Matthew BaileyGame 5 of the”Halloween Spooktacular 2024″ is “Halloween Party” a set collection card game that arrived in my house on the 1st of November last year, which meant we missed out on adding it to last year’s Halloween Spooktacular.
Played with Jack(9) and Toby(6).
The general concept of the game is that you’re hosting your own Halloween party, filled with spooky monsters, and you’re trying to convince the best possible monsters to attend and score the most points.
You start by each taking a collection of cards, then shuffle the rest and place them face down on the board, creating a tableau of four available cards to choose from.
Essentially, you’re aiming to collect sets of guests in different colours that are worth points. There are also multiplier cards that multiply the value of all cards of a particular colour, making it potentially lucrative to focus on one colour if possible.
There are also negative cards that you want to avoid at your party, such as the Host. If a Host ends up in your hand, the player who gave it to you gets to take it back, along with one of your other cards. Similarly, there are negative cards like the Hearse and the Horseman, which either force you to discard all cards of one type or allow another player to take all of your cards in one go.
On your turn, you offer a card to another player of your choice. That player must either accept the card and add it to their party—gaining points or dealing with the negatives, or reject it, in which case you must take the card and face the consequences, good or bad.
The game continues until you run out of party guests, and the player with the most points wins. On the surface, it’s a fun, simple card game that I think is actually quite good for young children, as it encourages social deduction with a bit of bluffing. It’s also a great way to introduce kids to bluffing mechanics.
However, there’s a significant issue with the game’s balance. Even in our first playthrough, it became clear that the game isn’t well-balanced. The problem is that since the cards are either point cards or detrimental ones, if one player gets too far ahead, they can simply refuse all cards offered to them. At that point, it becomes nearly impossible for anyone else to catch up. What the game needs, in addition to the negative ability cards, are positive ones that can help players make a comeback later in the game.
I’ve thought of a few quick house rules to fix this, which involve tweaking existing cards like the Hosts, Hearses, or Horsemen to allow you to steal cards from other players.
It’s a shame because when I first started playing the game, I really liked it. It seemed like a light-hearted, bluffing game. But after a few rounds, it became apparent that once one player gets ahead, there’s no way for others to come back. This issue persisted in subsequent playthroughs, which is disappointing. I’m really surprised this flaw wasn’t caught during playtesting.
In summary, it’s a relatively fun and simple card game, but it has a major flaw. While it’s not a complete disaster, I can’t recommend it super strongly.
