Gloom

Number of Players: 1-4 players (if you have expansions more players can be added)
Age: 8+
Playtime: 30 minutes

Gloom is not a game for those who do not like to make people miserable.  The aim of the game is to let your family have a horrible life, get lots of minus points and then kill them off.  Of course you can help other families by giving them positive points.  

This game is can be played by just reading the story off the cards, but it is a lot more fun if the people playing can create more of a story, this can make the game more interesting and add hilarity to the game.

Each player gets to play two cards, although the instant death cards must be the first card you play, unless the cards tell you otherwise.  Some of the cards can give you extra moves or give other people other moves so it is important to read the cards carefully.  The game ends when on family is killed.  Anyone still alive at the end of the game points do not count towards the final score.

The game is easy to pick up and can be easily used as a warm up game, as the game can be over relatively quickly dependant on how mean people are to each other.  There are a number of expansions to this game, each expansion can give you a family or two and extra activities to make people miserable.

This is a brilliantly thought out game with transparent cards (which is a nightmare if they fall on to a dark carpet in a pub that is not well lit!) so that even though there could be many cards on each other it is still possible to see the points through the cards.  The cards, whilst new, do have an amazing smell.  I really liked it but there are other's who do not like the smell.

I have never had so much fun making people miserable.

Score: 8/10

Dawn