Headhunter The Musical (1975)

Thrills and chills, from the first moment to the last. In the distant future, aliens control the government. Fugitive Doug Summers knows the truth, but it’s only a matter of time before the aliens’ secret weapon, the Headhunter, catches up to him.

Design

Most have asked us when we’re gonna add an alien to Spooktacular. Of course, I always blow their minds by revealing that The Outlander IS an alien. We’re not one to just do default aliens, after all. Headhunter follows in those footsteps by not necessarily being the alien, but one of their highly-advanced tools of control. Is it a space ship for tiny aliens? Is it a sentient robot? We can’t really tell! All we know is that if it ever lands on your head, it’s over for you.

We’ve always wanted to design a “hidden monster” that could hide among guests and surprise the other players at the table in a sort of hidden role mechanic. Upon playing with the concept in practice, we found that the hidden aspect of it was less cool than a monster who was somehow ALSO a guest. So, we decided to focus on that aspect more, which resulted in the Headhunter you see today.

Headhunter is a monster that is also a guest (since it body swaps and takes control of guests). This means that the Headhunter can be spooked and devoured. The implication of these will be discussed more later.

Ideation

We explored a lot of concepts for Headhunter. We knew it was always gonna be some sort of crazy hat that mind controlled things. We just didn’t know how it should look exactly. A lot of the designs were cool but didn’t read as a “monster”. Instead it seemed more like a tool or some sort of device (and that the person wearing it was the monster). It needed to be clear that the hat itself was the monster.

Ultimately, giving it a face seemed like the easiest way to convey this concept. I love how the final one turned out. You can even see that the “eyes” might be some sort of viewport. Is someone piloting the hat? We’ll never know.

Strategy

Headhunter is a guest and monster at the same time, giving it some really cool lines of play. The main one of these is the fact that it can be devoured (by itself or other players) for bonus points. This gives the Headhunter the unique ability to temporarily remove itself from the board, making it safe from the dangers other monsters pose in the theater. Once its turn rolls back around, it can Body Switch to find a new host and teleport into that space, giving Headhunter unrivaled mobility if it can find a way to get its hosts devoured.

In addition, Headhunter can also be spooked, leading to crazy combo plays with cards that spook. Since you usually spook the room you’re in, you can use spook effects as effective movement by spooking the Headhunter into a neighboring room. Nothing shows this off more than Headhunter’s Hat Trick, which would be pretty weird for any other monster but is just a superior Jumpscare for the hat.

Play If You Like:

• Extreme mobility
• Not interacting with people
• Insane combo potential

Avoid If You Dislike:

• Opponents ruining your positioning (by spooking you)
• Awkward plays when your cards don’t line up well
• Rewarding others for messing with you

See it LIVE!

See us pull off some hat tricks!

COMING SOON!

Join us weeks from now when we explore They Fly!

Alternate Poster

The remake poster for Headhunter (the non-musical) comes from the epic CrainArt. Here, we see that the hat may be less mechanical than before. Is the Headhunter some sort of parasite in this new-age reimagining of a 70’s classic?

Are you hats-off for this monster? Tell me in the comments below! And learn more about Bride of Spooktacular on Gamefound!