Arkham Horror

[johan]

We got this ambitious and huge board game for our birthdays and yesterday it was time to take it out for a spin. Only myself and jlms, and just testing it, not really playing.

Entry at BoardGameGeek: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/15987

The first review of the game you currently see on BoardGameGeek is highly positive (like most other reviews of the game) but contains warnings like "[i]f you prefer 45-60 minute games then Arkham is not for you as 2-3 hours is common and perhaps even up to 4 hours when learning", "you should expect to play the game anywhere up to 5 times before getting it perfectly right", "the game demands some pretty intelligent play." (Neil Thomson)

Actually, we spent four hours on it without getting to the endgame, but we were deliberately taking it slow, exploring the game. It's incredibly rich in features and variants. There are many, many hundreds of cards, some of which will never be brought into play during a specific session, and a specific combination of investigator characters and Big Evil Threat will probably never occur twice for a specific set of players. And the number of strategies or substrategies you can choose to pursue to win is difficult to get a handle on.

This is definitely my kind of game. I'm a sucker for games that are not just about clever game mechanics, de-coupled from the theme (like most modern so-called Euro games, or "German" games), but instead are simulations of some sort or deeply infused by the theme.

Each player plays one of 16 possible investigators (each with their own special abilities), taking up the fight against one of eight possible Ancient Ones. As an investigator, you walk (or drive on) the streets of Arkham, gathering allies, equipment and retainers, having occult encounters and fighting monsters while desperately trying to close and if possible seal the gates that open to other dimensions before all of Arkham is overrun and the Ancient One awakens for the final battle. Of course, the odds are stacked against you.

Now, we have to plan a real game session.

Comments

[hanspersson.livejournal.com]

I tend to like the modern, lean eurogames much better than the old-style American games.

[jophan.livejournal.com]

I ilke them both, but as I wrote, if I can choose I prefer the old-style Avalon Hillesque games. (Granted, the euro games have an elegance to them that the clunkier older games lack.) The main advantage of the euro games is the shorter playing time. I love spending half a day at the game board, but it's way easier to find the time for a game that only takes an hour or two.

[hanspersson.livejournal.com]

The playing time is one thing. Another feature of eurogames is that you can usually explain the rules to a new player in a very short time and get started playing. It usually not that simple with the older games.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I think I've played an older version of yr game at Tobbe and Kristin's, also called Arkham Horror, but with other pictures and gadgets.
Is one of the main goals of the game to close portals to other dimensions or something like that?

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is the second edition, published one or two years ago. I never played the first (1980s) edition, which had a rather varied reputation, fun but disorganized if I recall correctly. According to the designer notes, most of the changes between the editions are intended to make the game less a "you walk around and random cool stuff happens" and more a structured game where strategy and tactics pay off. On BoardGameGeek, the second edition gets consistently higher marks.

[natika.livejournal.com]

Me, me, pick me!

[jophan.livejournal.com]

If you come here it's a done deal! (Or do you want to be the Ancient One in te next game?)

Board games

[(Anonymous)]

And what's all this then, a board-gaming group? I'm in! And I have an old Axis and Allies with all the bits intact...

/ paddy <http://paddyk.wordpress.com>

Re: Board games

[jophan.livejournal.com]

No group, just me and the missus. However, if you're looking for board-gaming groups I think the best place close to you would be http://www.dragonslair.se/ . It has happened in the past and I'm sure it will happen again that I and jlms invite the local sf fans here for a day of gaming. I'll try and remember to tell you next time!

[dalmeny]

haloumi and kafalotiri have just purchased a copy and we tried it out last week with them and halfflat. It definitely speeded up as we got the hang of it. The cooperative play part is good.

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Yes, the speeding-up bit was noticeable even during our test game. I was also impressed with the cooperative design. Before we started, I was thinking about how we probably would want to introduce house rules to encourage competetive individualist play in the cooperative framework - some games do that really well, letting you compete against each other while having to cooperate to defeat the game itself - but I quickly noticed it wasn't necessary, it was fun the way it was.