When comparing Freedom - The Underground Railroad vs Betrayal at House on the Hill, the Slant community recommends Betrayal at House on the Hill for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op board games?” Betrayal at House on the Hill is ranked 2nd while Freedom - The Underground Railroad is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Betrayal at House on the Hill is:
Each of the 50 scenarios are unique and have a gripping story that helps pull you into the game. Whether it's demons, monsters, or rituals that need to be completed, each gameplay session will be filled with new stories and new objectives. Thanks to this, each session memorable in its own way as you won't ever be doing the same thing twice.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Implements historical education into the gameplay well
The game can be used as a great educational tool and it features plenty of historical moments, locations, and iconic people. Some games can be a bit preachy when they have historical aspects, luckily Freedom finds the right balance, making for a fun game that has plenty of historical components.
Pro Nice aesthetics
The looks of Freedom enhance the gameplay experience a lot. The gameboard is a huge, vintage-looking map of the United States with a newspaper look on the left side where cards and tokens are placed. The event cards feature black and white photos of historical characters, events, and places, as well as some history facts.
Pro Stacks well
Freedom has specific rules and setups for each player count, so it’s going to be a balanced, albeit a little different game for any number of players in the 1 to 4 player amplitude.
Pro Good quality components
The pieces should hold up to multiple plays and they can easily be stored in the game’s box. The components don’t feel cheap. The gameboard itself is huge, quite thick, and foldable, the cubes representing slaves are wooden, all the tokens are made of thick cardboard, and the cards are made of nice and durable cardstock.
Pro The basics are simple
The gameplay gets progressively more difficult as the game progresses, but the basic rules are easy.
The game takes part over 8 rounds, each divided in 5 different phases – slave catcher phase, planning phase, action phase, slave market phase, and lantern phase. The players must move the slaves, raise money to purchase abolition and movement tokens, all while evading slave catchers that move both randomly (by dice roll in the first phase) and in the direction of the slaves if they happen to walk on the path.
To add to this, there are also event cards you can purchase, some of which can help, and others that provide de-buffs. Some cards can be used upon purchase, whereas others provide an effect until removed.
Pro Two difficulties
The “normal mode” of Freedom is already quite hard, but if you’re looking for an extra challenge then you can flip the “slaves lost” card for more difficult requirements – more slaves to free and less room for error.
Pro Abstract components that allow for imagination
The components for the game are somewhat abstract, as there are cubes instead of characters. But this allows for imagination to be used and gives the game a refined look.
Pro Well written storylines lead to very memorable gameplay experiences
Each of the 50 scenarios are unique and have a gripping story that helps pull you into the game. Whether it's demons, monsters, or rituals that need to be completed, each gameplay session will be filled with new stories and new objectives. Thanks to this, each session memorable in its own way as you won't ever be doing the same thing twice.
Pro Exciting tone shift mid-game
In the beginning, players all work together to explore and search the haunted house, but once the betrayers are revealed in the later sections, the game turns you against one another. This complete shift in tone from co-op exploration to frantic survival is often the most exciting part as everyone's goals suddenly change and your friends are trying to kill you.
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. Even when playing the base game, the sheer amount of variety in nightmarish things (monsters, aliens, ghosts, weird portals) the game throws at you is incredible.
Pro Great for getting your friends into gaming
Overall, this is a great game to help get your friends into board games, even if they are bit reluctant. Each game session usually only lasts about 60 minutes, but manages to pack as much fun in as possible. The suspense of exploration combined with the excitement of the big reveal is an addicting mechanic that works well with many groups. Thanks to this short length and incredible way of drawing people in, this makes it a great game to pick up and play with friends on the spur of the moment.
Pro Not a huge time investment
You can play a whole game from start to finish in about an hour.
