Trashdome - Touch Of Evil VS Betrayal On The Hill

I've never played either game, but I'm voting for Betrayal because I actually own a copy and probably will play it one day, and because it doesn't tarnish the fine mythology of vampirism by featuring photos of people in stupid rubber masks.

A Touch of Evil doesn't even interest me. The amateurish cosplay "art" is a clear warning of low quality, and the gameplay looks like a dismal failure at creating a lightweight ripoff of Arkahm Horror.

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is an ambitious design that would have benefited tremendously from additional time spent proofreading and playtesting. By the very nature of the game, it's easy to see how playtesting it thoroughly would have been incredibly time-consuming. Still, it's kind of shame that the errata is so extensive.

Still, Betrayal has a definite appeal. The components are neat, especially the room tiles. Well, the counters are a bit of a problem. There are a bazillion of them, and most lack artwork. I think that they should have gone with generic numbered monsters tokens to save a lot of space and make it easier to find the right token at the right time. I downloaded some alternative art tokens that someone put up at BGG, and then I sort them alphabetically in several small ziplock bags, to make it easier to find the right tokens quickly.

Exploring the house is fun, and the cards mostly support a ghostly theme, including some decently-written flavor text. Like Arkham Horror, these cards should be read out loud, to support the atmosphere. The irregular stats on the character cards are a nice twist, combining both sanity/hit points with skills. And I find the dice to be slighty creepy, with all those blank faces. And they give a small amount of hope even in the most difficult situation, as there is always a chance that an opponent will roll all blanks at a crucial moment.

While every game of Betrayal starts well, the ultimate success of a given game hinges on the moment of the reveal. Depending on the layout of the house, the current position of the characters and the actual scenario, there is a distinct possibility that one side or the other is just screwed. But sometimes things are fairly balanced, and then the game is potentially quite fun. I've played Betrayal a lot, and it seems like there is a 50:50 chance of a given game being good.

Vote: Betrayal at House on the Hill.

A Touch of Evil is a solid game with a touch of bad artwork. But you can play it, and have fun.

Betrayal is TERRIBLE

It does not deserve any of the praise it gets. And all of you eBay scalpers hoping to increase the value of your unplayed copies can rot in your rotten, haunted mansions.

metalface13 wrote:

It does not deserve any of the praise it gets. And all of you eBay scalpers hoping to increase the value of your unplayed copies can rot in your rotten, haunted mansions.

The integrity of your vote, which is clearly not motivated in the slightest by bitter jealousy of those who are already lucky enough to own a copy, brings a light into this dark place.

MattDP wrote:

metalface13 wrote:

It does not deserve any of the praise it gets. And all of you eBay scalpers hoping to increase the value of your unplayed copies can rot in your rotten, haunted mansions.

The integrity of your vote, which is clearly not motivated in the slightest by bitter jealousy of those who are already lucky enough to own a copy, brings a light into this dark place.

I am in no way jealous of Betrayal owners because it's a crappy game. I get annoyed at people who claim crappy OOP games are awesome and totally worth double the MSRP value for a used game. That's lame.

And I forgot my official vote.

Vote: A Touch of Evil

Who put Andre the Giant in with a five-year-old?

I got lucky because after reading the rules I figured Betrayal would be hinky and suffer greatly from repeat plays too close together, so I made sure the first time we played it was on Halloween, in the dark by candlelight with a spooky record spinning in the background. All that theme-spackle really filled the cracks. A mediocre game became a fantastic experience.

We play it once a year, around Halloween, all camped-out as above and it's become one of the most anticipated game nights of the season. Something weird happens every time, like when the little dog barked underneath the table and made us all crap our pants, or when the window blew open behind me, or the time I was the traitor and really didn't feel like wandering off into the dark house, alone with a candle, to read the traitor notes. Okay, I was actually afraid.

No other game has ever made me crap my pants. That, and I can't get Touch of Evil to the table—everyone looks at the cover and makes a face.

VOTE: BETRAYAL

HiveGod wrote:

Who put Andre the Giant in with a five-year-old?

I got lucky because after reading the rules I figured Betrayal would be hinky and suffer greatly from repeat plays too close together, so I made sure the first time we played it was on Halloween, in the dark by candlelight with a spooky record spinning in the background. All that theme-spackle really filled the cracks. A mediocre game became a fantastic experience.

We play it once a year, around Halloween, all camped-out as above and it's become one of the most anticipated game nights of the season. Something weird happens every time, like when the little dog barked underneath the table and made us all crap our pants, or when the window blew open behind me, or the time I was the traitor and really didn't feel like wandering off into the dark house, alone with a candle, to read the traitor notes. Okay, I was actually afraid.

No other game has ever made me crap my pants. That, and I can't get Touch of Evil to the table—everyone looks at the cover and makes a face.

VOTE: BETRAYAL

This is so awesome, I think I will make this a family tradition.

My wife has already said she wants to play either Betrayal or Arkham Horror on Halloween... the candles are a good idea.

Stephen Avery wrote:

I hardly ever vote in these things but i couldn't stand by the sidelines in this one.

Betrayal has the adventuring aspect that I like combined with a surprise variable ending. Sometimes the game is lopsided but invariably its fun (besides in horror movies, once the big baddie is revealed its usually spells a quick demise for the ivestigators or a quick resolution of the threat.)

With LNOE the threat and objectives are already in play from the beginning. Mechanically the game is smoother but the sense of mystery is absent.

Vote
Betrayal

Steve"my vote counts double"Avery

Damn -- Avery is drunk again. Its Betrayal vs. ATOE (not LNOE).

As for my vote: ATOE. It is a decent solo game.

Haven't played either, yet, but I'd like to try them both... so I guess the vote goes to which I'm somewhat more interested to play, and more likely to play sometime soon, which would be...

A Touch of Evil

From what I've read about ATOE, the base game had a pretty heavy split of supporters/detractors, but I'm hearing a lot of good things about the Something Wicked expansion helping with a lot of the issues that the detractors had. Can anyone who has SW elaborate on what they think about that? There's a good chance I'll pick up ATOE and might just go ahead and spring for SW right away.

Grudunza wrote:

Haven't played either, yet, but I'd like to try them both... so I guess the vote goes to which I'm somewhat more interested to play, and more likely to play sometime soon, which would be...

A Touch of Evil

From what I've read about ATOE, the base game had a pretty heavy split of supporters/detractors, but I'm hearing a lot of good things about the Something Wicked expansion helping with a lot of the issues that the detractors had. Can anyone who has SW elaborate on what they think about that? There's a good chance I'll pick up ATOE and might just go ahead and spring for SW right away.

Skelly says "It's really good" and that's all I could get out of him.

The catalog model in the Nosferatu costume couldn't stifle his guffaws.



"Play now my lord. Your sexy pirate wench awaits!"

Vote: Betrayal!

Playing Betrayal was the only time I was really horrified playing a board game. Jonah's turn.

Not that this really matters, but it still makes the game distinctive.

Vote Betrayal.

Vote: AToE

Sock puppets of the world unite!

Vote: Betrayal