After posting on Call of Cthulhu, the classic role-playing game set in the world of H.P. Lovecraft, it’s proper that I move into related board games based on this world. And all of them come from the same company, Fantasy Flight Games, if you can believe it, under the general heading of the Arkham Horror Files.
Well, sort of. Chaosium had released the board game Arkham Horror in 1987. I got the game at the time, though I can’t recall if I played it.
After being available for awhile, it sold out, and Chaosium never reprinted it. Instead, the rights moved to Fantasy Flight Games where it was revamped and the second edition came out in 2005. And they released eight expansion sets, which added new scenarios and sometimes additional boards.
In 2018, a third edition came out. FFG encorporated elements from the AH card game as well as another board game, Eldritch Horror. It can be played by one to six players. As it’s pretty new, they have only released three expansions for it so far. I wonder if further ones will be based on some of the expansions from the prior edition?
In 2011, FFG released a different game that is set in the same world, Mansions of Madness. In this game, two to five players are involved, one playing the keeper, similar to what is seen in role-playing games. A storyline is picked, and the boards are setup. The keeper controls the creatures and encounters. There were a few expansions. In 2016, a second edition was rolled out. Probably the biggest change is the creation of an application that now fills the role of the keeper, which allows for single player games. At this point, several expansions have been released.
The best way I think to separate Arkham Horror from Mansions of Madness is that AH is set across a town (Arkham, Innsmouth, etc), while Mansions is set within the confines of, well, a mansion.
In 2013, FFG released Eldritch Horror, which was more similar to AH, but unlike AH, it has a world-wide setting. Thus instead of running around a town, the players are running around the world. This one can be played by one to eight players. So far eight expansions have been released.
There is also Arkham Horror: Final Hour, which doesn’t have any expansions for it, and I wonder if there will be. As its scenario is that the Elder Ones have broken through and the players need to stop them, hence the name, I can’t see there being expansions.
And most recently, FFG released Unfathomable. This game is set on a steamship crossing the Atlantic in 1913 for three to six players. The players are either humans working to get the ship to port or “others” who are trying to stop it from reaching port. And the players don’t know who is who.
So depending on the type of game you want to play, you have a variety of them. Another they have is Elder Sign, which is more dice based, with several expansions.
I’ve played a couple games of Arkham Horror and a whole lot of Eldritch Horror with friends.
A large part of the appeal of the games are the cards one draws are well-written enough that the narrative that greats created is always quite consistent and entertaining.
A randomly drawn character for the player to play like a Doctor, became immensely more entertaining when two random items drawn as well were a motorcycle and an antique cavalry sabre.
Another game session, the world was saved from a staging of the King in Yellow in London by a reporter and a lawyer, who had attained a bad back and bum leg, respectively, essentially shutting down the building’s power mid production.
In another, the Old Ones were summoned due to a Dark Pact a player had drawn as a price to rescue a comrade. All of these were random draws but Fantasy Flight had clearly done its work that it always felt thematically appropriate no matter what.