Ghosts
Ghosts Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
60 cards: 6 Ghost families each consisting of 9 cards with 3 different Fright levels (1, 2 and 3). In addition, there are 6 Mist Cards.
16 Fear markers with a value of 1 on one side and 3 on the other side.
Aim of the Game
To be the least frightened player (possess the fewest Fear points) at the end of the game.
Outline of the Game
The game is played over 3 rounds.
The start player is the last person to have seen a ghost. In subsequent rounds, the start player moves to the left of the previous start player.
Setup
Each player starts the game with 1 Fear point and places a Fear marker in front of them with the value 1 visible.
At the start of each round, the start player shuffles the cards and deals 5 to each player. The remaining cards are placed in the centre of the table face down as a draw pile. If a player's hand is only composed of Mist cards, they shuffle them back into the draw pile and draw a new hand of 5 cards.
Gameplay
Play proceeds clockwise from the starting player.
The first player chooses a Ghost card from their hand, places it face up in the center of the table to form a Discard pile, and announces aloud the current Fear level. This is equal to the number of ghosts present on the card played. The next player chooses a card from their hand and places it face up on the discard pile. Three possibilities can arise:
- NEW FAMILY
If the card played is a Ghost card of a different family (colour) than the last Ghost card played, they announce aloud the new Fear level, obtained by adding the number of ghosts on the played card to the Fear level announced by the previous player.
- MIRROR
If the card played is a Ghost card of the same family (colour) as the last Ghost card played, they announce aloud "Mirror" and the same Fear level as that announced by the previous player. This indicates that the direction of play is reversed back to the previous player (reversing play from clockwise to anti-clockwise or vice versa).
- MIST
If the card played is a Mist card, they announce aloud "Mist" and the same Fear level as that announced by the previous player to indicate that he passes his turn. The Mist card is placed next to the discard pile and not on top so you can always see the colour of the last Ghost card played.
Important: The Fear level can never exceed 7. If the player cannot or does not want to play, they place the discard pile in front of them face down and take a Fear point from the supply as a penalty to indicate they have become more frightened.
They then lay a new card, announcing the Fear level equal to the number of ghosts on the played card and play continues in the same direction (clockwise or anti-clockwise) as before.
At the end of their turn and having announced the new Fear level, the player takes a card from the draw pile to return their hand to 5 cards. When the draw pile is exhausted, the round continues until a player has to play but no longer has cards in hand.
End of a Round
The round ends as soon as a player has no cards in their hand at the start of their turn and so cannot play a card. The other players discard their remaining cards to the centre of the table without any effect.
If a player took no Fear points in that round (i.e. they had no discarded cards in front of them), they can return up to 3 Fear points back to the supply.
The remaining players keep all of their Fear points.
End of the Game
The game ends once the third round has been completed.
The least frightened player, who has collected the fewest Fear points, is declared the winner. If there is a tie for fewest Fear points, there can be multiple winners.