Spooky Stairs Review by Jabberwock
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A game for children, all about children being naughty – and a Kinderspiel des Jahres winner to boot! How could it possibly fail?
In Spooky Stairs (or ‘Geister Treppe’ (subtitled ‘ein magnetisches verwechslungsspiel’)) the players all take on the roles of daring children scurrying up the stairs of an old abandoned castle to frighten the ghost at the top with a well-aimed “BOO”!
The trick here is that the ghost at the top knows full well that the children are on their way, and has cursed the stairs so that the children all turn into ghosts on the way (the implication is that they all die during this transformation, but this is a kids game, so this is not explicitly mentioned – safe to say it is best to leave sleeping ghosts lie…)
The kids are all represented by little wooden pawns with magnets on their heads, and the board is a big ol’ staircase with a ghost at the top. During the game, the children roll the dice to see how far they move up the staircase. But if they roll the ghost on the dice, they are transformed, and must place a ghost pawn over their own pawn (it is kept in place by a little magnet inside the ghost pawn, so the child pawn is completely hidden and you have to remember which ghost covers which pawn).
If your child is already a ghost and you roll the ghost again, then you need to cover one of the other children with a ghost pawn. Pretty soon all the children have been transformed, and nobody can be really sure where anyone else is. Especially when, at this point, the ghost on the dice signifies a ‘switch’. When all the children have been horribly killed (allegedly) and transformed into ghosts, and another ghost on the dice is rolled, that player gets to switch the position of any two ghosts.
Pretty soon – unless you have Herculean memory – nobody has any clue which child is under which ghost, and it becomes pretty much pot luck as to who reaches the top first.
And therein lies the problem. If nobody is really very sure which pawn is which, and you are moving a pawn you mistakenly think is your own, and it turns out not to be (or even more amusingly, two different players are both moving the same pawn with the unshakable conviction their child pawn lies underneath), there can be quite an upset for the losers who were sure that they had the right pawn…
I’ve been sure before, absolutely sure which ghost hid my pawn, and put all my efforts into getting that ghost to the top of the stairs, only to find that I helped another player to win. It is quite galling, and when you are five, this can get very upsetting (as I have found out to my detriment having inadvertently won due to the efforts of my son). Players need to have their entire attention on the game at all times or risk losing complete track of who is where.
It’s actually a very heavy brain-burner, and not a game to play lightly. But it is quite good fun to laugh and joke about who might be where, and how everyone thinks they are doing. The wooden pieces and childish artwork try to lighten the mood, and it does help. But when it comes down to it, this is not a game for sore losers…
There is also an expansion available for the game, adding two more player’s pieces to take it up to six players, and more rules in the form of a bottle that fits over a ghost to prevent it from moving. I don’t own the expansion, however, and cannot make any further comment.
Summary
Presentation: Brilliant – can’t be faulted. The great wooden pieces, the magnetic ‘gimmick’ that actually works and has a gameplay element. There are even little coloured wooden disks to place in front of each player so you can remember who is which colour. It all fits together into a nice package. My only minor gripe is that the board is pretty boring. It’s basically a big staircase, with a cartoon ghost at the top. There’s some ivy and cracks and things, but it is not very pretty all things considered. 8.9/10
Clarity of Rules: The rule book has rules in German, English, French and Italian. The simple rules mean it is pretty easy to explain, and the rules do a good job of covering all the eventualities – even leaving room for an ‘older children’ variant at the end. 9.1/10
Game Length: Each game should take no longer than fifteen minutes. Almost every turn one pawn will be moving up the track, and the stairs aren’t that long. Plenty of scope for another game (and more opportunity for tears later should the ‘wrong’ person win!). 8.8/10
Value: The game is actually quite expensive, but the pedigree of a Kinderspiel des Jahres and the lovely wooden bits mean this is a pretty decent purchase. 7.9/10
Overall: It’s a very easy game to play, but an almost impossible one to master. A moment’s wavering attention can spell ruin for any player, and there is no hope for redemption until the pawn is turned over at the end of the game so you can see which pawn you were really moving…! And be prepared for some laughs, fun and upset all at once when your little one spends all his efforts moving the wrong pawn to the top of the stairs. 7.4/10 (not an average)
A game for children, all about children being naughty – and a Kinderspiel des Jahres winner to boot! How could it possibly fail?
