Horrified
Can you defeat Hollywood’s most famous monsters, or will you end up horrified? Coming from publisher Prospero Hall, Horrified is a co-operative game where up to five players work together to tackle evil. Only here, there isn’t one Big Bad roaming around town. There’s three! (Or more, if you want a truely horrifying experience…) You’ll find all your favourite ‘Hammer Horror’ antagonists in Horrified. You start by picking three (The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, or Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein). Each have their own unique challenge that you have to overcome. For example, to defeat Dracula, you have to destroy four of his coffins. To defeat The Wolf Man, you have to find him a cure. Not all monsters are malicious, you know – some are merely misunderstood! Horrified sees you take on asymmetrical roles, too. On your turn you spend action points to try and help your team overcome these beasts that are stalking the town. Props and citizens get added to the board as the game progresses, which link to defeating the horrors. You’ll need to liaise with your fellow players to swap items. Movement (both yours, the citizens and the monsters) works in a point-to-point fashion. On every turn, any one of the monsters could attack! You won’t want to be in the same part of town when they do… If you (or a citizen) gets horrified by a monster, a ‘panic meter’ rises. If it maxes out, you lose! Can you thwart (or assist?) the monsters before that occurs? Horrified is a wonderful, modular, and lightweight co-operative game. It also comes with superb miniatures for the seven monsters. Remember, each ‘baddie’ is different… You’ll need to adapt your strategies to make it out of this monster movie mash-up in one piece! Play Count: 1-5 Players Time: 60 minutes Age: 10+
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Description
The stakes have been raised. Imagine living in a place so wretched that it's not plagued by one, two, or even three monsters — but seven of the most horrifying fiends!
In this game, you'll come face to face with them all as you work together to rid the town of the maniacal or misunderstood creatures…before it's too late.
Horrified includes high-quality sculpted miniatures (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon). Its innovative, easy-to-learn, cooperative gameplay has players working together against the monsters with varying levels of difficulty. Just as each monster is unique, they require different strategies and tactics to be defeated.
I have been into the board game hobby for around 10 years now, this is all thanks to my brother – in – law and a certain little card game with a big impact called Citadels! Both as a result have cost me a small fortune!
I like all types of Board gaming, particular favourites include the Co Op Mechanism. I am a Halloween Fanatic, so when I first heard about Horrified back in late 2019, off course my first port of call was Zatu Games’ friends Tom and Zee the Dice Tower Boys on YouTube. Before I purchase any new game I always find their reviews honest and helpful. They liked it which helped. Ravensburger the publisher has also had a recent hit available on the Zatu website, which is JAWS, having played and enjoyed this, it was now a must that I get my hands on Horrified.
So to the Zatu Website with my debit card ready. However this game was like Gold dust, not only not available on Zatu, But not available in the UK as a whole. Now I had a problem. A co-op game with many of my favourite classic monsters (Dracula, The Wolf man and Frankenstein to name a few), a game that looked great and I was dying to play. I bit the bullet and ordered internationally.
UPDATE- the game is now available, buy now!
After a couple of weeks, the game arrived. Finally… Let’s play! A lot of you may have this next problem (A nice Problem to have… most of the time), me and my wife have 2 children, a 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter, which obviously puts board gaming on hold a lot of the time!
So after that long intro (Thank you for staying with me!), the idea of this my first review (So be kind) and hopefully ones to follow, is to review games both for their ability to play with adults and children. So to begin I am going to review the game having played it with my wife first and then follow up with a small paragraph to review having played it with both my wife and 5 year old son.
Grown Up Review
First off, what I will say, is this game is on the light side, so if you are into your heavy Co-Ops, please take the statement into account. However if like me and you like all types of Co-Ops, this game is a win win. The main mechanism is a pickup and delivery approach to winning the game.
The Artwork is awesome and gives you the feel of being immersed in the atmosphere of the game itself. This is notable straight away when opening the game box and being greeted with a monstrous message on the game board. Key to note, it’s not as dark as such games as Arkham Horror and elder sign, but let’s not kid ourselves by modern standards the classic monsters will always seem a little Tame and goofy but overall fun and likeable.
Setup and the rulebook make sense, which is a must. Within 5-10 minutes we were ready to play. For your first game, it is recommended you pick just two monsters out of a choice of six.
Each of the six monsters in the game have unique conditions that players must complete in order to defeat them and win the game. In a standard game, you’ll face off against three monsters. Two for easy, as mentioned, it is recommended you do this for your first go at the game. Finally four for hard. Each player chooses a hero to control and the board is then added with a dozen items which will need acquiring throughout the game to defeat the monsters. More items are added throughout the game.
The Heroes have a number of actions depending on their abilities, some have more than others but there are also special actions which differ for each hero. It’s key to note here that the choice in heroes and Monsters give this game great replayability. Multiple games even with the same Monsters in play, don’t feel the same.
After you have taken all your actions, you then draw a monster card. These show how many items are added to the board, an event that may need to be resolved, and which monsters move and attack Heroes or Villagers. This is achieved through dice rolling (1-3 dice depending on the monster card). If a villager is hit, they die and the terror track increases. If a hero is hit, they may discard any item (if available) to avoid further damage to the terror track, which if hits zero/The Skull, you lose the game.
To Conclude, I cannot express the fun we have had with this game from both an adult and family game perspective. Play time is around 40-60 minutes depending on the number of monsters you are playing with.
The game is fun and engaging, even when it is not your turn being a fun co-op, you are engaged throughout.
The Kid Friendly Review
The thing I love about modern board gaming and Co Ops in particular really allow kids to get into the hobby whilst learning key skills such as organising and preparing actions.
This game really gets a child’s brain ticking, mainly because it’s Fun. The theme is great, not scary for kids but cool. The artwork really adds to this experience.
With a little help throughout, our Son had no Issues playing this game and towards the end was actually telling me and my wife what the best options were on our turns!
Let’s be honest Adults are just big kids, and what’s more fun than hunting down Classic Monsters.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Theme, Theme and More Theme
- Rulebook and Setup
- Time to play
- Player to Player Interaction
Might not like
- Play can feel repetitive
- Monster Components