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Product Description
From the Manufacturer
Mansions of Madness is a macabre board game of horror, insanity and mystery for 2-5 players. Gather your fellow investigators and unravel the dark mysteries within before it’s too late. Based on the horror fiction of master writer H.P. Lovecraft, Mansions of Madness creates an engrossing new narrative every time you play. Each game takes place within a pre-designed story that provides players with a unique map and several combinations of plot threads. These threads affect the monsters that investigators may encounter, the clues they need to find and which climactic story ending they will ultimately experience. One player takes on the role of the keeper, controlling the monsters and other malicious powers within the story. The other players take on the role of investigators, searching for answers while struggling to survive with their minds intact. Both the engaging plot and the stunning components will draw you in to a world of cosmic horror. The beautifully rendered modular map tiles show every intricate feature of the rooms you’ll search and the monster figures represent the otherworldly forces of evil in horrific detail. The bases for each monster figure even have slots into which you can insert that monster’s token, displaying only the pertinent statistics. All together, the thirty-two included figures, over 300 cards, over 200 tokens and markers and nearly 70 puzzle tiles,will help immerse you in a sanity-bending story of terrifying mystery. Do you dare enter the Mansions of Madness?
Product Description
Mansions of Madness is a macabre board game of horror, insanity and mystery for 2-5 players. Gather your fellow investigators and unravel the dark mysteries within before it's too late. Based on the horror fiction of master writer H.P. Lovecraft, Mansions of Madness creates an engrossing new narrative every time you play. Each game takes place within a pre-designed story that provides players with a unique map and several combinations of plot threads. These threads affect the monsters that investigators may encounter, the clues they need to find and which climactic story ending they will ultimately experience. One player takes on the role of the keeper, controlling the monsters and other malicious powers within the story. The other players take on the role of investigators, searching for answers while struggling to survive with their minds intact. Both the engaging plot and the stunning components will draw you in to a world of cosmic horror. The beautifully rendered modular map tiles show every intricate feature of the rooms you'll search and the monster figures represent the otherworldly forces of evil in horrific detail. The bases for each monster figure even have slots into which you can insert that monster's token, displaying only the pertinent statistics. All together, the thirty-two included figures, over 300 cards, over 200 tokens and markers and nearly 70 puzzle tiles,will help immerse you in a sanity-bending story of terrifying mystery. Do you dare enter the Mansions of Madness?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
65 of 68 people found the following review helpful
Format:Toy
Durability:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Educational:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fun:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is for the overall game experience of Mansions of Madness, with one side note...I've only played this once on an easy level as the Keeper.
Here's what you should know:
This game has quite a few mechanics and rules associated with it, and mostly at least the Keeper will need to familiarize himself with them before the game (so it runs more smoothly), but it is fairly simple to play once you get the hang of it. THe learning curve isn't very high and the instructions are fairly easy to use.
The puzzles seem fairly easy, but designed to take more than one person/turn to complete and add a neat element to the game. There's also many different levels of each puzzle (progressively more difficult) but nothing that people probably couldn't figure out.
There were five of us that showed up to the game, so one of us was the keeper (myself) and two of my friends joined with a couple that also came and made up the four investigators. This is a 1 vs. 4 kind of game, as one person will always be playing the side of the monsters. Plan on several hours to play this game.
The Keeper gets cards to play all game, and then two small decks of cards to draw from during his turn. He also gets "Threat" tokens that he uses to purchase a one-time use of an ability. You get a number of threat tokens equal to the number of players to use, with several ways to score more in the game. (You can also hold over threat tokens for later). The Keeper is also in charge of an event pile that you add time tokens to, and when the number of tokens equal the number on the back of the card the event happens. The investigators need to win before the last Event card happens. In this fashion the Keeper knows everything (how many rounds the investigators have to figure things out, what the game end goals are, where all the items on the board are). THe investigators need to figure it all out without dying in the process.
Combat is done through cards, basically flipping over cards until you find the right kind of combat for both monsters and investigators. That part was kind of a downside because you'd flip a lot of cards sometimes for the right kind of combat. It kind of made me want separate decks for different kinds of combat, but that would lead to a lot of decks (when there already ARE a lot of decks). The miniatures were cool, and the inserts were a neat idea, kind of a bump up from the Arkham Horror tiles, though similar. Everything on the Investigators side is done with skill checks, much like Arkham Horror as well, but rather than rolling a d6 per skill point, you roll a d10. On a 1 you auto succeed, on a 10 you auto fail, but you want to roll under whatever your skill rating (plus or minus modifier) is. It's much more streamlined than arkham horror, and a lot less math. For Horror checks you actually gain horror tokens rather than losing sanity, and if your horror tokens equal or exceed your sanity then you go insane and bring in a new investigator.
