Lovecraftian fun

This post (my 200th, can I really have posted 200?) is for Jon, who I'm sure will be out buying this game before the end of the day. :-)

I have a confession to make. I'm a little ashamed of this but here goes: I consider myself a geek, yet I've never read Lovecraft. There I've said it. I'm familiar with the stories of Arkham, Massachusetts and the Cthulhu mythos but I've never actually sat down and read some Lovecraft. I consider it a failing in my upbringing and I look forward to rectifying the situation soon. In fact over this past weekend I borrowed a collected works from my dad and will start them as soon as I finish with my two library books.

What got me thinking again about H.P. Lovecraft was a game my brother brought with him this weekend. His kids are on spring break so they have come down to Des Moines to hang out until Thursday. It's been a lot of fun to hang out these last two days and each night has ended the same way. We all sit down at the dining room table, break out the board, and play Arkham Horrors.

Now I'm a gamer from way back. I love board games, role playing games, and video games. Even my current WoW addiction is nothing compared to my love for board games. Absolutely nothing makes me happier than sitting around a table with friends or family and a board game. Snacks don't hurt either. And this one is one of the more interesting games I've gotten to play. Each character is given an investigator who will go out into the streets and locations of Arkham to fight back the monsters and keep the ancient ones from spawning. The investigators, who have been pulled directly from the stories, have different occupations, different possessions, and more importantly different levels of sanity and stamina. At the beginning of the game the ancient one is chosen. The characters then travel around the city gathering clues and closing gates to the other worlds. During that whole time you have to keep track of your sanity (which you can lose easily) and your stamina. Those are the things you will use to fight the ancient one when it awakens

This picture was blatantly stolen from Board Game Geek because I forgot my camera last night.

We played last night with seven people and that might have been too many. The game is a complex turned based game. Each character, led off by the first investigator, starts first with a movement turn, then encounters turns for people in Arkham, then encounters turns for people in other worlds, then monster movement turns, then new gates opening turns and status updates for the ancient one. That is the end of the first turn. Then it is repeated until the ancient one spawns. We played from 8 last night until nearly 11 and weren't even close to finishing. Be prepared for a long evening. But this is a great game. Each turn is very different and the monsters that spawn keep the investigators jumping around the board. And with the game set in the Cthulhu mythos, there is an interesting level of horror. Cards include direct quotes from the stories and Cthulhu himself may be awoken. The game was interesting and definitely one of the better thought out games I've played in a long time. But even better they make me want to read some Lovecraft.