Based on the Hostage Negotiator system, players build a hand of action cards to use. When you play an action, you roll a certain number of dice based on a track, and the number of successes you roll affects the outcome of the action. The difference is that you have three boards instead of one, and all actions cost time.
The game comes in two parts. The Core Box contains most of the tokens, dice, and other items needed to play the game at all, while the Feature Films provide the Final Girls, Killers, and maps to be played on, many with their own special rules. Any combination of Final Girl, Killer, and map can be used together, allowing for a massive degree of customization and flexibility the more Feature Films you acquire.
Final Girl is broken up into Series, each consisting of five Feature Films and one or more Vignettes (the same Core Box can be used for a Feature Film of any Series). To date, two Series have come out, with a third series receiving a successful Kickstarter in the fourth quarter of 2023 (with a projected release date of October 2024).
Series and Expansions
Series One:
- Happy Trails Horror (Hans the Butcher and Camp Happy Trails; based on Friday the 13th)
- The Haunting of Creech Manor (The Poltergeist and Creech Manor; based on Poltergeist (1982))
- Slaughter in the Groves (Inkanyamba and the Sacred Groves)
- Carnage at the Carnival (Geppetto the Puppet Master and the Carnival of Blood; based on Puppet Master)
- Frightmare on Maple Lane (Dr. Fright and Maple Lane; based on A Nightmare on Elm Street)
- Terror From Above (Killer Birds; based on The Birds; Melanie later gets a Final Girl item envelope by S3)
Series Two:
- Into the Void (The Evomorph and USS Konrad; based on Alien)
- Panic at Station 2891 (The Organism and Station 2891; based on The Thing (1982))
- A Knock at the Door (The Intruders and Wingard Cottage; based on The Strangers)
- Once Upon a Full Moon (The Big Bad Wolf and Storybook Woods; based on Little Red Riding Hood)
- Madness in the Dark (The Ratchet Lady and Wolfe Asylum; based on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Silent Hill)
- Terror From the Grave (Based on many Zombie Apocalypse films; Patsy later gets a Final Girl item envelope by S3)
Series Three (not yet released):
- The Killer From Tomorrow (The H.U.N.T.E.R. and Sunnydaze Mall; based on The Terminator)
- Hell to Pay (Razorface and the Hellscape; based on Hellraiser)
- The Falconwood Files (The Slayer and Falconwood; based on Stranger Things)
- The Marrek Murders (The Tormentor and Marrek Warehouse; based on Saw)
- Don't Make a Sound (The Eyeless and Utopia; based on A Quiet Place and Tremors)
- Terror From Destiny (The Grim Reaper; Based on Final Destination)
Special Features:
- North Pole Nightmare (Krampus and Santa's Village)
Other Expansions:
- Box of Props: A box released alongside Series Two that contains deluxe components, a set of ultimate dice that can be used in place of unlocking the Final Girl's ultimate ability, a desperation die with the book of desperate deaths, signature action cards, and two promo Final Girls from The Dark Quarter (who later get Final Girl item envelopes by S3).
- Lore and Scenario Books: Each series has one that has lore for each killer and various scenarios for them, as well as the different locations.
- Sequel Final Girls:
- Carolyn's Revenge
- Grandma's Grudge
- Promo Final Girls:
- Paula (later got her own FG item envelope)
- Jamie
- Miniature packs.
- Series Boxes: Each contains an SFX box (contains the playmat for the series and/or other items), a Cast and Crew box (used to store the Final Girls, their minis, their items, as well as the vignette and its miniatures) and a bonus features box (contains epic finales for all the killers released in the series and a collected rulebook for both killers and locations with achievements as well as space to store the Lore and Scenario and Gruesome Death books). These boxes store all feature films released in that series.
- Tears Dice: These dice have symbols for tears where the blank faces are and are used alongside a special tear tracker. You only gain tears if you fail a horror roll, which can be used to gain benefits.
- Mystery Boxes: Each series has one released that is Kickstarter exclusive.
- Gruesome Death Books: Each location has one for each killer released in the series it comes from, detailing the victims' deaths depending on what's going on. They are both available digitally and physically.