All the old familiar investigators are back, and the game was just a lot of fun in general. We sadly didn't get to finish our full game as the couple we were playing with had to go, but we were itching to play it again as soon as we left (and actually cancelled our plans for the night so we could have a game night instead) and we plan on getting it very soon (though probably not through Amazon at this point...).
Anyway, if you love the horror theme and Call of Cthulu, don't mind spending 3-4 hours on a strategy game, and like the Gamemaster vs players kind of set up, this game is definitely for you! Heck, even if you've never played a game like this, it may be slightly confusing at first, but it really is easier than it sounds, you just have to be okay with a 3-4 hour game play. :)
Get it going, find four friends and play it! You'll understand why I enjoyed it so much.
Here's what you should know:
This game has quite a few mechanics and rules associated with it, and mostly at least the Keeper will need to familiarize himself with them before the game (so it runs more smoothly), but it is fairly simple to play once you get the hang of it. THe learning curve isn't very high and the instructions are fairly easy to use.
The puzzles seem fairly easy, but designed to take more than one person/turn to complete and add a neat element to the game. There's also many different levels of each puzzle (progressively more difficult) but nothing that people probably couldn't figure out.
There were five of us that showed up to the game, so one of us was the keeper (myself) and two of my friends joined with a couple that also came and made up the four investigators. This is a 1 vs. 4 kind of game, as one person will always be playing the side of the monsters. Plan on several hours to play this game.
The Keeper gets cards to play all game, and then two small decks of cards to draw from during his turn. He also gets "Threat" tokens that he uses to purchase a one-time use of an ability. You get a number of threat tokens equal to the number of players to use, with several ways to score more in the game. (You can also hold over threat tokens for later). The Keeper is also in charge of an event pile that you add time tokens to, and when the number of tokens equal the number on the back of the card the event happens. The investigators need to win before the last Event card happens. In this fashion the Keeper knows everything (how many rounds the investigators have to figure things out, what the game end goals are, where all the items on the board are). THe investigators need to figure it all out without dying in the process.
Combat is done through cards, basically flipping over cards until you find the right kind of combat for both monsters and investigators. That part was kind of a downside because you'd flip a lot of cards sometimes for the right kind of combat. It kind of made me want separate decks for different kinds of combat, but that would lead to a lot of decks (when there already ARE a lot of decks). The miniatures were cool, and the inserts were a neat idea, kind of a bump up from the Arkham Horror tiles, though similar. Everything on the Investigators side is done with skill checks, much like Arkham Horror as well, but rather than rolling a d6 per skill point, you roll a d10. On a 1 you auto succeed, on a 10 you auto fail, but you want to roll under whatever your skill rating (plus or minus modifier) is. It's much more streamlined than arkham horror, and a lot less math. For Horror checks you actually gain horror tokens rather than losing sanity, and if your horror tokens equal or exceed your sanity then you go insane and bring in a new investigator.
All the old familiar investigators are back, and the game was just a lot of fun in general. We sadly didn't get to finish our full game as the couple we were playing with had to go, but we were itching to play it again as soon as we left (and actually cancelled our plans for the night so we could have a game night instead) and we plan on getting it very soon (though probably not through Amazon at this point...).
Anyway, if you love the horror theme and Call of Cthulu, don't mind spending 3-4 hours on a strategy game, and like the Gamemaster vs players kind of set up, this game is definitely for you! Heck, even if you've never played a game like this, it may be slightly confusing at first, but it really is easier than it sounds, you just have to be okay with a 3-4 hour game play. :)
Get it going, find four friends and play it! You'll understand why I enjoyed it so much.
43 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Format:Toy|Amazon Verified Purchase
Durability:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Educational:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fun:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As soon as the box arrived from Amazon for Mansions of Madness, I knew it was high quality.
Mansions of Madness is a game set in the same game world as Arkham Horror which is based on HP Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos.
The first thing you will notice is the weight of the box. I was surprised that the packing slip claimed the package was 5 pounds, which means it has some heft to it.
