Purchasing This game is available either as a PDF download or pre-printed on decent-quality card. As my printer will only take thin card, I opted for the print version. Apart from the cardstock, the two are identical (oh, I got a manilla envelope with the logo on it). You can also download the rules free, it seems, from the website, but not the cards and board, which actually constitute the bulk of the game. Get it all from the Wicked Dead website, www.wicked-dead.com.

So, what do you actually get? 4 sheets of board, trim off two edges each and it all fits together very precisely - there's a property square on each edge shared between two sheets, and the writing matches up perfectly. I taped mine together to fold & unfold. The layout is traditional and unmistakeable, with Mi-Go replacing GO!, Arkham Asylum replacing Jail, etc. There are fewer property squares a side, I believe, but it's been years I last played Monopoly. All properties are suitably Lovecraftian in name, and four of the great magical Tomes replace the Railways. Around the edges are the costs to buy each property, in Sanity... The currency in this game isn't dollars, it's Sanity. It mostly goes down.

There are, I think, 12 pages of 9 cards each (it's hard to tell once you cut them up...). Once I had cut them all up (it took a couple of hours, even the print version doesn't come pre-cut), I noticed the backs weren't a perfect match to the fronts, but that's trivial. There are, of course, cards for each property, with Sanity costs for anyone landing on one you own, rising as you own more of a set (there are no houses & hotels in this game). There are also the Mythos cards, which replace Chance & Community Chest. Loads of these, with a variety of functions. There are Allies (sacrifice them instead of losing Sanity...), books, artefacts and spells, all of which may provide a benefit, sometimes with a cost in Sanity. And there are the Monsters, in wide and wierd variety. Each card has the rules required on it, more on the general use of them later.

Then there are, of course, the rules. 21 pages, of which half are a complete listing of the cards. There's a contents page, and some very clear, easily-understood rules.

How to Play In play, the majority of rules are those familiar from Monopoly, with various quirks and changes. You don't gain dollars from passing Mi-Go, you lose Sanity. Roll doubles 3 times in a row and you go to Arkham Asylum, where you regain some Sanity (not much though). You pay Sanity to the owning player when you land on a property he owns. Thus far it's extremely easy to translate your knowledge of Monopoly to this game.

There are three main rule canges. When you draw a Mythos card (there are 8 Mythos spaces around the board) and it's a Monster, there's a Sanity cost to you, and furthermore it stays in play, being moved around the board Widdershins (anti-clockwise, but Wddershins sounds more arcane). Every player gets to choose and move one monster, if there are any on the board, on their turn. Monsters mostly disappear once they reach Mi-Go, with exceptions noted on the cards, but, in moving, whenever monster meets player, regardless of who was moving, Sanity is lost...

After losing all this Sanity, people rapidly drop to zero (although Sanity paid for landing on owned property does add to the owner's total), but after zero Sanity the player doesn't drop out, he just becomes a player-controlled monster, gaining monster allies... The winner, obviously, is the last remaining sane player. Erm, character. Or either.

Thirdly, are the artefacts, books, spells and allies in the Mythos deck. You keep these, when found, each usually having one main function marked on the card, often with a Sanity cost. Some act continuously, some once only, returning to the deck. Allies have one function, usually, plus an Ally can be sacrificed instead of losing Sanity. Nice to have friends, isn't it? Allies range from the predictable (Herbert West can bring a dead Ally back into play), to the truly strange (Chaosium Inc. and Pagan Publishing are available as Allies...).

Actual Play We played two games of this in one day. The first didn't last long, thanks to one player who, presented with a card allowing her to look through the Mythos deck and select a monster to place on the board, thought it would be fun to bring a Great Old One out to play... Sanity levels, predictably, plummetted rapidly.

The second game was much more balanced. Lots of monsters, lots of artefacts and spells. Very few people actually landed on owned property, which meant not many people recovered any Sanity. One especially silly touch was the Being from Ib. Meet this, and you can say only 'Bokrob', on penalty of 1 Sanity, until you reach Mi-Go... with all three players reduced to saying 'Bokrob', it was inevitable someone from one of the other groups in the games club would come into the room to ask a question... We never met the Hounds of Tindalos (they don't move from space to space, but on the lines between spaces...), but did get to see, meet, and gibber at, a good selection of items and nasties.

Verdict A fast, simple and easily learned game, assuming everyone knows how to play Monopoly. We thoroughly enjoyed this, and I have no doubt will play again. I haven't actually stated this before now, but it should be obvious that this is a light-hearted and quite silly game, and it fulfilled expectations admirably. My ratings are based on the cost and format of the game. It would benefit vastly from a bit of colour on the board and property cards, but that would complicate printing the PDF version. It looks good enough, it's well worth the money.

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