Prototype Rulebook

Ghost Hunters

So good that even the ghouls like it

A game by Allie Thomas

20, 2-4

Collect more evidence than your opponents

Blackburn Home for the Criminally Insane use to be the forerunner in treating its patients. That is until someone found out about the way they treated their wards. Now one hundred years later, Blackburn stands abandoned. Yet some say you can still see and hear some of the patients that weren’t lucky enough to make it out with their lives.

Race around the board trying to collect all your ghost cards before your opponents.

Players swap turns moving around the board and investigating rooms. If a room is entered, the player then gets to investigate that room. After the investigation is over, whether successful or not, the players turn is over.

Game Components

The board.

Affect cards. Sixteen ghost cards.

Player pieces. Die. Ghost coin.  

Board has four separate pieces. Print each one out on a separate piece of 8.5 x 11 paper. Tape board together based on color-coded lines. Print out all cards and character pieces. Cut cards out. You will need a die and a coin.

Setting up the game

Shuffle the affect and evidence card separately. Place the affect cards on the affect card square face down. Place one evidence card in each room face down. Each play picks their player piece and puts it on the start square. Each player takes their player card.

Roll the die to see who goes first. The player with the highest number wins.

Turn Order

Roll die           

Move player piece

If possible, investigate. If not, end turn.

If investigating, flip ghost coin. Heads up means look at card. Tails means don’t look at card.

End of turn

First Phase

Roll the die to see if how many spaces you move.

Second Phase

Whatever number on the die you rolled, move that many spaces.

Player can move forward or backward, no diagonals.

Roll a four on a six-sided die, move four spaces toward the room of your choice.

Third Phase

If possible, enter a room and start investigation. Pick what item you are going to investigate with and then flip the ghost coin.

When you enter a room, this is where you will investigate to see if there is a ghost in the room.

You roll a four, you move your piece two spaces and into a room. You decide that you want to investigate with your camera, so you tell the other players that. Next flip the coin to see if the investigation is a success or not.

Check for Victory

If you get heads up, your investigation is successful and you can look at the ghost card in the room. If it applies to you, you can take the card. If it does not apply to you, put the card back face down. To trick the other players, you can put the card back down even if it applies to you.

How the card applies to you is based on what item you investigated with. On your character card, when you picked camera (or whatever item you chose) there is a number next to the item. If the camera has a five next to it and the ghost card has a camera and a five next to it, which means it does apply to you. If the number and item don’t match, the card doesn’t apply to you.

End of turn

Turn ends.

Play passes to the left.

Glossary

Player piece – Coin with your characters face on it.

Character card – Card that matches the player’s character piece.

Ghost Coin – Coin with a ghost on one side. You flip it when figuring out if your investigation is a success.

Evidence card – cards with ghost on them.

Affect card – affects gameplay in someway.  

EMF – Electronic magnetic field detector.

Strategy tips and design notes

If you successfully investigate a room, you don’t have to take the card after you look at it. You can mark down that that specific card is in that room and then put back down. This will lead other players to believe that that room doesn’t have your card, which means it could have theirs. The other players will waste their time trying to investigate that room now. Of course that puts you at risk a bit because another player could find all his evidence before you.