Designer: Bruce Glassco (2004)
Publisher: Avalon Hill (Hasbro)
# of Players: 3-6
Play Time: 90 Minutes
BGG Rank/Rating: #358/6.67
Weight: Medium Light
(This review originally appeared on www.gamerchris.com)
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a really cool game of exploration and traitorous mayhem set in a spooky haunted house. From my relatively limited experience with "horror" games, I find it to be probably the best of this genre to strike a balance between complexity, fun, theme, and atmosphere. I'll take a few minutes here to discuss the game's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the Hypermind BoardGamers experience with it as Game of the Month!
Components and Setup
Overall, the "stuff" in Betrayal at House on the Hill is quite good. Each player takes one of the 6 double-sided character cards along with its corresponding prepainted miniature, and chooses which of the two specific characters to play. These Character Cards have little slider clips to keep track of the current values of the four traits used in the game: might, speed, sanity, and knowledge.
The "House" is built through the placement of modular rooms made from thick cardboard. Initially, the starting tiles (the entrance hall, upper landing, and basement landing) are placed on the table to begin forming the three floors of the house. The rest of the room tiles are shuffled (as well as you can shuffle thick cardboard tiles, anyway) and placed face-down near the play area. All the room tiles have an indication on their backs as to which floor or floors they can be played in (Upper, Ground, or Basement). The room tiles are sturdy and have very nice, evocative artwork that greatly contributes to the feel of the game. The only problem I know of with their production is that the Underground Lake tile was printed with the "Upper" floor marking on its back (instead of the intended "Basement"). This bothers some people a lot, but we just figured that the house was all haunted and wacky, so things like that happen sometimes.
In addition, there are three decks of cards that are also shuffled and placed nearby. These are for Items, Events, and Omens. The symbols for each type of card corresponds to identical symbols found in the different rooms in the house. In general, the quality of the cards is not the greatest, but you don't really handle them too much so it's not that big of a problem. Also, their art and the "flavor text" describing exactly what is happening with the card are very good and contribute greatly to the atmosphere of the game as well.
The game also has eight six-sided dice that are numbered with 0 to 2 pips on each face (each number is obviously on two different sides). These are standard size and have nice weight.
To start the game, all the miniatures being used are placed in the Entrance Hall and the character with the next birthday goes first.
Basic Gameplay (click here for full rules)
First off, before you play your first game, download the FAQ document and the revised Traitor's Tome and Secrets of Survival booklets. The biggest problems with this game come from poorly written rules and some occasional imbalance issues. These documents clean up a lot of the mess and make the game far easier to understand. Now back to the game itself...
At the start of the game, the players explore the house by moving their character and responding to the cards they draw. Each round, characters can move through one room per point of Speed they have. As these explorers move through a doorway that doesn't yet connect to a revealed room, a new room tile is flipped over and placed there. If the top tile does not correspond to the floor where the explorer is, it is discarded (for now) and the player continues to draw tiles until one can be placed on that level. If the new room has multiple doors, the player may choose how to orient the tile as long as it connects to the door they are coming through.
An explorer's movement ends prematurely when they reveal a new room that contains one of the symbols for Events, Items, or Omens. The player then draws the top card from the corresponding deck and reads it aloud to the whole group (in as creepy a voice as they can muster). All Items and most Omens are things that they keep, and how to use them is described on the card itself. The Event cards will describe some spooky occurrence takes place, and often requires some sort of die roll to determine how it plays out. Something else happens when an Omen is drawn, but I'll talk about that a bit later. Characters may take damage (or get bonuses) to one or more of their traits from these cards, but note that no explorer may die (drop a trait to the skull symbol) before the haunt is revealed. Changes in traits are reflected by sliding the clip up or down one "notch" for that trait.
Something else that a player can do on their turn is to attempt a die roll. These rolls may be triggered by events, rooms, or other factors in the game, and some are required while others are optional. This involves rolling a number of dice equal either to the value of one of their traits or a preset number of dice indicated on the card or room. Explorers may attempt more than one die roll a turn, but may attempt each roll only once per turn. For example, if Jenny LeClerc is attempting move through the Tower, she must succeed in a 3+ Might roll. Her Might is 4, so she rolls 4 dice and totals up all the pips. If the total is 2 or less, she would have to turn around and go a different way (or wait until next turn to attempt it again), but on 3 or more she could move through the other door in the tower normally.
