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Pro Unique coop -> competitive experience
Players all work together towards the beginning of the game to explore and search the haunted house, but in the later sections the game turns you against one another, and often leads to hilarious situations.
Con Poorly written rules for a light game
For a fairly light game where the decisions are nearly trivial, a nearby computer is necessary to decipher the poorly written rulebook, misprints, and errata.
Pro Near endless replayability
The "Traitor's Tome" rulebook contains a base of 50 "haunt" scenarios to play through, but you can easily create your own or find more online if you'd like to play more unique or varied games.
A Lovecraftian horror game which takes place in two phases. During the first, players must explore an ever-expanding haunted mansion, revealing room tiles as they progress through the house, stumbling upon ancient artifacts and paranormal omens. Each time someone reveals an omen, players get one step closer to "The Haunt". The Haunt is the second phase of the game, where a scenario is selected from the rulebook based on the state of the current game. What items players have, what rooms have been explored, etc. Often, the scenario will select one player as the "traitor", and she/he will have to leave the room and both sides will be given secret objectives. The traitor often has to perform some task, such as bringing an item to a certain room to summon a monster, while the rest of the players will have to stop the ritual. This is where the game really shines. Alliances fall through, secrets are revealed, and general shenanigans take place as each side attempts to complete their secret objectives, and escape the mansion alive.
Pro Spreading mistrust amongst your friends
Dead of Winter is, on the surface, a cooperative game where players work together to survive an apocalypse. However, every game has roughly a 50/50 chance of a hidden traitor mixed in with the players, whose goal includes making all of the other players lose the game. In every game, regardless of
Pro Great horror story
One of the core mechanisms of Dead of Winter is the Crossroads card system. These are cards that are read, in secret, by another player while you take your turn. If, during your turn, you take a specific action (maybe searching at the police station, or moving a character), play is interrupted,...
Con Unwinnable for some players
Occasionally through luck of the draw or poor decision making, a player's Secret Objective will become clearly un-achievable, or the achievement of which will lose the game for everyone. When this happens to a non-betrayer mid game it become very frustrating to have to stick it out knowing you...
Con the rule book is really poorly written
Unlike most Anotine Bauza games, the rule book for Ghost Stories is pretty terrible. This means that, unless you're learning the game from somebody already familiar with it, the first few games will probably be a slog of constantly consulting the rules. A game like this, which uses symbology...
Pro Gives a sense of impending doom
From the start the game feels stacked against your team, which is on purpose as it gives a feeling of impending doom and destruction. The game is a balancing act of what to do each turn as the team tries to fend of the ghosts which leads to never quite feeling like you are winning.
Pro Designed well with beautiful artwork that exemplifies the horror theme
All of the pieces of the game are colorful and have much attention to detail.
Ghost Stories is a co-operative horror themed game where the players are tasked with stopping haunting's in a town. Wu-Feng (the main protagonist) has come back from the dead to haunt the players town. The players are tasked with defending the town from waves of ghosts until Wu-Feng finally shows, which at that point they must defeat him. With each turn the player reveals a ghost card and places it on the board. From there they can move one space on the board and choose an action. These actions can be used to help the team. The player can also forgo an action and attack a ghost if it is next to them. This continues until Wu-Feng is revealed from the deck and defeated. Which sounds easier than it is.
Pro Components and art are well done
There is nothing that makes the game feel cheep, the cards and tokens (game pieces) feel solid and the art design is professional and pleasing. Everything about the game says "quality".
Pro Chaotic team based play of deception and deduction
Players must work together as well as deceive each other in order to find out or hide who the Werewolf is. This creates a sense of chaos as each team strives to reach their goal.
Pro No player elimination
Unlike the original version of the game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf does not have any player elimination, which is great for not excluding anyone who plays, which makes it more fun everyone involved.
A remake of Werewolf with some new tweaks to the gameplay. Eight players and up play a fast paced game of deceit where players try to figure out who among them is the werewolf. Players each receive a roll (keep it to yourself), and then start the companion app which will walk you through the night. Most characters will wake up at some point and perform a task. When you wake up in the morning, your roll may have changed (but there's no way to know for sure). This is a game of deception, as well as teamwork. It's the werewolf team VS the villagers. Villagers need to work together to figure out who the werewolves are (if there are any), and werewolves need a rock solid alibi to win. Players vote to kill one player - if a werewolf is chosen, villagers win. If a villager is chosen...evil wins.
