Ghost Stories

Yeah, even though I liked the game, I think there's something screwed up about it...the village buildings in the last 1/3 of the game are practically useless, because by that point everyone is going to be too occupied with fighting to use any of the special abilities- which really aren't, at that point, all that useful anyway.

Michael, you've been complaining about a lot of artwork lately (well maybe more than lately, but I haven't been reading your work for more than the last several months), and out of curiosity I'd like to know some examples of games where you think the artwork is both really great and also fits the game/theme really well.

I always complain about art. I'm big into visual presentation and most game companies either miss the mark completely, miss a great opportunity, or otherwise fumble. With GHOST STORIES, it was a missed opportunity to do something really striking with some more traditionally styled artwork.

Some games I think look dynamite:

- Pretty much all of FFG's games- but ANDROID had that god awful character art that looked like it was drawn by somebody who's drawn one too many fairies or elves in their time.
- Z-Man is usually on point...TotAN looks awesome so far.
- WARRIORS OF GOD
- GALAXY TRUCKER is actually very well done- captures the theme and spirit of the game well. Same for SPACE ALERT.
- POWER GRID, believe it or not, looks great.
- I think DORN looks awesome- very 1980 and in a good way
- Believe it or not, I liked the minimalist/constructivist look of WEALTH OF NATIONS
- BLACKBEARD looked great even though the game sucked

GHOST STORIES looks fine, I just hate that they went with a comic book style rather than something more interesting...I mean, the material is there to do something spectacular. I'd have done the box like a HK move video cover, done all traditional watercolor style artwork, made all the monsters more based on actual Chinese stories...

Currently in the post: Vampire Hunters .

Barnes: Two comments on your Ghost Stories notes.

1. The rules have inconsistencies, some very confusing bits, and two outright game changing translation errors. (Download the PDF rules. They fix most of the issues. Reread carefully. The lantern is the big difference. It drops the strength of a color of monster BY one and not TO one. )

2. In our game, we got into a really nasty death cycle. The trick is to have a few life points left over when you make it to the final boss. We didn't, we died.

Town spaces are also more useful if you have the Warrior power that allows you to do the town action AND fight. I strongly prefer that power to the two town OR two fight.

Well, see, that just speaks to your rules explaining abilities. I guess we did go to the rulebook a couple of times.

Yeah, town action AND fight is HUGE. The thing about it is that there is a point at which the players practically CAN'T do town actions. When all the boards are filled or almost filled, getting somebody into the middle to change the token is almost impossible. I think having some stuff in the deck that are not ghosts would have been a good idea.

And I think that expansion building, the watchtower or whatever, is amazingly useful. You get to look at the top four cards and rearrange them or something like that.

I'm just wondering if that death cycle we ran into is going to be too common. I mean, there was a threshold we crossed at some point where we just couldn't win the game. And that point felt like it was only about 1/2 way through. You know, right after you said "I don't know why this is so easy so far..."

Still like it, regardless. Of course, I like impossible stuff like SUPER GHOULS AND GHOSTS and RADIANT SILVERGUN too...

Michael Barnes wrote:

I'm just wondering if that death cycle we ran into is going to be too common. I mean, there was a threshold we crossed at some point where we just couldn't win the game. And that point felt like it was only about 1/2 way through. You know, right after you said "I don't know why this is so easy so far..."

Well, there's your problem... I learned from playing Pandemic and Lord of the Rings never to say things like "I think we're in good shape."

The village tiles can be very useful... if you can use them. As you say, it's hard to find the time to use them, especially later in the game. But there are some points when you just gotta let another ghost or two stay out there and find an opportunity to use things like the Prayer Circle or the Buddha to help the overall picture. I like that those abilities are there but so difficult to be able to use at times. Definitely get what you can early, though... I always pop over to grab a buddha or two right off the bat. Those things are very helpful, especially if you can hold out and save them for particularly nasty ghosts.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm finding my use of the village tiles (when I can use them) to have changed quite a lot after about 20 plays. Early on, I was more likely to use the thing that pushes the haunters on one board back one space... but now I think that's usually a waste of a turn and feels more like a tile that Wu-Feng uses to tempt the weaker monks with... Lookie there! The ghosts are advancing! Oh my! Whatever to do?! Better push them back now!! I think you're better off doing almost anything else on your turn, especially something that can help to get rid of those haunters. And I used to hardly ever use the Heavenly Wind ability, where you can move one ghost somewhere else and move a different monk by one space, but lately I'm finding that to be a lot more valuable.

Heavenly Wind is an awesome tile because you can move hard ghosts onto Buddhas.

Off-topic a touch, but Grudunza's comment about "We're in pretty good shape" with co-op games is SPOT ON.


We played Red November yesterday and I remember saying just that around the halfway point. We were swatting down crisises with ease. However, soon every compartment was either on fire, half flooded, or wholly flooded, there were half a dozen or more hatches blocked, and we were crushed by the game-ending pressure event at 11 minutes 'til rescue. We were in such bad shape that each of us could only spend like 2 minutes trying to fix it, and of course we all failed.

Didn't matter though as the nukes were set to launch at 5 minutes til rescue and one of our gnomes was passed out drunk until after that event.


Great game, though.