Board Game Arena

...but a lot of pride!

You are the head of a respected but troubled family estate in mid-19th century Victorian England. After several lean decades, family fortunes are looking up! Your goal is to improve your estate so as to be in better standing with the truly influential families in Derbyshire.

Obsession is a game of 16 to 20 turns in which players build a deck of Victorian gentry (British social upper class), renovate their estate by acquiring building tiles from a centralized builders' market, and manipulate an extensive service staff of butlers, housekeepers, underbutlers, maids, valets, and footmen utilizing a novel worker placement mechanic. Successfully hosting prestigious social activities such as Fox Hunts, Music Recitals, Billiards, Political Debates, and Grand Balls increases a player's wealth, reputation, and connections among the elite.

Each turn, players choose a building tile representing a room or outdoor space in and around their 19th century British country house. The tile chosen dictates the event that can be hosted and the guests to be invited. Players must carefully plan, however, to have the proper staff available to service the event and support guests as needed. The reward for success is new investment opportunities, permitting further renovation of the estate (acquisition of more valuable/powerful building tiles), an increase in reputation in the county, an expanding circle of influential acquaintances, and a larger and highly-trained domestic staff.

Throughout the game, a competitive courtship for the hand of the most eligible young gentleman and lady in the county presents specific renovation and reputation objectives. The player who best meets these objectives while accumulating victory points will win the hand of the wealthy love interest and the game.

Curious about it?
The game has received plenty of appraisal from many players around the world, and might interest you for its originality. So why not try it?
Fast and easy, you just have to click the link right below to go to the game page:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=obsession

A game online means a developer behind it, and you're right! It's all up to the excellent adaptation done by hersh that you can try your skills on this game. He deserves a lot of thanks, like the game designer and artist behind this title, Dan Hallagan, and the publisher Kayenta Games. They all deserves our love for this.

Next week, another amazing release.
But for now,
Play fair and... take care!

Fantastic game! Thanks for brining it to BGA!

Madge and I have been having a bloody good time with this quaint little game. You'll find it's nothing ghastly, unless that godawful Butler from the Cavendish snatches your footman, Wilfred, right from under your nose. Now if you'll excuse me, I have the dogs ready at the kennel, and later on I am to discuss with the chaps in the smoking room...

(Such a fun game, and a great addition to the roster!)

I bought this last year, but my game group has become too dispersed to actually get it to the table. So excited it's on here so we can try it out (finally)! Thank you!

This is now my go-to game to try to hook people on games beyond Catan, Splendor, & Carcassonne. I really love it for elegance and depth.

Oooh, I've always wanted to play this one! Thanks to everyone involved in getting it to bga

A great game, with a really passionate designer behind it!

Thank you to everyone involved in getting Obsession on BGA.

Exciting to have this game in official release on BGA, the implementation is really quite good -

Can't wait until we can get the expansion add-on for being able to hire help during a "pass" turn

I've been obsessively (see what I did there?) playing this in Beta. Glad to celebrate official launch day. If you haven't tried Obsession yet, do yourself a favor and give it a go. If you play with friends live and have audio going, I recommend the house rule that everyone needs to narrate their turns ... to steal the example from the commenter above, this would go something like: "The Cavendish butler, Mr. Wilson, an impeccable servant and prescient judge of talent takes a day of leave and a short carriage ride to York, where he meets a young ambitious footman named Wilfred and hires him to join the Cavendish domestic staff. Handsome young Wifred promises to be a tremendous addition, and Mr. Wilson is hopeful that he can be trained to serve as a valet in no time." ... "Oh, and I'm building the brushing room."