Betrayal at the House on the Hill | $28 | Amazon
Betrayal at the House on the Hill is every B horror movie you’ve ever seen rolled into one. My friends and I started getting into, for lack of a better term, more “advanced” tabletop/board games a few years ago. Betrayal acted as sort of our intro into TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. There is ample opportunity for roleplay which certainly enhances the experience. If you lean into the goofiness and tropes of the genre, you are in for a really fun and laugh-filled couple of hours.
The game is split into two phases. 3-6 players take on the roles of various horror movie archetypes like the hunky boy or a cautious priest and explore the corridors of this spooky mansion. After accumulating some items and weapons and after a certain in-game threshold is hit, something called “The Haunt” is triggered. The Haunt identifies one player as the traitor and kicks off phase two. Now the remaining survivors must face off against the traitor in one of 50 different haunt scenarios. It could anything from a bomb having been planted on the premises to a mummy trying to marry you. In one scenario, my friends and I were shrunk down to toy size and had to escape the house before being devoured by a house cat.
The extensive list of possible Haunts combined with the everchanging layout of the mansion makes Betrayal one of the more fun board games to revisit over and over again. You can get a copy now on Amazon for only $28. It is also eligible for Amazon’s Buy 2, Get 1 Free promotion of various books, Blu-rays, and board games.
This story was originally published by Joe Tilleli on 08/25/2021 and updated with new information on 11/09/2021.