I totally concur. The Yellow Matter has such a great potential (excellent ideas about the mechanics and cool atsmosphere of mad scientist) and is so poorly designed as it is. What a pity. The Objectives are especially awfull and the story coherence is close to 0.

One easy first fix is that each time an investigator takes a mutation token, he rolls a die, adds the number of mutation tokens and takes a mutation card if the total is 10 or more (as if he just failed an alchemy puzzle). Monsters do the same but simply dies if the total is 10 or more. That makes the mutations tokens much more exciting. I was thinking about redesigning the objectives and eventually few clues.

I played Lost in Space and Time as an investigator only once but it felt much nicer.

Played Lost in Time and Space recently. *spoilers*

This was a fairly good scenario. I played as the keeper and my friend used 3 investigators. I found myself sort of out of the game for the first part. Having only read the objective and not the event cards I was as clueless as my opponents. On one hand there is only one first time to play. Since we will re-play scenarios I will know the events for next time (but so will he). I do not think that the keeper should be unaware of the events. The only reason I do it this way is to have some mystery for myself as well. As the keeper you should~ know whats going on to better prepare and play the scenarios.

Even though I did not read the event cards you can still get an idea of whats going on. The keeper action cards give you a sense of what is needed. In this case it was apparent that I should spend threat to draw M/T cards and set traps…so I did. In the early stages of the game my friend was not optimistic at all. Had I known the event cards it would not have changed my initial turns and I would have been 'further ahead' yet.

The time travel mechanic was very interesting. Yes, there were some no-brainer turns in which we both knew it was going to be triggered. I'm not sure if the fact that the card can be activated without fail is good or bad. It does keep things moving when a misstep could derail the game. Time travel made for some very thematic situations. At one point I had surrounded a lone investigator with two slugs (crawling ones) and a hound of tindalos. I tried to put the hurt on him but failed. Just as the investigator was about to unload a shotgun into the trio a faint scent of memory reconfiguration landed him safely in the past.

The other consideration of time travel was whom or what it affected. Game wise it would be a nightmare to have individually recorded what and who was where in time. I still had plenty of time to consider it anyway. IF (big IF) you did track each entity in time how would you do it? My first thought was simply a token (not really all that simple). Basically no token present, one side of a token past, the other future. Additionally other rules would be needed to govern the time travel. This could be as simple as anything in a given room (space?) would be affected when triggered. What would make this worth bothering? Plenty! Imagine two investigators and a monster in a room (space?). The device is triggered sending all three of them to a different place in time. The investigators (having planned to) dash to another room and trigger the device again.Thus leaving the monster stuck in time. I like thinking about the possibilities even though the board could be a bit more confusing. No one said time travel was easy ;)

Midway through The events were not helping me because I was playing against what I 'should' have been doing. This was causing some inefficiency in my threat spending which was becoming more critical. Whit my opponent still under the impression that all hope was lost, I used this to my advantage in order to catch up. With several monsters waiting in que for hapless sliders I could only guess what the next event would bring. I was forced to play left center and right of the objective. This proved to be fateful.

With the cultist robe shielding the device totting investigator my only hope was a hound of tindalos. I counted the steps needed to catch my foe. He would still have one chance to dismantle the device but the odds were in my favor! That is untill his luck a** stunned my hound gaining his a second try (and much better odds) at thwarting evil.

In the end his second attempt was basically solved by random draw. The investigators won the day if only barely.

The game was engaging and fun. Thumbs up on this one!! My only complaint would be the connection between cultists and the scenario. It is understandable to use established materials. It's just that the cultists don't always fit thematically. Granted, the cultists can be written in as almost any style of follower. Even with the robe it is highly unlikely that the cultists would simply stand there immune to any kind of reaction. I see the robe as being a way in and possibly even useful right up to the point of no return. Once past this point the cloaking value should be lost. As a suggested edit to the robe card would be that it turns off if any action is taken. Moving with the group works but breaking from the pack draws suspicion.

A couple of quick questions…

1: When two tiles touch and only have white solid lines does this mean that they are all considered the same room? For example, the Front Yard and the Graveyard 2 are touching. Would an investigator be allowed to explore the Graveyard 2 while he is physically in the Front Yard? Would fire affect both (all touching continuously)? Would 2 connecting white line hallways count as one room?

2: Can the card 'Barred Entry' be removed normally? Is this simply a way to lock off an area so that it can not be passed without a special event?

thecoldwarrior said:

1. The edge of a cardboard tile delineates the boundary of a room. Graveyard 2 and Front Yard are two different rooms. Evidence of this can be taken by the fact that they have two different names.

2. Both. "Barred Entry' has a related key card that can be used to remove it. But, it can also be used to block of a region indefinitely, until an event removes it.

@Tibs, I was perty sure about it but for some reason in that game i was questioning myself.

*spoilers possible*

We played again yesterday. We went back to the beginning with the Fall of House Lynch. I played as three investigators and my friend was the keeper. Honestly I did not remember much about the scenario at all. I chose to split my group up and quickly explore as much as I could before the first event took place. Other than a few hiccups things went well for me. I was, however, put back in my place with a well played maniac.

My friend was playing everything possible on me and laughing even. That gave me the boost I needed to send him packing. I regrouped, traded a few items, did a bit of healing and headed for the last corner where the ceremony room held the altar. He had come back for another sample but I laid waste to that maniac with a shotgun blast that was boosted by a 'pass: kill the monster'.

He had enough threat stored to do it all again and this time I missed killing the maniac by a couple of wounds. This maniac promptly passed into the locked room where I could not follow for another turn. My play into this controlled zone worked well but not perfectly. I was able to stun the zombie and get my other investigators in without evade tests. I had a chance with the shotgun by shooting through the door at the escaping maniac but failed my roll.

In the end my friend decided there was no way for him to get the shoggoth off the map. We played a couple mor eturns and then I showed him that the take sample action would have boosted him one space and he could have won. The thing is I also had the elder sign item and was placed perfectly to send the shoggoth back a space two times (given that I passed the tests).

All in all we still have a great time with this game win or lose. Victory is a better when you are the investigators. Having three investigators may seem a bit much but had I only had two he would have stacked plenty more on them. As a side note we have been using the original rules mostly rather than our modified action points.

I reserve the right to teach him some humility next game I am keeper.

I was also able to play an intro game with my brother in law. He commented on the complexity of the set up but I assured him that it was second hand with a little practice. He said he liked it but I think he will like it more if/when he plays as the keeper.