PSYCHO KILLER (2020)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	ARTIST	PUBLISHER
2-6	20 mins	Michael Wilkinson Mitch Young	MIchael Wilkinson	Escape Tabletop Games

METHOD

PSYCHO KILLER is a hand management party game in which you are mearly trying to take the least amount of injuries from the titular Psycho Killer. Sometimes this means avoiding attacks with certain cards. But most of the time it means throwing your ‘friends’ under the bus.

POINTS OF INTEREST

I wasn’t too sure on PSYCHO KILLER when I first spotted it on store shelfs. It looked a little too much party game for me with its highly themed box (it’s a VHS tape). I always assumed it would be too simple and overly silly for the groups I normally play with.

But the game itself turned out to be a plesant surprise. I can definitely say that I judged it wrong. And while a lot of games look to emulate EXPLODING KITTENS in mechanics to latch on to its success, most of them fail horribly.

PSYCHO KILLER doesn’t. And it even improves a few things a long the way.

Fans of the game might not like the comparison, but it really is EXPLODING KITTENS plus. I actually taught my first game of this to two friends who are both big combustable feline fans, and it was super simple translating what a lot of cards do. If’ve you’ve just drawn the ‘Psycho Killer’ card (aka the ‘Exploding Kitten’ card) then you can use your ‘Double Tap!’ card (aka your ‘Defuse’ card) to put it back in the deck. Or maybe play ‘Found Footage’ (aka ‘See The Future’) to check what’s coming.

Of course just a reskin of such a popular game wouldn’t be enough. In fact, it would be frowned upon and extremly lazy.

And that’s why I’m happy with all the additions that PSYCHO KILLER brings to the table.

The best improvement that this Horror card game has over it’s kitty themed ansestor is the removal of Player Elimination. PSYCHO KILLER has an end game trigger, and when this hits, it’s the player with the least damage that wins the game. That’s great for keeping people invested. But more importantly, even if you are behind, the game has means to remove wounds which, again, keeps players going until the end. It never kicks anyone out to spectator mode.

And sure, you could say that it’s a short game so players won’t be waiting too long. But nowadays no one likes to be sitting on the sidelines and not really being part of the remaining fun, even if only for two or three extra minutes. So keeping every one at the table involved in the game until the very end is a big plus point.

Next up are the two decks. With a game that allows players to put that bad card right on top of the draw deck while looking the next player in the eye, I love this unassuming extra mechanic. It brings out moments where a player has clearly placed a Psycho Killer card on top of a deck, but instead of the next player being forced to take it, as would happen in EXPLODING KITTENS, now it diverts the entire table to use that other deck. It’s like the victims hearing something horrific over there, and all running together in the same direction.

Of course, the next card on the other deck could also be a Psycho Killer card, but that’s the beauty of it. It immediately brings in that horror movie moment of a teen fleeing one way, thinking they will be safe, and then walking right into a trap.

The main mechanic of the game are the injury cards. These red coloured weapon cards look like they’d be a massive help in fending of a oversized nightmarish villain hunting you all down. But these represent the imminant attacks coming your way. They sit in your hand, normally only known to you, like a ticking time bomb of cruelty. You long for cards that help you pass them on (that’s right; your friends are only your friends if they can benifit you – it’s every victim for themselves here).

The second that a Psycho Killer card is drawn by any player at the table, everyone places their weapon cards down in front of them to form their own personal injury display. Each weapon is worth different injury points (somehow I always end up with the +5 chainsaw!). This reveal is bad for everyone and it always draws a collective sigh, with unwarrented accusational stares aimed at the player who drew the card.

Of course, this can be a positive. While the killer has a +3, maybe you draw it when you have no weapons and you know others have a bunch that have been passed around. Can you revel in the downfall of your friends? Of course you bloody well can. And you should.

The final nice touch that PSYCHO KILLER brings to the table is the Left For Dead card. If you get ten or more injury ponts, you get this extra card that means you’re now not forced to play Predicament Cards (immedidate forced bad things!). This is good because you can be an arse and trigger these when it’s most inconvenient for others. Hell, they left you behind, so why shouldn’t you have a little revenge?

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

One aspect that creates a small hurdel for the game is the amount of card types in the base game. While all the cards have text on them that clearly explain exactly what they do, I’ve had players trip over card text with certain game terminology.

It also makes it a little tougher to quickly assess the cards you draw. With EXPLODING KITTENS, the low card type means that it’s simple for players to know a cards usefullness at a glance. But with PSYCHO KILLER, it can take a fair few plays to learn the ins and outs of the things that will show up during a game.It almost feels like I’m playing EXPLODING KITTENS with all three explansions and thus can slow down those first handful of games.

Hindering those first games more is the rule sheet. It’s a little all over the place and hard to track down rules once the game is going and the questions start flying. This, I find, is a curse of the party game genre as a whole. And while it’s not difficult to pick up eventually, sometimes first impressions can be the difference between trying a game once and enjoying it enough to add expansions.

Theme is obviously key here too. While the artwork, box design (love the VHS looks to it), and overall feel make this a fantastic game to bring out during the month of October, I can see some people letting it gather dust and bringing it out only during spooky games days.

And I know I’ve drilled on about it, but it really is a side step to EXPLODING KITTENS, just with that 80’s Slasher film skin, which might put none horror fans off. It definitely has improvements that make it shine, but is it enough to have players keeping both games in their collection?

EXTRA CONTENT?

The game comes with a whole bunch of expansions that mainly just stretch out into the genre as a whole. You can play risk/reward with the Occult Classic deck, bring in the Zombie sub genre with Z, turn PSYCHO KILLER into a drinking game with Bloody Mary, or add ranged weapons with Gratuitous Violence.

We’ve not tried any of them, and I don’t think the game needs them too bad, but they look to offer interesting ways to shake up the original gameplay.

FOR 2-PLAYERS?

We’ve not tried it at 2-player, and I don’t think I would. Games of this ilk don’t always work great at such a low player count (it’s a party game, after all) and it would perhaps drag with the back and forth.

– – CONCLUSION – – A rare game that emulates EXPLODING KITTENS and doesn’t grate. It even fixes a few issues by keeping players in until the end, while adding extra fun with two draw decks, and giving players a way to get back in the game if they are doing bad. Of course, it’s all chaotic card play at the end of the day, making it a perfect filler game. Only the theme and spread of card types put up road blocks. Perhaps not a game that sees the table all year round, but one I’d always grab around spooky season.

Review #0219

[ Review copy supplied by VS Distribution, obtained through the Mason Williams PR – thoughts and views are my own ]