How to Play Gloom

We have all wished that we could make our families miserable at one time or another. By playing Gloom, you have that chance. The object of the game is to make your chosen family the most miserable family on the board. The game itself is fairly simple. The tales that players make up add an exciting twist.

Things You'll Need

• Deck of Gloom cards
• 2 or more people

Instructions

1. Pick your family. The card game comes with four misfit families.

2. Place the rest of the deck in the center after each player has chosen a family. Have each player draw five cards. The player who has the worst day will begin the game.

3. Play one card from your hand each turn. The cards you can play will be one of three kinds: Untimely Death cards that allow a character to immediately die; Modifier Cards, which are assigned positive or negative values; and Event Cards, which will also sometimes have points and sometimes not.

4. The goal of the game is to make your family have the least amount of points or greatest amount of negative points. During your turn, you want to make sure to play cards with negative points on your own family and positive points on your opponents families.

5. Continue Gloom with each player picking a card at the beginning of their turn and following the instructions on the card played. Sometimes, cards allow players to play multiple times during their turn.

6. The game will end when all of the characters in one player's family have been killed. Hopefully it will be your family.

Tips & Warnings

• The game works best with four people, however, if you have more you can make teams.

• If you are of legal age, this game is also a lot more fun when alcohol is involved.

• Playing untimely death cards right away on your opponents cards causes that character to die without having the ability to gain negative points.

• Part of the fun of playing Gloom involves the stories that each of the players make up about the characters to go along with the cards played on them. Each event card, untimely death card, and modifier card gets played on top of the character cards to give them positive and negative points.