Upon opening the game you find 1/8 inch thick (roughly) cardboard punch outs for a variety of different game pieces and effects. Also included in these punch outs are the tiles that make up the different locations in the game, double sided for maximum efficiency, as in any of the 5 included scenarios you never need what's on the other side of one of the tiles to complete the map.
There are also 300 cards in 2 sizes included.
More amazing is the fact that you receive plastic figurines of the 8 investigators in the game, plus 24 monster figurines. In terms of build quality, I would say the plastic is of a decent quality, though when setting the Mi-Go on its base, you should be careful as it is the only piece in the system that I felt I could potentially break because of the spindly leg you use to connect it to the base. The cool part is that the base is designed to accept a tile that gives you the pertinent information about the monster (what you'll need for a horror or evade check) clearly visible without needing to keep the cardboard tiles lying around.
I do have one complaint, which is a complaint I share with other Fantasy Flight Games offerings. I love the quality of the packaging and all the pieces. The one thing I can't stand? It isn't really easy to return everything to the box. If you wish to keep the monsters on their bases, every time you stop playing you need to set aside an extra 10 minutes to try and strategically place the monsters with bases. And more often than not, as the monsters aren't really firmly attached to the base (they make them easy to assemble/disassemble), many will fall off just by moving the box around. The other issue is that with all the various tokens and cards, there is no simple way to keep everything separate, which really would help in cutting down the setup time it takes to get the game ready to play. I've purchased 2 plastic cases with little compartments in them to keep my Arkham Horror stuff separate and will need to do the same with Mansions of Madness. With a little more planning there may have been a way for Fantasy Flight Games to configure the box for easier setup, though my guess is this would raise the cost of an already higher-than-normal board game price.
So what's the game all about? This is a cooperative game where you have one person being The Keeper, that is, the "bad guys" and the rest of the players being investigators on the side of good. Up to 5 people can play for a total of 4 investigators and 1 Keeper.
The players decide what scenario, or story, to play. There are only 5 scenarios included in the package, though each scenario has The Keeper making 3-6 decisions that alter the way the game is configured, setup, played and even completed for a lot of potential variation.
In terms of setup, in your first couple of games you really need to set aside about 20-40 minutes to sift through tokens, cards and other assorted pieces before you are ready to play. Once you have everything configured, anticipate a full game to run you at least 90 minutes, generally more like 2 full hours. It all depends again on the luck of the draw and roll of the die.
There is a general rule book with a good overview on how to play the game, then also included on the flip side of this book (meaning you flip the book over and upside down) is the information investigators need to setup the different scenarios for themselves. Investigators build the Mansion to the specifications in the scenario they are playing (outlined in the investigator book) while The Keeper, who has a The Keeper specific book, builds the clues in the rooms to the specifications of the scenario. The only thing I don't like about this setup is that if you want to read the general rules you have to keep the book within reach which may impede the investigators from reading their side of the scenario during play since the book is designed to allow easy access to one side or the other. Of course, if you want you can always print the rule book up (available on FFG's website, linked to in the comments attached to my review) to have them available this way if you so choose. Having the rules available as a PDF is awesome as well, as you won't wear out the main rule book this way. Too bad they don't yet offer The Keeper book nor the investigator book as a PDF, as if you play often enough you will wear these books out also.
Investigators receive 2 movement and one action per turn which allows them to explore the Mansion to discover clues. As the investigators progress and they gather the main clues that continue the plot, they must also face off against The Keeper who has a lot of ways to keep them from discovering these clues. They will combat monsters, face horrors and even need to solve puzzles to get one step closer to the objective.
Why do I keep calling it "the objective?" Simply because the terms of winning, for the investigators or The Keeper, vary from game to game depending on the pick of the cards.
How complex is it to play this game? Compared to Arkham Horror, this game is like Candy Land! OK, not really THAT much less complex, but there are far less rules to remember, far less checks to be made and I'd say it's a lot easier for the investigators to win this over Arkham Horror. If you've never played Arkham Horror and generally don't play games outside of say, Risk or similar, this will seem more complex. I would say overall it is a medium/intermediate difficulty level to play and really learn. Age range for someone to REALLY be able to enjoy the game would probably be 13 to 200+ years old. Any child that is 10+ and bright for the age can probably enjoy it too.
Overall this is a really fun game to play, especially with more people.
