Friday the 13th: Horror at Camp Crystal Lake
Designer: Sergio Halaban and André Zatz
Artist: Delaney Mamer
Publisher: The Op Games and Passport Game Studios
Year Published: 2020
No. of Players: 3-6
Ages: 17+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Main Mechanic/Theme: Push your luck, set collection, horror
How well can you defend yourself against ruthless competitors and Jason Voorhees himself?
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DISCLAIMER: This game was purchased by the author. The publisher did not provide me, the author, a copy of this game. The information provided in this review is solely the opinion of the author.
Overview:
Can you survive 5 nights at Camp Crystal Lake with Jason Voorhees lurking and stalking your every move? In Friday the 13th: Horror at Camp Crystal Lake, you will take on the role of a stereotypical slasher movie character; the jock, the partier, the nice guy, the diva, the nerd, and the final girl, trying to survive the antagonist, Jason Voorhees. Each night, escaping Jason becomes more challenging. Can you evade him? How far will you go defeat him?
Gameplay and mechanics:
Friday the 13th: Horror at Camp Crystal Lake is a press-your-luck game while challenging the strategy of your card management.
After character selection is complete, players are given their Player Board, player token, 5 Fear cards and a Backpack card. The Cabin board is placed in the center of the table. Blood Splatter tokens and Escape tokens are placed near the Cabin board. All Supply chips and Jason chips are placed into the Camp Bag. The Critical Supply Objective deck and the remaining Fear cards are placed next to the Cabin Board. A random Critical Supply Objective Card is placed face-up onto the Cabin Board. 4 red Jason tokens are removed from the Camp Bag and placed on the Cabin night tracker while the Night Tracker is placed on the Night 1 spot.
With set-up complete, all players are ready to endure Jason’s attacks and survive for 5 nights at Camp Crystal Lake.
Gameplay is relatively simple. Players take turns by completing one of 3 actions; search for supplies, play a Fear Card or return to the cabin.
When a player chooses to search for supplies, they reach into the Camp Bag and draw out a token and places the token on their player board. Their luck can be drawing one of six supplies or drawing a red Jason token. Then, the Camp Bag is passed to the next player. Players have to be careful. Drawing one red Jason token indicates that you encountered him, but you broke free and ran away. A second Jason token means that Jason has attacked you which causes you to drop all of your supplies and run back to the cabin with nothing and ending your turn for the night. Don’t worry! You will explore the camp during the next night searching for necessary supplies.
Playing a Fear card allows a player to do various things on their turn. For example, some Fear cards allow a player to do a Supply Run and draw 3 tokens from the Camp Bag and select which ones they would like to place on their Player Board. Other cards require another player to “Go First” where they draw 2 tokens and the current player decides which one will go on their Player Board and the selected player has to keep the remaining token, even if it is a Jason token. Other cards allow a player to take a supply token from another player’s board or swap supply tokens. Once a card is resolved, play moves to the next camper.
Once a player thinks that their luck has run out and they had enough, they can choose to “Return to the Cabin”. Their player token is placed on the appropriate space on the Cabin Board and they collect their Bravery Bonus. A player may also choose to return to the cabin to claim the Critical Supply Objective if that have met the requirements shown on the card. Players who returned to the cabin because of a second Jason attack place their player token face down, dark side showing, and do not receive a Bravery Bonus or any points. Once a player returns to the cabin, they no longer take a turn in the game until the next night.
Play continues until all of the campers decide to “Return to the Cabin” which signals the end of the night. At the end of the night, Bravery points and rewards are totalled, Supply Token points are awarded and players receive their awarded Blood Splatter Points. Staying in the game longer rewards you with a higher bonus. The last player to return to the cabin takes the first turn on the next night. The game ends after 5 nights have been completed. The player with the most Blood Splatter points is the winner.
There are several factors that influence a player’s score.
Each supply that has been returned to the cabin has a point value based on the number of that item in the Camp Bag. The frying pan is worth 1 point each because there are 15 frying pan tokens in the bag. An axe token is worth 8 points where there are only 2 axe tokens in the Camp Bag.
Each player has the option to receive a supply combination bonus. Getting 3 of the same supply tokens allows the player to double the value of another item. Having a set of 6 different supply tokens awards the player an additional 12 splatter points. There are 4 different combination bonuses that a player can score, but they can only claim one of the bonuses per night. All remaining tokens are worth their face value. Critical Supply Objectives have different point values ranging from 4-7 additional points.
Defense Cards are in the Fear Card deck where a player can counter a Fear card that has been played against them. For Example, if a player tries to steal one of your items by playing a “I Need That More” card, the player, whose item they are trying to steal, can play the “Not A Chance” card to prevent it.
The Backpack Card allows each player to place an item for safe keeping. Items in the backpack cannot be stolen or lost after a second Jason encounter. However, items in a backpack cannot be scored at the end of the night unless it is removed from the backpack.
At the end of each night, all scored supplies and Jason tokens are returned to the Camp Bag. On the Cabin Board, the Jason token to the next night is also added to the Camp Bag. This increases your chances of encountering Jason on the next night. The Night Tracker is advanced to the next night ready for the next round.
At the start of the next night, each player is issued a new Fear card and play continues starting with the player who was last to return to the cabin last. A new Critical Supply Objective is placed on the Cabin Board. If a player did not achieve the previous objective, the new card is placed on top of the previous card. If the new objective is achieved, the card underneath becomes active again.
