24.8.2011

If you cross "Big Trouble in Little China" and Akira Kurosawa's "7 Samurai" together, you'll get more of an idea of what "Ghost Stories"is about. It's suffused with Eastern mysticism, duality and at the heart of it, beating up nasty spirits.The premise is simple. 1-4 players work together as Taoist monks to protect a village from Wu-Feng, an evil spirit. They must work together to defeat the ghosts he summons and then to win, beat his incarnation, which appears at a pre-determined point near the end.If any game can capture your heart through its components, then Ghost Stories is it. Put simply, it's gorgeous. The artwork is stunning and evocative - from the illustrations of the villager tiles to the dark mystery of the ghosts,there's an abundance of theme here that captures you from the beginning and doesn't let go. Whilst the moulded plastic figures of the monks are a tiny bit garish, the little Buddhas you can place to ward off any menacing phantasms just add that extra level of detail that adds up to making this a wonderful thing to have on your table.So what about the game itself? Well, I'll admit that the instruction manual isn't particularly well-written, so I had to source some better instructions from another site. However, once you've played one game and got used to the various icons and symbols that are used throughout, it plays beautifully. The board is actually composed of nine specific village tiles which you shuffle together and then place, ensuring that the playing area is different every time you play it. These areas all have a unique ability, such as moving a ghost back or obtaining "tao tokens". The village itself is arranged in a 3 x 3 square, with each player then having a specific colour coded board on each side with 3 specific spaces. It's worth noting that each monk also has a specific ability unique to them, such as being able to move anywhere in the village or being able to reroll the tao dice when attempting to banish a ghost.In keeping with the Taoist philosophy, each player has a ying and yang phase. On his "Ying" phase, a player takes a card from the Ghost Deck and then places it on a monk's board according to its colour. So if it's a red ghost, it goes on the red player's board, unless their board is full up. There are differing types, from "Haunters" who, unless exorcised, will eventually haunt a village tile (on the easiest level, 4 haunted tiles means the end of the game) to "Tormentors" who force players to roll a black "Curse dice", usually meaning more woe. Some are naturally worse than others and of course there is Wu-Feng's incarnation at the end who usually is very difficult to beat. On the "Yang" phase, players get to move 1 square on the village and then either activate a villager help tile, or they can attempt to exorcise a ghost if they are next to it. To do so, they have to roll 3 Tao Dice and get the corresponding number of coloured dots on the dice (Whites are jacks). If they have a tao token of a corresponding colour, then they can also use that.Ghost Stories is very difficult, but refreshingly so. The random setting of the village tiles means that the players really have to work together on forming a coherent strategy to defeat Wu-Feng, which can make for an exhilarating gaming experience. There's a real sense of immersion too, helped by some fantastic artwork and how tight and tense the game gets as you realise how close Wu Feng is and especially when the appearance of one ghost could trigger off all manner of mishaps. The deck of ghosts just adds that extra level of pressure to proceedings.Gameplay, once you've run through a couple of sessions, can be up to 1 hour, which is the perfect length for something of this nature. It's fast, fun and full of highs and lows - you'll boo when a nasty Black Widow appears, but cheer when you banish a Lich from the village.In terms of age level, I'd recommend this for kids of about 8 or up as the artwork could be frightening for younger children, but it is a perfect family game.

24.7.2014

I purchased Ghost Stories - which is my first in the `cooperative' genre actually, because it had been drawn to my attention via a YouTube Video that this was as good a game to play solo as it was with others, and as I don't always have someone to play my games with, thought it may be a good idea to try.Despite having a collection of around 700 board games - and been collecting now for more years than I care to remember, I did not realise they made games that could be played solo! Of course, any game can be played solo really - if one were to take the role of two players - but I can't see that would be much fun, and so when I spotted this, and learned there were quite a few other solo games out there too,

28.4.2014

This game took us quite a while to get to grips with. I would recommend looking for a couple of online tutorial videos as well as reading the rules as it helped me enormously. An extremely challenging game - even the rules warn you not to be too frustrated if you don't win the first few times you play it! All that said, I really enjoy Ghost Stories. Play as a Taoist monk to ward off evil ghosts and ghouls with the help of various villagers and defeat the boss, Wu-Feng. The villagers all have different abilities, the ghosts all have different abilities, the Taoists all have different abilities...you have to halt the advancing ghosts whilst also ensuring the villages don't get haunted as well as attempting to keep the Taoists alive...it can be a nightmare!

30.12.2017

Played this game as solo and the game ended in about 20 minutes as I was over run. Came across as a very difficult game, but thinking back, I probably didn't think carefully enough about each move.Played a game today with my 2 brothers; it lasted about 3 hours. We debated in length at the best way to deal with most moves. Having to think 2/3 moves ahead. There are more complicated games than this; it didn't take long to explain the rules to them, but we all had a brilliant time playing it, fantastic co-op game. I will definitely be trying to get a few mates round to have another go.The game is made up of smaller pieces of board that come together and create a good looking board game, some great art.

