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H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or, H. P. Lovecraft, needs no introduction. This iconic author is known for his "cosmic horror" books and stories, particularly "The Call of Cthulhu".
His literature is ingrained with cosmicism, a philosophy H.P. Lovecraft created himself that states humanity is just an insignificant part of the cosmos, and can be destroyed at any moment by ancient beings. Lovecraft's stories inspired many other horror books, role-playing games, and board games that carried on his iconic themes: cosmic horror, the fear of the unknown, and slowly losing your mind.
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Let's face our fears in Elder Sign!
Game Info
Elder Sign is best played with 1 to 8 players, for ages 13 and up, by designers Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson. It was illustrated by Dallas Mehlhoff. One curious detail about these designers is that they also designed the highly acclaimed Arkham Horror!
It was released in 2011 by Fantasy Flight Games. It is a cooperative game that features variable player powers, dice rolling, and a modular board.
In 2012, a year after it was released, Elder Sign was nominated to the "Best Thematic Board Game" category by Golden Geek, similarly to Arkham Horror, which was also nominated in the same category when it was released. Cosmic Horror, in general, was a big inspiration for both games, so these nominations make a lot of sense.
Let's dive right in!
The Game
The Miskatonic Museum seems alive, infected with an ancient evil. Survivors have described horrifying exhibitions and mentioned they found clues pointing to a strange symbol called the Elder Sign. It could be the key to contain the worst evil they could ever face: the Ancient One, who will certainly reduce humanity to cinders.
The Miskatonic University hired investigators to fight this interdimensional Ancient One; through several expeditions to the Museum, they need to look for this "Elder Sign". They say that, at midnight, something even weirder always happens, and the Ancient One gets closer and closer to returning. Can we seal it away before it comes?
That's the setting in Elder Sign!
Time waits for no one, and the Ancient One can awaken at any moment. This is quite clear when you play, as the clock shows each turn is equal to three hours, and something new and awful always happens at midnight. At midnight, you'll have to deal with a Mythos card, which contains an awful effect that happens immediately, and a lingering negative effect that lasts until midnight the next day. It is a race against the clock!
We have been hired by the Miskatonic University to investigate and contain the bizarre events that have been happening at the museum. We have unique abilities and specialties, as well as our own stamina and sanity, which we'll put to the test when we face our challenges. We also have a few unique items that will be a lot of help.
We all begin at the Entrance, where we'll need to pick what we want to do in our turn. A turn in Elder Sign looks like this:
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In the Movement Phase, if you decide to stay at the Entrance of the Museum, you can do one of three things, which, in this case, are already part of the Resolution Phase:
In the Movement Phase, if you decide to enter the Museum, you'll have to complete a Task, so, Adventure Cards, with or without the help of other investigators. If you fail, you'll have to face the horrors in your way.
Adventure Cards represent places in the Museum. They tell whatever happened at that particular place, and give you the actual Tasks to complete. These Tasks include icons that we'll have to get when we roll our dice. At this point, we'll be at the Resolution Phase, that is, we'll be Resolving an Adventure.
To complete certain Tasks, you'll have to get certain results in a certain order, so they'll be even more challenging. If you fail, you'll lose dice, and, at the end, if you don't complete these Tasks, you may get a terrifying penalty.
Among them, you may lose sanity, stamina, be forced to face more monsters, speed up the return of the Ancient One through Doom tokens, and so on and so forth. Yeah, not ideal. For instance, if you speed up the return of the Ancient One, new monsters will pop up, and tasks will get more difficult.
If you complete a Task successfully, you'll get trophies, which you can trade for other Items. Obviously, you'll also get a reward for resolving an Adventure card. Rewards include common and special items, spells, allies, and, what we are actually looking for: Elder Signs.
On the card representing the Ancient One, you'll find how many Elder Signs you need to keep it asleep in another dimension. Our goal is to collect this number of Elder Signs.
And, finally, we have the Clock Phase, when we'll advance the Clock by 3 hours. When we get to midnight, we have to draw a new Mythos card and activate both its immediate effect and its lingering effect, which will last until midnight the next day. After that, your turn is over.
