It’s Halloween night and the kids are filling the streets with bags full of candy. It’s the perfect place for ghosts that have a sweet tooth! Only the cleverest ghosts will be able to snag the perfect candy without spooking the children. Don’t forget to watch your back, your ghostly opponents won’t make it easy on you as you collect those sweet treats.
Ghosts Love Candy is a new game from Steve Jackson Games, the publisher best known for the Munchkin series. The game supports from 2 to 6 players and each player gets a separate deck of numbered cards with their ghost on each card.
Let the Haunting Begin
In the middle of the table, you have a row of kids dressed and ready to Trick or Treat on Halloween night. Each kid is given a piece of candy from the candy cards in the middle of the table.
Each round, players play a numbered ghost card from their hand and place it face down on the table. Simultaneously, everyone shows their card and the player with the highest number gets to “haunt” the kid of their choice, placing their ghost below the kid.
When a player haunts a child, they get any candy associated with that kid. At the end of the round you check to see if any kids have been “scared” which means that the numbers on the ghosts have surpassed the number on the child card. If a kid was scared, then the last player to play a ghost on that kid takes that child card and will receive -2 points at the end of the game for every kid that the player collected.
Candy, Candy, Candy!
In Ghosts Love Candy, players are collecting peppermints, licorice, gummy bears, chocolate and more. The values of these candies are all different for each of the players. Each person has a “love card” which assigns point values to each of the candies. These cards are all different which means that one person will have peppermint valued at 5 points and another player would have chocolate valued at 5 points.
This keeps the game fresh because every game will have you hunting for different types of candy to score points. There are lots of ways to score points by collecting these treats. If a kid isn’t haunted for multiple rounds, they will collect even more candy which makes that kid even more valuable.
My first couple games with Ghosts Love Candy really surprised me with the strategies that are introduced by the text on the kid cards. Each kid has text below their image that changes how you approach haunting the kids. One kid may change the value of the kid to the right or left while another may allow you to swap candy with another player. These card abilities give this game depth and make it a great pick for adults.
While the kids abilities force players to form a strategy as they play, some of these cards can be difficult for younger players to understand. Our kids usually understood the meaning of the cards after one of us explained what it meant. If you’re playing with really young kids, it’s probably a good idea to ignore this card text the first couple games. The game has a lot of value in teaching young gamers how to add numbers to see if they have surpassed a specific value.
The game ends when there isn’t enough candy to be distributed to the kids that are in the middle of the table. Everyone adds their collected candy points, subtracts points for any kids they collected and the highest score is the winner. The game is a fantastic filler game that takes around 30 minutes to play and has very little down time since everyone is involved in each round.
Each card contains really colorful and fun illustrations that perfectly matches the tone of the game. I really appreciate the attention to diversity on the children in the game. Steve Jackson Games did a great job of having a diverse cast of kids that isn’t always represented in gaming. The whole game has a fun and whimsical feel that is inviting for gamers of any age.
We have a couple games that are Halloween themed that only hit the table in the Fall. Ghosts Love Candy is a Halloween themed game that breaks that mold. The game has some great mechanics without falling into the realm of being a purely kids game or something that only adults will understand. This is one game that will get play throughout the year despite it’s seasonal theme.
You can purchase Ghosts Love Candy at your local game shop or on Amazon today.
Steve Jackson Games provided us with a copy of Ghosts Love Candy. This in no way influenced our opinion on the game.
Highs
- Fun, colorful illustrations on each card
- Light deduction, set collecting and bidding are simple to grasp
- Enough depth to keep adults engaged
Lows
- Text on the kid cards can be tough for younger gamers to understand
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