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| By Plaid Hat Games |
Bump in the Night
A common question that faces a lot of children is what exactly is underneath their beds? As an adult, the answer is usually spare clothes, as a teenager it's everything you were supposed to put away when cleaning your room, but as a child born in the 80's, you knew, with 100% CERTAINTY, that Howie Mandel was under there wearing blue makeup and a denim shirt and vest.
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| Fred Savage sold separately |
While the idea of there actually being monsters under the bed or in your closet isn't necessarily a new one (I mean, COME ON, Pixar, Little Monsters only came out 12 years earlier than Monsters Inc. That's like if someone made a fantasy movie about rings of power in 2013 and tried to pass it off as an original idea) Stuffed Fables gives us one of a few board games that embraces that theme.
Bedtime Stories to Keep You Up at Night
Stuffed Fables is a cooperative game for 2-4 players, where players take on the role of a sentient stuffed animal trying to protect their little girl from Crepitus, the ruler of the world underneath the bed. If this sounds an awful lot like a bedtime story, that's because Plaid Hat Games has taken amazing steps make it feel that way. The game does not come with map tiles, or a campaign book, or a 40 page rulebook. No, the game IS a storybook. The map you'll be exploring is a page in the book. The setup for the adventure is part of the story. And each adventure (or Story as they call it) is bookended (see what I did there?) with narration that tells the players how they got into that mess and how they get out.
Each part of the adventure is played on a different page of the Storybook, with different setups for weapons or objectives depending on the adventure. On your turn, you'll reach into a dice bag and pull out 5 dice randomly. These dice are divided into different colors that are typically representative of different actions you can take, for example red dice are typically used for anything that has to do with strength, like Melee attacks or lifting heavy objects, while green dice deal with dexterity and let you make Ranged attacks or jump from train car to train car. Except for blue dice. Blue dice have no specific action associated with them, so you mainly use them to move or defend against attacks, but you can use ANY colored dice to do that! They're like the candy that you don't really want at Halloween. Yes. Blue dice are the butterscotch discs of Stuffed Fables gameplay. I mean, it's better than not getting ANYTHING (or in the case of Stuffed Fables, dice that activate the enemies) but you don't really want it. There are so many other things that you could have used more, but you got stuck with a Chick-O-Stick. This can get really frustrating when you see everyone else getting full size Snickers and 3 Musketeers! Meanwhile, you're stuck with some messed up looking brown taffy and a box of raisins.
All this means that the options on your turn are dictated by the types of dice you pull. As I mentioned earlier, this can be frustrating, but unique character powers, such as Theadora's ability to switch out one of your drawn dice for one in the discard pile, can mitigate much of it. Dice pulls aside, one unique aspect of gameplay is the fact that if you have multiple dice of the same color, you can either use them separately or combine them for increased odds of success. For instance, if you have 2 red dice, you can use them 1 at a time for 2 separate melee attacks, or use both of them at once, adding their results together in one stronger melee attack. This adds a level of strategy and action management that I haven't seen in any other games (save for Conan by Monolith Edition).
The popular Crossroads mechanic from Plaid Hat Games' other tabletop colossus, Dead of Winter, makes a cameo here as well in the form of Lost Toys, though in a much more family friendly manner. The choices typically involve helping a broken or lost toy, or ignoring them, possibly even laughing at them. Yes, this game gives you and your children the option to be a jerk. While the decisions seem awfully black and white to an adult, and may not be the most riveting decision to make personally, it can serve as a bit of a wake up call for exactly what kind of monst- I mean, CHILD you have raised. Let's be honest, nobody WANTS to be THAT kid's parent, but I guess it's best to find out sooner than later.
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| If they had this for Grapes of Wrath in high school, I might have actually read it |
Each part of the adventure is played on a different page of the Storybook, with different setups for weapons or objectives depending on the adventure. On your turn, you'll reach into a dice bag and pull out 5 dice randomly. These dice are divided into different colors that are typically representative of different actions you can take, for example red dice are typically used for anything that has to do with strength, like Melee attacks or lifting heavy objects, while green dice deal with dexterity and let you make Ranged attacks or jump from train car to train car. Except for blue dice. Blue dice have no specific action associated with them, so you mainly use them to move or defend against attacks, but you can use ANY colored dice to do that! They're like the candy that you don't really want at Halloween. Yes. Blue dice are the butterscotch discs of Stuffed Fables gameplay. I mean, it's better than not getting ANYTHING (or in the case of Stuffed Fables, dice that activate the enemies) but you don't really want it. There are so many other things that you could have used more, but you got stuck with a Chick-O-Stick. This can get really frustrating when you see everyone else getting full size Snickers and 3 Musketeers! Meanwhile, you're stuck with some messed up looking brown taffy and a box of raisins.
