Shadows of Malice Review (2015)

I originally wrote this review 4 years ago for my...

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It feels like Shadows Of Malice was one of the last truly buzzworthy underground games to achieve popularity prior to the annoying drunk uncle known as Kickstarter breaking down the door and ruining everything by shouting about all of his friends, stumbling over the cat, and throwing plastic minis in everyone's faces whilst belching loudly.

Yet ironically, this is exactly the kind of game that fits exactly into the ideal of what a Kickstarter game -should- be. A risky, limited appeal and more artful design than what the mainstream publishers want to put out, supported by a small group of people that want to see more challenging and marginal games published.

Yet Jim didn’t crowdfund this. He staked his own money on it and delivered a successful product, establishing his name as a designer to watch and Devious Weasel as a publisher of note.

Michael Barnes wrote: Yet ironically, this is exactly the kind of game that fits exactly into the ideal of what a Kickstarter game -should- be. A risky, limited appeal and more artful design than what the mainstream publishers want to put out, supported by a small group of people that want to see more challenging and marginal games published.

Agreed.
Somewhere there is an alternate timeline where the success of Shadows Of Malice resulted in a very different Kickstarter producing very different games.

I pulled it out last year. It's clunky and extremely wristy but just as good as when I bought it. Need to play it more.

I am not sure what the status is, but I'm very interested in Jim's updated set of rules to put in my box and play, especially if it fixes a few little niggles about the game.

The revised second printing should hit the street in late October, about 3 weeks from now.