Top 5 Horror Board Games

Again, no particular order, but let’s see the ones that made the list.

5. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Almost didn’t put this one on here. I own other games that are maybe more horror and less fantasy. But Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon created a world of both. It’s very grim dark in terms of fantasy with monsters, wyrdness, and more popping up around every corner. It definitely dabbles into the horror elements with the creatures that the wyrdness has twisted.

4. Spire’s End

Spire’s End, or Spire’s End Hildegard make the list as well. Both really are similar in what the world does. Greg Favro creates a world of unknown and horrific monsters. While also giving you a nice, simple game to challenge yourself with. Things don’t come easily for your characters, but the rules generally let you get into the game quickly and start playing and seeing what is happening.

Probably the truest horror in terms of how the story is written. It’s impressive how it develops the horror throughout the game as you don’t know what is going on. And I still have a lot of game and story to explore in both of them. Plus the artwork is amazing.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill

A classic horror themed game at this point. Yes, it does have it’s problems where either the person who is haunting or the other players will have a massive advantage in the haunt. But when it works well, which it does, it’s an amazingly fun time.

In Betrayal the game is split into two parts. First part everyone is exploring the house, together, but not together. You want to find good items, increase your stats and well, search until you trigger the haunt. But, you don’t know when that is going to happen. And when it does, one of you at the table is going to be the betrayer. So now what’s the new condition for the betrayer to win the haunt or the other poor characters to defeat the betrayer?

2. The Night Cage

This one sounds like an abstract game, and The Night Cage really is. But it’s an abstract game with horror at the heart. Players wake up in a labyrinth that they can’t stand up in. With only a candle they need to explore, find keys, and all get to an exit portal together. But no two players can share a spot, and monsters are lurking.

Plus, the game is counting down. As you explore and your candle no longer shows off where you’ve been, now those locations go away and the labyrinth will be different. So the pile of tiles is dwindling as you search. And you never know when that monster will pop up and steal your wax and light, leaving you fumbling in the dark.

1. Arkham Horror LCG

This one is on that horrors edge as well. Is it a detective fantasy story? Kind of. Are there elements of Lovecraftian horror through everything that you do, absolutely. And that’s where it makes it onto the list. The game offers you adventure as you explore Arkham or other locations. And you need to be setup to defeat monsters and cultists, and progress the story with finding clues. All of this to stop something, a ritual in the base box, from happening.

Mainly this game is just a really well balanced experience. There are some characters you can get to make you better or that have better cards. But that doesn’t ever make the game feel too easy. And Arkham Horror gives you ways to make it harder and really level it not to the story you want, but how hard a challenge you want.

Final Thoughts

I want more good horror games. I own a few more that I’d put into that range and a few that I need to try. Deep Madness would be the big one. Or Solomon Kane and Darkest Dungeon might also fall into that category as well.

But as I said a couple of days ago. Horror is a genre that I want to find more games. And when one comes out I’m interested in. And I will check it out, and a lot of the time I’ll be disappointed. Why, because a lot of them go with the gross and gore side of horror. Because elements like jump scares, or good psychological twists are hard to build into a board game.

What’s your favorite horror themed board game?

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Not Alone

You play as the crew of a spaceship that has crash landed onto a planet. You need to survive long enough, signaling the rescue ship to come and get you. But there is something on the land. You are not alone and there is a monster, maybe even a planet that is trying to kill you. Will you be able to survive long enough or will the player who is the monster and the planet finish off the crew members first?

This game works well because as the crew you have a good tension. You are playing down cards to go to different locations all separately from one another. You can coordinate but you need to talk so that the person playing the monster can here you. Will you try and lead them astray as to what you are doing or not? Plus, the monster can always see all the cards you’ve played. And for the monster, can you surprise them and catch a lot of them at once?

Nemesis

Another space horror game, in Nemesis, you are playing what is basically Aliens. There is an alien infestation aboard your ship and you need to deal with it. But you also need to get back to Earth, but only if there aren’t aliens on the ship. And some players will have different objectives. It might be to have another character die even. But you can’t kill, you need to let them die without it being too obvious.

A massive game, Nemesis really focuses on getting a lot of theme into what you do. It’s cooperative, but every time an alien pops up, every time you have to roll for noise to see if you might stumble across one, it could be the queen. Or you might not have ammo for your gun anymore. But you need to press on because you have to find the right room to complete your objective.

Night Cage

You awake to find yourself in a mysterious labyrinth with nothing but a candle. You can’t stand up and if you come across anyone else you can’t get past them. All you know is that there are monsters, keys you need to find to escape and portals to escape from. As you crawl around, the labyrinth twists and disappears behind you when your candle can no longer light it.

Night Cage is the game I immediately thought of for this list. It has horror in spades for such a simple game. You are moving around a grid board placing out tiles for the labyrinth around you that you can see. Every time you remove comes from a stack that is a candle burning down. It is a game that is a race against that candle trying to find a key for everyone and then a way to get them all to the same portal so they all escape. This game really needs to be played in candle light.

Deep Madness

Your submarine submerges as you listen to the message play again. It’s garbled but you can tell something has happened, something very bad. The research facility on the ocean base hasn’t been responding and you and your team are being sent down to find out what has happened. You aren’t sure what you’ll find, but you hope, beyond hope, that it won’t be too bad.

Deep Madness takes the horror to the bottom of the ocean. This cooperative game has you searching through an ocean floor base, fighting monsters, and working together to get what you need to defeat the scenario and possibly get off of this base. This one would be harder in candle light because you need to see everything that is going on, but is still thematic to filled with monsters who are out to get you.

Why These Board Games?

Because I think they provide horror. I am going to do another list coming up here soon for games that give you more of that campy Halloween feel. There games are going to be horror which is something that board games don’t do all that well. Now, you need to provide some of your own suspense and I think doing a proper setting and proper look can create that.

I’d focus on a few things to create that tension. Firstly, keep it darker. Some of these games you can’t go too dark, I’d say Nemesis and Deep madness would be hard if it were too dark. But the Night Cage, you’ll be able to get quite dark with that. Either way, leverage less than normal light and less than normal light sources. Maybe you have a lamp on in the corner to give enough light but the rest of the table has candles around it.

Also think about the ambiance in terms of sound as well. Play spooky music, not Halloween party spooky music, but the stuff at a good haunted house, where doors creak, crows call out, and everything feels like it’s just off. There is enough noise to make it obvious, but still just quiet enough that everything feels out of place when there is a bigger noise.

Which of These Board Games Would Hit Your Table?

Right now the one I really want to get to the table is Night Cage, while the game play is fairly abstracted the tension of the game is a lot of fun. It’s a really enjoyable experience with the lights on, and I can see how in candle light the tension of slipping a tile, figuring out where to put it, hoping it isn’t a monster, it works so well. The candle slowly getting lower and lower as it goes.

Let me know your horror games that you love in the comments below.

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