Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Dead of Winter is a soul crushing cooperative game where each player leads a small team of survivors with different abilities in order to survive the winter in a zombie apocalypse. There are a variety of different things to keep track of to prevent death such as keeping everyone fed, taking out trash, killing zombies so you don't get overrun, and fulfilling the goal of each round. Each round there is some sort of crisis where you might need to gather tools, more food, medicine, or gas in order to keep morale up. Each player has their own personal victory conditions that are usually holding a certain number of items or completely certain actions. A small amount of goals are traitorous and involve completing goals and only succeeding if the group loses. If morale gets to 0 or, everyone loses. Gameplay runs from one to two hours and accommodates three to five players.


At the start of the game, the zombie apocalypse is in full swing and the group is struggling to survive.  There are twenty possible scenarios to choose from that lay out how long the game will be, how many rounds, where the morale track starts, and what the ultimate goal is. Some goals can be just to stay alive for a certain number of rounds but others can have players killing all zombies. Each round has players using dice to complete actions (such as searching for supplies, building barricades, killing zombies, and cleaning up trash), doing free actions (such as moving to a different location, using items, or contributing to the food stores or the crisis for the round). The end of each round settles the crisis, has all characters consume food, has all characters attract zombies towards them, and sets up for the next round. Most crises have the opportunity for raising morale, but it costs many more resources. Players have to plan ahead and see if it's worth perhaps not having resources to settle the next crises or feed ourselves next round. Raising morale is incredibly rare in game because the zombie apocalypse isn't exactly a morale booster.

Each character is has some sort defining characteristic and set of stats that either suit them for battling zombies or searching or some other task. My favorites are the truck driver, the body builder, and the mall Santa. Each turn, another player has a crossroads card that will take effect if you take an action or have a certain character. Usually it's a tough choice like doing something that might kill you to get food or picking up more survivors at the expense of the group's resources. You have to weigh which decision is right and maybe discuss it with the group. I love this aspect of the game. Not all good decisions have benefits and not all bad decisions have punishments. If it all goes wrong, the whole game could be over in a just a few rounds. I've personally seen crossroads cards that kill 3 characters which lowers morale and proves devastating to the group. These situations put the group in the mindset of making hard decisions that are best for the group (unless they are a betrayer).

This game does have some flaws. It's obviously stacked against the players, which I don't really mind. However, some rules I find a little over the top. In game, venturing outside at all has each character rolling a dice to see if they are wounded, frostbitten, or bitten by a zombie. A bite is an automatic death plus anyone with them has to roll to see if they were wounded, frostbitten, or bitten by a zombie. Too many first rounds were spent losing up to 3 characters, so my group plays that only encountering zombies makes us roll the dice. Other than that, I find it to replicate the zombie apocalypse situation in winter, making it doubly hard, pretty accurately. You can look up different house rules people have to adjust the game as you like. The game has two expansions called Warring Colonies and The Long Night. I haven't heard much about either, but I'd be interested to see what they add to the game. It's already incredibly hard, so adding more goals wouldn't be very successful. I'm hoping for alternative ways to play instead of making it harder.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a delightfully creepy rogue like game that features religion, creepy cute creatures, and disturbing imagery. The original game came out a few years ago and I was obsessed with that, but it had its flaws. The game wasn't really complete and had some bugs. Flash didn't do it any favors either. The art style, while cute, is simplistic and leaves something to b e desired. This new version made by Edmund McMillen and Nicalis and is superior in almost every way possible.

