Horrified: Universal Monsters

I'm sixty-four. To me, board games are, "Life", "Pay Day", "Monopoly", etc... I was initially intimidated by this game. I'm used to rolling dice or using a spinner to play a board game. This game has players taking "actions" instead of rolling dice. The game is a cooperative game and takes a little time to setup, but it's very easy to setup. The game walked my wife, my granddaughter (ten-years-old), and me through what we needed to do. It went surprisingly smoothly. We enjoyed playing the game. The game beat us the first time but we won the next game. The game is great for having everyone work together to defeat the monsters. I had searched for reviews of starter/gateway family games and, "Horrified", was always listed with every search. I understand why now. I highly recommend this game. Granddaughter also approves.

Got this as a birthday gift for 11 year old nephew. It was close to Halloween so the theme and timing were in sync. Played it with my brother and other nephew aged 6. My brother is pretty good at picking up game rules quickly so he helped teach us all how to play and we had fun! The game is complex but the rules were easy enough to grasp so the kids caught on quickly and even I did too. There are a lot of variables and you can pick different combinations of monsters as opponents. Each monster requires different methods and strategies to defeat them and you can raise difficulty by playing against more monsters as you get better at the game and seek more of a challenge. It was fun working together as a team and even though we started in the “easy” mode, it was not a slam dunk… it was definitely a challenge. Seemed to be a hit with my brother’s family and I think they will play it a lot.

I really like this game. I ordered it for a gift I. The past and now ordered it again as a gift for someone else. I’m looking forward to being able to play it again. I’m not a big tabletop gamer but this is definitely fun to play. It took me and 1 other person about 2 hours to complete a round against 2 monsters. If it was just 1 it would have taken half that time. It has all the classic universal monsters and side characters from the movies. The instructions are easy to follow. It’s a high quality game and worth the price tag for sure.

This is a cooperative game where all players collaborate to defeat the monsters. I prefer these games as easier to teach and everyone is a winner (or loser together). I really like this game. Not too difficult to learn but the game mechanics keep the game fun and challenging. I would recommend this game for ages 10 and up. This game has solid art on the board, and cards, and pieces (called items). There are also pieces for the characters that are simple plastic (dracula, frankenstein, bride of Frankenstein, invisible man, and the wolf man. Nothing fancy but totally fine. My only recommendation would to use better card stock. Not bad, but some games have more solid feeling card stock. Overall the developer did a nice job with the overall components, themes, and art. Lastly, the actions and instructions are generally easy to understand. I enjoy this game and theme.

This review might be a little long; but I hope it is helpful. Yet, if you just want the bottom line, here it is: this is a fun, easy to learn and to fun play game for the whole family, provided that (a) you like “cooperative games” and (b) you don’t mind lower quality components. Now for more details: In this game, each player plays as a different character (with different special abilities) trying to help a village survive attacks from any number of several “classic” monsters while trying to complete certain tasks needed to defeat the monsters. As in all cooperative games, the players play together against the game itself. They can all win by meeting the winning conditions or lose in a number of different ways. The game is similar to another cooperative game called Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, which is excellent but which did not get a lot of attention when it came out. Reign of Cthulhu, however is a hard game and you are likely to lose more often than not. In Horrified, it is much easier to control the difficulty level and it is not difficult to win when played against certain combinations of two monsters. The game can be set to a higher difficulty level by adding monsters or by selecting the monsters that offer more of a challenge to defeat. Horrified also does a slightly better job than Reign of Cthulhu in driving the theme of the game across. There are a lot of thoughtful little details in Horrified that those of you who have watched the classic horror movies will recognize (from the names of the Villagers, to the items the players collect to defend against, and attack, the monsters, to illustrations in some of the cards, etc.) Also, not everyone is familiar with the Cthulhu stories, but everyone (even younger kids) is familiar with Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, Dracula and the other monsters in this game. A game with four players should take about one and a half hours, which I think is perfect for a family game. All in all, I have enjoyed the game and look forward to playing it again with different combinations of monsters. Unfortunately, the game is not perfect and the biggest negative for me is the low quality of the components. The cards are really flimsy. You will want to sleeve them if you are going to play the game a lot, which adds a cost to the cost of the game. But the most disappointing is the quality of the monsters’ mini figures. They are made of cheap molded plastic. When I opened my copy of the game, I noticed the mummy had been in the box pinned under the weight of other components and was bent over looking like it was falling over. Dracula is also bending forward a little bit (looking like he is hovering over someone with this cape). I contacted Ravensburger and they graciously agreed to send me a replacement. But because they sent it in an envelope, the poor mummy was again crushed along the way and the replacement was in even worse condition than the original (see the photo). It barely stands up. I am not going to return the game because of a crappy figure, but being a big player in the board game market, Ravensburger should know better. Lastly, with so many cardboard pieces and the fragile figures, the box really needs a good insert that would let you organize the components and keep the figures from getting crushed. I now spend a lot of attention at how I place the figures back in the box because I am afraid they will bend while the game is not in use. I own at least one other Ravensburger game, by the way, so I am not trying to pick at them. On the contrary, I am saying they are a good company (and their customer service is great) which is why I am surprised at the low quality of the components in this game which I think will be a very popular game. I don't mind owning both Reign of Cthulhu and Horrified, but if you already own and love Cthulhu and play it often, this one might be redundant. But if you are looking for a more accessible theme, particularly for younger players, and particularly around Halloween, you want to consider Horrified. The Good: – Great theme – Fun and easy to play, easy to learn – Good for adults and children alike – Just about the right length playing time – High replayability value because you can create different combinations of monsters to play against – Easy to control the difficulty level – Can be played solo The Bad: – Fragile monster figures – No box insert – Low quality paper cards

