Review of Mausoleum

Card games have been moving in the direction of being non-collectible lately, and with the advent of sophisticated desktop publishing, anyone can put together a decent card-game company. So it is with Savant Garde, whose second offering, Mausoleum, will appeal to the Edward Gorey fan in everyone. The object of the game is to build the most impressive mausoleum; I. E., be the first player to rack up $10 million worth of tombs in the family crypt. Players do this by offing their heirs, and using their intended inheritance money to add to the pile of majestically mouldering marble in the family plot. Designed for three to five players by R. Hunter Gough, the game can be expanded to allow for more than five players by adding an additional deck.

There are four types of cards in the game: Heirs, Accidents, Graves, and Incidents. A flash of brilliance had them number each card, to make replacing lost ones infinitely easier. The game progresses as follows: each player starts with cards in hand, the number of which varies depending on the number of participants. Each player in turn draws a card, and plays or discards one card. Heirs must first be played to a party, ostensibly thrown by the host to show off their Place of Final Repose to those who will be paying for it. Then the heir must be “offed” the next turn with an accident card, and moved to the morgue pile in front of the player. Finally, the heir may be “buried” by being spent, along with other unfortunate heirs, if they add up to enough to purchase the particular grave. Once an heir has been spent and the grave purchased, it may not be taken away from the player. However, heirs in the Morgue pile are fair game, and can be discarded by other player through “Misplaced” incidents. Heirs can also be discarded from parties before they are killed, by using “On Holiday” incident cards. The discard pile is recycled as soon as the draw pile has been depleted, so cards don’t end up disappearing from play for very long.

This game has a fairly broad appeal, and is full of dark humor. My particular favorite is the “Billiards Accident” card, which even now makes me chuckle out loud. If I had to make one change to the game, it would be to add a few more low value Grave cards to the deck. With discards, it can occasionally be vexing to find enough grave cards to win. At $9.95, Mausoleum is a reasonably priced way to enjoyably while away the hours.