Play ghost stories board game online

Wu-Feng, the Lord of Nine Hells, has discovered the village hiding the funeral urn containing his ashes. Four Taoist priests protect the village, as hordes of ghosts and demons descend on the town to reclaim the remains of their evil overlord. Can you hold out against the forces of eternal darkness, or will Wu-Feng recover his ashes and destroy everything in his path? In Ghost Stories , the players work together as the Taoist priests attempting to turn back the tide of evil and save the doomed village.

With mystical powers and ancient martial arts, the heroes will battle wave after wave of ghosts and demons until Wu-Feng himself rises to claim his remains. Working together is your only hope, as the ghosts increase in number and force the Taoist priests to sacrifice resources, time and even their very lives in this desperate battle against the hordes of Hell.

Ghost Stories is a cooperative game for one to four players. With modular playing tiles and a randomized deck of ghastly foes, no two games will be alike.

The cards and tiles boast fantastic illustrations inspired by kung-fu legends, and a variety of excellent plastic playing pieces will draw you into the game. Gather your forces and battle the Lord of Nine Hells in the ultimate battle of good versus evil!

Observed Set-Up and Play Time Ghost Stories has two huge benefits going for it when you open the box: there is only a few sheets of cardboard to punch and many of the punched pieces are large , and the rulebook is incredibly concise. You can start your first game 30 to 45 minutes after opening the box — a fraction of the time needed for other immersive horror games like Arkham Horror , Mansions of Madness , Zombicide or Zpocalypse , and right in line with less-immersive games like Elder Sign.

It may play faster as a solo game… I have yet to try it this way. The movement and action mechanics take no time at all to comprehend, and the special rules regarding Haunters and Tormentors are easy to grasp.

But you will have to spend a chunk of time explaining all of the symbols. The game board and cards are entirely symbols-based AWESOME if you want to teach the game to a pre-reader, although the graphic card images might scare them , and there are a bunch of different ones.

Both wins were 4-player games, so it may be a balance issue with fewer players, but even the two 4-player wins were VERY close to defeats. The board is beautiful, mechanics unique and cards graphic… it has something for everybody.

A very easy game to get to the table, and without the time restrictions of the aforementioned immersive horror games. Objectionable Material This one is tough.

There are no guns or weapons of any kind save the batons held by the miniatures in the game, and no violence. The work your monks are doing to rid the city of ghosts is akin to the containment boxes used by Peter Venkman and his crew.

So why is Ghost Stories the best horror game to me out there? It has all the elegance of a rich Euro game… with component quality beyond wooden meeples. Every corner is rounded; every surface smoothed. A game everyone should try, and my new litmus test for cooperative games.

Ghost Stories is a medium-weight cooperative game for players in which the players take the role of Taoist monks defending a village from the minions of Wu-Feng. The monks can request aid from the various villagers and use their own special powers to help exorcise the ghosts and, ultimately, the incarnations of Wu-Feng himself before the village is overrun and Wu-Feng is resurrected.

Ghost Stories is a difficult game to sum up briefly, so this summary is intended only as a general overview for review purposes and not an exhaustive breakdown of the game. The village is created by shuffling the village tiles and randomly placing them into a square.

The ghost deck is shuffled, as are the incarnations, which are much tougher than normal ghosts, and a number of incarnations appropriate to the number of players and the difficulty level are seeded into the shuffled ghost deck at fixed intervals. Players choose a monk and one of two abilities, and then receive a number of various tokens appropriate for the difficulty level of the game. At the start of a typical turn, a ghost is drawn and placed on one of the player boards in accordance with its color.

Some ghosts perform certain abilities upon arrival, and some do so at the start of each turn of the board on which they were placed. Each monk is then able to move and either request help from a villager, which can provide them benefits like extra Tao tokens or removing a ghost from play, or attempt to exorcise one or more ghosts adjacent to their current village tile.

