(VTMC) is a mighty boardgame by Flyos Games. Originally a Kickstarter funded game back in February 2020, which had a hugely successful campaign, raising CA$1,359,211 to get their project brought to life.
Overview Vampire The Masquerade – Chapters is set in the city of Montreal, following the Second Inquisition and after the fall of the Sabbat, a bunch of very unfriendly vampires who were very happy for the world to know all about the creatures of the night. The Sabbat were their own makers of their downfall and are used as a warning of what could happen again if the vampires were not careful.
(VTMC) is a mighty boardgame by Flyos Games. Originally a Kickstarter funded game back in February 2020, which had a hugely successful campaign, raising CA$1,359,211 to get their project brought to life.
Overview Vampire The Masquerade – Chapters is set in the city of Montreal, following the Second Inquisition and after the fall of the Sabbat, a bunch of very unfriendly vampires who were very happy for the world to know all about the creatures of the night. The Sabbat were their own makers of their downfall and are used as a warning of what could happen again if the vampires were not careful.
The game is a mix of Storytelling, Roleplaying and Strategy, where a very easy mistake can cost you the game. Imagine a video game adapted so well into a boardgame version and then finished to a very high standard. This is how VTMC feels to me. It even comes with some bugs!
Originally there was some printing errors where one of the story books came in English and German, which wasn’t caught until printing had been finished, so they shipped out a replacement book with the orders which was great. It all landed together nicely and neatly in what I will say is a very huge game box. Seriously the box is a big boy, a very big and heavy boy indeed and I love it!
It is designed to be played by up to 4 players, solo play is also an option which is brilliant. There is no requirement for anyone to run the game for you as the storybook is all read by yourself or if you want to make it easier on yourself, Flyos have released a game app which you can use to play the game. Text to speech reader is a god send and made it even better for us when we played.
Included alongside the storybook is individual books for the dialogues and action outcomes for each chapter. These are great little books, which admittedly do have you jumping all over the place, but they are easy to follow and a great addition to the game.
You start by selecting one of the main clans of the Kindred(Vampire Clans) which there is 8 to choose from. Brujah, Gangrel, Toreador, Ventrue, Tremere, Pariah and my 2 favourites of the VTM universe, the Malkavian and the Nosferatu. The crazy and the ugly vampire clans, what more is there to want from a vampire!
Once you have chosen your preferred clan, you then play the game as that selected character, there is some roleplaying/potentially odd scenarios where you will have to think like the opposite sex if you pick a character with a different sex to yourself, but it adds to the immersion and is actually quite fun. I found that trying to change the sex of my chosen
character from Female to Male just made it a lot of hard work so I gave up and committed to using my feminine knowledge, which has had some hilariously awful consequences for us so far and we aren’t even half way through the game yet!
As you progress through the chapters, there are stages where you can completely fail and cause untold damage to your game. This can be in the form of finishing a chapter early, which you may lose out on vital information or goodies. Then there is the extreme flip side where you can cause a Masquerade breach, bringing forth currently unknown horrors into your world.
As of yet we have luckily managed to keep the Masquerade proceeding nicely, but it has been a bit close at times. There’s always a point where you think, hmm is this really the best option, when it really isn’t. I just like seeing my team get nervy!
There is over 40 of the dialogue booklets within the box, which are a beauty to see and read, but they do add to the hefty weight so be careful when picking the box up for the first time.
What’s in the box Inside the Vampire The Masquerade – Chapters box of wonders is the following:
· The main story book
· The rulebook
· Over 40 dialogue books
· Over 300 Event and Investigation cards
· 15 dice that are very pretty and have a good weight to them
· Over 100 NPC cards and Standees
· NPC fighting cards
· 20 double-sided scenario tiles which have some beautiful artwork on them
· Over 200 skill cards
· Item cards
· Effect and money tokens
· Status cards
· Tracker cubes for your player boards
· Sand timer
· Sealed envelopes
· Masquerade and status tracker
· 8 of the main clan miniatures
· A pad of character sheets
· 8 character boards with preset sheets to help you with your first time play.
Artwork
Beautiful and detailed is the best way to describe it!
The game boards are really well designed with clear and rich colours and pictures. The standees again all look great, clear prints and design make them stand out nicely.
The 8 miniatures included are also well designed and are good quality. I’m not a painter so mine have stayed fresh grey out of the box, but even without them being painted, the designs are still clear and have good depth.
My Favourite Part
Everything!
Seriously I love this game to bits. It’s exactly the sort of boardgame I had been looking to play for so long.
The story alone is beautiful and so much has been put into it that it’s a beautiful masterpiece that gets better every chapter.
My Final Thoughts
The game is amazing, I will be honest with that statement as I am a big fan of the VTM universe and have played other games from the VTM universe. Vampire The Masquerade – Chapters has brought me back to the first time that I played Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines a few short 20 odd years ago. That game made me fall in love with the VTM universe and I can with confidence say that Flyos Games have done an amazing job in bringing the universe to our tabletops.
There is a bit of a steep and confusing learning curve, which surprised us at first. The rulebook has you flipping all over the place to piece together just exactly how things work. I’d recommend making yourself a rules cheat sheet for easier reference as it will speed up the time it takes to complete each chapter.
I will estimate that if you complete each chapter fully and without too much back and forth confusion that this will easily last you well over 60 odd hours of gameplay at a minimum. For the price of Vampire The Masquerade – Chapters this works out at such great value for money that just that alone would have made me give it a try. We are thoroughly enjoying playing it and I really hope you all have as much fun as we are.
P.S. pick the Nosferatu, she’s just so damn cool!