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| One step above rat poison |
All this means that the options on your turn are dictated by the types of dice you pull. As I mentioned earlier, this can be frustrating, but unique character powers, such as Theadora's ability to switch out one of your drawn dice for one in the discard pile, can mitigate much of it. Dice pulls aside, one unique aspect of gameplay is the fact that if you have multiple dice of the same color, you can either use them separately or combine them for increased odds of success. For instance, if you have 2 red dice, you can use them 1 at a time for 2 separate melee attacks, or use both of them at once, adding their results together in one stronger melee attack. This adds a level of strategy and action management that I haven't seen in any other games (save for Conan by Monolith Edition).
The popular Crossroads mechanic from Plaid Hat Games' other tabletop colossus, Dead of Winter, makes a cameo here as well in the form of Lost Toys, though in a much more family friendly manner. The choices typically involve helping a broken or lost toy, or ignoring them, possibly even laughing at them. Yes, this game gives you and your children the option to be a jerk. While the decisions seem awfully black and white to an adult, and may not be the most riveting decision to make personally, it can serve as a bit of a wake up call for exactly what kind of monst- I mean, CHILD you have raised. Let's be honest, nobody WANTS to be THAT kid's parent, but I guess it's best to find out sooner than later.
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| They may have seen this coming if they had played Stuffed Fables with him |
Stuffed with Content
Stuffed Fables looks fantastic, and honestly, I wouldn't expect anything less from Plaid Hat Games. The art is beautiful, the Storybook is bound together well and doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart anytime soon, and the miniatures... OH, the MINIATURES... Well sculpted, nice and chunky (with the exception of Mr. Stitch), and they feel more like GAME PIECES and less like fragile collector's items. They're great.
You start of with 4 playable characters to choose from, but by progressing through the game, you gain cards from the Discovery Deck. These cards can be new items, new rules, and even new playable characters. This adds some of that "Legacy" feel to the game, which is ever so popular right now, without any of the permanence, as the cards can simply be placed back into the Discovery Deck for the next time you play through.
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| You, too, can play as this scary-ass sock-monkey-thing |
You start of with 4 playable characters to choose from, but by progressing through the game, you gain cards from the Discovery Deck. These cards can be new items, new rules, and even new playable characters. This adds some of that "Legacy" feel to the game, which is ever so popular right now, without any of the permanence, as the cards can simply be placed back into the Discovery Deck for the next time you play through.
Buy It!, Try It!, or Fly It!
Once again, my ratings system works like this:
Buy It! = Go buy this, right now! It is fantastic and worth your hard earned money!
So, what am I going to say? It's been a pretty positive review so far, so it seems like a forgone conclusion, right? Well, not so fast. My biggest issue with the game is, well, that it's for kids. The game itself says it's for ages 7+, and that's about right. This is a fantastic game, with great mechanics and great components, but for a serious hardcore gamer, this game is EASY. You will rarely find any situation in the game where you and your party will need to seriously strategize in order to be successful. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because as a game you can play with your kids, or as something that can be used as a gateway game into the hobby, you don't really want something that's just going to frustrate everyone playing.
Buy It! = Go buy this, right now! It is fantastic and worth your hard earned money!
Try It! = Play it with a friend or at your local game store. You might like it or you might not.
Fly It! = %&#! this game!
Fly It! = %&#! this game!
So, what am I going to say? It's been a pretty positive review so far, so it seems like a forgone conclusion, right? Well, not so fast. My biggest issue with the game is, well, that it's for kids. The game itself says it's for ages 7+, and that's about right. This is a fantastic game, with great mechanics and great components, but for a serious hardcore gamer, this game is EASY. You will rarely find any situation in the game where you and your party will need to seriously strategize in order to be successful. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because as a game you can play with your kids, or as something that can be used as a gateway game into the hobby, you don't really want something that's just going to frustrate everyone playing.
So, that seems like it's going to be a Try It!, right? Well, this is Plaid Hat Games we're talking about, and they have a GREAT track record of post-launch support for their games, and as of the writing of this review, there are not 1,not 2, but 3(!) free additions published on their website for download: a coloring book featuring character templates and 2 new playable character sheets, a BRAND NEW STORY to play through, and new rules for making the game a little more difficult for us adults. That is a whole lot of love. And it's a whole lot of love released within a month and a half of the game's initial launch. I can only imagine how much love is still on its way. With all of that to consider, whether it's something you'll play with your kids or something something you'll play with your friends...
The Verdict....?
BUY IT!
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