Unboxing Betrayal at House on the Hill, Held Action Edition

Deciding to try my own hand at documenting the unboxing of an eagerly anticipated game, I present the story of my thoughts as I cracked open the second edition of Betrayal at House on the Hill, as record last Wednesday, no more than an hour after acquiring the game. Check out the pictures behind the jump.

Betrayal at House on the Hill as it comes off the game store shelf. The box has a nice linen finish — and actually has the titular house on the cover, which is a step up from the old shock orange edition.

The first thing you see on removing the box top is the pack of tile and token sheets, with the new color-coded monster tokens on top.

And under the token and tile sheets, we find a very nicely designed plastic tray with wells and spaces for all the game components. A solid improvement over the cardboard insert of first edition.

The rulebooks haven’t changed at all. Thick, glossy paper and eminently legible in spite of the background graphic elements.

Under the rulebooks are the rest of the game components: dice, character figures and slider clips, all in poly-bagged.

All the components of the boxes arrayed on the table, as they were packaged.

Now look at this: a star-shaped well for the character tiles, with a hollow below for the figures. The lower left well holds all the house tiles. The lower right well has a rounded bottom for scooping up tokens. The upper right well holds all the cards, with a space below them for the dice. Very nicely designed.

All the poly-bagged components.

The three decks of cards, items, omens and events, with a linen finish. I can’t remember if they had that in the first edition, but I think so.

Now this was disappointing. The house tiles — and all the tokens — have the same glossy finish as the first edition. I wish they’d gone linen with everything, particularly since the box itself got the treatment.

All the sheets of tiles and tokens arrayed on the table.

Comparing the different types of tiles and tokens. Everything’s unchanged, except for those color-coded monster tokens.

I’m pretty sure at least one of the haunt scenarios ends with the heroes poly-bagged for long term storage.

The dice made me realize how closely this edition cleaves to the first in terms of graphic design and materials. They’re practically identical to the original run of dice.

The slider clips are the bane of every lover of Betrayal at House on the Hill. They have an uncanny knack for chewing up the character tiles.

Compare the figures pictured on the box . . .

. . . with those that come in the box. Surprisingly, they’re not that far off in terms of paint job.

All the tokens after being punched from their sheets. In addition to the colored monster pieces, there are now pentagonal Item tokens rather than a plentitude of one-off tokens, such as the much loved and criminally under-used Rocketship.

Everything fits into the tray snugly. The tokens are loose here, but I went back to separate them into small “bagettes.”

The only thing that would have made this tray better would if the top were flush with the lip of the box, to minimize how much stuff slips around as the box is jostled.

See how easily the top fits back on the box? That should be the normal state of affairs, but ever since 1960: The Making of the President, I am endlessly pleased to see this principle in action.

It’s a copyright notice, but all I see is a missed opportunity for a new room in the house. It couldn’t have been a key room, as it would rejigger the whole haunt/omen matrix, but I still would have enjoyed a whole new room.

And that’s what I found and thought while unboxing Betrayal at House on the Hill. In terms of graphics and materials, it’s pretty much a straight recreation of the first edition. The color-coded monster tokens are appreciated, though. I just wish they’d sprung for linen finish for everything, not just the box and cards. It looks classier and is, I think, more robust.

I look forward to writing more about how the mechanics play in the future, as I plan to play the crap out of this one in the run up to Halloween. Stay tuned!