Okay, now back to Omen cards - when an Omen card is drawn, the player attempts a Haunt Roll at the end of their turn by rolling 6 dice. If the total rolled is less than the number of Omen cards revealed so far in the game, then the Haunt occurs. Check the "Haunt Chart" table in the front of either the Secrets of Survival or the Traitor's Tome booklets, following the appropriate column for the last Omen revealed and the row for the room where it was drawn to find out which of the 50 different Haunts occur. Also check the "Haunt Traitors" chart to find out which of the explorers is the traitor. You give the traitor the Traitor's Tome and send them away, while the heroes (the non-traitorous explorers) open the Secrets of Survival. Both sides turn to the appropriate page for the Haunt that has happened, which will tell them exactly how the evil of the house corrupted one of the poor explorers and made them into a vicious traitor. It also says how their particular side can then win the game. Note that not all the information is given to both parties, so be careful not to reveal everything you know to the other side.
After the haunt has begun, the hero to the left of the traitor takes the first turn. Turns go pretty much like they did before the haunt, except that all the players will now know what they are trying to accomplish. Plus, explorers can now attack each other. To attack, the two players involved both roll dice equal to their character's might. Some items, omens, or other circumstances can also allow attacks using other traits as well. Whoever rolled higher inflicts an amount of damage to the other character equal to the difference in the rolls. Might or Speed attacks inflict physical damage, which is applied by reducing the might and/or speed of the wounded character (wounded character's controller chooses which to reduce) by a total number of spaces equal to the amount of the damage. Knowledge or Sanity attacks similarly deal mental damage that is applied to the loser's knowledge and/or sanity.
In many cases, the traitor will also have other monsters that they place when the haunt occurs and then control for the rest of the game. Monsters are a little different in that their speed is variable, where the traitor rolls a number of dice equal to their speed trait and can then move them a number of rooms equal to the total rolled. Monsters are also rarely killed, but rather become stunned (and miss their next turn) when defeated in an attack.
Play continues around the table until either the heroes or the traitor accomplish their goal listed for the haunt they are playing (under the section "You Win When...").
What I think…
I had played Betrayal at House on the Hill a handful of times before we made it the Game of the Month!, and we then played it another 5 times throughout the month of October. In our first game together, we totally misinterpreted the Haunt description (as well as having a few basic rules questions), making it completely unbalanced and not much fun at all, and I was feeling a little worried about having to play it four more times. In the meantime, we found the FAQ and eventually added the revised booklets as well, all of which dramatically clarified the rules.
After finishing out the month, however, I have to say that I think Betrayal at House on the Hill is the best overall game I have ever played in the "horror" genre. It strikes a really nice balance between creating an evocative horror atmosphere while still being relatively simple and playing in a reasonable amount of time. I like the pseudo-cooperative element to the game, as well as the fact that players don't know how to win until after the haunt occurs! That seems so novel to me, and I also think that it adds a lot to the mystery and tension of the game.
The big problem is, of course, that the game was not adequately playtested and, more importantly, the various booklets were not thoroughly edited before printing. Most of this was fixed by the revisions and the FAQ, but I still see some balance issues with a few of the haunts we encountered. In general, though, this game is way more about theme and tone than about perfectly balanced gameplay.
That leads me to replayability, which you might think could be a problem with having a limited set of Haunts to choose from. But first off, there are 50 different haunts! I mean, how many games have you ever played more than 50 times? Plus, with a different set of characters and the random timing of the haunt trigger, the circumstances would almost certainly be drastically different even if you repeated some of them. So to me, the variability of the game is a real strength.
But it still all comes down to theme. Everything this game does, through all the artwork, flavor text, design, and mechanics, supports its effort to generate an atmosphere of mystery, tension, and "horror". Now, of course, the game isn't really scarry, but I doubt that it's really even possible to make a game that can generate real fear. But the modular nature of Betrayal at House on the Hill manages to encapsulate the entire genre in one game, with glimpses of everything from Scooby Doo to Stephen King.
The Verdict!
While it was Game of the Month!, five different people played Betrayal at House on the Hill and gave it an average rating of 7.7.
• Rules: As written in the original documents, they are vague and confusing. Once clarified, the game is rather simple and easy to play or teach.
• Downtime: Turns are quick, and much of the game is cooperative which means that players are often involved with each others' turns.
• Length: Our games averaged a length of about 68 minutes. That seems just right to me.
• Player Interaction: Significant. Players have ways both to aid and attack each other.
• Weight: Medium
• GamerChris’ Rating: Innovative, Cooperative play - Mediocre but Fixable Rules + Craploads of Atmosphere = 8.
Last edited on 2007-11-08 06:14:19 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Tue Nov 6, 2007 4:37 am
