Spooks Review

Now for a simple review for a simple game: Spooks.

Spooks is a card game in which each player is attempting to get rid of their entire hand. This consists of being able to play something on top of whatever card was played last. If the last card played was a red card, then you had to play a card of the same number or suit. If the card was a blue card, then you played a card that was numerically one number higher. If the card was a green "goblin" card, there are special rules, etc.

The biggest pro of Spooks is that it is appropriate for all ages. If you are looking for a game that you can play with your kids and not have to worry about whether it is too complex, this would be a valid candidate. Also, though Spooks is about "monsters", the art is cartoonish enough that it would not be scary for children.

The next pro for Spooks is that it is a very quick game that is easy to carry. (Yes, you can read this as "Spooks is a filler game.") It shouldn't take more than about 10 minutes to play, and so it can easily be played while sitting around at an airport, coffee shop, or waiting on friends to arrive at a local board game store.

There are, however, two major cons for Spooks. First, the instructions (though very short) seemed to be poorly laid out and confusing. It was difficult upon first looking at them to figure out what was actually part of the basic game and what was related to a game variant.

The next con for Spooks is it has the depth level of the card game War. (The people I played with disagreed with me on this - they claimed that it was closer to Old Maid or something in that vein.) Either way, this is not on my top list of games to play, as I'm not sure that it would entertain me more at an airport than staring out the window would.

Overall, I give Spooks a 5.0/10. It is the epitome of that grade for me - the game is fully functional, but I am not really interested in playing it again because I did not think it was fun.