Betrayal at House on the Hill

Last updated

Betrayal at House on the Hill
Manufacturers Avalon Hill, Hasbro
Designers
Illustrators
Publishers Avalon Hill
Publication
  • 2004;20 years ago (2004)(1st edition)
  • October 5, 2010;14 years ago (2010-10-05)(2nd edition)
  • August 1, 2022;2 years ago (2022-08-01)(3rd edition)
Years active2004–present
Genres
  • Adventure
  • Exploration
  • Horror
Players3 to 6
Setup time< 5 minutes
Playing time30 min–2hrs
ChanceMedium
Skills Team play
Media type Board game

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a board game published by Avalon Hill in 2004, designed by Bruce Glassco and developed by Rob Daviau, Bill McQuillan, Mike Selinker, and Teeuwynn Woodruff. [1] Players all begin as allies exploring a haunted house filled with dangers, traps, items, and omens. As players journey to new parts of the mansion, room tiles are chosen at random and placed on the game board; this means that the game is different each session. Eventually the "haunt" begins, with the nature and plot of this session's ghost story revealed; one player usually "betrays" the others and takes the side of the ghosts, monsters, or other enemies, while the remaining players collaborate to defeat them.

Contents

Gameplay

Betrayal consists of two phases: the initial Exploration phase and the Haunt phase. At the start of the game, each player selects a character and sets the skill indicators at the characters' starting values. The "house" starts with a ground, upper, and basement floors; the ground and upper floors are immediately connected by a staircase, whereas the basement remains unconnected until certain actions allow a connection. On each turn, the player can move through a number of rooms equivalent to their current Speed. If the player moves through a door where no room has been placed, they add a new room to the house. If that room has an Event, Item, or Omen icon, the player draws the respective card and follows its instructions.

After drawing an Omen card, the player rolls dice and, depending on the result (requirements differ between editions), the Haunt phase will start. The Omen that triggered the Haunt (and, in earlier editions, the room it was found in) determine which Haunt is used and who the "traitor" is; though often the traitor is the one who triggered the Haunt, it may be another player. At this point, the player who is the traitor leaves the room; they read through their specific Haunt goals and rules from one book, while the other players ("heroes") read their victory rules and conditions from a second book and discuss plans to deal with the traitor. Haunts are based on numerous horror tropes, such as zombies, cannibals, dragons, vampires, ghosts, etc. The exact goals for both the heroes and the traitor differ for each possible Haunt; neither side is forced to reveal any new abilities or victory goals, but they must explicitly state what moves they are doing in the game to the other players. After the traitor rejoins the heroes, heroes may attack the traitor or any monsters they might control, and vice versa.

The game features 50 possible haunts.

Versions

Extensive errata, to address unclear or indeterminate rules, are freely available. [2] [3] [4] The first edition is no longer in print, [5] and the second edition was released on October 5, 2010. [6] A Dungeons & Dragons themed version of the game, entitled Betrayal at Baldur's Gate, was announced on June 3, 2017, and released on October 6, 2017. [7]

On November 17, 2017, a "legacy" version of the game, titled Betrayal Legacy, was announced for a Q4 2018 release, featuring a prologue and a thirteen-chapter story taking place over multiple decades. It was released on November 9, 2018. [8] [9]

Avalon Hill released "Betrayal at Mystery Mansion", a Scooby-Doo themed version of the game, on July 24, 2020. This variant includes 25 haunts based on episodes from the show, features faster playtimes than previous versions at 25-50 minutes, and has five playable characters: Scooby-Doo, Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers. Another notable change from previous entries in the Betrayal series is that players may volunteer to be the traitor instead of leaving it up to chance. [10]

On March 1, 2022, Avalon Hill announced a third edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill, releasing April 1, 2022 in Europe before being released to the rest of the world on August 1, 2022. [11] [12] This updated version streamlines gameplay, updates the core haunt mechanics, and adds 5 new scenarios, which give a starting reason for a player's involvement and can modify the Haunt. [13] Third edition also updates the graphical assets and comes with six unpainted miniatures for players to paint. [14] Expansions on this edition are expected to be seen "down the line" according to Chris Nadeau, a senior director and product development lead at Avalon Hill. [15]

Expansions

On April 20, 2016, it was announced that Betrayal at House on the Hill would receive its first expansion, entitled Widow's Walk, on October 14, 2016. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] The expansion added 20 new room tiles, creating an additional floor (the roof) for gameplay, plus 30 new cards and 50 new haunts. [17] The expansion was designed by Mike Selinker, who was a developer on the original game, as well as Elisa Teague and Liz Spain. [21] Several notable figures contributed to the expansion including animator and writer Pendleton Ward, game developer Zoë Quinn, and Max Temkin of Cards Against Humanity . [22]

