Keith Baker (1) (1969–)

This is a review of the game book, not the game itself, since I haven't actually had a chance to play or run it yet. A very interesting and original game concept here, with I think a lot of opportunities for interesting roleplay: Player characters are are phoenixes, humans reborn with special abilities that vary depending on how/why they died, and who can be reborn again if they die, but only seven times. But each time they die, they come back stronger, and in dying, they can accomplish tasks that would otherwise be beyond them. The world setting, its history, the mechanics, and the introductory story arc provided in the book are all tightly woven together, so it's not clear to me at this point whether the game how well work with a different or variant setting.

As for the book itself, it is, like the rest of the game's components, beautiful and well made. It's generally clearly written, although I think the final readers must have already been familiar with the game, because as you read through the text, there are a number of references to things that haven't been mentioned yet, but without forward page or section numbers. Like most gaming books, it would have been improved by the employment of a reasonably skilled proofreader; typos are common enough that they're worth mentioning, although in most (all?) cases they don't obscure the meaning as long as one is thinking just a little bit.

I'm looking forward to running this game and finding out whether it actually plays as well as it reads.… (meer)

From Dunwich to Innsmouth, from the halls of Miskatonic University to the Charles Dexter Ward at Arkham Asylum, trouble is in the air. The stars are almost right, and terrors from beyond space and time are beginning to break through. When Cthulhu rises, we're all doomed – but whose downfall will be the most entertaining?

Cthulhu Gloom takes the game play of Atlas' Gloom and puts a Lovecraftian spin on it. Each player controls a group of protagonists, and your goal is to make them as miserable and insane as possible – preferably with them dying quickly while your opponents' heroes remain sane and (at a minimum) alive. In the publisher's description: "While your characters Gibber With Ghouls and Learn Loathsome Lore to earn negative points, you'll encourage your opponents to be Analyzed by Alienists and to Just Forget About the Fungus to pile on positive points. When one group finally falls prey to the interdimensional doom that awaits us all, the player whose characters have suffered the most wins."

As in Gloom, the cards in Cthulhu Gloom are transparent, allowing you to stack multiple modifier cards on a character card to alter its stats or undo what an opponent has done to you. While Cthulhu Gloom can be played on its own or combined with Gloom and its many expansions, it does introduce two new types of cards:

• Story cards can be in play from the start of the game, and the first player to meet a Story card's conditions – e.g., drawing the attention of The King in Yellow or heeding The Call of Cthulhu – claims the card and gains its benefits (or drawbacks).

• Transformation cards mutate a character for the remainder of the game, no matter which modifiers might come its way later. What's more, the character's image is replaced with "something hideous and slimy". You'd expect no less really...

(Taken from Board Game Geek)… (meer)