Tiny Epic Cthulhu

The Tiny Epic Games range from Gamelyn Games shows no sign of slowing down. It seems to cover everything from Quests to Zombies, from Mechs to the Wild West, From Galaxies to Vikings… yes, there are a lot!

The lovecraftian latest to this range is Tiny Epic Cthulhu; a race to close portals, defeat Great Old Ones and their minions and, naturally, prevent the end of the world as we know it. Will playing the game make you feel like an epic hero? Or will it leave you feeling indescribable levels of frustration? Let’s open the Necronomicon and find out…

Lovingly Crafted Components

Before I get into the gameplay, I feel I must mention the production quality here. There are 4 big screen printed Great Old One Meeples. 6 screen printed character meeples. 15 chunky, screen printed shambler meeples, in 3 unique designs. The 70-odd tiny wooden tentacle pieces? Yes, their all screen printed too.

The large spinner works as designed and, though the main and player ‘boards’ are thin card mats (as is the way in the Tiny Epic Game series), the quality of what is provided here is excellent for the price point. Only a tiny pinch of unfathomable eldritch knowledge is required to get it all back in the tiny box too (hint: don’t bag the larger meeples and put them in loose where they can fit – it works a treat!).

Bag Yourself A Great Old One.

Tiny Epic Cthulhu plays like an intriguing mix of Pandemic and Quacks of Quedlinburg, plus a dash of order fulfilment, all wrapped up with a cosmic horror bow. Players need to collect madness tentacles from different locations, use them to translate the pages of the Necronomicon, all the while battling back the shamblers and preventing too much tentacle build up in any one area.

The more eldritch tentacles end up in the bag, the worse it is for the player. The more chaos tentacles in there, the better, as these are wild for the players, making it easier for them to perform their actions, or can even be spent for additional actions.

There is so much push/pull in Tiny Epic Cthulhu. The more tentacles a player collects, the more powerful their actions become. Push your luck too far though and you will lose your tentacles and move one step closer to utter delirium. You want the tentacles because they make you more efficient. You have to spend them to translate the Necronomicon and progress the game. These conflicting pressures are the pulse of Tiny Epic Cthulhu.

Wheel of Misfortune.

Dominating the centre of the game area, you will find the Wheel of Madness. This dictates each turn which of the 5 map areas will gain tentacle tokens, which will gain additional shamblers (and of which colour) and any special action that happens that round. It is fun giving it a spin each turn and it does a great job of randomising where the threats turn up.

There is a 4 step process to resolving the wheel however, and it is not entirely intuitive at first. Eventually though, I was able to get into the spin, action, tentacles, shambler, Great Old One sequence and then get on with playing out my actions.

It is another great component and provides a suitably dramatic moment, as players await their fate until the spinner comes to rest…

Is Cosmic Horror Your Bag?

Tiny Epic Cthulhu uses bag building as a clever form of risk mitigation. A large part of the game is getting the bag odds in your favour. Doing this forces the players to manage the growing numbers of shamblers and tentacles, lest they hit critical mass when the spinner stops. This will result in tentacles being removed from the game, or eldritch tentacles being added to the bag. Both outcomes result in there being a greater probability of eldritch tentacles being pulled, thus making the Great Old One stronger and accelerating the end of the game.

I appreciate this system and the way it provides an organic timer on the game. You never know how many turns you have left, but you are acutely aware of the escalating madness and the hastening of the end game.

If you manage to gather all the pages of the Necronomicon, the Great Old One’s mat flips and now you need to spend tentacles to close 6 portals, 2 of each colour. This provides a climatic end to the game, as the threats keep on coming. It’s also where the difficulty levels kick in, as each Great Old One has portals of varying difficulty to seal. Cthulhu is, naturally, the most challenging to defeat.

Tiny Epic Cthulhu is my favourite Tiny Epic game since Tiny Epic Galaxies, a decade ago. I enjoy the randomness in that you are never quite sure of where the threats will appear. The push your luck element of managing your character is very well implemented. You want them powered up, but then are always flirting with descending into further delirium and risking total demise. Indeed, in my last game, I had one portal to close and moved my character to do so. There was a shambler with the Great Old One, so I had to draw a tentacle. If it was blue, that would have lost me the game, as it would have been my final step on the delirium track. It wasn’t, I sealed the portal and won in a suitably climactic fashion. This is Tiny Epic Cthulhu at its very best.

Maddening Moments.

What could drive you to madness before the spinner is first spun, is the set up. It is not the worst lengthy setup offender I’ve come across, but it is involved and could take the unwary by surprise. Tentacles need positioning around the Necronomicon mat. The correct numbers are needed to set up the bag. The shamblers go on their mat. 15 Eldritch tentacles are placed on the main play area. The initial board sections need seeding with tentacles… yes, there is a lot to get through.

The good news is that once you are set up, the effort put in pays off, as everything is accessible and where it needs to be. The first time, I found it a chore. The second time, it was much, much better. The set up isn’t inordinately long for the game length either – it will be about an hour to play this one.

The other niggle to be aware of is that the rulebook isn’t the clearest. I don’t think it has rules that are missing, or wrong, it’s just not the most intuitive when it comes to finding and checking rules.

Finding where spent tentacles go and when is probably the hardest part to discern. There is a summary flowchart in the rules that could have been torn from the Necronomicon itself! Once I figured out tentacles players choose to spend go to the discard mat and those that are forcibly discarded go to the shambler mat, it was much easier. Only this information is not presented anywhere as clearly as I stated it here; it is embedded in text on different pages.

The game advertised an interactive rules teach on the Dized app and I recommend checking it out. I found it very helpful for learning the game.

Closing the Portal.

Setup and rulebook irks aside, Tiny Epic Cthulhu is an excellent cooperative game. It scales well because more threats happen at the start of each player’s turn. This means the game progresses at a similar pace regardless of player count. You will just have fewer individual activations at 4 player versus 2 player.

There is plenty of variety in the base box too. Each of the 6 characters has a unique ability and there are 4 Great Old Ones to choose from, again with unique abilities. The town mats are double sided, meaning 5 from 10 actions spaces will be in play each game too. For those who like tweaking their gameplay puzzles, there is plenty in Tiny Epic Cthulhu to keep you going.

Tiny Epic Cthulhu really does provide a big game experience, despite its diminutive box size. I think that is something you need to be prepared for; this won’t be a game you get out and are finished with inside 30 minutes. Rather it is a more involved experience, where you curse the fickle fates that try to thwart you, as you battle the eldritch powers.

I find it to be well crafted, well balanced and, rulebook issues aside, a very well executed thematic coop game. I certainly heed the Call of Cthulhu.

About the author:

When not reviewing board games, Graham is teaching maths, running a games club and failing to convince his students that baseball is the greatest sport ever invented. You can read his thoughts and opinions on all things board game on his blog, GrahamS Games.

You can find him on BlueSky, where he will invariably be wittering on about whichever game has currently captured his attention: https://bsky.app/profile/grahamsgames.bsky.social