The Killer: Poltergeist

The Location: Creech Manor

Inspirations: Poltergeist, maybe Paranormal Activity?

Final Girls: Selena Villanueva & Alice Cranston

The Poltergeist is an invincible murderer. It’s a ghost, after all, wreaking havoc through a map while you’re trying to find a little girl with psychic powers. This makes for an interesting first jump in complexity after the Happy Trails Horror. You can’t kill it, so instead you’ve got to rescue victims while scouring the item decks for Carolyn, who’s hiding from the ghost. She’ll accompany you, but sometimes will have demands like her toy rabbit who’s also in an item deck.

Creech Manor similarly changes things up and shows the versatility of the location board, bringing us a side view of a large house. This is something I’m surprised they’ve not done more of, and really liked here. Shifting from the Camp Happy Trails map to this felt reminiscent of surprises in Arkham Horror when the cards would stop representing a building and get used for a town, or a train, or a side-view of a house.

Exits in Creech Manor are pretty limited, but there are windows where you could help victims climb out, or they might flee out of them and fall to their death. Each time I’ve played, I’ve tended to stick near the bottom of the house and only run upstairs when I’m more prepared. That said, if you’re lucky then you might have a helicopter rescue to hand, allowing you to use the roof as a one-off rescue spot.

I’ve played through the scenario a few times, and here’s my account of the most recent one:

I played Alice, who had a moment of focus, breathing calmly before running into the manor. There was a helicopter above, waiting me to reach the top once I found Carolyn.

Unfortunately while she remained calm, the victims inside were panicking, including one falling to their death from a window before the Poltergeist even attacked. 

Alice found some lucky dice in the garage and found Mr Floppy, the toy rabbit! It wasn’t Carolyn, but was good future-proofing as she won’t leave without it. Unfortunately the Poltergeist killed another victim at the same time, but I wouldn’t have been able to save them.

Then from the Terror Deck Alice was randomly struck by lightning, despite being indoors. That dropped her down to one health, where she’d remain pretty much until the end.

Alice ran up and into a closet to hide, scouring it for items. She found a crucifix and who was there, hiding amongst the long coats? It was Carolyn!

I’d rinsed my hand, with only a Sprint and a Weak Attack which was useless in this scenario, aside from burning it to upgrade 3 & 4 die results. So sprint she did, with a success and a discard result. I only had the one card, so I couldn’t upgrade the result. I looked at my tableau. I had ‘Will to Live’ as a special card (part of the extras, which gives you a random signature action. I’ll get into them at some point). It was only useful if I died, so I binned it off, allowing for maximum sprinting.

Alice charged up to the attic and used the helicopter to save Alice, Carolyn, Mr Floppy and one other victim. The other two who were hiding in the attic were just… left behind, I guess. Sorry, victims!

Compared to previous games, this was fairly short. Things went my way which is shocking given the game. The worst I had of it were some of the victims fleeing to their deaths, dying of fright and that lightning strike. 

Final Girl Extras

I use a few extras from the various Final Girl campaigns in my play, often for convenience. I figure I’ll share some details about them as I go. There will be some spoilers, so I’ll give a warning to stop people delving too far if they want a surprise.

SPOILERS FOR ALL FINAL GIRL BOXES!!!

Secret Envelopes

This has become a well-known ‘secret’ now, even advertised on the campaigns and visible in the packs of promotional Final Girls, so I don’t mind spoiling this too much. I don’t remember these being mentioned in the original campaign and was surprised to find them. Each Final Girl Feature Film box has a plastic insert containing the killer on one side and location on the other. They pull out pretty easily, making useful containers when you’re playing. They also have a little envelope for each of the Final Girls in the box.

The envelope has a little rule sheet as you could unlock any of them before another, and a personalised item. Laurie gets a special bow, Selena gets a flashlight and so on. If you complete a scenario with a Final Girl, you can then shuffle their personal item into the item decks. They’re a nice little touch, but I’ve rarely had them come into play so far, especially as I’m focusing on unlocking them all which means fewer replays with the same girl.

Promotional Final Girls even gained envelopes in later Kickstarter campaigns, which was an extra incentive to play with them.