Shiver: Double Feature TTRPG Review

The chill of mist-filled night. The howl of distant wolves. The leer of hungry, ravenous undead. Welcome to the world of Shiver, the tabletop roleplaying game by Parable Games! Shiver and Shiver: Double Feature are created by Charlie and Barney Menzies and is a full, setting-agnostic TTRPG designed to emulate your favorite horror movies. With a fast, exciting, and creative narrative combat system and killer art from Ben Alexader, the game will surely slay your RPG lull.

The system first gained notoriety with its highly-successful Kickstarter of the core game in 2020. Shiver: Tabletop Roleplaying in the Strange and Unknown made a killing in the field – it later went on to win the People’s Choice Award of 2022 and the “Best New RPG Award” at the 2021 UK Game Expo. Earlier this year, the masked killer struck again with the beautifully illustrated Shiver: Gothic, an expansion and stand-alone rules set to the game. 

The big new game in town is the Shiver: Double Feature, which has two new rulesets that allow you to play in your favorite horror movie Blockbuster or Slasher franchises. Blockbuster adds new rules for larger-than-life threats, including slick “metagame” features that allow your horror to take a lighter tone with explosive cars and killer sharks. Slasher, on the other spectrum, makes all of your favorite escape-the-deranged-killer dreams come true. It adds new “generational” rules that allow you to inherit skills, items, or training by previously being The Final Girl or being related to the hottest babysitter in Haddonfield.

All of these rules use the same system and features character builds that fall into 6 different “Archetypes”, such as The Warrior and The Scholar, each with a unique focus on one of the 6 core Skills (such as Grit, Luck, or Wit). To try at any task, the player describes what they want to do and the Game Master (fittingly called “The Director” here) determines which of the 6 Skills the action invokes. The player rolls a number of dice (d6s and d8s) equal to their rating in that Skill and attempts to score a number of symbols matching that said Skill. The more you get the better the success. This leads to a very narrative and spectacular flow. 

The system is designed to be player-empowering and has a descriptive interpretation to the results. The game refers to this as “Reading the Knuckle Bones,” and it leads to some great results. Let’s say you were trying to kick in a door but your Grit roll was terrible. During that roll, the Director noticed you rolled a lot of Smarts symbols. Well, the “failed” roll is rewarded with a narrative success such as “you weren’t able to budge the door, but you did notice that the door has a half-pin barrel hinge that may require the proper leverage to open instead”. The system has a nice “fail forward” reward for narrative creativity and the use of luck, which really keeps things moving!

The game also has optional (but really, they’re just so cool that why wouldn’t you use them?!) proprietary dice that are marked with these Skill symbols that lead to fast, easy-to-read results. These dice actually fit the game rather than feel like a money-grab for your wallet, and the gameplay is actually helped by their presence. I’d consider them my personal VanHelsing on this hunt. And, if new dice aren’t your thing (you monster!), Parable as a free dice app available on their website.

The system tells a tightly-woven tale filled with horror, dread, and fun. Another fun mechanic is the Doom Clock, a “timer” that counts down every quarter of the game, to keep the flow fast, intense, and direct. This Clock is affected by multiple factors, including bad rolls, Weird occurrences, and Director fiat. What makes the Clock truly diabolical is the fact that every time a quarter is reached, a new effect changes the story. At one quarter past, the power might get cut to the cabin; at half-past, one of your allies dies. At 3-quarters, the killer has broken in and chases you. At the full Clock? Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. 

It’s all in good fun, and the excitement adds to your quickened pulse as much as your terror!

The game is fast, fun, and narrative, and it feels right at home this creepy holiday season. Be sure to pack Shiver: Double Feature in your monster-hunting kit this spooky season – your life might just depend on it!

Shiver: Double Feature is currently funded on Gamefound. The campaign runs until November 11.

Gamefound campaign: https://gamefound.com/projects/parable-games-ltd/shiver-double-feature

Parable’s website: https://www.parablegames.co.uk/

Dice Roller: https://shiverrpg.com/dice-roller/