Review: Creatures & Cultists

by Frances Moritz


Creatures & Cultists!, the "Furiously Fuggly card game", was first released in 1992 as a limited run of 100 by Pagan Publishing. 1 The second edition was released a year later with 16 more cards, again by Pagan Publishing.2

This year we witness the rebirth of Creatures & Cultists, re-released by EOS Press, with artwork by John Kovalic.

Not having played (or seen) the original game, I can only judge the game based on the current edition. This is definitely a case of "don't judge a [game] by its' cover" – and I'm certainly not referring to the artwork when I complain.3

To begin with the box, though nicely decorated – including a tentacle sucking the brains out of our President Re-elect and Cthulhu playing cards – comes scuffed up. The corners are damaged, the top a bit sunken in, and no standard shrink wrap protects the cover in its travels from distributor to game store – one Dork Tower fan thought it was a used copy of the game when he first saw the box. Despite this, the box is fairly sturdy, especially if you're trying to open it.

For those fans used to playing other games with John's artwork,4 the cards will seem a bit flimsy. Even more annoying, the text frequently looks like it's trying to crawl off the cards – there's no apparent margin. In several cases, there's not even space for another letter between the last word and the edge of the card. There's a mix of flavor text and actual rules on the cards, but no easy way to distinguish them; you must read the whole card at least once to find out which parts you need for play.

The rule sheet has some problems, such as saying to write the cult name on the cult sheet "twice, in the two spots where is says "Cult"," but only has one spot; and there's a bit too much flavor text if you want to quick start this beer and pretzels game the first time you play. A couple clarifications would be more useful than the flavor text, such as whether the victim gets the fuggly points after a successful counter-attack.

But once you get past the two pages of rules and start playing, the game is well worth the effort. The artwork, as seen here captures the creatures and cultists in a very perky gothy sort of way. Most of the artwork is on the Conjuring and Thuggery cards, so it's easy to worry the other players when you draw a card (e.g.: Star-Spawn of Cthulhu or Servitor of the Outer Gods) and immediately say "Ooooh, how cute!"

Not that any card you draw is likely to be good for them – this game is more munchkinly than Munchkin. Your goal is to either wipe out all the other cults (the more difficult goal) or collect enough fuggly points from killing the other cultists to summon your deity to come down and wipe out all the other cults.

There's a lot of luck needed for this game: luck of the draw for what cards you get and luck of the dice in many places. Most of the Mondo cards help the player, but a few hurt, such as "Compromised" which results in a -2 penalty to all your die rolls until the next time you are "Favored by the stars". Mondo cards must be played at the beginning of your turn. Immediately after playing a Mondo card, you draw another to replace it, so it's quite possible to draw and play a series of Mondo cards before starting the rest of your turn. You're not as likely to hurt yourself with the other types of cards, since you choose when and on whom to play them. Well, unless your luck of the dice fails.

Luck of the dice is a must, since only the player who is "Favored by the stars" for the round may attempt to summon their deity. Being Favored also gives that player a +2 bonus on all rolls for that round, but places them last in play order for the round. Attacking and defending is almost always based on dice rolls as well, with special results if you roll really well (16-18 on 3d6) or really badly (3-5). It is entirely possible to kill your own cultists with bad rolls. But don't worry, the rest of the players will enjoy it.

The cult play sheets, barring really good erasers, are not reusable. This problem is easily solved by visiting EOS Press's download page and printing off a few more. This is the only part of the game you'll need to remember to pack - everything else is in the box, including the three six-sided dice you'll need, and several Sequence of Play cards to remind you of the turn order.

The only other problem we found with the play sheets was the constant crossing off of some cultists – one thrice killed cultist in particular (resurrected, zombiefied, etc.). The suggestion we walked away with was using counters to mark the dead cultists, rather than having the attacking cult write on their kills. Since the fuggly points collected from the cultists aren't likely to add up to the player's current total, due to cards adding or subtracting some points, and the option to use the points to enhance rolls at any point, the only reason to write on the cultists if for the sheer glee of seeing the other player's face as you decimate his cult. In that case, different color counters for each cult would be equally useful.

Look beyond the damaged box and flimsy cards on this one – it's worth the $17 retail price.


Footnotes
1: see http://www.yog-sothoth.com/cocdbdetail.php?Master_ID=38
2: see http://www.yog-sothoth.com/cocdbdetail.php?Master_ID=42
3: Because we all know I'm highly biased towards John's art style.
4: Out of the Box and Steve Jackson Games, mostly.


Copyright 2004-2005 The Lady Gamer. All rights reserved.