Kris Hall: The Pace of Ghosts

Pace.

I was about wondering the attraction of Ghost Stories, the new cooperative game from designer Antoine Bauza.  It took me a few minutes thought to actually pin down what the appeal of the game actually was. 

It’s not deep strategy.  The game does offer some meaningful decisions, but often they boil down to: how many life points (called Qi in the game) should I sacrifice on the Sorcerer tile to nuke the dangerous ghosts that threaten the village?  The Sorcerer can dispel even the most threatening ghost in one quick turn at the cost of a life point, but there are always more ghosts that need dispelling than life points available.  When to sacrifice them is a key decision in the game.

But a few meaningful decisions can’t explain the game’s charm.

I decided that it is the relentless assault at the heart of the game that gives Ghost Stories its flavor and tension.  Every turn at least one new enemy ghost card is placed on the board, and some of these ghosts summon others to arrive on the same turn.  It is not unusual for players who have cleared the board of supernatural enemies to suddenly find themselves facing three new ghosts, ghouls or vampires the very next turn.

In other words, it’s the pace of the game that’s key.

This is not an unusual discovery for me to make.  Some games that might otherwise seem marginally appealing pull me in with a speedy pace.  Ticket to Ride is hardly the kind of deep strategy game that I favor, but the quick turns keep the game moving along.  One day I’d like to play Lightning Ticket to Ride with a group of smart gamers determined to play as fast as possible and see how quickly we can speed though a game.  Could it be done in fifteen minutes?

Dominion is another game that benefits from a fast pace.  Dominion may be very popular, but pure card games are not my thing, and I was not enthralled the first time I played it.  But Ted Cheatham brought Dominion to the table again last week, and I was impressed with how fast it plays.  Any game is more fun when you know that your next turn is only seconds away.

By now you might have realized that my description of the relentlessness of the ghost attack in Ghost Stories is not exactly the same thing as the short turns that I am describing with Ticket to Ride and Dominion.  I seem to be using the word pace to describe two different things.  After all, Ghost Stories could have the ghost attack mechanism I described, and still be a slow game if player turns took forever.

Happily, most player turns in Ghost Stories will be short as long as no dreaded AP players are haunting the table.  Players in Ghost Stories can move their piece on their turn, and then attack a ghost or use the special power of the tile where their token rests.  That’s about as complicated as player decisions get. 

Lest I seem to be over-selling Ghost Stories, let me be honest: Ghost Stories is the boardgame equivalent of Whack-A-Mole.  Players must whack ghosts as fast as they can to keep from being overrun.  Any other description is mere detail.

This simplicity may mean that Ghost Stories may soon wear out its welcome.  Unless enough expansions appear so that players can tailor their village or special abilities the way they can tailor the difficulty of the game.

But even after the novelty of the game wears off, I’ll probably be willing to play it with any fan of the game.  The pace appeals.

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