What's not to like about the game? Five scenarios seems limiting to me. Sure, each scenario has different questions The Keeper can choose, which changes the layout and the way the story unfolds, but in the end it really is only five scenarios. I'm sure, given Fantasy Flight Games' love of expansions, that there will be expansions to come, which I'm perfectly OK with, I just hope they can give those that wish to limit their costs a way to purchase a few more scenarios that use just the pieces in the main box and don't require a person to shell out another $80 (MSRP) for another box of only 5 scenarios. Though I suppose it is also possible they will do standalone expansions as well, which can also work, though I'd prefer to see them maximize the original set as well with less expensive smaller expansions.
This game is quite similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill with a few exceptions. If you've played either of these games and go to play the other, they aren't all that dissimilar but each is fun in its own way. One big difference with Mansions of Madness is that there is no betrayal involved as the antagonist is chosen at the start of the game and is not random. The board setup is also not random as it is in Betrayal. Of course, both vaguely remind me of Mystery Mansion (I grew up in the 80s) from Milton Bradley. And who knows, perhaps there was something prior to Mystery Mansion as well that it was based off of?
If you own Betrayal should you buy Mansions? If you like Betrayal and would like to play with just 2 people instead of the 3 minimum, go for it. And if you're a fan of Lovecraft or Arkham Horror, buying this is a no brainer. If you only like Betrayal, you probably won't love Mansions and could skip it.
I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed both games. I like little pieces better in one over the other, but neither has anything that tips the scale. If I have less time to play, Betrayal is the game that comes out to play as games are shorter and setup is much, much faster. If I have 2+ hours available to play, Mansions always comes out first.
ALSO BE AWARE, there are some errata corrected since the game was sent to be published (excluding even the small sheet of errata included in the game box that also includes replacement cards for the offending cards). I've included a link in the comments of this review to the most up to date errata sheet available.
Five stars because in the end, I really enjoy playing this game. I'd always pick Arkham Horror over this if given the option, but sometimes you aren't looking for something THAT complex to play.
Mansions of Madness is a game set in the same game world as Arkham Horror which is based on HP Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos.
The first thing you will notice is the weight of the box. I was surprised that the packing slip claimed the package was 5 pounds, which means it has some heft to it.
Upon opening the game you find 1/8 inch thick (roughly) cardboard punch outs for a variety of different game pieces and effects. Also included in these punch outs are the tiles that make up the different locations in the game, double sided for maximum efficiency, as in any of the 5 included scenarios you never need what's on the other side of one of the tiles to complete the map.
There are also 300 cards in 2 sizes included.
More amazing is the fact that you receive plastic figurines of the 8 investigators in the game, plus 24 monster figurines. In terms of build quality, I would say the plastic is of a decent quality, though when setting the Mi-Go on its base, you should be careful as it is the only piece in the system that I felt I could potentially break because of the spindly leg you use to connect it to the base. The cool part is that the base is designed to accept a tile that gives you the pertinent information about the monster (what you'll need for a horror or evade check) clearly visible without needing to keep the cardboard tiles lying around.
I do have one complaint, which is a complaint I share with other Fantasy Flight Games offerings. I love the quality of the packaging and all the pieces. The one thing I can't stand? It isn't really easy to return everything to the box. If you wish to keep the monsters on their bases, every time you stop playing you need to set aside an extra 10 minutes to try and strategically place the monsters with bases. And more often than not, as the monsters aren't really firmly attached to the base (they make them easy to assemble/disassemble), many will fall off just by moving the box around. The other issue is that with all the various tokens and cards, there is no simple way to keep everything separate, which really would help in cutting down the setup time it takes to get the game ready to play. I've purchased 2 plastic cases with little compartments in them to keep my Arkham Horror stuff separate and will need to do the same with Mansions of Madness. With a little more planning there may have been a way for Fantasy Flight Games to configure the box for easier setup, though my guess is this would raise the cost of an already higher-than-normal board game price.
So what's the game all about? This is a cooperative game where you have one person being The Keeper, that is, the "bad guys" and the rest of the players being investigators on the side of good. Up to 5 people can play for a total of 4 investigators and 1 Keeper.
The players decide what scenario, or story, to play. There are only 5 scenarios included in the package, though each scenario has The Keeper making 3-6 decisions that alter the way the game is configured, setup, played and even completed for a lot of potential variation.
In terms of setup, in your first couple of games you really need to set aside about 20-40 minutes to sift through tokens, cards and other assorted pieces before you are ready to play. Once you have everything configured, anticipate a full game to run you at least 90 minutes, generally more like 2 full hours. It all depends again on the luck of the draw and roll of the die.
