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GloomList Price: $24.95
 
from 5 customer reviews
Product Awards:
Games Magazine Awards
Family Card Game Nominee, 2006
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In the Gloom card game, you assume control of the fate of an eccentric family of misfits and misanthropes. The goal of the game is sad, but simple: you want your characters to suffer the greatest tragedies possible before passing on to the well-deserved respite of death. You'll play horrible mishaps like Pursued by Poodles or Mocked by Midgets on your own characters to lower their Self-Worth scores, while trying to cheer your opponents' characters with marriages and other happy occasions that pile on positive points. The player with the lowest total Family Value wins.
Printed on transparent plastic cards, Gloom features an innovative design by noted RPG author Keith Baker. Multiple modifier cards can be played on top of the same character card; since the cards are transparent, elements from previously played modifier cards either show through or are obscured by those played above them. You'll immediately and easily know the worth of every character, no matter how many modifiers they have. You've got to see (through) this game to believe it!
Very fun game. I played this a few times with 4 players total. The game is fun and the theme is very entertaining. I like the clear cards a lot. It is also fun if you play along with the story.
Keith Baker was at a convention in Idaho and had a prototype copy on hand that he was showing off. It was very interesting, Keith was also a pretty cool guy, signed my Eberron book.
Any game with a twisted unusual theme that actually plays well is pretty fun. This game is great for people into "Nightmare Before Christmas" kinda stuff.
On the suggestion of some friends, I looked into this game. I found the whimsy of the concept a great fit for one of my gaming groups, so I purchased it. Also, I do have respect for Atlas Games based on other titles.
This was a great purchase. Getting through the rules was a bit of a slog, because of the extraneous and repetitve information. With that said, once I was through the rules my players and I had very few questions, understood the concepts, and got into the game fairly quickly.
We loved it. We played it a few times right off the bat. We laughed a lot and found ourselves really getting into it.
The mechanic of the clear cards is brilliant and the gameplay, once understood is simple but open to some nice strategic moves. It's not rocket science, but it doesn't matter.
The game does utilize a seemingly arbitrary rule, but when you realize why (and it's not a given that you will) it makes perfect sense from a balance perspective and allows the game to be really interactive and fun.
The one downside is also one of it's greatest strengths and, at least in the basic set is not covered in the rules how to overcome it. When the cards are clear, and it is spelled out how to tell which cards are more rare or desireable than others, drawing a card from an opponents hand or even from the deck randomly is really not going to happen. There are ways around this, and I'm sure you're smart enough to come up with them, but the game doesn't offer any solutions for this problem.
Overall, this is a worthwhile investment. I'm looking forward to playing it again. It will quickly find it's way into my heavy rotation.
