Ghost Stories
The Lord of Nine Hells walks the earth.
Wu-Feng, the Lord of Nine Hells, has discovered the village hiding the funeral urn containing his ashes. Four Taoist priests protect the village, as hordes of ghosts and demons descend on the town to reclaim the remains of their evil overlord. Can you hold out against the forces of eternal darkness, or will Wu-Feng recover his ashes and destroy everything in his path?
In Ghost Stories, the players work together as the Taoist priests attempting to turn back the tide of evil and save the doomed village. With mystical powers and ancient martial arts, the heroes will battle wave after wave of ghosts and demons until Wu-Feng himself rises to claim his remains. Working together is your only hope, as the ghosts increase in number and force the Taoist priests to sacrifice resources, time and even their very lives in this desperate battle against the hordes of Hell.
Ghost Stories is a cooperative game for one to four players. With modular playing tiles and a randomized deck of ghastly foes, no two games will be alike. The cards and tiles boast fantastic illustrations inspired by kung-fu legends, and a variety of excellent plastic playing pieces will draw you into the game. Gather your forces and battle the Lord of Nine Hells in the ultimate battle of good versus evil!
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Ghost Stories is a medium-weight cooperative game for 1-4 players in which the players take the role of Taoist monks defending a village from the minions of Wu-Feng. The monks can request aid from the various villagers and use their own special powers to help exorcise the ghosts and, ultimately, the incarnations of Wu-Feng himself before the village is overrun and Wu-Feng is resurrected.
Gameplay Summary
Ghost Stories is a difficult game to sum up briefly, so this summary is intended only as a general overview for review purposes and not an exhaustive breakdown of the game.
The village is created by shuffling the village tiles and randomly placing them into a square. The ghost deck is shuffled, as are the incarnations, which are much tougher than normal ghosts, and a number of incarnations appropriate to the number of players and the difficulty level are seeded into the shuffled ghost deck at fixed intervals. Players choose a monk and one of two abilities, and then receive a number of various tokens appropriate for the difficulty level of the game.
At the start of a typical turn, a ghost is drawn and placed on one of the player boards in accordance with its color. Some ghosts perform certain abilities upon arrival, and some do so at the start of each turn of the board on which they were placed. Each monk is then able to move and either request help from a villager, which can provide them benefits like extra Tao tokens or removing a ghost from play, or attempt to exorcise one or more ghosts adjacent to their current village tile. Ghosts have a strength called resistance, and a ghost can be exorcised by equaling the ghost’s resistance through some combination of rolling the ghost’s color on Tao dice, spending Tao tokens or leveraging certain abilities gained from village tiles. Although there are plenty of other options, these are the basics.
The players win by exorcising all incarnations of Wu-Feng before 3 village tiles become haunted (a special ghost ability), the ghost deck is exhausted with an incarnation in play, or all monks perish. Victory requires constant management of the ghosts and their effects through teamwork and optimal use of special abilities, village tiles and special tokens.
Gameplay Features
• Fully cooperative play
• Possible player elimination
• Four adjustable difficulty levels
• Randomized modular game board
• Four possible players with variable powers
• Solo game mode
Components and Theme
The production quality of the game is superb. It comes with a number of detailed plastic figures, ghost cards, and sturdy tokens, tiles and player boards, all adorned with fantastic and thematic art. The ghost card material is the weakest point, being less sturdy than a Dominion card and possessing black edges that tend to show any wear clearly. The cards are shuffled only once per game, so it will only be an issue for frequent players of the game, who can easily sleeve the cards. There is also a beautiful full color rulebook and reference sheet included.
This game is dripping with a Chinese ghost story theme, represented in not only the artwork and figures, but also naming, terminology and abilities.
