What is Arkham Horror?

Arkham Horror is a board game, but unlike Risk or Monopoly, it is a co-operative game. By co-operative, I mean that all players work together against the game itself. The object of the game is to save the world from destruction by an ancient evil that is slowly awakening from it's sleep in another dimension. Gates to various dimensions are opening all over town, spilling out hideous creatures. It is the job of the players to stop the Ancient One awakening by dealing with these monsters and finding ways to close the gates. If any of this sounds familiar, it is because the game is based on the works of fictional writer, H.P. Lovecraft and set in a fictional town in Massachusetts called Arkham in the mid 1920's.

The game was first released in 1985 and copies of this are still circulating. The game went dormant for whatever reason and then was picked up, re-created and re-distributed by a company called Fantasy Flight Games. This is the version we will be talking about.

The game has a very active fan base all over the world and an active forum.
Here are some links:
Fantasy Flight Games - http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/
Arkham Horror's Page - http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/arkhamhorror.html
Arkham Horror Forum - http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/forums/show/10.page


GamePlay Overview

Players choose an "Investigator" to play from one of the provided sheets. Investigators are normal people who live in Arkham in the 1920's. Flappers, Gangsters, Jazz Musicians, Students, Teachers, Private Detectives, etc...Each investigator sheet has different stats for some basic skills and attributes. Each investigator also has one or more unique abilities that make playing that character very different from playing another character. The game can be played with one to eight players, but the common consensus seems to indicate that the best results are achieved by using 3-6 players. Some people, like my group which has two people, like to play more than one character at a time in order to hit this sweet spot.

An Ancient One is chosen to be the enemy for the game. A stack of Ancient One cards are provided each with their own sinister abilities and rules.

Victory can be achieved by one of three methods:

1. Close all open gates by exploring the Other World it leads to, exiting, and successfully passing the skill check modified by the gate's toughness.
2. Seal 6 gates by closing gates (per #1) and spending 5 clues to seal that gates location. Sealing means that no other gates can open at that spot during the mythos phase (unless you have added certain game expansions which include a nasty version of a mythos card called a "Gate Burst.")
3. Defeat the Ancient One in the Final Combat. This will happen when the Ancient One awakens forcing the players to abandon pursuit of the prvious 2 conditions and allows them one final chance at victory. Awakening can happen from a number of various conditions, including, having too many gates open at once and filling up the Ancient Ones Doom Track (basically a timer mechanism where each gate adds one to the track up to the allowed amount for that AO. Typically 10-15)

A turn consist of 5 phases.

1. Upkeep: This is used mostly to refresh abilities and adjust skill sets.
2. Movement: This includes combat or evasion of monsters.
3. Arkham Encounters: Each location in Arkham has a color which corresponds to a stack of encounter cards. These cards contain text for each location, like a small story that tells the player what happens at said location.
4. Other World Encounters: This phase only happens for a player who enters a gate to an Other World. Instead of drawing a card in Phase 3, the player would have an encounter in the dimension indicated by the gate they entered by drawing a card from the Other World Stack that matches the dimensional colors. These cards are much like the ones in the previous phase.
5. Mythos: The first player draws a mythos card and typically this will open a gate somewhere on the board, place a clue token, spawn a monster, and set up some rules for the next turn, like an environment: "Snow!" or a dreaded rumor: "Southside Strangler Stikes Agian!" This phase is basically the game's turn is what drives the players against the game.

Every player completes each phase in turn order, except Phase 5, which only the first player does. After Phase 5, the first player token is passed to the next player who now becomes first player and turn two begins.

Now I will not go into all the details of every rule and how each method can be achieved as that is not part of the reason I have created this blog. The idea here is to give the reader some indication of how the game works and what is involved as well as the theme and setting of the game.

To learn more, please visit any or all of the linked sites above. If you are interested in this game, it can be purchased online, or from many Hobby and Comic shops throughout the world.