The Stifling Dark Review: Jump Scare or Barely There? 

I love this very honest and thorough review! I'm Matt, one of the 3 members of the Sophisticated Cerberus who made this game. This was all really great feedback and I can definitely add to some of the points here. We all love horror games and wanted something to really get that feeling right. I can't tell you how many months we spent tweaking little things to get that feeling down, so I'm glad you both felt that come through. We've heard the feedback on the rules and are working on a streamlined version that we can share via PDF. We are figuring out which rules to drop and which to really emphasize to make this game stand out as one of the best for the horror genre. While we can't currently change the components, we can streamline the rules to drop a number of them. We are also planning adversary / map packs like you talked about, and those new cards will have a refreshed design. If you have any questions, we're happy to answer them here in the comments too!

This pretty much sums up my thoughts after my experience playing it. The core concept is solid and thematically it's great, but any tension built up immediately dissipates when one of the players, or the adversary player, has to check through the two rulebooks to see how something works or check which of the myriad tokens they've found.

I'll wait for the second edition.

Good to know about this game. It was one that I was interested in. I'm the same where I don't like horror or slasher films but for some reason I like creepy games. I guess because they're thrilling. I see the pinned comment from the company which is working on improvements so I'm still keeping this one in mind.

I got Terrorscape, then this game fell into my lap right after. I took one look at the rules, the iconography, and similar look of all the components... and I got rid of it. Too much work. Terrorscape is the same theme, is a blast, and is easy to teach. I have enough games that I don't need to take an SAT prep course to learn and teach a new one.

If you want a game where the monster gets to stalk and kill the players, then you should track down a copy of Lifeform. It's the movie Alien in a box. It generates a great horror movie experience. The only downside to the game (other than it not being in print) is that the rulebook is fiddly. I keep hoping Hall or Nothing will reprint the game with an updated rulebook and a new expansion. But, they seem more focused on their Historic Epic Battle System games and Kilforth content.

The theme sounds cool.

Sounds like it would greatly benefit from a second edition. How would you guys compare it to Terrorscape?

You're hiding in a lame blueprint of a floorplan! :D

Possible to house rule out some of the extra stuff that isn't needed?

If having multiple killers complicate the rules, can you just purposely stick to 1 killer?

Hmmm. Since I think Specter Ops was terrible and these guys liked it, I’m wondering if I’d like this or if I think it would be even worse than Specter Ops. I think the safe bet is to skip this.

Juice not worth the squeeze. Move on.

oh gosh I just bought the KS set from my retailer because I was enticed by the 1 vs all hidden killer concept, guess I just might regret this purchase 🥲