HoNoToGroABeMo Day Thirty-One: It Is Done
6 years ago
10:53 AM
GLOOM AAR
Mister Nizz
My daughter and I tried out the Gloom game from a company called ATLAS GAMES (see a few posts down, where I post a "first look"). They have published a lot of delightfully off-kilter stuff in the past-- "Lunch Money" (a dark & surreal look at a lunch room food fight), "Once Upon a Time" (one of my favorite narrow niches, a storytelling game), "Cthulhu 500" (a horror/racing game). They miss as often as they hit, but Atlas definitely 'hit' with Gloom. You play one of four eccentric, neo-edwardian era 'families'. The goal of the game is to have as many of the people in your family as possible shuffle off of this mortal coil after living a short, miserable life full of woe. Each Untimely death scores for you, while you are doing your best to play "happy turns of events" on your opposing players to increase their score (remember, a negative score is a winning score in Gloom).
The mechanics are nothing to write home about, but the game really shines in two areas: the parts are wonderful-- artwork that is HUGELY influenced by Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, printed on transparent lucite cards. You play transparent cards on top of the character cards, and each layer you add can cancel out the one beneath it with a new text. The second element that makes this game a player is the heavy, humorous storytelling element. There are many, many comedic hooks in this game that encourage storytelling, and they actually write that into the rules.
I love storytelling themed games (such as the okay ONCE UPON A TIME and the far superior NANOFICTIONARY). GLOOM isn't 100% designed to tell stories with (the play really seems to be focused on killing off the members of your family) but based upon our play session last night, Gloom could be hugely funny with the right group of hams playing it. I love games like that.
Note Bene: The two player game was fun, but it's obvious that this game plays far better with four players. One drawback: I noticed, after only one shuffle and one playing, the paint on the cards was rubbing off in places. NOT GOOD!
Annie, btw, loved it!
The mechanics are nothing to write home about, but the game really shines in two areas: the parts are wonderful-- artwork that is HUGELY influenced by Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, printed on transparent lucite cards. You play transparent cards on top of the character cards, and each layer you add can cancel out the one beneath it with a new text. The second element that makes this game a player is the heavy, humorous storytelling element. There are many, many comedic hooks in this game that encourage storytelling, and they actually write that into the rules.
I love storytelling themed games (such as the okay ONCE UPON A TIME and the far superior NANOFICTIONARY). GLOOM isn't 100% designed to tell stories with (the play really seems to be focused on killing off the members of your family) but based upon our play session last night, Gloom could be hugely funny with the right group of hams playing it. I love games like that.
Note Bene: The two player game was fun, but it's obvious that this game plays far better with four players. One drawback: I noticed, after only one shuffle and one playing, the paint on the cards was rubbing off in places. NOT GOOD!
Annie, btw, loved it!