Unless you have a Defense card that resolves a Jason encounter, players who have 2 Jason tokens receive an Escape Jason Token that can be used during the next night to return a Jason token back to the Camp Bag.
At the end of the 5th night, points are totally for that night, and it marks the end of the game. Blood Splatter tokens from each night are totaled and additional Blood Splatter points are awarded for the remaining Fear cards that remain in your hand. 1 point for each Fear Card. 3 points for each Defense card and Escape Jason Token.
Theme, Artwork, and Illustration, Graphic Design and Layout:
The artwork of this game really ties the theme to a Friday the 13th movie. Other than Jason holding a machete on a few cards and blood splatter on almost every item in the box, I do not see why this game is suggested for ages 17+ other than the theme and title of an R rated movie. The game doesn’t even mention anyone dying or getting hacked up. Every piece of the game somehow is embodied to the Friday the 13th movie franchise. The player boards introduce each player to the camp counselor that they represent. The Cabin Board ties in the 1st movie that really didn’t include Jason Voorhees. The quality and feel of the Fear cards are, in my opinion, above average. They have a good quality feel with no bend to them. It would be nice to have textured cards, but for the price that I paid, around $30 for the game, this is what I expected. The Player Boards and Cabin Boards look really good, have the thickness of a file folder, and feel smooth and good. Colors on the player boards and cabin really pop. Card colors are a little subtler and they help to set the tone of a horror movie while looking at your hand of cards.
The supply and Jason tokens already had stickers on them. Some of the stickers were really off center. While I didn’t have to take the time to apply stickers to the correct colored tokens, I expected them to be close to being centered. Some really missed the mark.
The quality of the drawstring, cloth, Camp Bag was surprisingly good and embosses the classic Jason Voorhees, iconic hockey mask…with blood splatter.
The Blood Splatter and Escape Jason tokens are thick cardboard. The graphics on each are centered and look good. I think I should mention that the both have blood splatter on them!
Inclusivity and Accessibility:
The game has a diverse selection of characters. The Supply and Jason tokens are smooth, plastic and easy to grasp while blindly selecting them from the camp bag. You cannot tell the difference of either if trying to rely on skill. If your vision was impaired with having difficulty determining colors and although each supply token is a specific color, this game would still work for you. By flipping a token over, so you can see the item icon, and this quickly remedies that issue. No other aspect of this game relies on differentiating different colors.
What worked:
The theme and title of this game really worked for me. Being a huge Friday the 13th fan, I was guaranteed to purchase this game. I wasn’t sure if I would like a press-your-luck game, but Friday the 13th: Horror of Camp Crystal Lake works really well. It builds up enough fun anxiety to keep you interested in a lighter game. Set-up is really quick and simple which coincides with clean-up. The game box says 60 minutes, but there have been several times that we finished a game in under 45 minutes and quickly set-up for a follow-up game. I really would have liked to have seen more Jason Voorhees content and interaction that encompassed the age recommendation of 17+, but it does not take away from the game. It gives you enough feel of not knowing when Jason will appear on your turn. Outside of the press-your-luck aspect, the of managing your hand of Fear cards adds a little bit of strategy to the game. The game box also recommends 3-6 players, but we have played this game with only 2 players and it still worked other than additional, larger Bravery Bonuses at the end of each night. However, this game provided more fun when played with a group of 3-6 players.
Final thoughts:
I really liked Friday the 13th: Horror at Camp Crystal Lake for many reasons. First, as I previously mentioned, it is one of my favorite movies. The game is very thematic. I wouldn’t say that it is the most thematic game in my collection, but everything about this game is tied into one of the movies. Fans of the movie franchise will really like this game. It is a light game that has low complexity and can be taught to new players in a matter of minutes. The game does become harder as it progresses.
This game reminds me of the Friday the 13th video game where players are searching for supplies to meet an objective and avoid Jason. At first, I was disappointed that Jason Voorhees was not a playable character in this game. However, once I started to play this game, that went away while I was taking my anxiety-driven turn building suspense every time the Camp Bag was passed to me.
I have played this game with numerous people who were not fans of the movie or didn’t even like horror/slasher movies, and they thought the game was fun as well. There is something about a press-your-luck game, with this type of theme, that keeps you interested until the end of the last round.
The artwork is thematic and it pulls you into the game. The gameplay is quick and you don’t have to wait long for your next turn unless you decide to return to the cabin early or if Jason takes you out of play for the night. Players do not have to do any extensive planning for their next move other that deciding if they are going to play a certain Fear card this turn, so there is a little strategy involved. Your strategy will change as players, before you, take their turn, and you have to decide you next move based upon which tokens were drawn out of the Camp Bag. Suspense builds up as the Camp Bag is passed around the table and it influences how the game will be played.
Since buying this game, I purchased, from eBay, a Players Power Promo Set which is a 7-card expansion that are cards representing each of the 6 characters. At the start of the game, players randomly select a character and each character has a special power that can be used once per night. Once the power is used, the card is flipped over until the start of the next night. It adds a little randomness and strategy to the game.
A lot of people may not like this game because of its theme. F13 fans will love it! If you like the board game Quartz, you will see similar mechanics. There is a happy medium though. Fans will introduce non-fans to this game and they will have a great time. Isn’t that the reason why we bring games to the table?
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