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A machete-wielding maniac stalks Camp Apache. He's back from the dead. He's already killed the camp owners. And he's after the young counselors who have just arrived on the bus.

Also, he is... you.

Game details Designer: Antonio Ferrara, Sebastiano Fiorillo

Publisher: Ares Games

Players: 2-6

Age: 14+

Playing time: 30-180 minutes

Price: $40 ( Antonio Ferrara, Sebastiano FiorilloAres Games2-614+30-180 minutes: $40 ( Amazon ) / ~£40 ( Amazon UK

Welcome to Last Friday, the board game from Ares that puts players into the plot of an 80's slasher film. While one player controls the maniac, everyone else (from 1-5 other players) controls the five camp counselors. Over four "chapters," the counselors must flee the maniac (chapter one), then chase him down in the daylight (chapter two), then protect their "Predestined" colleague from the maniac's revenge (chapter three), all so that the Predestined can finally kill the maniac for good (chapter four). The maniac has other plans, though—most involving machete slaughter—and he can win the game early by taking out enough counselors.

It sounds gruesome, but the game's art direction is bright and campy rather than truly bloody. Thanks to the unusual theme and its nostalgia factor to gamers of a certain age, Last Friday had a constant line of people waiting for demos at last year's Gen Con gaming festival. But those people only played the first of the game's four stages. How does the complete, four-chapter experience rate?

Hack and slash

Hidden movement games have a long history, starting with the 1980's classic Scotland Yard and refining the formula with more modern variations like Spectre Ops and Jack-the-Ripper-themed Letters from Whitechapel. Last Friday continues the tradition with a board that looks and works much like Letters from Whitechapel. Camp Apache's colorful environs are covered with trails, and on those trails are small white dots and larger numbered circles. On his turn, the maniac moves between the numbered circles, which are often spaced further apart than the dots, while campers move on the white dots. Should one side move "over" a member of the other side, death will follow.

Here's the trick, though: the maniac can't be seen. The counselors have pawns that remain visible on the board throughout the game, while the maniac records his moves on a sheet of paper behind a screen. Depending on the chapter being played, he will have to reveal his location every three rounds, after which he operates in stealth once more.

The goals of this movement vary by chapter. In chapter one, the counselors simply have to find the hidden keys to the camp's cabins and make it to safety there before the maniac can find and kill them. In chapter two, invigorated by daylight, the campers turn on the maniac and chase him through the camp; one of them becomes the Predestined, whose True and Ultimate Destiny is to stop the undead maniac menace for good. In chapter three, the situation shifts again and the campers all need to protect the Predestined from the maniac's wrath, sacrificing themselves if necessary to slow the killer down. In chapter four, the campers can block the maniac once more, but it is the Predestined who must ultimately find and kill him.













A full game means playing through all four chapters, which can take 30-45 minutes per chapter. This can be a lengthy game (though rule variations are included for playing any particular chapter as a standalone game.)

Simple, right? Sort of. The unusual four-part game structure has several genre-bending implications. It allows both sides to "hide" and to "pursue" in different parts of the game. Hidden movement games typically keep players in a single role throughout the game, and it's usually the hidden player who's on the run. That's all different here.

Death differs, too. While catching a camper or the maniac can be satisfying and leads to some in-game bonuses, in most cases it's not of ultimate concern. A camper killed in chapter one is replaced by a new arrival in chapter two. Catch the maniac in chapter two? He's not gone; you simply move forward to chapter three. The game still has tension, but the structural choices made to give it a four-part narrative certainly reduce the feeling of pressure. In most of the chapters, doing the one thing that would end other hidden movement games simply advances the "plot."

The "purity" of straightforward chase titles like Scotland Yard is instead turned into something far more complex. Both the maniac and the counselors can acquire sets of bonus tokens, some of which vary by chapter, while counselors each have a unique ability. This is not a game to just drop on the table and start playing; understanding how all the bonuses work, who begins with which starting items, and how characters acquire more in each chapter is crucial. Similarly, understanding the structure of all four chapters is needed for maximal strategizing. (Any cabins opened in chapter one remain lit and open for the campers throughout the game, whereas unopened cabins can later be smashed into by the maniac and connected by underground tunnels.) None of these are difficult questions to resolve, but there are a lot of them for what is, remember, a game about charging around a camp with a killer maniac on your trail. (The manual, which you can download here, stretches to a full 16 pages.)

Whether this sort of back-and-forth, hide-and-chase experience is what you want depends on personal preference. Our game group found the experience slightly too "complexified" for its own good. Nothing kills the fun faster than a set of low-level questions about how exactly one places lanterns or whether the maniac is revealing his current or three-turns-ago location or which camper has which key or how the boat token works or whether the maniac can use the "Invisible" power during chapter one (nope) or what the goals are for each chapter or how "terror" and "salvation" points are calculated at the end of each round.

And something just seems off when major parts of the game have extremely limited effects. For instance, catching or not catching the maniac in chapter two feels almost superfluous. While doing so can keep an extra bonus out of the maniac's hands, this hardly seems a fitting reward for a half hour of chasing a killer around a lake. The game goes on regardless.

The production looks terrific—especially the huge and gorgeous board of Camp Apache. But while I wanted to love the game, I couldn't quite get there. It's hard not to escape the feeling that with a tweaked ruleset and a shorter, tenser playtime, the existing in-box material could provide the game I really wanted. As it is, the game is decent but flawed.

If you're looking for a more streamlined hunting-and-hiding experience, I'd suggest something like the original Scotland Yard or Spectre Ops. If you want more length and complexity but greater tension, go with Letters from Whitechapel.

But if you're intrigued by the four-chapter, back-and-forth tug of war structure of Last Friday, and if you don't mind more rules and a longer playtime, this is definitely worth trying out. Gameplay and theme are unique, the art direction is terrific, and you finally have the chance to play the knife-wielding maniac of your nightmares. That's certainly worth something!