Stone AnimalsOverview: Stone Animals is a four player competitive board game. Players have the option of playing as Catherine, Henry, Tilly or Carleton. (The cat, King Spanky, is “wild” and is moved around on the board by all players.) Each character possesses special skills that the player can use to his/her advantage to win. Players take turns rolling the dice and collecting cards based on which spot they choose to land on. The winner is the first player to collect 10 points.

Narrative: Henry and Catherine just moved into a new house, their dream house, or so they thought. They have two children, Tilly and Carleton, and another one on the way. Henry is rarely home, as he has not yet moved his office from his work to his home. Catherine is unemployed, or rather, her job is to get the new house unpacked and keep their children entertained. They moved from the big city to the country, and have a yard. The only problem is that it is constantly littered with white rabbits. They want the perfect life, they must obtain the perfect life, it is what is supposed to happen, right? One day Carleton decides he does not want to use his toothbrush anymore, and Tilly backs him up confirming that there is something wrong with it. Next, Henry is using the soap and it smells funny, even though there is nothing visibly wrong with it. He throws it away. The alarm clock all of a sudden seems strange, and the family buys a new one. Slowly, one by one, many of their possessions, ranging from a simple colander to the dishwasher, become “haunted”, unusable and are thrown away. Catherine is convinced that if she paints each room the perfect color, or combination of colors, their objects will stop feeling so foreign and haunted inside of the new house. She paints everyday, repainting walls over and over. The family has deep seeded issues. Catherine resents the angry

Genre: Horror; Board Game

child in her belly, and Henry for never being home. The children refuse to make friends with real children, and have become obsessed with the rabbits. Henry loves his job more than his family, but finds out too late how much this is true. Eventually Henry’s home office, the cat, King Spanky and even Carleton become haunted. Everything seems to be spiraling out of control, but in slow motion. Henry is so disconnected from his family’s life that he has never met any of the neighbors or Catherine’s new friends from her book club and has promised to be at a dinner party she is hosting so that everyone can meet, finally. He has promised to be there, but is running late and finds the train home, and his bicycle to be completely haunted. Meanwhile, Tilly finds a tiny door while looking at the trees that her mother has painted in the hallway. She opens it to find many rabbits, and disappears with them while Carleton is outside hitting the rabbits with a stick. Henry comes home late and sees everyone eating through the window. He thinks positively about his life, about Catherine and the children. He notices that the rabbits on the lawn are all looking at him, and he sees they have been waiting for him all this time. He climbs on a rabbit, and looks at his hand that is suddenly holding a spear. “In a little while, the dinner party will be over, and the war will begin.”

Environment: The environment that the game is played is on a board that resembles the imaginary floorplan of the house and front yard of Henry and Catherine.

Core Gameplay: Beginning the Game:

The board has numbers that correspond to each room of the house, as well as portions of the yard. Objects are arranged on the board three per region with a number. Rabbits are placed around the board as well, one per numbered region. All players start at the front door, and the youngest player begins.

Players will take turns rolling the dice and moving around on the board. Players collect paint swatches that correspond to the space they are on. (Keep these secret from other players.) Once a player has a certain amount of cards that correspond to a particular object, a player trades these cards in for a bit (with their player color on it) and places it in the room and takes the object piece that they just “bought.”

If one of the adult players has bought out an entire room of objects, they can go into “dream mode” and travel all over the board without rolling the dice, including the insides of the walls.

Players can choose to purchase a character card instead of a haunted object. There are meanings that apply to each character and could result in an extra point, or can damage the other players in some way. Players can also land on these cards in two spots on the board.

King Spanky can only be moved by players who roll a 9. This player can now move the haunted cat into whatever region they wish, and no other player can go there until he is moved out. If a player is in this region, they must surrender a card to that player (by fanning the cards face down, the player takes one.)

Characters:

Henry: Father, workaholic, absent. Can use work as an excuse to leave the house with out rolling dice. Can go into “dream mode”. Does not have access to insides of walls, except in “dream mode”.

Catherine: Mother, pregnant, irritable. Can travel room to room without rolling dice. Can go into “dream mode”. Does not have access to insides of walls, except in “dream mode”. Tilly: Daughter, imaginative, angry. Has access to the insides of the walls. Cannot go into “dream mode”.

Carleton: Son, naïve, afraid. Has access to the insides of the walls. Cannot go into “dream mode”.