This game includes examples of:
- Achievement System: Each killer and location has an achievement section in the collected rulebooks for the killers and locations for each series. The Final Girl Companion app collects all of them into one place.
- Action Girl: All the girls can become this to some degree, though some are more fit for it than others at the start. For example, Jenette from "Into the Void" is a mercenary.
- Action Survivor: Most of the playable girls are regular women with little to no combat experience, but they're forced to rise to the task to slay a dangerous killer.
- Adaptive Ability: As the H.U.N.T.E.R. targets the Final Girl most of the time and not victims, their bloodlust increases every time the Final Girl attacks them, or the H.U.N.T.E.R. attacks the Final Girl, as a mechanical implementation of this trope.
- All There in the Manual: Each series has a lore and scenario book detailing the killers' and Final Girls' backstories.
- Always Female: Thus far, all of the playable characters are female. After all, the trope isn't called "Final Boy".
- An Asskicking Christmas: North Pole Nightmare involves the Final Girl facing against Krampus, with Mrs Claus being one of the Final Girls in the set, which may also occur in Santa's Village as the player chooses.
- Cannon Fodder: Victims are helpless on their own, unable to so much as move without the Final Girl's assistance (unless circumstances cause them to panic, in which case they rush blindly around the map based on die rolls).
- Cap: The health of both the Final Girl and the killer can't exceed the printed amount. The token on the health track with the +1 die adrenaline bonus counts as the last hit point for both the Final Girl and the killer. The Rachet Lady and Mrs Claus (as an Ultimate Ability) have a soft cap and can go beyond the starting amount.
- Car Fu: The Golf-Cart in the Carnival of Blood can deal damage to enemies when you move with it into them. If playing with some locations with Terror From the Grave, the vehicles can be used to mow down zombies and can only be used with a special vehicle action card.
- Cast from Hit Points:
- Charlie's ultimate ability allows you to spend a few hearts of health to grab the "Critical Blow" action. Her hammer also has that property, can only be used if she has 2 or more health and loses 1 health after using it, then ends the turn. To make up for it, she's durable herself at 7 HP.
- Melanie's ultimate allows her to spend 2 hearts of health to deal two damage to all enemies in her location.
- Dual Boss: Any game involving The Intruders will pit you against three killers. The Organism has the potential to have up to 3 killers at once.
- Escort Mission:
- When playing against the Poltergeist, the goal is not to kill the (invincible) Killer but instead to locate and rescue Carolyn, a little girl trapped on the map. She counts as an Item, so she can't be attacked, but she can be taken from you and cannot be discarded. One of the Poltergeist's Dark Powers also forces you to find and retrieve her stuffed animal. If you're playing as Teenage Carolyn from Carolyn's Revenge against the Poltergeist, the escort mission is omitted as that version of Carolyn has a different win condition.
- To win in Terror From Above, you must rescue all special victims, with difficulty adjusted by the number you need to rescue.
- Expy: See here.
- Feathered Fiend: Terror From Above involves the Final Girl facing hordes of killer birds and taking them down, a la The Birds. The goal when facing them is to rescue special victims that will pop up if there are no normal victims on the board or the Final Girl activates their ultimate ability.
- Final Girl: Natch. Every box introduces two new Final Girls, each with their own abilities and special powers. Still, they all have the same goal – rescue the other Victims and take down the Killer. Some promo Final Girls are also available as Guest Fighters, some from another VRG game titled The Dark Quarter and cameos like Paula Deming and Jamie.
- Formula-Breaking Episode:
- Any game with the Poltergeist changes the win condition – the Poltergeist is completely invulnerable, and the goal is instead finding a little girl (Carolyn) and getting her out of the map. This becomes omitted if you're playing with Carolyn's Revenge against the Poltergeist and such, the item card of Carolyn alongside her doll, and the Poltergeist's Dark Powers, Epic Finales and Terror cards relating to Carolyn are removed, as Teenage Carolyn has a different win condition.
- Slaughter in the Groves is the first Feature Film that isn't based on any particular piece of horror media.
- A game against the Organism can have up to three Killers, as three Victims are marked as "Exposed"; each one must be tested, and only up to two can be "safe".
