Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters Anniversary Edition

• Designer: Brian Yu
• Publisher: Mattel
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3MvYd3u

Within the crumbling walls of a haunted manor, jealous ghosts guard eight precious jewels. Are you and your friends brave enough to seek out the treasure? Work together to explore the spook-filled halls. Each roll of the die allows you to move deeper into the house but might also summon another ghost! As the spirits’ numbers grow, the danger increases! Everyone must work together to find all the jewels, battle the greedy ghouls, and escape before the house becomes fully haunted. And if you fail… a few new ghosts might be moving in. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Now includes 2 ways to play:

• Cooperative Mode – All players work together to win!
• Head Haunter Mode – Brand new One VS All mode where one player controls the ghosts against up to 4 other players!

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the German version of Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters (GFTH) winning the Kinderspiel des Jahres.  Upon full reflection, I can definitely say that Geister Geister Schatzsuchmeister!  was for sure one of the two best kid’s games from 2013…. Mattel wanted to bring the game back to the market with some new additions – and thus we have this new Anniversary Edition which debuted at Gen Con 2024.

The base game remains the same, but I’m excited for the addition of the new Head Haunter mode which is an all-versus-one version of the game.  In case you’re not familiar with GFTH – let me recap the basics:

The Basic Game

In the basic game, the players take on the role of Treasure Hunters, trying to explore a haunted house to find the 8 Jewel Tokens before the house is over run by the ghosts.  At the start of the game,  the house is seeded with a few ghosts and the treasure tokens are placed in the appointed rooms.  All of the player tokens start outside the front door of the house.

Players then take turns being the active player – this means that their player token is the one moving on that turn; however, all players can cooperate and discuss how to move that player.  There are five parts to a player turn – always done in this order:

1) Roll the die – There is a d6 which is numbered from 1-6.  Each face, EXCEPT for the 6, also shows a ghost token on it.  The number rolled here tells you the maximum number of spaces that your player token can move.

2) Reveal a ghost card – If there was a ghost token on the die (again, any result other than a 6), you then reveal the top card from the ghost deck.  The deck is comprised of 12 room cards, one for each room in the house, as well as a “Shuffle” card.  If you reveal a room card, you place a ghost figure in the stated room.  If you have placed the third ghost in a room, you replace the three ghost tokens with a red Haunting token.  Check to make sure that there aren’t six Haunting tokens on the board – if so, the game is lost!  If you have revealed a room card which is already haunted, the ghost figure goes in the next room alphabetically that is not already haunted.   If you reveal the Shuffle card, you take all the cards and shuffle them to form a new deck for the next draw.  No ghost figure is placed in this case.

3) Move – Now you move you player token a number of spaces up to the number on the die (though there is no obligation to move at all if you don’t want to move).  The hallways have clearly demarcated spaces.  You can also enter any room in the house, and moving through a room counts as a single space.  You can move through other players, but you cannot end your movement on the same hallway space as another player.  Any number of players can, however, share a room.  (There is one exception to the movement rule – if you are carrying a jewel token AND you are in a room with a Haunting, you cannot leave the room until the room is unhaunted!)

4) Pick up or Drop off a Jewel – If you are in a room with a jewel, you are allowed to pick it up.  Each player can only hold one jewel at a time in their backpack.  Once you have a jewel, you keep it until you are able to drop it off outside the house.  Your other option in this phase is that drop-off, if your mover is outside the house, you can then drop off the jewel token and get ready for your return to the house for more Treasure Hunting…

5) Fight! If you end your movement in a room which has a ghost or a Haunting, you must now fight it.  The active player rolls one battle die if he is the only player in the room or he rolls two battle dice if there is more than one player figure in the room.  For each ghost icon that is rolled, a ghost figure is removed from the room.  In a haunted room, you MUST have two players in the room in order to roll the dice (and thus, you will roll two dice), and you must have a red Haunted symbol show on one of the dice to remove the Haunting figure.

The game continues around the board with each player taking a full turn.  The game is won by the players if all eight treasure tokens are removed from the house and dropped off AND all the players are outside the house.  The game is lost if six rooms become haunted before the victory condition can be achieved.

The Advanced Game

The Advanced game builds on the framework of the Basic game – all elements of the Basic game are used, but there are a few extra components and rules added into the game to make it more challenging.

First, the composition of the ghost deck is changed.  Six additional cards are added to the deck.  There is a “Draw 2 and then shuffle” as well as a “Draw 3 and then shuffle”.  As the titles suggest, if these cards are revealed, you draw two or three more cards, and if any room cards are shown, a ghost is added to each of those rooms.  If further special cards are revealed, they are ignored.

