Ryan Tullis
United States
Florida
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Ghost Stories. Along with Memoir 44, it was one of the FIRST games I bought after playing Citadels. My wife (fiancee at the time) was trying to learn it with her friend while a buddy and myself learned Memoir '44. When they gave up trying to learn the rules, we made fun of them for being girls and continued with our manly war game.
Joke was on me. 
Introduction
Ghost Stories is a game (and by game I mean almost hopeless torture) for 1-4 players. Playing as monks, you defend a village against an onslaught of ghosts, curses, haunters, and everything else possible. I'm going to tell you now. This game is hard. This game is so hard that, after winning your first time, you're going to build a time machine and give tactical advice to the 300 Spartans on how to easily survive the invasion.
Components
With the game you receive a nice stack of cards, nine city tiles, a handful of Haunter and Monk figurines, and some cardboard symbol icons. So most of the things involved with directly playing the game are good. The problem is the rulebook. I hope that the writer doesn't go on to make a surgery manual. I can just imagine the surgeon standing there, scratching his head with his bloody fingers, wondering, "Do I attach this vein before or after I stitch the tendent? Doesn't say. Oh well! Guess it doesn't matter then."
Even more oddly, the quick sheet for the plethora of symbols, instead of having English symbols printed on both sides of the single sheet, has English on one side, French on the other, while the other half of the English reference sheet is off on the back of a German quick-sheet. WHY?
But don't let that break this for you. Because those pieces make you FEEL like four haunters are closing in on your poor monks.
Gameplay
Gameplay can be summarized by this conversation:
Me: We're getting overrun! **** it! James, lose a chi to get rid of the Haunter.
James: But.
Me: **** it, James! Can't you see the trouble we're in? Take one for the team! Or you, Amanda, or you--
James: But, Ryan--
Me: WHAT?
James: We're all dead.
Me: ...
And that's Ghost Stories in a nutshell. You'll begin the game, probably feeling in control and fine, comfortable there sipping coffee with your buddies and laughing about dinner the other night. But then you'll get a Haunter on the table. "Silly Haunter!" you'll think and go to kill him. But, wait, on your turn you drew a Black Widow. No tao tokens? No problem. At least I have three-- Wait. There's a ghost here that holds a die so I can only use two? But the Haunter needs three to kill! Well I at least--NOW I'M GETTING CURSED!?
Then your laughing dinner becomes a blood tattered battle for survival.
In all seriousness, one of the real issues with the game is that, during all the chaos, you'll have trouble remembering the 90 different tasks and symbols you're supposed to be paying attention to. The game even tries to help you by providing things to put on the board. But when there's 8 ghosts on the board and all do different things, some of them doing the same thing but at different times (when they come out, every turn, when they die) it quickly becomes overwhelming and stressful just trying to remember everything. Then you reach for your quick sheet. Oh. Not there, must be on the back of it. OH WAIT. That's right. The symbol sheets have different languages on their backs so you have to waste time turning over the French and German to find the other half of the English rules.
How I feel about the game
It might sound like I dislike Ghost Stories. On the contrary, I think it's a fun game! It's just frustrating at times. Both because of the ambiguous rules and because of its level of difficulty (which it offers three of. And Initiate is still a beast to tackle).
When the difficulty comes from the game in the right ways, it's very enjoyable and epic. I remember we were all down to a single life, our boards were full, and the kind of roll it would take to beat the boss required 3 of the same color (he also sapped out tao tokens). Green Monk was dead, so no 4 die roll for us. Yellow missed. It was down to me as blue. I use my ability as Blue to both use the town power to grab a tao token, then rolled (I still needed to roll all three red on top of the token). I really rolled just to see since we were about to pack up the loss. Three red. THREE RED come out of those dice (okay, two red, one white). I threw up my hands and shouted like a viking, high fived everyone, and we all celebrated the barely-victory.
So...
PROS
 It's Fun!
Game difficulty is high, making winning mean something.
The quality of the pieces is fantastic. The production value really sucks you into the theme.
The multitude of differences in the final boss raise the replay factor HUGELY. I'm not talking one or two forms, either. I recall there being no less than 5-7.
Even if a monk dies - You're not necessarily done yet! There is a tile that allows for revival! The other thing is, you really need every monk power to survive as long as possible, so you can rest easy knowing that the team won't be too eager to run off into battle over your dead body.