The new and old version share a story and the basic components that make the game addictive and fun. The story features a cute little boy named Isaac whose mother is very religious. God speaks to her multiple times to save her son from the evils of the world that have corrupted him. God finally asks her to kill him because he can no longer be saved and she attacks him with a knife. He escapes into the basement where our adventure begins. Isaac attacks creatures (who all look vaguely like him) with his tears. The villains and monsters are all disturbing and/or biblical in nature. As Isaac (or one of his other identities), you battle through pairs of levels starting with the Basement then working through the Caves, Depths (where you fight off Mom's hands and feet), to the Womb where you fight Mom's Heart and then It Lives, a fetus. After that, you choose to essentially go to heaven (the Cathedral) where you fight yourself or Hell (Sheol) where you fight the Devil. In the old version, Sheol leads nowhere and the Cathedral leads to the Chest where you fight your dead self. In Rebirth, Sheol leads the Dark Room where you fight the Lamb and the Chest is the same.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth looks and feels different, but the spirit of the game is the same. The art style is similar to the pixellated, retro style of the original Legend of Zelda games Isaac is based on. Even the backgrounds are much more detailed and dynamic. More playable characters are available including Lazarus, Azazel, Eden, and the Lost. Eden is the most awesome because you start with random stats, random health, and two random items. The Lost is the most horrible and rage inducing because it takes one hit to kill him. Plus if you want 100%, you have to beat everything on hard mode including boss rush with him. Rebirth has tons more bosses, monsters, endings, items, and even two new heart types (evil and eternal). The items sometimes synergize in interesting ways (not always good) and vary game play. There is now a hard mode that increases the frequency of challenge creatures and bosses and decreases the number of items dropped. The monsters actually move a little slower in Rebirth compared to the first game, making dodging a little easier, but the addition of the Lost more than makes up for it. New challenges are added to the mix. Some of them are crazy hard like Suicide King where you're own explosive tears try to kill you. Other challenges are just really fun to do like Darkness Falls where you start with the power of evil!

Rebirth isn't without flaws. Dr. Fetus has been made horrible and there's a weird glitchiness with explosions and projectiles near the lower wall of a room. Angel rooms kind of suck and give no incentive to pass up the way more awesome Devil deals. The map in the upper corner can cover things on the screen, which is a bit annoying. Other than those small things, I don't have any problems with The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. I've played well over 500 hours. I beat the game once with my boyfriend and now I'm completing another save file all by myself. I plan to complete the third save file if Afterbirth doesn't come out soon. Afterbirth is the game expansion for rebirth that will have even more items, bosses, monsters, room variants, and characters. No release date has been posted yet, but Edmund McMillen posts small updates every Monday about the new expansion here.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Arkham Horror

If you like horror, giant monsters, and very challenging games, Arkham Horror is the game for you. It's a board game made for you and up to seven other players and takes two to four hours to complete. It's excellent for a group of friends that have a few hours to kill. I play this game about every other week and, whether we win or lose, my friends and I have loads of fun.

Here is the object of the game:

"In Arkham Horror, a terrible creature from beyond time and space is waking, roused by the dimensional gates that are opening all over the city. The players must join forces to close all of the gates before this Ancient One awakens. If the Ancient One defeats the players, all of Arkham is doomed.

The players must work together as a team of investigators to close all of the dimensional gates, seal them permanently, of if that fails, defeat the Ancient One when it awakens from its slumber."

This game is pretty hard because it really, really doesn't want you to win, but it's so fun. Every turn, a portal opens at an unstable location accompanied by horrific monster. It's daunting when you first start because there are more little pieces in this box than any other board game I've ever owned and a whole lot of rules. The complex set of stages and rules are a little hard to grasp at first, but it gets easier with repetition and practice. You can choose from a variety of characters that may focus on spellcasting or fighting. Then, as the game progresses, players collect spells, weapons, and other items to help them battle the monsters and the Ancient One.

If this doesn't sound hard enough, you can buy expansions to the game, which can add a separate sections that attach to the Arkham board or just add extra items, events, monsters, and Ancient Ones. The expansion adds other objectives that must be completed in addition to the rest of the things needed to complete the original game. So if the game starts to become too easy for you, there are quite a few to choose from. My favorite is Innsmouth, where there are aquatic locations and you might develop the Innsmouth look (AKA turn into a fish monster)! Everyone should play this addicting and fun game.

The thing I think would be most interesting to book bloggers and readers is that this entire game is based off of the great works of H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote horror he called cosmic horror, where the universe is alien and the protagonists regularly risk their sanity for knowledge. One of the most famous stories is The Call of Cthulhu, which introduced one of the most horrific creatures ever imagined (pictured below). You can download and read it for free in any format you'd like at here. Lovecraft's influential works have inspired music, games, films, and countless sequels or imitations of his stories.

** The quote is from the Arkham Horror rule book.**