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Last One Standing
Van Ryder’s 2021 mega hit Final Girl has taken the board game market by storm. A reimplementation of previous game Hostage Negotiator, designer AJ Porfirio changed the theme from police procedural to the high octane fear fest of classic horror films. The media phenomenon of the ‘final girl’ has been around since the days of Hitchcock, referring to the last girl standing against some sort of villain, but exploded in popularity in the 70s/80s with films like Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. What makes this game different is its solo nature. Thematically, being a solo game puts you in the place of the final girl herself as you run around trying to beat the big bad. Part of its success comes from the big move for many gamers to explore solo gaming during the pandemic but the series is truly exciting, and varied enough to target a really broad demographic. With sets so far giving homage to films like Friday 13th, Saw and The Thing and with season three on the way next year, there really is a set for everyone. There is even a Christmas themed box due this festive season, putting you against Krampus! As well as their main feature film sets, there have been a number of micro expansions available which offer a slightly different type of ‘bad guy’. Into the Void offers the franchises first dive into outer space!
In Space Nobody Can Hear You Roll Dice
Into the Void takes us into the world of Ridley Scott’s iconic Alien film, a theme well worn in tabletop gaming in recent years but in the Final Girl franchise, this is their first foray off terra forma. So it is first worth exploring our new location. Designed by Evan Derrick, we are stranded on the USS Konrad, an industrial spaceship much like those we have seen before. With search locations at the armory, mess hall and storage, the ship is split into sixteen rooms. But there are a few new mechanisms that make this location really interesting and feel very different to those that came before it. The first is the use of maintenance shafts. These vents are iconic with the film franchise that inspired this edition and so it makes so much thematic sense to utilise them for movement purposes. In order to pass through these shortcuts you will need to find keycards (you start with one so do not fret) and use them to unlock the panel. You can find them in two ways. Either they are found in the normal search way in the item decks or there are two placed on the board during setup. If you want to pick one of these latter ones then not only do you have to stop in that room but also lose time in order to pick it up. Once they have been placed they cannot be picked up again so be very careful where and when you use them. Once unlocked, you and the victims can move through freely but luckily the villain can never use them! There are also a number of rooms with special maintenance rooms that offer a number of additional ways to use key cards, normally to cause damage to any villain you manage to trap there. First up is the trash compactor. Whilst there you can place one of your key cards on the crusher card and if a villain ends their turn there, they suffer one automatic damage. You could also charge up the incinerator costing two key cards or the airlock which costs three. All of the maintenance cards offer a way to attack or even kill the villain but beware as some will also hurt victims or even you if you pass through while the system is charged! These offer such a fun way to do damage and as difficult as they are to pull off, then they work, it is amazing. There is also a self destruct option which takes four keycards but will blow up the entire ship and everyone on it and so may sure you are in an escape hatch space when it blows.
That’s It Man, Game Over Man, Game Over!
Enter the Evomorph! When the game starts your new local alien facehugger is but a baby. With the new evolution card in front of you, you will mark as the Evomorph grows from a hatchling to a youngling before finally hitting adulthood. The hatchling has a massive attack of 10 but only a move of one. The bloodlust, however, will only move up when the hatchling kills a victim. All other ways of bumping up the bloodlust are ignored (taking a time loss instead) until the hatching evolves after its first kill. The youngling is where things get spicy! A new mechanism here is the villain has the power to disappear. When instructed to vanish, the Evomorph is taken off the board, presumably into some deep ventilation system and will only appear when instructed to. If they are hidden then instead of drawing a Terror card, you draw an Ambush card. These have two different orientations depending on whether the Evomorph is a youngling or an adult but both sides are pretty grim! This brings in the new Scan action cards. When you can you have the ability to place scanned tokens on adjacent spaces. These are key as the Evomorph cannot appear on scanned spaces so getting these out sooner rather than later is vital. However once they have appeared again, all scan tokens are removed so you need to start the process all over again. Then there is the adult. When it evolves for the last time, it moves from a health of 4 to 10 and regains all previous lost points! This villain is a beast. The evolution mechanism means that each iteration needs a very different strategy and keeps you on your toes.
I Got You, You Son Of A B****!
As expected you also get two new final girls in Into the Void to choose from and their matching special unlockable items. The first, Ellen, has a health of only four and takes six victims to gain her special ability. But when flipped, she is able, when successfully performing the search action to look freely through the item deck. When looking for those precious key cards or the flamethrower, this can be so powerful. Jeanette on the other hand has a whopping health of seven to start and only needs four victims to activate her ability. She can hold an additional item in her hands and also gets additional uses for limited use items. So if she can get hold of the flamethrower, those extra uses could be invaluable.
This is a great feature film for those who want to scratch that sci-fi itch and there is something really exciting about bringing that Evomorph to earth and playing against it at somewhere like Creech Manor or Wingard Cottage. Not to mention an urge to take the Terror From Above micro expansion and let a flock of birds loose on the USS Konrad! Just remember, in space, no one can hear you curse and throw things around the room as you roll continuous 1s and 2s!
