops were full of Halloween merchandise and branded sweets. The Americanisation and commercialism of this time of year was complete. Yes I’ve always seen this big celebration of Halloween as an American thing that sadly made its way over here.

Maybe it’s my age. But I just don’t see the attraction. However each to their own.

In the meantime I get to be a Halloween grinch.

At least it gives me some things to write about!

The idea for this post comes from that recent Dice Tower video about their top ten horror themed games as part of their Autumn Spooktacular.

While I was thinking about my own collection thinking I had only a handful of horror themed games.

However as I started to tag games I owned in the bgstat app that figure grew and grew.

The criteria I used to add the tag was that the game had to have something associated with the horror genre, have a dark theme, be spooky!, or associated with halloween.

So some of these games tagged are very light in tone, such as Broom Service that has you delivering potions around the map as a witch on their broomstick.

By the end of the exercise I had thirty five games tagged. Although the image below only shows thirty three. I had missed a couple when I generated the images to use. Laziness stopped me correcting the omissions.

My horror themed games that I own (missing two Ghost Stories and Tannhauser)

Below are my top twenty played horror themed games that I own based on number of plays.

My most played horror themed games

I might even enter into the spirit of this commercial holiday and try and play one or two of these nearer the “big” day.

September 2022 Gaming Stats

bgstat, by the numbers, gaming stats, stats

I hope you like the new image for these posts. Don’t worry that’s the only change. I’m not going to start changing the current no thrills, just the data format.

No onto the data.

My top 9 played games for September 2022

Ok here are the stats and games played for the month.

Bgstats for September 2022

Finally here is my current challenges progress.

Current challenge progress

More ramblings

D&D, D&D Grp2, Gloom Chronicles, life, the universe, and everything, Marvel Champions, rambling, RPG, session planning, still alive

Well just like politics a day in my life can be a long time, and things change.

The next session arranged for Saturday has had to be cancelled due to a union work thing that has cropped up.

However it looks like it may go ahead Monday (currently my day off!) evening instead. I’m still on lates next week, so I don’t have to worry about getting up for a damn early start the next morning.

So there is a silver lining to this cloud.

It would appear that soon (next payday) I will be jumping into the lcg from FFG, Marvel Champions.

Hence the new little icon thingy I’ve done.

I did enjoy the game when I did the “try before you buy” game with Gavin. And it is his copy with expansions I’m buying.

I also think this is a game I can play with Nathan that I’m pretty sure he will enjoy. I’m not sure I’ve played a co-op game with Nath. But I know just from the theme alone he will love it. And I’m excited that I will be able to play this with him.

Buying Marvel Champions does boot into the distance any decision I was going to make about getting into another FFG lcg The Lord of the Rings Card Game. Which does also appeal to me on theme alone.

We know I like the idea of solo gaming, and when I see a game can be played solo it does help sell the game to me. But when it comes to actual reality I very rarely play a game solo. I think I can count on one hand the games I’ve played solo. So I’ll never (ok I know never say never) play Marvel Champions solo.

Another given is in the coming months once Marvel Champions has joined my collection I will be catching up with the expansions I don’t have. It’s that whole Pokémon “got to catch ‘em all” thing.

Bugger they also have playmats for the game. And we know how I am about playmats.

I better order in a lot of sleeves. I usually go Mayday Premium with boardgames. But this technically is a card game so I may fall back to my other preferred brand Dragon Shield Matt sleeves. The ones I use for playing MtG.

Before I look for players willing to commit to playing the campaign version of Gloom, The Gloom Chronicles, I need to get the two expansions that I currently do not own.

Obviously The Gloom Chronicles uses the core game. But it also needs Unfortunate Expeditions, Unquiet Dead (need to get), Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall, Unhappy Homes (need to get), and Unwelcome Guests.

It’s a twenty game campaign. It should be possible to play multiple games a session. I don’t see it being much of a commitment, three or four sessions at most.

I’m very intrigued how Gloom plays as a campaign. It’s a story based game. Well technically if players are not into the story side can be played as just a card game. I know other games like Scythe, Pandemic, etc have campaigns that are tied together by an over all story. But that’s a story written by the designer. Gloom is a different animal altogether. The storytelling is part of the game.

