While there is only one actual Mount Rushmore (for many reasons, I’m sure, but topping the list has got to be that it’s just too much work), many exist in my mind and I enjoy friendly debates about who to include. For example, the “Mount Rushmore of Game Show Hosts” would surely include Bob Barker, Alex Trebek, Gene Rayburn and… who else? Pat Sajak? Merv Griffin? After all, he wrote the Jeopardy! theme song. Hmm… What about Steve Harvey? Or how about Groucho Marx? Must we only have four?!
Yes, that’s part of the game. And speaking of games, I’d put cash money on the “Mount Rushmore of Tabletop Games,” including the twin (proverbial) 800-lb. gorillas Reiner Knizia and Richard Garfield. Both of these gentlemen continue to have an enormous influence in the hobby board game world, and both happen to be included in the inaugural offerings of tabletop games from Trick Or Treat Studios.
FANGORIA readers will no doubt be familiar with Trick Or Treat Studios’ high-quality masks, but CEO and founder Chris Zephro is a man of many interests. Joe Stoken, Director of Business Development at Trick Or Treat Studios, reveals, “I have been gaming with Trick Or Treat Studios’ President, Chris Zephro, for over 21 years now, and both of us have been gamers since Dungeons and Dragons was released in the ’70s! It may or may not be true that Chris has an obscenely large personal board game collection, and our accounting department told him he better start that gaming division he has been talking about, or he won’t be able to write off any more game purchases as business expenses.”
That’s the kind of advice I can get behind!
Nightmare Productions is based on an older design from Reiner Knizia titled Traumfabrik (2000) in his native Germany and released throughout the intervening years in the US as Hollywood Blockbuster (2006) and Dream Factory (2009). The new Trick Or Treat Studios edition focuses the theme on producing horror movies, naturally.
In Nightmare Productions, players will take on the role of movie studios vying to acquire the best collection of scripts, locations, props, cast, and crew to complete their films and garner accolades and awards (and points, of course). They’ll do this through a series of auctions for tiles containing these elements. If you’re terrible at auctions (like me), don’t worry. The winner of an auction doesn’t pay “the bank.” Rather, the winning bid gets distributed evenly among the other players. Any excess dollars get redistributed with the next winning auction, and so on. Eventually, you WILL have enough money to win an auction!
Once tiles containing the desired production elements are won, they are immediately placed on the player’s film project, showing the “menu” of tiles required to complete the production. For example, the film Satan’s Helper requires a creature, a director, a prop, a location, and a composer. The Human Monster, on the other hand, requires two creatures, a director, and has two spaces with a choice of director, prop, composer, or location. Optionally, studios can include a “cameo” tile for extra points. Once those elements are in place, the studio adds up star icons on the film itself and the varying number of stars on all the tiles used to create the production. The result is the number of rating points received. The studio then acquires a new film project and attempts to complete it with the highest value elements they can.
There are also two “Horror Con” spaces where good word of mouth will pay off! Studios will have their pick of certain production element tiles based on how well their other completed movies have performed. The studio with the highest value completed film in front of them will get first choice, and so on.
Play will continue for four rounds (with six auctions per round) and, after each, awards time! After the first three rounds, the award for “Best Movie” will be given to the studio with the highest-rated completed film in front of them (garnering them 5 points!) A single film can receive the same award after multiple rounds if no other studio produces a more highly-rated film, so be sure to attract the talent you want!
Once the fourth and final round is over, more awards are given! Three 10-point awards will be granted to the highest-rated film in each of three categories: creature feature, slasher, and supernatural. A “Best Casting” award will go to the film with the best creatures and, even if you were unlucky at the auctions and Horror Cons, you won’t go home empty-handed. There’s a 10-point award for “Worst Movie” to be won by the lowest-rated completed film. Also, any unspent money will gain you points at the end of the game. Add that to the ratings points and awards won, and the studio with the most points wins.
Reiner Knizia has designed many (seriously, this guy is a machine!) well-known auction games including Ra, Medici, and Amun-Re, a couple of favorites of mine. Nightmare Productions is a pretty breezy auction game that won’t burn your brain or cause too much anxiety. And that closed economy means that, even if you’re losing auctions, you’re always getting something.
“Chris played Dream Factory, one of the previous iterations of the game, and really loved it,” says Joe Stoken. “The closed auction system is amazing and fun the way it is, so we did not change anything about the mechanics of the game. Chris took control of this retheme conversion himself, knowing that a game based on horror studios making scary movies was the only way to go. He re-named everything in the game, from the studios and movies to the game tiles. The result is a game where you can end up with some really crazy, mixed-up horror flicks. Remember, there is a trophy for ‘worst movie’ too!”
After all is said and done, I also like to look at the elements I included in my productions and tell the story, with fan casting, of the films I completed. He Will Return, starring Ted Cassidy as an extraterrestrial casket salesman, directed by Jim Wynorski, with music by DEVO? Give me that 4K Disc NOW!
