Ghost Stories (game)

Ghost Stories is a cooperative fantasy board game for one to four players, designed by Antoine Bauza and released in 2008. Players take the roles of Taoist monks defending a single village against a rising tide of ghosts and the incarnations of a lord of hell. On a turn a monk moves onto a village tile to use its special help, such as bringing a fallen monk back or restoring spent Tao tokens, or to exorcise ghosts that stand next to the tile. Exorcism is done by rolling colored Tao dice and matching the colors and resistance of the ghost, and players can spend Tao tokens to improve a poor roll. Ghosts arrive in waves with their own curses and can haunt a village tile, which locks its helpful action, so the group is forced to keep changing plans. Board Game Matcher lists about 60 minutes of play and the mechanics Cooperative Game, Dice Rolling and Grid Movement, and notes that harder settings leave little room for error.