This game has become a favorite to play among my home away from home gaming group. Betrayal at House on the Hill is for 3-6 players, but it is best with 4-5. This gives both the sides an equal chance. In this game you explore a house by going into an unexplored room and revealing the top tile of the pile. This tile gets connected to the previous room and shows another explored room. Most rooms have effects. There might be an event, you may get an item, or you might get an omen. There is no way to win in the beginning of the game, but as more omens are revealed you get closer to an endgame.
After you reveal an omen, you roll six dice which have sides that have no dots, one dot, or two dots. If you roll under the number of omens that are revealed, one player is found to be the betrayer. At this point, you look up the scenario in the main book and it gives you a number and who the betrayer is. The betrayer and the other players have two separate books that they have to look up what their objective is. There are over fifty objectives, so there is a good amount of replay of this game. Either the betrayer will win by completing their objective or the other team will by successfully completing theirs.
The learning curve is not steep for this game, although we had a newer person (at gaming in general) picked as the betrayer and she wasn’t comfortable with the role. We let her pass it to someone else and that helped ease her. It is very fun and you never know who will be the betrayer. I’ve had games where I’ve helped them live early just to turn on us and win. I wouldn’t suggest this for younger kids because of the darker themes and a few of the events. It has a horror flavor after all. This is a great game to pick up and play with your gaming and non-gamer friends. You might even convert a few of them.
Have fun gamers.
