HORRIFIED: UNIVERSAL MONSTERS is a Fantastic Board Game for the Family
Horrified: Universal Monsters is a new board game from Ravensburger and I’ve had the great pleasure of being able to try it out over the past couple of weeks. My overall thoughts are that this game is a lot of fun. The game supports up to 5 players and while I have not been able to get a group of five to play, I imagine it’s fairly similar to the 4-player games I did play. Here are my thoughts.
This game is a lot of fun, but I will warn gamers that there’s not a lot of depth. I know a number of people who like a lot of depth to their games and this doesn’t quite do it for them. They want more to it. However, if you don’t mind the lack of depth (or even prefer a lack of depth) this is fantastic. I could easily see my parents who are up for trying new games but aren’t hardcore gamers in the slightest pick this game up and enjoy it.
The game is cooperative (a plus in my book) where you and your friends (if any) must weaken and defeat classic monsters from Universal Studios films like Dracula and the Wolfman. Depending on the difficulty of the game you’ll face off against 2-5 monsters. Now, the rules say that the hardest difficulty is against four monsters, but if you draw Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride, that adds an additional monster to the encounter. Each monster has a unique way in which players must first weaken them and then once conditions are met, each monster has a unique way to defeat them. For example, players must educate Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride by giving them different items and then the two monsters must meet to be defeated.
Horrified is also a relatively quick game. It doesn’t take long to set up, explain the rules, and start playing. When all is said and done, you’re probably looking at no more than an hour per game with each game potentially getting shorter thanks to your understanding of the simple rules growing. Another bonus is that the rules are simple enough that many children will probably be able to grasp how to play with few problems.
In addition, the figures are actually pretty decent quality and I look forward to painting them. They’re monochromatic right now with each monster being a different color, but with some paint, they could become really amazing.
I do have one small problem with Horrified though. When monsters attack, they roll up to three dice. Each die has 3 hits, 2 misses, and 1 effect. The effect of each monster is typically something that hinders the player’s progress such as the Creature from the Black Lagoon pushing a boat back a few spaces. The problem is that it’s very rare that the effects actually come up because you only roll dice when the monster attacks a Hero or Villager and then there’s only a 1/6 chance that it gets rolled.
In case you can’t get friends together, I have tried the game’s solo mode and it works. In my opinion, Horrified becomes a lot harder with only one player, but it does work well.
Overall, I think Horrified is a fantastic game and as long as you don’t mind it being a lighter game, is one to consider purchasing especially around October.
The Horrified game board
The PCs in Horrified
The monster figures for Horrified
