About the game
“Fear isn’t alive, like us. It can’t walk or talk, slither or swim, laugh or cry. No, Fear can’t do any of that. Fear is invisible. It hides in the dark, lurking in the shadows between our head and our heart.
Until now…”
In March of 2021, I was sitting alone in a cabin in Colorado with my boyfriend, when I had an idea for a board game…
I remember there was snow outside the window, insulating the walls, protecting us like a blanket. We’d just spent the last year running from a global pandemic, living month to month in various places around the western United States. Like many people, we isolated ourselves for a reason. We’d stopped seeing our friends and family for fear of getting infected…or worse, infecting them.
I remember that cabin with a lot of fondness. It was the first time I’d felt safe. Vaccines were on the way, businesses were coming back, and little moments of hope were melting away old fears. Soon, we’d return to our home in San Francisco and start our life again.
And yet, as the world reopened with relentless courage, those familiar anxieties returned. Doors closed. Masks went up. “Wash those hands.” Rinse and repeat. As we ran away from danger, the questions followed. What’s real? What’s in our head? What’s based on reason and logic, and what’s a shadow of our imagination?
Fear is scary because we can’t see it. It lives inside of us. It’s a feeling, not a monster. So if we can’t see it, how can we possibly defeat it?
I did the only thing I knew how to do: I started drawing. I imagined my Fears as living creatures with actual heartbeats. Suddenly, they weren’t that scary. Trapped beneath pen and paper, spooky thoughts became silly monsters with real weaknesses. They had claws and eyes and teeth, but also vulnerable spots I could punch, poke, and prod.
Now, I just needed to defeat them.
I made this board game as a way to confront Fear. It’s fun to outwit something terrifying with help from a few sparkly friends. This project is an ever evolving work-in-progress, but I’m hoping it can help others face their own inner monsters.
Years ago, I had a theater director give me some advice before performing a show in front of hundreds of people. “If you ever get scared on stage,” she said, “just follow your fear. Sit with it. Get comfortable with it. You might even scare it away.”
Those words came back to me again and again throughout the pandemic. What she meant was this: when we try to face our Fear, there’s an expectation that we have to overcome it. However, by simply following it, we can learn from it. We can understand its motivation. We can even mimic it. And, with enough time and patience, we can ultimately learn how to defeat it.
How to play…
In Follow Your Fear, you choose your greatest Fear and race across the board trying to defeat it as quickly as possible. You’ll employ the help of Spirit cards, which can be summoned each turn. Spirits have special abilities; when combined together, they can target enemies, move great distances, and protect you from attack. They can be used to recruit new Spirits and expand your army of loyal guardians. The possibilities are endless!
Be careful! Your greatest Fear is also controlled by your opponent, so defeating it won’t be easy. Players switch between controlling a collection of light-driven Spirits and the dark manifestation of Fear itself.
As you face off against your Fear and control the Fear of your opponent, you’ll whittle down your enemies. The last player standing—or, the first player to defeat their Fear—wins.
Components
1 Board
4 Player mats
1 Phase token
24 Player Tokens
36 Fear Tokens
120 Spirit Cards
144 Fear Cards
6 Target Fear cards
48 Corruption Tiles