I definitely want to get Gloom to the table sooner than later for sure. Especially around the end of the month. I don’t do Halloween but if that isn’t the time to at least play the game once I don’t know when is.

A Rambling Wednesday Update

life, the universe, and everything, rambling, still alive

The September monthly stats will go live on the last day of the month. I suppose they could have gone live now. It’s not as if I will have played any more games before October starts.

Being one of those glass half empty doom merchants I don’t think October will be a massive month for playing games.

October starts at the weekend with a D&D session. But after that my next bit of gaming will be the following Friday with the next Fenland Gamers session.

My next day off is a Monday when our hosts are not open. Plus I’ve not had much luck getting others interested in gaming on days I’m off. So even if they were open I don’t think I’d find others to game with.

That’s the drawback of my current job with my shifting days off during the week.

So far I’ve been lucky that I can make the Friday evening sessions.

It also makes it harder to arrange things. I should know three weeks in advance what my rota is. But at the moment I know what I’m working up to the end of next week and that’s it. I’m on lates for this and next week. Which I like working.

I do have a weeks holiday next month as well. I’m hoping to visit Nathan then. So that will be quality time together gaming.

But for the next five months I do have a week off each month, as until that week off I’ve only had one days holiday this year.

I was watching The Dice Tower Autumn Spectacular – Top 10 Horror Games last night.

It reminded me although I own them I still haven’t got Fury of Dracula nor Ghost Stories to the table. Plus The Others appeared on a couple of the lists, and now I want to get that back to the table.

The Others has the dubious distinction of putting me off ever backing or buying a CMoN game again. Or I should clarify it was the Kickstarter campaign CMoN ran for it and not the game itself (which I really enjoyed).

But one omission from the four top ten lists the Dice Tower contributors came up with for me was Gloom.

Which I have played once. But I really do need to get back to the table (especially now I have the fancy storage box, Gloomier, and Gloom Chronicles from the last Kickstarter) as I think there are others in Fenland Gamers that would also enjoy playing it.

10th October sees a World Mental Health Day.

I’m going to try and “celebrate” it with a post. I don’t know how the post will come out. That will all depend on the day I suppose.

That’s it for now. See you in the next post.

Flashback to September 2016

Blast from the past, flashback, gaming stats, stats

It’s time to quantum leap back to September 2016 and the games I was playing that month.

My top 9 games played in September 2016

It’s an interesting top 9 this month. Four of the games played were Kickstarter editions.

It’s nice to see I was getting Android Netrunner to the table. I think this was the time that it started to get some traction at a local gaming group and the FLGS. So games were easier to come by.

I don’t remember much of the game play for Thief’s Market. I vaguely remember dice and I think I split you choose mechanic. But I might be wrong on the mechanic.

I’m always going to remember Saloon Tycoon as the first game I ever played with Diego. It’s also the game he earnt the reputation as points monster. First time he ever played the game he wiped the floor with Jonathan and myself.

Grifters was a very cool card game with an interesting cool-down mechanic that I backed on Kickstarter. I even backed the follow up to this. I loved the cyberpunk theme that might be connected to the Resistance universe if I remember correctly. The art is pretty cool.

Talking of theme Hit Z Road just oozes it’s post zombie apocalypse theme. It’s a nice light dice based game too. Jonathan even enjoyed this one!

I really need to get Spectre Ops back to the table. I think we have the play group for this now. The promised app for it never did appear. And I really should get the follow up. I see the basis of another bgstat challenge here.

The Great Heartland Hauling Co. is a nice light pick up and deliver game. Pretty small box also. I liked it so much I got my own copy.

Here are the full bgstats for the month.

Bgstats for September 2016

A day of gaming

Game day

Before Diego starts his new job the stars aligned so that we both had a day off at the same time.

So naturally it was a game day.

We started off playing a two player game of Brazil Imperium.

Despite using a two player map that had a higher chance of combat there was no combat between Diego and myself.

