Stuffed Fables An overview of board games
Stuffed Fables An overview of board games
Imagine the most disgusting, horrible, horrible place man has ever known.
No, I'm not talking about Pan's maze. Ali Arkham Asylum. Or even with Dementor Azkaban . I’m talking somewhere that all these monstrous places come together and collide.
That's right. Let's go under your crib.
- Exciting NARRATIVE GAME: Deep in the darkness of the night, the evil ...
- ADVENTURE GAME: Each Stuffed Fables game takes place over ...
- STRATEGIC GAME: Six blowers ready to face nightmares ...
A brief overview of stuffed fables
Stuffed Fairy Tales is a cooperative adventure game for two to four players, in which you take on the role of 'puhlic' - a group of toys that come to life when the light goes out.
Your job as the protector of the girl who just graduated from her “big girl’s bed” is to save her from the king of nightmares and his horrible servants who live beneath him.
With seven stories, the play is very narrative. However, you can choose how your characters explore the map, attack the servants and find objects with a simple gambling mechanic.
Will you save the girl from her nightmares. Or you’ll end up like Flops and Lumpy, a toy rabbit and an elephant ... stuffed.
Unpacking stuffed fables
Stuffed fairy tales are full of options and endings that may make you feel more at home in your kitchen drawer. Fortunately, this can make it a little easier to replace lost pieces. When you open the box, you will find:
- 1 Rules
- 1 Story
- 40 Discovery Deck cards
- 1 Locker
- 6 Mixed thumbnails
- 17 Minion miniatures
- 35 Cubes
- 1 bag of cubes
- Buttons 15
- 149 other maps
- 57 tokens
One thing is for sure, Stuffed Fables is a beautiful game. I loved the artwork on the box, on the cards, and in the storybook. Sophisticated, color-like colors and graphics beautifully evoke the feel of a child’s room at night. While the scenes throughout the storybook and also on the box are simply gorgeous.
The character design is especially fantastic. Each individual bubble for stitching and filling is carefully drawn and his prominent personalities bring them to life wonderfully.
Great pictures
It’s a fantastic mix of playful, childlike images combined with a thrilling sense of doom. And that's exactly the element of seriousness I like - after all, these are some of the serious monsters we're talking about.
Wonderful works of art are complemented by really high quality components. The story collection is printed on solid, solid paper and uses one of those metal spiral binders to make it easier to turn the page without causing damage or wrinkling.
As the miniatures show, plastic signs of exceptional quality are also included. Some minions were really scary. Meanwhile, the personality that the characters show in the way they are portrayed contributes greatly to the story.
Another nice touch are the buttons that act as currency in the game. Instead of simple cardboard tokens, you get actual multicolored buttons!
No matter how the game is played, this is one fantastically crafted game that the Developers were obviously very proud of.
How to play stuffed fairy tales
Setting
First, everyone chooses an abandoned character to play with and takes a matching picture of it along with five refill tokens that represent your health. Each cat has a special ability that he can use, with three others that he can unlock.
Then create a sleep with three deck cards by shuffling the wake card along with two random sleep cards and place it face down. You also need to shuffle the item, minion and lost decks.
The main play area is where to place the storybook, with you - you guessed it - setting aside.
Select the first player by assigning him a bookmark token, then select the story you want to play. Each story has its own map, with a specific starting space and a variety of other points of interest that you need to become familiar with.
You are ready now!
Turn around
There are six steps:
- Randomly draw five cubes from the bag.
- Find the stuffing - roll up any white cube you drew. If the result is equal to or higher than the filling level, obtain one filling.
- Place a threat - place any black dice on the threat path.
- Perform actions - you can now use all the remaining cubes explained in detail below to perform your actions.
- Discard the remaining cubes.
- Check the threat - if the level of danger is equal to or higher than the number of minions on board, the minions turn.
When you’re done and, if required, the minions are in line, the game moves on to the next player.
The process
The actions you can perform in order depend on the cube you have chosen. Every time you try to take action, you need to move on and hope for success. You will usually have a target amount that you need to reach to be successful. You can choose to stack two dice of the same color together to try to achieve a higher score, or with two separate actions. You can also draw purple cubes from the bag that are wild.
Measures include:
- Movement - move along the path that corresponds to the color of the matrix.
- Reserve - hold the matrix for the next turn.
- Encourage - help one of your colleagues by giving them extra fillings, or allowing them to reserve a dice.
- Skill Test - Try a skill test that matches the color of your matrix. Skill tests will appear on all types in the storybook or on the maps.
- Group task - try a group task. These work as skill tests, and multiples on different turns can contribute to this.
- Attack - Attack the servants next to you on the map, unless it is a long-term attack.
- Search - Find items to help you search.
