by Kelsoa1
***This BGG forum post was composed as a course requirement for a liberal arts seminar at Central College (Modern Board Game Studies: Immersion & Design, SP24). Constructive feedback and conversation from all BGG users is welcomed and encouraged!***Betrayal at House on the Hill is a fantastically fun and imaginative game. It is a perfect board game for anybody who wants to spend an hour adventuring with their friends. Betrayal at House on the Hill is a two-phase game that requires players to use their imagination to create their own story as they progress through the house.
The first phase of the game is creating the house. Players start with any of the 6 available player models with two different characters correlated to each player model. Each character has a unique background and stats. For instance, in my first playthrough I chose Peter Akimoto, a 13-year-old whose hobbies include basketball and bugs (super specific). The first player is the person whose birthday is closest to their character’s birthday. This phase of the game involves players spending their speed stat to explore the house and add on/discover new rooms. Each room has the potential to harm or benefit the player. You could stumble across an omen, an item, or an event. There are also special rooms that have their own rules like the magical elevator, an elevator that allows you to move almost anywhere around the house providing that you get lucky with your dice roll. This phase of the game is arguably the most fun part. You are given the imaginative freedom to create your own story as you progress through your very own haunted house. As you go through different scenarios and events to discover the depths of the house, your party creates stories and lore that goes with it. It is like creating your own horror movie but without the cheesy jump scares.
The exploring phase of the game ends when a player receives an omen card and fails a “haunt” roll (rolling 6 dice to add up to less than the number of omen cards discovered). Once a player fails a haunt roll, the players check the table in the Traitor Tome to see what haunt is going to take place and who is going to become a traitor or a monster. There are 50 different haunts in the base version of the game with plenty more in one of the expansions. This gives each game a different feel and a different ending. Once the haunt is revealed and the traitor is given their instructions via the Traitor Tome, the rest of the game is about surviving and trying to beat whatever monster the characters are facing.
A lot of the haunts that are available in the base game are unfair to the survivors and are biased towards the traitor. It is often near impossible for a survivor to win the game. Often times the players are very spread out once a haunt starts and it is easy for the traitor to pick off the players as they please. I have only played the game three times so maybe I am missing some of the haunts but the haunts that I played makes it seem like the monsters are supposed to win every time. Players could spend 30-45 minutes creating their story and board then the haunt is started and the game ends in a couple turns due to a over powered haunt. Now don’t get me wrong, I still find the game immensely fun but I can see some people being unsatisfied by the way the story ends. I think the beauty of the game is letting players decide what they want to do. It is a great light role playing game. It doesn’t take hours to complete like a lot of other RPGs but still manages to provide a fun story-telling experience. I saw that there was a longer legacy version of the game and I definitely want to get a group of my friends and spend an entire day going through it. Betrayal at House on the Hill is a great game for players who want to try out an RPG game for the first time. It is a great beginner experience and it provides a lot of replay ability due to the massive number of haunts available.
Here are the three haunts that I played in case anyone was curious.
- Haunt #47 Worm Ouroboros
- Haunt #25 Voodoo
- Haunt #4 The Web of Destiny
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