Reception

David M. Ewalt comments on the 2010 version: "A horror-themed board game that's different every time you play. Players explore a haunted house until one goes crazy and tries to kill their friends. Randomized, secret scenarios provide surprising story lines and different rules for the killer each game. It's lots of fun, particularly if you're the murderous traitor." [23] Reviewing the second edition, Michael Harrison of Wired.com said he enjoyed the game but found that some of the rules could be exploited to game-breaking effect. [24]

A board game review in Wirecutter stated that the game is "too complex for beginners." [25]

In a review of Betrayal at House on the Hill in Black Gate , Andrew Zimmerman Jones said "What Betrayal at House on the Hill taught me was that the storytelling excitement of roleplaying can be captured within a box, with the added benefit of a lot less planning on the part of a gamemaster." [26]

Awards

Betrayal at House on the Hill won a 2004 Gamers' Choice Award for Best Board Game. [27]

Related Research Articles

<i>Acquire</i> Business themed board game

Acquire is a board game published by 3M in 1964 that involves multi-player mergers and acquisitions. It was one of the most popular games in the 3M Bookshelf games series published in the 1960s, and the only one still published in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Garfield</span> American game designer

Richard Channing Garfield is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avalon Hill</span> Board game company

Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publishes wargames and strategic board games. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary of Hasbro, and operates under the company's "Hasbro Gaming" division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wizards of the Coast</span> American game publisher

Wizards of the Coast LLC is an American publisher of games, most of which are based on fantasy and science-fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail game stores. In 1999, toy manufacturer Hasbro acquired the company and currently operates it as a subsidiary. During a February 2021 reorganization of Hasbro, WotC became the lead part of a new division called "Wizards & Digital".

<i>Civilization</i> (1980 board game) 1980 strategy board game

Civilization is a board game designed by Francis Tresham, published in the United Kingdom in 1980 by Hartland Trefoil and in the United States in 1981 by Avalon Hill. The Civilization brand is now owned by Hasbro. It was out of print for many years, before it saw republication in 2018, by Gibsons Games. The game typically takes eight or more hours to play and is for two to seven players.

<i>HeroQuest</i> 1989 fantasy-RPG-themed board game (re-released 2021)

HeroQuest, is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop in 1989, and re-released in 2021. The game is loosely based around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the game itself was actually a game system, allowing the gamemaster to create dungeons of their own design using the provided game board, tiles, furnishings and figures. The game manual describes Morcar/Zargon as a former apprentice of Mentor, and the parchment text is read aloud from Mentor's perspective. Several expansions have been released, each adding new tiles, traps, artifacts, and monsters to the core system.

<i>History of the World</i> (board game)

History of the World is a board game designed by Ragnar Brothers and originally published in 1991. It is played by up to six players across various epochs, each player playing a different empire every round to have the greatest score at the end of the game by conquering other players' regions of the board.

<i>Kremlin</i> (board game) Boardgame

Kremlin is a board game satire of power struggles within the pre-glasnost Soviet Union government of the 1980s. The game takes its name from the Kremlin in Moscow, the location associated with the central Soviet government offices. The original German-language edition was designed by Urs Hostettler and released in 1986 by the Swiss board game company Fata Morgana Spiele under the name Kreml. An English translation of the game with slightly modified rules was published by Avalon Hill in 1988. Kremlin won a 1988 Origins Award for Best Boardgame Covering the Period 1900-1946.

Battle Cry is a board wargame based on the American Civil War, designed by Richard Borg and published by Avalon Hill in 2000.

<i>Unearthed Arcana</i> AD&D supplement by Gary Gygax

Unearthed Arcana is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Both were designed as supplements to the core rulebooks, containing material that expanded upon other rules.

<i>Dune</i> (board game) 1979 strategy board game

Dune is a strategy board game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, published by Avalon Hill in 1979. The game was designed by Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge and Peter Olotka. After many years out of print, the game was reissued by Gale Force Nine in 2019 in advance of the 2021 Dune film adaptation.

<i>Vegas Showdown</i> Board game

Vegas Showdown is a board game published by Avalon Hill in 2005 in which players compete to build the most impressive hotel and casino in Las Vegas. It was named "Game of the Year" by Games Magazine in 2007.

The Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game has been adapted into many related products, including magazines, films and video games.

Monsters Menace America is a 2005 light-strategy board game produced by Avalon Hill, a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast. The game design is by J.C. Connors and Ben Knight.

<i>RoboRally</i> Board game

RoboRally, also stylized as Robo Rally, is a board game for 2–8 players designed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1994. Various expansions and revisions have been published by WotC, Avalon Hill, and Renegade Games.

