Board Games
Final Girl — a Review
Survive Slasher/Horror Movies to Become the Final Girl!
“You alone must survive and defeat the horror movie killer.”
By designers Evan Derrick & A.J. Porfirio art by Tyler Johnson & Roland MacDonald and published by Van Ryder Games
Final Girl is a solo game. Full stop. A game for 1 player that plays in 20–60 minutes for ages 14+.
Now that we’ve got the details out of the way, let’s talk about Final Girl. This game seemingly took the board game community by storm in recent weeks. Anyone active on Facebook and Twitter board game spaces can attest to the flood of excited posts — often accompanied with proud pictures — from backers of the recent Final Girl Kickstarter campaign eager to show off their latest purchase.
One of the reasons I’m writing this review is because during the 1st Kickstarter campaign, I took one look at the campaign page and decided it was not for me. At first glance, the box cover for the first FF (feature film) was unappealing, and I seldom play board games alone. It was a quick pass for me. But boy, have I regretted that hasty decision.
The art style has certainly grown on me since then and I’ve come to appreciate the style employed across the Series 1 FFs. I’ve backed Final Girl Series 2 (Epic All-In…or should I say Final Wallet?) and I’m going to have all of the content! Will this make solo board gaming more a part of my board gaming habits? I sure hope so. Otherwise, that’s a lot of money to have sitting on the shelf!
THEME
The first aspect of Final Girl players really need to enjoy for this game to be worth it for them is theme. Van Ryder Games made Final Girl as a reimagining of the Hostage Negotiator games. From what I can tell, the designers have stream-lined the game play and added extra mechanics fitting the thematics of the survival genre.
If you aren’t familiar, “Final Girl” is a reference to a slasher/horror trope starting in the late 70s with films like Friday the 13th. A killer (sometimes supernatural) goes on a rampage murdering most of the movie’s cast except for the “Final Girl”.
The lone survivor — who lived to tell the tale — was often a young woman with certain characteristics. The most overt being a representation of her being “pure or innocent” of the vices of her peers. Final Girls are often portrayed as virgins or sexually innocent, and they are contrasted by a cast of peer-age characters who engage in casual sex, heavy drinking, drug use, bullying, and otherwise reckless behavior.
As the viewers, we are often even rooting for the killer to take out the annoying dude who wouldn’t take no for an answer until the Final Girl kneed him in the balls. The Final Girl slowly unravels the mystery of what’s going on and has a final showdown with the killer, using some discovered weakness or surviving on pure grit.
To make a long story short, these girls are often unappreciated badasses and Van Ryder Games had the great idea to build a board game franchise around this theme.
The art is gritty. The girls are depicted as they’d look in the midst of the fight for their life. Often drawn as cute but bloodied, or with the stare of someone who has seen too much, the Final Girls have slightly different abilities and cards. But the real theme shines through on the various location boards that feature iconic horror movie locations, and through the miniatures which depict the killer and the Final Girls.
The packaging is exceptionally well-done. The boxes of each “feature film” look just like an 80s VHS tape in its sleeve.
Game Mechanics
The main game mechanics include Dice Rolling, Hand Management, Solitaire/Solo Gaming, and Variable Player Powers.
Let’s get right down to it. This is a dice chucking game. It’s very swingy. Things can go really well for you or really poorly. There are well-designed mitigation mechanics, but despite that, you will need to succeed in many of your dice rolls to survive and lay claim to your status as the Final Girl and not just another of the killer’s many victims.
The Hand Management mechanic is interesting because some of the cards are more or less valuable on certain maps and against certain killers. On the one hand, this can lead to varying play experiences because of the different choices and opportunities using different cards. But it could also mean players figure out the cards that work best and keep cycling through the same few action cards over and over.
As I mentioned, the girls all have variable abilities and there are “Signature Action” cards that can make the game have a unique moment, but the playable characters aren’t so different. The killers and the maps represent the majority of the variability in the game as each killer has different mechanics. One might use minions like small puppets to do his bidding and help him kill off the Victims. Another killer might get faster and stronger as the game plays out.
Mix and match Final Girls, Killers, and Locations to provide yourself with a more variable experience.
Thoughts on the State of Solo Board Gaming
How did Final Girl Series 1 find such a large audience, and how is Final Girl Series 2 breaking all crowdfunding solo game records?
There is an emerging demand for more solo games. The COVID pandemic has made for fewer public gaming sessions and the lockdowns haven’t helped. Many gamers are turning to solo games as a way to pass the time and get their board game fix.
Many are discovering that they enjoy it and are continuing to solo even after they are able to play games with friends & family again. Final Girl has taken advantage of this by picking a genre that is nostalgic to the 30+-year-old gaming demographic, and good enough to make younger gamers curious about what all the fuss is about.
I predict Final Girl Series 2 is not the end of this. The KS campaign is absolutely blowing up. I would be very surprised if we didn’t see a quick turnaround on a Final Girl Series 3.
Why You Might Not Like Final Girl
- This game isn’t cheap if you want all of the gameplay content, so gamers need to be prepared to spend a lot of time solo gaming to make it worth the price.
- It’s very much a luck-based game. Sometimes, you can’t win. The game is hard in that sense. I consider games like this as almost cinematic experiences though. If I die early, that’s how it goes. I was never meant to be the Final Girl.
- There are a lot of components and it takes a reasonably large table to play this game.
I’m really excited to back this project and I will get to find out if I’m a solo gamer. I hope that I am.
What do you think? Are you a solo gamer? Is Final Girl right for you? What other games do you prefer?
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Let’s have a great Board Gaming 2022!
