As a slightly heavier party game for three or more players (three is the minimum count, which is a shame) then I don’t think you can go far wrong with Mountains of Madness. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of care for cooperative games, Mountains of Madness opens the genre for me. It can also allow the Leader to turn over a tile for a few seconds to scope out a particular section.

In addition to the random aspects and numerous ways to lose that I’ve already mentioned, there is also a strategic edge around winning the game based on how you choose to tackle the mountain.Sure, players work to hold off the slow creep of madness like one holds off the impending doom of outbreaks in Pandemic, but here, each and every relic won is hard fought.

This is a really important thing to note, because at first glance of this game you are immediately taken back to familiar games like Eldritch Horror or Mythos Tales. Under these challenging conditions, the survival of your team will depend on your ability to communicate with each other and to coordinate your efforts to overcome each obstacle — but what you discover on the way to the highest peak will strongly test your mental health. It is challenging, exciting, and hilarious to play but requires more strategy than most party games and more extroversion than most strategy games which may make this game tough to find an audience for. Players have to cooperate to reach the top of the Mountain and then escape safely, but the Mountain has more than one trick up its ghastly sleeve.

The die result can also lead to confusion which forces the Leader to discard as many cards from the Equipment deck as the difference between the total value of cards played of the required type and the failed challenge value.

Primarily a party game, Mountains of Madness combines a basic party movement mechanic and occasional dice rolling with real time hand management and objective resolution, mostly with great success. If all players have a level 3 Madness card and a card must be drawn, the Leader must discard a Leadership token from the Sled board. The mechanic of contributing cards to meet a specified target sounds mundane and trivially easy until you take into account the conditions under which the players have to operate.

If you’re very lucky you might find enough Relics to win the game, reach the summit of the mountain, and escape with the other inmates in your aerial asylum.

Mountains of Madness makes each victory hard fought, which lends more justification for me because bouts of acquiring relics come and go so quickly. This is not to say that the rest of the game is bad but the crux of the game is in the interaction between players, their madness, and the struggle to communicate successfully in quick sprints. Mountains of madness is suitable for 3-5 players aged 12 and up with a playing time of around 60 minutes.Quick and clear communication is the key – but how will you stick together when your team starts developing weirder and weirder behavior? That said, I liked the description you gave of the game, but I had the same reaction that Wade did, in that the cards would become a known quantity too easily and the game would be just a routine of how to play around it, rather than play with it. Leadership tokens are also used for other abilities, like restarting the Encounter phase or refreshing cards.