Review Of Death In Luxor By Goodman Games
-== What is it? ==-
Death In Luxor is the first Call Of Cthulhu adventure in the Age Of Cthulhu line from Goodman Games. I purchased the PDF version from DriveThruRPG so that is what I will be reviewing.
The document is comprised of the covers, the adventure with interspersed art and maps, several pages of handouts, and five sample characters. The PDF has a color front and back cover and an entirely black and white interior. The format is 8.5? x 11? and is 50 pages in length.
I have read the product from cover-to-cover. I ran the adventure for my gaming group after converting it to Fudge for my Terra Incognita campaign. (See the session logs on this very blog for a complete recap of how the adventure ran for my group.)
-== What I Like ==-
The adventure was very solid with strong hooks to move the players from one scene to the next. I had no trouble keeping things moving along even with my unpredictable set of players.
Several of the encounters created a lot of great drama. One scene that went particularly well with my group involved an encounter where the tomb guardians lock the PC into a tomb that is filling with water and releasing deep ones. It was awesome watching the PC scramble for a solution. Great stuff!
The module is set in the 1920’s but it was very easy to convert to the 1890’s where my campaign was set. Simply replacing cars with camels did the trick.
I really enjoyed the interior art and the cover. The cover art is pretty dramatic and eye catching.
-== What I Don’t Like ==-
Some of the handouts and the maps print out very dark. One of the handouts is not even viewable unless the copy is lighted by quite a bit. Even though the maps are dark they are nicely detailed.
During the adventure the PC encounter several bits of text that they translate. Some of these translations are critical to the story. I really wanted more of these translations available as handouts. Even if it is just a copy of the text in a tiny box that would have been nice. I was forced to create a separate document then copy out the text from the PDF. If I had not purchased the PDF I would have been forced to drag out the old copy machine.
-== Summary ==-
Overall I liked the adventure. It was linear but not overly so and the action was great. If this is their first attempt at a Call of Cthulhu scenario they are off to a great start. The price point for the PDF is fantastic at only $7.99.
I give it 7 out of 10 paws.