Ease of Adoption
This game has a sharp learning curve, largely due to the heavy use of terminology and symbology, the variety of possible actions and its overall uniqueness. The rule book, although beautiful and full of information, does not succeed at explaining what is a relatively simple base rule set. For example, the 1-3 player setup rules are separate from the primary setup section, which focuses on 4 player setup and does not reference where to find setup for other player configurations. A turn walkthrough or a few more visual rules examples would have helped to clarify some of the concepts. I feel that the game is best learned from someone familiar with it or playing the solo game prior to attempting to teach others.
Ghost Stories is a difficult game, even at the lowest difficulty levels. Mastery of the concepts will take multiple plays depending on player experience and is not easy to achieve.
There is no conflict between players built into the game, so this game will appeal to players who do not like conflict. However, like all cooperative games, one or more dominant players can attempt to dictate the moves of others, which could affect the enjoyment of the other players.
Setup and Play Times
Setup is relatively easy and will take 10-15 minutes for inexperienced players and considerably less for repeat players, as although the 1, 2 and 3 player rules are disjointed from the 4 player rules, setup of the environment is clearly spelled out in the rule book.
Gameplay typically takes 45-60 minutes. Each turn is relatively short, which eliminates long delays between turns, especially when each player can always be involved in planning.
Gameplay is fully cooperative, but, unlike most cooperative games, individual players can be removed from the game due to the death of their monk. Players still in the game can resurrect fallen monks, but, depending on the current game state, this may not be possible. However, even if a player is no longer in the game, if the active players triumph, the ousted players share in the victory. Regardless, this means that individual players could sit idle for indeterminate amounts of time during the game.
Luck Factor
Players can choose their monks and their special powers, but every other element of the setup is random and subject to poor draws like other cooperative games. Since most exorcisms will be accomplished by rolling the Tao dice, repeated poor rolls can also contribute to ultimate defeat. The multitude of available actions does allow players to reduce the impact of luck, so luck is balanced well when players take full advantage of their options.
Fun Factor
Perhaps due to mixture of challenge and theme, the game is a lot of fun even when it is lost. Players cheer for victories and bemoan defeats in equal measure.
Replay Value
Nearly every element of the game is randomized. With four difficulty levels, variable player powers and a varied selection of incarnations, even frequent players should constantly find challenge and replayability. The ability to play the game solo is also a huge benefit and makes for an excellent way to learn the game.
Although not part of the scope of this review, there are two expansions available that significantly modify the flow of the base game, as well as several available promos to add more variety.
Suggested Audience
This game is perfect for casual and experienced gamers who enjoy a challenge or to those who enjoy cooperative games. I would not suggest this game for non-gamers or those new to cooperative games, as the steep learning curve and the fact that most groups will lose more than they succeed may turn off these players. Players who do not enjoy a significant luck factor in their games or who do not like losing will probably want to pass.
Conclusion
Overall, I find Ghost Stories to be an extremely fun, theme-heavy and well-designed game that I can play even after a tough loss. It is a great game and one that will continue to see plenty of play in my gaming circles for a long time to come.
Ghost Stories, I want to start out by saying, is a very fun game. Its a game, however, that you have to play an expect that you will very well lose!
Ghost Stories is a co-op board game where players assume control of different Taoist monks, each one with a little bit of a different ability. Each turn, new ghosts will enter the field of play and cause all sorts of different mischief – from haunting the villagers to making you lose life points to cursing you to locking you out from additional abilities, etc. etc. The object of the game is to defeat the final ghost, Wu-Feng, and while you the players have one way to achieve victory – the game provides several ways for you to lose the game – so the game itself is very stacked against you. In a way, I think that the game being against you is a good flavor of good against evil in a way – but that would be for a different kind of writing.
The games components are fantastic and very crisp. The art work on for the pieces is very nice and better than what I’d have expected for a game like this. As you could probably imagine, the game is based around an Asian art style and imagery. The gameplay is easy to pick up – I would say you can understand the basic rules quickly, but it’d take a couple of games to really get the feel for what you can do and what you shouldn’t do. Gameplay is fairly quick, and by quick I mean that the ghosts will probably eat you alive very quickly! When you try to defeat a ghost you will roll some dice. Each ghost has a different value that you need to roll – and the dice work by matching the colors to that colored ghost. Combat is actually pretty intuitive and easy to understand, actually, but it sucks when dice hate you.
