Monsters are scary, but the best Halloween board games prove that your bog-standard people are infinitely worse – and Unfathomable does it better than most.
Yes, I know. "People are the real monsters" isn't a new or particularly revelatory angle. But Unfathomable doesn't grab the low-hanging fruit; it makes you work to prove your depravity instead. That's because it blends together classic horror board game fare (battling terrors who'd really like to eat you) with deception mechanics, and this is lightning in a bottle. Fighting monsters? That's fun. Having to do all that while working out which player is a traitor? My god, that's so much better – and the result helps it stand out from the best Halloween board games.
Although it's got a higher price tag at full whack, I find that Unfathomable is rarely without a discount of some kind at Amazon. A good saving takes it below $75, or under £80 if you're based in the UK.
Whisking us back to the 1920s where prohibition was the latest fad and gangsters eloquently settled their differences by way of 'tommy gun,' you play passengers of a cruise ship heading across the ocean. Unfortunately, this will be far from a relaxing vacation; a couple of days after leaving port, storms roll in and the ocean begins to boil with activity. Soon, unspeakable creatures are crawling out of the ocean and onto your ship… directed by something titanic that you can barely see in the darkness.
This is one half of Unfathomable's gameplay: hold off these 'Deep Ones' and stop them from destroying the ship or draining its resources, all while repairing anything they do happen to wreck. That's engaging enough in itself, because you're in a desperate battle against time and tide. More will always rise from the depths to replace any you kill, so you've got to keep the horde at bay long enough for your ship to escape.
That's where the second – and arguably more interesting – part kicks in. While most of you are average Joes, some are secret Deep One hybrids. These traitors activate once they hear the siren call of their masters and begin sabotaging the ship in secret. It's everyone else's job to uncover them, so I hope you've got a good poker face.
The way you do this is very clever. Rather than sneaking off and throwing a literal spanner in the works, you ruin things in a more subtle way. You've got to draw event cards each turn that add a new development, dilemma, or catastrophe to overcome, and every player has to contribute number cards to meet a specific total. While you're supposed to add positive numbers to make sure you get it over the line, traitors will contribute negative number cards to undermine everyone else… and there's no way to tell who's done what, because the pile is shuffled.
The result is a favorite of mine. Even though it can take a long time to finish (games last anywhere between two and four hours), I can't think of many games where I've felt more locked in. The paranoia and tension it produces makes it arguably one of the best board games, and one I adore playing come spooky season.
Looking for more recommendations? Modern-day D&D horror adventure feels like Resident Evil mixed with Control, and it's perfect for Halloween.
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