Stifling Dark: Discussion

Investigators take it upon themselves to gather evidence on something horrific all the while they're being hunted by that horror. Oh, it's also super dark.
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[@copycath2011]

We've played 3 times over the past week since getting the game for Christmas. Games 1 and 2: Butcher and 2 Investigators; Game 3: Butcher and 4 Investigators. All played in the Sawmill.
We found that with 4 Investigators it was far too easy for the Butcher to gain Stalk, especially with the Escalating Terror ability that doubled his stalk (see below). He only had to successfully chill 2 of the Investigators twice in a row and he had 4 Stalks to use for attacks and abilities. Also, the Eviscerate attack is basically a death sentence for the entire party because once the Butcher has used it twice on an individual Investigator the game will end with the death of that Investigator within 4 rounds and there's nothing you can do to stop it. This occurred relatively early in our 4-Investigator game and there was no way we could fulfil the requirements to begin the end sequence (Escape, Fix truck or Banish Butcher) before the bleeding Investigator received their 4th wound. There was no point in continuing. That game only lasted as long as it did because our Butcher, being a beginner, didn't realise he only needed to attack the same player twice to start this downward spiral, so he moved away and attacked another player instead.
Game 2 was actually the most satisfying because we had more time to explore the map and the Investigators successfully burnt the Butcher's grave, so we had an enjoyably close end game while the Investigators tried to use the Hook on the Butcher before the death spiral she had started by Eviscerating one of them twice reached its conclusion. The Butcher's triumph seemed inevitable when in an eleventh hour stroke of luck one of the Investigators guessed the Butcher's exact location and managed to hook him in the dark.
I agree with your comments about the 2 rule books being somewhat jumbled and difficult to navigate. There are things we still don't understand and haven't been able to resolve with the books. We basically had to watch all the Walkthrough videos the developers have provided to even know where to begin. Like you said, the game's mechanics are simple really but they seem to have made things cryptic.
I'm not certain we have correctly understood the Escalating Terror ability because of the dual use of the term "stalk" in the game. You "stalk" an Investigator to give them a chill and must do this twice in a row to gain a single "Stalk" on your player board. We concluded that the doubling of stalk that's mentioned on the Escalating Terror ability card is referring to the latter but this seemed to be a very powerful ability for the Butcher to use over and over again.
I like your idea of having some new tokens that could be hidden anywhere on the map. I'm thinking a token that could heal one or more wounds completely could interrupt the death spiral I've described above and give the Investigators a fighting chance. We may even introduce this ourselves for a future Butcher game.
We will move onto another Adversary next time and perhaps the Spirit ability will tip the balance a bit towards the Investigators. I'd be interested if anyone else has found the Butcher Adversary has too much power in a 4-Investigator game.
Thank you for your timely and helpful video.