Last week proved to be a bit of a blur. Suffice to say things at work went well, but drained me quite a bit and I found myself less willing to write posts than expected.

So what did I do with my (very limited) free time? More Final Girl, of course.

I spent my time trying out a weekly challenge posted on the subreddit. The idea was to mix and match between Don’t Make a Sound and Haunting of Creech Manor. You take the villain from each and put it in the other. I decided to start by beating the expansions individually, then do the mix-and-match. It led to some interesting, if expected observations.

First off: the game fits in a 2×2′ space if you put your extraneous pieces/boxes off to the side or on another surfaces. That was good to discover, as I didn’t want to play on the hotel floor, but I have to admit it was a bit cramped. Second: the poltergeist, while an interesting side shift in objective, sucks. The randomness really hurts and I found myself having to play it repeatedly to win. Thankfully, leaving the game setup makes it really easy to rerack and run again. I ultimately beat it with both girls in the expansion and both times I felt more lucky than smart.

Okay, that’s somewhat unfair. In my final losing run with Alice, I found myself at the window you can exit via a ladder. First, lightning struck, killing people and harming me. Then, by stroke of really bad luck, the ladder broke. I laughed. Poor Alice barely made it two rooms across the house to the other nearest exit before the coup de grâce: I drew the card that made the little girl I needed to rescue… run away from me. Then the ghost killed me. Er… wait… no, that still feels more like luck. The very next run, I started in the attic, where Carolyn (girl to rescue) was readily found on my first Search attempt, then managed to bolt out the window that so betrayed me in the last run.

Okay, okay. I don’t recommend Haunting of Creech Manor as a purchase off the bat. But man, I like the manor itself. I later revisited the manor with the Eyeless, the monster from Don’t Make a Sound. It is a blind monster that ramps up in difficulty quickly but starts very, very low in terms of danger so long as you don’t take too many actions per turn. It flips the script on its head and means you end up feeling like you have to really do the big, dramatic things to win, rather than chip away at it. Instead of rescuing survivors and running around building up weaponry, I found that the best strategy was to save up resources quickly, then take the fight to damn thing with one big, hard swing for the fences.

My favorite moment in that playthrough was when I drew the card that made the Eyeless charge toward me, killing everything in its path, and then attack me twice. It traveled up two stories, killing four total people, and then managed to kill me, too. In my mind’s eye, it jumped upward, bursting through the floors and slaughtering everyone in its path, before pinning me in the bathroom and ending my run.

I ended up really liking this combo and really liking the house itself when divided from the Poltergeist.

Don’t Make a Sound is another one people take as being very difficult. The rub here, aside from the Eyeless introducing a sound meter, is the map itself. It’s based on the 1990 classic: Tremors. They just… throw a more terrifying monster on top in the Eyeless itself. At the end of every turn, you draw two cards and sand snakes pop up in those areas, killing people or even harming the monster itself. They’re very random and help ratchet up the Bloodlust meter, which makes the monster you’re fighting even stronger. Paired with the Eyeless, which already ramps up that meter quite quickly, you end up with a recipe for a very hard match, where the only solution is to go right for the kill.

My favorite moment on this map was standing atop a hill with the long rifle, lining up a shot and actually killing the beast from four spaces away. That–that was freaking cool. It took me quite a few attempts before I figured out this strategy, so I’m sorry if I spoil the tactic for someone. The map itself feels huge with a lot of opportunities to do damage. I found the Poltergeist to still be a swing of luck–but luck was on my side for this and I managed a win after only three tries. She goes back in the box for a long time to come.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this last week. I think I got around 12-15 games in spread across the week, usually an hour or two before bed. Leaving it setup meant it was never hard to play and even after a long day of running an event I was able to at least get one or two rounds in.

My impression is not only positive, but excited. I look forward to playing the other two expansions I have and I hope to continue expanding and mixing and matching the game as I go. If you’re into solo games, I think I can safely recommend you buy the base set with the Camp Happy Trails feature film to try it out. If you like it, do some research into recommended next purchases and take it evenly. I brought five expansions with me and got 15 games in that week and really only explored two of those expansions. There’s a lot here to chew on, especially if you’re willing to mix and match.

Now pardon me while I go find out where I can stream Tremors.