This evening, we had some friends over! Good Lord. Actual socialisation. We even played a board game — Betrayal at House on the Hill, if you were curious. This is a game that hasn't hit the table for a long time — hell, no games have hit the table for a long time, for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with this evening — so I was excited to be able to get some use out of it. And, as usual for this wonderful game, it offered a completely different experience to any of the previous times we've played.
For the unfamiliar, Betrayal at House on the Hill is an interesting theme-centric game that unfolds in two distinct phases. In the first, a veritable Scooby gang of adventurers decides to investigate the titular House, which is generated semi-randomly by drawing tiles and laying them out across the board. At various points, new rooms will cause the people discovering them to have to draw items, "omens" and events, and these will have various effects.
So far so conventional cooperative dungeon crawler, you might say. The big twist, as you may have surmised from the title, is that partway through your jolly little jaunt to the abandoned house, things go horribly wrong. Specifically, each time you draw "omen" cards (which typically represent spooky items you find around the house which can be used later) you roll for a "haunt", with the likelihood the "haunt" will happen increasing with every omen card drawn.
When the haunt is eventually triggered, the combination of the item drawn that triggered it and the room the triggerer was in determines which of a multitude of scenarios the game will follow from thereon. One or more players are designated as "traitors" according to the scenario, and they are then given their own, usually secret goals to accomplish. The remaining regular players then have their own goal to accomplish, also. At this point the game switches from being cooperative to competitive, with the "hero" players attempting to defeat the "traitors", thwart their schemes or whatever.
It's a really interesting game, because each scenario not only has a different story setup, it also tends to have radically different mechanics. In the probably seven or eight times I've played this game now, we've never had the same "haunt" twice, and each one has been markedly different from the last. It really is a lot of fun, and I'm glad we had the opportunity to get it out for the first time in ages this evening.
Now, I've had a drink or two so I think I will probably sleep well this evening. Remains to be seen if I feel up to making any videos tomorrow…!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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