The chair creaks as you settle onto it. The candlelight flickers. All around you the ravenous faces of your so-called friends twist in delight as you slowly open the box laid out on the table. Welcome to Dangerous Games! Each week, we'll feature a horror/thriller/monster tabletop game you should be playing. Don't be scared… roll the dice… what's the worst that could happen?
Room 25 - Matagot (2013)
You know the cameras are on. Even if you can't see them, even if you can't hear the whir and stir of their lenses as they focus and shift, you know the cameras are watching you. And why shouldn't they be? You're a contestant (no matter how unwilling) on one of the most popular game shows in the history of television. You're on Room 25. You can hear the rooms around you sliding in and out of place. You know the guards are waiting to kill you. You're sure, somewhere out in the Mega-Cities, the ravenous populous cheers for your bloody death.
You've entered 'Room 25,' the board game about shifting rooms, deadly traps, treacherous friends, and careful planning. You play one of several different "candidates" or contestants in the bloodiest show ever put on. You must make your way through the shifting rooms, push others out of your way (or into safety, or danger), and find the exit to this terrible place. Either working in teams, in cooperation with each other, or with traitors in your midst, this game begs the question, "Can you get out alive?"
Gameplay Mechanics
The game board is comprised of flipped over tiles. Each player starts in the center tile and will attempt to move around the board, finding the one and only exit room. The rooms could have obstacles in them, they could be safe rooms, or they could have death traps waiting in them. The only way to find out is the venture forth, and time is always ticking in the form of progressing rounds.
Each player takes the role of one of six different characters. With archetypes like "Bimbo" and "Nerd" you can tell the sense of "humor" these game creators have. But no character has special abilities (they're all identical save for flavor), and each player has two actions they can spend. Players can: peek into a room tile next to them, enter a room tile, push another person into a room, or shift all the rooms by one. The main goal, of finding the exit, takes lots of teamwork and trust. In the end, either everyone wins by finding the exit, or the traitors win by killing the heroes, or everyone loses by bloody, bloody death, depending on the type of game you're playing.
Replay Value
This game offers many different ways to play. You could all play together, working to get out of the complex. Or you could play with most players working on the same team, and a few players acting as secret guards trying to kill the players. The latter is way more fun, and will be the only way you keep coming back to this game.
Overall Impressions
The makers of this game openly admit to being extremely influenced by the movie Cube. And it's no wonder - this game is essentially a love letter to the flick about shifting rooms, death traps, and an unknowable end goal. It's a fun game, with lots of flavor, but can we grow up and stop putting character types like "bimbo" into games? It's a fun game, but still… With that fair warning out in front, I recommend this game if you and your friends like to lie to each other or for the gaming group that loves games like "Mafia" or "Werewolf."