Intro/First Impressions

I had heard about Gloom a few years ago while trying to decide on a new board game in a Board Game Café. “Oh, this one is really morbid, but really fun” the shopkeeper said, “you have to try to kill off your family in order to win the game”. Oh, wow. Well, that’s a different concept for a game, I thought. It was probably at the moment that I realized the massive range that board games could have. Literally people are making board games about anything and everything these days, what a time to be alive!

This one seemed more like a micro game than a full-fledged strategic board game, so it kept getting pushed further and further down the list of games we wanted to buy. Though, it did get recommended to us on more than one occasion, so it must have been decent. Let’s get into my full thoughts in this review of the board game Gloom.

Thoughts

Putting aside the morbid theme, I was very open minded about this game… knowing full well that it probably wouldn’t be a game that we could pull out with every group of friends that comes over.

The initial thought when opening the box is that these cards are AWESOME! They are one of the coolest set of playing cards I have ever used. The cards are clear, and made in a way that their ‘value’ is stackable on other cards. Such an awesome idea and mechanic to work into a board game. See pictures below.

I won’t get too into how to play Gloom, as we will do a separate article about a simplified how to play at a later time. What you do need to know is that you play cards on your characters (or other people’s characters) that give them positive and negative stats. If your character is in the negative, you can play a card to kill them off. First one to kill off all their family (and have the most negative points attached to them), wins.

Morbid? Yes. Fun? Also yes.

Taking away the theme of the game, this ends up being an interesting card game to play. One of the elements of a good card game to me is having a fair bit of interaction among the other players while focusing on your own strategy/hand. This game does that.

You will get cards that help you on your path to victory via negative points and untimely death cards, but you also get cards to throw your opponents off their path with positive points… or, in other words, making their families happier. There are also event cards which can help you, hurt your opponent, or sometimes even help your opponent.

The wide variety of cards give you a number of different options on your turn. Plus all the event cards can turn the game on its head. What I really like about this is that the game is not linear. Your family is constantly going up and down in moral. So much so that even if one of your family members suffers an untimely death, they can come back alive with some cards. Without this randomness, the game would get very stale very quickly, but someone with the right cards and right strategy can keep a game going for a while.

Another factor that I think makes for a good card game, and good board games for that matter, is the depth of a game. What I mean by this, is the different paths to victory, layers of things that can happen in a game, and how those things, and how the rules of the game work together. This is much like the non-linear factor that I spoke of before, but more refers to the rules and intricacies of the game.

For example, in Gloom, there are a bunch of symbols you can have on your various cards. They don’t directly affect your character, but they interact with other cards in the game. Possibly giving you extra cards to draw or bonus negative points. Not only those cards, but with some of the cards you play, there can be lasting or immediate effects on game play. Again, giving you more cards to have in your hand, or letting your opponents steal some of your cards.

It’s this variety and depth to the rules that really give this game some weight as a good card game.

One of the flaws to the game coincides with its strength. The see through cards. If you are not careful with the way you hold your cards, your opponents can get a bit of an inkling of what you have. The untimely death and event cards have something in the middle of the card, where as some of the other cards only have the +/- point circles, and possibly the other symbols. You can’t specifically tell what the person has, and in reality, there is nothing the producers could do to change this fact. Basically, you just have to live with it and try to cover your hand appropriately. It doesn’t affect the game play, but it is worth noting.

The other variable to the game that can be hit or miss is the stories you are supposed to create. If you aren’t aware of how this works, you are supposed to create a story to associate with all the cards you play. The cards themselves give you some direction, and you can use this, elaborate on it, or make your own story up. This is another one of those depth elements to the game that make it great – if you have the right group that is.

Our regular group, the Hexagamers, all have pretty good senses of humour and are great about getting involved in whatever game we are playing. So when we start making up stories about characters/our family in the game, we can get pretty morbid and ridiculous… especially if we have had a few drink or we are tired and goofy. To me, this is hilarious and really adds to the game. The fact that it can be different every time, or you can make one characters story totally obscene and then continue to add to it is amazing.

 
I do realize that the stories in this game could get old over time. You may run out of interesting ideas to use in your stories and they would get repetitive. Or possibly your group might find that they really aren’t adding to the game, and you just like the game for the playability of it. That’s fair. The stories aren’t integral, and you could drop them without affecting the game play.

The games can be very short, or they can stretch out for a while depending on how your cards come up, and the people you are playing with. It isn’t a ‘take all night’ type of strategy game where you have to put on your thinking cap, but does take some thinking.

Conclusion

I think the structure, rules, flow, and depth of this game are awesome. As a strategy card or board game, it is really well done. The theme can be a bit much for some people, and that’s fair. It isn’t a game that I would pull out with some groups. The idea of saying “hey, we should play this game where the goal is to kill off your family” is a little bit much for a few of the newer gamers we play with right now.

It is a good game for someone who likes card games with a bit of strategy to them. It is for people that don’t take life to seriously (pun totally intended!) and those that have a good sense of humour. It isn’t a game I would recommend to someone who is looking to really bite down on some of the heavier strategy games.

It’s a relatively cheap game that can add some depth to your shelf, especially without taking up too much room. It does have some good replayability, but may get old eventually. It isn’t one that I would see you playing every single games night, but it is one that you would bring out occasionally, and is worth checking out.