The second Mount Rushmore-worthy figure I mentioned is Richard Garfield. You might have seen some of his games, like the kaiju slugfest King of Tokyo or the chaotic programming game Robo Rally, on big box store shelves in recent years. But the reason his visage would be captured in imaginary granite is undoubtedly for a “little” card game called Magic: The Gathering. Ah, yes, Magic: The Gathering… the most popular trading (or collectible) card game in the world for several decades and the sole reason many brick-and-mortar hobby game stores are able to keep the lights on!
In 2022, Trick Or Treat Studios released a new design from Mr. Garfield titled Creature Feature, in which 3 to 6 players will bluff, intimidate, and second-guess each other to victory.
In Creature Feature, players are the agents of famous movie monster types, trying to get their clients cast in the highest-value feature films and shorts while elbowing out their competition.
In each of three seasons (with four or five rounds in a season), players will choose a pair of cards in their hand representing their monstrous clients like Witch, Vampire, Ghost, Zombie, etc., and place them facedown on their player board in the spot for “Star” and “Co-Star.” They will all be competing for a role in either a feature film worth a certain number of points or a short film worth half as much. All player pawns start on the space for the feature film (gotta dream big, you know?). Then, all players reveal only their “Co-Star.” This phase is called the “Audition,” wherein players will go around the table and decide to either stay on the spot they’re currently on, drop down to the lower space for the short film role, or, ultimately, drop down again and “fold.”
Players who “fold” won’t come away with nothing. They’ll get a point each for the “Star” and “Co-Star” they played. Players whose pawns are on an uncontested space will take the token representing the role and score it, along with the cards they played. If a space has more than one player’s pawn on it, the role is contested, and now all players competing for the same role will reveal their cards in a “Showdown.”
Your monster cards have numbers from 1 to 11, representing the “power” of each. The sum of the cards is your combined power value, which will be compared to the others. Often, the highest combined power value wins. But, of course, it’s not that simple.
The highest combined total power value will win if there isn’t a “Twist.” A “Twist” occurs when the “Co-Star” is of equal or higher power value than the “Star.” If any player in the Showdown has played a “Twist,” then the winner has the highest combined power value without a “Twist.” However, if all players in the Showdown have played a “Twist,” then the winner is simply the highest combined power value. Ties are resolved using a Priority Track, with the winner of a tie getting bumped to the bottom, so future ties become less desirable for them.
Then, there’s scoring. If players win a “Showdown” without a “Twist,” they score their own cards AND the cards of their opponents in the “Showdown,” all face down. Face-down cards are worth one point. However, if you win with a “Twist,” you get to score your cards faceup, gaining you anywhere from two to four points each.
Adding to this are special powers on certain cards, like “Devil,” which allows you to score any opponent’s cards faceup, regardless, and “Ghost,” which can “un-Twist” your “Star” and “Co-Star” after the big reveal. If you played your “Witch” in the “Audition,” she’ll add +5 power to your total for every “Devil” played by your opponents.
But wait, there’s more! Besides the monster cards in your hand, you might draw certain “Special Helper” cards you can play on the table for an immediate effect. “Igor” will fetch more cards for your hand, and the “Mad Doctor” will let you discard your “Star” when revealed and replace it with a random card from the top of the draw pile. “Bats” will let you peek at any played card on the table for some extra valuable info, and the “Discrete Butler” will let you keep some information to yourself, and your “Co-Star” card will remain face down.
It’s obvious Richard Garfield loves the game that happens “above the table.” In poker, you’re not so much playing the hand of cards as you’re playing the other players. It’s all about bluffing and trying to get your opponents to second-guess you and themselves. Those special cards and powers add some extra spice and drama to the mix.
“This game really shines with 4-6 players, which is rare for a game to actually be better at the upper range,” says Joe Stoken. “With more players comes additional opportunities for head-to-head conflict to win a movie role in the ‘Showdown’ and that is where the fun and greatest rewards are. You have to be bold and bluff at least once or twice in this game to win.”
In addition to the well-known heavy hitters of Knizia and Garfield, the production of these two games features some terrific illustration work from Dug Nation (Nightmare Productions) and Terry Wolfinger (Creature Feature). Their work hasn’t been seen in the board game sphere before, but I love what they’re doing and I’m looking forward to more.
The tabletop games division of Trick Or Treat Studios is off to an auspicious start and seems to be employing the same ethos that got the ball rolling in the first place. “When Chris started Trick Or Treat Studios,” explains Joe Stoken, “he picked up the phone, called all of his favorite mask sculptors and asked them if they had any original sculpts available; most of them said ‘yes’ and a company was born. The terrific quality of these masks allowed Trick Or Treat Studios to eventually get approvals for licensed properties. Chris employed the exact same strategy with Tabletop Games. He contacted Reiner, Richard, and many others, and asked them if they had any designs they would like published, and to our great surprise, most of them did, and now we have a stuffed pipeline of games designed by industry luminaries. And the licensed games are coming!”
You can find Nightmare Productions and Creature Feature as well as other games from Trick Or Treat Studios at their website and wherever hobby tabletop games are sold.
