Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t reviewed today’s game, so we’ll fix that. Today’s review is another party game: Don’t Mess with Cthulhu.

Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a social deduction game with secret identities. Players assume the role of investigators or cultists. The investigators must uncover all the Elder Signs to win, while the Cultists win when Cthulhu is revealed or if the game ends before all the Elder Signs are discovered.

Before we venture further into madness, let’s discuss Don’t Mess with Cthulhu’s details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Yusuke Sato
Publisher: Indie Boards & Cards
Date Released: 2014
Number of Players: 4-6
Age Range: 10 and up
Setup Time: Less than a minute
Play Time: 1-30 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Bluffing
Card Game
Deduction
Party Game
Negotiation

Game Setup

You’ll have a different number of investigators and cultists, and various numbers of futile investigation and Elder Sign cards based on the number of players. Consult the charts in the rulebook to determine how many of each needs to be in the game.

Shuffle the appropriate number of Character tokens, dealing one to each player face down. Each player secretly looks at the role assigned to them on the Character token. Place any unused tokens out of play without revealing them.

Then, shuffle the appropriate number of Investigation cards, dealing five to each player face down. Beginning with the starting player (who will have the starter player token, which is a flashlight), each player secretly looks at their Investigation cards and declares (truthfully or not) the number of Elder Sign and Cthulhu cards they were dealt. (Note: there’s only one Cthulhu card in the deck, but that doesn’t mean that more than one player can “claim” to have a Cthulhu card.)

Everyone shuffles their Investigation cards and places them in front of themselves, face down.

Game Flow

Each turn consists of the Active player selecting any Investigation card in front of any player other than themselves. They place the flashlight token on the card they wish to reveal. Other players should feed the player information, keeping in mind that players with the Investigator role want to find Elder Signs, while Cultists want to reveal Cthulhu.

The chosen card is revealed and placed in the center of the play area so everyone can see it. Check to see if the game ends (all the Elder Signs are revealed or if Cthulhu makes an appearance). Play continues with the player whose card was just revealed. They take their turn the same way and this continues until the round comes to an end.

The round ends after the number of actions taken in that round equals the number of players in the game. After the round ends, the remaining Investigation cards are shuffled together and dealt evenly between the players. Again, the players secretly look at their Investigation cards and place them in front of themselves face down.

The game ends immediately if the Cthulhu card is revealed or if all Elder Sign cards are revealed. If neither condition is met, the game ends after four rounds.

If all Elder Sign cards are revealed, the Investigators win. If Cthulhu is revealed or four rounds are played without all Elder Sign cards being revealed, the Cultists win.

Review

Like most party games, Don’t Mess with Cthulhu has a quick setup and playtime. I’ve played this game quite a bit over the years and found that you don’t always need to bluff when playing—but it helps. And it’s fun when more than one person claims that they have Cthulhu. I’ve played a round where three people at the table said they had Cthulhu and then the next round, everyone said they had Cthulhu. It’s a goofy game that doesn’t take long.

And the reason why I say that you don’t have to bluff if you don’t want to is that chance plays a huge role in Don’t Mess with Cthulhu. Even if everyone tells the truth, you still must select the right card, or the game ends and the game can end in the way you don’t want. My family struggles with bluffing in games. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu gives players an option to bluff or not bluff. This leads to some great metagaming. I’ve heard many players say, you never tend to bluff but you did this time and fooled everyone. I’ve also seen the opposite. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu may get better the more games you play with a group.

The stakes are low with Don’t Mess with Cthulhu. Most games last about fifteen minutes with some games going as short as less than one minute. I’ve seen plenty of games where the first or second card the active player chooses is the Cthulhu card. It doesn’t matter. Laugh it off, shuffle the cards, and play again.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a great change-of-pace game for most gaming groups. It won’t be a group’s main game, but I’ve seen many game nights where this game caps off the session. It’s endlessly replayable and has low stakes. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu’s goofy fun doesn’t force you to bluff—but bluffing doesn’t hurt.

It’s that time of year where gamers want to be spooked or maybe fight back against the things that go bump in the night. Happy Halloween, folks. Your uncle Geekly gets a little ahead of himself sometimes, but Halloween must be around the corner.

Since it’s the time for ghosts and goblins, let’s do a three lists of three for board games that use a horror, ghost, or spooky theme. Don’t worry. Uncle Geekly ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

Exploration and Investigation Games

Mansions of Madness 2^nd Edition

Of the three games in this list, no one game combines exploration and investigation as well as Mansions of Madness 2^nd Edition. This app-assisted Cthulhu game (you’ll see a lot more of Cthulhu on this list) can set the right mood for Halloween, but beware that Mansions takes a long time to play. Even short scenarios can take hours. Any time spent with Mansions of Madness is time well spent.

