Gloom Review

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(More customer reviews)Gloom is a big hit with my 11- and 14-year old daughters and myself. It is best played with people who like to embellish the stories of how such bad things can happen to these pathetic characters. If you like creativity, or promoting creative thinking and storytelling, this game might very well be for you. It is not for people who are easily offended, small children, overly competitive or those without a sense of humor.

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Gloom: The Game of Inauspicious Incidents and Grave ConsequencesThe world of Gloom is a sad and benighted place. The sky is gray, the tea is cold, and a new tragedy lies around every corner. Debt, disease, heartache, and packs of rabid flesh-eating mice -- just when it seems like things can't get any worse, they do. But some say that one's reward in the afterlife is based on the misery endured in life. If so, there may yet be hope -- if not in this world, then in the peace that lies beyond.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!For 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up.

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Gloom: Unwelcome Guests Review

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(More customer reviews)The card game in theory is a nifty one, however some of the rules are wonky, and it doesn't work well with fewer than 4 players. It actually works better with all other boosters added to the main deck with 6-8 people playing which on most days is hard to do.

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The expansion adds one player and 55 cards to the game. Here is a description of the expansion from the publisher:In the Gloom card game, you make your eccentric family of misfits suffer the greatest tragedies possible before helping them pass on to the well-deserved respite of death. Just mix the 55 transparent cards in this new set together with your copy of Gloom to add morbid new Modifiers, Events, and Untimely Deaths, and a new family - the malodorous Malone mob - including The Broken Arms Hotel as a Residence card to use with the Unhappy Homes expansion. When Boils Malone brought his family overseas to get away from the heat, he wasnt expecting quite so much rain!Adding an extra level of strategy, new persistent effect icons on cards allow their special effects to continue to be active even if covered by another card. A persistent effect ends only when the attached character is killed.Also inside are five Unwelcome Guest cards. Deal one or more face up to the tables center at the start of the game. Guests follow the card types noted on them; no matter where it currently is, a living Guest immediately moves to join the family of the character on which one of its trigger cards is played. All its Modifiers are moved with it, and its considered a member of that family until it moves again. This may delay the games end if a final play draws a Guest to the near-winners family!

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Unhappy Homes (Gloom) Review

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(More customer reviews)this is a lovely clever little game for those who enjoy a little dark humor. It was created because the authors wife was too nice when playing other games to inflict damage on the other players. So he made one where she could force good things upon her opponents! But in turn each player hastens along their family of characters to the righteous suffering to ensure their place in the hereafter. The concept is a light hearted romp through the very bleak lives.
As to cards them selves, they are very sturdy. The cards are translucent so that you can stack the incidents upon the characters and see through for the assorted point values. Each family comes with a color coded background for the individuals portraits. The homes in the expansion are coded with the same colors. The printing on the cards is aligned perfectly, and I have not been able to scatch the inks. The cards rifle and shuffle quite nicely, though they do "float" a bit when stacked which I prefer to cards that vacuum seal and become hard to pick from a pile one at a time.
But my favorite thing about the game is the captions. A family member might be "squashed by a shoggoth" or "eaten by bears" or perhaps "terrified by topiary"! In the case of "wounded by wasps" they add "... not to mention being bothered by bees and harried by hornets" so you'll find both cute and sly humor as you play the game. It's delightfully tongue in cheek-ily grusome.

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In the Gloom card game, you make your eccentric family of misfits suffer the greatest tragedies possible before helping them pass on to the well-deserved respite of death. Just mix the 55 transparent cards included in this set together with your copy of Gloom to add morbid new Modifiers, Events, and Untimely Deaths, and a new family -- the artistes of Le Canard Noir, whose creative endeavors always end in disaster.
When art lets you down, the Black Duck is there for you. This dingy cafe is home to a motley assortment of washed-up bohemians. Here the tormented painter Rosseau buys drinks for neurotic models and destitute poets, while a troubled actress and sickly courtesan compare notes across the way.
Also included are five Residences with a light blue background behind their central illustration. These are each placed next to their related family at the start of the game. New cards called Mysteries, which have a dark blue effects bar at the bottom, are also shuffled into the deck before play. A Mystery is the only card that can be placed on a Residence (and only a Residence), and can be placed on any Residence as either of your two plays. It gives that Residence's player a special effect and Pathos points that count toward his final Family Value. A Mystery remains even if the requirements for playing it are lost. You may discard a Mystery from your hand as a free play.
Adds 1 player, ages 8 and up.

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