There is a general rule book with a good overview on how to play the game, then also included on the flip side of this book (meaning you flip the book over and upside down) is the information investigators need to setup the different scenarios for themselves. Investigators build the Mansion to the specifications in the scenario they are playing (outlined in the investigator book) while The Keeper, who has a The Keeper specific book, builds the clues in the rooms to the specifications of the scenario. The only thing I don't like about this setup is that if you want to read the general rules you have to keep the book within reach which may impede the investigators from reading their side of the scenario during play since the book is designed to allow easy access to one side or the other. Of course, if you want you can always print the rule book up (available on FFG's website, linked to in the comments attached to my review) to have them available this way if you so choose. Having the rules available as a PDF is awesome as well, as you won't wear out the main rule book this way. Too bad they don't yet offer The Keeper book nor the investigator book as a PDF, as if you play often enough you will wear these books out also.
Investigators receive 2 movement and one action per turn which allows them to explore the Mansion to discover clues. As the investigators progress and they gather the main clues that continue the plot, they must also face off against The Keeper who has a lot of ways to keep them from discovering these clues. They will combat monsters, face horrors and even need to solve puzzles to get one step closer to the objective.
Why do I keep calling it "the objective?" Simply because the terms of winning, for the investigators or The Keeper, vary from game to game depending on the pick of the cards.
How complex is it to play this game? Compared to Arkham Horror, this game is like Candy Land! OK, not really THAT much less complex, but there are far less rules to remember, far less checks to be made and I'd say it's a lot easier for the investigators to win this over Arkham Horror. If you've never played Arkham Horror and generally don't play games outside of say, Risk or similar, this will seem more complex. I would say overall it is a medium/intermediate difficulty level to play and really learn. Age range for someone to REALLY be able to enjoy the game would probably be 13 to 200+ years old. Any child that is 10+ and bright for the age can probably enjoy it too.
Overall this is a really fun game to play, especially with more people.
What's not to like about the game? Five scenarios seems limiting to me. Sure, each scenario has different questions The Keeper can choose, which changes the layout and the way the story unfolds, but in the end it really is only five scenarios. I'm sure, given Fantasy Flight Games' love of expansions, that there will be expansions to come, which I'm perfectly OK with, I just hope they can give those that wish to limit their costs a way to purchase a few more scenarios that use just the pieces in the main box and don't require a person to shell out another $80 (MSRP) for another box of only 5 scenarios. Though I suppose it is also possible they will do standalone expansions as well, which can also work, though I'd prefer to see them maximize the original set as well with less expensive smaller expansions.
This game is quite similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill with a few exceptions. If you've played either of these games and go to play the other, they aren't all that dissimilar but each is fun in its own way. One big difference with Mansions of Madness is that there is no betrayal involved as the antagonist is chosen at the start of the game and is not random. The board setup is also not random as it is in Betrayal. Of course, both vaguely remind me of Mystery Mansion (I grew up in the 80s) from Milton Bradley. And who knows, perhaps there was something prior to Mystery Mansion as well that it was based off of?
If you own Betrayal should you buy Mansions? If you like Betrayal and would like to play with just 2 people instead of the 3 minimum, go for it. And if you're a fan of Lovecraft or Arkham Horror, buying this is a no brainer. If you only like Betrayal, you probably won't love Mansions and could skip it.
I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed both games. I like little pieces better in one over the other, but neither has anything that tips the scale. If I have less time to play, Betrayal is the game that comes out to play as games are shorter and setup is much, much faster. If I have 2+ hours available to play, Mansions always comes out first.
ALSO BE AWARE, there are some errata corrected since the game was sent to be published (excluding even the small sheet of errata included in the game box that also includes replacement cards for the offending cards). I've included a link in the comments of this review to the most up to date errata sheet available.
Five stars because in the end, I really enjoy playing this game. I'd always pick Arkham Horror over this if given the option, but sometimes you aren't looking for something THAT complex to play.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By The-Big-Bad
Format:Toy
Durability:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Educational:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It took me something like four hours last night, but I went through all three of the rule books for Mansions of Madness and set up the board properly. Set-up is key. If you botch the set-up, the whole game can go awry (and there are rules to punish you in-game for messing up the placement of the cards in each room on the board).
There are five scenarios you can play, so far, but each one has three or more decisions within it that can make the scenario play very differently. Corey Konieczka (who designed my favorite board game, Battlestar Galactica) may have struck gold again. Mansions of Madness is comparably complicated to its sibling game, Arkham Horror, without being as dense and arcane for newcomers.