- Madness in the Dark is the first Feature Film based partly on a video game. It's also the first Feature Film to draw inspiration from more than one source.
- The Killer From Tomorrow, being based on The Terminator, is the first feature film based on a thriller franchise and the first to base it on two movies in the same series.
- The Falconwood Files, being based on Stranger Things, is the first Feature Film based on a TV show.
- Because A Quiet Place has no actual "central" location, Don't Make a Sound is the first Feature Film where the Killer and Map are based on different movies. Said location is based on Tremors.
- Fractured Fairytale: Once Upon a Full Moon may take place in Storybook Woods, a map based on many different fairy tales, and you may face the Big Bad Wolf (implied to be a werewolf). You may also play as Red or Gretel to take on the killer.
- Fun with Acronyms: Crosses over with A.I.-cronym. The H.U.N.T.E.R.'s full name is Human-like aUtomaton for Necessary Threat Elimination and Removal.
- Gorn: The Gruesome Death booklets are a list of gruesome deaths that happen to any victims caught by the Killer. Each Series has one, with deaths for each Killer on each map in that Series.
- Grimmification: Once Upon a Full Moon is a more morbid take on the classic fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood.
- Guest Fighter: Promo Final Girls are considered to be this trope as they are usually based on other games Van Ryder has published, or people whom VRG has a good relationship with:
- Paula from the YouTube channel Things Get Dicey is a playable Final Girl. Jamie, from Foster the Meeple, now Director of Marketing of Van Ryder Games, got the same treatment. By series 3, Paula eventually got her own FG item envelope due to popular demand.
- Some promo Final Girls from another VRG game titled The Dark Quarter are included with the Box of Props in series 2. They eventually got an FG item envelope each as well.
- Homage: To various pieces of horror media.
- Humanoid Abomination: Some of the killers look human, but they display features and abilities that imply there's something not altogether natural about them. The Ratchet Lady in particular has the inexplicable ability to induce madness in Victims turning them into her personal minions.
- Iconic Item: The special Final Girl items are meant to invoke this as they can only be used by the Final Girls in question. Those items are prominently on display in their miniatures and series box art.
- Idiosyncratic Cover Art: Each box that stores all of the content of one series can be placed together so that their fronts align and form a singular long image.
- Instant-Win Condition:
- No matter what else is happening on the board, if the Killer is permanently taken out, you win, meaning the Final Girl may successfully perform a Taking You with Me.
- When playing against the Poltergeist, you win if you find and escort Carolyn to an exit.
- The USS Konrad has two other possible win conditions: collect all four clearance cards, activate the self-destruct sequence and get into an escape-pod, or collect three of them, unlock the airlock and have the killer be Thrown Out the Airlock (Unless if the killer has health on their final token).
- Last Chance Hit Point: The Final Girl and the Killer have a token where their last health point should be. When they would be killed, they flip the token. If there's nothing on the other side, they die; otherwise, they get either one, two, or three hearts, but the token is replaced with a white health token. Once they lose that token, they're dead.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Big Bad Wolf's highest possible speed is one of the fastest killers and can deal up to 6 damage per attack.
- Limit Break: As listed on the Final Girl's card, you can gain various bonuses by successfully leading Victims to an exit point. Once you rescue enough, you flip the card, gaining their ultimate ability. Subsequent victim rescues after unlocking the Final Girl ability also reward you with bonuses as listed below the ultimate.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: Wearing the Red Cape in the Storybook Woods will cause the killer prioritize the Final Girl over the Victims in the case of a tie. This can be bad, but in certain situations, you can also turn it to your advantage.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: Red from "From Once Upon a Full Moon" is the stand-in for Little Red Riding Hood. She wears a red hoodie, always keeps the hood up, and goes toe to toe against the Big Bad Wolf (or any other killer you pit her against).
