Producer: Steve Jackson Games
Genre: Board/Card Game
Approx Retail: $20
Chez Cthulhu is another board game employing cards to drive its main game mechanics. Chez Cthulhu is in the same avenue of play as Fluxx, and less complex than other SJ games like Munchkin.
CC is a fun game to waste a few hours with your friends. It's by Steve Jackson, so you know it's good! Consequently, this is exactly the type of game that would create a wonderful drinking game! Watch out, though, some of the rules are sort of wonky and might make you roll SAN. Also, that Bill is an asshole (It'll make more sense when you play the game, honest).
The Premise:
You and the other players are all roommates. Like all good roommates you engage in some healthy competition - Who can slack off the most. Because we all know that when the great old ones awaken they will certainly devour the most ambitious among us first, right? Also, if one is a true slacker, what's the end of the world matter when compared with the grass that I haven't been mowing for like two weeks now?
Each of the roommates has a separate "room" which is where all of their cards are played. They can invite people over their rooms, kick people out of their rooms, watch TV, and generally slack off however they would like in their own room. Generally, players can only affect things in their own room, unless a card says otherwise
Brief Rules breakdown:
Though I don't have the rules in front of me, the basics are easy enough to remember that I can list them here with at least mild confidence in my accuracy.
The basic game mechanic is: Do what the rules say, unless a card tells you to do otherwise.
At the beginning of the game players roll dice to determine who goes first. Each person then draws 5 cards from the deck, and receives one "Job" card. Jobs can be anything from Dog Walker, to Gravedigger, to Lackey. The Job card describes each player's special abilities and bonuses (if any), the amount of free time they have every turn, and their income per turn. Your job also determines your Slack Goal, which is basically this game's win condition. You win when you have enough slack to meet your slack goal. Better jobs have higher slack goals.
Free time is always a set number, but can be affected by abilities and cards. For instance, as the Night Watchman, the player has a Free Time of 2*. As the card states, they may watch TV as an activity at no charge to their free time.
Income is either a set number, or "Variable Income." If your job's income reads as a fraction (ex. 1/2), you roll a six sided die at the start of every turn to determine how much you earn that turn. 1,2,3, you get the low number, 4,5,6, you get the high number.
Other card types are People, Things, Activities, and Whenever.
People come in three types: Regular, Unwanted, and Pets.
Things are just that: Material possessions that can be bought with income. They may also have a subtype in parentheses like (Food), (Booze), or (Tentacles).
As a general rule, People, Things, and Activities you do in your room generate slack or madness which will impact your journey towards your slack goal.
Activities are things you do in your free time, like Nookie (of which this game has many types). Watching TV is special. A player may play a TV card on another player to prevent them from Going Shopping or Doing Activities on their own turn.
Whenever cards are cards with varying effects that a player may play whenever they want. These are useful for interrupting other player actions, or for performing general shenanigans.
On each player's turn, they draw until the number of cards in their hand equals 6. Then roll the dice for anything that requires it (Variable Income, kicking an Unwanted Person out of their room, etc). Players may then play call People. If a player has a person in their hand that generates 0 slack, they are an Undesirable/Unwanted Person (Bill!). Undesirables must be played immediately, and come into the game automatically, though not necessarily into their own room. Pets count as people and may be invited into a player's room automatically. Any other Person a player wishes to invite over must be called. Success is determined by a die roll.
Then players may enter the activity phase where they can Go Shopping and Do Activities to add to their slack count. Going shopping costs 1 free time, and the player may buy as many Things as their Income allows. Each Activity a player does costs 1 free time and possibly more income. Interestingly enough, Nookie is always free. Do what the cards say, roll when necessary.
At the end of the players turn, they may discard as many cards as they want, (usually the ones that they cannot use) but their hand must retain a minimum of 1 card.
Cards may cause players to gain Madness. Initially madness subtracts from your slack. But if you get enough madness, the penalty becomes lessened, and eventually becomes completely alleviated. Attain enough madness and you will go Stark Raving Mad. Discard all of your madness. You can no longer lose madness. All further madness adds to your slack.
If at any point in the game, even for an instant, a player reaches their slack goal, they win. Even if another player then causes them to lose slack afterwards it doesn't matter, because they don't care, because they've slacked off enough.
Summary: Fun to play, relatively inexpensive, good re-playability, great at parties (if your into that sort of thing).
Rating: 4 out of 5 tentacles.
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