I first played this game almost ten years ago. And I loved it. In some ways you could call this a one verse many game. But it’s also a two player only game. So if you are playing and want to be the one, make sure your opponent is either Legion or has multiple personalities.

In this game, if you are the one, you control the monsters. Specifically Troglodytes and Demons (well technically Demon in the singular because you can never have more than one in play at any time.) There is a cool mechanic about how you do this. On your Demon turn you will roll three Destiny dice and assign them to your Demon Destiny board. There are ten spots you can possibly assign them to, depending on the results shown on the dice.

The non Demon player (ironically referred to in my head as Legion) is referred to as the Human player. This individual controls up to 6 characters who find themselves deep in the depths of a cavern system that may be Hell itself. Their goal is usually going to be simply get the hell out of, well, Hell. The Human gets to roll a die for each character they control and then assign those dice to the characters. Each character has 6 lines corresponding to the pips on the dice. When a die is assigned to a line, it grants stats for Movement, Combat, and Defense. If a character takes damage, the player gets to choose a single line on that character and block it for the rest of the game.

I love this mechanic. Wait. I love both of these mechanics. Making the Demon get all pensive and contemplative as they must choose where to assign their Destiny dice is fantastic. And the Human having to choose which limb they amputate with each blow they take (I may be exaggerating a bit on this as it isn’t technically an amputation, but in my head I see the Black Knight claiming “It’s just a flesh wound.”)

The rest of the game plays out with tiles being revealed as the Humans try to flee, combat happens when my Demonic forces try and corner and eat the puny Human beings that should never have strayed into my domain (I may have played the Demon player when I broke the game out this week.)

I have wanted this game since I first played it almost ten years ago and finally acquired a copy of it. Unfortunately, you humans reading this and thinking you want to buy a copy of it will find a challenge awaiting you as it can’t be found in game stores. The original game came out in 2009 and has been out of print for an eternity. Almost literally. If you are less than one year old and reading this, in considering the amount of time you have been alive compared to the amount of time it’s been out of print. Well, it is an astronomical and exponential amount of time that your infant brain can’t wrap around the math. Therefore….. eternity. Don’t try to argue with me on this, I long ago gave up engaging in theoretical debates with babies. But hold on to your binky because in 2019 they released a 2.0 sorta called Claustrophobia 1643 via Kickstarter. A modified title I assumed had to do with the year as the flavor text in the rulebook gives a timeline in the year 1634. Wait. Those years don’t match up though. Maybe there was a typo in the name of the new version. But that part isn’t important, what is important is that a new printing exists. Unfortunately the only way to get it was via the Kickstarter as they printed to order with no store release.

Luckily for you the internet exists! Lucky for me too as this would be much less interesting if I was writing this and thumbtacking it to a corkboard in my kitchen. There would be lots of views on it, but they would all be just me. Maybe my cat once or twice. But back to the internet. You can find this without any effort at all. Between google and a credit card and with some assistance from your friendly postal carrier (which could be you by the way. Have you ever wondered who’s gonna carry the mail? If you need a job to pay for this game, go talk to them) it would be maybe a week before you could hold a copy of Claustrophobia in your hands. Unless you are an infant, because you aren’t allowed to have a credit card or hold a job. Not to mention the box would be too heavy for you to pick up.

In case you jumped to the end here to see the rating before reading this review, I have to remind you the rating is already at the top. I’m just going to write it out in words here. Now. I give this game 8 stars. Not because it shouldn’t have the other two making it a perfect 10, but I don’t feel like I have played it enough to saddle this game with the albatross of perfection around its neck.