Overall, I enjoy the game even though I’m a loser and haven’t beaten it yet. I have only played the solitaire version, however, as I haven’t gotten a chance to get my wife into the game (she says it looks a little scary). Its one of those games that continually beats me so I have found it to be my quest to force myself to beat the game somehow and someway.
Who would like this game? Well, the solitaire play is very good and strong – its very challenging, which is something I think solitaire games lack at times. So, if you play by yourself often – that’s a possibility. If you enjoy an asian theme in your games, or in general, you may enjoy the theme of this game. However, I think its strongest aspect is that its very co-op driven and that the challenge value of the game is amazing is one of the best features for it. Who would not like it? I know some people may be turned off by it being a co-op game. I know several players who want to play against others players and not WITH other players. It may be a bit too difficult, so the people who don’t like to lose may be turned off by it as well. Finally, combat is somewhat luck driven as its resolved with dice – so if you don’t like luck driven games or games that use any form of luck, then it may not be for you.
Ultimately – I love this game and I am playing it very often at the moment. Give it a try, its a very solid game that offers challenging gameplay that will be rewarding once you finally are able to beat it!
This game has an exceedingly simple setup, which can be randomized for replay value. Each of the location tiles has a an ability which a player can activate for a cost. Some times the cost is one of your resources, sometimes it the cost is adding more enemies to the board.
Likewise, the 4 player boards (1 for each of 4 different monks) each have two sides allowing a different ability. You chose (randomly, if you like) which side and have the ability displayed on that side for the duration of the game. Different combinations of the various player’s abilities add more replay value, and allow for customizable team strategies. The abilities include enhanced movement, extra actions, protection for enemy effects and the like.
In addition to the aforementioned components are the combat dice, the curse die, ‘Qi’ tokens, colored spirit tokens, power tokens (in games with fewer than 4 players) and yin-yang tokens.
The combat die show various colours on each of their faces, corresponding to the various colors of enemies.
The curse die shows various effects (or, if your lucky, non-effects) on each face. This die can cause you to lose ‘Qi’, spirit tokens and can add enemies to the board–or do nothing at all (if a blank face comes up).
The ‘Qi’ tokens are the life of your monk. These can be taken by curses, being overwhelmed by enemies, or can be spent to achieve effects at certain board locations.
The colored spirt tokens allow you to add power to your attacks and to damage certain otherwise invincible enemies.
The power tokens allow you to use the powers of passive player boards.
The yin yang tokens are primarily spent to revive board locations rendered unusable by enemy abilities.
You can play with as few as 1 player and as many as 4. When not using all possible players, it is possible to activate the abilities of unused player boards by paying a cost: thus, the strategic benefits of other board’s abilities are never unavailable.
The game itself is difficult, even using the easiest rules. The game features rules for up to 3 levels of difficulty. On any difficulty, the game is challenging to win and requires close attention and careful planning (and possibly co-operation, when playing with multiple players).
The object is deafeat one or more “boss” ghosts before the the board is overrun, all players are eliminated, or the last enemy card is reached. Enemies have various immunities, vulnerabilities and abilities which add variety to combat. For instance, some enemies cannot be killed with die rolls, but must be vanquished with tokens (which can be gained by defeating enemies, and at some board locations). Yet other enemies will subtract from the number of die you can roll against enemies, and so forth.
Combat is done by attempting to exorcise ghosts from a location. Usually, this is achieved by rolling dice and getting sufficient dice of the necessary color to vanquish a ghost. You can automatically add to your number of successes with the color tokens mentioned early: so keeping a strategic supply of these is key. Some enemies can only be exorcised by spending these tokens.
