The sky is darker, the tea is colder, and the worst is still to come…
I’ve said this before, I’ll say this again, I’ll say this to anyone who wants to listen. I love Gloom. I’ve been playing since the beginning, and when I was doing Freelance Demoing, it was consistently one of the more popular requests, and I am (to my knowledge) one of the only people outside Atlas Games staff to run the Gloomiest Tea Party tournament format. That format is every Gloom set stripped down to its component card types, those are shuffled and redistributed to standard sized decks. Basically, it means I have 2 of almost every Gloom set.
So you can imagine my excitement when I saw not only that Gloomier is a SEQUEL not just an expansion, and not only is there a new campaign-style mode of play with Gloom Chronicles, but there is finally a way to properly store all those cards properly in a Grief Case!
The Grief Case is a high quality box with enough space for every Gloom card in print and another four full sets down the road, plus a dedicated slot for the rules and a whack of acrylic dividers for custom sorting. It looks perfect for my tea party set, and I can’t wait to get a closer look. It’s worth noting that retail stores won’t be able to get the Grief Case through regular distribution channels, it’s only for people and stores that back the campaign.
The Gloom Chronicles is going to be the big stretch goal project for the campaign. The campaign funded in an hour, so by the time you read this I can basically guarantee that they will have upgraded Chronicles from a PDF to physical cards. (As much as I don’t love print-n-play stuff, for this I hope they keep the PDFs as well.) I would honestly be surprised if they haven’t crossed the threshold for an extra 10 cards and revealed several more goals by then as well.
Yes, I’m probably most excited about this hot new sadness. But Gloomier itself is pretty exciting as well. The subtitle “A Night at Hemlock Hall” refers to the home of the Wellington-Smyth family of the original Gloom. Gloom creator Keith Baker describes it as Hemlock Hall Season2, with the inclusion of Lord and Lady Wellington-Smyth and their now-older Twins, along with two new members of the household staff. (On the same purple background as the original family.) As a stand-alone expansion, I presume there will also be another three families but all that is specifically listed is 14 new Guests, 6 Story cards, and a new cast of Characters. There don’t appear to be any new mechanics, but one addition to cards is a short story prompt to help players who may not be as inclined to come up with a story, and the story is half the fun.
Pledges start at $24 (USD) for Gloomier and Chronicles or $49 adds in the Grief Case. Both of those levels also include heavily discounted add-ons, or for $270 you can pick up the entire Gloom catalogue in one shot.
Do I really need to say I’m excited for this? In case it wasn’t clear, I’m super excited for this. Something that I can’t help wonder, is that this game focuses on Hemlock Hall, but there are three more families in the original game. Could we see Dark’s Den of Deformity get a new cast of performers in Gloomier: A Night at the Circus? I hope so because a whole clown-car of Mister Giggles creepy friends would be amazing.
You can back Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall on Kickstarter until April 7, 2021.
You can find Atlas Games online at atlas-games.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/AtlasGames.
