Our friend Graham popped round on Friday evening, bringing with him his copy of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game. As you can imagine, this is a gentle, fun-filled game for all the family to enjoy...
We took the part of some trespassers who have stumbled into the Sawyer house and its grim contents. Graham played the part of the Sawyers. We played the first scenario, where we had to explore the house and surroundings to find 2 car parts, some gasoline and the correct vehicle in which to escape.
The game features the ground floor and outbuildings on one board and the upstairs on a second, smaller board. As you spend action points (4 per character) to move around, you make noise by opening doors, using the stairs, searching or running (moving two spaces instead of one). These noise markers get passed to the Sawyer player at the end of your turn, they can then use them to assist their own actions, or move the "Panic Meter" along to bring on additional family members. Vehicle markers are positioned around the outside of the house. Some rooms have yellow search markers which allow you to roll the dice to see the number of search cards from which you get to choose a single item. "Horror" markers are placed in some rooms, these are revealed when you enter the room to cause various effects such as "Slick - you cannot start a run in this room". Just don't look down to see what it is that has made the floor slippery...
The dice are nice knobbly bone-textured objects, with 3 x blank, 2 x 1 slash and 1 x 2 slash markings. They are used to find items when searching, to remove sound counters before handing them over to the Sawyer player, when fighting...
As the game goes on, you may take injuries. These come in the form of head/brain, body/heart, arm and leg, all of which include variations on how they affect your character. My character ended up with a brain injury, which made it more difficult to search. Laura had an injured foot which made her generate additional noise when running.
There are 3 plastic figures and 5 card figures. This seems a bit of a shame, I need to try and find some stl files so I can print some other characters for Graham. As you search, X markers are placed over the search points to show they've been used. As the game progresses, these markers might be relocated to other search points, allowing you to return and search the original place again.
The game is very compact, fitting neatly into a sturdy cardboard box small enough to fit in a rucksack or shopping bag and still leave room for drinks and snacks.
We were very lucky in the first game. We found the blue car keys on the first search, a blue car part and some gasoline a short while later, and the blue pick-up truck was the second vehicle card that we checked, so we escaped with only mild injuries.
I say mild injuries... does brain damage and a broken arm count as mild?!
In the final game, my badly injured character set fire to the barn with himself inside it. He burned to death, but his sacrifice allowed the other character to escape.
This scenario seemed easier than the first that we tried, we just needed to locate 3 vehicles, siphon the fuel out and use it to light fires in 3 locations (barn, Grandpa's Room and the Sun Room).
Who doesn't love a game where one of the cards you find features "Human Remains"?
