WARNING: This review may contain some spoilers.

I bought this game a few weeks ago, but only just got a chance to try it. I sat down, knowing that I had about 30 minutes until my baby woke up. I had the tower balanced on one of his play mats, to deaden the noise when it fell.

Normally with games like this I like to sit and write, taking my time. Usually I spend more time writing one entry that some people do playing the entire game. This is no longer an option.

Instead I sat on the floor and was ready for the fact that at any moment I would have to collapse the tower to put it away. Instant tension added to a game that is supposed to feel tense.

I did not have time to carefully journal. Instead every entry was simply a thought, sent out into the void never to be heard again, and as I played, quickly turning cards with one hand, the other clutching the rule book, this felt more and more fitting. I was sending my "logs" out with no one to hear.

Within a few cards I had found the one that gives you hope, a few later, the second. Each turn I rolled the die and that hope grew, but never enough to keep the tension from building, most especially as I listened to the hiss of the baby monitor. When the game asked the question I knew the answer immediately. That white static hiss was the noise the creature made. 

My deck began to run lower. My tower became less stable. And I collected kings. By the time I was halfway through the deck I had three. And each pull from the tower made it rock. I barely dared to breathe. A sudden hitch on the monitor when I had six cards left in my deck nearly undid everything. But I stilled, and so did my little monster in the other room. I was still surviving.

The very last card in my deck was the fourth king. I was one counter away from a hopeful end. And I felt cheated. Not by the game, because it's brilliant. But rather through the fact that in my quick try at the game, a try I never expected to get to finish, I had seen all the prompts, played every card, and I had so very nearly won. Never will I play the game again and do as well. And never will the game feel quite as intense as it did that first time. 

I knocked my tower over at the end. And my monster woke up to feed.