Setup takes longer than I’d like on a weeknight once you’ve got the full miniature roster out, sorting monster figures by chapter, laying out the story board, stacking mythos and discovery decks, easily fifteen to twenty minutes before the first turn. Once it’s going though, this moves fast, and more than one reviewer online called it Zombicide with a Lovecraft coat of paint, which is close but undersells what the sanity mechanic does differently.

The core loop is investigators running around a modular map fighting monsters and racing to complete a ritual before an elder god fully manifests, and the twist that actually earns this a spot on my shelf is that your characters get objectively stronger as their sanity collapses, skill upgrades tied directly to how much horror they’ve absorbed. That’s a genuinely clever piece of design, tying power growth to the theme’s central cost instead of bolting an unrelated leveling system on top of it. Combat resolves with a handful of black dice per attack, which keeps things quick, and the escalating chapter structure, enemies scaling up as the elder god’s own threat track advances, gives even a mediocre early game real tension by the finale.

Component quality is exactly what CMON does well and does a little too much of, gorgeous sculpted minis that don’t do much for actual gameplay beyond table presence, and a base box already thick enough with content that I haven’t felt any urgency chasing the expansions. Solo works cleanly running two investigators, and two-player holds up fine, though the game clearly wants three or four around the table for the chaos to really land. It’s not deep the way a heavier crunch game is, this is closer to elegant popcorn than a brain-burner, but it knows exactly what it’s going for and hits it. Four stars, an easy teach and a genuinely fun night regardless of group experience level.