Survival Horror, the Boardgame

Reading Ian Schrieber's course in game design although I didn't sign up, couldn't afford the books. And it just wanted you to bang out a game in a few minutes, so here it is.

Survival Horror - Cthulu Tropes Edition


This a game for 2-5 players, though I'm sure you can find a way to finagle more in if you really want to. One player takes the role of Monster and begins at the end of the board, the rest take the role of various tropes, the woobie, badass normal, the dog, and of course Martin, because there's always room for Martin, and start at the beginning.

At the beginning of every turn, you roll a six sided dice to determine movement, which may be backwards or forwards. If you roll a six, every survivor moves one space towards the monster. If you roll a 1, every survivor moves 1 space away from the monster. The spaces that connect to the shortcut have trap doors, if you land on them, you automatically take the shortcut path next turn. If the monster lands on a survivors space, or crosses over their space as they move, their token is removed from the board and they lose the game.

You can have one of three win states. Free for all, everyone is on their own and the first survivor to reach the exit wins, or the monster in the case it kills them all. Team, if a survivor reaches the exit, all remaining survivors win, and the monster if it eats them all. Team strict, if all survivors reach the exit the survivors win, if the monster eats even one survivor, all survivors loose.