Review of the board game “Arkham Horror”

Hi all. Today I continue my blog about board games and this time I will be reviewing a board game based on the universe of the famous American poet, writer and journalist Howard Phillips Lovecraft “Arkham Horror”. But before we begin the analysis, I would like to tell a backstory for those who do not know who Lovecraft is and remind those who know.

I will not go into details of the biography, but will only talk about his work, and more specifically about the “Cthulhu Mythos”. The Cthulhu Mythos usually refers to the mythology created by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, as well as works by other authors based on his works, designed in his special style. In Myths it is possible to use gods and creatures described by Lovecraft, heroes and places, ancient books and artifacts. Although, by and large, this is not so necessary – in the infinite Universe there is enough room for other gods. An important element of Myths is the creation of an atmosphere of supernatural horror in a person’s collision with something that is outside the world he is familiar with, with something that he cannot explain. The author does not point out anything specific, but invites the reader to independently imagine the essence of the inexplicable.

which translated means “In his house in R’lyeh, the dead Cthulhu sleeps, waiting in the wings”.

I would also like to talk about several elements of Lovecraft’s mythology.

Places featured in the stories:
-Arkham is a city in Massachusetts. A frequent setting for the Cthulhu Mythos;
-Dunwich is a settlement in Massachusetts, near Arkham;
-Innsmouth (Innsmouth) is a small port settlement in Massachusetts;
-Yuggoth (Yuggoth, Yuggoth) is a planet in the solar system (Lovecraft identifies it with Pluto), a colony of Mi-go:
-Kingsport is a settlement in Massachusetts;
-The Miskatonic is a river that flows through Arkham; Miskatonic University, which constantly appears in the Cthulhu Mythos, is named after her;
-Mu – sunken continent;
-Rue d’Auseuil – a street in an unknown city, the scene of the story "The Music of Erich Zann";
-R’lyeh (R’lyeh) – the sunken city of Cthulhu and his descendants;
-abandoned city of Startsev in Antarctica.

Mystical creatures present in Lovecraft’s stories:
-Azathoth is an ethereal spirit who commands the ancients, whom the Ancient Gods hid from the earth in chaos, behind 11 seals;

-Gatanoa (also. Ghatanothoa) is an immortal being left on Earth by aliens from the planet Yuggoth;

-Hydra (Mother Hydra) – together with Father Dagon, is the patron saint of the Deep Ones. Younger ancient creature;

-Deep sea – intelligent amphibians. They were at enmity with the Elders;

-Dagon (also Father Dagon) – underwater deity. Together with Mother Hydra, he is the patron of the Deep Ones;

-The Ancients are ancient and terrible deities who came to Earth from the stars;

-Yog-Sothoth is a deity that connects different dimensions and worlds (“I am the gate. I am the key.");

-Cthulhu (also Cthulu) – brother of the Ancients and driver of Their slaves;

-The Mi-Go (also “mushrooms from Yuggoth”) are a race of aliens (presumably from Pluto) completely alien to humans;

-Nyarlathotep (also Nyarlathotep) – the embodiment of chaos, messenger of the gods;

-Elders (Elders) – alien creatures. Currently extinct or inactive. They were at enmity with the Descendants of Cthulhu and Mi-Go, they created the Shoggoths;

-Shub-Niggurath (also the Black Goat https://bovada-casino.co.uk/login/ of the Forests with a Thousand Young) is a fertility deity;

-Shoggoths are a mass capable of changing shape and possessing a semblance of intelligence;

-Hastur – a deity who lives outside of space, usually comes in the form of a vortex. Capable of sucking out the summoner, leaving only a shell behind. Also known as Hastur the Ineffable. Mentioned in some stories. Lovecraft and A. Derleta;

-Descendants of Cthulhu – mentioned in the novel "The Ridges of Madness" as a race of space octopus-like aliens who came to Earth led by Cthulhu during the reign of the Elders, with whom they waged fierce wars for the spaces of the Earth.

Well, with this we’ll probably finish the introductory part and move directly to the review. There are two editions of this board game. In both editions of the game, players take on the role of researchers who, in 1926, investigate strange and creepy events in the city of Arkham, Massachusetts. Gates to other worlds open in the city, evil monsters come out onto its streets, and all sorts of outrages begin to happen. If too many gates open, then one of the Ancients comes to Arkham, and players must fight him to save the world and themselves. The first edition, published in 1987, was created by Richard Launis and published by Chaosium.

