{"id":3695,"date":"2004-02-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/02\/18\/thehell-game\/"},"modified":"2004-02-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-02-18T11:00:00","slug":"thehell-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/02\/18\/thehell-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The\nHell Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The
\nHell Game<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Designer<\/td>\nAnders Fager,
\n
\nLars Johansson<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publisher<\/td>\nUdo Grebe
\nGamedesign<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
released<\/td>\n2002<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Players<\/td>\n3 – 6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
playing time<\/td>\n2 – 4 hours<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

This game might have been spotted in its early incarnation by avid Essen-visitors –
\nnow this game has been “officially” published by using the increasingly popular
\nmethod of assuring a certain number of buyers through preorders before venturing into the
\ndangerous business of publishing a game (“Globopolis<\/a>” take note!).<\/p>\n

Open the box and you’ll discover loads of good stuff. The game is pretty unique in
\nits theme: players are evil demons from hell who try to take over\u2026well, hell, what
\nelse! The board depicts the 9 circles of hell (the rulebook even explains in detail WHY
\nthere are nine circles, as well as many sometimes surprising details of hellish
\nmythology). Several beautifully designed cards and counters depict the various forces of
\nhell, magic, the works. Most of the important tables are printed on the board in various
\ninclinations, there are spaces for all counters and most cards as well.<\/p>\n

This is a very good looking game. Although the board is not mounted everything about
\nthe game shows a lot of detail to attention – the only criticism could be that the board
\nis too overdesigned, making it a bit difficult to make out some details in a hurry.<\/p>\n

Although there has been some activity in the small genre of “hellish” games
\nlately (“Hellrail<\/a>” and “Dante’s Inferno<\/a>” come to mind) , this must be the bad mother
\nof all hell-games. The designer certainly went to great lengths to research the game well
\n– apart from some dodgy Latin most of the information in the rulebook and on the cards is
\noutstanding in detail – I guess Satanists could even buy the game as a valuable
\ninformation tool, that’s how well researched it is (but: Satanists take heed: see
\nbelow)! The rules even have a long appendix which describes all the major demons from
\nhell\u2026 But the author never makes the mistake to treat his subject matter too
\nseriously (which might have been seen as a bit inappropriate). I cannot share Greg Schloesser’s
\nworry<\/a> about the approach and the theme – the game is a satire, but not a silly
\nsatire, which I think is very good. In fact it is very close to “Junta<\/a>” in this respect, which also has a dodgy theme, but treats
\nit in a way which doesn’t take itself seriously.<\/p>\n

The rules are written in a comfortably verbose but clear style, are well laid out and
\nuse many examples. Although the game is not exactly easy everything becomes pretty clear
\nfrom the text.<\/p>\n

And, I’m sorry to say, this is where the good stuff ends\u2026because the rest
\nis\u2026rather hellish, my friends.<\/p>\n

Of course a game like this needs some kind of randomness – you don’t really expect
\na game about hell to be a slick abstract strategy game, do you?<\/p>\n

\"TheBut this game takes randomness to a new (fiery?) dimension.
\nThis already begins with the starting position, which can be devilishly different for all
\nplayers. Each player controls 3 demons, who are initially randomly dealt out (they
\nusually stay with the player all of the game). The rank of these demons determines
\nplaying order, the lesser ranking coming after the higher ranking (sometimes it is
\npreferable to come late in the turn order, which can be done by playing special
\n“Arcana” cards, which also double as spell cards). All these demons have
\ndifferent strengths and special abilities – some of them are extremely powerful, others
\nnot. Although you can randomly exchange one of the cards your are dealt out initially,
\nthis costs you souls (the currency of the game), and the new card might even be worse
\nthan the one you gave away. That this also costs souls is a double punishment for someone
\nwho simply got dealt a bad card!<\/p>\n

Also the starting positions on the board vary immensely – the 9 circles of hell are
\ndivided into 5 “quarters” (they always have an extra quarter to spare in hell,
\nI guess) – controlling a full circle means winning the game (actually there is also
\nanother victory condition: owning three “Arcana” cards with the number 6, a
\nwinning condition which is both very improbable and also very unsatisfying if it happens,
\nexcept for Satanists). Some of these quarters are controlled by the players – again cards
\nare randomly dealt out (one representing each quarter), resulting in the possibility that
\none player can win through the initial card deal! Also here some players might have a
\nvery good deal, some very bad deals, as connected quarters produce more souls than
\nunconnected ones. In our game two players practically had double the initial income of
\nall other players – as income is used to buy armies, cards etc. this makes the game very
\nunattractive for the others from the start.<\/p>\n

