So here’s the thing about the Final Girl Feature Film boxes. The gameplay of each feature film is broadly going to be the same. Where each feature film differs is some element in the set up, and the specific rules around the villain and the location you’re playing with. So in order to save you, dear reader, from reading the same thing over and over again, here is a handy link to the original How to Play for the Final Girl Core Box (also written by me!). What will follow is the specific differences between the Carnage at the Carnival Feature Film.
Setup
In this box, you have two new Final Girl Cards to use: Charlie and Asami, and a new Killer: Geppetto the Puppet Master. Like with the base game, you’ll shuffle in the Terror Cards for the Location and the Killer into a deck and follow the setup cards as normal.
Geppetto Special Setup
In addition to the normal set up, place the Puppets card next to the Killer board and the three Puppet tokens on the "Ready" space of that card.
Carnival of Blood Special Setup
Set the three Item Trap cards to one side and shuffle the remaining item cards. Deal the regular item cards into three decks of two cards each and randomly add an Item Trap card to each pile, shuffling each deck afterwards. Then deal one item card face up on top of each item deck and return any extras to the box. Also, keep the Terror Trap reference card near the board.
How to Play
The Killer and Location have special rules for this set, so follow the respective rules during play.
Geppetto the Puppet Master
Geppetto is a puppet master. You can probably guess where this is going. He has three total Puppets he controls as minions. The Minion rules are in the Core Rulebook (and are not yellow and called Bob). These Puppets have their own special rules though:
- Whenever a Puppet is killed, you place its token on the Puppets card on the "Exhausted" space.
- Each Killer phase up until the Finale is revealed, the first step in the Minion Action line on the Finale card is to spawn a Puppet. When you spawn the Puppet, place a token from the "Ready" space and place it in Geppetto's space. If there are no tokens in the "Ready" space, none will spawn. Regardless of if you spawn a Puppet or not, move all Puppet tokens from "Exhausted" to "Ready".
- Some of Geppetto's Terror cards will specify if an Action only applies to Puppets. When resolving a Killer action on any Terror card that does not specifiy it only applies to Puppets, each Puppet will resolve the full action, one at a time. You choose the order for multiple Puppets. After each Puppet has taken the action, Geppetto does the same action.
- Puppets have 1 health and an attack value of 1. Their Movement matches Geppetto's and will change when his Bloodlust increases.
- Puppets have strings, which means they must end their movement within 2 spaces of Geppetto. They can move further, so long as they end their movement within 2 spaces.
- If a Terror card or other game effect in a Puppet being more than 2 spaces from Geppetto, the next time the Puppet must choose a target it will instead target Geppetto, attempting to end its movement as soon as it's exactly within 2 spaces of him. If it runs out of movement, it may be forced to stop further than 2 spaces from Geppetto, in which case it will repeat each round.
- When a Puppet must stop moving, either because more movement would take it beyond Geppetto's reach or it was returning to Geppetto and made it exactly 2 spaces away from him, any additional movement is lost.
Carnival of Blood
The Carnival of Blood (delightful name) has two different types of traps, designed to hinder the Final Girl from completing her task of saving everyone and getting rid of the Killer. These are the Item Traps we mentioned in the setup, and Terror Traps.
Item Traps
The Item Traps are only discovered when searching at the appropriate locations. If after successfully searching, you draw an Item Trap, you MUST resolve it unless something else says otherwise. If your search revealed an item in addition to the Item Trap, you may still take the item, but you must resolve the trap first. After the Item Trap is resolved, it is generally discarded unless it says otherwise.
Terror Traps
There are three Terror Traps in the Terror deck for this location, which may be revealed in the Killer phase when a Terror card is drawn.
When a Terror Trap is drawn, resolve it like any other Terror card. When the Terror Trap instructs you to place a Trap token, place it in your current space. The effects of the trap trigger immediately and apply to you and any Victims you have along with you. The Victims are always killed, but the Traps will affect you in different way, as outlined on the card. The Trap tokens aren’t discarded and remain on the board for the rest of the game. Each time you or a Victim enter the space with the Trap token, the effects are triggered. Enemies are not affected by the Traps at all, so ignore them if they move into the space.
About the Blogger:
You can find more of Luke’s ramblings about board games on his YouTube channel, The Game Imporium and as the host of the Bucket List Board Gamers Podcast.
