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Something Wicked
Dare you pay a visit to this haunted house? Full of ghosts and glowing dice, there’s something cursed for everyone! Don’t go in there is a new placement, dice rolling game for 2-4 players from Road to Infamy Games. Known for their artistic masterpiece, Canvas, R2i Games have decided to take a playfully spooky turn.
A playthrough of Don’t Go in There is very simple to play. Each player places meeples on one of three floors. Once a floor has three meeples on it, dice are rolled, cards are claimed and ghosts are dealt out, depending on how brave you were. From there, play continues until there are no more cards available. Once all cards have been taken, end game triggers and players must tally up their ghosts and curses to see who is victorious.
With such simple mechanics, you’ll quickly find yourself thinking three turns ahead whilst trying to read the minds of other players. All whilst managing the mechanics on your own card and trying to keep your ghost total low.
Terror On Every Floor
Don’t Go in There comes packed inside a beautifully designed box with the printing of a haunted house on its exterior. Upon opening the box, you’ll stumble upon a plethora of components:
- Dice Tower Box
- 6 Glow-in-the-dark dice
- 96 cards
- 5 screens
- 3 Room Mats
- 25 Meeples
- 46 Ghost tokens
- Active Player Token
- Rule Book
Needless to say, you get a lot for your money with this game. And although there may seem like an overwhelming amount of components for a small box, every piece plays an important part.
With replayability in mind, the game offers a multitude of card sets to choose from. You can either decide which types of cards you’d like to include or pick randomly for the ultimate challenge. In addition, if you get your hands on the Kickstarter version, you receive a small pack of additional cards which adds even more variety with new mechanics.
Unfortunately for storage, the box insert is designed more for the dice tower than practicality. Therefore, I recommend keeping hold of the small white bags that come with the game, as they are the perfect size for storing the components after you’ve finished playing.
It’s also worth noting that while the box design is elegant, the components are not of the highest quality. The boards come with a little bend in them, and the paper on the game box flaps come away after multiple uses. However, that takes nothing away from how charming this game really is.
Roll Your Fate
I can’t express how much of a selling point the built in dice tower is for this game. As one of the main reasons I backed this game on Kickstarter, the compact layout of the design only adds more charm to the game. To put it into action, simply remove the components from the box, replace the insert inside the box, open the flap to form the dice tray and you are ready to roll.
In addition, the dice that are included also glow in the dark. And although this isn’t entirely practical, as the rest of the game isn’t, you do get to see the dice glowing in the game box as you go to unpack it. That being said, playing this game during a powercut would definitely give it the spooky setting that it truly deserves.
Fleeting Thoughts
Don’t go in there has quickly become one of my favourite games of all time. The gameplay is simple and quick to learn, and you can easily fit a few plays into an hour. The components are quick to set up, easy to pack away and the box doesn’t take up much room on the shelf.
Although the quality of the components is a little disappointing, that doesn’t take anything away from just how charming this game is. It’s clear to see that an amazing amount of designing and planning went into creating this game, and it really pays off.
I’ve come to expect unique, high quality games from Road to Infamy and they haven’t disappointed with Don’t Go in There. If you’re as enticed by this charmingly spooky game as I was, you can pre order your copy today!
