Gloom of Thrones Successfully Funded — Thank You!

We wrapped up our Kickstarter campaign for Gloom of Thrones on April 29th. You helped us greatly surpass our $20,000 funding goal, instead raising over $71,000 in four weeks. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the project! Here are some highlights from April.

Stretch Goals Unlocked
Your support exceeded our expectations, and so lots of additional bonuses were added to the campaign.

• All games purchased through the Kickstarter will include five additional stretch goal characters and full-color rules.
• Deluxe edition backers will get five double-sided player mats. One side is Gloom of Thrones–themed, and the other side features a gloomy house on a miserable hill.
• Retail backers will get a free demo copy.
• Everyone will get six printable player mat PDFs, access to custom card creation at DriveThruCards, and an interactive game tutorial at Dized.

You helped unlock five additional stretch goal characters.

Reprint of The Looking Glass Promo Card
Because of backer interest, we're happy to announce that The Looking Glass Gloom promo card will be available as an add-on to the Kickstarter for $1 shipped. Previously, it was only available as an opaque card, but this reprint will be on transparent plastic — the same as other Gloom cards. Backers can add this on to their pledge in BackerKit.

What’s Next for Us
Kyla McT, the producer and designer for Gloom of Thrones, is finalizing the text and mechanics. Soon, the game will go to the printer, and it should arrive to the Atlas Games warehouse in early fall. Kickstarter backers will receive their games before everyone else! Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to stay abreast of project updates.

Thanks Again
This project wouldn’t have been possible without your support. Thanks to each and every one of you who shared, liked, and backed Gloom of Thrones. Atlas Games loves you!

Easily the Most Wretched Digital Game in History

We’re terribly depressed to make sure you’re aware that our miserable friends at Sky Ship Studios, in cooperation with the distressing team at Asmodee Digital, recently launched Gloom: Digital Edition on Steam, for PC and Mac. As you were certainly able to predict, Gloom: Digital Edition brings all the misery of tabletop Gloom to your computer, in a solo or online-multiplayer 1–4 player experience.

How awful, truly.

Screenshots: The Very Worst Sort of Graphic

Really Regrettable Robots

Although we've had robots — machines programmable to perform human-like functions — since 400 BCE, we only got the word robot in 1920, thanks to a Czech playwright. It's taken a long time for actual robot technology to even approach the potential imagined in the stories we've been telling about robots from this planet and others.

Translating these creations to stage and screen have yielded some truly regrettable robots, some of which are beyond even the reach of Gloom in Space to describe. Let's run down the top five saddest robots from movies and TV.

1)  Ro-Man Extension XJ-2 from Robot Monster: This robot, like many, is just a guy in a suit. That suit, though, wasn't made of metal hardware. Instead, Ro-Man wears a gorilla suit and a Sputnik-like astronaut costume helmet. He's bent on wiping out the last eight members of the human race. He doesn't succeed.

2)  Daleks from Doctor Who: These robots are the scariest foes for the Doctor, but it's hard for viewers to understand the terror they inspire when a Dalek is an upside-down trashcan on wheels, with egg beaters and a toilet plunger as weapons. All the earliest Doctors needed to do to foil these villains was to go up a flight of stairs.

3)  Nomad from Star Trek: The Original Series: A junkyard is a set designer's best friend, and Nomad looks like it was assembled straight from the trash heap. With a head like a coffee percolator and a body like a mesh office wastebasket, it's hardly a worthy adversary for Captain Kirk. Indeed, Kirk shuts down this mechanical menace by convincing it to commit suicide.

4)  Power Droid from Star Wars: This sad excuse for a robot was especially pathetic next to shiny, elaborate droids like C3P0 and R2-D2. Borrowing from the well-established tradition of trashcans as costumes, the Power Droid is just a box around a child or little person. Some flexible plastic ductwork gives them leg warmers to go with flat metal boxes for shoes. And still they managed to make two action figures out of this guy.

5)  Box from Logan's Run: As shiny as this robot is, all that chrome isn't enough to distract viewers from its janky design. The actor's head is wrapped in something like a reflective space blanket, with a slot cut for the mouth. The body looks like a shiny rooftop industrial air conditioner. While it has metal ductwork to cover the arms, it looks as though the actor is holding sticks with heavy, boxy guns on the ends, leaving them to flop around randomly.

Gloom Tomb from Broken Token Now Available!