Map setup used in Brazil Imperium

I really do like how the game board is so configurable for different player counts and if you want a higher or lower chance of combat.

This was the first time I’ve played Brazil Imperium as a two player game. And guess what? It’s still a great game as a two player game.

Obviously I’ve not played it as a solo game. However I really like it at any of the other player counts. Not many games can say that they are good at all/most player counts. They normally have a sweet spot.

I think what helps is the modular board setup that I like so much. I’m not sure I’d be saying the same if the board was a more traditional one.

That modular board makes it so that both sides are close together, a more compact board.

Next time I visit Nathan this is definitely going in the bag.

Oh and I won. So a good start to the days gaming.

Our next game was a new to me game, Tyrants of the Underdark. A game that’s been on my wish list for a while. So I was really happy to get a chance to try it.

I really liked this deckbuilder mashed with area control.

Although I would argue the theme is very weak, and could almost be anything. Having said that I really do like the art on the cards.

You chose a faction at the start, but in reality you are just choosing your playing colour. The faction name is irrelevant, there is no unique faction ability.

Factions we chose!

Player count determines how much of the board is in play. For our two player game it was just the central section. Which is one approach. Another is to have a double sided board (similar to Tapestry) with maps tailored to different player counts.

Diego won this one comfortably.

Our third game was Riverside. What more can I say about this roll and write? I like it, a lot. Plus I won this game.

Our final game of the afternoon was Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade.

This just didn’t jell with me at all.

The production side is great, dry erase pens, good quality player boards.

I loved the quick start rules leaflet, and rule book.

I found the ball piece annoying and smudged the markings you make on the board.

I felt the game dragged on. I thought it’d be quicker to play.

I need to try this again. But not sure I want to.

We cut the game short after I got called by another friend who had some cupcakes and curry for me to pick up.

I had a great time playing with Diego.

It was kind of him to invite me into his home, and provide a delicious lunch.

Hopefully we will get a chance to repeat this in the near future.

D&D Grp 2 Session 8 Planning #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Session 8 had to be cancelled at the last moment.

Luckily everyone was so understanding.

So session 8 takes place next Saturday. But due to my work rota and a 3pm to midnight shift, it is taking place earlier in the day. Which means our usual venue will not be open. Luckily Shane has said he will host session 8 at his abode.

I had been thinking of changing my Checks Sheet with more useful information.

Which I finally did today.

I changed the orientation of the page, added some more info such as death saving throws.

I like to think between this and the DM Screen I have enough information in front of me in a session to minimise having to refer to the players handbook or the DMG.

I also have, thanks to the very kind generosity of Shane I was given a copy of the Giant Book of Battle Maps.

This is the giant version of the Big Book of Battle Maps.

I do really like these battle map books. I must do as the Big Book lives in my DM bag.

Anyway now to brainstorm ideas for the session.

Achievement Unlocked

Fenland Gamers, game challenges, game night

Last night it was that time once again for Fenland Gamers to meet up and play some games.

I’d been lucky with my shift for the day with it finishing at 6pm. Which meant I was going straight from work to the club night. But also I wouldn’t be missing the evening of gaming.

Club night would mark the start of four days off. I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the much needed r&r.

This was another really well attended evening with seventeen folks turning up. Which included four new faces.

Charlene and myself played Tapestry with three of them.

This wasn’t my copy of the game so we were playing with only the Arts and Architecture expansion. The cards were also unsleeved. Oh the horror of naked cards!

My Leaders were conquering artists. Sadly I got my butt handed to me, the sixty point victory point starting position for The Chosen was too much. But I did get my personal best five player score!

Our second game of the evening was the WotC “filler” card game Dungeon Mayhem.

This is a really fun card game. It’s quick and easy to play.

However it does have one “mechanic“ in it that I really dislike. That may not be a strong enough description but it’ll do for now.

That “mechanic” is the physical activity. For example I had a card in my deck that required players to perform a little dance. Charlene had one that required players to give her praise.

Why? It’s not fun!

But despite that major drawback it is a fun game. And even with players getting knocked out they are still semi involved in the game play.

