Oh! Look at my wrist! Gotta go.
United States
Central Point
Oregon
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Right, so let's kill something. I mean, we've played Gloom and enjoyed it and it has that whole 'dark humor' aspect to it. We've done Lunch Money with the extremely creepy little girl card art and violence. We like Pirate games with the whole pillage and plunder thing. And war games with all the killing don't particularly bother us on a grand 'human devastation' scale. So what is wrong with us playing Atlas Games' “Let's Kill”?
We sat down to play Let's Kill and since Tikimadman and myself have a broad sense of humor and we enjoy off color comedy and black humor we felt we were in for a decent experience. I mean, they ARE stick figures for Pete's sake and we are killing them in brutally humorous ways, are we not? We get to play funny events and spring surprises and some of the targets are even potentially amusing. You can pretend to kill your boss even, and lord knows Tikimadman dislikes his job rather a lot. This should be right up our alley.
So we started off in what should be the right frame of mind for this sort of game. It's not deep strategy, no one is going to flip a table if things go badly. Pure beer and pretzels style of game play. You play a victim, maybe tuck a little surprise card under it for your buddies to deal with. Or you can whack a different victim and collect some points. Easy stuff.
Wait, I just killed Santa. I didn't know it was Santa (Surprise!) but it turns out to have been him. Guess we shouldn't play this with kids then. Of course, nothing about this theme suggests it SHOULD be played with kids, but, dead Santa doesn't generally go over well with kids. So yeah, definitely not for kids.
Oh, and he was at the Post Office when I shot him. I guess that's funny. Sorta. Except, I can't help but think about all the times it hasn't been funny in real life to shoot up a post office. Oh well, I'll read the flavor text on the card, that should help. “Actually the Post Office is the most polite place for sudden violence. They're used to it there.” Well no, that really didn't help make it any funnier.
OK, OK, moving on. That's just a fluke, I'm sure it'll get better as we go on. Umm, your turn Tikimadman. Oh cool, you ARE taking out your boss, neat. With...a “Rental Truck and 500 lb. of Fertilizer”...ahh....uh...ha-ha. That's....well...no, not really all that funny either. Well, I'm certainly glad you didn't really put a photo of your boss on the card. Could be worse though, you could have used the “Sniper Rifle, Bell Tower, and a Box of Oreos” option. Yeah, cause that'd be...funnier...kinda.
And I don't really think I want to play 'Your Mother' as a surprise under that victim there. Yeah, I know, she's dead already and everything, but it just seems in poor taste...
No, I don't really think I need to increase the media exposure of that killing for extra points, I think maybe the less said about killing 'Jimmy the Kindergarten Fugitive' and his 'Teddy Bear' in 'My Basement' with the 'Weed Whacker and a Pound of Coke' the better. No really, I'm pretty sure even I didn't want to know about that.
And that becomes the problem. We finish the game, but neither of us are ever going to play this again. For a game with a theme based around being a psycho mass murderer, it just isn't funny enough to take the curse off it. We found ourselves becoming more and more uneasy with the subject matter as the game went on, to the point where we began trying to find the least offensive ways of finishing people off. As I said earlier, some games can find the point where otherwise offensive or morbid activities can be pulled off in a fun and inoffensive manner. Witness Lunch Money. Creepy as hell, yes. But ultimately a fun sort of creepy that adds to the game experience. Or Gloom, where the whole point of the game is to kill off your own family after making them totally miserable first. Let's Kill just left us feeling as if we needed to wash our hands and maybe go have a little lie down. It is tragically, sadly, unfunny in a game that needs to play the humor angle for all it is worth in order to keep it's players in the right mind set.
Unless you happen to BE a psychotic mass murderer looking for ideas, of course.
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Chris D'Andrea
United States
Cheektowaga
New York
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It appears that regardless of your comment above about
"a broad sense of humor and we enjoy off color comedy and black humor"
wasn't accurate enough. Everything you wrote about was funny to me. But what did you think of the GAME overlooking the morbid sense of it how was the GAMEPLAY? Where the mechanics well thought out? Did you see anything glaring that struck you as poorly written. I understand this is a Session and not a review but other then you not seeing the humor in the game and being unsettled by the content matter what did you think?
I only ask as I just ordered the game and would like to get the opinion of someone on gameplay that was otherwise set back by the content matter.
Thanks for your input in advance
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