Digitally Disillusioned

It is 1926, and the world is still reeling from the aftermath of a civilization moving back from the brink of destruction. Leisure has become a way of life rather than a means to pass the time, and prohibition has done little to stem the flow of booze in the speakeasies of the American north east.

But within that world of excess, a darkness grows like a cancer. Ignored by all but a few alert investigators who have seen the signs and on whom the fate of not only a nation but the world will soon hang. It is in Arkham - a indistinct American city just outside Boston - that the nexus of these dire portents will be found. It is there that the battle, and with it everything humanity holds dear, will be won or lost. For “that is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.”

Originally published in 1987, Arkham Horror throws the players into a cooperative struggle against ancient evils that lurk beyond the boundaries of the normal world. Set in the Cthulhu Mythos inspired by early 20th century American horror author H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham Horror is a relatively unique board game in that it puts all players against a common foe rather than acting as adversaries to one another. The new edition, published in 2005 by Fantasy Flight Games, enhances an already robust thematic component with extravagant art and a surfeit of cards and tokens.

In the game each player assumes the role of an investigator trying to get to the bottom of the darkness lurking in Arkham. The town of Arkham is represented on the board as divided into nine neighborhoods, each having three thematically connected locations. By navigating through Arkham, players will experience encounters and collect rewards such as cash or weapons. Icons next to the locations name indicate the kind of reward that can be either purchased or obtained should the player visit.

Each neighborhood comes with a deck of seven cards that represent the encounters to be had, each card divided in three parts - one for each location in the neighborhood. So when you visit a location, seven possible outcomes lie before you. While the icons are reasonable generalizations of what will happen, the costs to survive the encounter and thus obtain rewards can vary considerably. Investigators are best prepared for anything before delving too deeply into the secrets of Arhkam.

The best way to approach Arkham Horror is to consider it an extremely light role-playing game. Each investigator has 6 core attributes that affect things like combat, magic use, and stealth, but rather then generating them randomly each character comes with a theme (the gangster, the debutante, the professor) that brings that character an appropriate range of possible skill values. These are not set numbers but a range of values which the actual value can be selected from as the game progresses. The professor has a higher possible lore skill than the gangster, but the gangster has a higher possible fight skill. Attributes are set into three pairs, and increasing one half of that pair demands that its counterpart be lowered - an increase to speed, for instance, brings and equivalent loss in sneak. The attributes are tracked with sliders on the character sheet, and characters are given a special attribute called focus that indicates how many places their sliders can move each turn. Within these six values are the core probabilities for the character to be successful at all the possible tasks in the Arkham Horror world, and the ability to tune these statistics as the game demands is a welcome and involving mechanic.

When attempting to do something - to fight, hide, seal a gate to another dimension, or withstand the shock caused by the horror of the abominations you will confront - players take the appropriate skill value and roll that number of dice, minus any modifier for difficulty, plus any bonus from appropriate equipment or allies. Fives and sixes are counted as successes, which can be expanded to include four if the investigator obtains a holy blessing, but is reduced to only six if the player becomes cursed. Players will obtain clue tokens during the game that represent facts and essential secrets to combat the insidious evils haunting Arkham, and these tokens can be traded directly for rerolls when success is essential but proves evasive. It is one of the considerably strengths of the game that the central play mechanic, while dice heavy, is easy to understand, has a novel representation of success versus failure, and is influencable via the expenditure of rewards the player has previously obtained. Even if the dice are random and susceptible to the avarices of Lady Luck the player still has considerable ability to influence the outcome.

The ability for a character to withstand failures is represented in two values, sanity and stamina. Stamina is your typical manifestation of physical virtue, but sanity represents on of the key thematic elements of Arkham Horror. The events that unfold in Arkham are intended to be horrific and eldritch abominations that make the investigators question the very nature of existence. While the effects are somewhat less (ok, entirely absent) on the actual players it is interesting to watch their characters go completely insane, lose half their items, and begin their next term in the Arkham Asylum, and all because a monster leaped out at them in the night.

