The Shivers family has been seeing some weird things happening at Fogmoor Manor lately and they need your help to investigate! Explore a variety of peculiar adventures within the strange (and perhaps haunted) mansion down the street, with the help of a designated storyteller and some amazing pop-up papercraft!
What Is The Shivers?
The Shivers is a family-weight, pop-up mystery adventure game for 2-5 players, ages 14 and up, that takes about 45-60 minutes per scenario to play. The gameplay, however, is much lighter than the 14+ tag suggests and can easily be played with kids as young as 5 or 6, especially with an adult as the storyteller (aka GM), so make sure to take the age range with a grain of salt.
The game is available for purchase online at its official website: theshiversgame.com. The core game is being sold for $75 and the first two expansions are available together for $40. The publisher is also launching a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter for three brand new expansion packs that go live soon—you can follow updates for that project here.
The Shivers was designed by Andy Logan, with illustrations by Bill Tiller and papercraft engineering by Renee Jablow, and was published by Pop Fiction Games.
The Shivers (Deluxe Game) Components
- 8 playable episodes with Episode Guides
- 6 pop-up room modules
- 2 layout tiles
- 6 character standees
- 6 character dashboards
- 1 create-your-own character pack
- 1 Dog playable character with standee
- 1 Cat playable character with standee
- 55 NPC creature standees
- 12 standee bases
- 3 colored game dice
- 2 dry-erase markers
- 2 magnifying glasses
- 1 Storyteller’s Companion
- 1 Lore Booklet
- 1 instruction manual
- Expansion Pack #1
- Expansion Pack #2
Undoubtedly, the coolest part of The Shivers is its main selling point—the pop-up room modules. Each and every one of the rooms included in the game is meticulously constructed and beautifully illustrated to create an immersive storytelling experience. We did find that some of the rooms needed to be opened up more than others to get all of the elements to pop up, and some of the smaller doors and latches took a little jimmying to come loose, but with a game that includes this level of detail, I think some minor finagling is to be expected. Either way, regardless of any finicky bits, these three-dimensional rooms encourage players to interact with the environment in new and different ways, making them an amazing resource when introducing new players into the world of role-playing and story-led gaming.
The standees for both the characters and the creatures are nicely produced, although I do feel that they could stand to be a little smaller—we played once at the max player count and had a hard time finding space for them to all stand up in the same room. The episode guides and the storytelling resources were all laid out nicely and were easy to understand, especially for someone who has GMed before. All in all, the physical experience of the game is striking from the moment you open your first room, but the question is: how does it play?
How to Play The Shivers
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of The Shivers is to solve the mystery at hand, an adventure that is presented in groups of episodes that tell a cohesive story together. In order to solve said mystery, you’ll need to explore the strange pop-up rooms at the Fogmoor Manor and use the clues that you discover to unlock doors, solve puzzles, and defeat monsters on your way to uncovering the many secrets of the Fogmoor estate.
Setup
The setup for The Shivers begins by deciding who the designated storyteller will be. This person will act as the GM for the session and will facilitate the other players’ journey through the adventure. Once you’ve made your decision, the newly minted storyteller will now take the Episode Guide for the scenario and begin putting the environment together.
The Episode Guide will tell you exactly which rooms are needed as well as which NPC standees you’ll need to collect for this scenario. Once you’ve set aside the correct rooms, the storyteller will need to insert the correct Story Cards into the slot at the top of each room. This will change the images and clues in the background of each room and will also provide the storyteller with some hidden information to help them know what’s happening on the front side of each room. It should also be noted that not every room should be revealed at the beginning of the scenario; you can find a Room Layout Map on the back of the Peculiar Parlor Story Card that will show you the final layout and let you know the order in which the players will reveal each room. If you’re the storyteller, make sure to keenly reference this map during setup so that you can know which rooms to start with and which ones to uncover later for dramatic effect!
The Episode Guide will also give the storyteller some pertinent information about that specific episode as well as a Series Summary to help them understand the overarching plot points that carry through each episode and can make the adventure feel even more immersive. As they peruse the Episode Guide, the storyteller will also put the NPC standees included in the scenario onto their standee bases, leaving them behind their GM screen (the game recommends you use the box cover) until they are instructed to place them into a room.
While the storyteller is prepping the session, the other players will go through the different player characters and choose one to play with, grabbing their respective standee and character dashboard. Each character dashboard has a short backstory, some special abilities, and some unique fears on them that will help both with role-playing and with actual game mechanics. On the back of these boards is a quick rundown of tips and tricks for playing the game, so make sure to familiarize yourself with this before you get started!
In addition to their playable characters, the players can also take out the three decision dice, the magnifying glasses, and the dry-erase markers and put them in the play area. The game also recommends using a flashlight, although there is not one included in the box, but if you have one on hand, feel free to pull it out.
Once everyone is ready and the scene is set, the storyteller will read the brief introduction on the Episode Guide to let players get a glimpse of the perils that await them, and then the game is afoot—it’s time to start playing The Shivers!
Gameplay
The Shivers at its core is a role-playing, choose-your-own-adventure type of game, so talking about the specifics of “gameplay” is a bit of an exercise in futility, since it’s different for every episode, but here are some of the main mechanics that carry over from scenario to scenario.
