This previous week in class we played a game that again, I had some familiarity with: Betrayal at House on the Hill. One of my favorite games from recent years, this game revolves around choosing a character at the start with certain stats, then exploring a spooky house with others, activating events, omens, and sometimes collecting useful items for later. This continues with some events causing people to take damage, or gain buffs in their existing stats. However, omens are where the real fun is, in my opinion. Every time an omen is activated, a “haunt” dice roll (of 6 dice) in thrown, and if the number rolled is less than the amount of omens, a haunt begins.

The haunts were so unique and varied in this game, with the scenario in which it was activated determining which haunt was present in the game. Most involve on of the people in the party becoming a traitor/monster and the goal is kill or be killed. At least, that is how it went with my group, where one of our members became the Tentacled Horror. I feel the hardest part was planning a strategy for defeating the monster, since all of us weren’t near each other in the house and improvisation seemed very likely.

I feel like this game promotes leadership with the traitor, since that one person is suddenly all alone, and forced to make decisions without much help. This kind of self-leadership is contrasted with the cooperation needed out of the other players to fight the evil together, where sometimes a leader helps guide the other players or everyone kind of takes a role. I think my friend from high school would love this game, he enjoys games that are unpredictable, and the random monster scenarios would be a big selling point for him.