Cryptozoic released a new game this month called Locke & Key based on the comic book series from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, publish by IDW. The setting follows a family that has moved to an estate called the Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachusetts after the father was murdered. The family name is Locke and they soon find the house is full of supernatural surprises and powerful keys that unlock powers and mysteries. The family members face challenges in the house both spiritual and psychological.

Matt Hyra, the games designer, captured this feel in a card game that is simple to learn and quick to play. There are three main decks of cards, a Challenge deck where cards are flipped over at the beginning of a round and determine the challenge color and difficulty.

There are 3 colors white, blue and black and the difficulty number is how much strength in that color it will take to overcome that challenge. Players will most often work together with the person contributing the most strength to the challenge earning the difficulty in points towards the end game. The player who contributed the second most strength to a successfully overcome challenge will get the second place reward described on the card. If a challenge is failed, there is no penalty and the challenge is put on the bottom of the deck not to be seen again this game and any cards played are lost for that turn.

There are 19 challenge cards, one of which is a game over card that is shuffled among the bottom seven cards of the deck. When this card is revealed the game ends immediately and the points of each player are added up and a winner determined.

At the start of the game, players are dealt a hand of 4 strength cards.

A starting player is chosen and given the lock token, the winner of each round will take the lock token and start the next round (if there is no winner, it remains with the current possessor). The round begins with revealing the top challenge card and dealing everyone one strength card. The player with lock begins and can do one of three actions:

1) Pass and draw one strength card from the deck and your turn is over.

2) Play up to three cards from your hand face down towards the challenge (unless a card requires to be played face up).

3) Search for a key by discarding two strength cards from your hand and drawing a card from the Key deck and your turn is over.

After each player has taken their action the face down cards are revealed and any of the Strength cards’ effects are done in player order. Then the total number of the appropriate challenge color is added up; if it is equal to or exceeds the difficulty on the challenge card the challenge is overcome. The player who contributed the most strength earns the card and its points and the second place player gets the second place benefit of the card. Any ties are resolved in player order from the lock.

This continues until the Game Over card is turned over.

During the game you will get chances to find keys.

You can play these on your turn or when the Key says it can be played. One Shot keys are used once and discarded for a powerful effect. Reusable keys are kept and can be used again on later turns.

There is a bit of strategy and bluffing in the game on choosing whether to spend strength cards to find keys and on playing off-color cards in tricking your opponents into thinking your hand is stronger than it really is. Many strength cards have special effects and combos that you’ll want to look to trigger and use to your advantage. The game play is very quick, especially as everyone becomes familiar with the cards. I’ve only played a few 3 player games but I look forward to playing the maximum 6 players soon!

Now if only a network would pick up the pilot show that was shot for this property.