Daniel (@dungeondive) continues his horror-themed run with Pandemonium, a rare, now pricey survival-horror miniatures game from Game Forger — and opens with a firm caveat: it’s a fun curiosity, but not worth the $150–200 collector prices it commands. He got his in a trade, and that’s the spirit to approach it in.
It’s a giant love letter to trash cinema and midnight movies — an affectionate parody-and-outright-theft of horror icons (Chucky, the Re-Animator, Sadako, a Hellraiser-esque Specter) with archetype heroes (Ash, Ripley, Furiosa). You set tiles, pick a scenario, and race to escape while an unkillable Mad God stalks the board and darkness saps your sanity. It’s a tough, messy learn — the rulebook is a genuine mess of edge cases — best absorbed via a YouTube playthrough.
What keeps it on his shelf: the mechanisms. A good-and-evil ally deck that turns unused characters into help or threats; portal teleport mini-games; skill trees; cooperative press-your-luck “combo” attacks; and two superb, deeply thematic decks — a huge pulpy loot deck (usable to craft traps) and a 150-card random event deck bursting with B-movie flavour, reminiscent of Secrets of the Lost Tomb.
Pandemonium is a flawed, hard-to-learn game Daniel keeps anyway for its atmosphere and clever decks. Which of your games earns its shelf space on charm alone despite real flaws?