The evening began with everyone admiring Plum’s spooky cardie and wish Black a happy birthday, before people settled down to play spooky games.  To mark Halloween, the “Feature Game” will was Ghosts Love Candy Too (the sequel to Ghosts Love Candy).  This is ostensibly a quick little card game where players haunt kids to steal their sweeties, however, in practice, it took rather longer than expected to get to grips with.  The idea is that players simultaneously choose a card from their hand (of nine) Ghost Cards and then reveal which card people played to decide turn order.  Starting with the player who revealed the highest value card, players then take it in turns to place their card one one of the Kid Cards, to “haunt them”.

– Image by boardGOATS

The player immediately takes any Treat Tokens on the Kid Card and then activates the Kid’s special ability.  Any Kids whose courage has been exceeded are then collected by the active player and the Kid Card is replaced.  Players score points for some of the Kid Cards (some positive, but most are negative), and for Treats they have collected according to their personal, secret, Craving cards which mean that Treats score differently for each person.  Thus, while one player may score five points for, say, Licorice, another another player, Licorice will only be worth one point.  for some reason, there was a bit of sussing out of the rules as, although Blue had done her homework, somehow it didn’t quite fit together in practice.

– Image by boardGOATS

Between them, however, Teal, Pink, Ivory, Cobalt and Blue worked it out in the end. Ivory began, and his favourite was Chocolate, while Cobalt who went second was after peppermints.  From early in the game, it was apparent that Teal was collecting Gummy Bears, and seemed to have little competition, but then, it appeared that Blue was collecting Candy Corn, but that was all she could get her hands on and she really wanted Licorice.  In the end it was a tie between Teal and Pink, who did really well on his Treats, especially his favourites, Lollipops, but picked up ten negative points from his huge pile of terrified Kids.  Victory went to Teal on the tie-break, however, as he had the most of his favourite Treats (that pile of Gummy Bears).

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the next table, Jade was leading Black, Purple and Green in a game of Potion Explosion, which is sort of “Candy Crush the board game”, played with Marbles.  Players take an Ingredient Marble from the dispenser causing other Marbles to fall.  If that causes Marbles of the same color to connect and form rows or columns, they “explode” and players can take them take as well.  They then use the Ingredients to make  potions and then drink them to give special magical powers.  The winner, however, is the player who brews the most valuable Potions with the least Help and the most Skill.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, Purple took the least assistance and finished with no Help tokens at all, however, a little Help can go a long way if you make the most of it.  Green got a Lot of help which cost him eight points but this was more than offset by the fact he had the most valuable Potions, worth fifty-seven points, and the most Skill giving him another twelve and a total of sixty-one points and substantial victory margin.  Black just pushed Jade into third—although Jade had considerably more valuable Potions, Black had more Skill and had needed a lot less Help, giving him a total of fifty-one points, two more than Jade.

– Image by boardGOATS

On the third table, Plum had been keen to give the Ghost Train version of Ticket to Ride a go, however, before they got round to that, they played a couple of games of the rather more tenuously Halloween themed Nova Luna.  This is an abstract tile laying game that uses the mechanism from the slightly older, animal-themed game, Habitats.  On their turn, players choose a tile from the Moon wheel to add to their array.  Each new tile brings a new task to fulfill which are completed by placing colors in a specific arrangement which in turn bring more new tasks. Each time a task is completed, the player may places one of their Markers and the first to place all of their Markers is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Plum was joined in Nova Luna by Sapphire (as it is one of his favourite games), Byzantium and Mint on her first visit.  The group played two games—the first of which was really close.  Plum and Sapphire tied one seventeen and were beaten by a single point by Mint.  The winner was Byzantium, however, with a two point lead and finished with twenty points.  The game was slightly less tight, though Byzantium, the master of consistency, was also the victor with twenty points.  Second place this time went to Plum with sixteen who was one point ahead of Sapphire who, in turn, was one point ahead of Mint.

– Image by boardGOATS

Then the group moved on to play the Ghost Train version of Ticket to Ride.  This is really a re-implementation of the introductory version of the game Ticket to Ride: First Journey, but what makes it special is the gorgeous board and large train pieces.  It still uses the same basic mechanism as all the Ticket to Ride games with players collecting parade Float Cards and using them to claim routes on the main board.  Each player starts with a couple of “Ticket” cards showing locations they have to connect.  In this version, when a player completes a Ticket, they reveal it and draw a new one.  If a player can’t complete a ticket, they can take a turn to discard both their cards and redraw.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are also bonus Tickets available for connecting a location of the Dark Forest region in the top left corner of the board to a location in the Seashore region in the bottom right and bonus Float Cards for connecting Town Hall to the Crypt.  The winner is the first player to claim their sixth Ticket or the player with the most Tickets when someone places their final Train piece on the map.  The game was a bit of a landslide, with Sapphire stealing a march on the others and quickly taking the lead, rapidly collecting his six tickets before anyone else had got anywhere.  Mint took second with two Tickets and and Byzantium and Plum tied for third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink was somewhat surprised when Mint expressed an interest in his bottle of his favourite Blood Orange cider.  Initially he was reluctant to part with it as it wasn’t empty, but once it was pointed out that they needed it for their next game and Pink could just poor the rest into his glass, everyone was happy and Mint began setting up her birthday present—Cards vs Gravity.  This is a silly, but fun party game where players balance cards on a platform attached to the top of a bottle that has the feel of Jenga, but with cards.  The idea is that players have to add cards to the tree without collapsing it.  Byzantium was obviously on a bit of a roll, and followed up his two victories at Nova Luna with two victories against Gravity (and the others of course).

– Image by boardGOATS

With everyone pretty much finished, some headed home, but the remaining ten managed a couple of rounds of the old favourite, and totally not Halloween themed, 6 Nimmt!.  In this game, players simultaneously choose a numbered card from their hand and then reveal them at the same time.  These cards are added to four rows of cards in the centre of the table, starting with the lowest card, adding each one to the row that ends with the highest number that is lower than the card.  Where the card would have been the sixth card, instead the player takes the five cards as their scoring pile leaving their card as the first in the new row.  The player with the lowest final total is the winner.  The catch is where players play a card that is lower than all the end cards, and as a result takes the row of their choice.

– Image by boardGOATS

This has the potential to completely upset everyone’s plans.  The plans are not the thing here though, it is the tension and anticipation as people wait to see who is going to pick up that brightly coloured, high-scoring set of cards…  This time, Cobalt top-scored in the first round with twenty-seven, slightly more than Jade.  Pink, Ivory and Purple all finished in single digits, but it Pink was the victor with one solitary point.  In the second round, Green took the biggest pile giving him thirty-three points, but Jade managed to take thirteen points from just three cards.  Ivory was the only one to stay in single digits, and was therefore the winner with a total of eight points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome:  Even apparently silly children’s games can be fun when the occasion is right.