Do not let the bright illustrations of cute forest critters enjoying pastries fool you. Behind its charming, dollhouse-like appearance lies Killing With Kindness, an upcoming board game (scheduled for 2027) published by Burnt Island Games and designed by the duo Manny Vega and Scott Rogers.
Underneath its absolute cuteness, the title hides a resource management and worker placement game with a delightfully macabre theme: interdimensional sacrifice.
The Pitch: Welcome to the Candlewick Inn (and its bottomless pit)
In Killing With Kindness, you play as the managers of the Candlewick Inn, a cozy country cottage that welcomes the adorable creatures of the Evergreen Forest. Your day job? Filling your guests’ little bellies to the brim with your restaurant’s richest desserts before sending them off to a comfortable suite for a peaceful night’s sleep.
The catch? The inn was built directly over a dimensional rift. An unspeakable cosmic horror lives there, and the only thing keeping it from destroying the world is a nightly meal of… plump guests stuffed with sweet treats. Welcome to the dark side of hospitality!
How to Play
The game takes place over three nights (three rounds) during which you must balance guest satisfaction with the demands of your underground monster.
1. Staff and Location Management
On your turn, you must assign a staff member to a specific area of the hotel. The game features a very interesting dual-action system:
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5 Locations: Lobby, Kitchen, Dining Room, Suites, and Basement.
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5 Staff Members: Concierge, Chef, Server, Bellhop, and Housekeeper.
When you place a worker, you trigger two actions at once: one associated with the location and one unique to the employee’s specialty.
2. Fattening up the guests… for the monster
Your goal is to generate as much “Kindness” as possible through your hospitality activities. However, terror is always looming. If things get too terrifying around the hotel, your own staff members risk being accidentally gobbled up.
When dusk arrives, you must direct the creature’s hunger toward specific guests who best satisfy its “dark desires.” Once the monster is full, it slinks away, making room for a new monstrosity the next day, complete with fresh culinary preferences.
Game Specifications
| Feature | Details |
| Player Count | 2 to 4 players |
| Play Time | 60 to 90 minutes |
| Age Rating | 13+ |
| Main Mechanics | Worker placement, resource management, secret objectives |
| Publisher | Burnt Island Games |
Why Keep an Eye on It?
Killing With Kindness shapes up to be an excellent representative of the “Cute Grimdark” genre (much like video games like Cult of the Lamb). The contrast between optimization gameplay—running a hotel—and the grim necessity of feeding a Lovecraftian monster offers a very strong thematic tension.
Will you manage to satisfy your guests, your staff, and the entity in the basement to earn the highly coveted title of “Employee of the Week”? Find out when it hits the table!