The storyteller is going to be leading the adventure narratively by helping to describe the surroundings and revealing clues as the players discover them. In the Episode Guide, there are specified steps that act as plot points for the storyteller to guide the players through—once the players trigger the next item on the list of steps, which often requires them to solve a puzzle or unlock a door, the storyteller can move to the next point and activate any new characters or dialogue that becomes available.
If you are playing as one of the playable characters, your job is to collect as much information as possible to solve the mystery. Just like in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, you’ll each take turns doing one action which represents about 5 seconds worth of activity. You can use this action to do any number of things, like inspecting different elements on the scene or exploring new rooms, but the success of your ventures will always be determined by the storyteller.
It is highly encouraged to lean into the role-playing element of this game by taking actions that are informed by your character’s backstory or motivated by their fears. This really helps narrow down the action space for players that are new to narrative-driven games and need some help settling into the improvisation and lack of structure.
If you’re attempting to do an action that could potentially have varying degrees of success, the storyteller will use the colored dice to determine its effectiveness. For any of these types of actions, it’s up to the storyteller’s discretion to choose which category this action falls into: Simplified, Challenging, or Difficult. Once decided, you or the player in question will roll the respective green, blue, or red die and take the result. The results can be either “it works!”, “kinda works”, “doesn’t work”, or “backfire!” and are represented with different distributions on each different die. Once the effect has been determined, the storyteller must now describe the consequences of the actions and resolve the turn.
Game End
Play will continue on with the players taking actions and the storyteller guiding them through the adventure until they reach the Endgame. Without giving away any spoilers, the Endgame will often begin by forcing players to take a Freak Out action which pushes them out of the dangerous situation and into a neutral location so they can collect their thoughts and come up with a plan. Typically, there will be some sort of boss monster or puzzle to solve (or both!), and once players have come up with a solution and successfully acted upon it, the storyteller will move to the conclusion section of the Episode Guide and read it aloud.
Why You Should Play The Shivers
The Shivers is a one-of-a-kind experience. The combination of the guided storytelling and the elaborate backdrops make it feel unlike anything I’ve ever played before, which, as a seasoned gamer, is pretty hard to find these days. That being said, I think this game overall might end up being a bit polarizing. I can see this game being perfect for some specific niches and falling flat for others, so let’s begin by talking about my experience with the game and the types of people that I think would really like this one, and then go from there.
In my plays of The Shivers, I got to play as both the storyteller and a character on separate occasions. As the storyteller, there were many appealing factors that made it super easy to pick up and overall an enjoyable experience. First of all, the game comes with a Storyteller’s Companion to key newcomers into some useful tips and tricks for running this game and storytelling games in general. In addition to that, the tutorial episode included in the game does a great job of not only introducing the core concepts of the game but also easing the storyteller into their responsibilities. The Episode Guides provide ample hints and prompts to help develop characters and dialogue and add drama to the triggered events in the scenario.
As someone with previous GMing experience, I didn’t end up using many of the prompts, but the fact that they were there gave me hope that someone with no experience at all could easily give this a go and be successful. And in fact, in a later play of the game, we did have a first-time GM try it out and they had a blast! So if you have always wanted to get into GMing or you know someone who’s interested but doesn’t know where to start, The Shivers is a perfect intro to learning this skill. It’s got just enough structure that you don’t feel like you have to improvise everything, but still plenty of wiggle room to add your flavor and personal style to the mix.
With that said, I should also add that if you’re already an experienced GM, then you might be disappointed at the level of the structure included. If you’re someone who prefers more chaos and improvisation, the linear progression of each episode might feel a little too railroad-y for you, and even though there are often multiple solutions to the bigger puzzles in each campaign, oftentimes it may feel like your results are predetermined.
Now as a player, the experience was a little bit different. As we were exploring the manor and collecting clues, I couldn’t help but feel that we were just stuck going through the same cycle over and over again: explore a new room, search all the doors, collect all the clues, and then move to the next room. The puzzles all seemed fairly simple and because there weren’t too many of them floating around at the same time, there was very little simultaneous investigation, meaning that every player ended up just focusing on the same puzzle. This was certainly alleviated when I played with 2 players, but with a max player count, there was definitely some downtime between turns and some actions that felt much more valuable than others.
As a semi-experienced RPG player, I began to feel like the whole thing was a bit too scripted… that was until I started observing the ten-year-old at the table. She wasn’t making sure that all of her actions were purposeful and working towards an end goal. She was simply playing as her character and doing things that her character would do, and she was having loads of fun doing it too! I realized then that I had been playing this game all wrong. The Shivers isn’t a quest game nor is it a detective mystery thriller. The Shivers is a game that emphasizes storytelling and encourages players to simply explore and see what happens.
So with that in mind, I’ll say that if you’re new to the world of RPGs or if you have younger friends that are interested in experiencing this storytelling style, then you should definitely check this game out. And if you’re a grizzled veteran of the RPG community and you’re used to improvising everything in a theater-of-the-mind setting, then release yourself from that and just enjoy the lightness of this game and the intricacy of its sets.
All in all, The Shivers provides a unique storytelling experience with super light RPG storytelling mechanics that are accessible to all. It’s got fun stories with diverse characters, all told in front of these magnificent papercraft backdrops—it’s like bedtime grew up! So if you’re a parent looking to introduce your kids into the RPG space, or if you just want an exciting storytelling experience with pop-ups that remind you of your childhood, then might I suggest The Shivers?
For more information about The Shivers, visit their official website.
Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.
To subscribe to GeekDad’s tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
