Arkham Horror

One of the great things about raising kids, and raising them right, is they will encounter things in the world that they know you will like, and they will recommend them to you.

Last night, I played Arkham Horror for the first time, and, wow, Adam & Lucas were exactly right. I love this game.

First and foremost, I would not be able to recommend it did not have a good design. This one does. Things fit together. It takes a while to learn the rules, but once that is done, the game makes sense.

But before I knew the design was good, the concept that really drew me to the game is the cooperative nature of the game. All of the players are on the same team -- much like in a role-playing game, or in Diablo -- trying to accomplish the same goal. In this case, protecting the world from an invasion of extra-planar beings who would destroy humanity if they were allowed into our world. You win together, or you lose together.

The milieu is familiar to me -- it's a Lovecraftian Cthulhu world -- so perhaps it was easier for me to pick up than it would be for some people. And, true, it is a long game. We played one game that lasted the entire evening. This is not a problem for me. After all, I like role-playing games and Talisman. Gaming for long stretches is in my nature.

The game ha a lot of inter-related parts, and given the complexity, I expect I could play several times before feeling like things were repeating themselves, so there will be a period of discovery well beyond the first playing. Adam, Lucas & Lee remarked that they had never had a game go as ours did (so many monsters!) and though it took almost four hours to play, we won the game very efficiently, I think. (We spent a long time getting us new players up to speed, giving advice, etc.)

Don & Eric were able to join me for the first game. Now that we have played it, I want to introduce it to the rest of the Dudes who play games with us.

Thanks, sons & daughters, for bringing me into the world of Arkham Horror!