Cost: $7.00 From: Dark House, Box 140-A, Theilman MN, 55978 Players: 2+ Playing Time: 30 minutes Type of game: Card Complexity: 7 Skill level: 5 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 2.2, Winter 1993
A decade before Once Upon a Time appeared, Dark House published a storytelling card game of its own. But where Once Upon a Time is a frolicking romp through fantasyland, Dark Cults is a journey down the spine-chilling corridors of Lovecraftian horror. And a significantly more complicated journey at that.
Dark Cults consists of a deck of 108 sturdy playing cards, a rule pamphlet, and an expansion booklet packaged very simply in a ziploc bag. The cards come in many different types, but can be grouped into three categories: cards which begin and end the story (start, end, escape, save), cards which introduce elements for players to weave into the story (character, danger, location, threat, atmosphere), and cards which are meant to keep the pace of the story moving (pace).
Each card except for the Pace cards has four elements. A letter in the upper-left corner identifies the card's type. A black-and-white illustration depicts a story element, with a text description beneath it. Finally, the upper-left corner contains a list of letters indicating which card types may legally be played after that card.
Players divide into two teams: Life tries to keep the main character safe, and Death tries to steer the story's protagonist toward an untimely end. To begin the game, the Pace cards are separated and shuffled together to form a separate deck, while the remainder of the cards form the Story deck. Players start with one card each from the Story deck, a Start card is laid face-up on the table, and the story begins.
A player on the Life team opens the story by introducing the protagonist. The player may include as much or as little detail as he wants, although more detail makes for a more interesting story. All Start cards feature a simple drawing of a building with a caption reading, "This night, upon leaving the old and rumor-ridden brick apartment house," and eventually, the opening player must have the protagonist leave his home. Then it's Death's turn. A player on that team must now play one of the cards which can legally follow a Start card. Whatever is featured on the new card must be woven into the story, but the player using the card can take as long as he wishes to do so-- there's no limit on how many words or sentences you can add to the story.
Play continues in this manner, with the two teams alternating, until the story segment comes to and end in one of three ways: the protagonist escapes that night's peril (with the play of an Escape card), dies (End card) or is saved (a different End card). Then a new Start card is played and a new evening-- and story segment-- begins. Each card has a point value awarded to the team playing the card. Some cards (like Escape) are more valuable to the Life team, while others are worth more to Death. The game ends when the deck is exhausted, and the team with the highest total wins.
Other rules govern what occurs when a player is has no legal cards to play, when to draw cards, when Pace cards get played, etc. They're not complicated, but they're a little hard to keep track of.
The cards themselves are excellent card stock, and feature beautiful black and white images which set the ominous tone well. They're a pleasure to look at-- a perfect accompaniment to a game of horror. The descriptions are also well-chosen, providing fertile grounds for imaginations to craft into frightful tales. But although the cards deserve praise, the game itself does not..
Dark Cults is fun to look at but frankly, the rules don't make for a very interesting game. The scoring system is absurd. You earn points for the cards you play, but those cards are dictated by what you draw and what was last played. The winner is determined almost entirely by the luck of the draw, not by storytelling or game-playing skill.
Ok, so the scoring system doesn't work. How about the storytelling mechanism? Well... admittedly, restricting which cards can be played to certain groups does ensure a certain degree of logic to the story. But the cost is to bring the mechanism into the spotlight instead of leaving it in the background where it belongs. When playing a game like this you want to be immersed in the tale. You want the atmosphere of horror to envelope you as much as possible. The game should facilitate that. Dark Cults does not. Close scrutiny of cards is required to see whether or not you can play something. If you can't, you may be in for a few rounds of drawing cards from the deck until someone draws something playable. The mechanics of the game intrude over the storytelling.
Fortunately, thanks to Once Upon a Time, there's a simple solution. The rules for Atlas Games' fantasy storytelling game can easily be used instead of the Dark Cults rules. Just mark some cards with a highlighter or adhesive dots and play them as interrupts, able to interrupt any card of the same type. You don't need to use Happily Ever After cards, but it would be easy to create some using index cards or slips of paper. And, given the genre, they needn't all be Happily Ever After. Played this way, Dark Cults becomes a much smoother experience.
You'll probably have a hard time finding Dark Cults on your local store's shelves, but most stores should have no trouble ordering it from a major distributor. The illustrations alone are worth the mere $7.00 price tag, and if you spend the time to make the alterations suggested above, you'll end up with an excellent, inexpensive storytelling game.