In the 19th century, glass-lid coffins weree en vogue for celebrities and people of status. It was the obvious solution to the problem of mourners illicitly making off with little souvenirs of the deceased – bits of cloth or hair – as they lay in state.

The folks at Broken Token, purveyors of fine game storage devices of all kinds, felt that Gloom deserved the celebrity treatment, and we agreed. To wit, they’ve created the Gloom Tomb. The Gloom Tomb is a finely crafted wooden sarcophagus and features Broken Token’s first ever see-through acrylic lid. The Gloom logo is engraved on every face, a suitable memento mori for your favorite game of unhappy people, and there’s ample room for every Gloom card published to date, with plots reserved for future expansions.

They say that out of sight is out of mind. With the Gloom Tomb, that’s no longer a problem. Now you can proudly display your Gloom collection between games and remember all the bad times you had together. It’s the perfect postmortem to any Gloom aficionado’s collection.

 

Once Upon a Really Awful Time...

Even it it’s difficult to imagine a young Old Dam, slightly smaller Wellington-Smythe Twins, or Elias E. Gorr in the days when he only dug graves for goldfish, it’s not hard to imagine them all listening to fairy tales as children.

Fairy tales, after all, are kind of terrible. Young women stealing porridge, giants falling from the sky, and jealous, evil queens? What’s more perfectly suited for the world of Gloom?

Not much! That’s why the delightful but ultimately troubling stories from your childhood are the subject of the newest stand-alone edition of Gloom. It’s not like it was a stretch to borrow material from the Brothers Grimm — those guys put wolves in everything.

In Fairy Tale Gloom, the fairy tales won't stay familiar for long. But all your friends will be there: Jack, Pinocchio, Hansel, Gretel, Puss in Boots, and Little Red (remember all those wolves?) Riding Hood.

Whether you’ve always insisted that Hansel and Gretel got lost because they were Tweeting instead of paying attention, or known that Goldilocks should get busted for what was clearly breaking and entering, the magic beans are in your hands now. Are all those women called “Grandma” actually the same person? Are you finally going to cut Cinderella a break already because her origin story is such a bummer? Probably not, on both counts. But no one can know how hot or cold the porridge really is until you dig in.

Stay tuned for more information, and clear your schedule for Fairy Tale Gloom, coming May 2015.

The Building Blocks of Despair

If you drop in on our Twitter feed very often, you’re probably familiar with the mysterious Dave Kaleta — aka @KakaLeta. Dave's been on a wicked tear in recent weeks, creating LEGO versions of Gloom characters.

In hopes of un-mysterious-ing Dave just a bit, we sent him an email…

Who are you?

I'm Dave from Chicago, I teach kindergarten.

The Blackwater Family

What inspired your majestic Gloom creations?

Every year a group of LEGO builders that I collaborate with do a secret Santa exchange. This year I drew my friend Stacy, who is a board game geek and Edward Gorey aficionado — I knew exactly what to create for her! My intention was to build the Castle Slogar family for her and be done. But once I started to see these characters that I loved torturing (to death) realized in LEGO from, I couldn't stop!

These builds were done over the course of a few days, with each character taking about an hour. Turning two-dimensional black-and-white portraits into full color figures was both challenging and fun. I may have to make another set of Slogar family figures for myself so that I can play Gloom with the characters on the table!

Do you have a favorite card in the game?

My favorite card, by far, is "Was Pursued by Poodles." Some of the best stories come from imagining why this might happen to a character.

Do you have a favorite family to play?

I love playing as the Hemlock Hall family because they seem to have the most complex and twisted family history.

The Hemlock Clan

If you could have three Gloom characters over for dinner, which ones would you pick?

As dinner guests, it would probably be best to have Lord Slogar, Grogar, and Balthazar over, as they probably wouldn't complain much about my cooking.

See more of Dave’s epic LEGO creations at his Flickr site, and make sure to Tweet @KakaLeta to tell him about the time you yourself were pursued by poodles!

A Quest and A Prize: Find “The Looking Glass”

In honor of the season of giving things we have chosen our most cheerful game for giving: Gloom. We have released flocks of this year’s Gloom convention promo card into the wild for you to find: the Story card called “The Looking Glass.”

Story Cards

Story cards in Gloom are an optional type of card that don't get shuffled in with the regular deck. Instead, two Story cards are selected at the start of the game and placed in the center of the table.

