Seals of Cthulhu - Kickstarter Thoughts and Preview

This is a Seal.

Look, we all play around with words to make things sound more exciting.  An extra adjective or an overzealous description can do wonders for how something can be perceived.  Apparently this is something called marketing. It brings wonder and longing. It can create demand where none existed before. It lights up the spark of desire within the very souls of ourselves that need that new shiny in our lives.
However.
We have all at some point been misled. Discovered the unfortunate truth that the picture on the cover of that microwave meal had nothing in common with the sludge that appeared on the plate. That somehow Magic the Gathering was meant to be a good game, that Mechs vs Minions actually had nowt to do with the film and Stuart and Bananas were nowhere to be seen. 

So when Sean, A Person from Thing12games reached out with his rather long arms and beard, tapped us on the shoulder, and said
 “Hey! I've beaten you at Star Realms, would you like to play a two player game involving bidding and the elder gods?”
“No Sean. Leave me alone.” 
“Hey Buddy, it's gonna sure be a whole load of fun!”
“Sean, why don't you play with the vanilla deck?  I mean, it's like you can't win unless you've got gambits on.. “
“Hey! I promise it will be fun Richard”
“Sean. Maybe. Can you stop with the Wizard nonsense please?”
“No chance Richard.”
“Fine”

So after giving Sean a wrong address and then hiding out for three weeks to jump the postman, kind of sign for the package and avoid a minor dog intervention, I have a box in my possession. Slightly chewed might I add, but you can't have everything. I'm not actually sure if was the dog, or if it's part of the presentation. 

And it starts out with promise as there's Elder God Other Realm Beings and Investigators and cultists and there's a main mechanic which involves you playing a card and either trying to keep it in your hand or potentially bluffing to get rid of it and to do that you have these lovely meeples in green or blue.
There's also a thing that as you win cards you can use the influence they have in order to make it easier for you to win hands and it all escalates rather nicely.
At some point you'll have cards that you can flip to cause chain reactions that will have you gaining more influence but then maybe you'll decide to let your opponent win that card so you can Stockpile more influence for the next round.
I'm not very good at explaining these things but either way it either plays quite quickly or longer if you want it to last longer. I guess you could play the cards reaaalllllyyy slllowwwly if you wanted to  make it last even longer.  

I've seen the art and that is good, because the cards are really different depending on the side you play, but then some of the cards are the half of two parts, and guess what? You'll need the cult side and the investigator side to create bigger cards to unlock their powers. They all have really scary big names to them, though I thought one of them sounded made up to be really honest with you. 
I also like how the instructions were a rolled up parchment that was burned round the edges, like you would do a history class to make a document old. We used to be allowed to do that until Frank put the oven up too high. Then Frank’s parents came to the school and used some language and next thing we were reduced to using coffee instead. Dunno what happened to Frank, come to think of it. I miss him.
So where was I?
Well. I spent about 47 minutes going through the contents of the Seals of Cthulhu box. I even checked the listing of components several times. I sent a few messages out to a couple of other content creators, and several more to other people because, I like to keep in contact with people.
I came to the horrific conclusion that despite the name of the game, and the claim of Cthulhu being there, which it is, there are no Seals in Seals of Cthulhu.
I'm being serious here. Like,  I'm being reasonable I think. You open a box of chocolates, you expect chocolates, not Scorpions. I open an Orange, I don’t expect a mobile phone, but the tasty and juicy interior of a fruit ready to be sucked on.  I demand as a consumer that there needs to be some kind of accountability for this complete attempt at deception.
 

Again - Is Seal.

I’m not really fussed about whether you’ve created what appears to be a mechanically sound game here Thing12, what concerns me is that if board games start to not contain what they say in the title then this is the start of the end of civilisation as we know it. The slippery slope on which this hobby will disappear in the hot burny place of lies and deceit.
(The other thing that concerns me is what has happened to the previous 11 Things)

Jamey Stegmaier wouldn’t do something like this. You wouldn’t catch him calling a game something only not to have the thing in the game..

So in conclusion, feel free to click on this link and you can decide whether to back the game but don’t be surprised if when it comes to fulfilment, you’re taking ownership of a Fridge Freezer or a Horse, or something instead of this rather fun two player card game. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thing12games/the-seals-of-cthulhu?ref=notwizards

THESE ARE SEALS of CTHULHU - Thanks to Kevin Ogilvie

Summary - You think this write up is bad, originally it was going to be a Fifty Shades of Grey Homage.

Disclaimer - We were sent a Review Copy of the game and other better sites have done really critical reviews. Like with grammar and stuff and proper explanations. And we had fun as well. But our writing is shit.