In Spooky Stairs (or ‘Geister Treppe’ (subtitled ‘ein magnetisches verwechslungsspiel’)) the players all take on the roles of daring children scurrying up the stairs of an old abandoned castle to frighten the ghost at the top with a well-aimed “BOO”!
The trick here is that the ghost at the top knows full well that the children are on their way, and has cursed the stairs so that the children all turn into ghosts on the way (the implication is that they all die during this transformation, but this is a kids game, so this is not explicitly mentioned – safe to say it is best to leave sleeping ghosts lie…)
The kids are all represented by little wooden pawns with magnets on their heads, and the board is a big ol’ staircase with a ghost at the top. During the game, the children roll the dice to see how far they move up the staircase. But if they roll the ghost on the dice, they are transformed, and must place a ghost pawn over their own pawn (it is kept in place by a little magnet inside the ghost pawn, so the child pawn is completely hidden and you have to remember which ghost covers which pawn).
If your child is already a ghost and you roll the ghost again, then you need to cover one of the other children with a ghost pawn. Pretty soon all the children have been transformed, and nobody can be really sure where anyone else is. Especially when, at this point, the ghost on the dice signifies a ‘switch’. When all the children have been horribly killed (allegedly) and transformed into ghosts, and another ghost on the dice is rolled, that player gets to switch the position of any two ghosts.
Pretty soon – unless you have Herculean memory – nobody has any clue which child is under which ghost, and it becomes pretty much pot luck as to who reaches the top first.
And therein lies the problem. If nobody is really very sure which pawn is which, and you are moving a pawn you mistakenly think is your own, and it turns out not to be (or even more amusingly, two different players are both moving the same pawn with the unshakable conviction their child pawn lies underneath), there can be quite an upset for the losers who were sure that they had the right pawn…
I’ve been sure before, absolutely sure which ghost hid my pawn, and put all my efforts into getting that ghost to the top of the stairs, only to find that I helped another player to win. It is quite galling, and when you are five, this can get very upsetting (as I have found out to my detriment having inadvertently won due to the efforts of my son). Players need to have their entire attention on the game at all times or risk losing complete track of who is where.
It’s actually a very heavy brain-burner, and not a game to play lightly. But it is quite good fun to laugh and joke about who might be where, and how everyone thinks they are doing. The wooden pieces and childish artwork try to lighten the mood, and it does help. But when it comes down to it, this is not a game for sore losers…
There is also an expansion available for the game, adding two more player’s pieces to take it up to six players, and more rules in the form of a bottle that fits over a ghost to prevent it from moving. I don’t own the expansion, however, and cannot make any further comment.
Summary
Presentation: Brilliant – can’t be faulted. The great wooden pieces, the magnetic ‘gimmick’ that actually works and has a gameplay element. There are even little coloured wooden disks to place in front of each player so you can remember who is which colour. It all fits together into a nice package. My only minor gripe is that the board is pretty boring. It’s basically a big staircase, with a cartoon ghost at the top. There’s some ivy and cracks and things, but it is not very pretty all things considered. 8.9/10
Clarity of Rules: The rule book has rules in German, English, French and Italian. The simple rules mean it is pretty easy to explain, and the rules do a good job of covering all the eventualities – even leaving room for an ‘older children’ variant at the end. 9.1/10
Game Length: Each game should take no longer than fifteen minutes. Almost every turn one pawn will be moving up the track, and the stairs aren’t that long. Plenty of scope for another game (and more opportunity for tears later should the ‘wrong’ person win!). 8.8/10
Value: The game is actually quite expensive, but the pedigree of a Kinderspiel des Jahres and the lovely wooden bits mean this is a pretty decent purchase. 7.9/10
Overall: It’s a very easy game to play, but an almost impossible one to master. A moment’s wavering attention can spell ruin for any player, and there is no hope for redemption until the pawn is turned over at the end of the game so you can see which pawn you were really moving…! And be prepared for some laughs, fun and upset all at once when your little one spends all his efforts moving the wrong pawn to the top of the stairs. 7.4/10 (not an average)
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