Players: 3-8
Playing Time: 45-75 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

Cthulhu 500 comes with:

• 110 cards
• 1 rulebook

The Cards: All of the cards are printed on medium-weight, slightly glossy card stock with rounded corners. Each one features computer generated artwork by Scott Reeves, and this is where the game starts to shine. Personally, I'm not always a fan of computer generated art, but Scott's work is terrific. Some of it is fairly nice monstrous work (of mi-go, tcho-tchos, zombies, and others), but there's street signs and other fairly simplistic pieces that come out looking terrific.

The general look and feel of the game is thematically both motoristic and cthulhoid (though all the backward "e"s, which appear as part of an archaic/cthulhoid font seem unnecessary and annoying).

The cards start off with 16 car cards, two for each vehicle in the game: a "pack marker", which is used to show how a car is doing, and a "schematic" which the driver keeps in front of him and includes a couple of extra statistics. The cars themselves show the beginning of the wicked and appropriate humor that fills this game. We have the Car of Cthulhu, The Vehicle Man Was Not Meant to Drive, The Unspeakable Olds, and others.

Other than a game ending checkered flag, the rest of the cards form the main play deck. There's a number of different card types, including actions, reactions, mods, tires, and crew, that are easy to tell apart from each other not just thanks to clear labeling and color coding at the top left corner, but also thanks to the fact that several of the card types look very distinctive from each other (e.g., actions are yellow signs, reactions are white signs, spells are green, etc).

Again throughout this main deck we find plenty of humorous jabbing at the Cthulhu mythos, with The Fungi from Daytona, The Mudflaps Man Was Not Meant to Ogle, and The Yellow Signpost being just a few of my favorites.

Throughout the deck two special icons are used, one for car speed and another for car complexity. It's consistent on the cars and on the crew members, but unfortunately is missing from the various mods and tires which can add to these attributes (primarily speed), and this is my only real complaint with the usability of the cards. When a player put a few mods on his car it became impossible to determine his overall speed because you can't read the mod card texts from across the table, and the cards don't display icons (already in use elsewhere in the game) when they modify one of these major attributes.

The Rulebook: A large, folded rulesheet, printed in black and white. It was relatively easy to follow on the first runthrough, but I had a terrible time looking things up during play, mostly because the rules for double-damaged cars were in an awkward place. One rule ("Taking Additional Damage") was very complex and required constant reference to the rulebook; it's a pity they didn't print it on a couple of cards for easier reference (or better, simplify the rule; more on that later).

Overall, the cards in Cthulhu 500 are only of average production quality, but the artwork makes them look terrific, and the depth of attention paid to the Cthulhu Mythos, in a very dryly humorous manner, is absolutely superb. I've thus awarded Cthulhu 500 a low "5" out of "5" Style rating: excellent.

The Gameplay

The object of Cthulhu 500 is to get ahead of all your opponents to win this wacky Mythos race.

Setup: To start off a game of Cthulhu 500, each player is given 1 car and a hand of 5 cards. Then, cars are arranged in pack order in the middle of the table.

The Cars. There are 8 different cards, each with two different values: speed and complexity. The speed ranges from -1 to +2 and is used in passing attempts. The complexity ranges from 1 to 5 and is used in repair attempts. In addition, each car has a "damaged" side, where the speed changes (usually getting reduced, except in the case of the Big Honking Truck, which gets faster when damaged). Each car also has spaces (to the sides) for: 1 driver, 2 mods, and 1 tires.

An additional note on damage: if an undamaged car takes damage, it's flipped to the damaged side. If a damaged car takes damage, it's automatically passed by the car behind it (the latter rule is a bit inconveniently located in the rulebook, and it was never entirely obvious how it was supposed to work, because it got very confusing when used with passing; for example, if you pass a car while damaged, but that car has Spikey Bits which cause you to sustain damage, do you then automatically drop back behind it? The rules suggest yes. Some other interactions among passing, damage, and Mods got very nasty in trying to figure out).

