by fsarra12
Betrayal at House on the Hill(2nd Edition)
By Craig Couden
Players 1–6
Time: About an hour
Publisher: Avalon Hill Games
Difficulty: Easy
Genre: Co-op, Exploration, Combat
“Ahahahaha! I’ve stolen the youth from your friends. Now all that’s left is to take the last bit of life from you!” I exclaimed triumphantly to the old crone in front of me. I could feel the life force of the other explorers coursing through me. One more blow and the House on the Hill would transfer her youth to me and extend my own life another 10 years. My might trait was at maximum; how could I lose? I threw the dice on the table!
“Oh, I’m still alive! Yes!” Libby chirped as she picked up the dice to attempt to complete the Ritual of Rejuvenation that would stop me in my tracks.
The dice fell.
Libby smiled.
I could feel the life drain from my limbs as my skin grew dry and grey—the years I had escaped finally catching up with me. “How?” came out as a breathless whisper as I fell to the floor, my body collapsing into dust.
A large table is better because the board spreads out the more you explore.
Betrayal at House on the Hill from Avalon Hill Games is about building stories. Steeped in classic horror tropes, you’ll encounter bleeding walls, creepy-crawlies, zombies, crazed madmen, alien abductions, and maybe even a fire-breathing dragon as you and a group of fellow explorers work together to discover the treasures and pitfalls (sometimes literally) of the House on the Hill. While players begin the game working together to explore and expand the tile-based floor plan of the house, the game really shines when one player is randomly revealed as the traitor and the game play shifts to one of 50 different horror scenarios, including the one that ended with my dusty demise. It’s a great game for horror fans because even though the scenarios often feel familiar, they don’t feel worn out or tired, and the cooperative nature of the game, especially after the traitor is revealed will attract fans of less competitive games.
Players choose one of six intrepid explorers represented by six double-sided player cards and their corresponding character tokens. Each character has four stat tracks: speed and might are considered physical traits and knowledge and sanity are mental traits. These traits determine the number of dice rolled during events and combat. Escaping a collapsing room might depend on your speed trait, while keeping your cool in a spooky room might depend on your sanity. Succeeding at events often leads to stat increases, though failing leads to some painful stat decreases or other negative effects. Exploring a haunted house should feel dangerous, and more often than not it feels like the house is actively out to get you.
Interestingly, the stat tracks don’t progress sequentially, so sometimes even though your marker moves up or down on a track the trait value stays the same. Each character is set up differently, so no character plays exactly the same, but not differently enough that one character outshines any other. Keeping track of the traits is easy in theory, but the plastic pieces that clip to the player cards to keep track of the traits are too loose. A slight bump to the player card will rearrange your stats. It’s easy to fix by bending or thickening them with tape, but with the amount movement the clips see during the game I would have liked to see better fitting clips right out of the box.
Remember your stats, because those clips are pretty loose.
During the exploration phase, players begin in the entryway of the house and expand the board by moving through doorways and drawing and placing room tiles. There are three floors to explore with the ground and upper floors accessible from the beginning while access to the basement has to be discovered. Some tiles can only be placed on certain floors of the house, which is displayed on the back of the tile. Movement ends when a new tile is placed that has an event, item, or omen symbol.
Item cards are rare, but often yield weapons, like pistols and knives, or single use benefits, like the ability to change dice outcomes, that are played in front of you and can make traversing the mansion a little easier, which is good because most event cards are designed to whittle down your traits before the Haunt phase begins.
Event cards are mini scenarios that are resolved immediately to end a player’s turn. Players may encounter a room filled with spider webs or experience an ghostly encounter. They’re not really scary, but they do set a satisfying B-movie tone and the more you’re willing to ham it up in your best Vincent Price voice, the more fun the game feels. Events often challenge one or more of a character’s traits. If you succeed, that trait generally goes up and if you fail that trait goes down.
Who decided to let this kid tag along and explore the murdery mansion?
Omen cards are similar to items and often have beneficial effects. However, after each omen card is drawn the player has to perform a “haunt roll” by rolling six dice. If the number shown on the dice is more than the number of omen cards in play, the game stays the same; however, if the omen cards outnumber the dice roll, then the traitor is revealed and the Haunt phase begins.
The Haunt phase is really where Betrayal shines. With 50 different Haunt scenarios the game continually feels fresh, and even repeated scenarios can play out much differently since the game board is unique each game. The Haunt scenario is chosen based on which omen card was drawn prior to the haunt roll and the room it was drawn in. The scenario dictates who the traitor is and the two groups, heroes and traitor, split off to read their individual rule sets for the specific scenario. The new rules are short -- never more than a page or two -- but you will generally have to read the rules every time. They’re fairly straightforward and anything ambiguous can easily be decided by the collective players, but if reading rules isn’t your thing you might get frustrated with the game.
Betrayal has way more monster tokens than are really necessary. But when the
Haunt calls for ghosts, heck yeah I use the ghost tokens!
The scenarios often use recurring mechanics, like the need acquire a specific item, take it to a specific room, and pass a certain trait roll X number of times. But often there’s a unique spin for each scenario. One of my favorites involved an evil blob that expanded outward from room to room ready to devour any unlucky hero that that strayed too close. The heroes still had to run around from room to room trying to synthesize and administer an anti-blob formula by passing trait rolls, but the added blob conditions made it more exciting.
However, after repeated play-throughs the different mechanics of the Haunt scenarios can make the exploration phase of the game feel repetitive. Sometimes it feels like you’re slogging through exploring the house and waiting for the Haunt to start so the game gets interesting again. I also noticed some balance issues once the Haunt phases start. The individual scenarios can feel weighted either towards the heroes or the traitor. Sometimes it’s because of the items acquired during the exploration phase or the way the board is set up that game, but other times win conditions are simple for one side and Herculean for the other. Remarkably however, the overall balance between traitor-weighted and hero-weighted scenarios is very good, so when a new Haunt is revealed it still feels like anyone’s game. And since the game is relatively short at about an hour, it’s easy to play a second session and get a totally different outcome.
The more of your personality you put into playing Betrayal at House on the Hill the better your experience will be. Play-acting the schlocky horror stories is half the fun. And with so many different possible scenarios, the game continues to feel fresh after many play-throughs. It’s not the most strategic game out there, and even with the balance issues it’s a fun, light-hearted co-op game for a casual night of gaming.