On your turn each demon has an action – you can roam earth to produce additional
\nsouls, you can send armies out to conquer other quarters, you can wield mighty spells,
\nyou can try to gain or lose favour with Satan himself or you can simply pass (sometimes
\nthis is even a good option!) and so on. If you thought that the initial deal was
\nfrustrating, talk about the game itself\u2026.Everything in this game is worked out
\nvery detailed, very often using dice rolls (have I already said that players who roll 6
\n1’s in succession get extra favour with Satan himself for “having such bad
\nluck”? A silly rule, especially when you think about the fact that in combat low
\nrolls are usually good – why are they bad luck then?).<\/p>\n

Combat is a total design disaster – it works pretty much like Axis&Allies<\/a>, armies need to roll below a certain number to have a hit.
\nBut different to A&A (which is already famous for long, drawn out battles) each unit
\ngets a SAVING THROW after a hit is assigned (and only one hit can be assigned to each
\nunit, another silly rule). This saving throw can easily give the armies a 4 in 6 chance
\nto survive, if the army-leading demon is strong enough (or even more!). This leads to
\ntotally ridiculous battles which take forever. To give you an example: one battle between
\nonly two units (!) took us 16 rounds, as the units kept surviving and surviving. Although
\nthe rulebook offers a quick resolution method for small battles, this rarely makes sense,
\nas it is even more random. The rulebook also suggests that after a certain number of
\nrounds Satan himself randomly draws the winner of the battle – an even worse solution,
\nespecially when large battles can easily take more than the above 16 rounds).<\/p>\n

But combat itself is not the worst aspect – it is AVOIDING combat. Fleeing is not
\ndone, like in other wargames, by retreating orderly into an area, you ROLL THE DICE where
\nyou can go. Which again means that you can land in an enemy space, resulting in ANOTHER
\npossible combat. Which again can be avoided by the new enemy through fleeing, again
\nrandomly landing in another space, AGAIN creating another combat, and so on ad
\nnauseam\u2026These chain reactions can go on forever! Even worse are the hellhounds
\n(“wild armies” that you can recruit, randomly of course, in Antehell) – they
\ntend to go berserk and randomly move around hell, creating either myriads of battles, or
\nmyriads of flights from battles, which again result in more battles, and so on and so
\non\u2026.Have I already mentioned Uriel, the avenging angel, or Lilith, Adam’s
\nlesser known wife? These two move randomly around the board and create havoc wherever
\nthey go, as if there wasn’t already enough chaos in the game. Of course there are
\nalso the other usual design disasters like ultra-powerful spell cards and ultra-meek
\nones, events which can turn the game around completely without any player input, dice
\nrolls for everything\u2026the list goes on\u2026.<\/p>\n

What is the point in playing this game, when EVERYTHING you do brings you neither gain
\nnor loss -actually doing nothing at all can also result in furthering your position,
\nthere is a rule that makes an eliminated player take over the space with the most armies
\n(so what’s the point in amassing armies in the first place?). Perhaps this is some
\nkind of philosophical comment, but its sense eludes me.<\/p>\n

The question one has to ask is how hellish and random a game has to be that depicts
\nhell and the senseless battles that take place there. In fact one might even argue that
\nthis is the true meaning of the game – budding Satanists might learn about the futility
\nof their ways and give up their profession even! So I can recommend this game only to
\nhorror fans and Christian gaming circles – the former might enjoy the research and love
\nto detail that went into the game, the latter can use the game in their crusade against
\nevil. Sadly there is not much here for real gamers, which is a shame, as the game could
\nhave been very good with a major rules rewrite.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hell Game Designer Anders Fager, Lars Johansson Publisher Udo Grebe Gamedesign released 2002 Players 3 – 6 playing time 2 – 4 hours This game might have been spotted in its early incarnation by avid Essen-visitors – now this game has been “officially” published by using the increasingly popular method of assuring a certain … The
\nHell Game<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":4,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}