Have you ever played Betrayal at the House on the Hill? No? It goes a little something like this:

You and your comrades are exploring a creepy old house in the middle of nowhere. As you venture into the house, you lay down randomly drawn tiles that reveal what room you discover. In each room, there is a chance you will find something good, or something very evil. As you explore the house, your chances increase to trigger the haunt. And when that happens, all hell breaks loose. One player becomes the traitor, and attempts to murder the other players while they try to meet the requirements to defeat the evil or escape the house.

To explain it with kittens, it’s kinda like this:

What makes Betrayal so fun is that every game is unique. You build the house as you go, so the board layout unfolds differently each time. The items you receive affect your ability to win the game, but the true replayability comes in the haunts. The person who triggers the haunt uses a chart to determine what the haunt is and who is the traitor. The haunt is a scenario provided in a booklet that explains what evil has appeared. The traitor then privately reads the scenario to learn what his or her win conditions are. Then that player reads the scenario provided to the heroes to explain what their win conditions are. The pace of the game increases rapidly, and sometimes the players need to make tough decisions in order to survive.

I once had to abandon a friend to drown in the basement so the rest of the team could escape. I think he still holds a grudge about that. If you’re still not getting it, you can watch Wil and the crew of the crew tried to survive the night in this episode of TableTop.

In some very exciting news, Avalon Hill has announced the Widow’s Walk expansion for Betrayal. The expansion, which requires the original board game to play. will introduce 20 new rooms, including the roof and a previously unexplored floor. There will also be new monsters, items, omens, events, and 50 brand-new haunts created by lead developer Mike Selinker’s all-star cast of contributors from the world of gaming and entertainment. Partnering in this project are:

Peter Adkison

Christopher Badell

Keith Baker

John Borba

Chad Brown

Bart Carroll

Quelle Chris

Andy Collins

Rob Daviau

Mike Dunlap

Chris Dupuis

Don Eubanks

Justin Gary

Jonathan Gilmour

Bruce Glassco

Eli Halpern

Will Hindmarch

Jerry Holkins

Mons Johnson

Gwendolyn Kestrel

Richard Malena

Mikey Neumann

Paul Peterson

Ben Petrisor

Marie Poole

Zoë Quinn

Keith Richmond

Mike Robles

Tifa Robles

Anita Sarkeesian

F. Wesley Schneider

Mike Selinker

Liz Spain

Max Temkin

Elisa Teague

Rodney Thompson

Jeff Tidball

Brian Tinsman

Pendleton Ward

Angela M. Webber

Gaby Weidlin

and the Lone Shark interns

This is super exciting for anyone who has played Betrayal enough times to start running out of new haunts. Betrayal at the House on the Hill Widow’s Walk hits store shelves this fall. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some friends to murder with my horde of undead minions.

What are some of your favorite Betrayal haunts? Share your stories in the comments!

Image credits: Avalon Hill, Rahul Keshri

