If you board game a lot, chances are you end up being drawn to purchase a few games which might not have been immediately on your ‘want list’.
That is often the case when you are in a store with lots of games, but none on the list, so your eyes begin to wander, since leaving a shop without a game just seems wrong.
It was one such occasion I grabbed Jeff Tidball’s Cthulhu 500.
To start with Cthulhu is pretty much iconic in the geek world, of which board gamers are usually part of.
“Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft and first introduced in the short story ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, published in the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, the creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts Cthulhu as a gigantic entity worshiped by cultists. Cthulhu’s anatomy is described as part octopus, part man, and part dragon. Its name was
given to the Lovecraft-inspired universe where it and its fellow entities existed, the Cthulhu Mythos,” details Wikipedia as a bit of background.
Cthulhu 500 is certainly at the periphery of the mythos, a card game where the mythos simply creates an element of chaos.
“Gentle-beings, start your engines! The Cthulhu 500 card game puts you in the driver’s seat for a frenzied race that mixes the madness of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and the insanity of motorsports,” begins the rather straight forward ruleset.
“Each player controls one vehicle, and spends the race maneuvering to pass his opponents. When you pass everyone in the pack – the line of Vehicle card in the center of the table that marks where they are on the track in relation to each other – you earn a lap counter and start moving forward again from the back of the pack. Meanwhile, players use cards and take actions to beef up their vehicles, hose their enemies, and advance even faster through the pack.
“The player with the most lap counters when the Checkered Flag card is drawn wins the race – and the game. He may then celebrate victory by devouring his enemies before shuffling up for the next heat.”
Yes this game has some tongue-in-cheek humour. It is not dripping horror though. This is essentially Cthulhu light.
As stated, Cthulhu 500 is a card game. It is designed for three to eight players, and rated ages 13 and up.
Game play is 30 – 60 minutes, which is about right. If it were to drag on the theme would wear a bit thin.
In addition to the rule sheet, Cthulhu 500 includes 16 Vehicle cards, 26 Action cards, 17 Crew cards, 18 Mod cards, eight Tire cards, 24 Reaction cards and one Checkered Flag card. Also needed are a handful of small counters (beads, coins, poker chips, or whatever you have) to use as lap counters, and at least one six-sided dice. The game will go a bit faster if every player has his own dice to roll, but only one is necessary.
The heart of the game are the vehicles, each with its own flavour.
“The vehicles each have slightly different statistics on the undamaged side of their schematic Vehicle cards; those with a high Speed are inherently faster than others, while vehicles with a low Complexity are easier to repair. Some even have special effects. If you flip them over you’ll notice that the damaged statistics are also different from vehicle to vehicle; vehicles with a higher undamaged Speed have a worse damaged Speed, and faster vehicles are also generally harder to fix. One vehicle – the Big Honkin’ Truck – actually gets faster when damaged. When the brake-lines fail, it has Big Honkin’ momentum on its side,” details the rules.
As you might expect there is lots of chance to use cards to advantage, or to sabotage the other ‘drivers/players’, which is where the fun of Cthulhu 500 comes in.
“When the deck is shuffled at the start of the game, the Checkered Flag card is put in the discard pile. When the draw pile is exhausted, the discard pile (along with the Checkered Flag card) is shuffled to make the draw pile,” explains the rules.
“When the Checkered Flag card is drawn from the new draw pile, the race ends immediately and the vehicle with the most lap counters wins the game. If more than one vehicle ties for the most lap counters, the one closest to the front of the pack wins.”
A quick game, that allows a number of players to sit in, with enough theme to draw me into buying the game, so I guess that says it all. Try out yourself if you have an opportunity.
