Doom and Gloom… but mostly Gloom
Post by: Snarky on November 29th, 2008 | Filed Under Game Review, Games, InterestsI've been laid up for two weeks now due to my own stupidity. Ok, my own stupidity coupled with a 400 pound motorcycle and a extra 3 inches I wanted her in the corner. Ok, my own stupidity, Kari, a corner, and my father and I cracking jokes about hernias (he'd had two by then, I'd had one). So of course, Karma being the fickle mistress she is, she graced me with another hernia (I'm ahead of my father who didn't get his FIRST until my age!). The hernia itself didn't hurt much, it just felt uncomfortable enough while sitting up straight that I took that week off of work.
My surgery was scheduled for this past Tuesday, but I had a friend coming in last weekend for a concert and gaming. What's a boy to do? I took the noble way out, and holed up all weekend with the PS3, new Magic (the Gathering) decks, and a new (to me) game called Gloom in order to feel as good as possible for the concert. I have to say, this game is a winner.
Gloom is made by Atlas Games, a company that makes some fun and compact games, such as Lunch Money that are easily portable, and yet very engrossing. What intrigued me as I was reading the back of the box in a good local game store were the card design and feel of the game.
The cards are clear. That's right, clear. The image on the back of the box shows this:
(feel free to ignore the creepy clown, he's but one of 20 characters)
Every character has a portrait in the center, and some flavor text in various places (name, title, flavor). Each Modifier (What's that?! More later) card has flavor text (name, flavor text), modifiers in one or more of three locations (all on the left), optional rules, and an optional story icon. In the sample picture above, the top top card is an untimely death, but the Modifier card under it has a -10 modifier in the middle spot, see it? It also has a bat as the story icon (this is just a generic 'beast').
Basically the game revolves around stacking Modifiers on top of Characters (you control a whole family, the winner is whichever family has the lowest self-worth). Because the cards are clear you'll see Modifiers or story icons from all the cards below unless you play a card that has something in the same spot. The goal is to eventually kill off your Characters using Untimely Death cards when the have the lowest self-worth possible, hence the name, Gloom.
The fun part is the feel of the game. Knowing just the above the game seems, well, depressing, but it is simply hysterical. Yes, you can play just by tossing cards around like you might in Magic, but the whole point of the game is to tell the sad story of a certain family. Think of it like a good Poe story, if Poe was Dave Berry. In the rules it encourages you to tell more of the story as you play Modifiers and Untimely Deaths, kind of like the old campfire game of everyone adding a sentence to a story, since you can play cards on anyone's Characters. The fun bit here is the usual 'punish' on another player of hurting their character is flipped on its head. So you'll hear "Angel was unhappy since she got beat up by bums, but then she met the man of her dreams and got blessed by the church." "Nooooooo! Why?! I didn't do ANYTHING to you!".
The stories get fun. A friend who's holed up with me since his car is in the shop and has been for weeks was playing purely based on building good story lines. It doesn't get wins but I was dieing laughing at bits of it. For example (card names in italics):
Player 1 (owner of Grogar): "Grogar, the half alive Teddy Bear, went on a trip last week. He went to see his family in Africa, but forgot to bring his water purification tablets. Ever since he's been distressed by dysentery." (-25 total Modifier, -15 on top, and -10 in the middle).
Player 2: "Grogar was horribly distress by this disease, especially when he heard it affected his whole family back home as well. However, when his much-removed uncle, Jimmy, finally succombed to the disease, he left Grogar the family land, all of Egypt! Grogar really landed a legacy." (+15 total modifier, +15 in the center... which wipes out the -10 from above).
Player 3: "After Grogar landed his legacy. he became the talk of the town! A cute young teddy bear named Jenny introduced herself, and not three months later they were wondrously well wed!" (+20 total modifier, 0 on top which wipes out the -15 from Player 1's card, +20 on bottom).
Now in one turn Grogar has gone from being worth -25 (a decent score, all 5 members being worth that is -100 total. My wins usually come around -110 to -130) to +35, a rotten score. Thankfully there's very very few ways to kill off a Character while they have positive self worth, but it'll still take a few turns for Grogar to go back to getting points for his player. More importantly, we now know Grogar has land in Africa, and a newly wed wife, which lets us play an abundance of negative cards and stay within the story!
Overall, my two friends and I have really enjoyed this game. We played 4-5 games last weekend, and I've done 2-3 since then, way more than we played with the Magic decks we all bought. The games can take a while, the three player games lasted about an hour apiece using all five Characters in the families. I'd have to rate it a 4/5 for myself.
Why does it warrant a 4/5?
- It is unique, its not a rip-off of another idea (aka another CCG, or based off a computer game or movie).
- I still get a kick out of the clear cards, they look and feel darn cool. The humor is to die for (pun intended).
- The box is small, easily tossed into a bag, mayhaps even a purse (I don't own one, so I wouldn't know) to have if you're planning on waiting somewhere, or for a picnic.
- Its a smaller game company, I really like supporting companies like SJ Games, Atlas, etc over mass-producing places like Hasbro. The games feel more unique, and usually have a bit more 'flair'.
So why not a 5/5?
- After a few games we could tell what card the opponent would play just by listening to the story, a few more cards would be very welcome. There are add-on packs, and I may pick them up just to get a little more randomness.
- With even a 3 player game we got through the deck one and a half times before the end of the first game, so its something you can expect to happen.
- It comes in a box, not a tin. This is very common, and I dislike it. See box rant below.
- I feel a 5/5 is for games that make me sit back and think "Wow, am I lucky I experienced that. nothing better could be done." You know, like the movie Torque.
Box Rant:
Recently I've become very irked at games that are packaged in cardboard boxes, not tins. For a big game, this makes a bit of sense, such as Munchkin. Big box, can be made of study cardboard, in two parts like a normal box + top. However, for small games that are Chez Geek sized (and Gloom is the same size) or smaller, where the box is one cardboard box with flaps that need to close over the cards, this is not a good solution. It works fine when the cards are in their shrink wrap, but after one game they're a tad bigger, and the flaps never close correctly. They'll get bent, or let cards slide out, or not fit the rules, its just not a good solution, its a hack. Hacks, while clever, aren't right for long term solutions.
The real solution here is tins. Make a tin the same size as that cardboard box and it'll hold its shape. It'll hold the cards. It'll snap closed so you're absolutely sure no cards are falling out in your backpack. Tins work. I'm sure they're not used because of a price issue, but I'm always more inclined to buy a tined game than a boxed one. My hack to fix their hack is ziplock bags. All of my game cards, for all of my games, live in plastic ziplock bags. I know they're not coming out.
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