Arkham Horror is a board game played with over 700 pieces. You can play with up to eight players, all of you working together to beat one of the Ancient Ones and playing against the board itself. You see, the monsters get a turn, and the card pulled during that phase controls how they move, where the gates to the Other World appear, and how close you are to the Great Old One waking. If that happens, you have a choice: fight or be devoured.

Although, if you fight, you will still probably be devoured.

The last time my group played, the game lasted around five hours; brevity is not one of its strengths. And you can't get too upset if you lose, as the chances of victory are slim when still learning the rules. That being said, in our last session we closed the final gate with two turns left before our Great Old One awoke, narrowly winning.

Sounds like a game for masochists? Well, it's not for the faint of heart, but Arkham Horror is a great board game for those with the time to play.

700 pieces?!?

"The verging-on-ridiculous excess of physical tokens is practically Fantasy Flight's [the game's creator] defining element," forum-goer iko wrote. "It creates a strange sort of continuity across their various properties, to the point that it approaches being a mini-genre unto itself."

Arkham Horror Manufacturer Fantasy Flight Price $49.99 Shop.Ars Platform Your table

The game supports up to eight players, and they all work together. That makes this something very special for large groups.

"With both co-op and more-than-four player support each being something of a rarity, having both at once makes it an appealing choice for larger groups that don't care to go head-to-head for whatever reason," iko explains. "Having to choose between keeping on top of the gates while hunting for seals or gearing up to face the Old One toe-to-tentacle makes for a decently contentious choice, while keeping the players mostly united in terms of their overall goal."

Arkham Horror's complexity is often the brunt of jokes in the gaming community

Here's how it works: each player controls a character with different attributes. You have a choice: you can either shut down the gates that pop up around the board, spewing monsters onto the streets, or you can try to fight the Great Old One. Each round is made up of different phases: upkeep, movement, encounters in Arkham, and encounters in the Other Worlds. Finally, the board "plays" when you draw a mythos card—this says if a gate is opened, how monsters move, and what else occurs in the world. By landing on different spots on the board you can buy items, make money, gain allies to fight with you, or try to take on monsters.

This is a simplified way to explain the rules, and learning how everything works will take a number of sessions; we've found that if you "seed" your group with one player who knows the rules well, everyone gets up to speed quickly. Expect your first game to be lengthy, awkward, and there will be long pauses as you go back to the rule books.

The encounters are always entertaining: you may need to fight, make a sneak check, match wits with an NPC, or you may simply see something at your location that causes you to lose sanity. For extra fun, and to do some pseudo-role playing, have another player read the encounter card, giving the player a choice of actions, and then reading the consequences when they succeed or fail.

Our last session

"Sheer ridiculousness counts a lot, especially thanks to the random equipment drops," Daedalus213 said in our thread on the game. "Nothing beats being, say, the bookish student, riding around on a motorcycle with a fire ax in one hand and a .45 in the other, chugging whiskey to stay sane." That's the joy of the game, how silly the battles and situations can become. It sometimes feels as if the odds are hilariously stacked against you, and it feels like a real victory when you win.

Winning can happen in a number of ways: depending on the Great Old One you're facing, you may have plenty of time to clean the board of gates and win that way. You may only have a short time to run around the board collecting weapons or spells to try to fight the god directly.

The game changes if you're fighting Cthulhu, Hastur, Azathoth... there are a variety of Ancient Ones to defeat. The Great Old One may be sleeping for the majority of your session, but it affects things all the same.

"For some reason, when we play Arkham Horror, it turns into an odd, humorous role playing session," rtrefz said in our discussion thread. "We've started coming up with personalities for some of the characters, which can be really fun. My favorite so far is one of the crotchety professors. I decided he always needed to refer to himself in the 3rd person, and mock the scientist."

This isn't for everyone

A short game is still measured in hours, and learning to play the game smoothly takes some time. Even with seasoned players, simply setting everything up can take a while, and once you begin adding expansions, the amount of space you need to enjoy the game is increased.

When we game, we use two folding tables we bought specifically for gaming. If you don't have a large, clear space, these can be a good investment; simply ask everyone in your gaming session for a few bucks the next time you get together and invest in a set. Bonus: they fold down to a thin block with a handle for ease of carrying.

Downloading the rules summaries and printing out a copy for everyone at the table is also helpful if you're trying to learn.

Still, it's a big, long, complicated game. It's only fun if you have a regular group of gaming friends who get don't mind learning something that's not immediately intuitive. But if you have the space, the time, and the friends... it's worth the investment.

As long as you have a high tolerance for going insane or being devoured, you're going to have a good time, and you'll remember the first time you manage to take down a Great Old One.