The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a cult classic horror movie and the folks at Trick or Treat Studios have captured the frantic action of the movie in a push-your-luck movement game that will have you craving some good BBQ. It follows the plot of the classic 1974 move of the same name.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a cooperative board game for 1-4 players that takes about 45-60 minutes. It can be played either solo, cooperatively, or semi-coop.
Gameplay Overview:
Each player takes control of a doomed character from the movie, each with a small perk that differentiates them from the others. Depending on the number of players you must set out from the van on the roadside into the territory of the Slaughter family to find a set of keys and gas to escape. The only problem is Leatherface chasing you down and you have no idea where to look.
The movable spaces on the board each have a facedown token. As you move across the board you reveal the tokens and place them in the BBQ tray. At the end of the turn, those tray tokens are dumped into the draw bag to be “in play” for the next turn.
Each player’s turn is broken down into a few phases. Players start by moving their character up to two spaces, picking up any facedown tokens. Then players can choose to push other players or enemies into a space if they are adjacent. The draw phase occurs after the push phase, allowing you to draw tokens from the bag allowing for anything from extra actions to empowering Leatherface and having him move towards the closest character. The last phase is clean up, where those explored tokens are dropped into the draw bag.
During each draw phase if players ever draw three or more of the same type of token (besides bonus actions) they must stop drawing from the bag immediately then resolve the tokens drawn. This can result in Leatherface becoming more dangerous and faster, the Slaughter family characters spawning onto the board, as well as characters seeing face down search cards and tokens.
If characters ever end up on a named space, they can spend a bonus action token that they draw in order to gain a search card which has a variety of effects. Characters can also utilize the semi-truck as a means of defense against the Slaughter family allowing them to possibly hurt Leatherface or the Hitchhiker.
Play continues until either 3 characters are placed on the meat hooks and perish or the players make it back to the van with the required items.
Game Experience:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a fun time. The hidden tokens require you to split up to cover as much ground as possible, adding many tokens to the draw bag, of course the downside being that most of those tokens are negative towards the players.
I split up my team and went in three different directions right away. I was eventually able to escape with the required items but not before getting injured quite a bit. I realized early on that going into the draw bag is a requirement and the longer the game continues the more dangerous it becomes.
Leatherface tokens allow him to move but also if you draw three during your turn he permanently powers up, moving faster across the board and hitting harder. About halfway through my game, I didn’t want to draw from the bag, but I needed to get back to the van as soon as possible, so the game utilizes real tension.
The mechanic with the truck seems strategic on higher difficulty modes but wasn’t impactful in my playthrough. If you are hit by the truck, you take damage, but you can utilize the truck to lure Leatherface and damage him and eliminate other Slaughter family members. The game has a variety of options to scale including optional rules and objective cards, giving it variety and allowing you to scale the game based on the number and experience of your players.
The only thing that could have gone wrong is dealing with luck. The keys and gas could have been in the bushes right at the start of the game and I could have immediately turned around and walked back to the van with Leatherface never getting a chance to run around the board after me. Or they could have been the last two tokens on the farthest spaces forcing the game to be extremely hard. This is a small by chance aspect but one that could ruin the game experience.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game is a light push-your-luck movement game that truly captures the spirit and tension of the film. I enjoyed how easy it is to learn and how well thought out the scaling of the game is for higher difficulties.
If you need a light, fun game for game night and have friends over who are fellow horror nerds, this is the game to whip out. The mechanics are straightforward, and the draw bag ratchets the tension to an 11 in the late game.
Final Scores: 4.5 – A fun push-your-luck, movement game that captures the spirit of the movie.
Hits:
• Well thought-out scaling.
• Captures the tension of the movie, especially the late game.
• Fun push-your-luck action economy.
Misses:
• Luck can be a major factor in play and game length.
• Truck mechanic isn’t as impactful at lower game levels.
