I still have a number of the currently available scenario's to play, but I want to commit some of my current thoughts of the ones I have played. And rank them for myself.
I will update this entry as I play more, or possibly re-evaluate. And to add new scenario's as they come available.

This is the current list of available scenario's:

• Cycle of Eternity
• Escape from Innsmouth
• Shattered Bonds
• Rising Tide
• Dearly Departed
• Cult of Sentinel Hill
• What Lies Within
• Gates of Silverwood Manor
• Vengeful Impulses

I "own" all except Cult of Sentinel Hill, and am not particularly eager to get the corresponding physical product for just that one scenario.
Even if it adds other things as well, of course.

Anyway, I have played the first four, which are the ones that come with the Second Edition Base Game. It was good to see that they do incorporate things from other products, such as the First Edition Base Game, which I also own.

Thoughts on the scenario's I have played:

• Cycle of Eternity - Expected entry-level scenario. Nothing fancy, but engaging.
• Escape from Innsmouth - Love it. Very, very engrossing and scary.
• Shattered Bonds - Fun, a mansion scenario with some nice gimmicks.
• Rising Tide - More investigation, less action. Felt it was too long for what it offered.
• Vengeful Impulses - Fun, though text heavy and little combat. Clue on steroids.
• What Lies Within - Brilliant, simply brilliant. Best Mansion of madness.
• Dark Reflections - Fun scenario. Mirrors become a creepy thing.
• Gates to Silverwood Manor - A true Mythos haunted house. Very cool "loop" with different endings.

My current ranking:

1. Escape from Innsmouth
2. What Lies Within
3. Gates to Silverwood Manor
4. Shattered Bonds
5. Dark Reflections
6. Cycle of Eternity
7. Vengeful Impulses
8. Rising Tide

What are your favorites, or least favorites? Why? Please try to avoid spoilers in this thread. Thanks!

Mine is similar:

1. Escape from Innsmouth
2. Shattered Bonds
3. Dearly Departed

It gets harder ranking the rest. The steps aren't that far apart from here. Take it with a grain of salt:

4. Gates of Silverwood Manor
5. Vengeful Impulses
6. Cult on Sentinel Hill
7. Rising Tide (****! it's hard to find a day long enough to play this one)
8. Cycle of Eternity (perhaps played too many times)
9. What lies Within (i can't pinpoint it but it felt a bit frustrating and a few events just didn't suit my tastes, i suppose. Played it twice, though, so just because it is last on my list doesn't mean it is bad or anything).

I have only played 3 scenarios so far and I own all expansions. I think the various maps and playthrough makes a difference. I tried Cycle of Eternity twice. The first time was with a group of 5 with the base game tiles. The game ended with 2 of us insane and several monsters on the board before someone escaped and won the game. It didn't feel like a great victory. The second playthrough used the expansion tiles and monsters and this version was way better in terms of map layout and having to find a key to the attic. In the end the roof of the mansion blew off and it appeared the mansion was falling apart (this never happened in the first game, but maybe it is because we passed it without playing too many rounds?). The monsters were a lot cooler (all my miniatures are painted), and even though I lost the game solo, I enjoyed it more and wish my friends had played that version. I now try to play the first playthough with friends, and then I go back and play solo to see the difference and pay more attention to the story. These are my favorites so far in order.

1. Cult on Sentinel Hill

2. Vengeful Impulses

3. Cycle of Eternity

I've got all the content but I've only played three of the scenarios.

- Cult of Sentinel Hill I really enjoyed, and we ended that scenario in a really memorable way, so that helps.

- Cycle of Eternity I've played the most often, it's decent enough for an intro scenario, out of the 5 or 6 times I've played it with different friends, only once was a bad experience because of poor dice rolls and bad decisions.

- Vengeful Impulses had the opportunity to be really fun but was marred by poor design. The descriptions when speaking to the characters never matched the rooms they were in. It seems like the app randomises the location of the characters and then doesn't properly check where it placed the character before showing the character events. There were a couple other stuff like that.

On 14-6-2017 at 8:53 AM, neosmagus said:

- Vengeful Impulses had the opportunity to be really fun but was marred by poor design. The descriptions when speaking to the characters never matched the rooms they were in. It seems like the app randomises the location of the characters and then doesn't properly check where it placed the character before showing the character events. There were a couple other stuff like that.

How recently have you played Vengeful Impulses? It seems a good "family" scenario with relatively short play time and low difficulty.
Maybe they have fixed (some of) these problems in recent updates?

6 hours ago, jvdvalk said:

How recently have you played Vengeful Impulses? It seems a good "family" scenario with relatively short play time and low difficulty.
Maybe they have fixed (some of) these problems in recent updates?

I played it in the last month. An example was where you speak to the one lady while she's standing in the greenhouse and her dialog has her pointing at the glass case in the library and referring to the library in general, which was on the other side of the house

Note that I've only played it once, so maybe it was related to a variation of the map that you didn't have.

This should be brought to their attention, if you have the time. Describing it as you did should be enough. It may take a while before they get back to you with a reply, but they've been really helpful in the past.

The one time i played it, descriptions were matching (unless i didn't pay enough attention).

I played Vengeful Impulses. I didn't encounter the room-referencing problems.
There was an odd thing with the picking up of the items, but after some thought I think I understood the intention of the scenario creators.

I liked it somewhat. There is little combat, but it has a fun build-up with no small "homage" to Clue (board game and movie).
It's text-heavy, so probably not very suitable for family-gaming (we're Dutch, so for the teenagers it's probably a bit too much to digest, even with translations by me).

Played What Lies Within today, a pay-for DLC for which you only need the Second Edition Base Game.
Absolutely loved it. Spooky, flavorful, with a good smattering of combat.
Classic Mansion of madness, and well worth the price.

