Ghosts Galore

• Designer: Michael Luu
• Publisher: Lookout Games
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Ghosts Galore you’re helping monsters to build a fun ghost train in an abandoned mineshaft. Every monster want’s the track tiles laid their way – so YOU have to keep them calm, coordinate and optimize their track. Over the course of 8 rounds, each player builds a unique track on their 3×3 playground for the ghost train.  This family friendly tile placement game comes with a unique drafting mechanism and is quick to play while offering various strategies​: Will you stick with your drafted tile or go for a bold move which brings you even more scares? After only 8 rounds, all tracks are set and the project is done. Sounds easy? Well, only the master who lines up the best scares, wins!

To start, each player takes one of the player boards as well as a minecart in their color.  Each player also gets one track tile to hold onto – this will be the final tile placed in the game.  Eight face-down stacks of tiles are created to form the supply (the size of the stacks determined by player count).  

The game is played in 8 rounds (each using a stack of tiles made in setup).  At the start of a round, pull one of the tile stacks into the center of the table. On a player’s turn, you can take one of two option choices:

1] Claim a face up tile – if there are face-up tiles in the center of the table, you can claim one by placing your minecart on top of it.

2] Draw a track tile – you can reveal the top card from the draw stack and place it face up on the table.  Optionally, you can now claim this newly revealed tile by placing your minecart on it.  If you do not want to claim it, simply leave it face up on the table.

Play goes clockwise around the table, though your turn is skipped once you have claimed a tile with your minecart.  Once there is only one player left in the round (all others have claimed a tile), you can reveal any tiles left in the stack and the final player can choose from any of the five unchosen tiles.  The four unchosen tiles are discarded to the box.

Once all players have claimed a track tile, each takes it and places it on an unoccupied space on their player board. It can be placed anywhere free – it does not need to be adjacent to anything, but it cannot cover a previously placed tile. It can be freely rotated. The track on the tiles does not need to match.

Repeat the process 8 times.  After the 8th round, each player now must finish their board with the random tile they were dealt in setup.  Each player will now have a complete 3×3 grid.

The game now is scored.  There are 12 different things which are scored:

• Dragons – score for the square of the number of dragons, or -5 for no dragons
• Ghosts – 3VP each, unless on a path with 3+ ghosts on it, and those score 6VP each
• Golems – 4/10/18/28/40 for 1/2/3/4/5 Golems that are not orthogonally adjacent to other Golems
• Satyr – scores 1VP per different monster type on its path
• Skeleton – score 1VP per diamond symbol on your board
• Slime – scores 1 VP per curve in your track
• Bats – scores 5VP if adjacent to another bat
• Werewolf – 4VP each, plus 10VP if you have the most
• Wisp – 3/4/5 each if you have 1/4/7 wisps total
• Diamonds on your tiles score their printed value
• Special doors – score 2VP per path section connected to them (they must be connected)
• Regular doors – score 1VP per path section connected to them if the path goes from one regular door to another (unconnected paths score nothing)

The player with the most points wins.  Ties broken in favor of the player with fewer dead ends on their track network.

My thoughts on the game

Ghosts Galore is a tile laying game where you are challenged to optimize your score – but you have to consider 12 different types of scoring with each play!  The tile drafting mechanism is interesting as it involves a bit of press your luck.  You’ll have to decide whether you’re ready to commit to a particular tile or continue to play on in the round hoping that a better tile will be revealed for you!

Of course, it might make a difference if you know what other people are looking for – if you don’t think there is competition for the particular tile feature that you’re interested in, you might be willing to wait it out for the optimal tile.  However, I think it’s really hard to know what people are looking for – and when a particularly good tile comes up, I think it’s pretty common for people to decide to pivot strategies to take advantage of that good tile.  For instance, even if I have no Wisps, if a tile with 3 wisps comes up, that might be enough for me to start collecting them (guaranteed 9 points on the tile, and the next wisp would be then worth 7 points!).

While the multiple scoring conditions do help make every tile useful (to some degree), they also can lead to a big decision tree of sorts.  It’s often hard to know which tile of the ones available to you are “the best”.  The game, to me, wants to be light, and I’m willing just to take a tile that looks decent – but for those that are AP prone, this may reduce a bit of that light feeling if they take awhile to choose.  

This AP potential improves as the game goes on – because near the end of the game, players will have a more defined strategy, and it will actually be clearer which tiles are better. This is mostly because you’re no longer dealing with potential scoring; it will be more evident what the min/max scoring of particular features will be.  Many of the scoring types reward you for high specialization (dragons are worth the square of dragons, 1 golem is 4 but five golems is 40, etc).  Calculations in the early rounds are harder because you don’t know what is coming in the future on your turn nor do you know what sort of competition you have for those things.

Scoring is fairly simple but time consuming.  Just pull out the huge scoring pad and go down one category at a time to tally up the scores.  Again, for me, the scoring options are both the best and worst part of the game.  I love the fact there are so many different strategies, and I like how these make every tile useful.  I don’t like the way that this can cause AP and can feel a bit fiddly at times as some players will have too much to consider.

It should be noted that this game is produced in Lookout Games’ Greenline – an ecofriendly production process.  The components are great, and honestly I really don’t notice any difference from their non-eco friendly games.

Ghosts Galore is a game that looks like it would be light and easy, but there are definitely some decisions to be made due to the scoring system.  It worked fine with my gaming group, though they felt it was a bit light for them.  I’m not sure how casual gamers will feel about the scoring as it’s a bit more complex than I’d want for a gateway sort of game.  It sits in that middle ground for me, too light for my usual gamers but too complex (possibly) for non-gamers.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor