Old Trash: The Hills Rise Wild

"West of Arkham, the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut." That's the opening line to H.P. Lovecraft's classic story, "The Colour Out of Space." It's also the inspiration for the title to one of my favorite boardgames, The Hills Rise Wild. As you may have guessed, The Hills Rise Wild is yet another game inspired by the mythos tales of H.P. Lovecraft. However, instead of playing gentlemen adventurers, you are controlling factions of hillbilly cultists.

According to the designer notes by John Tynes, this game went from initial idea to publication in just six months (in 2000), which is blinding speed in the boardgame industry. It's even more impressive when you consider that Pagan Publishing didn't do boardgames, they published role-playing supplements for Call of Cthulhu. Oh, and a "quarterly" magazine called The Unspeakable Oath, which came out maybe twice a year. Even so, The Hills Rise Wild is a solid game with decent components, at least by 20th century standards.