Give the Devil His Turn: Five Favorite Frightful Board Games
Just in time for Halloween, five favorite frightful board games.
Betrayal at House on the Hill by Avalon Hill Games is a game of haunted house exploration for 3-6 players. A cooperative game of sorts, players take turns moving through the house by laying down room tiles, resulting not only in a mad floor plan but a unique board each time the game is played. Players explore the house by drawing from three different decks of cards, collecting Items, encountering frightening Events, or stumbling upon Omens of the evil to come. With each Omen the “Haunt” grows likelier. When this Haunt is triggered the game changed considerably, with the vague malevolence of the house replaced by a stark and immediate evils including new rules and new game pieces. Also specified by most of the Haunt scenarios, one of the players turn traitor and work against the others till the end of the game.
BaHotH is messy: because the board is randomly constructed, key rooms (and stairs) are occasionally missing; the characters are chosen with no idea what will be required of them after the Haunt; the Haunt itself may came very earlier or very late resulting in either a haunted cottage or a spooky mansion. With all these variables, the game seems like it should not work, but it does. Whether due to some fancy quantum game design, sheer luck, or a deal with the devil, the game works spectacularly. The traitor mechanic adds a good deal of suspense and with over 50 Haunt scenarios, 12 possible characters, and the ever-changing board, each game feels quite different.
Last Night on Earth by Flying Frog Productions is the ultimate zombie board game, full of cinematic horror and surprising reversals. Set in a small isolated town, the game is played by 2-6 players some of which control the zombies and some the heroes. In the first of many elegant rules, each game has the same number of heroes and zombies regardless of the number of players, making a two-player game just as exciting as a six-player game. During play, the heroes run (or stumble) from building to building collecting resources by drawing cards from the Hero Deck. In perhaps the greatest mechanic in the game, players can either move or draw a card – either flee or search desperately for something with which to counter the undead menace. The zombies – true to classic form – are numerous and slow, but capable grisly surprises through their own Zombie Deck.
LNoE includes 5 scenarios, each with a different victory condition for heroes and zombies. Sometimes the heroes are on the defense, just trying to survive till daybreak, other times they are fighting back, trying to wipe out the walking dead. The game is brilliantly balanced; I’ve played hundreds of times and the ration of hero wins to zombie wins must be nearly 50/50, often with the outcome in nail-biting suspense till the very last turn. Of all the board games I’ve played, Last Night on Earth – with its CD of evocative music and simple yet effective rules – best captures the feeling of its setting; pick up the dice and you’re alone in the night with the dead hungering for your flesh.
A Touch of Evil, also by Flying Frog Productions, is a game of 18th century American horror – think Sleepy Hollow (more Tim Burton than Washington Irving). In the cooperative version of the game, players take the role of a wide range of heroes working together to battle one of several villains. In the competitive game, players race to be the first to defeat the villain, throwing obstacles in the path of their fellow heroes. The Heroes must find and defeat the villain before time runs out. Beginning characters are far too weak, however, to challenge the Vampire, the Werewolf, or the Spectral Horseman, so they must gather allies and equipment before the final showdown. The players do this by moving over a map of the town of Shadowbrook from the Abandoned Keep to the Olde Woods to other spooky spots, investigating each location by drawing cards from specific decks. These decks are dangerous but rewarding, holding both deadly perils and wonderful items. Allies can be found in the Location decks or in the person of the Town Elders, but beware the elders of Shadowbrook have deep secrets: hidden strengths or ghastly crimes. Adding to this menace are the Mystery Cards, malicious cards representing the evil influence of the villain.
Like all the Flying Frog games aToE is lavishly produced, including beautifully rendered games cards and pieces and a CD of background music. Each villain brings with it new rules and minions, making for very different games. The game is well-balanced and suspenseful, with players desperately gathering secrets and chasing the villain while darkness falls, success as likely as failure.
Lastly we have, not one, but two Munchkin games: Munchkin Cthulhu and Munchkin Zombies. Both follow the traditional Munchkin Method (race to level 10 by gather bonuses, kicking open doors, and defeating monsters) but with a terrifyingly funny twist.
In Munchkin Zombies the roles are reversed – you are the zombie and the “monsters” are your often-far-from-helpless victims. Instead of Classes, you have Mojo or flavors of zombies (Atomic, Plague, or Voodoo) and Powers such as Tough, Smart, and Rotting. From here the game becomes a shambling corpse of bad puns and icky fun with weapon like “Your Own Pancreas and/or Spleen” and curses such as “Mostly Armless”. Good, clean fun.
The tagline for Munchkin Cthulhu reads “Kill the Monsters * Steal the Treasure * Stab Your Buddy And Go Mad!” and that’s just what the game delivers. Beyond the usual puntastic cards like the “Necronookiecon” and “Tht Whch Hs N Vwls”, this Munchkin incarnation offers new curses called Madness such as “Gammaphobia” (fear of the letter “G”), “Phobophobia” (a fear of phobia), and Obsessive-Compulsive (all your cards must be kept in alphabetical order). There is also the Cultist class, which maddens up the game quite a bit. Of course, both Madness and Cultist can be cured (or inflicted) by a “Sudden Blow to the Head”. With apologizes to H. P. Lovecraft, this game is The Lurking Fun!
