Ghosts Love Candy Too
Ghosts Love Candy Too Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object of the Game
Haunt the neighborhood children and gobble up as much candy as you can, but be careful not to scare the kids! The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins.
Game Setup
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Each player takes a set of ghost cards (9 cards of the same color) to form their starting hand. Leave space in front of you for your stash, which is where you will place all of your collected treats (and kids, if you're unlucky).
2 Players: Each player takes another set of 9 ghost cards. See the 2-Player Game section for more details.
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Shuffle the Craving cards and deal one face down to each player. Place unused Craving cards back in the box without looking at them. Your Craving card indicates how valuable each candy type is to you at the end of the game. You may look at it at any time, but keep it hidden from the other players.
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Shuffle the kid cards together to form the kid deck and place it at the edge of the play area. Deal a number of face up kid cards into the neighborhood based on the number of players.
- 2-4 Players: Deal 6 kids into the neighborhood.
- 5-6 Players: Deal 8 kids into the neighborhood.
Leave space on the opposite side of the kid deck for discarded kids, treats, and ghosts.
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Place all 76 treat tokens (candy and junk) into the draw bag and shuffle them. Draw and place a treat above every kid in the neighborhood. If you draw a Junk Treat (labeled with a -1), place it, then draw again until that kid has a candy.
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Each player draws treats from the bag. Players will keep some treats for their Stash and discard the others.
| Players | 2 | 3 | 4-6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draw | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Keep | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Discard | 3 | 2 | 1 |
How to Play
The game is played in a series of rounds, each consisting of three phases. Follow these phases in order during each round. If any card in the game contradicts these rules, follow the rule on the card instead. If a card or rule tells you to do something you can't do, skip that action.
Phase One: Place Treats (skip this step on the first round)
At the start of each round, randomly add one treat token from the draw bag above each of the kids in the neighborhood. Remember, if you add a Junk Treat, immediately draw another token until a candy token is drawn.
Phase Two: Determine Turn Order
Choose a ghost from your hand and place it face down in front of you. Once all players have chosen their ghosts, reveal them simultaneously. Note: Your ghost cards will not come back to you, so once you play a card, it's removed from the game!
The player who revealed the ghost with the highest value goes first, then the player who revealed the next highest ghost goes next, and so on, until all players have taken their turn.
Ties: Tied players each draw and reveal one card from the kid deck. Look at the small numbers printed on the bottom left of each card. The player who revealed the highest of these numbers wins the tie, followed by the player who revealed the next highest number, and so on. After ties are resolved, discard those kids and move on to the next phase.
Phase Three: Take Your Turn
On your turn, you will take the following four actions IN ORDER.
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Place Your Ghost. Choose a kid in the neighborhood to haunt. Place your ghost face up below that kid in the neighborhood. If no other ghosts are haunting that kid, your ghost is the top ghost of a new pile. If other ghosts are haunting that kid already, play your ghost on top of all previous ghosts so that the number on each ghost is visible. Note: You may choose to haunt kids even when they have no treats.
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Take Treats. Immediately after haunting a kid (unless otherwise noted by the kid's power), take all treat tokens from that kid and place them in your stash.
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Resolve Kid Ability. Resolve the ability listed on the kid card you haunted this round. Most kids' abilities can be triggered immediately. Some kid cards have reminder icons in their top left corner that indicate that their abilities will trigger at a later time in the game. The reminder icons are: End Game Neighborhood; Ongoing Neighborhood; Affects Adjacent Kids; End Game Stash; Ongoing Stash; When Scared.
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Scare Kids. If the total value of all ghosts haunting a kid equals or exceeds that kid's "courage", that kid becomes scared. Put the scared kid card into the stash of the last player who haunted that kid. Discard all ghosts from below the scared kid. Note: If any treats are still above a kid when they get scared, discard them. Immediately reveal the top card of the kid deck and place it face up in the newly vacated spot in the neighborhood. Check to see if any remaining kids have become scared. When the scare kids step is completed, your turn ends.
Note: It's important to remember that scared kids go into the stash of the owner of the LAST ghost card played there. There are abilities in the game that let you change the order of ghost cards.
End of Round
After all players have taken a turn, the round ends. All kids, treats, and ghosts in the neighborhood remain in play. Return to the Place Treats phase to start the next round.
End of Game
When all players have played all the ghosts from their hands, the game is over. You will then tally your score based on the treats and kids that you have in your stash.
- Reveal your Craving card, which tells you how many points each piece of candy in your stash is worth.
- Check to see if any kids in the neighborhood have a # icon that needs to be resolved.
- Finally, add or subtract points for all the kids in your stash. Most of them will have a red circle with -2 points, but some have green circles with positive points or special conditions explained on the card.
If there is a tie, the tied player with the most tokens of their 5 point candy wins. If the tie remains, then check 4 point candies, 3 point candies, and so on until a winner is determined.
2 Player Game
Each player will use 2 sets of 9 ghost cards each. When picking ghosts for each round, each player will select 1 ghost from each of their sets. When revealed, you still resolve the ghosts from highest to lowest, even if that means a player gets to go twice in a row. Tiebreakers between players resolve normally; however, a player cannot tie themselves. Instead, they simply choose which ghost to play first.
Example: Jack plays two 5 cards, while Sally plays a 5 and a 1. Jack chooses one of his 5's, and both players draw kid cards to compare numbers for a tiebreaker. Jack draws a 63 and Sally draws a 48. Jack gets to play his 5 first. Since Jack and Sally are tied again with Jack's other 5, they would draw and compare new kid cards to determine who goes next.
5-6 Player Game
When playing with 5 or 6 players, you will play for a total of 6 rounds instead of 9. This means the game is over when all players have exactly 3 ghost cards left in their hand.
Game Difficulty Variants
Easier game
When playing with more casual players, remove all the Junk Treats from the draw bag. Only use cards 1-30 from the kids deck (the abilities on these kid cards are less complicated).
Super kid-friendly
In addition to removing the Junk Treats, ignore the abilities on the kid cards. Children will still have fun trying to collect their ghost's favorite candies. Instead of scared kids being -2 points, have players discard a candy from their stash when they scare a kid. "When you scare a kid, you have to give them back a piece of candy and say you're sorry."
This change still allows children to learn to try and avoid scaring kids, while it also makes counting easier at the end of the game. If you find that your kids are having a hard time deciding which ghost to play from their hand, or if they are always choosing the highest ghost so they can go first, try a game where everyone plays their ghosts randomly instead.