Atlas Games has announced the August release of Cthulhu Gloom, a deliciously macabre, Lovecraftian take on Atlas’ downbeat Gothic card game romp Gloom. Designed by Keith Baker and featuring art by Todd Remick, Cthulhu Gloom can be played as a standalone game or used as an expansion for Gloom. 

 

As in Gloom each player controls a group of protagonists and the player's goal is to make their characters as miserable and drive them insane as possible while trying to keep their opponents’ heroes sane and alive as long as possible. The game is filled with black humor as players are urged to get their characters to Gibber with Ghouls and Learn Loathsome Lore in order to earn the highly desirable negative points. When one player’s “heroes” finally fall prey to that interdimensional doom that awaits us all, the player whose characters have suffered the most wins.

 

The cards in Cthulhu Gloom are transparent, allowing players to stack multiple modifier cards on a character card to alter its stats or undo what an opponent has done. Cthulhu Gloom also introduces two new card types to Gloom gameplay. “Story” cards can be in play from the beginning of the game with the first player who meets the card’s conditions getting to claim the card and reap its benefits. “Transformation” cards mutate a character for the remainder of a game no matter what modifiers are placed on it.