This will have to join the rotation of games going into the game bag for club nights.

With the game of Dungeon Mayhem I completed one of my gaming challenges for the year.

Yep I’ve played forty new to me games this year so far.

I still find it hard to believe that I’ve played that many new to me games.

As it stands at the moment approximately two thirds of the games I’ve played this year have been new to me.

With roughly forty five percent of those new to me games being games owned by others.

Don’t hold me to those percentages I’ve spitballed those figures as rough guesstimates, they may vary by a percent or two if I actually calculated them. But they are close enough.

Using the 3×3 functionality of the bgstat you can see what those forty games were below.

I’m not going to increase the challenge even with three months of the year left.

But it will be very interesting to see how many new to me games I actually do end up playing at the end of the year.

My grail expansions

Uncategorized

A week and a half ago I somehow ended up negotiating for a copy of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game plus two of the rare expansions.

I already had the core game, and was only really interested in the two expansions.

But unlike the others that had expressed interest in only the expansions if the seller was going to split the lot up. I reasoned buying the lot would be easier and make me a more attractive to the seller.

I guessed right.

There wasn’t much negotiating to be fair as we both were not that far off in the price we were thinking of.

So a deal was made.

With the arrival of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game and the two expansions (see photo below for which) it got me thinking about my other grail expansions.

A grail expansion or game for that matter is a game/expansion that you would love to own but for the following reason don’t. That reason is because the game/expansion is out of print, never likely to be printed again, and going for silly money on the second hand market. In other words difficult and expensive to get.

My grail expansions are the following:

My grail expansions

I could add the Tannhausen expansions possibly to the above. But at the moment I’m not sure.

If I ever get any of these grail expansions it will be by luck, and I had some spare money at that precise moment in time. I’m not actively hunting them down.

So if anyone is interested I do have a spare copy of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game for sale ;)

Happy 10th Anniversary Stonemaier Games

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I think it’s time to rectify the glaring omission of mine that I pointed out in my post on the new official Stonemaier Games scoring app.

All of us at Whitespider1066 Towers (basically me, and the two attack chihuahuas Nico and Loki) would like to wish Jamey and all those that work for and with Stonemaier Games a happy tenth anniversary.

It’s no secret that I’m a Stonemaier Games fanboy.

There is banter about me being so at our club game nights from time to time.

Now I don’t own every game by Stonemaier Games. That might come as a big shock to one or two of you out there. Which means I haven’t played them all.

An even bigger shock for everyone (unless you have been reading this blog for a long long time) is I actually don’t like one of their games! But it would count as two because if I didn’t like the original then I wouldn’t like the themed version of it either (which I haven’t played).

Have you guessed which game it is?

Yep Between Two Cities. Back when we played Jonathan’s copy it just didn’t jell with us. So if I didn’t like that game then sadly when Stonemaier released Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig there wasn’t much chance of it finding its way into my collection.

But enough of the negative vibe this is meant to be a celebration of Stonemaier Games.

The seven games I do own I absolutely love.

Do I really need to state once again that Scythe is my all time favourite game? I absolutely love the game. I think the only thing I need to add to the game at some point in the future (when finances allow) is the metal mechs.

I’m not sure how a new top 100 games would shake out using paired comparisons but I’d be surprised if a quarter of my top twenty weren’t made up of Stonemaier games.

But what is it that attracts me to Stonemaier games?

Firstly and I don’t think anyone would dispute this, is the production values. For a few years now I would argue Stonemaier have been setting the standards others try to achieve. From the components to art, and even the rule books. They are of such a high standard.

Then game play. The games are so accessible, usually easy to pick up, but offer depth as well. Plus they usually have an interesting twist on the core game mechanic.

Considering the high production standards of the games, the rrp is amazing, and surprisingly cheaper than expected. Often before release I’ve tried estimating what the game will cost and always I’m way over.

Then there is the support of the games via expansions, accessories, and easily accessible promos. Let alone the actually very good customer service.

I’m looking forward to the next ten years and the fond memories it will bring playing my current Stonemaier games, and future ones to come.