Mad cultists, evil warlocks, eldritch horrors, and star spawn are spewing forth from all corners of town and you along with a small group of people have to stop them! Ever have one of those days? If you’ve ever played Arkham Horror you’ve probably had a few of these days.

Arkham Horror is a board game from Fantasy Flight Games, set deep within the Cthulu Mythos originated with the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Arkham Horror pits you and up to seven of your fellow investigators friends, against an old god and tasks you with closing the portals that open up around the city as well as to deal with the monsters that spew from them.

Arkham Horror is a pretty tough game. Not only do you have to have to manage your health and sanity, but you also must manage clue tokens, monster trophies, weapons, items, spells, and gate trophies. You have to deal with monsters that could easily wipe the floor with you.

Arkham Horror also is a bit complicated and may take you a few games to get everything down. Luckily the back of the rulebook has a index as well as a ‘quick rules sheet’ to keep players from getting bogged down trying to find a rule.

It’s often a toss-up (until the end) if your team wins or loses. But it doesn’t matter which happens, it’s all about the adventure you have. There are a couple ways to win the game. Among those are sealing a set number of gates around the city as they open up and, if you are feeling brave, attempt to build up enough resources and weapons that you are able to kill the old god when it finally awaken. If you plan to do the latter, you have to plan with everyone playing so you’ll all be ready and able to do it when the moment finally comes.

Arkham Horror also features several expansions. These range from card expansions which give more encounter and item cards, to full expansions which feature in addition to the cards a new board piece, old gods, and investigators. The expansions can all be added or taken away as you please. They often include a new rule or mechanic you can add to your game if you want, or you can just use the extra cards to keep things from getting stale.

Even without the expansions you’ll have to play quite a few games to run into the same things such that Arkham Horror start to feel stale and repetitive. If you have a good group of players you should have fun with this one even if you wind up mumbling madness in Arkham Asylum, praying for Azathoth to give you sweet release from your mortal existence.