Designer: David Willems
Publisher: (Self-Published), (Web published)
Arkham Express is a cooperative dice-based game designed by David Willems. Players are working together to gather clues, kill monsters, close gates and eventually defeat the Great Old One (Cthulhu).
Players will select characters, each with a unique special ability. During a player's turn they will roll 5 dice with unique symbols on each side, after rolling they have the option of re-rolling 3 more times. If the "Monster" symbol is rolled on a die it is locked and cannot be re-rolled. If 3 Monster symbols appear a new gate opens and a monster appears in Arkham. The other sides of the dice include movement points, clue tokens (used to close gates), healing, and combat symbols (used when fighting the monsters guarding the gates). Each player must carefully choose how to use their symbols to move around and try to close and collect six gates. If six gates are open on the board the players automatically lose.. However if the players manage to close six gates Cthulhu awakens and players must try to defeat him with their remaining items and abilities.
This game is in no small part inspired by Felbrigg Herriot's (FNH1) wonderful Dune Express game.