Each Story card has a character requirement (usually, a pair of living or dead characters having a specific icon showing) that must be met in order to claim it for your family, as well as an effect that comes into play so long as the card is claimed.

Claiming a Story card counts as one of your two plays. You can claim a Story card either from the center of the table or from another family so long as you meet the requirements. Or you can claim it from another family if you exceed them at the requirement.
  
When adding up your points at the end of the game Story cards claimed by your family may have an additional effect, contributing to your miserably satisfying victory.

 

Where?

“The Looking Glass” story cards are making their way all over the US and Canada. Look for them in sleeves attached to retail copies of Gloom and its expansions at these friendly, local game stores.

Canada:
Halifax, NS - The Board Room Game Cafe; Longueuil, QC - Megasin Menard Comics; Quesnel, BC - K-Max Games & Videos; Sherbrooke, QC - Le Griffon Jeux et Fantaisies
Verdun, QC - Face to Face Games; Winnipeg, MB - GameKnight Games and Cool Stuff

US:
AK: Soldotna - Hobbies, Crafts & Games.  AL: Heleyville - Top End Gaming.  AR: Little Rock - Game Goblins.  AZ: Prescott - Game On Card & Board Games; Prescott Valley - Game On Card & Board Games; Sierra Vista - Pyramid Comics & Games.  CA: Alameda - D20 Games; Bakersfield - Leeters; Bellflower - The Guild House; Berkeley - Games of Berkley; Chico - Bat Comics & Games; Garden Grove - Brookhurst Hobbies; Hilmar - GatePlay.com Game Store; Los Angeles - Whimsic Alley; San Diego - Game Empire San Leadro - The Comic Shop; Vacaville - Forgotten Path Games.  CO: Broomfield -  Kirin Games.  CT: Manchester - Time Machine Hobby. FL: Crestview - GameMasters Guild; Davie - The Adventure Game Store. GA: Athens - Tyche’s Games;  Canton - Dragons Eye Games;  McDonough - The Hobbit Hole. IL: Belleville - Fantasy Books; Carbondale - Castle Perilous Games & Books; Chicago - Chicagoland Games; Chicago - Da Sorce; Edwardsville - Heroic Adventures; Fairview Heights - Fantasy Book & Games; Marion - Fox Comics and Games; Villa Park - Tyton Games. IN: Decatur - DZ Gaming; Evansville - Book and Music Exchange; Fort Wayne - Game Knight; Goshen - Better World Books; Greenfield - Hometown Comics and Games; Hobart - Mr. Sweets Games and Candy; Huntingburg - Game Knight; Indianapolis - Comic Carnival; Muncie - Atomic Comics; South Bend - Griffon Books & Games. KY: Bowling Green - Local Gaming Store; Henderson, Louisville and Owensboro - Book and Music Exchange; Owensboro - MoneyTree; Richmond - Cafe Meeples; Richmond - Cosmic Oasis Game & Geek.  MD: Frederick - Beyond Comics; Gaithersburg - Beyond Comics.  MI: Ann Arbor - Vault of Midnight; Brighton - Just For Fun Hobbies; Dearborn - Sundance Games; Kalamazoo - Fanfare Sports & Entertainment; Flint - Rider’s Hobby Shop; Rochester Hills - Future Wars; Shelby Township - Sundance.  MN: Columbia Heights - Highlander Games and Comics; Grand Rapids - Infinite Games; Roseville - The Source Comics and Games; Waite Park - LionHeart Games. MO: Columbia - Magelings.  MT: Great Falls - Know Dice Games.  NC: Boone - The Mana Spot; Charlotte - Level Up Gaming; Four Oaks - Hobby Invasion; Greenville - Blue Ox Games; Richlands - Red Door Games. NE: Bellevue - The Game Shoppe.  NJ: Barnegat - Trotta’s Hobbies; Westmont - Top Deck Games.  NM: Farmington - Good Games; Santa Fe - Moon Rabbit Toys.  NY: Catskill - Kirwan’s Game Store; Cheektowaga - Niagara Hobby and Craft; Syracuse - Monthly Boxer.  OH: Cincinnati - Rockin Rooster Comics and Games; Dayton - Sepco Entertainment LLC; Mandfield - Heroes Haven; Mount Gilead - Fun Factory; Newbury - Diversions Hobbies and Games.  OR: Aloha - Rainy Day Games; Portland - Red Castle Games.  PA: Cranberry Township - Hobby Express; Erie - Gateway Games; Westboro - Pop’s Culture Shoppe.  SC: Columbia - Firefly Toys & Games.  TN: Jasper - Beach Magic Games & More; Ooltewah - Epikos Comics Cards Games.  TX: Arlington - East Wind Games; Coppell - Roll2Play; Fort Worth - Collected Comics & Games; Fort Worth - Collected Comics & Games - Keller; Fort Worth - Collected Comics & Games - TCU; Fort Worth - Sci Fi Factory; Hurst - Collected Comics & Games; Plano - Collected Comics & Games.  UT: Orem - Boardgame Revolution; Riverton - Fongo Bongo Games; Salt Lake City - Dr Volt’s Comic Connection; Salt Lake City - Hastur Games & Comics. VA: Martinsville - Weston’s Dugout.  WA: Bellevue, Redmond and Spokane - Uncle’s Games, Spokane Valley - Uncle’s Games, Tacoma - Tacoma Games.  WI: Glendale - The Board Game Barrister; Greenfeild - The Board Game Barrister; Kenosha - Rockhead’s Comics and Games; Madison - Pegasus Games;  Manitowoc - Bad Panda Games; Milwaukee - The Board Game Barrister; Sheboygan - The Game Board.  WY: Cheyenne - Gryphon Games & Comics; Rock Springs - Beasts & Barbarians Games.

