What’s so scary about a board game?
October 2007 Issue
![Cerise Issue 6 [October 2007]](http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ceriseoct07_tn.jpg)
Features
- From the Editors
- Craft Check: Etched Glass Candle Holders
- Gaming in the Media: Gaming Blogs to Watch
- Market to Me: Race and gender in survival horror games
Interviews
- Blogger Interview: The Bloggers of Girl in the Machine
Articles
- Gender & Live-Action Role Play: Into the Tavern
Author: Samara Hayley Steele
- Moving Gaming Forward: Having Meaningful Conversations about Social Issues
Author: Latoya Peterson
- Fatal Frame: Feminizing the Final Girl
Author: Jenni Lada
- Shotgun vs. Skirt: Gender in Resident Evil 4
Author: Diego Luna
Samara continues her series on gender and LARP.
Latoya talks about the failure to communicate between racial activists and gamers.
Jenni discusses the ways in which the Fatal Frame series subverts the 'final girl' stereotype in survival horror.
Diego critically examines gender representation in Capcom's Resident Evil 4.
Gamer Stories
Reviews
- Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress
- Resident Evil 4
- Bioshock
- Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan
- Retro Review: BurgerTime
Odds 'n Ends
It was with much sadness that I learned that one of my favorite board games of all times, Betrayal at House on the Hill was being discontinued. I don’t own this game myself, but it was an important part of the gaming nights that I used to have with my cousin and our friends. The gameplay was clunky sometimes, and it was really frustrating when you bit the dust, but what kept me coming back again and again was that, after a long night of playing with the lights dimmed, I would go back to my apartment and wonder why I had ever thought living alone was a good idea.
Now, when people think of board games, usually Monopoly or Risk come to mind. But for hardcore board gamers, like my friends and I were, there was so much more to it than that. Settlers of Catan, with its many expansion packs, was a staple. So was Carcassonne, until one of my fights with a friend over sheeped land almost came to blows. Betrayal at House on the Hill didn’t have the staying power of the other two, though, and I was probably the only one in the group who loved it so much. The others just didn’t understand that, for me, it was like playing a simple version of a one-night horror-themed campaign.
You see, while the object of the game was to first explore the house and then get the hell out, the story would change every time depending on the cards that turned up during the first phase. Each time everyone started out as friends and each time a random person would become the betrayer and would fight to kill everyone before they could escape. Zombies, werewolves, carnivorous plants, blobs of goo that absorbed everything in their path… the story possibilities seemed endless. Having multiple players involved, as well as the possibility that you would become the enemy, gave it something that I just can’t get out of survival horror video games.
So, what’s so scary about a board game? Everything, when it’s done right. While I find myself bidding a sad farewell to a game that gave me many nights of frights and fun, I can only hope that more game publishers in the future find the value in horror-themed board games like House.
Article © October 2007 by Andrea Rubenstein.