Minion Turn
After some players turn around, the servants will be able to get a chance to kick back. In this case, each minion is activated in turn by removing the matrix from the threat, overturning it, and performing actions as described on the card.
Minions will chase your attacks. If the filling loses all its fillings, it becomes “collapsed” and can no longer take action until it gets the filling in the dice-pulling phase.
He wins the game
Players progress through the story following the instructions and try to complete it by searching the instructions in the storybook. Along the way, they will tackle minions and pass skill tests, along with finding lost toys you can help with and other attractions (explained below).
If all the birds collapsed at the same time, your cheerful group of cute toys will be defeated. But if you reach the end of your endeavor, you will win and live to fight another day!
Your first game of stuffed fables
It is worth mentioning a few additional icons that you will find while navigating the map.
While traveling through the dark house, you will come across “Lost” - an unfortunate toy that somehow separated from the herd and has been stranded ever since. This is your chance to save it!
These are represented by a token with a speech tag on the board. As the player moves through one of these, stop moving and read the Lost tab aloud. Your group will have to decide and often receive a reward if you save a lost toy. Although, as the policy rightly points out, “sometimes all you get is a simple thank you. Such is the nature of giving. "
You can also download the "Points of Interest" icon on board. In this case, your storybook will describe what you need to do to explore it.
Advantages disadvantages
Advantages:
- Amazing story and theme
- The perfect entry cooperative for kids
- Excellent level of interaction
Weaknesses:
- Ideally, there would be more stories to play
- Simplicity means it will be easy for all adult groups
Stuffed fairy tales are a fantastic introduction to the world of collaborative games for children. Focusing on sharing forces players to think differently about how to approach the game, in addition to teaching some valuable life lessons. Whether you share your cube with another player or use it for extra stuffing, solving a group task together, exploiting each other's special abilities or finding a fun item that everyone can use, Stuffed Fairy Tales is a real group effort and then I he felt even warmer and lovelier in it.
The dice testing system, which is the basis of mechanics, is very basic and would feel repetitive in a game designed for adults. However, simplicity works in their favor, in which case it allows younger players to easily learn the rules. This helps reduce distractions from the story itself and allows younger players to really engage in development.
And that’s important, because I think Stuffed Fairy Tales stand out because of the story. It is written as a true children’s classic, with stunning images, clever metaphors, compelling characters and useful lessons for life.
An adventure for all ages
But it’s not just kids who will enjoy it. The story - and the game as a whole - will be a big hit with adults as well. It’s written exquisitely, with a creepy narrative and witty charm that would make Pixar - the kings of “fun for the whole family” - proud. Of course, given the central themes of toys and dreams / nightmares, strong parallels can be drawn between Pixar’s toy story, Monsters Inc, and Inside Out.
I also liked how deep the theme goes. From the currency of the button to the filling of the chips, everything is ridiculously cute.
Where it could possibly be improved is repeatability. You’ve only got seven stories that don’t have enough flexibility to make you feel like a different game if you played them.
For children, this is probably not much. As someone who watched the cult 1996 family film Dunston sign up at least 70 times as a child I can attest that new content didn’t matter to me at the time if I liked something. For adults, however, its lifespan is limited. The emphasis is on quality and not on quantity. But hey, if the kids have fun for an hour ...
TL; DR
Stuffed Fables is a cooperative story-based adventure game in which players must complete tasks and defeat evil servants hiding under a girl's bed.
With most of the gameplay based on a simple gambling mechanic, it’s a great entry-level game for families. With a strong emphasis on sharing and mutual assistance, it is highly interactive.
The real treat, however, are the charming stories themselves, which will enchant you from the first page.
Conclusion: a verdict?
I’ve been endlessly blabbering on about how compelling and rich the Stuffed Fairy Tale story is (and it really is). But even with that, it still stands out as a great family game.
The mechanics may be simple, but there are enough measures and decisions to keep it interesting. A lot of interactions take place in a similar way, which is impressive for such a simple game. All in all, it’s a superb collaboration experience for younger actors, coupled with beautiful storytelling, artwork and components.
However, it probably won’t be enough to be suitable for an adult group only. Not because of the theme - I may be a 29-year-old, childless, single man, but I too can enjoy a good bedtime story about some toys that come to life - but because it’s very easy.
If you have kids, then I can’t recommend Stuffed Fairy Tales enough as a source of some interactive and engaging family fun. If you don’t have kids, Stuffed Fairy Tales are definitely a good incentive to get them.
- Exciting NARRATIVE GAME: Deep in the darkness of the night, the evil ...
- ADVENTURE GAME: Each Stuffed Fables game takes place over ...
- STRATEGIC GAME: Six blowers ready to face nightmares ...
Have you tried Stuffed Fairy Tales before? We want to hear what you think. Drop a comment below!
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