Games Review

Late last year, I got all excited about a Print and Play game at BGG called Patrol: Lost. It's a game where some good guys try to get to the end of a bunch of random tiles while some bad guys try to kill them. It doesn't have a theme, just some rules, but several people have created little theme sets for the game, including dungeons, space battles, and even one that recreates the streets of Mogadishu from Blackhawk Down.

I decided I would try my hand at creating my own theme set, and had a request for a Cthulhu theme. It took me a while just to work out the details of how I would go about it, and then I got to drawing. Before I finished, however, some rather unsavory events soured me on BoardGameGeek, and I quit going there completely.

But I still liked the Cthulhu theme idea, and really wanted to finish it. So I kept after it, and even though it took me a while, I finally did get it done. Since it doesn't do me any good to make something like this and leave it floating on my hard drive, I've uploaded it to the VixenTor Games site, so that you can get yourself a copy, if you're so inclined.

A little fair warning is in order, though. For starters, I did four kinds of monsters, not one, the way the original rules read. And I did five different investigators, too, and gave them all abilities beyond just being cannon fodder. Finally, I drew the big man himself (you know, Cthulhu), and wrote up alternate end-game rules for summoning the hoary bastard. The problem is that I haven't playtested the rules, or even built a set for myself, so I couldn't tell you if they work or if they're just dumb. But you can still play the game with the standard rules, and I put a hell of a lot of time into what I did do, so I'm not feeling particularly apologetic.

Here's the link to the Patrol: Lost page at BGG:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63011/patrol-lost

And here's the link to Cthulhu Patrol:

http://www.vixentorgames.com/cthulhupatrol.pdf

If I decide to make a set out of wood (as I originally intended), I'll let you know how it turns out.