by spiralsoap
For my first review I decided to take a look at one of my groups favorite games, Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Betrayal is a tile laying / modular board game in which you are part of a group of survivors exploring a house where strange mystical and horrifying things are occurring. At first, there is no story or objective. Your job is just to explore and survive. As you explore the house you will resolve effect cards and collect item cards and omen cards determined by the symbol on tile you flip to represent the room you are exploring. As the game progresses the omen cards you collect will (in addition to altering your stats) have you perform a "haunt roll" which is rolling 6 dice (which only have a blank, one, and two side) and if you roll less than the number of omen cards in play, the real story begins. There are three (yes 3!!) books included in this game: a rulebook, one for the survivors, and one for the traitor. When the haunt begins you will look in the traitors book to find out what story is about to unfold. If there is a traitor (some scenarios have a hidden traitor, one that I know of all players are survivors) that person will read the story and rules to themselves, and the survivors will read the same story from the survivor’s side in the corresponding book with rules for them to follow. Then the game gets very interesting as the rules will change on how to defeat the bad guy, how to escape the house, how to break the ancient curse, etc. The game comes with 50 possible haunt stories.
Components - 10
I give the components in this game a 10. The cardstock is textured which is a huge plus to me that they took the time to make the cards more than just plain standard cards. They are long rectangular shaped cards to afford space for the descriptions written on the cards. Some cards include more than just flavor text and what the card does, but some you will have to roll for the effect to take place. This makes a simple turn more interesting since on your turn prior to "the haunt" you are just moving and exploring a house without reason (again, only before the haunt). The minis are nice plastic and pre-painted. The game also includes TONS of tokens to act as placeholders for lasting effects from events in the house and also for enemy tokens for when the traitor has to take on the role of an evil demon or other similar baddie. The tiles and cardboard pieces I had all warped and bowed, a simple email to WOTC and I was sent an entire pack of all of the cardboard components that do not bow or warp. Hats off to WOTC for amazing customer service!
Theme - 10
The theme and immersion you feel in this game receives an easy 10. I’m not a big fan of scary movies, however, when I play this game I feel like I am the starring role in the best low-budget horror movie of all time. If you enjoy feeling like you are IN the game, and you aren’t turned off by horror games or cheesy scary movies. You will feel as though this game was custom made just for you.
Mechanics - 5
I had to be honest on the mechanics of this game and although prior to the haunt the mechanics are simple enough for anyone who can read English can figure out, the haunt really alters the mechanics in a sometimes very clunky way. Granted, this is (I’m sure) partly due to the fact that there are 50 different possible haunts included with this game. The amount of time spent trying to figure out the haunt rules can really put a hindrance on the climactic moment when the haunt is revealed. It can very easily go from excited by the haunt reveal and story, to disappointed and people exclaiming "how in the heck do we do this."
Replayability - 10
Because this game comes with 50 possible endings (haunts). Easy 10.
Overall grade: 9
This game gets a 9 simply because I don’t know another game like this. I have heard that Level 7 escape has a similar mechanic, however, I have also heard less than great overall reviews of that game. This game overall is fantastic and I would recommend this game to anyone enjoys creepy themes, because if you enjoy horror games, scary stories, etc. you will be hooked just on theme alone. I’m hoping one day a game similar to this is released or that WOTC releases an expansion because believe it or not, we have played almost every single haunt in the book! We will keep playing this game and it will never leave my collection.
Spiralsoap