Spooks
First there was “Mau Mau”. Then there was “Uno”, which is Mau-Mau
with a different name. Now there is “Spooks”, the newest game released by Steve
Jackson….
Players are supposedly escaping a haunted house, but don’t be fooled: this is an
abstract card game where the only horror element is the cards that depict goblins,
spiders and spooks.
The goal of the game is to lose all your cards. There are basically 3 suits (two of
them are separated into variations, so there are red “skull” cards, and red
“spider” cards. Each suit has it’s own rules – when you play a blue card
you have to play exactly the next higher number of the same or different suit. When you
play a red card you have to match either the suit or the exact number. When you can’t
do this, you either pass (when the card was blue) or something horrible happens (when the
card was red). You could for example get a card from each player, or the player before
you can lose a bunch of cards as a bonus. When somebody plays a green goblin card, a
sudden round of trick taking ensues, the gain being able to play an extra card when you
win the trick.
This is basically it – The astonishing thing is that took us several games to fully
grasp the rules, as they are presented (on only 2 pages) in an extremely confusing
manner. It is really a special achievement when everybody is struggling with the rules
and suddenly somebody says “Hey, this actually like UNO/Mau-Mau”!
As a UNO-variant this game is actually not half bad – there is some strategy involving
when to play and what cards to keep, but don’t expect anything deep (this is also
clearly not intended, so this is not bad per se). There are some optional rules for
scoring and special abilities of some cards, but the latter only increase the randomness
of the game – it is ok like it is!
If you forget the usual extortionist price tag common for Steve Jackson this is not a
bad game if you look for a moderately challenging and quick card game. The card design is
nice and fits the theme well, and there are some laughs to be had while playing this. So
– don’t be spooked!