How to play Dead by Daylight: The Board Game & Review

Dead by Daylight is a one vs many, action programming game.

Title: Dead by Daylight: The Board Game

Year Published: 2023

Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr.

Publisher: Level 99 Games

Players: 3-5

Game Time: ~60 mins

Set-up Time: ~5 mins

Ages: 18+

Theme: Dead by Daylight: The Video Game

Mechanisms: Programmed Movement

How to win: The survivors win by powering up four generators and one exit. The killer wins by adding enough sacrifice tokens to the sacrifice track.

Game Description

As one of four Survivors, explore the trial grounds, discover props, and utilize your unique perks as you work to uncover and repair generators. Repair four generators and open the exit games to escape and win! As a Killer, hunt down the survivors, wound them, and place them on sacrificial hooks to summon a sinister force. With enough sacrifices, you are able to appease The Entity and win!

How to play Dead by Daylight: The Board Game

This is how to play Dead by Daylight: The Board Game. I own the collector’s edition, but I’ve only used components and examples that are available in the retail edition.

Main mechanisms

The main mechanism is the simultaneous programmed movement the players do each turn. If that’s what you call it, some will say it’s simultaneous action selection but when that action is movement, you’re selecting movement.

Or are you programming movement? Does that just need multiple cards played? So the Killer is programming movement, and everyone else is selecting?

I’ve overthought it.

USP

It’s funny, this arrived from Kickstarter not long after I received a copy of City of the Great Machine. This is also a one vs many movement programming game.

Theme

I love playing the video game so getting this board game was a no-brainer.

The mechanisms in the physical version match the digital one really well.

Setup & Rulebook

The setup is a little bit fiddly. Firstly players have to pick their character from a large selection. Then you have to put those tokens in each of the spaces which can take a while. I let the other players do this while I make sure everything else is back in the box and out of the way.

That’s not even if you use the more advanced setups which involve a few decks of cards for changing up abilities.

The rulebook is OK. The issue I have is that it’s not in exact order which always leads to a bit of page flicking. I guess the bits you need the most during gameplay are all together, but they should have included a smaller crib sheet anyway. The ones available are on the back of the character boards and are mostly black space.

Components & Artwork

I have the collectors edition so I get a few extras but the box is way too big. I don’t know why they went for a one-layer long box and not a two-layer thick square one.

The minis are nice but it’s quite hard to find which survivor is the ‘correct’ model for the character. They don’t all have a sculpt that matches their character image.

Ease of Teaching

The game itself is easy to teach. There are a few missable rules easy to forget, especially if you don’t play it regularly.

The game needed table-friendly-sized crib sheets for how both sides interact with props. I made my own to help players remember what each prop does.

Similar Games

I’ve already mentioned City of the Great Mchine and that’s the best comparison I have. You could be hidden movement games like Spectre Ops in there but it’s different enough to not really count.

Dead by Daylight: The Board Game Summary

A fun game for everyone, but if you know the video game you’ll get a kick out of how this game plays.

Round-Up

Worth the Kickstarter wait.

Rating

I give it a 7/10