Horrified: American Monsters - First Play!

7th February 2023

Tuesday has come around again, that means it's time for more gaming goodness with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns in Woking.

Horrified: American Monsters is the follow up to the excellent Horrified and you can read my blog on it here.
Like the original, this is a cooperative adventure in which the heroes (In this instance investigators from the Federal Bureau of Paranormal Investigation) stop the encroachment of monsters from American folklore into a town/city.

So how does Horrified: American Monsters game stack up against the original?

---

Components

• Game board: The game board has an excellent bird's eye depiction of a town/city that shows paths between well illustration locations such as the High School, Diner, Sheriff's Office, etc.
  Additionally, terror track runs along the top of the board.

A slice of Americana.

• Investigator tiles: There are 7 card tiles in different colours to represent the game's 7 different characters who are all employed by the Federal Bureau Paranormal Investigation (FBPI!). Sounds a little X-Files to me!
  Each tile features a portrait of the investigator as well as describing their unique special move and action points. The tiles are also styled to look a little reporter's notepads.
• Standee: Each investigator has their own standee featuring their portrait and in their colour.

Purple cryptozoologist.

• Citizens: Horrified: American Monsters also features its fair share of hapless bystanders standees, presenting a target rich environment for the titular cryptids.
• Dice: Horrified: American Monsters comes with 3 orange plastic six-siders, they are not normal dice and are the same as those found in Horrified and feature 'hits' and 'special actions' results. 

An attack with all dice results in 2 hits!

• Tokens: There 3 types of token in Horrified: American Monsters in 3 colours. They display and illustration and value from 1-6. There also labelled with their 'spawning' locations.

A pig and shovel are the typical kind of thing that can be found in town centers all over America!

• Bag: A sturdy feeling plastic bag decorated with some thematically appropriate art as well as a Velcro fastening. 

• Cards: 2 types of cards are used in Horrified: American Monsters.
  • Monster cards: Monster behaviour is managed by these cards.
    Each card will be illustrated and in the top righthand corner it displays how many tokens are added to the board when the card is drawn. If the card has a special action The bottom half will have text describing how it's resolved.
    Finally, along the bottom are a series of icons that determine which monsters will be actived (Including the frenzied monster.), how far they move and how hard they attack.
  • Perk cards: There is a variety of perk cards and players start with a single perk card, additional cards can acquire more by saving the clueless citizens.
    Perk cards can be played and discarded at any time during any player's turn to provide some sort of bonus or special action as listed on the card.

Examples of monster and per cards.

Monster mats: As with the original game, each of the game's monsters comes with their own mat that manages how to defeat them.

Monster mat for Chupacabra. Pretty certain there's a lollipop named after this dude...

• Models: Each monster has it's own 3d model in it's own colour.

Banshee of the Badlands.

All the components for Horrified: American Monsters are good.
The tokens and tiles feel sturdy while cards are of a normal quality. Because the monster mats are fairly large, they feel a little flimsy but unless you go out of your way to abuse them, they should be fine.
The game uses card standees for both players and citizen which means there's about 20 of them - which is a lot. They're constructed of thick card and will stand up to being handled.
While plastic, the dice with their slightly rounded corners are good quality.
As with the original, each of the game's monsters is represented by a plastic figure in their respective colour. The quality is fairly good, which is to say good enough for a board game.

The game's artwork is high quality with good portraits for the heroes, citizens and monsters. Artwork on the tokens, cards and monster mats also look good and suitably moody.
The game board contains probably the most notable artwork; a eye catching city with recognisable buildings but is importantly, also free of clutter.
Wisely, the game has a sort of mid twentieth century theme to the art which gives it a sort of timeless quality.

Most of the game's iconography can be found on the bottom of the monster cards and generally, the complexity is equal to that of the original. 

---

How's it play?
Like the original, Horrified: American Monsters is a cooperative game about squaring up to monsters threatening the game's town/city, There's a few differences from the original, most obviously in the interactions with the monsters the manner in which they are rendered vulnerable and defeated
The rules for frenzy work a little differently and the events on the monster cards are tailored for the game and possibly, so are the perk cards.
Otherwise, the game is pretty much identical with its predecessor. I'm not going to blog about at length about the rules or game play.
For that you can just read my original blog.

---

---

Overall
Hmm, this is a bit of a tricky one. Horrified: American Monsters is a solidly good game but is it too similar to Horrified?

From the perspective of gameplay, Horrified: American Monsters features the same well balanced cooperative action-point driven mechanics from the original which will have players moving across the map in a race against time, collecting resources, saving bystanders and contending with monsters until they complete the tasks that make them vulnerable and then hopefully, finally defeat them.

In my option, that gameplay is very good and in short; if you liked Horrified, there's a good chance you'll probably also like Horrified: American Monsters.
However, since the 2 games are so similar, it can be hard to justify having both unless you're a fan or the series/genre or a completionist, it's probably easy to justify having both. 

On a personal level, I prefer the original Horrified. Having to defeat the Universal monster like Dracula or The Invisible Man felt more compelling than having to deal with Bigfoot or The Jersey Devil.
I think in part that's due to a little bit of unfamiliarity with those American cryptids. Consequently, I don't associate them with villainy As I do with the Universal monsters. To me for example, Bigfoot feels like a shy recluse, not a threat to be overcome.
Of course your mileage may vary, it's not like Horrified: American Monsters is anything other than a very good game so you should go ahead and play it.