Ed Note: It seems that any discussion of works, or works inspired by H.P.Lovecraft require a disclaimer, a sort of preemptive dismissal of Lovecraft as a person. So I’ll do that here. Lovecraft was tremendous racist. Those elements populate his stories, and their tropes.
Looking at his legacy, I also frankly feel a sense of pity. It’s hard not to feel such a thing for someone who found existential dread in the concept of air conditioning.
Whenever I want to illustrate how different types of stories lend themselves to different gameplay experiences, I tend to compare Dungeons and Dragons, and Call of Chtulhu. Both are tabletop RPG’s, generally about a group of characters working together, often to try to save the world. In modern DND characters can get hit with swords, fireballs, poison and spike traps and keep trucking.
In Call of Cthuhlu, it’s a incredible victory if everyone is even alive after a given session, regardless of how many limbs they have left. Or if they now have extra! Both are possible.
In that sense then, Arkham Horror: The Card Game felt fairly reflective of the brand. I played through the intro campaign with a friend, and by the end both of our characters were worse for wear, and we only just barely stopped Arkham from being leveled via throwing someone else into a wailing mouth of tentacles.
A classic.
It’s also a bit muddly to try to summarize the mechanics. The players do all the normal things that Lovecraft protagonists do, but now with cards. They travel from location to location (cards), equip gear (cards), fight enemies (cards), and take damage (not cards, tracking chits).
The most re-used mechanic then is the idea of the skill check. There are four skills, and players will be given a number to try to beat. This is done by drawing from a bag of numeric modifiers. Some are positives, most are negative, and a few are conditional. There’s also an instant failure! Some of these checks can be quite high, necessitating either burning cards from your hand to pump the check, or having a friend help you by doing the same.
Notably, cards are burned before the modifier is revealed. As such, playing cards directly into a automatic failure is possible, and does not feel good.
Skill checks are used for attacking enemies, interacting with locations, and searching for clues. It’s the first situation mentioned above that causes the most problems, as enemies remain attacking you until dealt with, either by you or a friend.
Enemies, by the way, do not use random checks. Their attacks will always connect. Their dark plans always tick forward. Luck is only a factor for the player, not the grand things that dwell in the spaces between space.
I don’t know if I like the Arkham Horror card game. My primary experience of it is a sense of disappointed relief after completion. I was a alive, but those I had sacrificed were not. I feel no call to purchase the expansions and add-ons, to delve ever deeper into a world of mysteries, unpleasant secrets, and cosmic horror, not because I lack curiosity, but because I will never truly win. Because victory is not victory, it is a mere delaying of inevitable death, because I cannot kill the un-killable, because a stat block for the things that lurk is the dark is a cruel joke, numbers that can only at best sketch a foolish outline of inconceivable majesty.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game is $60.