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Does Shadows of Malice Fire Arkham Horror?

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20 Oct 2017 13:59 #256085 by blatz
I finally scored a copy of this for a decent price. I haven’t played it yet but looking through the rules it seems to do a lot of what Arkham horror does as far as managing gates and being on a timer before the bad guy emerges. Anyone who has both feel like they need them both? I’m trying to weed my shelf down to just the essentials.

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20 Oct 2017 15:29 #256090 by san il defanso
I have owned both, though not simultaneously. I traded away Arkham Horror a long time before I got Shadows of Malice. Both games are kind of a pain to run, Arkham Horror being just a little worse I think. But Shadows of Malice has a lot of die-rolling, and a ton of modifiers to keep straight. I think that Shadows is the more straight-up challenging game, though I'm going on just base game AH in that case. That game gets tougher with its expansions.

Thematically, it's kind of whichever you like better. I'm not a big Lovecraft guy, at least not as its usually represented in games. But there is a lot more content out there for AH, and most of it runs cheaper than anything for Shadows of Malice. Shadows of Malice definitely feels like the more outsider design though. It's doubles down on its weirdly abstract combat, its overwrought story and setting, and the resolutely inelegant mechanics. It is entirely the thing that it is, if that makes sense.

I do prefer Shadows of Malice, just because I've never seen a game that does the same thing. It feels like its always on the edge, even when things have gone bad through the whole thing. It's a challenging game to get played and a tough one to learn, but it's a little more worth the trouble to me.

That said, if you have room in your life for two long-ish complicated cooperative games, they aren't all THAT similar. You should be just fine with both.
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21 Oct 2017 07:13 #256132 by repoman
I don't think the games are very similar. Shadows is hard to equate to much of anything. It has a whole lot of cool ideas. It approaches familiar ideas from a really oblique angle AND it's balls hard. It puts a lot of responsibility on your imagination. Like a good film, it doesn't have to explicitly show you everything (what monster am I fighting, what does the villain look like, how does the hermit make his potions) but leaves it to you to fill in the blanks. This is a good thing.

Arkham Horror leaves very little to imagination. Everything is spelled out. Everything is "flavor text". I am also not a fan of the ubiquitous "mythos" crap.
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21 Oct 2017 19:36 #256150 by san il defanso
Repo is right, Shadows of Malice is a much tougher game. It's rare that you can find a sure thing in that game. You roll dice for EVERYTHING, which means failure is always an option. That's not to say it's a random game, your decisions really matter. If you play poorly you will definitely lose. But making the right decisions doesn't guarantee success.

Arkham Horror has certain spots on the board that are always important, like Independence Square. The setup for Shadows of Malice is way more varied.

I would be interested to hear someone go to bat for Arkham Horror here. Not sure how many we have who are fans of both games.
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21 Oct 2017 22:36 #256153 by iguanaDitty
I like them both but I agree they aren't very similar. If Shadows is going to "fire" anything it would be Runebound 2nd Ed. You've got your overworld travel, your sort of mini quests you can go on, a similar feeling of growing stronger and stronger and eventually taking down the boss, procedural feeling combat. It's not a great analogy but if you squint it's there, whereas with Arkham the games don't feel alike at all.
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22 Oct 2017 07:28 #256154 by __
How about Eldritch Horror, does it cut out too much of what you all like about Arkham Horror, or does it do a good enough job streamlining things but still giving a rich experience?

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