Do you run a retail store, but don't see your shop named above? We mailed to this list because all of these stores visited us at trade shows and conventions over the course of 2014 and asked us to add them to our mailing list. If you run a store and would like copies of "The Looking Glass" to dress up your Gloom stock, send an email to sales at atlas dash games dot com and we'll make it happen.

Love and Angst at @AtlasGames

We're looking forward to our big Gloom spotlight event at the Geek & Sundry Lounge at Comic-Con. Keith Baker will be there hosting a small cadre of lucky Gloom fans, who'll play with Geek & Sundry luminaries and friends including Nika Harper, Boyan Radakovich, Pat Rothfuss, Tigermonkey, Neil McNeil, Becca Canote, Cristina Viseu, Craig Cackowski, and Hal Lublin. Up for grabs, among other things, will be a hand-crafted set of oversized Gloom story cards.

The event's almost full, but don't be too distressed… because we're not done putting people on the guest list.

Interested in joining us? Then clear your Comic-Con schedule on Friday the 25th from 1:00–2:30. Then, jump on Twitter and tell the world why you love Gloom. Or, speak out about why Gloom ties you up in knots. Better yet, do both.

Use the hashtag #GloomLove or #GloomAngst, depending, and mention @atlasgames. We'll pick our favorites on Tuesday. Make sure you follow us, because we'll inform winners by Twitter DM.

Speak out for your health. Speak out for your sanity. But most importantly, speak out because you want  to play Gloom with Keith Baker and Geek & Sundry.

We'll see you at Comic-Con!

Gloom at Comic-Con with Geek & Sundry

Geek & Sundry has announced the return of the Geek & Sundry Lounge at San Diego Comic-Con this year, and we're really excited to say that Atlas Games and Gloom are going to be a part of it.

No schedule details yet, but we are allowed to say that they're helping us host a Gloom spotlight event with designer Keith Baker, also featuring talent from Geek & Sundry and TableTop.

You'll also be able to play with Keith — and likely some of his own special guests — at other times during the Lounge's hours of operation, too. And in addition to all of the typically depressing Gloom expansions, Keith has promised to bring along some prototypes, including his completely unpublishable Copyright Infringement Gloom.

But Gloom's not all. We're also going to be showing the forthcoming Atlas Games release Three Cheers for Master to the public for the first time at the Geek & Sundry Lounge, and we'll have their game library stocked to the rafters with other Atlas Games games that you can try for free.

Stay tuned for more details, including how you can get on the player list for the spotlight event. In the meantime, check out Geek & Sundry's video announcement:

Twelve Terrible Tunes—A Gloom Playlist

The right music can make a game into an event, so this is the first of several playlists we'll offer to enhance your enjoyment of our most popular games. For the Gloom soundtrack, you'll find a wide variety of the merry and the mournful, but the list is hardly exhaustive. Share your recommendations on social media with the hashtag #GloomyPlaylist!

12. “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saens

• This creepy classical composition brings images of a graveyard gala to mind. And this trippy little PBS cartoon from the 1980s delivered both horror and whimsy to a generation of school Halloween parties.

