![]() Either way, beyond some of the mechanical stuff that feels a little disconnected from the shadowy mysteries you’re supposedly investigating, the way the cards tie their theme to tangible threatening circumstances is admirable. True, the dice mechanic will still usually have players announcing that they need more “scrolls” and “skulls” rather than roleplaying it out like true nerds - “I don’t have enough knowledge of the lore of the language printed on this tablet to solve the riddle of the Man in Yellow!” does take a lot of effort to get out in a game this brief, and you’re certainly not going to be saying stuff like that while playing it solo. And in this instance, that Koi Pond has also been adopted by a vampire, which turns a tough job into an absolute mess. Even the mundane, like that museum Koi Pond pictured above, are transmuted into fearful receptacles of goggle-eyed scale-fleshed beasts. ![]() Even though all you’re actually doing on your turn is deciding which adventure card you’ll try to resolve, rolling the dice and hoping that some of your item cards will help you get the right matches with whatever is printed on that adventure card, and then advancing the clock until whichever elder god you’re fighting strikes back in some way, that’s not what it feels like. Lovecraft’s terrifying fiction, it’s effortlessly thematic. The first is that, like many of the games based around H.P. There are two things that stand out about Elder Sign. Your method of battling these extra-dimensional baddies? Dice, of course. If these unlikely allies can’t scrape together enough elder signs to lock these creatures out, then those monsters’ vacation is going to become more… permanent. The only thing opposing them is a plucky band of interlopers, assembled from period archetypes of hard-boiled private eyes, purple-suited mobsters, determined scientists, and confused dilettantes. ![]() means our entire existence gets fondled by tentacles.Īnyway, Elder Sign is about a museum where some ancient artifacts have gotten up to ancient artifact business, allowing terrible unpronounceable beings like Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, and Cthulhu into our dimension for a visit. ![]() And desperate leading characters too, I suppose, though in Ben Stiller’s case failure means continuing on as an aged and unhip version of a once-beloved household name, while the failure of Ashcan Pete & Co. Take Night at the Museum, subtract Stiller and the family-friendly overtones, add a whole pack of rapacious Elder Gods whose idea of relaxation is enslaving new dimensions to mount over the hearth, throw in a pinch of insanity and uncomfortable body horror, and- okay, it’s not a perfect metaphor. If you’ve ever seen Ben Stiller vehicle Night at the Museum, Elder Sign will be a familiar concept. A solo game using four investigators (click to embiggen). ![]()
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