Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is a 1 or more players cooperative, story telling adventure board game. Players assume the role of an aspiring detective and physic investigator searching for answers to their mysterious nightmares.
House of Danger (Z-Man Games) Board Game Review
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Game Overview
Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is a cooperative board game based on the novel of the same title by R.A. Montgomery. Players assume the role of a detective and physic investigator experiencing strange dreams. The odd dreams lead the investigator to an old mansion, a house of danger. The game’s story is split into 5 chapters. Each chapter has a deck of story cards and a corresponding deck of clue cards. Players have multiple paths to choose from as they progress through the story.
Game Components
Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger Game Components
Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger game contents include:
- A game board
- 5 decks of story cards
- 5 decks of clue cards
- 1 book cover card
- 1 die
- 1 pawn (psychic mover)
- 1 cube (danger mover)
Component Quality
The component quality is good. I am not disappointed. The plastic pawn feels a little cheap, but this is a biased feeling coming from someone who prefers wooden components.
Game Setup
House of Danger game setup
The game is split into 5 chapters. Each chapter has a designated story card deck and a clue card deck. There is a game board that keeps track of a the game state.
The game setup is minimal. Select which chapter you want to play through and pull out its corresponding decks.
Game Play
The game play is simple. Most of the work is in reading the story cards and making a decision on which path to take. Typically you will read a story card and at the end of the story card it will either direct you to read another story card or at the bottom of the card you have a few options to select. Each option will take you down different paths.
Some story cards have challenges. These challenges will either be optional or required. A die roll determines whether you succeed or fail the challenge. The challenge difficulty is based on the danger meter on the game board. The danger meter will increase or decrease based on events in the game such as failing or succeeding a challenge or using an item.
Example of an optional challenge
The deck of clue cards include some cards that further the story or items that will aid the investigator. The investigator starts off the game with a bottom of water (which can reduce the danger meter) and a pocket knife (which will modify the result of a die roll in challenges).
Starter clues in House of Danger
Final Thoughts
Choose You Own Adventure: House of Danger is the first in what I hope will be a series of these games from Z-Man Games. Overall I enjoyed my experience playing through this game with my family (husband and 4 year old). To keep the 4 year old engaged, we allowed him to make most of decisions (we overrode his picks when it was an obviously poor choice). We also let him roll the die for any challenges we attempted.
I think the game system is solid. The story is where I have most of my issues with the game. The first two chapters the story were interesting and left me excited to see where things were going. As more of the plot was revealed, I became less interested in the story. It started off serious and then it turned silly. It went off the rails for me with too much going on.
However, despite my issue with the plot, I still like the game. (I am a big fan of storytelling games.)
Replayability
This is a game where despite playing through it once and getting a good feel for the story, I wouldn’t mind playing through it again to select paths that I had not previously selected.
Rating
Rating on the BGG rating scale:
- 6 – OK, will play if in the mood
I would have given the game a 7 if I enjoyed the story more. My son, on the other hand, will rate this game as a 7.5. He really enjoyed playing the game and suggested we play it on numerous occasions.
I recommend House of Danger if you enjoy choose your own adventure books or storying telling board games.
Where to buy
You can purchase Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger on Amazon, Target and maybe even your favorite local gaming store.
Have you played through the game? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments below.