The plot of Mansions of Madness is this: you and your team of Investigators have to find clues by searching rooms in a spooky old house (said house created from a collection of different room/area tiles) in order to learn and then stop the "Keeper's" objective and save your own skins in the process.
The "Keeper" is one player who is responsible for all the evils on the board. The Keeper is supposed to be the most experienced player and they act as the de facto Game Master for the game. The Keeper is the one gets punished if they accidentally set the various cards up incorrectly on the board, as that can make the game unwinnable for the Investigators. But the Keeper also keeps track of the passage of time in the game and bedevils the Investigators whenever possible with Mythos cards and Trauma cards, as well as powers from the set of Keeper Action Cards available for each scenario (including summoning monsters, moving monsters, and making them attack). The Keeper gains Threat tokens each turn based on how many Investigators are in the game. The Keeper then spends Threat on most of the cards played to harm the Investigators.
There is an event based time limit to the game...each turn adds a Clock token to the event deck. When a certain number of Clock tokens are placed on the back of an event card, the event is revealed. Usually, the event deck does something nasty to the Investigators to get them to hurry up. There are tokens aplenty in Mansions of Madness. Tokens for all occasions...Clock tokens, Stun tokens, Fire tokens, Darkness tokens, Threat tokens, Damage tokens, Skill tokens, Horror tokens, and so on.
The Investigators are hindered by different puzzles and locks that they have to solve, environmental hazards, various evil cards thrown at them each turn by the Keeper, and, of course, all the monsters that the Keeper can summon. In the scenario I have just put together (#1, the easiest one), I don't think the monsters are too terrible (Zombies and Maniacs and a possible Shoggoth...okay, the Shoggoth is terrible). The scope of the game is much smaller than Arkham Horror and the combat more difficult (you get only one ten sided die as opposed to a possible plethora of six sided dice in Arkham Horror), but the stakes are just as high.
The basics are similar to Arkham Horror...Horror checks (damage to sanity from beholding monsters or eldritch secrets)...Evade checks (escaping monsters)...Fight checks (killing monsters, or vice versa)...the same Investigators (but not as many of them)...the same Monsters (but not as many of them)...you get the idea.
There are a LOT of cards in this game, just fair warning. I chose to sleeve them all, which makes stacking them a lot more difficult. But if you play Arkham Horror (or many other Euro style board games), you should be used to all that by now.
The game pieces for the Investigators are unpainted versions of those same (excellent!) Investigators that are available for Arkham Horror. The monster pieces for Mansions of Madness are unpainted as well, yet very detailed. The fact that if you want all the monsters to fit back into the box, then you have to detach them from their bases, makes for a long set-up and take-down procedure. In fact, some of the monsters don't like to be separated from their bases once they're fitted into them. And a few of the monsters won't stay attached to their bases (in my set, it's the Maniacs who are always coming loose...there's a joke in there somewhere). But with all the cards and tiles needing to be meticulously arranged before play can begin, there was never going to be a "quick" set-up procedure.
The randomized puzzles are what the game boasts as a unique feature. You have to rotate or swap or exchange randomized puzzle pieces to open locks (both magic and regular) or complete wiring puzzles or unscramble pictures. But sometimes if you have the axe, the proper key or the magic password, you can just smash (or abracadabra) your way through.
Two new wrinkles I found to be entertaining were the ability for Investigators to hide inside trunk tokens placed on the board at the beginning of the game and for the Investigators to be able to block doors with barrier tokens placed on the board at the beginning of the game. Being able to use the environment to your advantage is something I don't see very often in this type of game. Both situations--hiding and barrier--are addressed fully in the combat cards available, which is also nice.
Combat is handled by overturning cards from one of three combat decks, based on the type of monster (Human, Beast or Eldritch) the Investigator is facing. Once you get to the proper card...which can mean a lot of flipping over...the top half of the card speaks to the Investigator, depending on what weapon they have (or no weapon at all). The bottom half of the card speaks to the monster and their situation--is it a normal attack or are they smashing a barrier or trying to find a hiding Investigator? Almost all combat ends in a die roll for the Investigators. What's nice is that various abilities are tested in this regard, sometimes Marksmanship, sometimes Strength or Dexterity, and so on.
You always want to roll LOW in Mansions of Madness. It's a bit counterintuitive, I admit. Unlike most games, 1 is an automatic success and 10 is an auto-fail.
