Betrayal At House On The Hill is a game based on horror and adventure. You and your fellow explorers decide to investigate The House on the Hill, a long-abandoned, mysterious, and probably haunted mansion.
As you explore the house, you come across strange and weird happenings, and after not too long, you notice one of your party is no longer quite themself…
The Haunt is afoot, and you must work with your remaining loyal explorers to defeat the nefarious plot of the house and survive your traitorous friend.
Will you make it out alive, or will you just become another of the house’s many victims?
Introduction of Game
Betrayal At House On The Hill is a 3-6 player story-driven adventure game with elements of horror and mystery. The game time can vary, which we’ll expand upon during the gameplay section, but it takes an average of 45-60 minutes.
The game is split into 2 parts. ‘Exploring the House’ and the ‘Haunt’. During the Exploring the House part, you and the other players will go around the house, uncovering new room tiles, gaining items or triggering small events. The Haunt is triggered a few rounds into exploring the house after someone fails a haunt roll. The game then turns into a heroes vs the traitor game, each side fighting to complete their goals and stay alive! There are 50 unique haunts, so almost every game will be different!
This is the 3rd Edition of Betrayal, so if you have played before, there are a few changes to be aware of, but they make it an overall more streamlined game and are well-documented in the instructions for the game.
Setup
The box contains 6 double-sided character boards, 6 character figures, game cards (omens, items, events), scenario cards, player reference cards, cardboard tokens, room tiles, eight dice (0-2-sided), handbooks, and starting tiles (triple room tile, basement tile and upper landing tile). The house tiles are beautifully (if a little creepily) illustrated to show you the room that you have revealed. We recommend getting a dice tray if you don’t already have one as you will often be rolling multiple dice at a time and passing them back and forth.
As for the pieces themselves, they are of very good quality. We’ve played with our game over 20 times, and there is very little wear on the tiles or cards. The models for the player characters are detailed grey 3D models, which could even be painted.
Betrayal begins with a very simple setup of the starting tiles being placed on the table. Everyone chooses a character to play and places the complementary figure on the entry hall tile. This will only take a couple of minutes and is explained in detail in the instruction booklet. When the ‘Haunt’ starts (part two), it often requires a second setup, depending on which ‘Haunt’ is revealed. This will be explained in the Haunt books (one for the traitor, one for the heroes). This second setup can vary in time and complexity depending on which ‘Haunt’ is revealed, but it is generally fairly simple.
Summary of Gameplay
Each of the characters in Betrayal are slightly different, but all have the same 4 character traits – might, speed, knowledge and sanity. These are tracked using a plastic clip and will go up or down during the game depending on how things unfold. If any of the traits are reduced to the skull symbol, then your character dies (this cannot happen until the Haunt starts; otherwise, you remain at critical, the red figure). There are three types of damage: physical, mental and general. Physical damage relates to your character’s might and/or speed. Mental damage relates to your knowledge and/or sanity. General damage lets you choose which traits are affected.
As mentioned, Betrayal unfolds in two parts: ‘Exploring the House’ and the ‘Haunt’. Throughout the game, your speed will determine how far you can move each turn; however, after you uncover a new tile, your turn ends. You can explore the ground floor, the upper landing or the basement. The basement can be tricky to gain access to, as there are only a few select tiles which give you access.
Exploring!
During part one, a scenario card is read out, which reveals why you are all there and sets up the story. You and the other players will then start exploring by uncovering different rooms in the house, such as the gallery, the tower, the ballroom or even the bloody room. Each room will have at least one door, and to travel across tiles, you will need to travel through adjoining doors.
Some of the room tiles will have a symbol on them. Upon revealing such a tile, you will draw the top card of the matching deck and either receive an item, trigger a minor event or draw an omen card. Each time an omen card is drawn, the person who drew it must make a ‘haunt roll’. The number of dice rolled is equal to the number of omen cards that have been revealed. Once the haunt roll has a result of 5+, then the haunt begins! Thus triggering part two of the game.
