Horror

You arrived too late to stop the loathsome rite, and a monstrous, transdimensional Ancient One tears through reality. An iridescent rift slashes across the darkened skies, heralding the nightmarish creatures that pour into the hallowed buildings of Miskatonic University. As howls and screams cut through the night, there is only one path left for your fearless investigators—hold back the horde long enough to somehow reverse the summoning.

Arkham Horror: Final Hour is a fully co-operative, fast-paced board game for one to four players. An endless tide of monsters sweeps across the Miskatonic University campus, and you must hold them back, all while searching desperately for the ritual components you need to put an end to this insanity. Playable in under 60 minutes, your fate depends on cooperation between you and your fellow investigators. The odds against you are astronomical, but if you don’t succeed, this will indeed be the final hour for Arkham...and the world.

—description from the publisher

The stakes have been raised. Imagine living in a place so wretched that it's not plagued by one, two, or even three monsters — but seven of the most horrifying fiends!

In this game, you'll come face to face with them all as you work together to rid the town of the maniacal or misunderstood creatures…before it's too late.

Horrified includes high-quality sculpted miniatures (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon). Its innovative, easy-to-learn, cooperative gameplay has players working together against the monsters with varying levels of difficulty. Just as each monster is unique, they require different strategies and tactics to be defeated.

—description from the publisher

It's been twenty years since Victor Frankenstein died on a ship in the arctic, but his vengeful creature lives on, as does Robert Walton, the sea captain who vowed to kill the fiend before mercy stayed his hand. It's now 1819, and a sinister darkness descends upon the city of Paris. A mysterious benefactor of gigantic stature has emerged in the scientific community, never showing his face, claiming to possess the late Frankenstein's research. He sponsors a grand competition, offering an even grander prize: unlocking the mystery of mortality!

Renowned scientists from around the world come to take part: some drawn to solve this eternal riddle, others coerced against their will. But a certain captain comes as well, one deeply suspicious of the secretive patron, hoping to finally fulfill his vow.

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a competitive game of strategic monster building for 2-4 players, inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel of gothic horror. In the game, the creature demands your help to accomplish what his own creator would not: to bring to life an abomination like itself, a companion to end its miserable solitude. Through worker placement and careful management of decomposing resources, you'll gather materials from the cemeteries and morgues around the city, conduct valuable research at the Academy of Science, hire less-than-reputable associates, and toil away in your lab — all in an effort to assemble a new form of life and infuse it with a "spark of being". Do well, and the creature may reward you during one of its surprise visits; do poorly, and you may come to regret not putting forth more effort. Narrative elements come into play throughout the game, guided by your decisions, leading to potentially unsavory outcomes.

The game ends when you succeed in bringing your creation to life or when the Captain kills the creature, whichever happens first. Then the player with the most points fulfills Frankenstein's dark legacy, becoming his heir, for good or ill...

—description from the publisher

Publisher Blurb:

The Game of Inauspicious Incidents and Grave Consequences! In the Gloom card game, you make your eccentric family of misfits suffer the greatest tragedies possible before helping them pass on to the well-deserved respite of death. Just mix the 55 transparent cards in this set together with your copy of Gloom to add morbid new Modifiers, Events, and Untimely Deaths.

Unquiet Dead also introduces Stories, Undead, and Timing Symbols. The families of Gloom have many skeletons in their closets. In Unquiet Dead, the spooks come out to play. Mad scientists can Reanimate Relatives or Invent Invisibility. Vampires and shape shifters can Terrorize the Townsfolk and Go Mad in the Moonlight. Will you Give Up the Ghost, or will you hold onto it?

STORIES: These cards give your families even more to fight over. Whoever claims a story gains a special benefit ... but how long can you keep it?

UNDEAD: There are seven special Modifiers that allow a Character to become a supernatural creature -- a vampire, mummy, ghost, ghoul, wereduck, invisible person, or haunted portrait. These Undead Characters are both living and dead; you can still play Modifiers and Events on them, but they also count toward your Family Value and toward ending the game.

TIMING SYMBOLS: Card effects in Unquiet Dead have symbols to let you know whether a card has an Instant effect that occurs when the card is played from your hand; an Ongoing effect that lasts until it is covered by another card; or a Persistent effect that can last as long as the Character is still alive ... or Undead.

The Gloom: Unfortunate Expeditions expansion adds one player and 55 cards to the game. Here is a description of the expansion from the publisher:

In the Gloom card game, you make your eccentric family of misfits suffer the greatest tragedies possible before helping them pass on to the well-deserved respite of death. Just mix the 55 transparent cards in this set together with your copy of Gloom to add morbid new Modifiers, Events, and Untimely Deaths, and a new family of intrepid explorers who've faced misfortune across the globe. These days Colonel Bumpersnoot is really more of a bargain hunter, while Lady Bumpersnoot struggles with high society -- but she always loves to have guests for dinner. Their Towering Treehouse is included as a Residence card to use with the Unhappy Homes expansion.

Unfortunate Expeditions introduces expeditions into the game. Only one expedition can be in play at a time. An expedition's rules affect all players as long as it remains in play. When you play a modifier of untimely death that has an expedition symbol, resolved the immediate effects of the card, then replace the current expedition with the one shown on the card. Some cards also have special effects that occur if an active expedition is already in play when the card is played.