Villordsutch reviews Ghosts Love Candy from Steve Jackson Games…
Ghosts Love Candy designed by Danny Devine is one of the latest releases from Steve Jackson Games; originally appearing on Kickstarter back in 2014 it nearly doubled the wanted total come the close of the campaign. Now it’s available to buy from the gaming house that has brought you the hugely popular Zombie Dice and Car Wars.
A number of you may have a) read the title and b) seen the box cover, and now are thinking that this game is possibly aimed at the younger generation, feeling this review may not be for you. Well stop! As a card-carrying, certified fully-grown adult I can tell you that behind the cartoonish exterior of this box, and the cute-style drawings of both “Ghosts” & “Kids”, lurks players mumbling expletives at each other across the table, as plans are disrupted and kids are scared on purpose to impede progress. It’s not all about cute looking ghosts.
First things first, in this rather compact box you get Love Cards which tells you (the player) which pieces of candy you need to collect (you’ll want to keep this secret). Six sets of Ghost cards, all with different colours and names (my favourite is McSpooky). Loads of candy and 24 Kids in Halloween costumes who currently hold the candy. It’s your job – as a ghost – to slightly ‘Haunt’ the kids and get the candy from them, but not scare them or you’ll not only terrify the kid into your stash of candy (losing points) but all the candy on that child will be gone forever.
All the instructions for Ghosts Love Candy are of course given on a informative colourful sheet within the box, but living in the 21st Century it’s fair to say that most instructions these days are for reference only. Before you play a game I’d recommend jumping online to Steve Jackson Games and watching the videos on their website. Also, on YouTube there are a fair few videos of people playing too, so if you do get stuck – which you won’t – dropping on there will grab you a few pointers.
A game of Ghosts Love Candy between three/four people (the max is six) will take roughly twenty minutes. Initially, the first few games I experienced began with making a grab for the candy, to get the most points as quickly as possible. It soon became apparent that the game really worked when you noticed what candy the other players desired, and how best to either disrupt their play.
It’s not all about getting candy you see. The children in the game have special talents like stopping the adjacent children from getting scared, or allowing a scared child to transfer from one player’s hand to the next. The race to get the candy suddenly becomes a race to scupper the other players strategy, to reduce their points whilst at the same time maintaining yours and watching what children appear on the board; hoping you don’t get the easily scared zombie.
After twenty minutes of play, any newcomers who may have been scratching their heads at the first few turns have truly caught the bug and will want to go again. Playing just the other night, my eldest daughter after just getting lucky at Zombie Dice, was introduced to Ghosts Love Candy and only midway through did she “get it”, but then went on to own the board and came away with the most points, also feeling rather smug with herself.
Ghost Love Candy may have a cute look to it, it isn’t threatening I agree, there is no bad words, no blood, no gore and it would certainly look out of place in a Bikers Bar, but I’ll tell you now after a few games of this you’ll certainly know who the sneaky ones in your friendship group is.
Ghosts Love Candy is available to purchase directly from Steve Jackson Games or from Amazon UK & Amazon US now.
Originally published July 28, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
