Final Girl

Readiness

ready (confidence=0.75, rules=0.75, fun=0.75). BGG rank: 97; year: 2021; weight: 2.75; playtime: 60 min

Core Loop

Final Girl is a solo-only horror-themed dice/card game by Van Ryder Games where you play the survivor of a slasher-movie scenario. The game uses two modular components: a Feature Film (the killer/villain box, e.g. Carver from Camp Happy Trails, the Poltergeist from Haunting of Creech Manor) and a Location (the map/setting, e.g. summer camp, shopping mall, suburb). Mix-and-match: any villain works on any location, scaling difficulty.

Each round you have a hand of action cards. On your turn: play cards (each costs an action), make rolls (defense, attack, search), move on the location's map, save victims, gather items, fight the killer when forced. The killer has its own AI behavior deck — flip a card to determine the killer's actions/movement/special triggers. When you and the killer are in the same map space, combat triggers: roll attack dice (variable count based on items/cards), killer rolls defense; vice-versa. Take damage = lose health; heal via items/cards.

Turn Structure and State

• How-to-play transcript is present; useful for teach order and confusing steps.
• BGG description anchor: Playing on a famous horror movie trope, Final Girl is a solitaire-only game that puts the player in the shoes of a female protagonist who must kill the slasher if she wants to survive. The Core Box, when combined with one of our Feature Film Boxes, has everything you need to play the game. Each Feature Film Box features a unique Killer and and iconic Location, and the more Feature Films you have, the more [...]

Win Condition and Arc

Win = kill the slasher (HP zero) before all victims die or you die. Lose = your HP reaches zero, OR all named victims die. Arc within a session (~30-60 min): early turns scout the map and gather items/save first victims; mid-session escalation as the killer's AI accelerates and victims start dying; final confrontation when you face the killer with assembled gear in a crowded combat sequence.

Decision Primitives

BGG mechanisms: Dice Rolling, Hand Management, Pick-up and Deliver, Push Your Luck, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers, Variable Set-up

Memory-derived primitives:

• solo-only horror combat puzzle
• modular killer + location matchups (scenario-bento)
• card-driven action selection from a personal deck
• variable-dice combat (attack/defense rolls scale with held items)
• AI behavior deck (no GM)
• press-your-luck (search rolls, encounter timing)
• victim-rescue side-objectives

v4 controlled primitives: escalating_threat, push_your_luck_escalation, event_deck_seeded_threat, cascading_failure, variable_player_powers

Top iOS archetype fits: balatro 6.2, coop 5.3, cozy 4.2.

Why It Is Fun

True horror-movie tension as a solo experience. The mix-and-match Feature Film + Location gives huge replayability without needing the entire collection. The killer AI deck creates legitimate menace — you can't predict exactly when/where the killer strikes. Each scenario has unique flavor: Carver hunts in the dark; the Poltergeist phases through walls. Solo-tight, ~45 min, theme-soaked.

Friction and Failure Modes

• Treat Sonnet-memory edge rules as draft until confirmed by manual, BGA, or transcript.

Translation and Design Hooks

• Use this card to ask: which primitive carries the fun if theme/licensing is removed?
• For iOS, look for short-session compression, clear state visualization, and a digital-only twist.
• For new tabletop design, look for the tension source and decide whether to preserve or invert it.

Edge Rules and Gotchas

• Solo-only by design — not a multiplayer game with shared survivor controls
• Action cards: limited hand; cards used go to discard; deck reshuffles when empty (no card-burning resource pressure like Gloomhaven, more standard hand-management)
• Killer AI deck: each turn flip a card; some cards have killer-specific triggers (e.g. "if a victim is alone, kill them") and movement instructions
• Victim-savings vs item-gathering tradeoff: each turn you have limited action economy
• Item search: on certain map spaces you can search for items; success rolls vary; results from a small item-deck
• Final showdown: killer often has phases (HP thresholds trigger powered-up behavior) — the final phase is brutal
• Each Feature Film box adds unique rules/components specific to that slasher (e.g. summer-camp-specific items, killer-specific phases)
• Difficulty scales by location/killer pairing — some are nightmare combos for veteran players
• Specifically NOT a Kennerspiel-weight game; it's medium-light with high theme

Sources Used

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  {
    "kind": "wikipedia",
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