Dying on Strings – Final Girl – Carnage at the Carnival Review

As a kid, I was never really that fond of puppets.

It’s not that they creeped me out, necessarily.

They weren’t like clowns.

I just never really went to puppet shows to be entertained, and Pinocchio was not one of my favourite Disney cartoons.

If I had played Final Girl – Carnage at the Carnival, however, they would have had me hiding under my covers almost day and night.

Carnage at the Carnival is a Series 1 feature film in the Final Girl solo franchise from Van Ryder Games.

The film’s location is a deadly carnival while the film’s killer is the evil puppet master Geppetto.

It was designed by Evan Derrick and A. J. Porfirio with artwork by Vladyslava Ladkova and it was published in 2021.

I have to say that this one is brutal, at least in my three plays of it.

The Carnival location is a hard one to navigate, though that is mitigated by there being an escape area right in the middle of the carnival (I’m not sure how that fits thematically? But let’s go with it).

It’s dominated by the Big Top in the centre with areas around it, and then there’s an outer ring that you can get to through a few different paths from the inner ring.

I love that the escape area in the inner ring is called “Clown Car” too (I guess that’s how it fits thematically). You can fit a lot of victims there! And they’re safe because you just disappear into that car until everybody comes out at their destination.

Really, that escape location in the middle is the only thing that saves this map, because getting victims to the outer ring if they’re in the main carnival concourse would be horrific otherwise.

That being said, the carnival has one unique thing that makes doing the typical Final Girl action really dangerous.

Traps!

As usual, there are three search locations where you can find items.

Unusually, each location has a hidden trap that you can stumble upon when you are searching for that unique weapon that will help you kill the bad guy.

Thankfully, two of the three traps are just annoying little things you have to deal with (and one actually lets you heal a health, which isn’t bad unless you haven’t lost any yet, but does end your turn and you can’t buy any cards).

The Cobra…well, that just sucks.

The “fun” thing is that if you get a double success on a Search task, you have to look at both the top known card and the top unknown card.

You can’t say “I just want the top card.”

You’re almost hoping for a 1-star success (unless you don’t actually want what’s on top of the stack).

If you draw a trap card, you have to resolve it.

There are also three traps that are put on the board and stay there. Two of them by Terror card and one by an Event card.

These tokens stay on the board and if you enter the space (or a victim does, in which case they are killed immediately), you resolve it again.

These are not fun.

The Terror cards are also brutal.

In the picture above is the “How Did the Tiger Get Loose” card.

It panics all victims, and then kills any victim that’s in or adjacent to the Animal Cages.

In my first play of this film, this Terror card resulted in four victim deaths on the first turn.

It did kill a puppet too, in my second playthrough, along with a couple of victims.

The card came up in my third play but I substituted it for another one because I wanted to experience some different cards for this review.

The carnival also has some interesting events, some which may even help you (or hurt you, but that’s the nature of Final Girl).

One of the Events (the first event I got in my first playthrough) turns one of the victims into a Werewolf.

He’ll most likely be killing a bunch of victims, but if you have enemies (or, sadly, yourself) getting in his way as well, he will hurt them too!

He’s a random element that just makes the story of the game so much more interesting, especially if he ends up helping you by killing a bunch of puppets.

Other events can be nasty, though, either adding special victims that you have to save, or just changing the nature of the board.

It’s Not Real adds four new victims to one area and then makes the Forest of Horrors poisonous to all victims (but not you, somehow). In one playthrough, this killed two victims right at the start of the game.

However, some are beneficial, like the Employee Transport (which sadly only works on the outer ring so wasn’t that useful in my playthrough when I got it) or, if you roll well, Animal Panic.

Animal Panic has you roll dice when Horror increases, and if you roll successes you get to move victims a space (hopefully out of harm’s way). Of course, if you don’t roll successes, they will die.

You can’t have everything.

I really like the Carnival, though I’m looking forward to getting a better look at it when I’m not dealing with Geppetto and his puppets.

Which brings us to the killer part of this feature film.

Geppetto is, of course, the puppet master and he controls three puppets that will be running around the board causing mayhem.

Believe me, there ain’t a shy little Pinocchio in the bunch.

Each round he will spawn a puppet as his Minion action.

This was the first feature film I’ve played that I’ve had to deal with minions, and I can tell you that they are fucking annoying.

Even when you kill a puppet (they only have one health, and if they are grouped together you can kill multiples of them if you do enough damage), they just go to the “Exhausted” part of the card.

Next round they will go to Ready, and the next round they will spawn again.

