Horrified: Universal Monsters Board Game Review
Ravensburger and Prospero Hall strike again!
I don’t want to spoil it too much, but when you open Horrified, another great game from the Ravensburger/Prospero Hall team, it’s packaged in such a way that you get a fun little surprise that is about as on brand as possible for a game based on the classic stable of Universal Monsters. And I don’t want to give it away, but there is a famous comedy duo that kind-of-sort-of makes a cameo appearance. It will bring a smile to the face of any monster kid like me that revels in the vintage Hollywood horror of Karloff, Chaney, Whale, and Browning (but not Lugosi, thanks to a long-standing prohibition in using his likeness as Dracula). Indeed, Horrified is a super fun monster mash mashed into a simple, pick-up-and-deliver co-op design with an appropriate family-friendly level of rules weight and length.
But since this is one of those Ravensburger/Prospero Hall games, they had to go and get all clever on us. In Horrified, you effectively create a scenario by mixing and matching the monsters your wonderfully diverse and inclusive team of scientists, investigators, and other pro monster hunters must face while defending their village. Each monster has a couple of sequential requirements to defeat them, and each offer unique gameplay within the basic pick-up-and-deliver concept including specific activation cards that give each monster a unique flavor. You might find yourself delivering key evidence to the police to reveal the misdeeds of the Invisible Man. Or, you’ll have to commandeer an expedition to find the Gill-Man’s lair. Maybe you’ll be deciphering the Mummy’s riddle. My favorite is teaching Frankenstein’s Monster and the Bride to be more human while preventing them from meeting.
This stuff is just absolutely adorable, and I love that the game’s difficulty is set by which monsters – and how many - you choose to square off against. It can get really tough with some of the more complex monsters and more of them, and in fact our last game ended with me apparently being singled out by Frankenstein’s Monster for punishment – the dude quite literally waited outside of the hospital to pummel me. If the monsters manage to kill the randomly generated, roaming villagers or the monster hunters too many times, it’s game over. The challenge is for the players to use their actions and abilities to defeat each monster while also keeping the villagers safe.
On a turn, each player gets four actions (except the Mayor, she gets five) and these are used to travel from point-to-point around an Arkham Horror-like board. Along the way, you can pick up three different categories of items, which in general need to be delivered to specific points on the board or to battle certain monsters. Villagers appear, and you will need to escort them to the safe locations printed on their standees. All of this makes me wonder if this design originated as a train game and in fact mechanically it feels like a very simple example of the genre.
When the monsters move, they will head toward a player or a villager and they execute a die roll to see if they do damage. If a player is attacked, they’ve got to discard an item to ward off damage. Otherwise, they go to the hospital. In my case, so that Frankenstein’s Monster could wait there to ambush me. In the event of a KO or a slain villager, the terror level increases and you are that much closer to losing.
This is not a complex game by any stretch of the word, and it is not a deep or meticulously detailed one. To this end, I believe that those who come into Horrified looking for an experience like one of Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Files game are going to be disappointed. But to be blunt, that’s their own fault, not the fault of the game. I’ve played in one group where the sentiment was expressed that it was “boring” that each item didn’t have a specific game function, but my retort is that the item’s type (spiritual, scientific, or physical) is what matters – not if something gives a +1 to a roll or has some other setting-specific effect.
Like Jaws, Horrified is a highly streamlined, highly refined design that slices away bulk and filler and leaves behind the elements that matter the most. Yet, there is still room for the detail that each monster and their specific ways of attacking provide, as well as within the neat multi-piece scenario concept that is reminiscent of Donald X. Vaccarrino’s concepts regarding modular setup. The narrative elements rest atop, yet integrates into, a well-crafted chassis of solid game mechanisms.
I love the approach that Prospero Hall took with this game as it could have easily turned into the kind of morass of overcomplicated, overwrought hobby game tropes that “thematic” games tend toward. But this is a mass market game designed for maximum accessibility and appeal rather than something aimed at culty, initiates-only hobbyistas. Yet the designers, who are shamefully uncredited by name, are clearly aware of trends and successful ideas in the hobby gaming world and they’ve leveraged that knowledge to maximum effect. Horrified is a smart, spooky treat that should see plenty of table time with Halloween just around the corner.
More on Horrified: Universal Monsters
Editor reviews
A wonderful family game with a killer setting- another winner from Ravensburger and Prospero Hall.
There ain't much here.
It seems only a little heavier in weight than Forbidden Island.
