Mansions of Madness, an Arkham Horror game
Designed by Corey Konieczka
OK, I've been busy as hell these past few days and I have simply not had a minute to quietly relax and read about gigantic, suppurating masses of cosmic jellies devouring college professors. I WANT TO SO BAD but I haven't had the time.
Tonight however I did enjoy a unique Lovecraftian experience that will absolutely (have to) count as one of my 31 Days of Lovecraft. Tonight some members of my gaming group (more on them later) got together to play the newish Arkham Horror game Mansions of Madness.
My Gaming Group
The guys I play games with - usually complex board and card games, and sometimes straight up role playing games - have started this thing we are calling a "game design collective." We've gotten together every so often to play games for a few years now. Recently we dug out Arkham Horror, an exceedingly complex and implacable game that induces fits of rage and confusion and, yes, Loveraftian madness on anyone who attempts to play. It's a big monster fighting game that has a ton of references to Lovecraft but fails miserably in evoking the mood or tone of his work at all. As we cut through the game, wondering whether we were doing the right thing at any given turn, we kept trying to fix the rules. We'd point out all the weak points and the extraneous bits and it seemed more fun to complain, or imagine the game improved greatly, that actually play Arkham. One of the players did a bang up blog post about it. Very much worth a read.
That night another player, Rocco, brought out some prototypes of a game he's working on, a very cool dice-like game that I think has major potential. So this all lead to another player saying "We should start up a little game design collective and share our ideas." Over email we shared ideas and worked on prototypes and tonight was our first semi-official meeting about it. It's an exciting little thing that I hope keeps going.
Mansions of Madness
Fantasy Flight, the producers of Arkham Horror, its several expansions and the Call of Cthulhu Card Game is expanding the line of games with fresher, less complex takes on the Lovecraftian horror board game. Mansions of Madness is relatively new and I'm here to say it is FAR AND AWAY A TOTALLY GREAT GAMING EXPERIENCE. I seriously can't wait to play it again.
You play, like all these sorts of games, an Investigator of the occult and arcane, though one person plays the Keeper, the one who controls and sets up the dangerous world the players will explore. There are five scenarios that come with the game, essentially allowing you to play each one once with some variation (expansions are available!) The game does an amazing job of capturing the tone and mood that evokes an H. P. Lovecraft story.
The game pieces are exemplary, which isn't saying much if you know Fantasy Flight's reputation for beautiful and high quality production. The art is recycled from previous games but if you haven't played those other games the art is brand new! There was almost no confusion while playing; the turns flowed one to the other, each player desperately trying to make each move count, and the keeper (me!) doing all he could to keep them from winning.
If you like complex board games with a ton of set up and personality you need look no further than this game. It's an excellent replacement for Arkham Horror if you are tired of that. The newest game in the family, Elder Sign, a card and dice game, is now at the top of my games wish list now.
OK, tomorrow it's back to stories - The Colour Out of Space! And here's what you can look forward to in the coming weeks...
- A guest blogger!
- A special series on HPL's NYC stories - Exile on Lovecraft Street!
- A review of an HPL movie or two!
Fun stuff y'all. Thanks for reading.
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