There are also two “Blue door locked” and 2 “green door locked” cards.  If you look at the board, half of the doors are blue and half are green.  At the start of the game (and with every re-shuffle), all the doors are open, and all players can freely pass through them.  However, once a Door Locked card is revealed, it is placed next to the board, and all doors of that color are locked until the other color locked door card comes up or when all the cards are picked up for a shuffle.

The other big change is that you use the numbered sides of the jewels in the Advanced game.  All the jewels are shuffled and placed face down on the board (so that you can’t see the numbers).  Now, once a player moves into a room with a jewel, it can be flipped over so that everyone knows which number is on it.  The player still has the choice to pick it up or not.  The numbers are important because the players must drop them off in order.  That is, the #1 jewel must be the first one removed from the house, and so on in order, until the #8 jewel is dropped off.  The winning and losing conditions remain the same other than the restriction on the order in which the jewels can be removed from the house.

The Head Haunter Game

This version of the game adds a few components to the mix – each Treasure Hunter gets a Reroll card in their color and some special black bordered Head Haunter cards are added to the regular deck of cards.  Setup starts the same as the base game, but the Head Haunter takes the remaining Ghosts and Hauntings.  The Head Haunter also draws a starting hand of three cards from the deck.

The flow of the game is very similar to the base game – the main difference coming in the playing of cards.  Now, when the Treasure Hunters roll a Ghost Symbol on the movement die, the Head Haunter gets to choose one of the cards from their hand to play.  Most cards go to the discard pile, but a few especially strong cards are one-use-only and are taken out of the game when used; you will see a red X on the bottom to denote these cards.  After the card is played, the Treasure Hunter makes their move (and the Head Haunter draws back up to three cards).

Additionally, if the Treasure Hunter rolls a 6, that player gets to randomly draw a card from the Head Haunter’s hand and place it on the discard pile.  This card is not replaced until a later turn where the Head Haunter plays a card in the usual fashion and is then allowed to draw back up to three cards.  Note that it is possible, though unlikely, for the Head Haunter to be completely out of cards; and if so, he will not be able to play a card at the next time a Ghost icon is rolled on the die.

All of the regular room cards work the same – simply place a ghost in that room.  New cards will let you place 2 ghosts in a set of 4 possible rooms, or may allow you to move a ghost from one to three rooms.  There are also Spook cards which allow the Head Haunter to scare a Treasure Hunter – this Hunter will drop a Jewel they are carrying and then can be moved up to three spaces.

The Treasure Hunters win if they are able to get all 8 Jewels (and themselves) out of the house.  The Head Haunter wins if they can place six Hauntings on the board.

My thoughts on the game

To read our thoughts on the original versions of the game (which are unchanged here): https://opinionatedgamers.com/2016/07/01/dale-yu-review-of-ghost-fightin-treasure-hunters/

As far as the new Head Haunter version goes, I find that it is a really interesting change to the regular game, and one I have enjoyed playing so far – though more as the Head Haunter as opposed to one of those meddlin’ kids.  It is definitely a fun experience to actively be in control of the placement and movement of the ghosts.  It is definitely a game where the difficulty raises in direct proportion to the Head Haunter’s experience with the game.  There are lots of opportunities for chain reaction and unexpected plays.  

The game should play a bit more difficult as you would expect the human Head Haunter to do a better job with the ghosts than a random flip of the deck.  However, the ability to draw a card at random with a 6 roll and the one-use-per-player Reroll cards help bring things back to a even standing between the two sides.

The components feel upgraded – it appears that the movers have new sculpts as do the ghosts.  Interestingly, the gender mix has been tweaked a bit as well and now there are two male Treasure Hunters and two female Treasure hunters.  The cover and board also sport new artwork – and while the gameboard is topographically the same, the newer rounded hallways and backlit rooms look a lot better to me.

Getting this new version has brought the game back to the table – and as I said earlier – we’re enjoying the all-versus-one take.  I am a bit sad that the Creepy Cellar expansion was not included as part of this re-boot, but selfishly, as I already own that expansion, I’m more glad for a whole new way to play the game.  (Though the art won’t match up exactly due to the new board layout, it does appear that you could still play with the Creepy Cellar expansion with the base version in the Anniversary box).

I’m super glad that this game is back in print, and if you weren’t able to get a copy of the original run, this is a great opportunity to discover the game.  And, if you already have it, this is a great way to get a brand new way to play!

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3MvYd3u

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Tery:  I haven’t played the anniversary edition yet, but I am definitely excited for it. 10 years later this game still sees a fair amount of play with the people I game with as it packs a lot of fun and strategy into its simple design. I love that my “gamer” friends can play it, but I can also break it out for the family as well.  We’ve enjoyed the last expansion that made it a bit more challenging, and I am really looking forward to these new modes.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y
• I like it. Steph H
• Neutral.
• Not for me…