Jessica Scott and Aaron Scott have really been knocking it out of the park lately. Hot Guys Making Out was a great game suggestion (and Jess made tikka masala, to boot)!
In HGMO, you have four characters: Honore, the stern yet beautiful master of a manor house during the Spanish Civil War; Gonzalvo, the boy he takes in as his ward and with whom he falls in love; Maria, the wise (yet jealous) maid; and Olivier, the quiet, no-nonsense butler.
The game is really beautifully paced. Each player essentially puts down a playing card and gives a bit of dialogue or description about what their character is doing. The next player follows, playing an equal or higher card. If they can’t play an equal or higher card, they pass, but give a bit of environmental description. Certain playing cards require certain special actions, such as Honore dropping his emotional guard and putting the moves on Gonsalvo, or Maria offering sage wisdom to the young lovers. If an ace gets played, that means a named threat is becoming increasingly dangerous or prominent. At our table, the threat was Honore’s former lover, a Nazi officer named Franz.
The design is inspired by comic books, and the pacing feels right in that regard. There are no long speeches or tracts of dialogue, just bits of description, a sentence here and there, a brief internal monologue, and so forth. It feels really, really good; lots of tension and build-up.
Thanks to Jess and Aaron for running the two tables and to everyone else who came out: Russell Benner Jeff Burke Steve Mains Jaime and Belinda!
We’re not the first to think of a Batman hack. Someone proposed the following: Batman and Robin, obviously, with Alfred taking over the advice-giving Maria role. Then insert Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, who has a crush on Robin.
We’re not the first to think of a Batman hack. Someone proposed the following: Batman and Robin, obviously, with Alfred taking over the advice-giving Maria role. Then insert Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, who has a crush on Robin.