CONS
 Ambiguous rulebook, a load of symbols, and awkward laid out quick-sheets make it feel like you're forgetting a rule or doing something incorrect: usually because you are.
While the boss is usually new and exciting, the fact that you go through almost the entire deck to reach the boss means the standard enemies become VERY standard. The other downside is their being put in different places doesn't refresh their coming enough for some of them (the ones that sap the powers of who they land on, though, are fierce and exciting).
Because the deck is randomized, it's possible to die surprisingly quickly with the wrong draws. I'm not sure if this is entirely bad or not. I actually almost like being able to quickly restart. But for some it might be a negative to be thrown out of the game so fast.
Final Thoughts and Rating
If you want to get a co-op with a unique theme, Ghost Stories is for you. The game is challenging (usually in a good way) and will leave your board gaming group with stories to tell. The awkward rule book and sometimes repetitive feeling of EARLY game isn't enough to turn potential players away from this choice.
Oh, so why I don't I carry a loaded pistol when I play this game? Because when I'm about to die, and that boss comes out, especially with a name like "HOPE KILLER, mocking me, it's so hard not to blow that paper jerk to smithereens while screaming, "FUS RO DA!" 
I give this game 7.5 (really 7.75 if I could) Haunters out of 10.
  
NOTE: What do I consider an 7.5/10? I think a 7.5 is a good game put into a board gaming cycle. It won't hit the table every time you game, but when it does, it will serve as a great time. I consider most good games to be around this score.
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Was George Orwell an Optimist?
United States
Corvallis
Oregon
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Tryken wrote: In all seriousness, one of the real issues with the game is that, during all the chaos, you'll have trouble remembering the 90 different tasks and symbols you're supposed to be paying attention to. The game even tries to help you by providing things to put on the board. But when there's 8 ghosts on the board and all do different things, some of them doing the same thing but at different times (when they come out, every turn, when they die) it quickly becomes overwhelming and stressful just trying to remember everything. Then you reach for your quick sheet. Oh. Not there, must be on the back of it. OH WAIT. That's right. The symbol sheets have different languages on their backs so you have to waste time turning over the French and German to find the other half of the English rules.
The multi-lingual support charts seem to have really flummoxed you. There are two of them - the Village Tile Play Aid and the Abilities of the Ghosts. Turn them English side up when you set up the game, and you'll never need to flip them during play. Seems easy to me.
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Nice review. Loved reading it
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Paul S
United Kingdom
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
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Great review. Made me laugh. I agree with just about all of it.
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Ryan Tullis
United States
Florida
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Sphere wrote: Tryken wrote: In all seriousness, one of the real issues with the game is that, during all the chaos, you'll have trouble remembering the 90 different tasks and symbols you're supposed to be paying attention to. The game even tries to help you by providing things to put on the board. But when there's 8 ghosts on the board and all do different things, some of them doing the same thing but at different times (when they come out, every turn, when they die) it quickly becomes overwhelming and stressful just trying to remember everything. Then you reach for your quick sheet. Oh. Not there, must be on the back of it. OH WAIT. That's right. The symbol sheets have different languages on their backs so you have to waste time turning over the French and German to find the other half of the English rules. The multi-lingual support charts seem to have really flummoxed you. There are two of them - the Village Tile Play Aid and the Abilities of the Ghosts. Turn them English side up when you set up the game, and you'll never need to flip them during play. Seems easy to me.
They end up getting passed around the table because everyone wants to look at them, and as they are during the chaos, they end up getting flipped or somebody puts them back in the box. They're not a huge deal or anything, I just think they're awkwardly formatted and can cause an awkward pause in play if you're trying to hunt them down from whoever used them last.
Glad everyone likes the review!
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Pol Michiels
Belgium
Brussels
Brussels
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Tryken wrote: The production value really sucks...
Hey!
Tryken wrote: you into the theme.
Oh... All right then. Damn straight. ;)
I figured that the layout of the reference sheets was so that you could view both sides in your language at the same time (place them side by side), instead of having to constantly turn that page over. But I agree that in practice, it's weird. Don't worry, though. With a few games under your belt, the symbols and powers become completely intuitive, and you'l find you don't even need those reference sheets anymore.
Enjoy Ghost Stories!
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Nunya Business
United States
Pennsylvania
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LOL!
This review is hilarious. I just ordered the game; it will be here Friday.
Am I asking for it by purchasing this game? 
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