Pro Builds anticipation and suspense
Perhaps one person, or even multiple people are forced to switch to Betrayers in the middle of the game. You never know who is going to be affected, what the revealed horror will be, or when it will happen. Additionally, the Betrayers and Investigators often have objectives which are kept secret from one another, so you never know what your opponent's win condition is until it happens. All of this keeps everyone guessing what's going to happen next and how things will play out.
Pro Great expansion that adds to gameplay
The Window's Walk expansion not only adds 50 new haunts, but adds new rooms, cards and opens up the roof for exploration. Overall, it's an excellent addition that expands on the base game and gives you plenty of new content to enjoy.
Cons
Con Theme may not appeal to everyone
Since the theme is about slavery and escaping through the underground railroad, some people may not want to play as it is a bit on the heavy side. Moreover, it doesn’t really encourage light-hearted socializing between the players.
Con Big gameboard
The map takes up a lot of space, and you need some extra room for the player sheets, so you must either have a big table or spot on the floor. The map is 37.4x18.9 inches (950x480 mm) in size.
Con Quarterbacking issue
A popular issue in cooperative games – the more experienced player might take the reins and tell everyone what the best moves would be. In Freedom nothing is hidden, everyone controls the same units and knows what each other’s special abilities are, so this is particularly prevalent.
Con Quite long
A full game takes roughly 90 minutes, which can be quite difficult to sit through. It’s even more frustrating if you lose at the end. It’s also much too long if you want to, say, use the game as an educational tool in a classroom.
Con Difficult
Freedom is a complex puzzle that can easily drain the players trying to balance movement, money income, purchases, etc. Every action you take can have a lasting effect on the game, and you might not even notice. There’s a limited number of actions you can do before you simply run out of options, so you’ll be trying to figure out what the best move is, while, in fact, none of the moves are good, you’re often looking for the best of the worst.
Con Not very varied
Every game of Freedom can feel kind of alike – the starting scenario is always the same, so the first few turns will usually play out similarly, except for the luck-based elements, such as event cards and slave catcher dice rolls.
Con The mechanics aren't the best
The mechanics for things like movement and fighting occasionally break down or don't make sense in certain Haunts.
For movement, there are two cases where the mechanics break down. In most cases, it's very obvious where you're supposed to go and it ends up being a simplistic point A to point B course. This takes all the fun or guesswork out of plotting the optimal path. On the other hand, sometimes reaching your goal is impossible because of layouts which makes fulfilling an objective difficult or downright impossible. In both cases, movement feels unexciting.
When fighting, some abilities are rather complex, so time is taken out of the game to explain the mechanics to everyone. This ruins immersion for everyone and it can feel like there is more explaining than actual action.
Con Some Haunts are very unbalanced
Due to how the house is gradually discovered in the first phase of the game, it is possible for either the Betrayer or the Investigators to not have access to the tiles they need to win the game at the start of the second phase. Sometimes the Betrayers will be at a disadvantage, and sometimes the Investigators. It's an issue that effects both sides about the same.
Con Players may feel disadvantaged at times
There is a huge variety in the horrors revealed, and some work better than others after a large portion of the house has been discovered. Others work best in small, enclosed quarters. For example, a creature suddenly crawling through the walls works best in the small quarters, whereas it wouldn't be so much of a threat in a larger open area. Due to things like this, the scenario can sometimes often feel unfair for one side or the other - either the Betrayer or the Investigators will have a huge disadvantage.
Con Not appropriate for children
Some of the more complicated scenarios can be quite confusing, and the game is relatively slow paced, so it may not be fun for kids. As it's a horror game, some of the themes (monsters, cannibalism, demonic rituals) are not appropriate for young children.
Con Game relies very heavily on the players buying into the theme
This is a game that does best only if the players really buy into the theme of exploring the haunted house. Since cards are read aloud and acted out a bit (creepy voices highly encouraged), events and haunts in particular benefit from this extra bit of immersion. If this seems like a Pro to you, then great, Betrayal is your kind of game, but if not, then it can get stale quickly and its flaws are made even more apparent.