Obsession (2018)

It was all fine until those Americans showed up...

‘Obsession’ is a favorite with my gaming group, but I think is the kind of game that players really have to lean into the story to really enjoy.

The flavor text is that you’ve got your “starter home” - just a small country estate with a only a few rooms - private study, butler’s pantry, front parlor - and a gazebo and bowling green outside. You want your family to be the most popular, and that means getting the attention of the Fairchilds, the big wigs in town. You need to host gatherings, convince your friends to give you money, or at least raise your reputation, so that at the end of the season, one of the Fairchild children will come and visit.

Mechanically…I guess it’s kind of a personal worker placement game? You have servant meeples that you use to activate either the event taking place in your estate or to escort your visitors who demand them.

Along with expanding your estate, you can also earn victory points from the visitors you collect along the way, so there is a tiny bit of deck building. Some of the visitors may have negative point values (usually the Americans because they are new money) but they might come with a huge cash bonus, so then you need to strategically figure out when to remove that card before the game ends.

Everyone starts out with their own unique family that comes with a different starting bonus - money, reputation, an extra servant, an extra family member (grandma’s still kicking!), or a pre-built improvement. This can really help guide players through their first few turns.

At the end of your turn, you have a chance to buy an improvement from the market. When it comes to game setup, this is the most time consuming part, as you have to separate out all the low level tiles from the expensive ones so you start off with things you can afford in the market. As with most board game markets, items on the left cost less and get progressively more expensive as you move to the right, leaving players with that debate if they need to spend it all to get that tile they need for an objective, or hope that no one else snatches it up this round. There are multiples of most tiles in the game, so it is possible it will show up again but are you taking that risk?

You play through a set number of seasons (there is a short and long version of the game) then tally up your victory points.

I think the real joy of this game comes from everyone doing a bit of roleplay. Every time I have played this game, even with a friend who is British, we ALL began doing over the top Downton Abbey accents while narrating our turns, especially while playing our visitor cards. Each visitor has a description on their card, letting you know if they are cads, gossips, or worse, AMERICANS (ugh). How droll!

One of my favorite moments from a recent play-through happened on the final turn. One of your family member cards is the young girl of the family and she only gives you a bonus if you send her out with a Prestige Guest. My friend was finally able to play her with that kind of guest…but it was a old man colonel who had both legs amputated in the Great War. To make it worse, the activity was visiting the stables! We were all laughing at the table, tutting at the fate of the poor girl who you know sat around the estate, sighing heavily that no one important ever came to visit. Careful what you wish for, darling.

If you can’t tell from the image above, my biggest complaint about Obsession is it is a TABLE HOG, especially with your ever expanding estates, it can be tricky to arrange a play space that fits the market board, round tracker and everyone’s personal boards. But it really has to be this size to keep the game text readable so I can’t fault them for not shrinking things any more, otherwise you might end up with a Castles of Burgundy situation where you need a separate paper with all the tiles described in details. I think they made the correct choice. It all flows really well, in my opinion.

‘Obsession’ is one of those crowd funding success stories. It’s had a couple reprints and there are lots of expansions that give you more servants and more families. There are even game play variants in the base box to change things up AND a solo mode (though it is a lot to setup for a solo game).

If you want to try before you buy, it is part of the Board Game Arena collection.

And a HUGE reminder that if you want to buy ‘Obsession’, please support your Friendly Local Game Store. Not only does it help these small businesses stay afloat in trying times, it also guarantees you’re getting a genuine copy since this game can be hard to find, I would be wary of buying it from Amazon or a site that doesn’t have a way to verify it is not counterfeit from third party sellers (it’s a thing and probably will be more of a thing as the tariffs make it harder for games to get into the US).

If you don’t have a FLGS, than might I suggest my favorite one! As of this posting, they are showing Obsession in stock!