Each player selects a set of 5 family characters for themselves and lays them out on the table before them. the rest of the cards are shuffled and 5 dealt to each player.

Each turn, a player can play up to two cards from their hand and then bring their hand back up again.
There are three phases:
First Play - A player can play or discard a card, or pass
Second Play - A player can play or discard a card, or pass (however, an Untimely Death card cannot be played now)
Draw Phase - Bring your cards back up to your current draw limit

And thats all their is to it! You try to play happy cards with positive modifiers on your opponents, while playing sad incidents on your characters with negative modifiers. Once a character has a good negative score, you then play an Untimely Death on it and the deceased character then forms part of your score. The player with the lowest negative score wins.

Needless to say, it isn't so starightforward in practice. Several negative cards have a nasty side effect, such as lose your next turn or discard a card every time you play a modifier card and the player who owns the card that its played on has to suffer the consequences, so you play these on your opponents, but then of course, thats giving them negative scores, which you don't really want to do! Also, by killing off opponents characters when they are 'slightly upset' with a small negative modifier, means that there end score will be smaller.. except some event cards bring deceased characters back to life!

This game is really good fun and a lighthearted way (despite the subject of doom and gloom) to fill an odd half or hour or so.

SUMMARY:
The rules are straightforward and the transparent cards are an unusual feature in themselves. Well worth getting for the 'black comedy'.

Review by Brian