Betrayal at House on the Hill

Oct 26

Description

Face Your Terror as it Builds- Tile by Tile

Take a deep breath before you enter. It might be your last. Your fear will grow with each tile you place as you investigate a house filled with dreadful monsters and deadly secrets. As you brave yourway through each unique room, you and the other explorers must rely on each other to survive the horrors that await. But beware: The house will turn one of you against the rest. It will take all of your strengths and skills to defeat the traitor and escape the Betrayal at House on the Hill.

With 50 fiendish scenarios and dozens of danger-filled rooms, you’ll return to the house again and again - as often as you dare - and never face the same game twice.

3-7 Players

12+

Medium

Long

Review

Betrayal at House on the Hill (or BHH as I will refer to it going forward) is another classic on our yearly Halloween list. With its wide range of scenarios it's always a thrill to see who the traitor will be and how the hunt will proceed. Yet with its hour to two hour run time, BHH becomes a one game per night situation if not the only game depending on you and your friends time schedule.

At BHH’s core is the building of the house itself. Exploring each room tile by tile never knowing what you're going to find. This time is crucial as you and your team will need to gear up for the impending omen. Of course this is what makes the omen stronger so you never know if you’re next step will help or hinder you. Whether the items are cryptic like a mystic coin to boost your stats or something straightforward like a revolver, you’ll want to make use of these as best you can.

Once the omen has been triggered the real fun begins. The traitor is revealed with ambitions of their own and it’s up to the remaining heroes to stop them. This can begin bit of an awkward phase though as the traitor will have to leave the room to go over one of the 50 scenarios (not including expansions). The transition from active gameplay to screeching halt of silent reading can definitely kill the momentum depending on your group, especially if the traitor is not someone who plays games a lot. After the momentary break, the showdown begins. You’ll start trying to read each others body language, doing your best to survive while figuring out each teams end game. Let’s hope you got some good items along the way.

Overall BHH is a great ride though personally its greatest strength of randomization can also become its greatest weakness as time goes on. There have been rounds where we were hoping for the omens to appear as we started to run out of tiles. There have been rounds where the traitor was revealed instantly before anyone had time to receive any items. This makes its run time wildly different each time you play going anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours, which is why for us it will always be a 1 round a night game for us. But it will always be worth the trip to the house on that hill.