Monster Mash: "Horrified" Review

Horrified is a fully co-operative, objective-based horror game for one to five victims designed by Prospero Hall and published by Ravensburger.

Players take on the role of Heroes trying to defeat two or more famous Universal Monsters that are running amok all over town. On your turn use Action Points to move around the board, pick up handy items, guide Villagers to their destinations for beneficial Perk Cards or tap into your Special Ability. Via Physical, Intellectual and Spiritual Items you'll take Advance Actions to combat the fiends and (hopefully) a Defeat Action to overcome them. 

It sounds easy, but those monsters aren't going down without a fight! Every time they kill a villager or a hero, the Terror Track goes up by one and if it ever hits seven it's game over! This can also occur if the players fail to stem the tide of evil before the Monster Card deck is exhausted.

A huge part of the game's appeal is how thematic each creature's win condition is. For example, you have to smash all four of Dracula's coffins with Canes, Pokers and Shovels and then confront him with a plethora of Crosses, Stakes and Holy Water. The Mummy is considerably more complicated since you have to break the creature's curse by solving a sliding puzzle before entombing him with Pitchforks, Rifles and Torches.

The rules are both impressively intuitive and well presented. You'll rarely find yourself hunting through the manual to look something up, but if you do the answers are easily found. The game also looks fantastic with a sumptuously illustrated board, hero cards, monster mash...er, MATS and object tokens. The minis are also top notch. 

Veteran gamers who dismiss this one as "baby's first co-op" will be missing out on a remarkably well-crafted game. And if you don't think it's challenging enough, try tangling with four high to medium complexity monsters at once! 

This one scores five pips outta six with a big old tilt up towards that Gothic tower which suspiciously keeps getting hit over and over again with lightning.