Spook-tacular Board Games

Horror board games can be defined by many factors such as the art style, the setting it takes place in, the characters and of course creating a sense of uneasiness for the players.

In this list we’ll go over a few different types of horror board games. For players who want to feel a sense of unease and stress Sub Terra will deliver as players can play in the dark, have limited time to play and make risky moves to survive and make it out. In Dawn of the Zeds and Cthulhu: Death May Die players will get to fight off zombies and monsters as they try to take over. A main focus is making it out alive. For Mansions of Madness the mission at first is unclear as players explore a creepy house. A sense of mystery remains through the game as players hope their teammates haven’t gone insane and aren’t trying to betray them as they try to solve the mystery of the house.

Mansions of Madness

As the name suggests this game is mainly set in a mansion. It’s a tile placement type game, where tiles are placed down to create a layout of the mansion. With each play through the tiles can end up in different locations and create different layouts of the mansion to explore. In Mansions of Madness you are investigating and exploring with the hopes of solving the mystery before you lose your sanity or get killed off. It’s unclear at the trat of the game what is necessary to win but as you go through the mansion and pick up clues it will be revealed.

This game in unique in the way that it comes with an app to guide you. Reviewers enjoy the app aspect because it acts as the game master in regards to setting the story and telling it as well as keeping track of the enemies locations, their health condition and eventual deaths.

Mansions of Madness starts off with each player with unique abilities having the option to move, explore, search, interact, attack, or do component actions. While exploring the app tells you what you find where in the rooms and types of tokens to place down. To complete an action players most roll dice to see if they pass. With exploring actions completed he game moved into the Mythos phase in which an event is triggered. From there monsters pop up, some players may go insane and sabotage the game so the monsters win. As this phase is played out what needs to be done to win becomes clear.

While fighting the monsters both players and monsters have cards with different attacks and weapons, for which they must pass checks. More insanity cards are secretly handed out to players so others won’t know if more of their teams mates have fallen to the monsters side.

Dawn of the Zeds

Dawn of the Zeds takes place in a town being invaded by zombies. Help is on the way from the National Guard but until they make it you are left defending the town, it’s people and surrounding villages from the undead. Dawn of the Zeds can be played with varying difficulties so players have the option to choose between slaying away zombies or a very difficult game where everyone around you is dying.

The game has the players characters along with NPC’s since you’re defending others in town and must work with them. During the game you select cards to see what sort of zombie event will be triggered and where they will be located, along with their attacks and movements. Each player gets a stack of cards consisting of events and actions that they use against the zombies. You need to build up a defense around town from the zombie hoards for getting in, sacrificing many of the town residents in the process. You will quickly go through your deck of cards and hope you have enough to keep away the undead. If you do you win if not there’s a rule book to tell you what happened depending on the amount of supplies and weapons you have left.

The game board is double sided and will have certain cards in use depending on the level of difficulty being played making it very repayable. As you replay you will learn strategies against the zombies making for more wins.

Sub Terra

Sub Terra is a tile placement type game about building out a cave system that you need to explore to make it out of. You are a cave explorer who needs to make it up to the surface while facing monsters and other obstacles before your light runs out and you become trapped underground. This game can be played in dim lighting to recreate the feeling of being in a cave as the box and dice glow in the dark and the tiles and tokens light up when a UV light is shined on them.

This game is possible to play by yourself or with people online through a virtual tabletop. It’s best played with more people so it adds to the challenge as you can’t run out of the cave by yourself to win, at least two of the players must make it out. All the players start out in the same spot and must go through the 64 tiles given in the game, the cave will grow quite large! The exit tiles can only be placed in the very end. Along the way hazard cards consisting of gas, flood, tremors, horror and cave-ins will come up to block your way, you will then need to find a new route to take.

The game moves fast and there is no time for calculated moves as you’re low on time before the light runs out. Players get two actions every turn in which they can reveal a new tile or explore one. There is a possible third turn in which you roll a die to see if you pass or fail, if you fail you out the other players in danger. This game is meant to create tension and force players to take risks.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

The concept of this game is you’re trying to stop a group of cultists who are trying to bring back Elder Gods Cthulhu and Hastur. They each come with lesser monsters that play roles in the game too. There are six different episodes to play out with a choice of the two gods and then a character you will be playing as. Each of the characters you choose to play as has three unique features and two features they share with other characters. There are a lot of different game plays to set up with all these choices.

On your turn your character can either attack, trade or rest. After your turn you draw a Mythos card which causes monsters to move, spawn or have an episode specific event happen. If needed you fight monsters or investigate . If you happen to be sharing a space with monsters you’ll be attacked, and you need to roll dice to see if you can harm them or if they hit you and you take insanity points. Too many insanity points and you’re out of the game. If you get lucky and no one attacks you get a Discovery card which has equipment and helpful tips.

Once Mythos cards are played they go in a discard pile. If they happen to be three specific ones the cultists are stopped and the world is saved. However if the monsters advance to a certain point in the game its too late to stop the ritual and you have to attempt to kill them.

The game is simple to play, you read cards and they tell you what to do next. It’s very action based and focused on killing monsters.