"The art takes a humorous horror approach, so it’s Cthulhu, but it’s got a family-friendly little twist to it,” said Hadlock. “It has a little bit deeper, a little more tricky game play than an average deck builder game.”
Cthulhu Realms is for 2-4 players, ages 14 and up, and plays in 25-45 minutes.

In Cthulhu Realms, each player tries to reduce other players to insanity or have more sanity than their opponents when the deck runs out.

Each player begins the game with a small deck comprised of initiates, goons and followers. Five cards from the deck form a row of available cards; with more than two players, place three available cards between each pair of players.

Each turn, you begin with five cards in hand, playing those cards in order to put locations into play, boost your own sanity or reduce that of others, collect conjuring power to acquire new cards, and remove cards from the game. You can use the power of your locations once per turn. At the end of your turn, discard any cards still in your hand and all entities and artifacts that you played.

If you lose all of your sanity, you're knocked out of the game. If you're the only one at the table who's still sane, you win the game. Otherwise, the game is over when the deck runs out and whoever has the most sanity wins.