- Luck-Based Mission: How many Killers you have to defeat when facing the Organism is up to luck. Three "Exposed" Victims are on the board at the start; each time you test one, they'll either be Infected (and become the Organism) or Safe, determined by a draw from a separate deck. At first there's a one-in-three chance they're Infected, but each time you find a Safe Victim, that Safe card is discarded; ultimately, you'll always have to face at least one.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic:
- The lower you go on the horror track, the more dice you can roll per coloured zone on the track. Green allows you to roll 3, white 2 and red 1.
- If a die lands on a near-miss symbol (3 or 4), you may discard two action cards to turn it into a success symbol. If you have played and resolved the "Improvise" action card, all 3s and 4s count as successes whether it's the next horror roll or until the action phase ends depending on how successful your resolution of the "Improvise" action is.
- One particular action card, "Close Call", allows you to reroll a single die, or spend two time to reroll all dice, before a horror roll is resolved.
- If you play the "Planning" action card, the next horror roll will use extra dice, with the number of dice that can be rolled depending on how successfully you resolved it.
- If the Final Girl or the killer is down to their last health point, the Final Girl experiences adrenaline. This means you roll an extra die if you and/or the killer has one health point, but if you have more than one health, you don't have that bonus.
- Selena's ultimate ability allows her to roll two more dice when resolving a search action.
- Alice's ultimate ability has her assigning a particular action to have five dice rolled regardless of what happens on the board.
- Asami's ultimate ability has her draw an extra item card when searching and is immune to the Carnival of Blood's trap items.
- Nancy's ultimate ability is used whenever she loses health; you may reveal a final health token and replace the one on her board.
- Paula's ultimate ability allows you to roll an extra die when you'd usually roll one. If it's a terror card or event requiring you to roll a single die or in the panic phase, you must pick one of the two dice results.
- Magikarp Power: Kate starts out with only 4 health, making her one of the more fragile Final Girls. However, if you save enough Victims to unlock her Ultimate Ability, her health cap will be increased to 7, turning her into one of the sturdier ones. Better yet, she gets an extra die when she's at full heath, and her Iconic Item does damage equal to the amount of health she currently has.
- Malevolent Masked Man:
- Hans is a cannibalistic butcher who wears a metal humiliation mask in the shape of a boar.
- The Intruders are a trio of serial killers all wearing different masks. One of their Dark Powers even gives your Final Girl masklophobia.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Beginning with series 3, sequel Final Girl packs contain Final Girls, which function differently than the ones you get from feature film boxes and promos. These packs replace some of the action cards for their unique gameplay mechanics and also add some more action cards:
- Carolyn's Revenge involves the titular Carolyn (originally simply the escort that the Final Girl needs to stop the Poltergeist from taking away. Cards relating to the younger Carolyn are subsequently removed if playing against the Poltergeist as Teenage Carolyn), who is a psychic. She has a different win condition: banish the killer into limbo by making them accumulate enough psychic damage and successfully play Psychic Expulsion.
- Grandma's Grudge involves the titular Grandmother of Red, who cannot sprint and only one health because she's ailing; victims will move towards her if they panic as she's a Magnetic Hero and can rally the victims to take out the killer, can make traps, and has a carpet bag with Knitting Needles, Knick-Knacks and the Good Plates, which may need to be sacrificed.
- Mighty Glacier:
- Hans the Butcher is slow, with a movement speed that starts at 1 and can potentially go up to 3. Meanwhile, his base health is 12, the highest of all the killers, and his attacks can take off as much as 5 points of health per attack, and he can attack as many as four times per turn depending on what Dark Power and Finale he gets, making him potentially the most damaging one as well.
- The Super Loder from "Into the Void" turns you into one when you get into it. It adds 2 damage to your attacks and reduces damage you take from enemies, but it reduces all your movement by 1 space, making getting around the ship in it a hassle.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: Vignettes do not come with boards, either map or Killer. Instead, they have special Bloodlust cards that represent an escalating situation (flocks of killer birds, hordes of zombies, etc.), the appropriate Terror, Action, and other cards, and tokens to stand for the attacking entities, packed in a deck-sized box, usable with any map.
- Mobile Maze: The Hellscape location has four tiles on its board that connect to other parts of the map. During the Killer Phase, the Hellscape can shift, which is determined by the 2 d8 dice. The Final Girl also has a special action card to be used only with this location that allows them to shift the Hellscape in their favour.
