The Shivers, published by Pop Fiction Games, is a “Pop-Up Tabletop Mystery Adventure” with role-playing elements. Play as The Shivers family as they investigate the mysteries of Fogmoor Manor. Throughout the game you’ll be traversing intricately designed pop-up rooms of the manor, finding clues and discovering items to solve the mystery of the manor…
1) Running the Game
The Shivers might be interesting as an introduction for many to the world of role-playing games, or at least to building stories within a given setting. I don’t think it’s great for encouraging actual “role-play” between characters, despite their best efforts, though I think it does a decent job at the adventuring side of it and introducing the structure of the relationship between players and storytellers. That being said, I think it would have been more interesting as a GM-less game. Mechanics would need to change to make it work, but I think that would open the game up to be that little bit more interesting to all involved. The general consensus, at least among my group, was that running this game was incredibly stressful. You had to look in 3 different areas in order than answer a player’s question, and although the pop-up boards are nice and easy to set up, preparing yourself for the story you’re about to tell felt like a chore. Multiple lines of text slightly different from the previous block of text you’ve just read, answering questions about elements you can’t see on the board, trying to figure out how to make a game exciting that ultimately starts to feel stale …it’s all just a little clanky. Running this game as the storyteller just wasn’t fun. Due to the nature of the game, it felt very restrictive too. You may try to improvise and expand on the world of the game, but there’s a high likelihood you’ll get something wrong and have to backtrack or start to stray too far away from where the rest of the episodes want to go.
The Shivers, published by Pop Fiction Games, is a “Pop-Up Tabletop Mystery Adventure” with role-playing elements. Play as The Shivers family as they investigate the mysteries of Fogmoor Manor. Throughout the game you’ll be traversing intricately designed pop-up rooms of the manor, finding clues and discovering items to solve the mystery of the manor…
1) Running the Game
The Shivers might be interesting as an introduction for many to the world of role-playing games, or at least to building stories within a given setting. I don’t think it’s great for encouraging actual “role-play” between characters, despite their best efforts, though I think it does a decent job at the adventuring side of it and introducing the structure of the relationship between players and storytellers. That being said, I think it would have been more interesting as a GM-less game. Mechanics would need to change to make it work, but I think that would open the game up to be that little bit more interesting to all involved. The general consensus, at least among my group, was that running this game was incredibly stressful. You had to look in 3 different areas in order than answer a player’s question, and although the pop-up boards are nice and easy to set up, preparing yourself for the story you’re about to tell felt like a chore. Multiple lines of text slightly different from the previous block of text you’ve just read, answering questions about elements you can’t see on the board, trying to figure out how to make a game exciting that ultimately starts to feel stale …it’s all just a little clanky. Running this game as the storyteller just wasn’t fun. Due to the nature of the game, it felt very restrictive too. You may try to improvise and expand on the world of the game, but there’s a high likelihood you’ll get something wrong and have to backtrack or start to stray too far away from where the rest of the episodes want to go.
2) Playing the Game
As a player, it’s definitely a more enjoyable experience, but as mentioned above, one that becomes stale quick. Being able to open cabinet doors on the pop-up boards, encounter the quirky enemies, and explore Fogmoor Manor is super fun in the first episode of the game, but the novelty wears off fast as you realise that every story basically follows the same narrative. Enter the Manor, open a few doors, pick up a few items, read a note that tells you exactly what to do, find keys, go through the rest of the manor, find your enemy, defeat it and leave. As a group of early-20s young adults who grew up with Scooby Doo and love role-playing games, I don’t think this game was made for us. The game box suggests 14+, though I would recommend this is best played with a much younger audience. I haven’t played all the scenarios, but I imagine the 14+ is so you have someone able to run the game, but I think young kids wouldn’t mind the repetitiveness and could still find joy in finding new things behind old doors. The puzzles are so simple that I think using the word “puzzle” is the wrong descriptor, but again, kids would love it. My biggest issue is combat, which I would definitely alter in some way.
In order to fight your enemies, you roll a die. The difficulty is set by the colour of the die and your storyteller decides which die you should use in your encounter. The dice have up to 3 options on them: “It Works!”, “Doesn’t Work” and “Backfire”. This isn’t fun. Though I understand that when using a d20 in DND, that’s also essentially the three outcomes that could happen, a d20 allows for flexibility. If you roll a natural 1, it doesn’t necessarily have to backfire, it could just fail spectacularly, but if you roll Backfire, it MUST backfire, which in most cases in losing the one item you need to win the fight. If you lose it, the game suggests backtracking or rewinding to the previous step so your players can try a different option or try again. There are no stakes. There is no reason or threat of player death, and the game suggests avoiding it. Again, if that happens, you rewind too. That’s not a fun or interesting system. It removes any tension from the game and makes every scenario basic. It frustrates me more than it should.
3) Future Possibilities
I think what Pop Fiction has here is interesting, but I think they could utilise what they have in different ways, be clearer to their audience on what the game involves… and consider lowering their price.
I think the art of The Shivers is really fun and really captures the Scooby-Doo/ Mystery Gang feel of the stories. Instead of forcing your players to stay in a manor for each episode, creating standalone pop-ups of terrains that can be used in other role-playing games could be fun. Imagine a pop-up town square that lays flat and you can move your own character miniatures through, or a fiery mountain that stands tall that you can physically climb with your character. They would face the same issues that this game has, where the pop-up elements are fragile (a couple pieces of mine were ripped or detached before I even played), but I think that would be a great way to use something they’ve developed for a wider audience.
In their description they mention that you can get this game up and playable within 5 minutes. True, but I wouldn’t recommend it. This is best played when you’ve done the work beforehand to make the games flow better. Getting it up in 5 minutes, like we did, affected the gameplay and somewhat ruined our experience. I also think the game should either be GM-less with its tight structure, or GM’d but made more open and accessible to role-play as its current structure doesn’t lend itself well to that side of RPGs.
Lastly, The Shivers retails for £75. Usually, I’d immediately jump in and say “£75 is too expensive!!!” but when you consider all the pop-up pieces, the individual standees, the unique stories etc., you’re essentially getting 8 different escape rooms for less than £10 each. However, I don’t think your core game needs to be 8 stories long. Cut it in half, sell it for £40 and voila; You’ve made the game more accessible for people with lower budgets, and there’s less worry for the consumer about investing a large amount into a game you know very little about.
Conclusion
I know I’ve been incredibly negative, but the truth is I don’t think The Shivers was right for my group. It wasn’t an awful game by any means, it just didn’t feel worth playing more than three episodes. However, I can see kids having a blast with this. I’d recommend ages 8 and up with an adult or capable teen running it as a fun, cute and novel introduction to role-playing games
