Ghost Writer is a haunted party game mixture of Mysterium and Decrypto from Mechanica creators
Deducing with the dead.
Communicate with spirits to discover their secrets in Ghost Writer, an upcoming board game that combines elements of Mysterium and Decrypto.
In Ghost Writer, players become competing mediums both looking to uncover the mysteries of the afterlife by communing with the dead. However, as is often the case, the spirits work in strange ways and won’t tell the other players the answer outright. Instead, each ghost must use a word pad and a series of clues to help their assigned medium to guess what it is they’re trying to tell them. The first medium to successfully figure out what their ghost’s secret object is earns the prestige and fame of a gifted spiritualist.
A party game for four to eight players, Ghost Writer begins with players splitting into two equal teams, with one player on each team choosing to be the ghost. The ghostly players then select one of the objects on a secret word card, with both teams needing to guess the exact same object. Teams then take turns to ask their ghost questions about the secret object and, in a similar fashion to the use of abstract art in Mysterium, the ghost player must then write a roundabout answer to the question to help their team guess.
Whilst the questions players ask their ghost remain a secret to the opposing team, the ghost’s answers are available for everyone to see. This means that - comparable to Decrypto’s mechanic of teams having to share their answers and results with one another - all players can use the information shared by the opposing ghost to help with guessing. If players can figure out what they think their ghost is writing before they finish they can shout “silencio” to stop them, in the hopes of providing their opponents with less information
Each team is able to ask a total of six questions before they must attempt to guess what they think the object is by writing it on the back of the ghost’s writing pad. Whichever team successfully guesses the object is named the winner.
Ghost Writer was co-created by Mary Flanagan and Max Seidman, who have both previously worked together on co-designing several titles including horror board game Visitor in Blackwood Grove - a board game where players split into teams as the Visitor and Kid verses the Agents - fantasy card game Monarch and last year’s Mechanica, all of which were released by the studio responsible for publishing Ghost Writer, Resonym.
The Kickstarter campaign for Ghost Writer is live until April 16th, with a pledge of $25 (£18) getting backers of a copy of the core game estimated to arrive in August. Alternatively, backers can get a print-and-play version of the game for $3 (£3).