Ghosts, treasure, and cooperative gameplay: Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters is hard to beat! Well, it’s not necessarily hard to win the game, but it’s hard to find a better game out there.
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on it and make a purchase I’ll receive a small commission at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. For more information, please check our Privacy Policy and Disclaimers and Disclosures.
There are two levels to gameplay: basic and advanced. We usually play by the basic rules, as they’re usually plenty hard enough for us. However, if you need the extra challenge, the advanced rules add locking doors, more ghosts, and the need to rescue the treasure in numerical order.
How to play Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters
To play by the basic rules, roll the number die. Numbers 1-5 have a picture of a ghost on them, so you’ll also need to draw a ghost card. If you roll a six, you don’t have to draw a ghost card. Most of the ghost cards will tell you what rooms need another ghost. However, there is also a shuffle card, which doesn’t have you place a new ghost, but does have you shuffle all the cards back into the draw pile.
After placing the new ghost, you can now move up to the number on the die. Unless you roll a 6, it can often be hard to get all the way where you need to go. However, you can (usually) move through rooms to shorten your route. We like to try a lot of different possibilities to figure out which is best for us. However, the person making the move gets to decide where they want to go. We can advise them and make suggestions, but it’s their call.
If you are able to end your move in a room, you can then pick up a jewel (or if you make it outside, you can drop one off), but you can’t continue moving after you pick up or drop off a jewel.
Fighting ghosts
Finally, it’s time to fight ghosts! There are special battle dice you roll to fight a ghost. If it’s a normal ghost, you can fight it by yourself, but if you have another player in the room with you, you can roll two battle dice. If you roll a ghost icon, you get to remove the ghost.
However, if you have to add a ghost to a room that already has two ghosts, you remove all ghosts and replace them with a haunting. Hauntings require two players in the same room to fight them, and you roll both battle dice. You only need to roll one haunting in order to remove the haunting.
The ghosts and hauntings are sturdy plastic, but the ghosts could be a choking hazard for small children. The jewels are a little disappointing; they’re just cardboard chips. But they do fit neatly into the “backpacks” of the player pieces, so that’s fun. The player pieces are also plastic.
I love that we have to balance getting the jewels out of the mansion with fighting ghosts. If you just work to get the jewels out, you’ll be quickly overrun with ghosts and then hauntings (6 hauntings on the board means you lose the game). But of course, you have to get the jewels out in order to win the game.
I also like having more than one level of difficulty. If the basic game is too easy for you, you can use the advanced rules to give you more of a challenge.