The Cards. There are a number of different types of cards. These include: crew members (who can be used as drivers or to repair your car); mods and tires (both of which are attached to your car); actions (which do something cool, and include spells); and reactions (which can be played out of turn). You'll usually have a hand of 5 cards.

Pack Order. At all times, all of the cars are arranged in a "pack order" in the middle of the table, first to last. To establish initial pack order, a simple auction is used: each player secretly gives up a number of cards; the top sacrificers get the best positions (as it should be in any Cthulhu game).

Turn Actions: Now, each player takes his turn in order. Each player gets two actions during a turn. There are four possible actions, each of which can be taken zero, one, or two times (up to two actions total):

Play an Action Card. These are cards that hurt an opponent or help you. Some are labelled as "Spells". Examples of actions are: Spell of Transmogrification (switch any two crew members); Human Sacrifice (sacrifice crew members to get ahead on the track); and "Me Go" (pass the vehicle ahead of you).

Add Pit Crew. You take a crew member and add it to your Pit to the side. They'll help repair your car and also sometimes give you other bonuses, as described on the card. Examples of crew members are: The Dark Young of N.A.S.C.A.R. (who has no special powers); the Zombie (who sometimes comes back if discarded); and The Fungi from * (who make your driver better if he's also a Fungi).

Make a Passing Attempt. You can try and pass the vehicle in front of you (or the vehicle in the back of the pack if you're at the start of the pack). To do so you roll your six-sided die and add your vehicle's speed, your driver's drive, mods, tires, and anything else that increases your speed versus a like sum for the person you're passing. If you exceed his total you pass, moving yourself up in the pack ahead of him. (If you were the front vehicle, you actually move yourself to the next-to-last position in the pack, ahead of him, and add a lap marker to your vehicle.) If you have less then his total, you fail to pass.

If you tie then the two of you bump fenders. Each car is damaged.

Unfortunately, there are some very convuluted rules for what happens if either of you is already damaged:

If you both were, you change positions.

If only the rear vehicle was previously damaged, both cars get passed by the person behind him.

If only the forward vehicle was previously damaged, both the rear vehicle and the person behind the rear vehicle leap ahead of the forward vehicle.

(These rules were never intuitive, and would have required another couple of games to be so. We had to constantly look up these rules which broke the flow of game. Why the designers didn't either go with something simple, or else the normal rules [if you're double-damaged, you lose a position], I don't know. I think the latter in particular would have been a better choice since the three options would have been: both passed by vehicle behind [both previously damaged]; rear vehicle is passed by vehicle behind [only rear vehicle was previously damaged]; and passing attempt actually succeeds [only front vehicle was previously damaged]. This probably would have been intuitive because it followed a normal rule.)

Make a Pit Stop. You need to make a pit stop to add a driver, a mod, or tires; or repair your vehicle. To do this you declare a pit stop and the person behind you gets a free passing attempt. Whatever the outcome, you may then add one, and only one thing to your vehicle, or else repair it.

A crew member can be played from your hand as a driver; if you already had a driver the original one is moved to your pit crew.

Various mods can be played on your car; some are labelled as sponsors. You can have up to two mods, but only one can be a sponsor. If you have too many, you just discard one of your old ones. Examples of mods include: Cyclopean Converter (+1 to passing); The Mudflaps Man Was Not Meant to Ogle (+2 to passing if you're being passed); and The Sponsor That Must Not Be Named (a scary, clownish Sponsor; +1 hand size).

Finally, you can have one tire card on your car; if you already have one, you discard it. Examples include: Rats in the Whitewalls (+1 to passing, or discard for +3); Big Fat Radials of Flaming Death (damage any vehicle you pass); and Treadtacles (when you pass a vehicle, you might discard their driver).

You can alternatively decide to repair your vehicle at a pit stop. To do this you roll a die and add the fixit score of all your pit crew. If you equal or exceed the complexity of the car, you get to flip it back to the undamaged side (usually speeding it up).

Discarding & Drawing: A player's turn then ends with him discarding any cards he wants to, then drawing up to 2 cards, up to a hand size of 5.

