Hello guys.
So this is my humble review of a touch of evil. I just recently got the game, since it has been unavailable from my local game store and I acually was beginning to doubt that it would ever be released in Denmark. Finally, a short while ago, I found it in another store and was able to buy it.

The main reason I am writing this review is that there seems to be a lot of other reviewers that wants to compare it to Fantasy flights Arkham horror, and I wan't to be on the team that thinks that ATOE doen't resemble AH. I was acually discouraged from bying it because I thought it was a rip off of AH, which it is NOT.

Okay. I'm not going to get too much into detail about the game play. I'll focus on the good and bad of the game, if you want to know what it is all about, check out the other treads here, they will provide you with all the information you need to decide wether the theme and the mood of the game is anything you want to try out.

The Good:

A very interesting, dynamic game that keeps what it promises. I was very excited to see what the "town elder" mechanic was all about and I must say it is one of the most original mechanics I've seen in a long time. It is, simply put, awesome!

The quality of the game is two part. The counters are of a very high quality, so is the character sheets and the monster sheets and of course the detailed miniatures (which by the way is made of plastic and not rubber like LNOE, making them a million time easier to paint) the best part of the game though, is the board.

I've been thinking about how to put it since I decided to write this review because after all it is just about the board of a game. Most will agree that it is important that the board works well and looks good. This board is nothing less of spectacular!

It's very small, so first off you'll think, "wheres the rest of it?", but then you try it out.
The board looks like a pencil drawing from the 1700. It's really just a handdrawn map of the surrounding contry side and Shadowbrook itself. However it completely captures the essence of the game.
Its sturdy and doesn't dent when you roll dice on it (like LNOE) and it is just so utterly simple and delicate that you instantely ARE in Shadowbrook when you get to play on it. This board is the single best board I've ever seen in a boardgame! Simple, to the point and full of mood and theme. Way to go.

The rules are also amazing. They are easy to learn and after a couple of plays you'll know them well enough to get the game flowing.
The game is very movie like and has exactly the same thing as LNOE, a very well developed theme and enough options to keep being interesting.

The Artwork is the same deal as LNOE, meaning that it's manipulated photographs. Either you like the style or you don't, I like it, but in the same breath I'll say that for the next independent game from FF they need something different, the photos will work again, but maybe the designer should use a different tool to manipulate the pics. Check out some of the art on Deviantart.com if you want to know what I mean.

Also it is very important to note that the woman playing the part of the Noble woman is the most beautiful woman I've seen in my life. Feel free to let her know.


The Bad:

Can there really be anything bad? Yes, unfourtunatly I think there is a few things.

With superior counters, great minis and the best darn map in the world it is a shame that the other cards of the game has a horrible design.
The mystery deck, for instance, has the most hideous yellow color letters and the other decks seem uninteresting and in poor taste. Theres nothing wrong with the pictures, but the backsides of the decks are just screaming out that not enough effort was put into designing them. They look cheap and the AToE symbol (a red wax sigil) has no depht to it, it's just a 2 dimensional sigil without much texture.
It's a shame and it seems like a lazy solution.

And finally, the CD.
I appreciate the idea. It's a very good idea to have a theme music disc in the game, and there is nothing wrong with the music per-se, other than the fact that it is impossible to listen to without wanting to kill yourself.
The musician do have talent, she's captured some catchy tunes that reminds me of Dick Turpin and Sleepy hollow, unfourtunatly the mastering, mixing and production of the CD makes the music complete crap.
Every single instrument sounds synthetic and even the piano sounds like it came out of an AMIGA 500. It needs to be mastered better otherwise it is just a waste of space in the box, since I can't imagine anyone, but my tonedeaf granny to listen to it for more than 10 seconds before shutting it off.
Even Mozart would sound like zhit if he was mastered like this CD, so it has nothing to do with musical talent, it's just too cheap and there is way to much synth on the tracks.

Ouch, that was it only two bad things about the game and none of them are very important.
Once again Flying Frog made an amazing game and I would buy it again if I had to.
It's fun, good looking, but with a couple of quirks that I think could have been completely avoided if FF had put a little more effort into the design.
Ofcourse, you probably aren't as petty with that sort of thing as I am.

or are you?

Steph