Cthulhu: Death May Die Is a Dice Chucker Wearing a Very Expensive Halloween Costume

Picked this up secondhand from a guy unloading his CMON collection, box still had shrink dust on it. I’m not really a minis painter, I’ll admit that up front, I bought this for the game not the hobby, and I ended up fine leaving them gray plastic. It’s a dungeon crawler where you roll a fistful of dice, go a little more insane every time you roll a tentacle, and use that insanity to power up before it kills you. Simple loop, and honestly it works, fast, fun, no app required, and the panic of watching your sanity track empty out is a real feeling.

It’s a coop, so there’s no losing player who gets to hand the win to somebody else out of spite, nobody’s kingmaking you here, everyone sinks or swims together, which I actually appreciated after a run of competitive games that left people salty.

Two player is where it gets interesting though and not in a good way. One review nailed it, at two players it’s honestly too easy, you gain insanity fast and by the end you’re just melting the boss with damage, no real tension left. Another reviewer went further and said the optimal count is three, because there’s no adjustment for player count at all, so two characters end up doing twice the work of four, running around putting out fires and interrupting rituals solo while a four player game feels like the fun got split too thin. That tracks with my table, our two player games always ended anticlimactic.

Then there’s the price. Base game alone I don’t mind, but chase the Unspeakable pledge and you’re two hundred plus, and one reviewer put it about as well as anyone could, at that price point the replay value is as poor as a church mouse that wandered into a Cthulhu ritual. Rolling dice is fun for a while but it’s not deep, and eventually the luck dependence just wears on you.

Three stars. Fun for a night, not enough game underneath to justify the money if you’re chasing the full pledge.