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Now available . . . another stand-alone Munchkin game! Munchkins have hacked their way through dungeons, kung fu temples, starships, haunted houses, and super-foes. Now they face their greatest challenge - Cthulhu! Will they survive? Will they retain their sanity? Will they . . . level up? Munchkin Cthuhlu is the newest stand-alone game in the Munchkin line, this time lampooning Lovecraft's Mythos and the horror gaming that surrounds it. Brought to you by Steve Jackson and John Kovalic, this set features four new Classes - including the Cultist - and a lot of classic monsters from outside reality. And they all have Stuff you can take from their twitching bodies. You can play Munchkin Cthulhu by itself, or combine it with any number of other Munchkin games for mind-bending silliness.
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Technical Details
- Written by Steve Jackson Illustrated by John Kovalic- 168 cards, rules, die
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By Jutlander
Munchkin Cthulhu is the newest branch on the Munchkin family tree and as its predecessors, this is a game for gamers, made by gamers, and making fun of gamers.
Game Mechanics
In terms of game mechanics and concept, Munchkin Cthulhu is almost identical to its predecessors. The players kick in doors, fight monsters, steal treasures, and stab their buddies. Traps are now known as Curses, but are otherwise the same.
The new Classes are the Investigator, the Monster Whacker, the Professor, and the Cultist, and of these the Investigator seem to be the one with the most useful abilities (they are particularly neat when combined with the Feline from Star Munchkin), while the Monster Whacker seems to be the most puny. There are no Races (or an equivalent such as Loyalties from Munchkin Impossible), which is a bit of a disappointment as it limits the possible character combinations.
There are some special rules for the Cultist printed in the rules but not on the Cultist card, and it is very important to read these if you want to keep the game from going awry and the players from going mad. Finally, similar to the "...in Black" monsters from Munchkin Impossible, Munchkin Cthulhu offers "Goth" monsters such as the Shog Goth and the Froggoth which can aid each other and cause havoc in combat.
Theme
Not surprisingly, Munchkin Cthulhu is concerned with the game Call of Cthulhu and so it takes on a great challenge. As a game Call of Cthulhu is by many considered an all-time classic among roleplaying games, but the truth remains that it is also a relatively obscure and narrow game. The universe of Call of Cthulhu is complex and a veritable treasurechest of gods and monsters, but even if many roleplayers know and have played the game, the mythology is undisputeably esoteric. This makes it a difficult topic for satire. While the illustrations by John Kovalic do that cards such as the Nightie-Gaunts and the Fun Guy from Yuggoth are amusing in and by themselves, they are probably more so to someone who has encountered Night Gaunts and Fungus from Yuggoth in their games. But many gamers think of Call of Cthulhu as a style of gaming more than an actual game, and so these references to mythos monsters are often for naught. Therefore the challenge of Munchkin Cthulhu is to capture the essence of this style as much as it is to get the references right.
To a large extent Munchkin Cthulhu succeeds in both. In mythos specific references we find monsters such as the Shallow Ones, the Dunwich Snorer, and the Grape Old Ones, as well as Curses such as Learn Yet Another Awful Truth and a card declaring that the Stars are Wrong. It is not a huge surprise that beside the Necronomicon itself, there are no less than four Necronomi-puns (I made that one up myself).
More interesting, maybe, are the cards trying to reflect the sillier aspects and problems of Call of Cthulhu games such as the players being railroaded into the plot (Tchoo-Tchoo People), finding circumstances to be against them (Flashlight Goes Out!), taking drastic measures to defeat the monsters (Backpack Full of Dynamite), abandoning their friends (Shoes of Only Having to Run Faster Than You), and then finally involving outside authorities to deal with the problem (Report Creatures to the FBI), after which they are declared insane (Dragged Off to Snarkham Asylum).
Conclusion
Munchkin Cthulhu is a fun game, and overall the game designers have done a good job of getting the atmosphere of the game just right with a good selection of references and jokes. It shows, though, that the premise of the game - the original Call of Cthulhu - is not as broad a "genre" as for example fantasy or science fiction.
While the many puns on the Necronomicon and the various "Goth" monsters are amusing, they are also a bit repetitious. Likewise, there is a great emphasis on the Cultist, which steals some focus from the other Classes. This is only made worse by the fact that there are no second character-defining trait such as Race in the game.
Even more so than the other incarnations of Munchkin, Munchkin Cthulhu is highly dependent on the players having a specific frame of reference to understand the jokes. While a wide audience can probably appreciate the more universal and pop-cultural jokes of games such as Star Munchkin and Munchkin Impossible, it is doubtful that the same appreciation will be found for the Cruller Out of Space or Gnarlyhotep. But if you do know your Cthulhu Mythos, it is very funny.
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