Horrified – Classic Monster Flick Turned to Board Game

Horrified is a cooperative board game where players are trying to defeat monsters terrorizing a village. The selection of monsters is very classic; you have Dracula, Frankenstein, and his Bride (yes, we all know Frankenstein was the creator of the monster and not the monster itself), Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and the Wolfman. Some of these are more famous than others, but most people have heard of all of these before somewhere.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was how nice this board game looked. The art is very fitting to the theme, and I love the use of colour in it. The very vibrant colours just look stunning. They pop in the box art against the black and make the board a pleasure to look at. The paths are easily visible to the players due to the contrast of bright yellow and dark blue. The design of the monsters draws a lot from the classic movies and the artists have done a great job at presenting them very cohesively together. The human design, both the player heroes and the villagers needing rescue are not as memorable as the monsters. That might be unfair to say considering that the monsters have not been created for this game but have been part of the popular culture for a long time. I think that the human designs are nice enough for their purpose. After all, the monsters are the real focus and draw of this game and they have been nailed.

This game can be played alone by following the instructions for solo play or in a cooperative setting with up to five players. I played the game in a two-player setting for this review. Another adjustable aspect of the game is its difficulty. The game has a recommendation that for your first ever game you would play against Dracula and Creature from Black Lagoon. This is the experience we had. After that, you have recommendations for different difficulties that are adjusted mostly by changing the number of monsters in play. I think it’s great to have ways to up the challenge when needed. For new players, even the recommended pair of monsters is a real challenge.

The rules and gameplay loop were in my opinion very easy and fast to learn. Every player has two phases, the Hero phase, and the Monster phase, that they play on their turn. During the Hero phase active player gets to perform a set amount of actions to try to aid in defeating of the monsters. After that, they play the Monster phase by picking a card from the Monster deck and playing its contents. This loop is very simple which I appraise. Too convoluted gameplay loops are just plain old frustrating at least as a new player who would have to constantly check the instructions. And this easy-to-learn gameplay loop in no way makes the game easy. Even after we were very comfortable with the gameplay loop and rules, we only managed to defeat Dracula on our first play and even that was barely. In Horrified winning is simple; just defeat all the monsters in play. It also has two losing conditions that ensure the game doesn’t last too long. Either you are out of time which means your Monster deck is out of cards or the monsters have been able to terrorise the village too much. That can be seen in the Terror level tracker. It goes up every time someone dies so you better keep everyone safe. Our terror tracker ended our game due to too many villagers ending in the monster’s claws, but still, the experience was fun. You must strategize with your team and think ahead to win this game.

So the game is good but who would enjoy it? I think this game is an easy recommendation for people looking for a fun game to play co-operatively with friends. Either Horrified is a great addition to your Halloween gathering or maybe you just love classic horror. The looks of it create a great atmosphere and the game is easy to pick up while still being challenging. These monsters are not defeated that easily!

Information
Designers: Prospero Hall
Publisher: Ravensburger
Release date: 2019
Number of players: 1-5
Playing time: 60 minutes
Photos: pictures of Horrified (Prospero Hall 2019), taken by the author

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Janette Mäkinen

Achievement hunter, player of games, and collector of all things gaming.
On a battle of my time, gaming has definetely won. On most evenings, you can find me enjoing a good single player game, or playing some fps multiplayer with friends.

#Horror #board games #cooperative