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After you play your turn, and survive (if you can), it's time to pass to another player.
Game End
The game ends immediately whenever one of these 3 situations happens:
To sum up, the only ways to win are: keep the Ancient One in its dimension or defeat it in battle. Otherwise, everyone loses!
Tips and Strategy
Elder Sign is about tough choices: Completing Tasks, exposing yourself to unimaginable horrors, or just waiting it out. If you decide to go on an Adventure and complete a Task, you might be devoured, and your sanity and/or stamina will be completely consumed. If you decide to wait it out, time will pass, and, turn by turn, the Ancient One will get closer to waking up and coming to your dimension.
My best tip is: nail the right time to recover from any damage you take, and the right time to go on an Adventure. Elder Sign is also a cooperative game, so, together, you and all other players must draft the best strategy. You can take every opportunity to attack, or split your team into two and take breaks, for instance. Furthermore, because you'll have to rely on dice rolls, you'll need a little bit of luck, but you can also mitigate any bad results you get with spells and items.
I strongly recommend that all of you discuss what you want to do before each turn, because you will all have different abilities and items that can make a difference in Adventures. Get familiar with your own specialties, and try to make the most out of them.
Picking which Adventure to go on is a privilege. Everything is quite clear as you play, so the secret is adapting your investigator abilities to the Task you're trying to complete, which isn't easy. You won't be able to check every box, but try to minimize any blatant disconnects because penalties are heavy, and you'll often lose sanity and stamina if you don't plan out your strategies well.
You should always use the ability that every investigator has: focus, which lets you keep a die with a good result, even if you fail that check, to use later on that same turn.
Sending two investigators to the same place so you can help each other out, at times, is risky, but necessary. The consequences may be dire if you fail to complete that Task together, as you may both get penalties.
Placing a second investigator on the same Adventure card may let you keep one of your dice with good results if you focus together, even if you can't complete that Task. This way, you'll have two good dice to use in that same turn. However, if everything goes wrong, and you can't complete that Task, the support investigator will have to pick between losing sanity or stamina, and the investigator who requested help will get the penalties described on the Task card, which are even worse.
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I highly recommend that you, early on, try to complete easier Tasks with smaller rewards that will help you in the future. Some Tasks are quite easy and give you clues, which, in turn, let you re-roll your dice. Other Tasks give you items, which may give you powerful dice (yellow and red), and these, in turn, will be a lot of help in tougher Tasks. This is a good idea, but don't waste too much time completing easy Tasks because, after all, as the turns go on, time will pass, and the Ancient One may awaken.
Follow these tips, work together, and beat the Ancient One in Elder Sign!
Unboxing, Rules, and Gameplay Videos
Check out this unboxing:
Learn the rules:
Watch some gameplay:
Teaching Moments
If you would like to learn more about teamwork, communication, strategy, and decision-making, Elder Sign is perfect for you!
Learning these skills with this game will be wonderful. Learning about teamwork, in particular, will be great. This game also encourages you to think strategically and nail tough decisions, which is fantastic.
Considering this is a horror board game, Elder Sign is excellent precisely because it also encourages you to work on so many soft skills. If your friends and family are not that comfortable with the horror theme, you can always soften certain elements and say, for instance, that "monsters" are just "animals", and that you need to clean out the museum. You don't need to go into the nitty-gritty details: just focus on rolling dice and completing Tasks. This will be enough!
You'll discuss who will go to which place, then you'll get excited because you'll be responsible for completing that Task, and celebrate each dice roll. That's the magic of dice rolling games.
The Clock also adds some nice pressure to the game as a whole. Whenever you defeat another creature, you'll have a lot of fun interacting with one another.
You'll constantly work on your strategies and decision-making skills, which will be fantastic. And, the best of all, you'll have a lot of fun interacting with other players, cheering for them, and winning the game.
Elder Sign is a lot of fun, and a great lesson in team-work!
I highly recommend Elder Sign to your collection!!!
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