It was a lovely day in Atlantic City… until Cthulhu arrived. When he took a walk on the Boardwalk, he left rubble in his wake. His goal was simple: to crush the city, and tear enough gaps in reality that he could draw on his full power and shatter the world. Only one thing could stop him. A band of plucky investigators? No! Don’t be ridiculous. The only thing that could stop Cthulhu from destroying the world was Shub-Niggurath… because she intended to destroy it first.
The Doom That Came To Atlantic City takes a host of familiar tropes and turns them upside down. Each player assumes control of one of the terrifying powers of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos - Tsathoggua, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth or even Cthulhu himself! This isn’t a game of building houses or playing landlord; in Doom you crush Atlantic City, tearing open gaps in reality when you destroy the last building on a space. Your power increases with each gate that you open, and you can win the game just by opening gates, but you also have a shortcut – a Doom, your own personal recipe for the apocalypse. Perhaps you need to amass cultists to perform a final ritual, or gain power by defeating your rivals in battle. Whatever the requirements of your Doom, you’ll need to work fast. There’s only one world, and everyone wants to destroy it.
The Doom That Came To Atlantic City is a beer-and-pretzels game of monstrous mayhem. You travel around the city building up your cult and expanding your abilities; do you want Flabby Claws and Membranous Wings, or would you rather be Non-Euclidean and Tentacular? Smashing houses provides you with the power you need to perform the rituals you acquire through Chants, and if you can steal all of an opponent’s cultists you can temporarily banish them. Chants cards, traits, and various methods of controlling movement provide strategic hooks, but it is a casual game and newcomers have a chance to bring down veteran players. The game was born from a love of Lovecraft and pokes some fun at a certain classic board game. Artist Lee Moyer teamed up with Gloom designer Keith Baker to develop the core idea, bringing in sculptor Paul Komoda (known for his work on The Thing prequel and Cabin In The Woods) to produce eight stunning miniatures representing the Great Old Ones. The game suffered an unexpected setback in 2013 when publisher The Forking Path defaulted on Kickstarter backers, leaving the game in development limbo and backers with nothing to show for their faith in the project. Cryptozoic stepped in and saved Doom, seeing the game through to production and pledging to get it into the hands of the backers; the Cryptozoic edition also incorporates the expansion that was produced as part of the Kickstarter project. It’s been a long road, but the stars are right that The Doom That Came To Atlantic City is finally nigh!
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