<i>Diplomacy</i> (game) Strategic board game

Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in the United States in 1959. Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases and the absence of dice and other game elements that produce random effects. Set in Europe in the years leading to the First World War, Diplomacy is played by two to seven players, each controlling the armed forces of a major European power. Each player aims to move their few starting units and defeat those of others to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units. Following each round of player negotiations, each player can issue attack and support orders, which are then executed during the movement phase. A player takes control of a province when the number of provinces that are given orders to support the attacking province exceeds the number of provinces given orders to support the defending province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heroscape</span> Miniature wargaming system

Heroscape is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system originally manufactured by Hasbro subsidiaries from 2004 until its discontinuation in November 2010. Geared towards younger players, the game is played using pre-painted miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles, allowing for the construction of an interchangeable and variable 3D landscape. This system and the relatively high production quality of the game materials have been lauded by fans even years after the game was discontinued, eventually leading to its revival in 2024.

<i>Lords of Waterdeep</i> Board game

Lords of Waterdeep is a German-style board game designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012. The game is set in Waterdeep, a fictional city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Players take the roles of the masked rulers of Waterdeep, deploying agents and hiring adventurers to complete quests and increase their influence over the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legacy game</span> Board game genre

A legacy game is a variant of tabletop board games in which the game itself is designed, through various mechanics, to change permanently over the course of a series of sessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banana Chan</span> Game designer and writer

Banana Chan is a Chinese Canadian game designer and writer for tabletop role-playing games and board games. Chan and Sen-Foong Lim created Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (2021). Chan has written for over twenty tabletop games, including the official Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft (2021), Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and the third edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill (2022).

References

  1. ↑ "Betrayal at House on the Hill". BoardGameGeek . Retrieved 2017-02-12.
  2. ↑ "Betrayal rules updates". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original (Zip) on 2009-06-02. Retrieved 2006-05-30.
  3. ↑ "Survivor's Guide errata" (PDF). Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-06-14. Retrieved 2006-05-30.
  4. ↑ "Traitor's Guide errata" (PDF). Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-06-14. Retrieved 2006-05-30.
  5. ↑ "Betrayal at House on the Hill" (First ed.). Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2014-02-17. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
  6. ↑ "Betrayal at House on the Hill" (Second ed.). Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2010-08-02. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
  7. ↑ "Betrayal at Baldur's Gate". Wizards of the Coast . Archived from the original on June 9, 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
  8. ↑ Wells, Adam (19 November 2017). "Betrayal Legacy Announced For Next Year". Kotaku . Kotaku Australia. Archived from the original on November 19, 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Burbidge, Greg. "Wizards of the Coast and Rob Daviau announce Betrayal Legacy". Dice Tower News. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  10. ↑ Solorzano, Sergio (27 July 2020). "Scooby Doo: Betrayal At Mystery Mansion Is Best As An Entry Board Game". The Gamer. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  11. ↑ "Avalon Hill Betrayal at House on the Hill".
  12. ↑ Hall, Charlie (2022-03-01). "Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition includes 50 new haunts, better minis, and more". Polygon. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  13. ↑ Hall, Charlie (2022-03-01). "Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition includes 50 new haunts, better minis, and more". Polygon. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  14. ↑ "Announcing Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition". March 2022.
  15. ↑ Hall, Charlie (2022-03-01). "Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition includes 50 new haunts, better minis, and more". Polygon. Retrieved 2022-03-19.
  16. ↑ "AVALON HILL - BETRAYAL AT HOUSE ON THE HILL - WIDOW'S WALK". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2016-04-20. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  17. 1 2 "Betrayal at House on the Hill is finally getting its first ever expansion". Gizmodo. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  18. ↑ "Betrayal at the House on the Hill gets a terrifying new expansion". Geek and Sundry. Archived from the original on June 10, 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  19. ↑ "The First Official Expansion for Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow's Walk". GeekDad. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
  20. ↑ "Widow's Walk". Wizards Play Network. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on September 5, 2016. Retrieved 2016-09-10.
  21. ↑ "Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow's Walk". BoardGameGeek . Retrieved 2018-05-19.
  22. ↑ "Widow's Walk Info". Avalon Hill. Archived from the original on November 5, 2016. Retrieved 2017-02-12.
  23. ↑ Ewalt, David (2011-05-18). "Betrayal At House On The Hill Is Killer Fun". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2016-11-06. Retrieved 2017-02-12.
  24. ↑ Harrison, Michael (2010-10-31). "Beware the Betrayal at House on the Hill". Wired.com . Retrieved 2017-09-14.
  25. ↑ Perling, Anna; Austin, James (9 December 2019). "The best beginner board games for adults". The Wirecutter . The New York Times . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  26. ↑ "Tabletop Terror: Betrayal at the House on the Hill – Black Gate". 10 October 2016.
  27. ↑ "Origins Award Winners (2004)". Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. Archived from the original on 2009-02-06. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.