‘Silent Night Deadly Night: The Game’ – Review

Take a step back to 1984 for some holiday punishment with Silent Night Deadly Night The Game. Fright-Rags teamed up with the Producers of the original Silent Night Deadly Night film to create a new “Stop the Killer” boardgame!

In Silent Night Deadly Night The Game, 1-4 players must choose which movie characters they would like to play to stop Billy from reaching Mother Superior and punishing her.

Look and Feel

The game’s aesthetics will take you right back to the 80s and 90s. The beautiful artwork provided by Fright-Rags gives it a classic horror look from box to board. With custom dice with Christmas lights for pips, a custom dice shaker made to look like the chimney from the original poster, and a spinner, the attention to detail creates that same nostalgic feeling that you might get pulling an old childhood game that was buried in a closet somewhere. The beautiful artwork on the board itself captures several iconic scenes from the film.

Gameplay

Gameplay for Silent Night Deadly Night is designed to be simple, so any fan of the movie can pick up the game and play it without feeling lost or overwhelmed. But that doesn’t mean the game is easy to win. Billy has a pre-determined path, while players can move freely to try and collect weapons and draw cards that can either help them or hinder them.

The game ends when either a player kills Billy, Billy kills them, or Billy reaches Mother Superior.

The board is two-sided: “Naughty” and “Nice.” The Naughty side has a little more gore in the artwork and adds a twist to the game with additional spaces labeled “Naughty”. When a player lands on a Naughty space all players are to shout “Naughty!” And take a drink.

The game length can vary from only a few minutes to a half hour. This makes it a great party game. Especially if you incorporate the drinking game from the Naughty side of the board. It can be pretty punishing when trying to defeat Billy as it comes down to either death or winning, with no in-between unless you have collected certain things on the board to help you survive a loss.

The game works well solo. The only issue with solo play is that some of the cards no longer work. It’s nothing a few house rules couldn’t fix, though, if you feel creative. My only complaint would be that after several games, Billy only made it to Mother Superior once. In the next closest game, he only got about halfway to her. The games generally ended through either being punished by Billy or stopping him.

There are also two optional expansions for Silent Night Deadly Night, one of which opens up a trivia space. Players draw a card from the trivia deck and attempt to answer it before the snow timer runs out in order to slow Billy’s approach. The other expansion upgrades the game deck to add more variety and replayability to the standard game.

Final Thoughts

Silent Night Deadly Night The Game can be found on stopthekiller.com along with its predecessor, My Bloody Valentine The Game. While both games currently say they are sold out, keep watch because they will be back in stock after the Kickstarter fulfillment.

A third game is in development and will be having its own Kickstarter campaign based on Halloween II. Sign up for updates at the Stop The Killer website!