Roll Camera Story Pack - X-mas Movie: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Cooperative, Worker Placement, Dice Workers, Set Collection, Variable Player Powers.
Player Age: 11+ Player Count: 1 - 6 Players Time to Play: 45 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer and Artist: Malachi Ray RempenPublisher: Keen Bean StudiosYear Published: 2021BGG Weight: 2.23Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher
Player Age: 11+
Game Designer and Artist: Malachi Ray Rempen
Introduction:
Tis the season for..lights, camera and action! What better time for a Hollywood cash grab than Christmas time? However, you came a bit late to the idea and your crew is working during the holiday season, so a new mechanism the players have to monitor is holiday cheer. This will get lower every turn based on the amount of problems currently active. The lower your cheer gets the more issues arise like additional costs to scenes and VFX being reduced down to just that symbol, no longer a wild. The best way around this is by giving gifts that boost the cheer while also giving the gifted player a benefit.
More Content:
This expansion comes with cards to expand all of the decks while giving a sense of christmas spirit.
- 10 new scene cards
- 3 new idea cards
- 2 top scripts and 2 bottom scripts
Equipment Card:
Equipment cards are from the B movie expansion and they add new worker placements that can be used once a game. This expansion comes with one more equipment card.
The scenes are costly enough during Christmas time so the artifical snow machine equipment allows you to cover the cost of a scene the next time it is shot. However, this also covers any time spent and any quality you may gain as part of the cost when shooting the scene.
Ghost Cards:
Three problem cards are added to the deck but instead of standard problems these are Christmas ghosts. They are removed from the problem allocation when drawn and are instead put aside. They than resolve, adding different problems to the queue and another effect for that turn.
Cheer Track and Gift Cards:
The main mechanism of this expansion is the cheer track and the gift cards.
After drawing a new problem every turn the cheer track will decrease based on the amount of problems your production has in the qeue. So everyturn this track will lower the cheer at least once (unless a ghost is drawn). These effects are terrible to have over your head, after all, bad moral isnt good for productivity and you don't want to be a Scrooge at Christmas time. These effects will either remove VFX as a wild, or (when it progresses far enough) add one cost to each scene shot.
It's not too late to turn the Christmas season around and still make a buck from producing your movie. If you place a crew dice next to the deck of gifts you can draw a thoughtful gift. When you’re relaxing on other players’ turns, you can give the active player one of your gift cards. When this happens your crew feels loved, immediately moving the cheer meter up by the number of spaces indicated on the card. If you reach maximum happiness on the cheer track you gain extra quality per shot scenes. After receiving the card, the active player may also activate the effect below before discarding the card.
Final Thoughts:
- Always love a good Christmas theme. I'm one of those suckers the movie business targets.
- Added variability and interesting new mechanism.
- Pure cosmetic fun Christmas props.
- New problem type.
- The cheer track is for advanced players constantly removing your VFX. To counteract, the Christmas gifts are a great way to use leftover dice.
For any fans of Christmas this is a great expansion to add to the mix. The cheer track and gift cards are an exciting module as they give the players a constant track to manage, sometimes simply to be able to have the VFX as wilds. This also gives a reason for players to constantly remove problems as they arrive. Sometimes it’s opportune to leave benevolent or easy to ignore problems on the queue to keep from getting more challenging problems if the track is already full. However, with this cheer track if you don't want the scene to cost more and negate the wild effect of VFX. The challenge of the cheer track is helped by the addition of gift giving. Knowing when to help your teammates is pivotal. This is a great themed expansion for an already great game. It doesn’t make the game any less difficult though, so you may want to win a few times first before adding in the main module of this expansion.
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