This edition, compared to the later one, had simple rules. The cards and chips had either black and white drawings or silhouettes. The Arkham map shows intersecting streets divided into squares and various buildings.

Explorers could move a certain number of squares per turn, based on the number rolled on the die. Each researcher character had four constant parameters: talkativeness, fighting, knowledge, evasiveness (respectively fast talk, fight, knowledge, sneak) and a certain number of mental health and strength points. Paperclips were used to mark the number of points at a certain point in the game. A table of values ​​and a dice roll were used to determine random events in the city. Victory could be achieved by closing all the gates.

If the participants in the game failed to prevent the appearance of the Ancient One, then they lost.

As we can, the first edition was not perfect, but it gave impetus to the fact that in 2005 the company Fantasy Flight Games re-released the game, thereby making Arkham Horror one of the most famous board games in the world.

I’ll start with the most important rule of the game

Each player can choose (randomly or intentionally) one of 16 researchers as his character, whose cards describe a brief history, give a set of characteristics and unique abilities. Each character has its own maximum mental and physical health (Sanity and Stamina indicators). Also, each character has his own story, written on the back of the card, his own set of values ​​for six parameters: speed – stealth, combat – willpower, knowledge – luck (eng. speed – sneak, fight – will, lore – luck), which depend on each other (the higher the speed value, the lower the stealth and vice versa) and can change at the beginning of each turn in the “Breath” phase according to certain rules. Each character starts the game with the number of common items, unique items, skills, spells, money and clues indicated on his card and in a specific location in Arkham.

At the beginning of the game, the Ancient whose appearance will threaten Arkham is selected (randomly or based on the preferences of the players). Initially, there are eight ancient deities in the game (with the release of add-ons, their number increased to 24). If any features of playing with him are indicated on the Ancient card, then they are performed either before or during the game. Thus, Cthulhu reduces by one the maximum value of mental health and vitality for each player before the start of the game, and during the game, cultists, a type of monster, receive additional bonuses thanks to him; if Nyarlathotep is chosen as the Ancient One, then new monsters appear in the game – Masks; cultists of Yig, the Father of Snakes, become poisonous; if Shudde M’ell is chosen as the Ancient One, then in Arkham during each monster breakthrough an earthquake occurs, destroying one of the locations.

At the beginning of the game, all the decks of events and myths are shuffled, evidence is laid out on the map, chips representing players are placed, and the first “myth” card is read – a card that randomly determines what is happening throughout the city.

The mechanics of the game are based on rolling a certain number of six-sided dice – D6, this number is equal to the value of some character parameter plus modifiers. The dice are rolled against a certain difficulty of the check. For example, if a character’s knowledge value is 4, and the event card states that he needs to roll a knowledge die of -1, this means that the character rolls 4-1=3 dice, and on three dice he must roll two successful values ​​- five or six. Most checks, however, require only one successful roll, in which case it is simply written “knowledge check −1.”. If the character is blessed (visited a church or somehow attracted the attention of higher powers), then a successful roll is considered to be one in which the result is 4, 5 or 6. If a character is cursed, only a 6 counts as a successful roll. You can reset the curse by visiting a church and donating the corpses of killed monsters there.

On each turn, players can move their characters around the playing field, fight or run away from monsters, experience events in certain locations (these events will be determined by the event card for that area), or try to escape from Other Worlds. They can also sell or buy things or spells in some locations, receive a blessing, or improve their shaky mental (in a psychiatric clinic) or physical (in a hospital) health for free or for money.

If the explorer encounters a monster, he has two options – try to sneak past it (using the stealth parameter) or engage in battle with it. If the investigator intends to fight (or fails the stealth check), he must first determine whether he has the mental strength to face the horror on the streets of Arkham. The player must roll the dice to check the "willpower" parameter against the "horror" value that the monster causes. If the player passes the check, the explorer can fight the monster. If it doesn’t pass, then the character loses a certain amount of “brains” (a human brain is depicted on the mental health tokens) and still must fight the monster.

To fight a monster, the player rolls a number of dice equal to the value of the “fight” parameter plus bonuses from a weapon (if any) or from spells (if any) plus a modifier from the monster. If the player succeeds on this check, the monster is killed and the researcher takes its corpse as a trophy. Then this corpse can be sold at the docks, exchanged in the church for a blessing, but it cannot be given to another player (although home rules may allow this). The explorer can try to run away from the monster, in which case the player rolls the dice for “stealth”. If he succeeds, then his character escapes safely. If not, then the monster causes certain damage to the researcher, reducing the number of stamina points, and the fight continues until one of the participants is killed or the researcher escapes.