11. “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.

• A mournful anthem that commiserates with the common human experience of misery and pain. Whether it strikes you as poignant or funny, it's great for crying on one another's shoulders as your Gloom family dwindles. The music video also offers helpful strategies for dealing with rush-hour traffic.

10. “O Death” by Ralph Stanley

• A chilling ballad from the early Appalachian tradition that both asks for Death to spare the singer, and gives the gruesome details of how the Reaper does his work. The great Ralph Stanley performs this song live in 2008 at age 82, just down the hill from his famous brother Carter Stanley's grave.

9. “Don't Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult

• On the flip side from “O Death” is this rock classic that welcomes death as a natural part of life. Blue Oyster Cult made the song famous, though New Zealand band The Mutton Birds did an excellent cover for the soundtrack of the '90s film The Frighteners. But, if we're all going to be honest about it, this is the version we think of now.

8. “Country Death Song” by the Violent Femmes

• This tune pays tribute to the great folk tradition of the “murder ballad”, serving up a grim tale of family demise in the Femmes' distinctive '80s alt-rock style. It's especially enjoyable in this clever animated video by LatockiFILM.

7. “This Could Be Love” by Alkaline Trio

• And then there are the songs that make murder downright merry. This punk classic, with a bloody 4-step checklist in the chorus, isn't for the faint of heart, but it's highly danceable. 

6. “Dancing with Mr. D” by the Rolling Stones

• A classic Stones tune about death and the Devil from Goats Head Soup album. This blues-infused song is filled with creepy, atmospheric graveyard imagery. 

5. “Poor Edward” by Tom Waits

• Some songs are just the sort of weird, mournful tales that could be taken straight out of a round of Gloom. Delivered in Tom Waits' gravelly voice, the saga of poor Edward is enhanced by this stop-motion video by Lucas van Leiden.

4. “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” by The Beatles

• Like many Beatles classics, this song is upbeat and catchy. The fact that it's about a guy who goes around knocking those who annoy him in the head with a hammer is just icing on the cake. A hilarious animated video by HotDiggetyDemon adds a new layer of enjoyment.

3. “People Ain't No Good” by Nick Cave

• While pretty much everything by this dark-voiced artist fits the list, especially his 1996 release Murder Ballads, this contribution to the Shrek 2 soundtrack sums up our feelings about the Gloom clans. 

2. “Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now” by The Smiths

• No self-respecting list of depressing, morbid songs would be complete without an entry by Morrissey and the Smiths. In this classic tune, absolutely everything is an Unhappy Event: finding a job, losing a job, going out, staying home, and of course, looking for love. 

1. “Gloomy Sunday” by Billie Holiday

• This song simply must rank as Number 1 on our countdown, and not just because of its title, or the classic mournful performance by the great lady Billie Holliday. In fact, this song may be directly tied to more untimely deaths than any other in recorded history. Read more about the dreary and depressing legend of “Gloomy Sunday”, a.k.a. “the Hungarian Suicide Song”.

Gloom 2.0 To Press!

I've just sent Gloom 2nd Edition to press, along with revised editions of Unhappy Homes, Unfortunate Expeditions, and Unwelcome Guests. Woot!

For all you Gloomies out there, here's a list of what you can expect to see in the new versions:

NEW FEATURES

• New packaging (telescoping box for the core set, larger footprint on the tuckboxes for the expansions by doing them as 2 half-decks side-by-side)
• Timing icons from Cthulhu Gloom and Unquiet Dead are now incorporated throughout.
• Rules cards and icon reminder cards are included in each set for easy reference.
  
• The cardlist and effect text have been polished for a better play experience (complex cards like Body Thief and cards with delayed effects have been removed, for example).
• Three Modifiers have been turned into Transformations in Unwelcome Guests
• Residences and Mysteries have been reworked so that you no longer end up with unusable cards in your hand
• All the Story icons and a few family icons have been redrawn by Todd Remick
• Core Gloom now uses the discard rule from Cthulhu Gloom
• Horror icons have been removed, to save them for Cthulhu Gloom
• Death cards now have a central art piece, as per Cthulhu Gloom, and blank Story icon at top right. Characters no longer flip upon death.
• Event cards now have a center illo and a blank icon in the top right spot, to give them the same silhouette as a Death card.
• Guests now have reminder text in the family icon spot, as Cthulhu Gloom does.
• Backwards compatibility is maintained

RULES CHANGES

• The beginning more clearly states the objective of the game.
• The opening text is streamlined. It also presents the idea that you're competing to prove who has it worst... you're not simply tormenting your family, you're explaining how you've had it harder than the others.
• Pulled out the detailed descriptions of each family for space.
• Removed the term "Pathos Points", replacing it with "Self-Worth Points" to avoid unnecessary proliferation of game terms.
• Mechanical changes -- timing icons, symbols on Event cards, and the new Discard rule -- have been accounted for.
• Beyond that, it's generally streamlined in line with Cthulhu Gloom.

