Horrified: American Monsters

Save another town from cryptids!

This stand alone 1-5 player cooperative board game plays almost exactly like the original, wherein players basically need to collect items and use them in particular spots to make the monsters vulnerable, and them finish them off by dumping more specific items on said monsters, sometimes at specific locations.

While the player characters are much the same with just a slight reskin, it's clear the six cryptids in this game are designed to be a greater challenge. Well maybe not Bigfoot, because he basically moves like a stalker. The Chupacabra hops around the board to eat animals, the Banshee of the Badlands has an auto-kill mechanic, the Mothman can move really fast (and hit everything in the way) if given the chance, the Ozark Howler just cheats and loves spreading doom around, and the Jersey Devil has an interesting mechanic that needs to be solved quick or you'll run out of monster cards and lose the game.

Pretty fun, but like the first one the tension drops as you begin taking down the monsters. Still recommended, especially if you liked the original and don't mind having a few more fidgety mechanics. Better than the first? Mmm, maybe not.

Tropico 3: Fist of Iron

[This is part of my Tropico 3 Journal!]

My next office was at the isle of El Acantilado, where I had to govern refugees from some nearby conflict and ship out 5000 units of iron. I immediately got the mining operations, roads and housing started as I had the benefit of a foreign aid corporation helping out with medicine and food. Another set of foreigners, a group of explorers, also arrived and requested permission to go on an expedition into the deep jungle. I simply made them pay a $2000 dollar expedition tax and sent them on their merry way. They would never be found again, believed to have been eaten by El Chupacabra.

Back in the city I increased the wages for the miners to encourage a better performance from them, paying out big time with each export freighter that left our shores. Most of the money I had to spend on importing educated experts to run a lot of the facilities though - I completely forgot to put a High School up. Along with a few, other mistakes... like not connecting the garage to the road, so no one had cars. Despite me enacting the Food for the People and Social Security edicts again some people were leaving the island, and some were becoming rebels!

This came to a head when a gang of them decided to attack the police station. I went with my handful of soldiers but they were so untrained (oops, forgot to tick that option) that they all got killed. I managed to take down some rebels too but was wounded in the encounter and had to withdraw, letting the remaining two destroy that building. Fortunately my heroism must have shone through because in the next election I easily won 63 to 29 against Veronica Martinez, who I assume was a rebel. In no time at all, I had again met my quota and finished my task here so I left my subjects to the tender cares of the real Chupacabra, which I was keeping in a cage all this time. And boy was it hungry.

It can smell fear.