Card Game Babble: Gloom

I love card and board games. I don't come from a family of gamers and, though I've been one for years, it's mostly been a solitary experience. As such, I've only been exposed to card games and board games in the last couple of years. So I know precious little of them. I only began buying some in my early twenties. The problem being that you actually need to have people to play against or with (in co-op games) - who knew?!

Still, I will share some of my favourites every now and again and this time Gloom is it.

In Gloom, you're given a family of... colourful characters. Your goal: To make them as miserable as possible before killing them off.

The problem being that your opponents have the same fate in mind for their families. This will not do as the game is won by the player whose family has the lowest self-worth points in the end. And so your fiendish opponents will do their level best to ensure that your family lead happy, successful lives.

Let the misery commence.

What you get:

• Character cards
• Untimely Death cards
• Modifier cards
• Event cards

Character cards are simple enough to explain. Each player gets five cards representing the members of his family. On the back of each character card is a tombstone. Once your character kicks the bucket, the card gets turned tombstone side up

 

 Untimely Death cards are full of ways your character can die. Maybe they were consumed from within or drowned by a duck (I always thought ducks were evil...) or maybe they disappeared in a fog. Just hope no one plays the dreaded 'Died without Cares' on one of your family members. In this game, no one likes a happy corpse



Modifier cards are the memorable moments in the lives of your family that make them happy or sad. Weddings, funerals, being honoured or loathed, each card comes with "self-worth" points which can be situated  on three different spots positions (high, mid, low) on the left side of the card which will be what you use to determine the winner at the end. While it may be easy just to pile the negativity onto your own and the good vibes onto others, these cards sometime come with special effects that may leave you hesitant on whether you really want to put them down. In fact, it might actually be a good move to play a negative self-word card on an opponent's character as it might result in them losing all those awful cards they've been hoarding up to use on you!


Event cards have immediate effect once played. While they end up in the discard pile in the end - as opposed to adding some much needed self-worth issues to your family members - they can play a crucial role in the game such as resurrecting an opponent's character, switching modifier cards from one player to another or cancelling an action as it's played out.

How the game is played crash course:

Essentially players are given turns to draw cards and to sow devastation with the ones they already have. Modifiers are placed over the family members showing positive or negative self-worth points and sometimes with special effects that the player needs to adhere to. What is important with the modifier cards isn't how many are placed on a character, but what is visible from above. Therefore the self-worth points of one card can be completely or partially cancelled out depending on what gets placed over it.

The game stops the moment a player's family has been completely eradicated. All the values that are visible on a character stack are counted and all the members' points are tallied to come to a final score.

What I like:

Gloom has a decidedly twisted sense of humour best likened to the Adams Family. What could have been a rather depressing game is instead filled with a constant sense of amusement as you cause havoc among your own family members and those of your opponents'. It's been a long time since I've seen a player pout about one of his characters having a good day.

The card design is really well thought out. With your cards being mostly transparent, you still see the image of your character regardless of how many modifiers are played onto it. It just keeps you in tune with the idea that it's a family member down there who's being so very miserable. As opposed to just a stack of overly negative cards piled one onto another.

The game game is rather easy to get into. The rules don't appear overly complicated. As easy as it is to make people miserable in life, the same basically applies to the game. This leaves the gamer with very little to worry about in terms of complexity. Easy to learn, quick to get into, fast fun right away.

What I dislike:

I felt they could have spent a little more time on formulating their instructions. Not everything is clearly stated and there are still some things I play "my way" simply because I couldn't quite make out how it's supposed to be done. It's not that the instructions are numerous or contradictory. It is simply that the few instructions they do have could have been better worded.

While most cards are clear to understand, there are some unclear event cards that I don't use in the game simply because I don't understand what you're meant to do with them.  One could chalk something like that up to a language barrier, however when an English friend is just as baffled as I am, I think it's safe to say that that's not the problem.

Getting hold of the game was a problem. The few gaming stores I could know of in South Africa that imports board and card games didn't buy any goods from Atlas and getting the games from overseas is... bloody expensive to say the least. I ended up buying the game through Amazon.co.uk and have it delivered to my brother in London who then later sent it down in a package with some other stuff. I know it's not a bash against the game itself so much as evil logistics, but still. I didn't like it. ;)

In the end...

I think Gloom is a game many would enjoy. I'd recommend getting three or four people together (it is a 2-4 people game, though expansions do include more families).

Have fun making people miserable!