Let me set the scene: there you both are, two fearless adventurers, standing bent over, catching your breath at the back door of the mansion. Your mission, to stop the cultists from summoning a big evil, has taken the last of your strength. There is no doubt that you have been tested beyond what you thought even possible but at least, beyond the door, the final battle will take place and this nightmare will be over. If you succeed, you will be able to leave the hell mouth you’ve been trapped inside.
There is only one last mythos phase to survive before you can take that final action and attack Earth’s greatest enemy. You take a few tokens of sanity damage, your friend takes enough to reach their limit, their grip on reality rapidly slipping away. They are forced to take a secret Insane Condition but you aren’t worried, nothing can stop you now.
…that is until your friend moves one tile back into the house, starts a fire and stands in it. “It’s fine,” they say, “don’t worry, go ahead into the garden.”
You are speechless, rooted to the spot. You look at their smiling face, then at the flames licking at their knees, “but…” you mumble, what on Earth was going on?
“No honestly,” their body language calm but you cannot look past the reality of what you are seeing, “ignore the flames. Just go fight the boss, stick to the plan. I’m just going to wait here…on this tile.”
Welcome to the madness that is, Mansions of Madness.
This memory came from my first ever game, sat in a board game cafe. To give a little context, when you receive an Insane Condition you must keep it completely secret from the other players: some cards have no effect, some ban you from talking and some make you team up with the enemy. This particular card said that you were still on the same side as the other adventurers, but that you must die before the game ends for any victory to still count…hence the flames.
We had so much fun that afternoon even though the flamey shenanigans caused us to lose the game (unsurprisingly); the memory of the madness we went through stayed with us for years until we finally bought a copy of our own. So, I guess it is time for a review:
First, let me give you a little background:
H.P. Lovecraft was an American author who created the Cthulhu Mythos. If you have not heard of Lovecraft you are likely still familiar with some of the ‘Arkham’ games inspired by his universe. Fantasy Flight Games publish the Arkham genre and titles include Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, Call of Cthulhu the card game and Elder Sign. I have been a huge fan of Eldritch Horror for many years, the base game plus many expansions have pride of place on my board game shelf. Masks of Nyarlathotep is still in its plastic wrapping waiting for our two year
Call of Cthulhu TTRPG to come to an end – it will be the celebratory game we play to mark that moment.
Mansions of Madness plays very different to the other Arkham games so let’s see what Mansions of Madness has to offer:
Summary:
Mansions of Madness is a cooperative board game which uses a companion app to take you through 23 + different scenarios. This game can be enjoyed solo and can be played with up to 5 people.
As Fantasy Flight Games seem to have a bit of a monopoly over these Lovecraft games, there is a nice streak of consistency throughout the series, they use similar tokens, artwork and recurring characters meaning you quickly feel right at home when playing a new Arkham game.
Now, this would not usually be my game as Mansions of Madness uses a companion app. I sometimes find that games which run in this way lose their immersion and stop you from strategising ahead, but Mansions of Madness leaves your characters in such perilous situations that the game still manages to hook you in, even with the distraction of the app.
What do I love about this game:
– The modular map – that’s right, this game uses modular pieces, meaning you build up the game board over several turns as you explore. Modular games often have a campaign/scenario mechanic as the modular pieces can be used in different combinations. If you’ve played Betrayal at House on the Hill, then you’ll have experienced building up a map but unlike in Betrayal, this map placement is guided rather than random.
– I think the stories are also well written, when I compare it to the Call of Cthulu TTRPG it feels more exciting, the clues you collect mean something. For example, we found a clue about wire in the bedroom so we made an effort to go to the bedroom first and, using the wire, we were able to open the back door; this meant we didn’t waste a turn going to the back door and just finding out it was locked. The scenarios also take place in different locations, you are not always in the same mansion as you are when you play Betrayal at House on the Hill.
– The insane mechanic is excellent – I mentioned in the introduction that when you lose all of your sanity you draw an Insane Condition. These change up the game in surprising and entertaining ways making each session of Mansions of Madness a memorable one. We are yet to draw an Insane Condition that changes our allegiance but I know the chaos this would bring would make for such an exciting twist.
– The puzzles – as the game uses a companion app, it is able to incorporate puzzles that other board games would struggle to utilise. On your turn, you can spend actions to work away at ‘Slide’, ‘Code’ and ‘Lock’ puzzles. You actively have to solve these and they take several turns worth of actions adding an escape room type puzzle into your board game experience.
What could be better:
– The message log on the app is not complete making it really difficult to refer back to earlier text. This is made even more frustrating as there is no undo button. Once, when we were setting up, we double clicked forward and completely missed that we needed to place a bookcase. We knew we’d had to put something down but couldn’t click back to find out what it was. I understand that they don’t want people to cheat but most boardgamers want to enjoy a game, they want to win because they made the right decisions and will still enjoy the journey even if they don’t win. Sure, there will be a small group of players who will use the undo button to cheat, but for the rest of us having control over the app would be preferred.
– The app interface is quite busy and as such everything comes up very small on a mobile screen – it can be hard to see where doors and bookcases are.
– For a game with an app, it is surprisingly complicated and has two rule books (Learn to Play and Rules Reference). The game play isn’t complex but I felt I had to refer to the rule books constantly to check ‘technicalities’ we came across.
– We all love a game with models and there are some very impressive minis in this game, however none of the enemies are attached to their bases. You need to put them on the bases when they enter play but they don’t attach properly, some don’t attach at all they just balance and some, like the snake monster, can’t balance so they spend the whole time falling over. I would rather just have monster tokens like in Eldritch Horror.
Conclusion
Over all, I do enjoy this game. It is perfect for getting a TTRPG experience even if you don’t have a group that you can play D&D or Call of Cthulhu with. It isn’t a game I would play very often as I find having to look up technicalities in the rule book every session frustrating, but I do think the addition of the puzzles and the variety of scenarios the app offers make the game quite unique.
The base game is quite expensive and upon further inspection (whilst creating this blog) I have noticed that it only seems to unlock 4/23 app scenarios, the others you have to either pay to unlock as DLC or enable by purchasing physical expansion boxes with additional components and pieces. This means that the replayability of the base game is actually quite limited and if you want to experience all the scenarios Mansions of Madness has to offer, there is a significant financial commitment to be had.
