Mirror Monsters and Ghost Sharks

Betrayal at House on the Hill is one of my all-time favorite board games. As you explore the mysterious house, you have to work with your fellow adventurers to overcome obstacles and acquire useful items -- but all the while knowing that someone in the group will eventually betray you. It's great that Bob found that shotgun, but do we really want him to have all the weapons...?

When Hasbro announced a third edition for the game, I placed my preorder immediately. This morning the game showed up on our doorstep, and the timing was perfect. Matthew and Amy are in Fresno this weekend for Junior Olympics (side note: Matthew is crushing it!), so Nathaniel and I had a perfect opportunity to dive into the game, learn all the new rules, and play the hell out of it.

One of the simplest but most effective additions is the characters' motivation for being in the house in the first place. In earlier editions, the characters have no reason for being there until the "haunt" is triggered and the game switches from cooperative to one-against-all as the traitor seeks to defeat his or her former allies. In this edition, players select a backstory (e.g., they're a team of paranormal investigators, they're searching for a friend who disappeared in the house, etc.), and that backstory determines the possible haunts. My only criticism thus far is that the haunts seem to trigger sooner than in the previous edition, but some might consider that a feature and not a defect.

Nathaniel and I played the game twice today, each time controlling two characters apiece. In the first game, my Sports Gal quickly got sucked into an alternate universe through a haunted mirror while evil mirror monsters chased the other characters around the house, nearly driving my Doctor Guy insane on their very first onslaught. Sports Gal was able to provide cryptic clues from her mirrorverse prison, allowing Nathaniel's Brainy Kid to bring her home and banish the monsters. For our second try, we kept the same characters. Sports Gal again triggered the haunt, this time dying instantly when a ghostly shark devoured her as a magical water-spouting idol threatened to flood the entire house. As the water cascaded down from the second story, the other characters searched for explosives and then rallied in the basement, where Nathaniel's Dude Bro stuffed our makeshift bomb into the shark's mouth and obliterated it. Two missions, two wins! Next time, though, I may opt to leave Sports Gal at home...