At the end of each turn, one of the players (the one who went first) takes the top “myth” card and reads it. This map says in which location the new gate will open, where the evidence appears, what is happening in the city. Monsters that have appeared and are already in the city move across the map in accordance with the “myth” map. Each time a gate is opened, a fate chip is placed on the Ancient One’s card, indicating how close he is to awakening. One of the goals in the game is to close all the gates. This can be done in three ways. A certain “combat” or “knowledge” check closes the gate, which means that in this location the gate can open again at any turn. To seal the gate, you must either spend five clues or seal it with the Sign of the Ancients. In the latter case, one chip is removed from the “scale of fate” on the Ancient One’s card, slowing down his appearance.

Once the Fate Gauge is full, the Ancient One awakens and the surviving explorers must fight him. There is an exception: if the demon sultan Azathoth wakes up in the game, he does not fight with the researchers, but immediately destroys the entire world.

Of course, this is only a brief description of the rules, but a description of such rules exists to attract people to play this. Also, with the additions to Arkham Horror, the rules also change, so I did not completely retell the rules.

I’ll tell you about the design of the game. I can’t say anything about the first edition, since I didn’t have a complete set of the game, but as for the second edition, there’s already something to talk about. Since the game takes place in the 1920s, the surroundings of those years are still there. Fonts, drawings, map descriptions, everything here breathes the spirit of America in the 20s.

Since the game belongs to the Ameritrash type, there are a lot of dice checks and other randomness (there is one of the classifications of board games: Ameritrash – where almost everything is in charge of the random and Euro – where randomness and the dice have no place at all). I want to warn you right away if you don’t immerse yourself in the atmosphere of this game, if you don’t feel like an investigator, then this game may seem very boring to you, since all you have to do is roll the dice.

Well, this is where I’ll probably end my first review. Let’s sum it up. "Arkham Horror" is a very beautiful, interesting and simply fun game to spend a few evenings with friends. But if you don’t like constantly rolling dice, then don’t even pick up the game. Bye everyone and good luck.

Best comments

I’m waiting for criticism on the first review. I also want to make it interactive – write in the comments which type of board games you like best: American or Euro (an explanation of what these terms are in the review)?

Interestingly, there are already a dozen reviews of Arkham… Should they do a review of something less well-known, the Sigillum Bestiary, I don’t know. (I can’t vouch for how popular/unpopular it is)

Good review, as well as a competent conclusion. I was just afraid that you would recommend the game to everyone, but everything was right about the randomness. I played 2 games of Arkham and neither I nor my friends have any more desire to return there. In general, after World of Warcraft it is impossible to play it, because WoW is very similar in mechanics, but is head and shoulders above in terms of situation control, because.e. There is random, but it’s not enough, thanks to all sorts of edits (re-rolling the dice), adding to the die value (for example +1 to the die value), etc.d.

A couple of points..
1) When I wrote about the value of the dice, it should have been indicated “For example, if the value of the “knowledge” parameter of a character is 4, and the event card indicates that he needs to roll the dice for knowledge -1 [2], this means that the character rolls 4-1 = 3 dice, and on three dice he must roll two successful values ​​- five or six."Otherwise the players will get confused and think that they always need to roll 2 successes.

2) In the examples of things and spells, only simple things are indicated.

And so – good review. Although he noticed mostly negative moments, he described them competently.

Guys, I’ll make a small announcement, I see that there are quite a lot of people who like board games, so I will continue to blog in this direction in the future. Tomorrow during the day I will try to post a review of the Munchkin card game, as well as several additions to it.

I would ask maybe to write about Munchkin in order to spread this excellent game among the masses, but it may not be as interesting as Arkham, the game itself is simpler… but it’s a pity, it’s a wonderful thing.

Naturally, many people start their journey in board games with it… but what if some of the slowpoke people don’t know about it yet??) Z.s. I recently tried an amateur Mancha set based on Fallout – pikabu.ru/story/manchkin_fallout_2455921 – I highly recommend it if you haven’t tried it, it greatly changes the game for the better, hardcore as it is. I feel like the phrase “Oh, you’re dead” will become a meme in our company for a long time)