1944: Betrayal at House on the Hill

Today's pre-lunch game was Betrayal at House on the Hill, a game that I got a while back and have only managed to get to the table once so far. I was excited to try it again, as I really enjoyed our first shot at it, and was also interested to see quite how differently the 50 different potential scenarios would make it on a subsequent playthrough.

For the unfamiliar, Betrayal at House on the Hill is an interesting board game that starts as cooperative and later becomes asymmetric competitive. In the first part of the game, all the players take on the role of explorers looking around a creepy old horror-movie house, finding items, experiencing strange events and encountering "Omens". The more Omens that are found, the more likely it is that "The Haunt" begins, and the combination of the Omen found and the place where it was picked up when The Haunt is triggered determines which one of the 50 scenarios you then move on to for the second part.

In the second part, things vary considerably between scenarios. Sometimes the player that becomes the traitor — who isn't always the person who revealed the last omen, and isn't always known to the table right away — remains on the board attempting to directly interfere with the efforts of the other players. Sometimes they're removed from the board and take on more of a "dungeon master" role, controlling hordes of monsters. Sometimes there are a variety of special mechanics to the various rooms in the house. And sometimes it's a fairly straightforward hack-and-slash sort of affair.

The scenario we played involved the one who found the last omen being caught under the spell of a rat god. His job was to make it to the "Pentagram Room" in the basement, then complete a ritual. Meanwhile, the other players' job was to stop him, either by killing all his rat minions that spawned around the house, or by killing him outright — though once he got into the Pentagram Room and started performing the ritual, he could no longer be attacked.

The interesting thing about the way Betrayal at House on the Hill handles this asymmetry is that it keeps certain pieces of information secret from each side. There are two separate books, in which the two "sides" find out what their objective is, but not usually what their opponent is trying to do. There might be some hints or special rules that provide a clue, but it's usually not spelled out explicitly. In this way, part of the challenge of the second half of the game is determining exactly what your opponent is trying to do, and how best to stop it while completing your own objectives as efficiently as possible.

It's a really cool game with a lot of atmosphere and a great sense of unfolding narrative as the house gradually reveals itself and strange things happen to all the players. And it's ridiculously replayable, too; even if you play the same scenario twice, the randomly generated nature of the game map and the items and events you'll stumble across in the process means that it will be a different experience every time.

Plus it plays relatively quickly, which is a blessing for groups like ours that tend to meet on a weeknight when we're not devoting entire weekends to gaming. In contrast to titles like Arkham Horror, which are magnificently atmospheric and a lot of fun to play but take three or more hours to plough through, Betrayal at House on the Hill plays comfortably in 90-120 minutes, depending on the scenario, making it a good game for those looking for a fun horror fix without having to, say, sit in their friend's "sweaty balls chairs" for hours at a time.

I had a great time this weekend; hearty thanks to Sam, Tim and Tom for making my "birthstag" celebrations memorable and enjoyable.