The game is fairly easy to learn, be very difficult to master. However, improving and eventually succeeding in defeating a boss is gratifying.
Ghost Stories is a fully cooperative game in which you control Taoist monks defending a village from an onslaught of ghosts and try to prevent the return of Wu-Feng, Lord of the Nine *****. Players move about the village, fight ghosts, and call upon special abilities of the villagers. The game prominently features variable player powers and winning requires careful balancing of conflicting goals.
This game is a tightly-woven ball of simple but beautiful mechanics. The combat rules reward you with improved efficiency when you take your time to prepare for a fight, but the ghosts instill urgency with a variety of abilities that punish you for ignoring them, requiring constant re-evaluation of your priorities. The ability to exorcise two ghosts at once in a corner space is a great boon, but the corners offer the fewest movement options, so taking full advantage of them requires careful planning. The Taoists all have powerful, game-changing abilities.
The game offers a satisfying variety of options, and every single one of them will save the day in one situation or another. There are times you must band together and times you must split up. There are times you will spend your entire turn just setting up the next player for a key exorcism. There are times you must throw yourself into the jaws of death in a desperate gambit, and times when you must force yourself to sit calmly in the tea house while all the ghosts of **** howl around you.
But for all that, you can teach the rules to a new player in about five minutes. Learning from the rulebook is a bit harder (it’s translated), but once one person understands the game, you can easily play this with a novice gamer (as long as they don’t mind losing).
The game seems impossibly hard until you grasp the importance of tao tokens; after that, it’s merely hard.
I would encourage anyone who thinks they might be interested in cooperative board games to give Ghost Stories a try.
Bought this game specifically to play solo and after spending a a few hours learning the rules, (yes it takes awhile to learn), it did end up being a lot fun. The play is pretty straight forward and after you get a hang of the Yin-Yang phases and all of the attributes of the players and tiles it flows nicely. The game jumps right into action and never slows down so it does require a bit of strategy. The best part for all you solo players out there, is there are two ways you can play solo making the replay-ability very high. It gives you the option to play a single Taoist, or you can play all of them which keeps your focus spread out a little more. Considering that, as well as all the other variables I think this game will keep me busy for a long time to come.
The biggest initial challenge is the rule book. A rule book has two goals– to instruct on how to play the game and act as a reference during a game. The rule book is pretty bad on both ends.
Once that hurdle is passed, the actual game experience is very good. The components are top notch and the art is beautiful. It is a very difficult game. It isn’t hard to lose early in the game, and I can think of few solid victories. Most wins are done by the skin of my teeth, but that leads to the most tension and fun.
The variable setup of the board and the many different bosses provide a good amount of variability.
It is true – without all the compliments for being a really good co-op game, this one should also earn huge points for the massively great SOLO player experience. It is very difficult to win in this game, and that makes it even more interesting, more competitive!
In the co-op ladder if games, this is probably the game that require most co-op of them all to be able to beat the game.
We only win anout 1 game out of 5, and that is playing on the novice level. But somehow it doesn’t matter. Most other co-op games turns boring when things starts to fall apart. Not this one, it’s fun, tense and positivly frustrating up to the point of failure.
Simply put; it’s a great game. To not play it is a shame.
I tried several coop games until I bumped on this. Since then I sold or traded all my other coop games but this. It really shines in its mechanic. Its hard with option to take even harder levels of play. Its easy to teach to play, but hard to master. It doesnt eat half a day to play. It has lot of bosses, each with unique way to defeat it. Its ghostbusters in Japan
This might be the hardest co-op game out there.
It has good pieces and good cardboard.
It is somewhat simple to play. Maybe because it is really hard to win. You really need 4 players for this game. 1, 2, and 3 are not the best, 4 is. The more players you have the better.
The replay is great because there are like 10 leaders. and you use one per game. Sometimes you don’t even get to them. (You lose before you get to him/her)
Great game but HARD!