14.12.2009

A co-operative game where players work together to fight hordes of invading ghosts to get a chance to kill the incarnations of their master. The setting is a village made up of 9 tiles. As these can be arranged in any 3 by 3 pattern there are lots of possible game set ups. Each space provides characters with a different ability, or, the character can fight ghosts instead. Combat is dice based but characters can collect power discs to improve the odds. Using the tile abilities allows the number of ghosts to build up and it is very easy to be overrun, i.e. choices are multiple but hard. Each character has a special ability as well and losing a character in a fight can be a game loser but

25.6.2014

This would be a great game regardless, but the beautiful artwork and the strong theme (reminds me fondly of the wonderful film "A Chinese Ghost Story") make it a masterpiece in my opinion. Lots of fun for all the family - I've played it solo, with friends and with my wife and young children and it's been well received in every case. It's very challenging, particularly before you learn a few winning strategies - you really do feel surrounded and under pressure from the start. But, as it's a co-operative game, the fun comes in playing together rather than winning, so there's never any tears from the little ones (or me) when we do lose (which is often).We bought the White Moon expansion shortly after,

3.1.2014

I cannot recommend this game highly enough. True, I do like cooperative games, but this one, this beautifully balanced, beautifully illustrated stonker beats all others I have tried (although I have yet to play Pandemic).Initially there's a fair bit to remember, although the actual gameplay is easy to understand. Don't be deceived though as this game is far from easy to beat! Even at it's initiation level it's actually pretty damn hard! However, don't let this put you off; after all, who would want a co-op game that was easy to beat? And as I said before, it plays so beautifully, with everything, every check and every balance making perfect sense that even when you lose,

31.5.2014

This is an amazing game but so hard to win! That's half the fun of it and you get really immersed in it. Amazing graphics and top quality components. I've played the two player version (the easiest difficulty level!) four times now and only won once due to haunting ghosts and unlucky dice rolls. Fantastic game despite (or maybe even because) of how hard it is to win and feels different to play every time due to swapping around the centre board pieces and playing different characters with different strengths (all are fun and require different tactics to play). Love it! Would recommend it to any adult or teenage gamers (the graphics are maybe a bit scary for younger players)

6.5.2013

This is a very challenging co-op game whose theme fits perfectly with the constantly rising feeling of doom. The ghosts and demons keep coming as you dash around, working together as a team using the unique powers of the besieged villagers and your own special Shaolin monk powers to fight back the hordes.You'll lose a lot but it won't matter because you'll immediately reset the board and try again.Good with 1-4 players, the art and pieces are high quality and it challenges in a way that makes you want to get it right rather than just being frustrating.Highly recommended.Protect ya neck.

17.10.2018

The first time we played this, we ended up playing it three times in a row. We didn't come close to saving the poor villagers but had a brilliant time battling a whole host of strange and ghastly spirits. We quickly found our favourite monks and unique powers, refining our strategy and we have come tantalisingly close to beating the game on the first level of difficulty. This game will stay on my shelf as the unique theme and superb artwork draw you in and the challenge is always there. It's an ideal game for Halloween - full of atmosphere but not scary at all.

17.9.2011

I had been wanting to get this game for some time as there are not too many great solo board games around but this one always kept popping up on reviews. And that is exactly what it has in its favour, it is a good solo game. The game itself, has good components and the rules are not too easy but straightforward enough to make you want to play the game again. There is a Chinese ghost theme here, which gives a smattering of eastern religion thrown in for those who like to read around their subject. I recommend this for solo gamers.

3.5.2014

I do enjoy a good cooperative game and this one I do enjoy, it has a very interesting pace, where the game flits back and forth between "we are doing ok" and "oh god we are going to die". I am considering picking up the expansions to improve the re-playability a little but the base game itself works well enough, it is very hard to get hold of the Black Secret expansion to this game however as pretty much everywhere is out of print in this regard.

16.3.2018

This is a very good board game which neatly side-swerves all of the pitfalls associated with the genre. It's a cooperative game, so none of that tedious competition nonsense our society is so polluted with. It's has clear instructions which allow you to play pretty much out of the box. It has enough variation built in to prevent it degenerating to a simple algorithm. It has a really great story line. It's very difficult to win.

1.8.2019

A must for anyone's game collection. The art work is fantastic the theme is fantastic... the modular boards look fantastic... the game is brutal but so much fun, i find it better solo controlling all of the monks personally to give me a fighting chance of winning the game. The game can be made easier or harder by playing different modes which are all in the instruction manual

3.1.2015

I bought this following glowing reviews by Rab Florence and the Shut Up & Sit Down gents, and I was far from disappointed. My first co-op, it's inspired me to buy more. Everyone I've introduced it to has been a bit unsure of the co-op concept at first, then easily won over and asking for a second crack at Wu Feng and his ghostly army!

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