Epidiah Ravachol
First Post
I know you're all waiting on news about the PDF. Sorry, I've got none to share at the moment. But I do have this project I've been working on with the fiancée that I think you all might be intrigued by.
It's a roleplaying board game designed for kids and adults to enjoy together. And of course it's a horror game because, well, deep down I think I just really like scaring kids.
Though, after the first few playtests, I learned very quickly that kids are far better at scaring me.
The game is very much inspired by Dread. You need a Jenga (or reasonable knock-off) to play. It's a haunted house scenario in which you all play a group of teenagers who've all dared each other to spend the night. There are six characters to choose from: an athlete, a gossip, a nerd, a bully, a scaredy-cat, and an artist. Each has there own set of special abilities.
You have a map of the house, some tokens, character sheets and a couple decks of cards. As you go exploring the house, the player to your left plays the host, drawing from a deck of spooky events and describing what horrors you face in each room. Then you have to pull from the tower to avoid fleeing--like the little chicken you are--to the rest of the kids in the house.
Throughout the house there are useful items you can pick up. Some of them have special abilities depending on which monsters you face and which kid has them.
Unlike in Dread, no one dies in this game. If you knock the Tower over, your kid runs out the front door and all the way home to mommy. Which sucks. But then you get to play one of the monster that lives at Dread House, like Eddie Sparkle or Lady Glub Glub here.
We designed it to be played by a wide range of ages. Younger kids are able to just ignore the rules they don't understand or remember, but there's enough depth there to keep older players interested in the game itself.
This whole thing was sort of inspired by a brief conversation I had at GenCon a couple years ago. A guy came to my booth asking if we had any games for kids around ten or eleven years old. I almost recommend Dread to him, because of how simple and easy it is to learn, but I thought better of it because of the inherent violence. I had nothing for him that day. But the idea stuck with me.
So eventually I started gathering kids to test my designs on. And that doesn't sound creepy at all.
. . .
Anyway, if you've got kids you need to scare, and you happen to be at GenCon, stop by the Design Matters booth (#2100). I'll be at the booth Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning if you want to say hi. I'll be the handsome looking one.
And if you want to play it, I'll be at Games on Demand Saturday morning. That's at the Grand Central Ballroom "B" in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Again, I'll be the handsome looking one.
It's a roleplaying board game designed for kids and adults to enjoy together. And of course it's a horror game because, well, deep down I think I just really like scaring kids.
Though, after the first few playtests, I learned very quickly that kids are far better at scaring me.
The game is very much inspired by Dread. You need a Jenga (or reasonable knock-off) to play. It's a haunted house scenario in which you all play a group of teenagers who've all dared each other to spend the night. There are six characters to choose from: an athlete, a gossip, a nerd, a bully, a scaredy-cat, and an artist. Each has there own set of special abilities.
You have a map of the house, some tokens, character sheets and a couple decks of cards. As you go exploring the house, the player to your left plays the host, drawing from a deck of spooky events and describing what horrors you face in each room. Then you have to pull from the tower to avoid fleeing--like the little chicken you are--to the rest of the kids in the house.
Throughout the house there are useful items you can pick up. Some of them have special abilities depending on which monsters you face and which kid has them.
Unlike in Dread, no one dies in this game. If you knock the Tower over, your kid runs out the front door and all the way home to mommy. Which sucks. But then you get to play one of the monster that lives at Dread House, like Eddie Sparkle or Lady Glub Glub here.


We designed it to be played by a wide range of ages. Younger kids are able to just ignore the rules they don't understand or remember, but there's enough depth there to keep older players interested in the game itself.
This whole thing was sort of inspired by a brief conversation I had at GenCon a couple years ago. A guy came to my booth asking if we had any games for kids around ten or eleven years old. I almost recommend Dread to him, because of how simple and easy it is to learn, but I thought better of it because of the inherent violence. I had nothing for him that day. But the idea stuck with me.
So eventually I started gathering kids to test my designs on. And that doesn't sound creepy at all.
. . .
Anyway, if you've got kids you need to scare, and you happen to be at GenCon, stop by the Design Matters booth (#2100). I'll be at the booth Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning if you want to say hi. I'll be the handsome looking one.
And if you want to play it, I'll be at Games on Demand Saturday morning. That's at the Grand Central Ballroom "B" in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Again, I'll be the handsome looking one.