Fast forward a few days...I've now played Mansions of Madness with my friends twice. It is, indeed, a fun game. I felt that the Keeper's position was much weaker when playing against only one Investigator. But one Investigator is not likely to win the game unless they can do so by stalling until the end. Playing against three Investigators provided much more Threat for me to spend as Keeper, yet made it a lot easier for the Investigators to collaborate and succeed.
Fast forward a few more weeks...I changed my rating of the game from five stars to four based on how lame some of the more complicated scenarios are. "Classroom Curses" is kind of dull overall and has very few monsters to throw at the Investigators. And "Green Eyed Boy" is so full of errata and errors that I've had to write to FFG more than once about misprints and wrong cards. Plus, the Investigators can lose the entire scenario by blundering into the wrong room early in the game. When that happened in my game, the Investigators were quite upset. Alienating one's board gaming group is not always the best idea.
There is indeed quite a bit of errata for Mansions of Madness, even more than what is addressed in the game box itself. Accessing the Mansions of Madness web site at Fantasy Flight Games should clear up any lingering questions. I know when I played my first game that I did things wrong that the first FAQ/errata has now cleared up. And if you have questions the errata or FAQ can't solve, FFG is VERY good about answering rules questions.
I would also say that the game is MUCH better with at least two Investigators. The Keeper gets more Threat to spend and the Investiagators can team up against the inevitable monsters.
I still think Arkham Horror has the edge as being a better game than Mansions of Madness...despite Arkham Horror being one of the most complex (and sometimes frustrating and depressing) board games out there. That being said, there is a LOT of potential to Mansions of Madness. Because Arkham Horror has only grown to be what it is because of so many good expansions. I assume that Mansions of Madness will also become very much expanded (and possibly "fixed") in the future. Having played the new crop of Dungeons and Dragons board games, I will give both Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror a clear and definitive edge over the D&D games (unless you're playing with kids...the Cthulhu Mythos universe is not for the young ones). If you enjoy being driven slowly (or not so slowly) insane and the possibility of being snacked on by a Shoggoth, you will definitely enjoy Mansions of Madness!
There are five scenarios you can play, so far, but each one has three or more decisions within it that can make the scenario play very differently. Corey Konieczka (who designed my favorite board game, Battlestar Galactica) may have struck gold again. Mansions of Madness is comparably complicated to its sibling game, Arkham Horror, without being as dense and arcane for newcomers.
The plot of Mansions of Madness is this: you and your team of Investigators have to find clues by searching rooms in a spooky old house (said house created from a collection of different room/area tiles) in order to learn and then stop the "Keeper's" objective and save your own skins in the process.
The "Keeper" is one player who is responsible for all the evils on the board. The Keeper is supposed to be the most experienced player and they act as the de facto Game Master for the game. The Keeper is the one gets punished if they accidentally set the various cards up incorrectly on the board, as that can make the game unwinnable for the Investigators. But the Keeper also keeps track of the passage of time in the game and bedevils the Investigators whenever possible with Mythos cards and Trauma cards, as well as powers from the set of Keeper Action Cards available for each scenario (including summoning monsters, moving monsters, and making them attack). The Keeper gains Threat tokens each turn based on how many Investigators are in the game. The Keeper then spends Threat on most of the cards played to harm the Investigators.
There is an event based time limit to the game...each turn adds a Clock token to the event deck. When a certain number of Clock tokens are placed on the back of an event card, the event is revealed. Usually, the event deck does something nasty to the Investigators to get them to hurry up. There are tokens aplenty in Mansions of Madness. Tokens for all occasions...Clock tokens, Stun tokens, Fire tokens, Darkness tokens, Threat tokens, Damage tokens, Skill tokens, Horror tokens, and so on.
The Investigators are hindered by different puzzles and locks that they have to solve, environmental hazards, various evil cards thrown at them each turn by the Keeper, and, of course, all the monsters that the Keeper can summon. In the scenario I have just put together (#1, the easiest one), I don't think the monsters are too terrible (Zombies and Maniacs and a possible Shoggoth...okay, the Shoggoth is terrible). The scope of the game is much smaller than Arkham Horror and the combat more difficult (you get only one ten sided die as opposed to a possible plethora of six sided dice in Arkham Horror), but the stakes are just as high.
The basics are similar to Arkham Horror...Horror checks (damage to sanity from beholding monsters or eldritch secrets)...Evade checks (escaping monsters)...Fight checks (killing monsters, or vice versa)...the same Investigators (but not as many of them)...the same Monsters (but not as many of them)...you get the idea.
