Full disclosure... my wife and I play more to have fun and for the story, so we played on Easy.

Oh man... I LOVED the prologue. I loved how the entry text transitioned straight into the scenario. You read a half page about how the housekeeper is having a smoke break on the balcony and is then assaulted by a monster coalescing out of the night mist. You then start the scenario with a flashlight in play (because she's outside in the dark smoking), a knife in hand, standing in the balcony location and engaged with a Wraith enemy. It felt really seamless.

In terms of gameplay, it's more of a timed logic puzzle than a normal scenario. You know your resources and you know your challenges. The prologue has an effective seven round timer. The guardian character could technically go more than seven rounds, but you're stretching and wasting several actions to do so. The encounter deck is randomized, but can be handled.

It was really interesting to look at your hand of cards and make the decision on how to proceed. As an example, Penny (our housekeeper from above) threw the knife at the Wraith, killing it, and then proceeded to use her flashlight to have a look around and find two clues. After that, she went back inside to find someone to talk to, finding more clues along the way. Playing on Easy definitely made the game... easier! Other than the tentacle token, the worst outcome was a -3. With the cards in play and in hand, it was possible to pretty consistently take tests with a +3 versus the difficulty. This allowed us to pass most of the tests by judiciously using almost all of our cards.

I THINK we got a more or less optimal outcome, having found all of the clues and with all four prologue investigators disappearing into the mist (not telling you how that happens). The wife thinks that they'll come back as monsters, twisted by the mist. I'm more optimistic and think they might reappear to aid us at some point in a future scenario.

I thought it might make a really good introductory scenario for new players, given the limited options available and the foregone conclusion. Although, I'm not sure if following it up with The Witching Hour would create too steep of a learning curve. Of course, Midnight Masks isn't the most forgiving of scenarios either.

1 hour ago, KrisWall said:

I THINK we got a more or less optimal outcome, having found all of the clues and with all four prologue investigators disappearing into the mist (not telling you how that happens). The wife thinks that they'll come back as monsters, twisted by the mist. I'm more optimistic and think they might reappear to aid us at some point in a future scenario.

Nicely done. We managed to get all clues, but couldn't make it to seven doom (I blame myself for a Fate of All Fools misplay). We managed to get one person claimed by spectres, one person pulled into the spectral realm, and one person taken by the Watcher, so we'll be able to report on all the various fates eventually.

My guess is that being claimed by spectres turns you into a ghost, being taken by the Watcher powers him up once he reveals his true form and we finally fight him for real, being pulled into the spectral realm just means you turn up dead later on, and vanishing into the mists lets you come back as a story ally (though not necessarily a living one).

1 hour ago, rsdockery said:

Nicely done. We managed to get all clues, but couldn't make it to seven doom (I blame myself for a Fate of All Fools misplay). We managed to get one person claimed by spectres, one person pulled into the spectral realm, and one person taken by the Watcher, so we'll be able to report on all the various fates eventually.

My guess is that being claimed by spectres turns you into a ghost, being taken by the Watcher powers him up once he reveals his true form and we finally fight him for real, being pulled into the spectral realm just means you turn up dead later on, and vanishing into the mists lets you come back as a story ally (though not necessarily a living one).

It was super dicey. Two of the four were solidly going to live until the end of round 7. For the last pair, they were in the same room with the Spectral Watcher. We had a choice to make. We could sacrifice one of the players to ensure the other made it OR we could risk an attack. Both players only had 1 health left and a missed attack would trigger retaliate with the end result being both players dying. We decided to risk it and passed a fight test where we needed a 0 or better. Got a +1.

I wasn’t a big fan of it personally. Adds another layer of set up to the game that I thought was unnecessary.

3 hours ago, zeromage said:

I wasn’t a big fan of it personally. Adds another layer of set up to the game that I thought was unnecessary.

I solved some of the setup problem by making proxy cards for the prologue investigator decks, this way you just have a normal set up.

23 minutes ago, sfo2018 said:

I solved some of the setup problem by making proxy cards for the prologue investigator decks, this way you just have a normal set up.

I’m not even sure you need proxy cards. You could probably have a single page print out for each prologue deck with the card info on it and use tokens to indicate which cards have been played, charges remaining, etc. Print it once and reuse each time you play.

11 hours ago, Eeyogre said:

I’m not even sure you need proxy cards. You could probably have a single page print out for each prologue deck with the card info on it and use tokens to indicate which cards have been played, charges remaining, etc. Print it once and reuse each time you play.

Cute variation, would have saved the cutting and sleeving step