- Never Mess with Granny: Grandma from Grandma's Grudge is meant to invoke this, as the premise in the context of Once Upon a Full Moon is that she becomes the Final Girl when Red gets murdered. She may be frail (only has one health and healing action cards are replaced) and slow (Walk and Sprint cards get replaced by Slow and steady walk cards, respectively), but charismatic, wise and more collected (she rolls an extra die in horror rolls due to her being on adrenaline all the time). This means she can move victims with "Gather the Herd" call for help when she's about to be attacked, can prevent bloodlust increases with a special action card, and her main playstyle is to rally the victims to take down the killer.
- New Game Plus: Each Final Girl has an item envelope containing an item that can only be used with that Final Girl. You unlock it by surviving a game, as said FG.
- Non-Standard Game Over: The default loss condition is for the Final Girl to die. However, some Killers and maps have alternate loss conditions:
- When playing Terror From Above, you lose if there are ever three birds in every space on the map.
- When playing Terror From The Grave, you lose if three Hordes are on the map, and a fourth would be created.
- If playing on the USS Konrad and the self-destruct sequence is activated, you lose if you're not in an escape pod the next turn.
- When playing on Sunnydaze Mall, you lose if the Savior is killed.
- If you roll the Desperation Die, you lose if it lands on the skull and crossbones.
- No Saving Throw: If you play a game with the Tormenter, the Final Girl may end up in a trap. If the trap track ends up on the red end, the Final Girl is instantly killed, and there's no coming back for her.
- Not Quite Dead: Comes as a built-in mechanic to reflect how in horror films, killers often get up again or heroes gain a second wind after getting seemingly killed. Whenever a Killer or Final Girl's health reaches zero, there is a chance they can revive depending on how many hearts are on the back of their Final Health Token.
- One Game for the Price of Two: The Core Box is necessary to play the game at all, but you need at least one Feature Film to use it.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder:
- Under normal circumstances, barring certain special victims, the Victims will die the instant the Killer attacks them.
- The titular Grandma Final Girl from Grandma's Grudge literally only has one health because she's frail. To make up for it, it means she is on adrenaline for the entirety of the game she's in, as it allows her to roll an extra die in any horror roll.
- One-Steve Limit: The Final Girl included in "Terror From The Grave" is based, visually, on the version of Barbara that appears in Night of the Living Dead (1990). However, as there was already a Final Girl named Barbara (from Slaughter in the Groves), she's instead called Patsy (after the actress who played her, Patricia Tallman). This is to ensure that the FG item envelopes wouldn't get mixed up and also to more easily identify each Final Girl.
- Packaged as Other Medium: The feature film boxes are all sized similarly to VHS boxes, and as such, the SFX crates are designed to look like VCR systems.
- Painting the Medium: In each series box, the box that houses the Final Girls with their miniatures and their items, alongside the series vignette and their miniatures, is labelled "Cast and Crew". The boxes that house the lore books, gruesome deaths books and compiled rulebooks for the killers and locations are labelled as "Bonus Features". Series 2 also has another box titled "Box of Props", with many extras.
- Player Cruelty Potential:
- One Wolfe Asylum event gives you a gurney you can transport Victims on. Alternatively, you can push it down a corridor to deal damage to an enemy... or you can put the Victims on the gurney and then push it at an enemy, dealing more damage but killing the Victim(s) and raising bloodlust.
- When dealing with the Organism, if you don't want to go through the trouble of testing Exposed Victims, you can find creative ways to kill them instead, like leaving them outside Station 2891 to die of frostbite or blowing them out of the airlock on the U.S.S. Konrad. Doing so will fulfill the same purpose as a test, with the added caveat that if they weren't infected, the Bloodlust will go up.
- If playing on the U.S.S. Konrad, you can opt to just blow the ship up without evacuating anyone prior. As long as you survive, it'll count as a win.
- Power at a Price: Nancy's Machettes have a whopping 3 damage, but when equipped in her hands, victims won't follow her, and if she enters the killer's space, the bloodlust goes up by 1.
