Haunted Houses!

Well it’s time for another Thursday Report! I am sorry I missed my first Review Wednesday yesterday. Sometimes life gets in the way you know? So let’s get on this this shall we?

            Tonight we gathered to play our usual Role-playing game but yours truly forgot his character sheet. So instead we broke out another favorite board game: Betrayal on House on the Hill. This is a board game of haunted houses, mysterious events, and Scooby Doo like antics. The game has a tile laying mechanic that simulates the players discovering the layout of this house they have the misfortune of being in. Each turn you move your Speed and lay down new tiles to further explore the mansion. Most rooms will have you draw some sort of a card upon entering. The most common is the Event which narrates a creepy scene and gives your character either or choice or challenge that would hinder or help them. Other cards you can draw are Items and the dreaded but useful Omens, these cards give you a major benefit but cause the player to make a Haunt Roll which may reveal one player as a traitor.

            So, we started our game and begun our exploration of the mansion. The first three turns we had Omen cards drawn and nearly started the event known as the Haunt which as I said earlier points out one player as a traitor. Luckily we got up to a good solid seven Omens drawn before the traitor was revealed. My character had stepped into a room and found the Kitchen which caused me to draw an Omen. My card was a girl that was lost in the mansion. I failed my roll and the player to my left was revealed to be the traitor.

            The Haunt we played detailed the traitor as the master of a phantom kidnapper that had taken the girl. It was our job to get her out of the mansion. The tricky part is, that there was also a bomb planted somewhere in the house. On top of that the phantom could vanish if you failed to injure him. Each turn the traitor got to roll a few dice to see if the bomb exploded and, each turn more dice were added.

            My character managed to get the front door of the mansion open while the others tangled with the phantom in the basement. After one or two rolls the phantom fell and the girl was saved. However we still had the bomb to worry about. To disarm the thing we needed to roll a massive seven or higher success. (The game uses special dice with 1, 2 and blank sides.) We figured bolting to the front door would be our best bet but on our sixth turn, we had got caught in the explosion.

            Winning or losing this game is a blast. With over fifty different stories to play and with the mansion being different each time it continues to be a favorite of mine. Try this one with your gamer friends or even your non gamer friends its simple to learn the themes are easily picked up by anyone who ever read a Goosebumps book. Check it out and I will see you all on Monday for my next design post!

Good Gaming Everybody!