Review of Vudulhu

Blurb from the publisher: 'The party game that cursed thousands of players comes back in a new setting!

Are you ready to discover Lovecraftian worlds? Give your opponents hard times by casting curses on them: they will have to keep twisted poses, gurgle like shoggoths and hold things like having tentacles instead of arms and hands. You will take points if they won't resist... lots of fun!'

What you get: Your EUR 20 will buy you a copy of Vudulhu, a 30 minute dice and card game for three to six players. Vudulhu is a new implementation of Vudú, a game that we first saw together more than 3 years ago.

The box contains the rulebook in English, as well as the items: 9 Great Old One cards, 36 Curse cards (12 Gaunt, 12 Ghast, 12 Deep One), 6 Score markers, 5 Ingredient dice (six-siders), 9 Artefact cards, 4 Location cards, two Target cards and one Cthulhu doll.

Gameplay: Be the first evil sorcerer to reach 13 points and win the game! Vudulhu starts from the player who can 'mimic Cthulhu better' (you read that right), and proceeds in clockwise order. Each starts with a curse in his hand, while an open card on the table dictates the terrain. That latter is a condition that applies to all players around the table, like for example keeping their arms folded and speaking incomprehensibly, or meowing and purring.

In his turn a player takes the Vudulhu doll and rolls the dice in order to obtain the materials he needs in order to take actions. He then takes the actions he wishes, and finally passes the doll to another player. The dice depict six cartoonishly drawn symbols: a bat, a skull, a pumpkin, a star a crow and a ghost. One can reroll as many times as he wants, but a die is discarded each time a reroll of one or more dice is made. The player stops rolling whenever he is satisfied with the results and proceeds with the action phase.

Actions tend to be costly. Drawing a curse costs two dice irrespective of what they show, as does buying an artefact. Using an artefact is free of charge; sometimes something silly is requested like shouting out something in particular, but that's all. Casting a curse costs anything from two to four dice. Each curse demands its own materials. The game revolves around cursing, with all the aplomb and posturing that this requires. Curse somebody with Yig-Hrii for a mere two bats, and every time that player ends his turn he must announce the upcoming world conquest... while hissing. Curse him with Arkhatrooper on the other hand for a mere skull, star and a die of your choice, and he has to walk around the table every time his turn comes while looking the other players suspiciously. Each time a curse is played the caster earns points, while simultaneously forcing his opponents to look and act silly. Just like in the original Vudú game, the effects of curses are cumulative. You might need to have your head tilted back while you wear your arms as if on a straightjacket while at the same time looking at the others suspiciously. It starts sounding tough, hey?

The victim of a curse can interrupt it, but at a cost. If he fails to perform as dictated by the curse and the initial caster notices, he (the initial caster of the curse) gains a number of points as stated on the curse card. The good news for the victim is that the curse is discarded.

The objective of the game is for everybody to behave silly. Thus, the better one does in points, the more he gets penalized. The player that reaches 4 and 9 points glimpses at the figure of a random Great Old One. This is similar to being cursed, in that it imposes a condition like your chest touching your chin, or keeping your mouth totally closed even while speaking. If the condition is broken something even worse occurs, like your hand limit dropping to three, being prohibited from playing artefacts etc. To keep things interesting, on rounds 3, 6 and 10 the landscape card changes and the overall condition gets altered for all the players.

The strong points: Vudú was a resounding success in quite a few of the languages it was issued; it made a killing in its home in Italy. It is only logical that it gets reissued, this time with a theme even more catchy than the initial voodoo-inspired one. What's better than voodoo, or Cthulhu? Voodoo and Cthulhu combined.

When it comes to the fundamentals the game remains the same, when it comes to both the trappings and the effects however this version is much more gonzo and all-out than its predecessor. To start with, it is substantially meatier. In Vudú it was not unheard of for a player to basically accept every curse that was cast upon him and win the game. In Vudulhu this is practically impossible; the curses are physically demanding, and relatively exclusive of one another. After two or three curses it will be impossible to juggle through all of them while still participating in the game in a remotely functional way. One will have to interrupt at least one curse in order to keep on participating while not giving the game away to one of its competitors. The difficulty lies in finding out when is the best time to do that and when the time comes to suck it all up for the points.

The art is of the same high standard as Vudú was. It is cute and childish, comical and whimsical at the same time. Having Great Old Ones look as ridiculous and challenged is a nice change of pace; I particularly enjoyed how stuck up Cthulhu himself looks like. Nobody is going to have any nightmares out of this, in case you were wondering. Once again, the small Vudulhu doll is a show stealer, a masterpiece of its own right. For that alone, one might want to purchase Vudulhu instead of the game's original version, if his shop carries both.

The weak points: One must be an enormous fan of Vudú in order to purposefully buy both that game and Vudulhu. It might simply not worth the investment, seeing how the games behave the same.

Like in the original game, there is no grand strategy behind Vudulhu. The person that manages to suck it up the most and behave the silliest, while prudently administering his die rolls, is the most likely to win the game. Unless you are running a party or something light-hearted, this is not a game gamers are likely to meet over, nor a game that can be played more than twice in a row. It will clearly fare better with children, of course. In that case I wouldn't be surprised to see it played upon hours on end.

Vudulhu is a 'bring your own fun' game both in a positive as well as in a negative way. If you are in no mood for silly faces and physical antics the game will become pointless from round one. Either you will all participate with the same zeal, or you'd better break out another game.

The game demands minimal space on the table, however some space around the table (and even below the table) is crucial. Make sure you have it in order for every player to be safe, including the younger ones.

Incredibly enough, there are two tables of contents, both stating different contents, while the box holds different materials to either of them. The ones that I listed at the beginning of the review are the correct ones, of course. This is sloppy, and that's the fairest word I can find. It's not likely that a buyer will feel robbed because the game does not contain that finely sculpted miniature or the other, yet again a game that doesn't list its contents properly doesn't inspire trust. For example there are four locations in the game even though both tables of contents state eight. That is not outright bad, until one finds out that with three locations revealed in each game, location cards and their effects will become old extremely fast. I would have definitely preferred eight locations as the game advertises.

Conclusion: Just like Vudú, Vudulhu is silly and fun. It boasts more of a game than its predecessor and dresses itself in an even more fashionable theme. If you are looking for an excuse to curse your beloved ones and if you don't own Vudú already, It will easily find a place in your library.

To find out more about Vudulhu take a look at www.redglove.eu.

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