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Family Plays Horror Board Game And Gets More Than They Bargained For

April 15, 2017

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a board game that allows players to build their own haunted house room by room.

This dad thought it would be fun game to play with his family, including his 9-year-old daughter. He recently shared the story of what happened to them during the game, and why his family will never play the game ever again.

"I thought I'd like to share the true story, of my family's first and last play through of Betrayal at House on the Hill last Christmas. Having played Betrayal at House on the Hill with guys from work, I decided to purchase my copy for the home to play with my family.

My daughter is only nine years old, for the purpose of this story lets call her Amy. I know Amy enjoys horror themes, which is part of the reason why I bought Betrayal at House on the Hill. Amy isn't allowed to watch horror movies, but she has an active imagination and between playing with her dolls and acting sweet and innocent, Amy enjoys writing horror-themed short stories. Often Amy tells these stories to her friends at school, which ends up in the class having nightmares and sleepless nights! I'm sure the other children's parents cursed our family during bed time when they couldn't put their daughters to sleep. Amy also scares herself when she thinks about her stories, resulting in Amy being too scared to sleep as well.

Back to the post, I've managed to get Mom, Amy and Amy's older brother around the table for a game night of Betrayal, which is no small feat when competing against the other screen addictions of Netflix and YouTube. Mom is concerned with Betryal's theme and 12+ rating, but I assure her it's fine as Amy writes stories much worse than anything in the game. Perhaps, I was too optimistic.

We start playing the game by exploring the house, and everyone is getting into the game. I questioned my decision to play the game with Amy during some cards; I toned down the reading of the hanging corpses event. So far the game was a hit, and I was pretty excited at picking a winning game. I could already see many successful family game nights of Betrayal. My main concern was thinking how I could make the haunt a success, as nobody else my family likes reading game rules. For those who haven't played Betrayal, the haunt is where the game begins and one person betrays the group. The betrayer and the rest of the group are then given a page or so of rules with secret objectives on how to kill each other. However, I shouldn't have worried too much, as we never got that far.

Amy picks a seemingly harmless card, freaking her out a little. I can't remember the exact wording of the card; but her character looks into a grave or coffin and see's a dead body, and then notices it's her. Amy has a startled look on her face and states "That's creepy", and I can see her mind starting of a new story to haunt her class mates.

Then we hear it, a little girls voice says "Hello" from Amy's bedroom. Everyone at the table freezes. Now, I'm pretty sure I know there are only four people in my family, and everybody is at the table. Then it repeats again "Hello", we are breathless as we look at each other startled. Now I can see my wife starting to shake, and Amy's eyes are red and welling up in tears, her older brother is turning white. My entire family has broken down crying, and are shaking in fear. I feel like I'm in a horror movie, as a little girls voice keeps repeating "Hello" from my daughters room.

I will never forget this moment.

Being the father of the house and with no other members able to stand, I need to investigate. Slowly, I get up and walk towards Amy's room, in my head I'm rationalizing what could be happening, to give myself the confidence to investigate. I open up the door and there it is, Amy had received an early Christmas gift from a friend, an alarm clock requiring the owner to record their own voice as the alarm. That morning, Amy had recorded her voice as a simple "Hello" and being a new gift she'd accidentally set the alarm for 8pm instead of 8am. Due to the cheap electronics in the alarm clock, her voice being replayed sounded distorted and creepy.

I never got to show the awesomeness of a haunt reveal to my family. Everybody was in tears and highly emotional, it was time to call an end to game night. Amy slept in our bed that night, and Amy refused having the alarm clock in her room again. Betrayal of House on the Hill now sits collecting dust on our game shelf, it's too difficult to get out for the family.

R.I.P. Betrayal at House on the Hill, you nearly made it as a family staple."

Credit: jaie