Winning the Game: After you've been through the deck once, you put a special checkered flag card into the deck when you reshuffle. Then, when the checkered flag is drawn, the race immediately ends.

The winner is the player with the most lap markers; in the case of a tie, it's the player furthest ahead in the pack order.

Relationships to Other Games

Cthulhu 500 is one in a long line of board games about H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, all based on the success of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG (1981). Other games have included: Arkham Horror, an adventure board game (1987); Creatures & Cultists, a silly card game (1993); Mythos, a storytelling CCG (1996); Cults Across America, a Cthulhoid wargame (1998), The Hills Rise Wild, a Lovecraftian miniature game (2000); and Cthulhu Mash, a newer adventure board game (2003). This last year has been a boom year for new Lovecraftian merchandise. It's seen The Call of Cthulhu CCG from Fantasy Flight Games (2004), the reprint of Creatures & Cultists, the upcoming reprint of Arkham Horror, and this new game, Cthulhu 500.

The Cthulhu board & card games have all been a bit outside of the traditional board & card game design paradigms. Most of the designers have been long-time RPG fans rather than strategic gamers. This includes Jeff Tidball, the designer of this game, who's done his most extensive work for Atlas Games on their Ars Magica and Feng Shui lines. The result has been a bit ... varied. Some of the games have been very innovative, such as classics Arkham Horror & Mythos, while others have suffered from clumsy design. Cthulhu 500 fortunately falls mostly on the former side of things.

Beyond all that, Cthulhu 500 is also a racing game, though a fairly unique one because of its absence of a board. It's also a fairly light "beer and pretzels" game, with more emphasis on theme than mechanics.

The Game Design

Cthulhu 500 is a cute and fairly well designed card game. Here's some of the good:

Brilliant Theming: I've already talked about this in the Components section, but the theming of the game is really brilliant, with Cthulhu and company all dressed up for a NASCAR race. Well done.

Innovative Racing System: I found the "boardless" racing system innovative, while at the same time intuitive. It was a good abstraction that I'm sure sped up play.

Good "Take That" Game: As with many Anglo-American designs, Cthulhu 500 is a pretty classic "take that" game where at least part of your effort is spent smooshing your opponents through nasty card play. Unlike most Anglo-American designs, the "take that" atmosphere of the game is really toned down, so that you can have some fun bashing your opponents, but it doesn't totally control the game, nor make it impossible to stay ahead. (If anything the "take that" element was toned down too much as it was a bit hard, for example, to knock a really annoying mod off a car; still, I can't complain too much, because many American "take that" games are ruined by the mechanism.)

Real Tactics: Also unlike most games of the beer & pretzels genre, Cthulhu 500 has some space for real tactics. The various different actions really allow for different play, and so you have to think carefully about when to do your pit stops, when to repair your car, when to try and pass, etc. The fact that one of the actions (passing) didn't require a card play also helped make the game not as dependent on card draws as most games of this category.

Here's my only complaints:

Better With More Players: This is mainly an aesthetic issue, but with 3 or 4 players the trackless pack ordering feels a bit odd, since passing from the lead actually puts you a space back. The more players you have, the more obvious it is what's going on.

A Bit Long: The game felt a bit long for its light strategy elements, but the rules actually have a shorter variant (and a longer one too), either of which would work fine.

Passing & Damage Rules Too Complex: This is my only serious complaint, and I've already gone on about it for a bit. The ways that passing and damage interact are just way too complex, especially all the "special" rules for what to do in that situation when cars are double-damaged. I really don't know why they didn't go with something either simpler or better staying with the base rules, as this really did detract from the immersion of gameplay.

Cthulhu 500 is a well-designed and original racing card game in the beer & pretzels category with great Cthulhu theming. It earns a solid "4" out of "5" Substance rating (and I think it's a much better game than anything else Jeff Tidball has designed).

Conclusion

If you're an H.P. Lovecraft fan, this card game of Cthulhu car racing is well worth picking up, because it nails the atmosphere and is a well-designed game as well.