It Was A Monster Mash

You know how some ideas sound terrible on paper, but in the moment they work perfectly? Amazingly, even? That was this game.

Our original game plan fell through, so Andy, Marc, Caroline and I switched to an off-the-cuff game of Follow. Marc had been wanting to play ghosts driving people out of their haunted house. Reverse Scooby Doo and very pre-Halloween! And the Turf quest would be a good fit. But Caroline thought ghosts would be a bummer. What about monsters instead?

Hmm, monsters. What kind of monsters? Demons? Naw. What about classic movie monsters, the Wolf-man and Frankenstein and all that?

But wait: what if the monsters in those movies had secretly been *real monsters* all along. No makeup! But only a few sympathetic studio moguls knew the secret and when those movies declined the monsters had taken up residence in a castle built by a sympathetic celebrity in the Hollywood hills. Where they lived in hiding for decades… until some instagramming influencers and tech bro developers wanted to turn the old castle into a hip bed & breakfast.

It’s Monsters versus Millennials! And yeah, one selfie-stick later we were busting out the “who are the real monsters???” jokes.

So many great characters. The Bride of Frankenstein! (“Uh, weren’t you married to Frankenstein’s *Monster*?”) The newly pacificist and probably vegan Wolf-man! A totally fake Invisible Man, just pretending to be invisible and hiding under his wraps because he feels more at home around monsters than humans!

And yes, our second challenge was an actual Monster Mash, as the monsters threw a party to try and raise morale after a crushing first challenge defeat that saw them abandoning the hapless and in hindsight kind of beloved “Gill”, the cowardly Creature from the Black Lagoon, to the county Sheriff. No one said to bring disguises!!!

Andy, Caroline and Marc all brought a beautiful blend of the funny and the pathos. A pile of great moments.

And if you told me that you played a game where Oliver Hardy (yes of Laurel and Hardy) revealed himself to be a Highlander-like immortal (and also an advisor to the Mummy when he was still a Pharaoh in ancient Egypt) and used what I’m guessing was ancient Atlantean technology to escape this mortal coil, I’d probably say “uh wut?”, just like you’re doing now. But trust me: it was perfect.