Pro Deep RPG immersion
The win condition for the game is basically to get out of the house alive. Any other scenario where one does not get out they either die or go insane, which is what plays into the immersion of this game, it is more about story and experiencing what it has to offer than "winning".
Con Long set up and play time
Be prepared to spend long hours on this bad boy. Each scenario must be laid out exactly how the book states or you could potentially break the game.
Pro Excellent story mechanic
One of the few games that can get one involved as a character dealing with a continually challenging and unveiling storyline. A competent keeper (DM) is a must, though.
Mansions of Madness is a Lovecraft themed horror board game where players control investigators just arriving on the scene of a mystery with the goal of stopping ghosts, witches and cultists trying to raise an ominous god to our realm. The gameplay is asymmetric where one player controls all the bad guys (called the Keeper) and the rest of the players are tasked with stopping him. Players must solve different puzzles throughout the game wile avoiding hazards and evil cards as well as monsters, all of which will be thrown at them by the keeper, all while trying to find more evidence until the players come to the last clue which reveals the wind conditions for the game.
Pro Survival is based on backstabbing
In order to live, you'll have to vote others to death. Great moments like the priest voting to kill the little girl.
Con Elimination gameplay
It can happen that someone is eliminated from the game, though in my experience it's not often that you have all of your characters voted off.
Pro Works well with bigger groups
The more people, the more voters to convince to let you live and the more likely someone will have to die.
Backstabbing horror survival game that's all about getting your character through the night until the helicopter comes to save you. You have limited weapons and if there are too many zombies, somebody dies. But whom? That all depends on how the votes go. Trade favours, cards, and promises for votes but will you get what you asked for or will someone betray you?
Pro Incredibly deep stories in each scenario
Each scenario begins with players on a single tile with a very limited amount of information about what is going on in that scenario. As players explore the app tells them which tiles to add next, revealing a steadily growing board that can be anything from a rambling mansion to a creepy seaside t...
Con Quite expensive
With an MSRP of near $100, this game is going to likely be too expensive for many game groups.
Pro Fully cooperative play
In the original Mansions of Madness the enemies and story elements were controlled by one of the players, called the Keeper. In the 2nd edition the Keeper was replaced by an app that handles all of the setup and guides players through the game while controlling and tracking all of the monsters in...
In this updated version of the classic boardgame, the role of the Keeper is replaced by a high quality app, turning the game from a 1 vs many dynamic to a fully cooperative experience where players take the role of one of eight investigators and must work together to solve each scenario and defeat the forces of evil.
Pro Allows for casual play
Elder Sign is a good game to play with newcomers unfamiliar with the rules due to the game not being super difficult (like Ghost Stories). While it does offer a challenge it is not completely stacked against the players like some other titles in the genre.
Pro Good for short bursts of co-op gameplay
Elder Sign is styled as a co-op experience that uses tightly integrated dice mechanics to allow for short and succinct play times of around 90 minutes.
Con More than 4 or 5 players can lead to a lot of downtime
Elder Sign says it can be played with up to 8 players but playing with that many people can lead to a lot of sitting around, which can be boring.
Elder Sign is a fast paced dice game based around Lovecraftian horror. The players goal is to work together to collect a specific number of Elder Signs. They do this through completing tasks through the use of six green dice with various symbols on them. By matching certain dice in certain combinations players will be rewarded with items that help them in the game or even the a coveted Elder Sign. Failing to roll correct combinations results in harm to the player that can eventually lead to their death.
Pro Satisfying asynchronous play
Many games try to do asynchronous gameplay but often do not get it right. Luckily Letters for Whitechapel nailed the gameplay with a well balanced role of Jack the Ripper, who often only narrowly escapes the police, which gives a feeling of tension to the one player who could have an advantage if...
Pro Avoids advantage to any player
A lot of co-op games have a problem with one player getting an advantage, this is called an alpha player. Letters from Whitechapel avoids this issue by rotating the Head of Investigation (a player who leads the rest of his co-op partners) each round, this way avoiding one player who has too much c...
Con Slow beginning
The beginning of the game is the poorest part as it is slow to setup and can be confusing, especially to new players.
Letters from Whitechapel is an asynchronous board game based on deduction and bluffing where one player takes the role of Jack the Ripper while up to players take on the role of detectives in order to hunt Jack down. The gameplay consists of asynchronous play where the Jack player will try to kill without getting caught while the rest of the players systematically patrol the streets of London trying to stop Jack before he kills again. By searching for clues the detectives try to catch Jack as he tries to get back to his hideout after the murder.
