The Game at Carousel

When horror-obsessed Riley Lawrence and his college friends arrive in the small town of Carousel for its Centennial Celebration, they walk into an inescapable horror-movie set. Each is assigned an archetype—Scholar, Athlete, Eye Candy, Final Girl—and the curtain rises. Assigned Film Buff, Riley learns he can exploit the Oblivious Bystander trope to avoid being killed—as long as he can convincingly pretend he hasn't noticed the monsters coming for him. To escape, the group must leverage their tropes and determine what is trapping them there in the first place.

Riley and his friends have survived entire horror-movie plots in Carousel. Riley's strategy is working—his Moxie, Hustle, and Savvy stats are high—but his Mettle and Grit have dropped dangerously low. The stakes are getting higher: die in the right storyline and you come back; die in the wrong one and you're gone for good. And Riley is beginning to think Carousel itself may be communicating with him.

Riley and his friends have fought through story after story and come out alive—or at least preserved the storyline enough to come back. Their biggest challenge yet looms: the veterans want to travel to the mountain believed to be the source of Carousel's power, while Riley is more concerned about the murderous man with an axe who follows their every move to cull wrong storylines. The longer they stay in Carousel, the deeper the questions grow: Who is running the game? Where does it end?