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Game Info
Year
2016
Collection
Ratings
Creator Score
Expansions & Family
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Description
Beings of ancient evil, known as Old Ones, are threatening to break out of their cosmic prison and awake into the world. Everything you know and love could be destroyed by chaos and madness. Can you and your fellow investigators manage to find and seal every portal in time? Hurry before you lose yourself to insanity.
In Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, you'll experience the classic Pandemic gameplay with an horrific twist that'll have you face twelve Old Ones, each threatening the world with their unique powers. As players take on the roles of investigators attempting to seal a series of portals before monsters of unspeakable horror pour into our world there is, of course, a high risk of the investigators losing their own minds.
Instead of curing diseases like in the original Pandemic, players seal portals and shut down cults in the classic New England fictional towns of Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport. Can you and your fellow investigators manage to find and seal every portal in time? Hurry before you lose yourself to insanity and the evil that lurks beneath your feet...
Part of the Pandemic series.
Pandemic Family
(15 games)
Part of the Pandemic family — see Pandemic for the combined view.
Pandemic
Pandemic: The Cure
Pandemic: Contagion
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Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
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Reign of Cthulhu
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Pandemic Legacy: Season 2
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Pandemic: Rising Tide
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Fall of Rome
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Pandemic: Rapid Response
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Pandemic: Hot Zone – North America
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Pandemic Legacy: Season 0
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Pandemic: Hot Zone – Europe
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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Pandemic: Legacy Season 2 (Black Ed)
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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 3
This page: 3
Sentiment:
pos 3 ·
mix 0 ·
neu 0 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–3 of 3
Video tQ3Zed3-xRA
Board Game Sanctuary Top List at 7:39 sentiment: positive
video_pk 109861 · mention_pk 316061
Click to watch at 7:39 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Superbly crafted Lovecraftian theme
- Surprise element with revealed ancient ones
- Powerful relic cards
- Simplified and easy-to-navigate board
- Threatening shoggoths
Cons
- Risk of losing sanity when using relic cards
- Can get stuck in heavily populated cultist locations
Thematic elements
- Banishment of cultists, defeating shoguts, closing gates to stop the Old Ones from awakening
- Lovecraftian countryside
Comparison games
- Pandemic
- Spirit Island
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Point Allowance System — On a player's turn players can perform up to four actions.
- Area Control — The summoning deck is revealed two cultists are placed in that location and as more old ones are revealed you can see that three cultists will be placed.
- Card Drafting — At the end of their turn they draw two cards off the top of the deck and if it's an evil stirs card.
- cooperative play — Reign of Cthulhu is a reimagined version of the original game pandemic where players taken the role of investigators as they travel across the Lovecraftian countryside banishing cultures defeating shoguts and trying to close the four gates as they go.
- Dice Rolling — You have to roll the sanity die every time you want to use one.
- Sanity mechanic — Each character begins with four sanity tokens on it. Now throughout the game if the character ever loses all of their sanity tokens they flip over to the other side and the other side provides some restrictive rules that limits what that character can do.
- Set Collection — Gates can be closed if a player goes to the gate and they trade in four cards that represent that particular colored region.
- Threat track — The olds one track is a unique feature that appears in reign of cthulhu.
- Variable player powers — Players can controlling four characters each character begins with four sanity tokens on it.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- So it seems like there was an infection in your entire board game collection.
- At the start of the game players are each going to choose a character each character has a special ability as well as the number of actions that they can perform on their tune.
- The game can get quite hard and i like how the game can be scaled.
- The olds one track is a unique feature that appears in reign of cthulhu.
- This my fellow friends is the fun part of the game.
- The Loop is ultimately a cool game about looping your actions looping your powers creating powerful turns moving around this pizza-like technicolor board and just really having a great time.
- I'm always looking for some other fully cooperative board games to add to the board game collection.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video 9v9Ir-aYjE0
The Discriminating Gamer Review at 0:12 sentiment: positive
video_pk 81452 · mention_pk 202332
Click to watch at 0:12 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Love the Pandemic system and games in it
- Cthulhu theme makes it evocative
- Board design and top-down look is appealing
- Seven investigators provide variety
- Rulebook is short and seems comprehensive; artwork noted as good
Cons
- Packaging issues (plastic not separating easily)
- Camera focus issues during unboxing
- Some miniatures have posing/base issues
- Discussion about card art side preference
Thematic elements
- Lovecraftian horror with a Pandemic-style cooperative system to seal gates and defeat eldritch threats
- Top-down board showing locations Arkham, Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Dunwich; investigators exploring gates to stop Cthulhu
- Cooperative, scenario-driven, investigator-based with chaos tokens and relics
Comparison games
- Eldritch
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action economy — Players take four actions per turn.
- Combat / monsters — Encounter shoggoths and cultists; defeat them to progress.
- Combat: Damage Based — Encounter shoggoths and cultists; defeat them to progress.
- Combat: Deck/Hand — There are cultist spawn cards, relic cards, Evil Stirrings cards, and elder sign related items.
- Decks and cards — There are cultist spawn cards, relic cards, Evil Stirrings cards, and elder sign related items.
- hand size limit — Hand limit is seven at all times.
- Movement via gates — Movement and actions are tied to gates/tokens on the map.
- sanity mechanics — If insane, must roll a sanity die; sanity can be regained.
- Set Collection — Goal is to seal all four gates; losing if gates fail or other loss conditions occur.
- Set collection / Gates to seal — Goal is to seal all four gates; losing if gates fail or other loss conditions occur.
- Turn structure with two card draws and an Evil Stirrings event — On a turn, players draw two cards and resolve an Evil Stirrings card.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Cannot wait to get this one played.
- The board looks really cool.
- I absolutely love Pandemic and several games in the Pandemic system.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video r3CjARURbRQ
The Discriminating Gamer Top List at 4:19 sentiment: positive
video_pk 80277 · mention_pk 195135
Click to watch at 4:19 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Really cool
- A lot of fun
- Great job
- Liked it more than expected
Cons
none
Thematic elements
- Defeating Elder Gods and closing gates
- Arkham environs
Comparison games
- Pandemic
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — cultists that are appearing and you got to destroy the cultists, but then you got the Shoggoths that come and and they're moving around the board
- Card Drafting — You're going around collecting cards and then trying to play the cards in order to close the gates.
- cooperative play — If you like Pandemic, it's a great Pandemic style game.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I love Cthulhu games. I think they're so much fun. I love that world. I've read I think I believe I've read every one of Lovecraft's stories.
- But man, I love this game. It is so much fun. I love the dice, the way you use dice in this game and how you're leveling up, but it's also driving you insane.
- So, there's a lot of replayability with these interactions between these monster boxes and the episodes. Really love Cthulhu: Death May Die. Brilliant game.
- Um Arkham Horror the board game, the second edition, which I played, never really thrilled me. I liked it, I didn't love it.
- my number one Cthulhu Mythos game of all time, Mansions of Madness second edition.
- the second edition has an app. And the app is great cuz it manages all of that stuff.
- It's a really really fun and creepy game.
- great app integration, great minis, great story that comes out of these games, and just a lot of fun.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Showing 1–3 of 3