BBC Television's Doctor Who has been on and off the air for more than 60 years, during which time The Doctor has been regenerated (ie: reincarnated, reskinned and reinvented) numerous times. And just as iconic as The Doctor and his Tardis (police box shaped space ship and time machine that's 'bigger on the inside') have been the monsters spawned by the series. The Daleks and Cybermen have been a recurring threat since the time of William Hartnell's 'First Doctor' in the 1960s. The Weeping Angels burst onto our screens much more recently, in the 2007 Doctor-lite episode 'Blink', scripted by Steven Moffat, where David Tennant's 'Tenth Doctor' appeared only through short videotaped messages. Since their introduction the Weeping Angels have proven to be the most enduring monsters of the modern era. Don't Blink, designed by Dylan Birtolo, Thomas M Gofton and Josh Derksen, captures some of their menace while delivering a clever cat-and-mouse tactical game.
The Weeping Angels are quantum locked creatures who are frozen as statues when they are observed but who move very fast if no-one is looking... If they touch you they steal your life energy and cast you back in time, so you must be careful not even to blink... This asymmetric game from Gale Force Nine is built around this premise.
In this 2-5 player game, one player controls the Weeping Angels while the other player(s) control the Doctor (Matt Smith's 'Eleventh Doctor') and his companions (Amy, Rory and Clara) as they race to collect the scattered components needed to escape in the Tardis. The Doctor and his companions win if they manage to escape, automatically recovering any companions previously lost to the Weeping Angels; the Weeping Angels win if they cast all the others into the past.
Each round the Angels player plays cards face down to indicate which of the eight numbered standees on the board are Weeping Angels and which are merely harmless statues. The other players move their standees around the board but they need to careful to orientate each standee to show its line of sight... The heroes have a set of cards that indicate whether or not they blink, and they need to allocate these face down to their heroes. Special blink cards make it easier for the hero player but these are single use and get passed on to the Angel player who gets to use the card on a future turn.
The Angel player then reveals which four Angel standees are really Weeping Angels and divides their action points between them to move and try to capture heroes that don't have line of sight to them. From the Doctor Who episode where the Weeping Angels first appeared we learnt that the Angels can quantum lock each other, so the Angels player also needs to ensure that their Angels don't get caught in each other's line of sight...
The Board's Eye View team have enjoyed our plays of Don't Blink, tho' we much preferred it as a two-player game rather than the semi-cooperative one vs many option. It's especially challenging to play the Doctor and his companions because the Weeping Angels' potential movement is much greater than that of the heroes. There's an element of bluff and double-bluff over which Angel standees are active in the round and which are merely statues, and over which heroes have played a 'don't blink' card, and that add an exciting deduction call or push-your-luck gamble to the gameplay...
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