game mechanism

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We haven’t done a My Favorite segment for a tabletop game in a while and this month may be the best time to discuss Horrified, a cooperative board game where players try to slay, free, or contain famous monsters. By this point, Horrified has covered Universal movie monsters, American cryptids, and Greek mythological creatures. The monsters may change but the concept remains. I could choose quite a few game mechanisms as my favorite, but I may have to go with each monster’s character.

Horrified does a great job of conveying who most of these monsters are. Frankenstein’s monster and his bride need to be taught how to be human and be shown love. The elusive Big Foot wants to be left alone. And the heroes must return Cerberus to the gates of Hades. Each monster has their own flavor, their own character. And for the most part, Horrified captures the essence of these monsters.

Like many cooperative games, Horrified can unravel at times. Something spawns in an inaccessible place at the worst possible moment or the opposite occurs, and everything becomes super easy because luck favors the players. But despite the luck of the draw (literally, you draw tokens from a bag), Horrified always gives each monster their own feel. Usually, the folks at Prospero Hall (the designers who made the game), capture what makes these monsters/creatures/cryptids who they are and each monster functions as its own mini puzzle.

Horrified builds on the tradition of games like Sentinels of the Multiverse. It could’ve given players their own unique powers and kept it at that but chose to grant the antagonists their own powers. But it goes deeper than older games. Most of these monsters seem real. The aforementioned Big Foot will run away from our heroes. The Yeti only wants what’s best for their little ones. Many of these monsters are more than mindless, well, monsters. And even the ones who could be categorized as mindless have a distinct goal they wish to accomplish.

Of course, there are other great elements and how these elements weave together makes Horrified a great game for spooky season. Every round a card is drawn that will seed the board with items, potentially bring in civilians, and inform the monsters what they’ll do. It’s a simple and elegant system that requires minimal upkeep from turn to turn. And the monsters will act after each player’s turn. Whenever the deck runs out, the monsters win. The heroes win if they can satisfy each of the monster’s mini puzzles.

So good. If you have the chance this Halloween, give Horrified a try. Board game cafes are a great way to test drive a tabletop game. Many local game shops will have demo copies of games as well. And of course there’s always board game conventions.

What are your favorite elements of Horrified? Have you ever played a game without making monster noises? I haven’t, even when I play a solo game. Let us know your thoughts in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

There isn’t just one game mechanic that I like from Sentinels of the Multiverse, there are several, but most of them center around one thing: character building.

Sentinels may not be perfect—your Uncle Geekly will have to write an in-depth analysis about it after a while—but most of the design choices in Sentinels do something to characterize the heroes, the villains, and sometimes the world in which they live. Players feel like they’re heroes. They feel super. And that doesn’t happen as much as it should in board games with superheroes.

Some games like Marvel: Legendary (perhaps a better game than Sentinels overall) puts gamers in the role of someone like Nick Fury. You’re assembling a team of superheroes to deal with a threat. Others put gamers in the role of a superhero, but there isn’t an attachment to the character or the characters are flat. You are a unique hero in Sentinels.

While there may be some misses (in terms of character building), there are more characters like NightMist. She’s reckless. How do we know this? She’s just as likely to hurt her teammates as she is the enemy, and the mechanisms in her deck bring out that flavor. Legacy is the leader of the gang. A lot of his abilities promotes this identity. Visionary has a more hands-off approach and many cards in her deck reflect her personality.

The villains have just as much personality, and Sentinels does one of the best jobs in tabletop gaming of building antagonists. Some villains have no regard for their henchmen and prefer the heroes to squish them, others may care for their righthand man, but have no attachment to anyone else. Still others depend on no one else but themselves. These henchmen, if there are any, also tend to build on the eccentricities of the various villains. Citizen Dawn’s lackeys don’t behave like anyone else’s. Grand Warlord Voss has his own unique cronies. The Matriarch always has a murder of crows in tow.

There are even some villains like Akash’Bhuta who are more forces of nature than true villains. The Dreamer who is an 8-year-old girl whose dreams come to life, but she suffers from night terrors and therefore, she’s a victim herself. And Wage Master who’s the resident Mister Mxyptlk who turns game play upside down just because it strikes his fancy. The characters in Sentinels have plenty of—well—character.

Even the environment decks (that represent the location the game takes place) have their own sense of character. Certain environments like Wagner Mars Base aren’t so good for specific characters like Bunker (kind of like Ironman) or The Wraith (a female Batman) because it randomly destroys equipment, while other environments like Rook City (a Gotham City type) hates on all heroes because even the cops are crooked. There are even a few environments that handle heroes with kid gloves. I won’t mention them here. Greater Than Games has plenty of forums for that and many of new game copies rates each environment according to difficulty.

It’s easy to fall in love with Sentinels despite any shortcomings. It has personality. And personality is something more superhero games and antagonists in cooperative games need.

What do you like most about Sentinels? Is there another game that handles character building in a fun and interesting way? Let us know in comments.

Tag: game mechanism

My Favorite Game Mechanisms: Horrified

My Favorite Game Mechanics: Sentinels of the Multiverse