A Shuffling Ho-Ho-Horror Christmas

December 24th, 2017
Roswell 51

The HO-HO-Horror, Part 1

Just after Thanksgiving, I ran a ROSWELL 51 game at a local shop, Highlander Games in Boonton, NJ. Four new players gathered around the Shuffling Horror Shuffle Board that night. It was also post-Black Friday and the store was fully ready for the merry march to year-end. Christmas tunes played in the background. I believe “Have A Holly Jolly Christmas” was playing when I began shuffling the movie deck. As I often do during the start of the game, I began to set the plot in motion, and made a joke about it being Christmas in Roswell, 1951. That wasn’t Santa’s sleigh overhead in the desert night sky!

There was something magical about that mental image, accompanied with the light background music, that suddenly clicked. It may have been the novelty of the whole atmosphere that night, huddled around the game table, in the back corner of the Highlander’s game room. It was, for certain, the first time I set the game against a Christmas background (I usually set it around July 4th, to coincide with the historic Roswell UFO crash date).

As we played, more holiday jokes crept in to further the plot. By the time the night was through, the main concept of SANTA CLAUS VS. THE SPACE INVADERS was dancing like sugar plums round in my head. The next few days, I began messing around with various characters that would be fun for players. Of course, we would have to have Santa and Mrs. Claus. As I had just watched the holiday classic “March of the Wooden Soldiers” the week before, a Toy Soldier entered the mix, too (as did some Elfs). I don’t know if it was elf magic, but, before I knew it, I had 8 new characters and 6 new items that would be perfect for a ROSWELL 51 holiday spoof! Something right along the lines of “Santa Claus Conquers The Martians”.

Now, why am I telling you all this?!? Well, I am hoping to release this Christmas week as a free print-n-play pdf on our site. It promises to be a whole bunch of festive B-movie fun for our friends and fans! Here’s the sneak peek at the cover…

Blog-HoHoHorror-Poster-500

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

(Stay tuned here and on our facebook page for the release announcement!)

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