Although there are plenty of other options, these are the basics. The players win by exorcising all incarnations of Wu-Feng before 3 village tiles become haunted a special ghost ability , the ghost deck is exhausted with an incarnation in play, or all monks perish. Victory requires constant management of the ghosts and their effects through teamwork and optimal use of special abilities, village tiles and special tokens. The production quality of the game is superb.

It comes with a number of detailed plastic figures, ghost cards, and sturdy tokens, tiles and player boards, all adorned with fantastic and thematic art. The ghost card material is the weakest point, being less sturdy than a Dominion card and possessing black edges that tend to show any wear clearly.

The cards are shuffled only once per game, so it will only be an issue for frequent players of the game, who can easily sleeve the cards.

There is also a beautiful full color rulebook and reference sheet included. This game is dripping with a Chinese ghost story theme, represented in not only the artwork and figures, but also naming, terminology and abilities. This game has a sharp learning curve, largely due to the heavy use of terminology and symbology, the variety of possible actions and its overall uniqueness.

The rule book, although beautiful and full of information, does not succeed at explaining what is a relatively simple base rule set. For example, the player setup rules are separate from the primary setup section, which focuses on 4 player setup and does not reference where to find setup for other player configurations. A turn walkthrough or a few more visual rules examples would have helped to clarify some of the concepts. I feel that the game is best learned from someone familiar with it or playing the solo game prior to attempting to teach others.

Ghost Stories is a difficult game, even at the lowest difficulty levels. Mastery of the concepts will take multiple plays depending on player experience and is not easy to achieve. There is no conflict between players built into the game, so this game will appeal to players who do not like conflict.

However, like all cooperative games, one or more dominant players can attempt to dictate the moves of others, which could affect the enjoyment of the other players. Setup is relatively easy and will take minutes for inexperienced players and considerably less for repeat players, as although the 1, 2 and 3 player rules are disjointed from the 4 player rules, setup of the environment is clearly spelled out in the rule book. Gameplay typically takes minutes. Each turn is relatively short, which eliminates long delays between turns, especially when each player can always be involved in planning.

Gameplay is fully cooperative, but, unlike most cooperative games, individual players can be removed from the game due to the death of their monk. Players still in the game can resurrect fallen monks, but, depending on the current game state, this may not be possible. However, even if a player is no longer in the game, if the active players triumph, the ousted players share in the victory. Regardless, this means that individual players could sit idle for indeterminate amounts of time during the game.

Players can choose their monks and their special powers, but every other element of the setup is random and subject to poor draws like other cooperative games.

Since most exorcisms will be accomplished by rolling the Tao dice, repeated poor rolls can also contribute to ultimate defeat. The multitude of available actions does allow players to reduce the impact of luck, so luck is balanced well when players take full advantage of their options. Perhaps due to mixture of challenge and theme, the game is a lot of fun even when it is lost. Players cheer for victories and bemoan defeats in equal measure. Nearly every element of the game is randomized.

With four difficulty levels, variable player powers and a varied selection of incarnations, even frequent players should constantly find challenge and replayability. The ability to play the game solo is also a huge benefit and makes for an excellent way to learn the game. Although not part of the scope of this review, there are two expansions available that significantly modify the flow of the base game, as well as several available promos to add more variety.

This game is perfect for casual and experienced gamers who enjoy a challenge or to those who enjoy cooperative games.

I would not suggest this game for non-gamers or those new to cooperative games, as the steep learning curve and the fact that most groups will lose more than they succeed may turn off these players. Players who do not enjoy a significant luck factor in their games or who do not like losing will probably want to pass. Overall, I find Ghost Stories to be an extremely fun, theme-heavy and well-designed game that I can play even after a tough loss.

It is a great game and one that will continue to see plenty of play in my gaming circles for a long time to come. Ghost Stories, I want to start out by saying, is a very fun game. Its a game, however, that you have to play an expect that you will very well lose! Ghost Stories is a co-op board game where players assume control of different Taoist monks, each one with a little bit of a different ability.