It incorporated a lot of stuff from the First Edition Base Game too, which is great.
Number 2 on my favorites list now.

Innsmouth to me is the best scenario for its replay value mostly due to the difficulty. Innsmouth is just so tense from start to finish. It reminds me of the finales in Left 4 Dead. The others offer a great experience with their story pacing. What Lies Within and Shattered Bonds seem very similar but I think how you complete the investigation for What Lies Within gets the nod.

1. Escape from Innsmouth
2. What Lies Within
3. Shattered Bonds

Coincidentally, the passage between knowing too much and the escape is one of Lovecrafts' finest moments. Not to take away from the scenario, it's definitely my favourite so far and is probably for the better not sticking to the original description.

I've only played Cycle of Eternity so far at a friend's place, and loved it. Excited to dive into more scenarios, so I've picked up the game and both 1E boxes. Would anyone recommend playing in a particular order? Are the scenarios in the app ordered in a cohesive way? I'm thinking I might like to play in order of increasing difficulty if not. Thanks!

The scenarios are separate and can be played in any order. But if you have played 1st edition, the "tile collection" scenarios can be seen as independent, self-sufficient sequels to 1st ed scenarios.

Much like how "the shuttered room" story is a freestanding continuation on both "shadow over innsmouth" and "dunwich horror".

We have only played three scenarios yet Dearly Departed, the intro (which name escapes me) and What Lies Within. Of those three I liked the intro and Dearly Departed but actually strongly disliked the What Lies Within. Which is quite interesting since it's the most Call of Cthulhu RPG -like of the bunch. The ending was such a big let down for me since there was no way we could fail it with 40+ tries between our investigators. It just took too long with almost nothing happening and nothing really threatened the characters.

With everything I know up until now (and what I don't), I guess I'd have to go with this order for the scenarios we/I have already played:

Shattered Bonds

Cycle of Eternity

What Lies Within

Escape from Innsmouth

Cult of Sentinel Hill

Dearly Departed

Though I do have to say, the only reason DD is on the bottom is that we are still trying to figure this one out and I'm still not sure if we are just being stupid or I should call it bad design and/or implementation/explanation.

2 hours ago, doc_cthulhu said:

Of those three I liked the intro and Dearly Departed but actually strongly disliked the What Lies Within. Which is quite interesting since it's the most Call of Cthulhu RPG -like of the bunch. The ending was such a big let down for me since there was no way we could fail it with 40+ tries between our investigators. It just took too long with almost nothing happening and nothing really threatened the characters.

That's funny, because we have only tackled it with two players yet and I felt like even with three, it would still be one of the most difficult scenarios to ever win.

(Doesn't help when you're already half-crippled when the end is coming, of course. )

40+ tries?! Are you sure you got the monster movement right?

21 hours ago, Lorinor said:

That's funny, because we have only tackled it with two players yet and I felt like even with three, it would still be one of the most difficult scenarios to ever win.

(Doesn't help when you're already half-crippled when the end is coming, of course. )

14 hours ago, Aelitafrommars said:

40+ tries?! Are you sure you got the monster movement right?

Five characters with stat of even 3+ have at least 30 tries within a round if we didn't miss something in the rules. Add clues and some items (and/or higher stats) to the mix and there you have it. In addition the monster requires (iirc) six Mythos Phases for us to lose the game. We might have had a perfect group for it and our strategy might have been flawsless but it still was the first try. We did spend about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours arguing about solving the puzzle and it was even more stupid than me getting flooded by monsters with decreased Agility in Dearly Departed.

It might be that the app doesn't in fact make the game harder with more investigators or that the changes are only minor. Nevertheless the Mythos Phases left us mostly intact until the end. Two characters were insane but none of the investigators had any setback wounds/insanities.

Maybe we were just really lucky but in any case the adventure did not exactly encourage for a replay. It was interesting for the 1st time through though.

I think all the scenarios I have played have been great, but I have really enjoyed the DLC What Lies Within and Gates of Silverwood Manor as we had particularly tense experiences with these, losing one of them. Similarly with Dearly Departed, which I like the map for as well. For some reason Cult of Sentinel Hill hasn't really struck a chord with me, maybe it's the general outdoor setting. I thought I'd like it but it didn't quite grab me. Cycle of Eternity is also low probably because of the number of plays I've had and the difficulty, and Rising Tide because of the length and lack of map variation (2 plays maybe I was unlucky and got the same twice)

1. Dearly Departed
2. Gates of Silverwood Manor
3. What Lies Within
4. Escape from Innsmouth
5. Shattered Bonds
6. Rising Tide
7. Cycle of Eternity
8. Cult of Sentinel Hill

I haven't played Vengeful Impulses yet but will tonight Mixed reviews here I can see, hope I like it

So what are your thoughts about "Vengeful Impulses"? Please dont spoiler all to much, i havent played that one yet..

On 3/8/2017 at 1:50 PM, Gutripper said:

Rising Tide because of the length and lack of map variation (2 plays maybe I was unlucky and got the same twice)

IIRC, Rising Tide comes with only one map. It's the culprit to change from one scenario to the other one, to grant variety in the investigation

It's been a while, but I've played two more scenario's: Dark Reflections and Gates to Silverwood Manor. I liked the first, and loved the second. Gates to Silverwood Manor has different endings, and a loop in those endings. It reminds me more of how the card game works: surviving is an option, somewhere between losing and winning. Want to win? Try again. I wonder how different each playthrough is, but I may find out soon.

Note that I haven't bought the expansions after Beyond the Threshold, so I haven't added those scenario's yet to the list.