Pro Combines risk/reward with strategy
There are two roles for the cards a player will play, Cowardly and Brave. Each turn there can be only one player that gets to be Brave so everyone must try to strategically guess what everyone else will do in order to decide if it is worth the risk of playing the Brave card for more rewards over s...
Pro Rules that allow for 2 player
Unlike original Witches Brew game Broom service has an optional 2 player ruleset for those times when there are not enough people for the normal ruleset to be used.
Con Game board is busy
The board design while colorful is a bit busy in that it may be confusing what some parts of the board are for as specific colors and shapes are important to the gameplay and getting lost in the design can be a detriment to play.
Broom Service is a card based board game based off of the game Witch’s Brew that combines luck and skill with bluffing ones opponent. The goal of the game is to deliver potions in a magical world by choosing four out of ten cards each round. Each card has an action (Cowardly or Brave) with Cowardly giving less reward than Brave. The player gambles by choosing one action over the other as one is less reward with instant action and the other more reward with a possible no action. Through these actions the player is delivering potions which upon doing so rewards the player with points. The player with the most points at the end wins the game.
Pro Tons of replayability
There are a bunch of "best case scenarios" in the rules one can choose at the games set up, on top of this users can customize as well as create their own scenarios not only making for a different experience every time but allows one to customize a game for the type of play session they...
Con Error filled rulebook
The packaged rulebook is not only filled with errors and typos but is also missing a lot of pertinent information to the gameplay. Luckily there is an updated version as a PDF download on the publishers site that has the extra content the printed version is missing.
Pro Quality components
The game comes with a bunch of miniatures, all molded out of plastic and have nice detailing as well as individual looks. The cardboard game cards, etc also have a solid think feel to them as well as colorful and illustrative art printed on them with the cards even being double sided. The amount of
Zombicide is a co-op board game where players choose different abilitied survivors in order to use their skills with teamwork as to survive while trying to accomplish different goals of selected missions. This is carried out through a series of quick turns where each players gets to use a number of actions in order to move, search or attack enemies. The goal being to survive the whole of the game by utilizing these actions.
Pro Great challenge for those that enjoy difficult games
The win conditions of the game are quite slim and require one to know the rules ins and outs, so while not a game for casual players it is a game for the hardcore who enjoy a challenge.
Con Very unaproachable
Arkham Horror has a lot of moving parts, its rules are difficult to follow and the gameplay itself is pretty difficult. This all adds up to a game that is very unapproachable and will take the most dedicated of players to really understand the whole concept put forth.
Pro Works well with large groups
The game supports up to 8 players, which is something of a feat for a game of its size and components. Makes for a great party game due to the size of players it allows.
Arkham Horror is set in the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Set in the 20s players are tasked with investigate strange happening in Arkham. The gameplay consists of using the attributes of their investigator as well as item cards that represent spells, items or other helpful tools. By utilizing these things the player can progress to open gates to other worlds. these gate contain monsters that will then roam around the board. the player avoids these monsters in order to try and go through the gate, once they return they can close the gate. It is through one of these gates that an end game monster will finally appear, it is up to the players to defeat that monster to win.
Pro High replayability due to multiple decision points and possible endings to both individual missions and the overall scenario
At different points along each mission players will be forced to make decisions that will affect not only that mission, but the storyline overall. This means that even playing the same scenario will have different results based on the decisions made by each player.
Con The core set is limited to 1-2 players
Unfortunately a base set of the game will only allow a maximum of two players at a time. However, if you are willing to buy a second core set then the game can play 4 players cooperatively.
Pro Multiple expansions and add-ons will continue to help the game grow and evolve over time
Fantasy Flight has already announced and released several add-on packs that include new storylines, characters, monsters, and equipment, further broadening the depth and replayability of this game.
Arkham Horror: The Card game is a co-op card game set in Fantasy Flights' Lovecraft universe. In this living card game each player builds a hero deck based around one of the main characters in the game. They then use this character to play through different scenarios over the course of multiple games. During each mission in a scenario players can make choices that impact both the story and their characters.
Pro Separate roles allow experienced players and inexperienced players to still have a good time together
Most players take on the role of the survivors, but one or two take on the role of the zombies. If playing with people who are new to the game, the experienced players can take the more difficult role of controlling the zombies, leaving the other players to sort themselves out, without becoming p...
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