The Haunt
The ‘Haunts’ are the unique stories that take place at House on the Hill. There are 50 unique Haunts, each detailed in the two Haunt books, ‘Secrets of Survival’ and ‘Traitor’s Tome’. The Haunt is determined based on the scenario card used at the beginning of the game and the omen card which began the Haunt. The Traitor is now revealed (this is very often the Haunt revealer, although sometimes it is another player or maybe there will be no traitor at all, though this is rare) as is the Haunt number, which can be used to locate the Haunt in both the Haunt books. The Heroes and the Traitor then read aloud their introductions and follow the setup steps outlined in each of their books. They then go into separate rooms, so the Heroes and Traitor can’t hear each other, and then go through their game objectives. Each Haunt has rules unique to that Haunt.
During the Haunt, you may attack monsters and other hostile explorers on your tile. To do this, you and your opponent both roll Might, whoever rolls higher wins the attack and deals Physical damage to the loser, equal to the difference in the two rolls. Throughout the game, you may gain weapon cards which you can use on opponents. The terms of the weapons will be detailed on their card.
To win, you must complete your Haunt objectives before your opponent(s). Once achieved, the winner should read the ‘If You Win’ section from their Haunt book aloud, concluding the story and the game.
Our opinions on Gameplay
The first part of Betrayal At House On The Hill is always very similar; the main variation is whether you get to the basement before the Haunt starts. We like that it is simple to start with, as it eases you into the game and makes it easier to teach new players how to play. The Haunt, on the other hand, is almost always different. This adds to the replayability of the game as we’ve played it 20+ times, and it has never been the same.
After playing the game a few times, we found that the Haunt would often start too early, even as soon as the 3rd turn, if unlucky enough. The Heroes, and often the Traitor, sometimes need particular room tiles to be uncovered to achieve certain goals. If not enough of the house has been explored, completing the goals of the Haunt and winning the game can be challenging and sometimes a little deflating, as you spend time going through rooms instead of working through your goals. To combat this, we have upped the Haunt roll from 5 to 7, giving us extra time to explore before the Haunt starts.
We think Betrayal is great for small groups as it is a fun cooperative game (less so for the traitor). The Haunt has some light strategy elements, as the Heroes generally have to plan and work together to complete their goals. Occasionally a player can die prematurely, however, they can still help and offer suggestions to the remaining players. More often, players will die off in the final rounds of the game, some may get unlucky in combat or some may need to sacrifice themselves to defeat the traitor.
We enjoy that there is a different narrative each time we play, as it sets the scene and makes you feel as if you’re on an adventure. Exploring the house can be fun, as the layout can often be very random. You don’t know what tile you’ll be uncovering, so sometimes you’ll end up going through the ballroom and larder to get to the guest bedroom! This can create fun conversations during the gameplay.
Occasionally, the Haunts can feel a bit off balance. The Traitor may go into the Haunt with a number of items, while other players may have nothing, making it very difficult to beat them. Or, as mentioned previously, certain rooms are needed to defeat the traitor that may not have been uncovered yet. Although this can be annoying, it can also build suspense and make the game more exciting.
Final Thoughts/Conclusion
When we got Betrayal At House On The Hill (3rd edition) in 2022, it quickly became one of our most popular games to play. When we host game nights, we often have people eager to suggest it. We find that 5 is probably the best number to play it with, as it offers diversity while also keeping the game running quickly, but we often play with 4 or 6 players and everyone enjoys. It can be tricky to predict how long the game will last, as it can vary depending on the Haunt and also the experience of the players. We generally try to set aside 1-2 hours to play it, but we have finished a game in less than half an hour before.
One of the things we like about this game is that you don’t need to enjoy horror to enjoy the game. Almost none of the people who have played it with us like horror (ourselves included), and it doesn’t detract from the enjoyability of the game. There are definitely horror elements which can be a little creepy at times, but it’s not over the top.
Overall, we are big fans of Betrayal and would highly recommend it for people looking for an enjoyable, cooperative, small-group game.
