Designed by: Michelle Schanen
In Spooky Stairs (also found as Geistertreppe) the players are racing to the top of the stairs in a castle to shout Boo at a ghost, but the ghosts know you are coming, and will try and turn you into ghosts before you reach the top.
The board shows the stairs and the players begin at the bottom; four ghosts wait at the top. On your turn you roll the spooky stairs die – if you get a number of pips, you merely move your piece that number of stairs upwards. But if you get a ghost (two sides of the die show a ghost) then you place one of the ghosts over a player’s piece – it can be your own, or somebody elses’. There is a magnet on top of the player pieces that stops them falling out once ‘consumed’ by a ghost.
Once all the ghosts have been placed any player rolling a ghost now gets to swap two ghosts of their choosing, so you can – if you’ve successfully remembered which ghost you are – leap from last into first, potentially. First to the top wins, but the main challenge is keeping track of whose ghost is who.
There's a bit of Take That, but the confusion of the game is part of the fun.
Very low. You'll only be waiting half a minute for your turn.
Almost non-existent, although it would be a mistake to imagine there is no strategy at all - placing your ghost highest up the stairs makes you a target, so positioning yourself back in second could be a good move...
The dice rolls ensure randomness, but mainly the replayability is down to the game's length.
2-4
Players
4+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It reminds me a lot of Midnight Party, another game involving ghosts that seems to conjure up hilarity. I don't think it's as good (Midnight Party plays up to 8 players, for a start) but for young kids (and young at heart adults) Spooky Stairs is fun.