And ample monsters there will be. The game starts with players drawing a nemesis - and Elder God - that is the focus of the evil in the game and who is attempting to tear reality asunder. These are all one of the supreme Lovecraftian terrors such as Cthulhu whose name has become eponymous for the whole genre of Gothic horror. Each round, cards from a special deck indicate where the boundaries between this world and other dimensions begin to weaken: a gate opens there, blocking that locations normal behavior, and a monster emerges and begins wandering around town. Would that be all that happened, but each card also carries a special event or new environmental condition. Some are beneficial, but most are dread portents with drastic consequences for the investigators. The Elder God status sheet has a “Doom Track” that is filled with doom tokens one by one, and once filled a final showdown occurs that is, in most cases, extremely difficult to win. Indeed, one of the Elder Gods has an ability to cancel the final battle as his awakening consumes the entire universe.

An essential task for the investigators is to close these gates, collecting the resources to permanently seal them in the process. Should too many gates be open at the same time the game will jump ahead to the aforementioned final battle, so frequently gate closures will be required just to stop the game from ending. The most direct avenue to winning the game is to seal a certain number of gates, so you must balance the acquisition of resources to do so with preventing a cataclysmic and premature conclusion. Cosing or sealing a gate demands a two turn visit to the dimension the gate opens into, and it is in these encounters that the danger is cranked to extreme levels. Standing between humanity and ancient, slumbering evil is obviously not a easy task.

As you can imagine the local populace of Arkham is intimately affected by such arcane and mystical occurrences, and a terror track is incremented when specific events occur to indicate their distress. This most often occurs when the number of monsters reaches a certain level. At key places on the terror track local businesses in town - essential havens where investigators can convert cash to vital resources such as magical weapons, spells, or firearms - will permanently close, drastically increasing the difficulty of the game.

Thematically, Arkham Horror is a total riot to play. Tapping into the extensive lore and established literature it draws its inspiration from, every event that is triggered ties into a building feeling of dread - well, as dreadful as a board game can be. Certainly other types of game, such as the Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth video game, are more effective in actually frightening people. But even if it isn’t in any way going to keep you up at night, Arkham Horror is a delightful, cooperative adventure into the deep and rich worlds of H.P Lovecraft and friends.

Typical for a Fantasy Flight production, Arkham Horror comes dressed with immaculate illustrations and high quality parts. Cardboard counters are thick and durable, and while some artistic decisions are slightly convoluted (a decryption key for monster skills sure would have been welcome) overall the production values are extremely high, and well worth the retail price.

However, Akrham Horror can be a bit of a challenge to get into, as the game rules are dense. Along with the incredible number of pieces, the turns follow an extremely formal format of discrete phases that must be followed closely. There can be a lot of things to do during and between phases including many generic “housekeeping” actions on the board. Total monsters must be tracked, and each turn they must be evaluated to see if they move. Indeed, some discussions on BoardGameGeek.com have revolved around the idea of keeping a game master on hand for introductory games to keep things moving. With practice (and a lot of it) games grow much smoother, but this will serve as a barrier to a board of entirely new players. It is definitely worth the effort, but expect a significant learning curve.

Also, despite the excellent theme, the location decks are only 7 cards each and grow repetitive soon. There is a surprising amount of randomization in what on first glance much too small a deck, but repetition inevitably comes calling and one wishes they’d included more cards here. Two expansions are already available to help accomodate this shortcoming, but that costs extra money.

Arkham Horror can tend to be a lengthy game as well, with 3-4 hour games not being uncommon. This is a game for seriously enthusiasts, although most anyone would undoubtedly enjoy it with a bit of patience. But that patience can be seriously tested as the difficulty of Akrham Horror is highly variable depending on the investigators selected, the Elder God drawn, the monsters revealed, and locations encountered. If those variables are stacked against you the game may be an inevitable defeat from 20 minutes in that takes two more hours to unfold. If that is your first game of Arkham Horror, you may become quickly soured.

All in all, this is a gorgeously produced thematic adventure that draws out a compelling narrative experience the players share in rather than fight over. It is undoubtedly rules heavy, and fate can conspire to make it impossible to archive victory on some occasions. Arkham Horror can’t honestly be recommended for everyone, but any serious board game enthusiast is undoubtedly going to find a lot to like here, and any group of role playing fans could find this a surprisingly enriching transition into a different line of games.

Find out more on the publishers website (where I lifted the images, laden as they are with pretty fantastic artwork, from).

Score: 75%