Every gamer needs a fast-playing five minute game in their arsenal for those times when you can’t play anything longer and for our family right now that game is Don’t Mess With Cthulhu.
Despite the overused Lovecraftian theming Don’t Mess With Cthulhu delivers a reliably fun play experience time and again. Each player is dealt a secret role, Cultist or Investigator which determines their win conditions. Cultists must uncover Cthulhu before the Investigators uncover all the elder signs.
Gameplay is simple. Shuffle up the stated cards for your player count and deal them evenly between the players. Players then take turns choosing a card from another player's facedown cards and revealing it. After a number of cards have been revealed equal to the number of players the remaining facedown cards are shuffled up and dealt back out. Play continues until one team or the other meets their goal.
The fun of Cthulhu is in the secret roles, working out who is on your team, who is lying and why. It is a social deduction game where the game itself is so simple you can teach it in seconds and get right down to the subterfuge. And what could be more christmassy than that, lying to your friends and loved ones as you seek to open a portal to a forbidden realm in search of a deity to bring about the end times?
