The Bomb Shelter

Game Night

Yesterday I went over to the Conrads' house for boardgames and dinner. After Mrs. Conrad's wonderful pasta dinner, we delved right into the joy of Dungeon! and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Dungeon! is a classic TSR boardgame. It's fairly simple; you play an adventurer who goes into a dungeon, fights monsters, and tries to accumulate a certain ammount of treasure. I found the game okay, especially with all the joking around we did, but found several problems with the game.

First of all, the game is exceptionally unbalanced. The Elf character and the Hero character are both pathetically weak, while the Superhero is... fairly average, and the Wizard is stupendously powerful. The monsters in even the lowest levels (1 or 2) of the dungeon are difficult for an Elf or Hero to overcome, and really only the Wizard has a chance of beating any of the higher difficulty enemies.

This lack of balance is made up for by the victory conditions. Wizards and Superheroes need more treasure to win. This is, however, a fairly poor way to balance the game. Four more balanced character types (and easier monsters, ye-gads!) would make for a much better gaming experience.

Also, and maybe I'm just spoiled from more modern games, but a tile based board would make the dungeon different every time, and that would have been a nice touch too.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is one of my favourite boardgames. It is a haunted house boardgame, where you play a group of trapped horror movie stereotypes who explore the house, until whatever is haunting it makes itself known.

One of the better twists in the game, as the name implies, is that one of the players will inevitably betray the others. You don't know who that will be up until the haunt is revealed, though, so the game adds a level of suspense as everyone (even the future traitor) wonders who the traitor is going to be.

The real beauty of House, however, is its utter replayability. Besides being tile-based, meaning the layout of the house changes from game to game, the game has 50 different haunt scenarios, based on what Omens are found in what rooms.

All in all, it was a good night full of awesome boardgames and alot of food.

posted by ScottyBomb @ 11:56 a.m.