- Practically Joker: Geppetto is a vicious showman-themed murderer with an eerie pale face, a perpetual Slasher Smile, and a dark sense of humor.
- Promoted to Playable: Carolyn becomes a playable Final Girl in Carolyn's Revenge, now a teenager with her own mechanics. Grandma also gets that treatment with Grandma's Grudge.
- Purposely Overpowered: The Amped cards you can unlock in Wolfe Asylum are really game-breaking. One turns the Furious Attack card into a zero-cost action for the rest of the game, one permanently gives you an extra die to roll, and another lets you take another Final Girl's ultimate ability on top of the one she already has. Getting them is tricky though, as you need to acquire and swallow three pills of different colors and draw three Side Effect cards.
- Sanity Meter: The Horror track could be considered this, being a measure of the level of fear the Final Girl is feeling. If you can lower it enough by doing actions like focusing, you'll get an extra die to use in all your horror rolls, but if it gets too high, you lose a die.
- Sequential Boss: Facing the H.U.N.T.E.R. involves two killers you have to face; once you defeat the first one, you are given time before the next one comes. You can then reassemble the first H.U.N.T.E.R. to help face off against the second one.
- Starter Villain: The Happy Trails Horror, as the first Feature Film released, is designed to properly introduce the game to new players, with no special rules for either Hans or the map. It was even bundled with the core box at one point.
- Taking You with Me: In the unlikely case that both the Final Girl and the Killer strike a mutual kill against one another, it's considered a win for the player, for the girl made the ultimate sacrifice and stopped a vicious monster. Averted if you fail to escape the U.S.S. Konrad before it self-destructs; that's considered a loss.
- Teleportation: Teenage Carolyn has a special movement card that allows her to teleport but cannot take victims with her if she does.
- Timed Mission: The Poltergeist's finale card, "She Will Soon Be Lost", adds three Terror cards to your deck. You lose if you don't escape with Carolyn before the deck empties out. Doubles as a Luck-Based Mission, as if you fail to meet a Terror card's conditions, it may force you to discard it and draw the next one. Your best bet is to escape with Carolyn before you know what finale you're dealing with.
- Villain of Another Story: Some special victims end up being vicious killers that are completely unrelated to the actual Killer you're facing. They can include a werewolf in the Carnival of Blood or Hannibal the Cannibal in Wolfe Asylum. They can cause problems if left unchecked, and you're usually incentivized to find some way to kill them.
- Warp Whistle: If you're playing Terror From the Grave with the Sacred Groves, the vehicle you can find is a cable car that can transport you from one exit space to another.
- Weak, but Skilled: The Tormentor may only have a small amount of health, but makes up for it with their Death Traps. This killer will only show up in the location itself when the finale is revealed.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: When playing on the Sunnydaze Mall map, one Victim becomes "the Savior" - the boy who will save the world in the future. If he dies, you instantly lose. However, you can (by using special Action cards) earn his trust and convince him to get out of the mall; once he leaves, he's safe, and you can focus on the Killer.
- Would Hurt a Child: Some of the special victims can be children, such as Newt-like orphan girl or your Final Girl's little brother. The Killer will slay them like they would any other Victim. Worse, their deaths usually have bigger consequences than usual for you, like increased Horror on top of the usual boosts the Bloodlust.
- Xenomorph Xerox: The Evomorph from "Into the Void." It's a Giger-esque alien creature with no eyes, a crested head, and which rapidly matures after its larval form kills a victim.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Sunnydaze Mall has the Boy Saviour, a special victim that must not be killed, otherwise you lose the game. He starts off as untrusting of the Final Girl, but the Final Girl can play the special "Build Trust" action cards in order to make sure he leaves the map. You draw from the Saviour's trust action deck after the killer phase and apply its effects to see what happens, the higher the trust, the better the effects will be.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Games against Dr. Fright have you alternate between Awake and Asleep. You can only battle Dr. Fright when you're asleep, but this is also when you're most vulnerable. One of his dark powers also makes it so that he can still attack you, even if you're awake.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Terror From the Grave is a vignette pack that pits the final girl against a horde of zombies. You need to wipe them all out to win.
