The best board games are the ones that recognize that the most important component of the game are the players sitting around the table. They encourage negotiating, teamwork, bluffing, laughter and more. Well, most games do that. Ghost Stories seems to view the players in much the same way a shark views an obese surfer with vertigo and a nosebleed.
Ghost Stories is a cooperative game where players control four monks trying to defend a small village from an onslaught of angry ghosts. It’s a gorgeous game of colorful tiles, amazing art, and ruthless efficiency. Each player gets to move, and gets to take an action. One action. One action that has a pretty good chance of resulting in things just getting worse. Oh, and once that probably worthless action has expired? Another ghost shows up. You just endure this wave of angry spirits, barely holding on, and if you somehow manage to survive to the end? The massively powerful Wu Feng ghost appears, and if he doesn’t die, you lose.
This may not seem like a lot of fun, and indeed, people I know are fairly split on Ghost Stories, with about half of my friends viewing it as a punishing ordeal that leaves them exhausted, and the other half agreeing wholeheartedly, but enjoying it anyway. Here’s the thing: Ghost Stories is an event. It’s a game that you won’t often win, but when you do, you feel like you’ve accomplished something special. You are survivors, and have shared an experience that you’ll reminisce about in your nursing home, telling the nurse that you once kicked Wu Feng’s ass.
You can leave out the ten times he kicked your ass.
- Dietrich Stogner
Ghost Stories is a cooperative game where players control four monks trying to defend a small village from an onslaught of angry ghosts. It’s a gorgeous game of colorful tiles, amazing art, and ruthless efficiency. Each player gets to move, and gets to take an action. One action. One action that has a pretty good chance of resulting in things just getting worse. Oh, and once that probably worthless action has expired? Another ghost shows up. You just endure this wave of angry spirits, barely holding on, and if you somehow manage to survive to the end? The massively powerful Wu Feng ghost appears, and if he doesn’t die, you lose.
This may not seem like a lot of fun, and indeed, people I know are fairly split on Ghost Stories, with about half of my friends viewing it as a punishing ordeal that leaves them exhausted, and the other half agreeing wholeheartedly, but enjoying it anyway. Here’s the thing: Ghost Stories is an event. It’s a game that you won’t often win, but when you do, you feel like you’ve accomplished something special. You are survivors, and have shared an experience that you’ll reminisce about in your nursing home, telling the nurse that you once kicked Wu Feng’s ass.
You can leave out the ten times he kicked your ass.
- Dietrich Stogner
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