Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Hunting a monster and protecting a town is a classic story, and easily grasped. The games insistance that players have a connection to the town is a good one, and I find the introduction of the characters is handled in a fashion more like a novel than a movie. The dominos as a mechanic are carried wonderfully throughout, and create a great parallel as you make a physical trail. Unfortunately, even with the lovely glossary at the beginning I found the rules to be much more confusing as time went on rather than revealing themselves to me. I found myself going back and forth between the sections much more than I otherwise would in a game of this length. Perhaps this could be solved with the inclusions of some diagrams or play examples, and I looked at the final formatted pdf to see if they were included. Unlike other games that seem impenetrable at first glance, I feel like this is a game where you could pick up lots of these nuances through play, as the undercarriage of just "put down a domino that matches" is comforting in it's ever presence. Also, I found the GM role to be a little lacking. The game would be more compelling to me by either strengthing their position, or distributing the Hunt Master duties to the rest of the table.
• The first thing I have to say first is that I was totally awed from the get-go by this game's central mechanic of domino placing! I found it to be very engaging to imagine, as well as completely unexpected. I'm definitely curious about how it would work out in play, but I'm intrigued enough by the concept that I am not overly concerned with thinking about how many tiles it makes sense to need to draw or start out with or etc. Making the tiles represent stakes important to the characters, and then having those stakes being physically present in the hunting trail is a very cool way to keep the stakes not only present and in-mind, but also keep them in danger. I am certainly curious to see it work out in play! The game definitely feels dramatic and tense in my reading and imagining, which was a great fit for a game about hunting dangerous monsters.
• How clear & compelling is the game's central idea? The idea of hunting down the monster is clearly presented, and fighting a monster while struggling yourself is a classic central theme How elegant, useful, and intuitive are the game's mechanics? the Dominos are used well to create both a map and a pool guaranteed to keep the game limited in scope. the constant threat of defeat would seem to keep the players pressing forward as best they can. How cohesively designed do you think the game is overall? the text does a good job with theming and keeping the setting vague enough that most any era would work in play.