TABLETOP GAMING: THE BAD SIDE OF TOWN

John Baltisburger reviews Andrew Najberg’s new board game, THE BAD SIDE OF TOWN, or is it a good side? John will tell us!

A couple of weeks ago, I attended AuthorCon, a convention that raises money for various people in dire medical straits. It was an amazing time, and I got to both meet new friends, and spend quality time with old friends. Literally not a bad experience had over the course of the weekend. But you don’t care about that. You don’t come to my articles to hear about me having a happy time, you come to hear me talk about games!

Well friends, I was on a panel at AuthorCon called “Writing for Games.” On the panel were various writers who work in games, video games, tabletop games and surprisingly to me, board games! Andrew Najberg is one of the creators of a new board game called The Bad Side of Town. And he had his publisher send me a pre-production copy of the game to test out!

Even as a pre-prod game, it looks great. There are wooden blocks to track things, thick cardboard tokens, and the board itself is double thickness with cutouts to fit the evidence trackers as you play. It also comes with a stress deck, an events deck, a corpse deck, four rules cheat sheet cards, and a handful of character cards.

The Bad Side of Town is a game about a group of Serial Killers coexisting in a city together, when a new killer shows up and starts being WAY too reckless. Drawing heat and creating a … let’s call it a “hostile working environment.” Your goal is to clean up after this maniac, while collecting enough evidence for you and your buddies to take care of them and end their messy reign of terror. You must do this while evading the cops, and, maybe more importantly, managing your own stress levels.

You start by choosing a character card to represent your killer, each with their own special abilities, choosing their hideout, and setting up your meeple.

Every turn you’ll turn over either an event card, or a stress card, either of which could cause a body to spawn, along with evidence, and everybody that already exists becomes more visible to the cops and the public, upping the chances that the “panic meter” will rise.  Players win the game by gathering enough evidence (fibers, blood, fingerprints, and corpses), and lose by either having every character get arrested, OR the panic meter reaching 10. 

The game is largely a cooperative race against a clock; once bodies start dropping players have to travel to that body, collect evidence one piece at a time, using their actions, and then get back to their hideout without being caught. Of course, cops are patrolling the streets, visibility is ramping up, and if your stress gets too high, you have to blow off steam the only way you know how, which means another body appears on the board and has to be dealt with.

If players are caught by the cops, they turn in their character card and any evidence and get to choose a new character card to keep playing. If all the cards are gone, meaning all the player options have been arrested, the game is over and the players lose.

The game allows for 1-4 players (solo games means controlling two killers). And because you draw events and stress cards on each player turn, more players doesn’t mean an easier time, just more chaos. I’ve run through the game a few times, and it’s a nuanced battle against stress and discovery. This, combined with it being a cooperative game as opposed to a competitive game, lets it fit comfortably into anyone’s board game rotation.

The Bad Side of Town will be coming to Kickstarter soon. Sign up to be notified here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beyondkillergames/the-bad-side-of-town

John Baltisberger loves TTRPGs and Kaiju. He is an author of speculative and genre fiction that often focuses on Jewish Elements. Through his writing, he has explored themes of mysticism, faith, sin, and personal responsibility. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and his daughter.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.