Each turn, new ghosts will enter the field of play and cause all sorts of different mischief — from haunting the villagers to making you lose life points to cursing you to locking you out from additional abilities, etc. The object of the game is to defeat the final ghost, Wu-Feng, and while you the players have one way to achieve victory — the game provides several ways for you to lose the game — so the game itself is very stacked against you.

In a way, I think that the game being against you is a good flavor of good against evil in a way — but that would be for a different kind of writing.

The games components are fantastic and very crisp. As you could probably imagine, the game is based around an Asian art style and imagery. Gameplay is fairly quick, and by quick I mean that the ghosts will probably eat you alive very quickly! When you try to defeat a ghost you will roll some dice. Each ghost has a different value that you need to roll — and the dice work by matching the colors to that colored ghost. Combat is actually pretty intuitive and easy to understand, actually, but it sucks when dice hate you.

Its one of those games that continually beats me so I have found it to be my quest to force myself to beat the game somehow and someway. Who would like this game? Well, the solitaire play is very good and strong — its very challenging, which is something I think solitaire games lack at times. If you enjoy an asian theme in your games, or in general, you may enjoy the theme of this game. However, I think its strongest aspect is that its very co-op driven and that the challenge value of the game is amazing is one of the best features for it.

Who would not like it? I know some people may be turned off by it being a co-op game. I know several players who want to play against others players and not WITH other players. Ultimately — I love this game and I am playing it very often at the moment. Give it a try, its a very solid game that offers challenging gameplay that will be rewarding once you finally are able to beat it! Antoine Bauza. The name conjures to mind such fascinating and eclectic games as 7 Wonders and Takenoko.

How is it, I must wonder, that one game designer can come up with so many unique, abstract concepts for games that are each so individually different in mechanics and theme, while all being so much fun? I was recently invited to try Ghost Stories with three friends. It was already late — the tail end of a long game night, and most of the other guests had gone home. He can recover it as soon as the responsible ghost is removed from his board. The Taoistscan only exorcise this incarnation if the ghost place facing him on the opposite board is not occupied by a Ghost.

This incarnation must be placed on a location occupied by a Buddha figurine in order for the players to exorcise it. This can be achieved by moving this incarnation onto a Buddha, or by bringing it into play on a Buddha.

The incarnation then can be exorcised according to the rules. The Buddha is replaced on the Buddha temple tile. News, revies, videos and more about Ghost Stories. Ghost Stories Pricewatch, buy the board game at the lowest price. English Review at Meople's Magazine. Review at Drake's Flames. Ghost Stories review Co-op Board Games. Ghost Stories Fan Site. Rating: 6. Description: Ghost Stories is a cooperative game in which the players protect the village from incarnations of the lord of hell - Wu-Feng - and his legions of ghosts before they haunt a town and recover the ashes that will allow him to return to life.

Ghost Stories Game Rules. Ghost Stories Player Rules. Taoist Powers of Ghost Stories. Abilities Of The Incarnations. Ghost Stories: White Moon Expansion.

Ghost Stories: Black Secret Expansion. Check also these games:. And not just the iOS, but the board game which a friend owns as well. Or something like that. On each space of this 3 x 3 grid are a set of convoluted symbols that I have yet to fully figure out, but that give special powers to the monks. Host Ghost! I thought the iOS rules were long and convoluted. The physical book was yet one more study in frustration.

A massive, frustrating challenge. Ghost Stories, to me, is only frustrating and so demonically evil that I really have no interest in ever opening this app again. Ghost Stories is a very difficult cooperative game where players control Chinese monks as they defend a village against an onslaught of ghostly invaders.

Like the board game, you can play with one to four players. That way my monks always help each other out without me commanding someone else to make the move I want. For more detail about the gameplay, check out this review of the board game. The visuals are excellent. The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. And the game in general is just plain good.

The tutorial, while lengthy, is confusing.