One of the highlights of Origins this year for me was that I got to play in a demo of the soon-to-be-released Cults Across America by Jeff Tidball. Mr. Tidball's card game Spammers was wonderfully funny, and now I can't wait until CCA is released.

The game is based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and Atlas games worked closely with Chaosium, who hold the license for all things Cthulhoid. Each player controls his own dark cult, which he gets to name. The object of the basic game (I didn't play the strategic game) is to accumulate 10 Victory Points. Points can be accumulated for activities determined by Victory Cards. Other cards allow players to summon monsters or even Great Old Ones to fight for their cause, gain access to weaponry, get more cultists, release plagues, and do other fun and destructive things (although I never got to use it, I had a card which allowed me to call the national guard into Waco, and at one point I had saved up enough money to buy myself a nuclear reactor when everyone was hit with a stock market crash).

I was very close to being dead last in the playtest game (actually I shared the dead last position with someone else), but I had a great time learning how to play. I expect the game to have high production values when it comes out, but as of the playtest there were mispelled cards and the map of the United States wasn't very readable. I expect the problems will be cleared up by the release date, though, because as soon as it hits the shelves, I'm buying a copy.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)