Good evening children of the night and to all of you who might have stumbled onto this little website. I am your host for this Article, in which I will discuss a game for those with a bit of a darker mind. This is the first in a series of articles that eventually will go over all sorts of games, from card games to tabletop role playing. Be warned my children, some of these games are highly addictive and loads of fun!
The first game I wish to discuss is Gloom!
I just recently acquired my own copy of the game, and boy, is it just
as fun as I remember. Wil Wheaton, who if you don’t know who he is, whom
best known for being Wesley in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well
as being on the Big Bang Theory, did an episode on his show “Tabletop”
about this card game. Wil Wheaton's Tabletop Play of Gloom (As a note this episode is a half hour long, so watch if you have time
or make some time to watch it.) This definitely is a card came for those
more morbidly minded, since the goal of the game is to kill off your
family in the most spectacular of ways, getting the most points out of
them with their inevitable horrific demises (if they are particularly
unlucky). The game also has an element of storytelling to it, since
while doing horrible, and sometimes good, things to the characters on
the table, you need to tell a story of how they got to this point,
rather than just set the card down. I myself have only played this game a
handful of times, but it just gets more fun each time I play it. The
story behind the families in this game are clever, but somehow a little
cliched, including the typical mad scientist family, and the family of
the well despised circus freaks. However the other two are a little odd,
with a family with possessed twins, and the other having a murdering
matriarch and the Butler. I love how the butler’s card says: “No matter
what it is, he did it.”
The game play is a little hard to get a hang of at first, since there are three types of cards that you use to play in game, the modifier card, event card and finally, the Untimely Death card. When it is your turn there are three phases, the first two being plays. On the first play you can play or discard any one card from your hand. This is important to remember, seeing how on your second play, you can also play or discard one card, but you can’t play Untimely Death cards, unless you play a card that says you can after playing the previous card. Confused yet? It is a bit confusing at first, and takes some getting use to. As you play the modifier cards, which give your characters negative or positive points, you make up a story as to why the character you’re playing on, doesn’t have to be your own, is doing or is participating in the event displayed on the card. Your goal is more for the negative points on your own characters, but there are some advantages to the positive modifier cards, like being able to draw and play one more card. When an event card is played, it is a single use card and will be gone after that turn. They trigger an immediate effect, like bringing a deceased character back into the game. However, there are cards that will say: “Cancel ____ as it is played,” and it can be used during another player’s turn as a response to an action. When you decide to kill off one of the characters, it is important to realize what the negative self-worth of the character is, as you can not kill off a character with a positive self-worth. I tried this in one of the first games I played, and I was informed that you couldn’t make it so that character would die in ‘happiness.’ Once this character is dead, you can not place more modifier cards on the character, so you can’t plump up the value of a deceased character. The game is finished once there is one family with all playable characters dead or removed from game. I mention removed from game because there is an interesting card called ‘Body Snatcher,’ which lets you remove one of your living characters to remove one dead character from your opponents families. This is a good card to hold on to till near the end, so you can snatch up that -60 points worth character so you can get the win. The winner of the game is the one with the most negative points on a deceased character; points on a living character do not detract from that total, but they do not add to it either.
I will admit the storytelling aspect of this game is what sold me the most on it, however that can also get a little complex. For instance, if you have a character in front of you that you’ve ignored for the last five turns, and can’t remember what happened to them to have that card on top of them, it can get very interesting. Luckily, the other players may kindly remind you what happened. You don’t get penalized for forgetting what has happened to your characters. However, the stories can get long, intricate and downright amusing! I played one round of this game in which I had a character that was chased by bees, tortured by a mob, wonderfully wed to a wife, then ridiculed by her, disgraced by the queen, and even at the end of the game I still couldn’t kill him because he was still at a positive 5!
This game is a little limiting in the number of players, because there are only four families; however, there are expansion packs out there that add families to the pool. I fully recommend this game for people who love to torture their characters, have an imagination they love putting to use, or are just looking for a good time! (If you have all three all the better!)
That is all for this time my children, but next time I’ll be looking into more games to tickle your morbid fancy. Till then...
The game play is a little hard to get a hang of at first, since there are three types of cards that you use to play in game, the modifier card, event card and finally, the Untimely Death card. When it is your turn there are three phases, the first two being plays. On the first play you can play or discard any one card from your hand. This is important to remember, seeing how on your second play, you can also play or discard one card, but you can’t play Untimely Death cards, unless you play a card that says you can after playing the previous card. Confused yet? It is a bit confusing at first, and takes some getting use to. As you play the modifier cards, which give your characters negative or positive points, you make up a story as to why the character you’re playing on, doesn’t have to be your own, is doing or is participating in the event displayed on the card. Your goal is more for the negative points on your own characters, but there are some advantages to the positive modifier cards, like being able to draw and play one more card. When an event card is played, it is a single use card and will be gone after that turn. They trigger an immediate effect, like bringing a deceased character back into the game. However, there are cards that will say: “Cancel ____ as it is played,” and it can be used during another player’s turn as a response to an action. When you decide to kill off one of the characters, it is important to realize what the negative self-worth of the character is, as you can not kill off a character with a positive self-worth. I tried this in one of the first games I played, and I was informed that you couldn’t make it so that character would die in ‘happiness.’ Once this character is dead, you can not place more modifier cards on the character, so you can’t plump up the value of a deceased character. The game is finished once there is one family with all playable characters dead or removed from game. I mention removed from game because there is an interesting card called ‘Body Snatcher,’ which lets you remove one of your living characters to remove one dead character from your opponents families. This is a good card to hold on to till near the end, so you can snatch up that -60 points worth character so you can get the win. The winner of the game is the one with the most negative points on a deceased character; points on a living character do not detract from that total, but they do not add to it either.
I will admit the storytelling aspect of this game is what sold me the most on it, however that can also get a little complex. For instance, if you have a character in front of you that you’ve ignored for the last five turns, and can’t remember what happened to them to have that card on top of them, it can get very interesting. Luckily, the other players may kindly remind you what happened. You don’t get penalized for forgetting what has happened to your characters. However, the stories can get long, intricate and downright amusing! I played one round of this game in which I had a character that was chased by bees, tortured by a mob, wonderfully wed to a wife, then ridiculed by her, disgraced by the queen, and even at the end of the game I still couldn’t kill him because he was still at a positive 5!
This game is a little limiting in the number of players, because there are only four families; however, there are expansion packs out there that add families to the pool. I fully recommend this game for people who love to torture their characters, have an imagination they love putting to use, or are just looking for a good time! (If you have all three all the better!)
That is all for this time my children, but next time I’ll be looking into more games to tickle your morbid fancy. Till then...
No comments:
Post a Comment