Tabletop Season 3 Crowdfunding Campaign at IndieGoGo!

In case you've been under a rock (or just really really busy) for the past couple of weeks, here's some news that might flip your cards & topple your meeples: there's an IndieGoGo campaign going on right now to fund a third season of the popular YouTube series, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton. The initial funding goal was reached and now — with just 11 days left — they're shooting for the moon with an attempt to fund a spinoff show centered on tabletop RPGs.

Atlas Games is a big supporter of Tabletop, with both Gloom and Once Upon A Time featured previously. We can't wait to see what games Wil & his celebrity geek guests play in their third year!

Social Media Roundup, Week of 23 February—01 March 2014

Here are the five most interesting things from the Atlas Games social media this week.

• Edward Gorey's morbidly delightful art is an inspiration for Gloom. His collection of fur coats, many featured in his drawings, was recently auctioned off. We found a story of the event that doesn't end nearly as unhappily as one would expect.
• Robin Laws has been sharing his ideas for Feng Shui 2 on Twitter and his blog. Get the inside scoop on the redesign of this classic RPG!
• Historical Europe was more racially diverse than the history books usually teach. If you'd like to include a greater variety of people in your Ars Magica game, check out the Medieval People of Color tumblr for inspiration.
• Now that Once Upon a Time expansion Knightly Tales is heading out to stores, we're on the lookout for ways to add some chivalry to your fairy tales. Did you know that knights considered cutting off a horse's tail was a grave insult?
• If you'd like a daily dose of the gloomy and bizarre when you can't fit in a game of Gloom, we recommend following Cabinet of Curiosities (@wunderkamercast) on Twitter.

If you want up-to-the-minute news or to interact with Atlas staff and fans, follow us on the Atlas Games Facebook and Twitter feeds, as well as the Once Upon A Time and Gloom Facebook pages!

The Addams Family plays Gloom!

Shaun Rice plays Uncle Fester in the touring production of The Addams Family Broadway musical. He's also an avid gamer who runs a video series called Gaming Out of Suitcases that features game reviews and playthroughs with his Addams Family castmates.

It's hard to think of a group of folks who are better at morbid humor, so we were delighted to see Shaun and Company take up Gloom in some recent episodes. You can check out Shaun's review, as well as the cast's deathly dramatics in a round of the game. Gloomy fun for everyone!

Favorable reviews for favorite games

The positive reviews for Atlas Games just keep coming! In the first one, The Geeky Gimp, who gives a disabled person's perspective on diverse topics, turns in a strong endorsement of Murder of Crows, which will be back in stock later this year.

Gaming Out of Suitcases by Shaun Rice brings us a great video review of Gloom. Shaun's a member of the world-touring The Addams Family stage production, so if he says Gloom offers some good creepy fun, that's quite an endorsement! Check back with his webcast to see the gameplay episode coming soon.

Unwelcome Guests Sells Out Again

Our warehouse has no more copies of Gloom expansion Unwelcome Guests.  There are still lots of copies out in the hands of distributors and game retailers, so if you're a fan you have a good chance of tracking one down, but you shouldn't delay too long if you've been thinking about picking up a copy.

We'll be arranging a reprinting of Gloom expansions later this year.

Atlas in Top 10

It's the time of year for Top Ten lists. Here are two we noticed recently via Twitter:

Two Shots to the Head calls Gloom "a beautifully designed card game that is best played in groups that like telling tall tales. [...] The card design is awesome as each playing card is transparent plastic, and modifier cards can be placed on top of your character cards so that previous cards may or may not be still seen below."

Also, Nobody Wants the Thimble says Once Upon a Time is "Simple and elegant and so much fun.  Great game to break out on a rainy or snowy, boring afternoon.  There’s some great expansion packs for this game, including blank 'Make Your Own' cards.  Just in case your fairy tale needs more Batman."