Stuffed Fables
About
It's a cross between a role playing game and a board game. Or you can think of it as a board game with very heavy emphasis on story elements. The first (and hopefully not last) game to use the new "Adventure Book" format where the maps are in a spiral bound book and can be instantly laid out and played reducing setup time.
Created in 2018 this is a cooperative game where you and teammates take the role of children's toys over the course of seven stories. Think Toy Story where you play the part of the toys saving Andy from various issues. Each story takes about 2-3 hours to complete.
For each story you will read the introduction, and then turn the appropriate page in the map book. On the left page of the map book will be the map, and the right page will be setup instructions and information about any unique areas of the map. The map book has 2-4 unique maps for each and every story.
Thoughts
Tim:
7-22-2020
Fantastic game. I was looking for a board game with a strong story element and this fit the bill perfectly. Yes, the story is more focused for a younger audience, but it's very well done. I especially love the idea of the map book concept. Setup times for these types of game is always a pain and this approach is great. The only downside I can think of are some rule that really need more clarification. It's a bit of a minus that the Plaid Hat Website does not have a "frequently asked questions" page.
12-13-2025 Update.
Needs Work. We thought we would revisit this game, but we were just not having fun after the first two scenarios. I'm unsure if we were just unlucky but just didn't seem fun. Definitely issues with finding rules, or having to house rule so many edge cases. Rolling a 1d6 for movement was painful. Having to draw the correct color die from the bag to even use your weapon also seemed to fail multiple times. Add to that fact that most of the monsters have hit points such that you really need 2d6 to even have a change. We also noticed that while the game looks to be a small tactical skirmish game, the game board is so small that you really don't have any tactical decisions. We also missed the fun of characters and equipment with synergy. Maybe Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion gave us unrealistic expectations for these types of games. We might bring it back in the future someday as there is still lots of gameplay we have not seen, but this will take a large amount of work to make this fun.
Laura:
I love this game! It is adorable without being cheesy, and has enough tongue in cheek humor to keep the adults interested in reading through the different cards and setup. The gameplay isn't overly easy, as the group I played with had to work together and make decisions, but it is suitable for children 10+ to play with adults. I am looking forward to continuing to play this game with the regular group that I started with, when the pandemic is over.
Trivia
- The makers of Gloomhaven are bouncing around an idea for a "Map book". One of the worst parts of the game is the large amount of setup required for each level and multiple people have asked "Is this possible for Gloomhaven?"
7-22-2020