But my love for Universal Monsters is strong, and if spouses and children can appreciate them more because of this department store game - it's all good.
I just can't get over the production discrepancy. Great board and character standee illustrations. Perfectly fine minis. But the mix between the two is just sad.
drewcula wrote: I just can't get over the production discrepancy. Great board and character standee illustrations. Perfectly fine minis. But the mix between the two is just sad.
What????? I don’t see what you’re getting at here whatsoever.
Production is the second best thing that Prospero Hall has been bringing to the table for the last few years, and they’re getting better at it all the time. There is so much charm to their stuff. THIS is how licensed games should look, and sorry to lift so heavily from Michael’s playbook that even I find tiring from time to time, not how $130+ Kickstarter projects handle them. There is legitimate love for the material in Horrified, in the game play and production, and in the minis, which I love. As a kid who grew up making the re-released Aurora kits in the 90s, I can’t help but love these “just-off-enough” versions of the monsters.
What Prospero Hall is doing best, without a question, is making games that pack pure FUN in the box without the weight of useless, overly complicated and ultimately unnecessary mechanics. More rules, more effects, and more overhead does not equal more fun. It doesn’t even equal more depth. Prospero Hall clearly gets this, and in a time in which more people are sitting down to tabletop games, what they’re doing is nothing short of important.
Horrified uses tried and true pick up and deliver mechanics and a clean AI deck to deliver a game that has just as much tension as other co-ops with rulebook that are twice the size or more of Horrifieds. The monsters still have spot-on personalities and follow story beats straight from the movies. I’m 8 plays in, it’s still hitting the right notes, it’s still exciting and it’s still got variety to be mined. I love this game.
Josh Look wrote:
drewcula wrote: I just can't get over the production discrepancy. Great board and character standee illustrations. Perfectly fine minis. But the mix between the two is just sad.
What????? I don’t see what you’re getting at here whatsoever.
I don't see how I could have been any clearer. I'm not staking the game. It' fine. I'm pinning a silver bullet into the physical components.
This is what I wrote earlier in the month:
Ravensburger is certainly killing it with Jaws and Villainous. Good on them. Horrified? Mmmmm... I'm torn. I'm the biggest nut for Universal Monsters, but this game is just 'meh' for me. I left my demo thinking it was too light of a co-op for my tastes. Mind you, I don't like co-ops. On the positive, its lightweight approach and availability at Target may get it into kids' gaming rotation. And if the younger generation gets any exposure to some good looking Universal Monsters? I'm all for it.
My Horrified rub is ultimately a production rub. It seems Ravensburger wants it both ways, and the end result looks dumb as fuck. I've grown my hobby into a painting past time, so I was initially excited to see my favorites in plastic form. The minis look good. I think I'd like to paint them. Except there's 'only' seven of them. The big bads get the sculpts. Townsfolk and Players? They get standees. God damn do I hate that. Pick one, and commit. It looks like a kit bash, prototype product when bits are mingled. I honestly would have preferred the streamlined and sleek meeples treatment that Jaws received. All of the illustrations are handsome.
Regardless, I'll keep an eye out at Target. Once Horrified goes on sale, I may pull the trigger just to have a fun little painting project. Dracula is my spirit animal.
Horrified is fine. Above average for sure. It's not anything impactful, but it's well designed for its market/audience and it's really well produced. The art and presentation is fantastic and that goes a really long way.
I have a hard time jiving with my copy of Gloomhaven for similar reasons. Plastic player minis, and the baddies are standees. I think Gloomhaven's 1st edition was more visually cohesive.
Meh. Co-ops aren't my favorite. Maybe I should do another cull.
* "Dark Universe" made me sad.
Vysetron wrote: ... but it's well designed for its market/audience ...
This is an important point. I think these games coming out from Ravensburger/Prospero Hall are great because they are interesting, well designed family games that kids can also play on their own. You can just hand the box over to a 10 year old who can read the rules, figure out how to play on their own and go play with their friends and siblings.
I just wonder how the production discussions developed.
Had they replaced the minis with more gorgeously illustrated standees, could costs have been significantly decreased? What if they chose meeples?
Family games and impulse purchases seem to have a price tag threshold. In 2019, Jaws seems to hit the sweet spot. But I don't know. I welcome input.
It's a selling point - "Includes X number of toy figures!"
We have quite a few mass market kid/family games based on TV shows that do this.
ETA: Here's one. All the Power Puff girls are minis, but Mojo is a standee.