This si not a children's game, but there's nothing horrifying in it--it's all good fun. Definite cooperative strategy. Takes a little learning (especially for some people) but definitely not overly complex.

El juego de horrified es uno de los juegos cooperativos más divertidos que conozco. En primer lugar, la temática no está “pegada” como en otros juegos, por lo que es altamente temático en cuanto a los monstruos y sus mecánicas, así como los investigadores y aldeanos. De verdad se siente que los monstruos están persiguiéndote y acosando al pueblo en cada turno. La jugabilidad es muy buena también, ya que usualmente en tu turno tienes múltiples opciones que hacer, pero todos los jugadores están involucrados, por lo que a pesar de que puedan ser turnos algo largos, todo mundo está opinando. En cuanto a la dificultad, está la puedes ajustar, pero en lo personal 3 monstruos me parece la mejor, principalmente porque 2 se me hace demasiado fácil, con 3 será muy difícil ganar, pero si lo haces se siente como cuando le ganas a un jefe muy difícil en un juego. Jugando así casi siempre se pierde, pero no por el juego en sí, sino por el factor humano, y es que, aunque a veces para algunos sea muy claro lo que hay que hacer, al final la gente hace lo que quiere y al ser cooperativo el juego cada jugada que no lo sea te alejará de la victoria. Tocante a su re jugabilidad, a pesar de que no sean tantos enemigos ni cartas con sus acciones y que el mapa no cambie, el juego permanece fresco a pesar de jugarlo a menudo, principalmente porque no sabes en qué orden saldrán las cartas de acción de los monstruos o de aparición de personajes. Lo he jugado ya más de 20 veces y sigue sin aburrirme, aunque claro, no es el único que juego ni siempre. Finalmente, un par de puntos a tomar en cuenta es que para algunas personas el juego puede ser estresante porque hay que estar hablando y planeando todo el tiempo. Adicional a eso, un factor muy desagradable que se puede suscitar y que depende de tus compañeros de juego es el efecto líder, es decir, que sí en tu grupo de juegos hay una persona que sea muy mandona (y mal educada al no dejar a los demás hacer lo que quieren) esta podrá casi tomar el control del juego y que éste se convierta en más bien SU juego y todo se haga como dice. Jugar con alguien así, en este y cualquier juego cooperativo es horrible. Para mitigar un poco esto yo suelo agregar durante la explicación que si bien todos podemos y debemos cooperar y dar nuestra opinión durante el juego, la responsabilidad última de qué hacer es del jugador en turno y éste puede o no hacer caso a lo que los demás han dicho y los demás tendrán que aceptarlo. En general me ha funcionado. En conclusión este juego es divertido, fácil de sacar a mesa, con una persona que sepa inglés basta y permanecerá fresco bastante tiempo. Entre más cooperativas sean las personas con quienes juegas más lo disfrutarás, en caso contrario, puede que no tanto. P. D. Pintar las miniaturas le agrega un plus al juego y además es muy entretenido!

mto bom, bem divertido

This game is so much fun to play, and easy to learn. It says ages 10 and up but my 7 year old can sort of play along with help - and given that it is a collaborative game, that works well and means she can enjoy it too. I like that you can change the difficulty simply by adding more monsters or ones that are harder to defeat or you can make it fun by randomising which ones you play with. Its so versatile and when I've played with friends they've bought a copy of their own as they were impressed with it too. Its not one of those games that is impossible to win at but even a skilled player can face the hand of fate and lose. Definite replayability.

After a few power outages I thought I would try to figure out what else I can do at home by myself without electricity that isn't reading. I ended up looking up board games you can play solo and this is one that fell onto my radar. I've now played it by myself and with others and it's a lot of fun! The Universal Monsters theme doesn't hurt either, since I'm a fan of these old movies. Each monster has its own unique challenges, as do each of the playable characters. A lot of thought has definitely gone into this game. The board and pieces all look great and are good quality. It's easy to learn for the most part. We had a question or 2 about a couple of minor things, but you pick it up pretty quickly as you play. Despite the theme, there's nothing particularly scary about it, so I don't see why it couldn't be played with any age, as long as they can follow the instructions. Good replay value because you decide which monsters to include and how many. The difficulty level is also changeable for the same reason (too easy playing against 2 monsters? Try 3. Having trouble against 2? Try 1). Highly recommended!

Easy to teach, monsters can be combined in various ways. Fun for the whole family