They only do one damage (unless Geppetto’s Dark Power is that puppets do two damage), but that’s enough to kill one victim!

They move as fast as Geppetto does, so it depends on how much bloodlust there is.

And there will be a lot of bloodlust.

As part of the Minion action, puppets will move toward the nearest victim, but they won’t actually attack them.

Geppetto will attack whoever is in his space, but he won’t actually move.

That’s where the Terror cards come in.

Puppets (i.e. minions) will always do the action on the Terror cards individually before Geppetto does.

Since the puppets have moved prior to the Terror card, they will most likely be killing a victim for each of them.

The losses can skyrocket quite quickly.

The interesting thing about the puppets, though I haven’t really had it come into play in my games, is that they are actually on strings.

That means they can only move up to 2 spaces away from Geppetto.

If they would move further, they stop.

That could be useful, though it’s very situational.

If they end up being further than 2 spaces away (like with the There is No Escape terror card above), then instead of moving towards victims, they move to Geppetto instead, until they are 2 spaces away from him.

Geppetto brings some really intriguing decisions into Final Girl, because you have to balance taking him out, rescuing victims, and weeding the puppets out so they don’t cause a bunch of carnage.

Since you can spread damage among minions when you attack, ideally you would find them congregated and then just whale on them.

That doesn’t always work, though.

Geppetto’s terror cards are likewise very brutal.

This one could just end your game if you’re not careful.

Increasing terror twice and then having all of the puppets and Geppetto coming at you (or the victims) and killing them.

Yep, very brutal. Even the Minor Dark Powers.

That being said, the actual Dark Powers and Finales aren’t too bad.

Ok, I lied.

These are just as bad!

This is the first feature film (admittedly of only four) that I haven’t won any of my three games that I always play before I review.

Geppetto is just that tough.

Is that a good thing?

Actually, in this case, it is.

The Carnival brings some cool choices in how to get around, and having that escape area in the middle of the three rings is actually great.

Geppetto is very tough but you just have to figure out the best way to deal with him (and maybe get lucky).

You either have to deal with the puppets so you and the victims don’t get swarmed, or you have to kill Geppetto really quickly.

If you need a challenge, this one is definitely it!

As usual, Carnage at the Carnival comes with two new Final Girls.

Let’s take a look at them.

Charlie has a bunch of health and some very cool options if you manage to save victims.

Three spaces that reduce Horror?

Sign me up!

She also has enough health (as long as you keep her healthy, of course) to use her ultimate action at least once, giving you a really nice way to take out the killer.

Assuming that you can also get another great attack card or even a Retaliation.

The fact that she died twice at the Carnival is no fault of her own, mainly because puppets doing two damage (a Geppetto dark power) and Geppetto himself all being in her space really did a number on her.

You can only Retaliate once!

In fact, in my first game, I had already come back to life once and I was down to my last health (so I was able to roll three dice).

All were in the space with me, the Finale had happened so all would move and attack.

My only hope was to Sprint and then Walk to get 4 spaces away, since they could move 3.

Rolling three dice…three absolute fails, which causes you to lose a health and end your turn.

She essentially tripped as she ran out of the space and impaled herself on a tent peg.

But she is a fun character to play and also has enough health for this bad boy (which almost won the game for me except Geppetto’s final health token gave him 3 hearts back).

It does cost you a health and ends your turn, but for 4+ damage, that’s not bad!

Then there’s Asami, who doesn’t have as much health (probably not going to use that hammer) but only requires four rescued victims (including a double Horror drop!) in order to activate her special power.

And that power is a doozy, though you may not be searching much by the time you rescue this many victims, unless you make a point of doing that very early.

Still, immunity to Item Trap cards makes searching a lot safer.

Or, if you’re concerned, you can always go find Zappo.

He’ll take care of one trap card for you, if he’s in the game and you can find him.

Also, letting you search from 2 spaces away is heavenly!

All in all, Carnage at the Carnival is a very solid Final Girl feature film.

A fun, if difficult location and fun, if completely brutal, killer just adds so much theme to the game.

Honestly, all three of my deaths I could build a story around.

I know that’s how the game is supposed to be, but sometimes it works better than others.

This time, they all worked.

And you get two wonderful Final Girls to boot!

If you’re a fan of Final Girl, you definitely cannot go wrong with this one.

I would not recommend it as your first film, though.

It may scare you away from the rest of the franchise.

(This review was written after 3 plays)

Check out all of my Final Girl reviews here! More will be coming.

Final Girl Reviews