There are plenty of other, shorter games on this list. Mansions of Madness is the main course.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

My family and I play Betrayal at House on the Hill at least once every Halloween. It has a nice blend of horror and suspense genres in its various scenarios. The game can get unbalanced at times, but exploring the house is a lot of fun and perfect for a little spook time.

The Widow’s Walk expansion isn’t necessary, but some famous game designers like Christopher Badell (Sentinels of the Multiverse), Rob Daviau (grand master of all Legacy games), and Jonathan Gilmour (Dead of Winter) chip in with some new haunts. Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate is a standalone Dungeon and Dragons variant to the classic Betrayal, so if D&D is more your thing, it does a great job of combining the two genres.

T.I.M.E. Stories

This one’s a little of a cheat. T.I.M.E. Stories isn’t necessarily a horror game, but it does exploration and investigation better than most games on this list, and the first scenario occurs in an asylum, so that gets a little spooky.

If you’re not familiar with T.I.M.E. Stories, think of it as a mash up of Assassin’s Creed and Quantum Leap. Players get sent a specific time/space by a secret organization and they have finite time to fix something or right a wrong. This setup allows for a lot of various themes and that makes T.I.M.E. Stories more diverse than many other games on this list.

Bust Some Ghosts or Goblins or Zombies Games

Dead of Winter

The goal of a most Dead of Winter scenarios may not revolve around busting zombies, but zombies will be busted along the way. To be fair, the zombies have an easy time overrunning the players, so players don’t usually feel that empowered, but when they do, it’s a great feeling.

Characterization and a good story—thanks to the Crossroads game system—do a lot to separate Dead of Winter from a lot of other horror or spooky games. It’s worth the play, especially if it’s cold outside.

Ghost Stories

Plenty of gamers get frustrated with Ghost Stories. It’s easily the most difficult game on any of these lists—in terms of how brutal it is to the players—and what’s worse is that players are typically lulled into a false sense of security. But Ghost Stories is one of the best ghost themed games on the market.

It almost works like a tower defense game with nightmare fuel bombarding the players each turn. The players assume the roles of Kung-Fu masters. It’s the power these masters possess that gives players that false sense of security I mentioned earlier, but the variable powers work well in this title. I’m glad Ghost Stories is back in print. Just in time for Halloween.

Elder Sign

Sometimes you just want to chuck some dice. There will be other dice games in the third list, but those dice games are quick and don’t offer much in the way of brain burning. Elder Sign combines dice rolling with high strategy.

As the name implies, Elder Sign is another Cthulhu title—I may have to come up with a third one of these for the last list, so I’ll have one Cthulhu game in each list—but Elder Sign feels like the players are going head-to-head against an elder god more than most other games of its type. That’s why it’s on our “Bust some ghosts or goblins or zombies” list. I like to kick Cthulhu’s butt, but to be fair, he usually kicks mine.

Quick, Fun, and Light Games

Zombie Dice

I’ve talked about Zombie Dice before, but it’s a great, quick game where players push their luck as zombies trying to eat brains. Mmm…brains.

Zombie Dice also has a small footprint—it doesn’t take up much space on the table—so you could play it while going Trick or Treating. But not in the street. Never play dice games in the middle of the street.

Don’t Mess with Cthulhu

Yes! I completed the Cthulhu trio. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a quick, social deduction game where some players are trying to figure out who’s summoning Cthulhu and other players are trying to summon the elder god.

Luck plays a huge factor in this game, but it’s so silly and fast that you won’t mind. When Don’t Mess with Cthulhu hits the table, my family rarely plays just one game.

King of Tokyo

I had to go a little off-topic again with King of Tokyo. Players control large monsters or kaiju. The gameplay resembles Yahtzee if Yahtzee had a King of the Hill aspect added to it—hence the title King of Tokyo. Sure, the game includes player elimination, but at fifteen to twenty minutes a game, one doesn’t have to wait long before exacting their revenge.

King of Tokyo is another fun party game that’s hard to play just one game of.

There are so many Halloween ready tabletop games I could’ve included. What are some of yours? Are there any categories your uncle Geekly left out of these three lists of three? I won’t answer the loud knock on my door, but you could let me know in comments.

Tag: don’t mess with cthulhu

Tabletop Game Review: Don’t Mess with Cthulhu