This Second Look is going to be a bit shorter than normal. That’s because I’ve already reviewed Storyline: Fairy Tales and Storyline: Scary Tales is the same game, just with a spooky theme. Scary Tales comes with 30 new narrator cards, 100 new story cards, and 21 spooky tokens. Just like the original the box contains two storylines.

“It was a dark and [Feature] night.”

So the first story begins.

I’m actually a bigger fan of Scary Tales than I was of Fairy Tales. The gloomy setting and spooky art are right up my alley. There’s nothing overly scary here, it is a family game after all, but there’s plenty of haunted manors, vampires, horsemen, curses, and slimy cards to satisfy the Halloween season. The new token set, shaped like coffins, contain icons like gravestones, a witch’s hat, and skulls.

Scary Tales can also be combined with Fairy Tales to create even more fantastic stories, and it really works well. We’ve actually had a great time using narrator cards from one game with the story cards from another. Mixing them all together is really the best way to play, though

Storyline: Scary Tales is available now, and I highly recommend picking it up. Pick both Storyline games up. They’re perfect for family game night and work well down to around age 5 or 6. If you’re only going to pick up one, Scary Tales would be my first choice.

A copy of Storyline: Scary Tales was provided free for review by Asmodee.

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The second game in Asmodee’s StoryLine series, Scary Tales, will be hitting shelves in time for Halloween this October. Scary Tales will be a stand-alone game, but is fully compatible with StoryLine: Fairy Tales. This new boxed set includes 30 new narrator cards and 100 new illustrated story cards, all with spooky themes like vampires, mad scientists, mysterious swamps, haunted chapel, and more.

I had a blast with Storyline: Fairy Tales with the kids, and can’t wait to get Scary Tales mixed in for a little holiday fun.

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Take a popular party-game mechanic, turn it into a kids game with a fairy tale theme, and you’ve got StoryLine: Fairy Tales, the first in what I’m guessing will be a line of StoryLine games. I was a bit skeptical of this one, but had a great time playing it with my kids

Storyline comes with 30 Narrator cards that cover two different stories. Then there’s 100 story cards, 20 each of 5 different types. Each turn a different player takes the role of Narrator and flips over a Narrator card for the story they’re playing. The card will dictate what type of cards the players need to play to continue the story. Each player starts with one of each of the five card types, and will also draw an extra of the type needed for the round. Then the players each play the appropriate card face down. The Narrator chooses a card, and whoever played that card gets a token.

The tokens are the only part of the game I’m not 100% on board with. If it were as simple as the player with the most tokens wins, then that’d be fine. That’s not the case. Tokens are awarded to players face down. Some are worth 1, 2, or 3 points. Others have special rules, like a boot that’s worth nothing or a crown that lets you take 2 more tokens to score. This means that a player with the least amount of tokens can still pull a win with a lucky hand of tokens. My kids were kind of upset with this too. It seems a bit too random, and was a bit of a buzz-kill at the end of the game.

Overall we had fun. The cards are beautiful, the gameplay simple, and there’s some pretty funny card combinations that can take a more traditional Fairy Tale and really turn it on its head. We may just stick with counting actual tokens, and not using the points and special token powers.

A copy of StoryLine: Fairy Tales was provided free for review by Asmodee 

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