Headless Horseman Sightings?

So tonight as most of you know I usually write about the game we played earlier this evening. However, my game night was canceled and I do not have a game to report on. So instead I will do my first review! I know I am supposed to save those for Review Wednesday but, I have not been able to find the time to do so and I am thinking about scraping the whole Wednesday post idea. We will see how that works out in the future. So for my first review I will be doing the Flying Frog game: A Touch of Evil.

A Touch of Evil is a post-revolutionary war era game of hunting monsters. Players take on the role of a character who is visiting the small town of Shadowbrook to investigate some strange murders. These murders are linked to some kind of big bad monster pulling strings behind the scenes. Eventually when player feels they have gained enough power through use of items and allies they can challenge the big monster to a final Showdown where one will come victorious or very injured.

On their turn a player rolls dice to determine how far they may move within the town. If a player ever rolls a 1 they get to draw the powerful Event cards. After moving their distance and depending the space you occupy you will either draw a Location Card, Event Card, or Mystery Card. These usually have a small narrative that gives the character a challenge roll to complete in order to gain some items or Investigation. (This is the currency of the game) Once a character has enough power behind them and is on a space matching a Lair Card (Cards drawn that tell the player where the monster is hiding) that player may initiate a Showdown in an attempt to face the monster one on one and beat them. The player to do so first wins the game. However; if evil progresses to far all players will lose.

            I love this game. I think it has all the elements a good adventure game needs; solid characters with an array of abilities, a unique setting and story, and an easy game system that allows for deep strategy and the story reflects its rules well. The game encourages a pseudo role playing aspect by making the cards in the game narratives and even giving some of the cards lines for the players to read. Not to mention Flying Frog uses actors and actually scenes for their art. Every picture and piece of art is a photograph and it is fantastic!

So I suppose I should do some hard numbers for this right? I think a scale of one to ten will work.

Replay: 6/10 while the game is random enough with cards and dice rolls it does get predictable after the sixth or seventh play though.

Theme: 9/10 they do a great job of keeping with the theme of being in post-revolutionary war setting and it is reflected well in the art, items, and characters.

Play Time: 5/10 some games take one hour and some games take four it really depends on how nice the decks are to the players.

            I hope this turns out OK for my first review. I would love feedback on this one guys especially in what categories I should use for my numbers. Thanks for reading all

Good Gaming Everyone!