There are a LOT of cards in this game, just fair warning. I chose to sleeve them all, which makes stacking them a lot more difficult. But if you play Arkham Horror (or many other Euro style board games), you should be used to all that by now.
The game pieces for the Investigators are unpainted versions of those same (excellent!) Investigators that are available for Arkham Horror. The monster pieces for Mansions of Madness are unpainted as well, yet very detailed. The fact that if you want all the monsters to fit back into the box, then you have to detach them from their bases, makes for a long set-up and take-down procedure. In fact, some of the monsters don't like to be separated from their bases once they're fitted into them. And a few of the monsters won't stay attached to their bases (in my set, it's the Maniacs who are always coming loose...there's a joke in there somewhere). But with all the cards and tiles needing to be meticulously arranged before play can begin, there was never going to be a "quick" set-up procedure.
The randomized puzzles are what the game boasts as a unique feature. You have to rotate or swap or exchange randomized puzzle pieces to open locks (both magic and regular) or complete wiring puzzles or unscramble pictures. But sometimes if you have the axe, the proper key or the magic password, you can just smash (or abracadabra) your way through.
Two new wrinkles I found to be entertaining were the ability for Investigators to hide inside trunk tokens placed on the board at the beginning of the game and for the Investigators to be able to block doors with barrier tokens placed on the board at the beginning of the game. Being able to use the environment to your advantage is something I don't see very often in this type of game. Both situations--hiding and barrier--are addressed fully in the combat cards available, which is also nice.
Combat is handled by overturning cards from one of three combat decks, based on the type of monster (Human, Beast or Eldritch) the Investigator is facing. Once you get to the proper card...which can mean a lot of flipping over...the top half of the card speaks to the Investigator, depending on what weapon they have (or no weapon at all). The bottom half of the card speaks to the monster and their situation--is it a normal attack or are they smashing a barrier or trying to find a hiding Investigator? Almost all combat ends in a die roll for the Investigators. What's nice is that various abilities are tested in this regard, sometimes Marksmanship, sometimes Strength or Dexterity, and so on.
You always want to roll LOW in Mansions of Madness. It's a bit counterintuitive, I admit. Unlike most games, 1 is an automatic success and 10 is an auto-fail.
Fast forward a few days...I've now played Mansions of Madness with my friends twice. It is, indeed, a fun game. I felt that the Keeper's position was much weaker when playing against only one Investigator. But one Investigator is not likely to win the game unless they can do so by stalling until the end. Playing against three Investigators provided much more Threat for me to spend as Keeper, yet made it a lot easier for the Investigators to collaborate and succeed.
Fast forward a few more weeks...I changed my rating of the game from five stars to four based on how lame some of the more complicated scenarios are. "Classroom Curses" is kind of dull overall and has very few monsters to throw at the Investigators. And "Green Eyed Boy" is so full of errata and errors that I've had to write to FFG more than once about misprints and wrong cards. Plus, the Investigators can lose the entire scenario by blundering into the wrong room early in the game. When that happened in my game, the Investigators were quite upset. Alienating one's board gaming group is not always the best idea.
There is indeed quite a bit of errata for Mansions of Madness, even more than what is addressed in the game box itself. Accessing the Mansions of Madness web site at Fantasy Flight Games should clear up any lingering questions. I know when I played my first game that I did things wrong that the first FAQ/errata has now cleared up. And if you have questions the errata or FAQ can't solve, FFG is VERY good about answering rules questions.
I would also say that the game is MUCH better with at least two Investigators. The Keeper gets more Threat to spend and the Investiagators can team up against the inevitable monsters.
I still think Arkham Horror has the edge as being a better game than Mansions of Madness...despite Arkham Horror being one of the most complex (and sometimes frustrating and depressing) board games out there. That being said, there is a LOT of potential to Mansions of Madness. Because Arkham Horror has only grown to be what it is because of so many good expansions. I assume that Mansions of Madness will also become very much expanded (and possibly "fixed") in the future. Having played the new crop of Dungeons and Dragons board games, I will give both Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror a clear and definitive edge over the D&D games (unless you're playing with kids...the Cthulhu Mythos universe is not for the young ones). If you enjoy being driven slowly (or not so slowly) insane and the possibility of being snacked on by a Shoggoth, you will definitely enjoy Mansions of Madness!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
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