The premise of the game is simple. Each player is responsible for a family of ne'er-do-wells and inflicts terrible misfortunes on their families while brightening the days of the other player's family. While your family members are 'Pursued by Poodles' and 'cursed by the Queen', you can cause your opponent to 'picnic in the park' and other such alliterative events. These modifiers inflict Pathos points on that family member. When your family member has a decent amount of negative Pathos points, you lay an Untimely Death card on them and kill them off. When one family is completely killed off, everyone totals up the points on all currently dead players. The player with the most negative points wins.
The cards are made of a special see-through plastic. If you've seen the novelty 'invisible playing cards' that have come out thanks to the Texas Hold-Em craze, you'll know what they look like. When you play the cards, the point values cover up different spots on the card. While a clever idea, there are a few minor quibbles. First, the cards come in two stacks and in play you'll find that while one stack lines up with its cards and the other does a swell, when shuffled together there are slight variances in the alignment. This requires some card fidgeting which may upset players that are particular about their cards. Some of the cards were a little hard to read and had a washed-out look that smacked of poor printing rather than atmosphere. Lastly, while the values of cards are generally well-hidden, an observant play could probably tell what kind of cards a player holds and use this knowledge to their advantage. For the most part, you're too busy keeping everyone's point totals in mind and thinking of your next move to really do so but someone good at multitasking might have an advantage.
The see-though cards become a play mechanic, as only the parts of the cards that remain visible count toward the value of the card. Part of the strategy is covering up the modifiers at the right time before lowering the boom with an Untimely Death. You can also kill off other players characters as well if they are having too good of a day. Killing off a character with a high amount of Pathos points can be devastating during the end game. Luckily, there are event cards that can reverse death and switch out modifers just to keep things lively.
A second layer of strategy exists in that the negative Pathos cards also generally cause the player bad things (like discards and lost turns) while the positive points allow for extra cards and larger hand sizes. The player that owns the person is affected by the card play, so while laying a card with a positive value sets them up for a point gain, they usually gain extra cards to recover from your next move.
The game offers a decent amount of stategy through deciding whether you want to give yourself points or mess up the other players. In a strange twist, multiplayer actually moves faster than a 2 player game as there are more opportunities for death and the endgame to arrive. Players are also encouraged to embellish the stories of their family as they go. How does someone go from being cursed by the Queen to blesses by the bishop? Only the players will know for sure.
The Bottom Line
Style: 4. The central gimmick of the cards works, but there are a few printing muck-ups that will hopefully get cleared up if this game makes it to the second printing.
Substance: 4. The game is good for an hour's worth of diversion and has a definite "Let's play that again" factor. Good for a gaming group waiting on one or two folks to show up for the night.
Who should buy it?
Fans of Lunch Money, pocket goths, folks that shop at Hot Topic, people that like games that tell stories, and folks looking for a cute Valentine for that perky goth you have a crush on.
