Ghost Lift Review - Going up?

Ghost Lift is one of those games. You see it on a shelf or a stand, and its pretty green box stands out. It whispers, “Pick me up. Have a look at me. Don’t I feel nice? Maybe you should buy me.” Maybe it’s the game talking, maybe it’s the ghosts inside. Ghost lift is a combination of shedding and ladder climbing in the same style as Scout and 1 A.M. Jailbreak (read reviews of those two here and here, respectively), but with a cute theme all of its own, and some gorgeous presentation.

VERDICT

players 2-6 | playing time 15-30 mins

Another superb Japanese card game with great components, an easy teach, and Sai Beppu’s beautiful artwork throughout.

shedding

ladder climbing

who you gonna call?

Considering this is a small box card game, Ghost Lift has a pretty well-embedded theme, which is very unusual. You and your friends are visiting a haunted hotel, where the ghosts of previous guests are said to linger in the elevators, trying to find their way back to their rooms. Each of you tries to take the ghosts back by playing cards of their number when possible. If somebody empties their hand first, thereby returning the Geistguests to their rooms, the others are haunted by those still with them. Get haunted too much, and you lose.

ghost lift in play — Two 2s currently to beat, with the elevator going down, means only 1s can beat it.

What it means in reality is playing a set of cards from your hand, matching either the number of cards currently in the discard area or one more. The values of the cards matter, however. Each time you play, the adorable little direction indicator shows whether the value of your cards needs to be higher or lower than the previously played cards. Some cards switch the direction, so you have to keep your head on a swivel and adapt your tactics pretty quickly.

There are a couple of notable changes between Ghost Lift and what you might expect playing it for the first time, and as with most card games from Japan, it’s these changes which make the game stand out and ask you to play them, instead of others.

I’ll get the next one, thanks

First of all, on your turn, you have the option to pass. Whether it’s because you can’t or don’t want to play is up to you. If you pass, the game continues around the table until it comes back to you, at which point you can play again if you want to. It’s a change to many games where passing effectively makes you sit out until the end of the current round.

If all players pass in sequence and it comes all the way back around to the player who last played, that player clears the discard area and starts a new round by playing a card. A bit like making everyone else pass and take a card in Scout.

A picture of the card game ghost lift being played — I really like the bold, green colour on the cards.

Talking of taking cards, that’s the other big change that Ghost Lift employs. There’s a card market on the table of three different values. If an existing value has another card drawn, it stacks on top, and the market always gets refilled until there are stacks of three unique values. The twist here is that taking from the market is always optional. Even if you pass.

You might be wondering why you’d ever want to voluntarily take more cards in a game where the goal is to get rid of all of your cards, and the answer is nuanced.

Firstly, you have to remember the number of cards currently active in the discard area. You always have to play the same number of cards, or one more. Hanging onto that single 2 is pointless when you need to play two, three, or even four cards at a time. Ghost Lift is a game where you want to time playing a bunch of cards so that nobody else can beat you, making it easier to dump a single card.

The other thing to consider is scoring, or as the game calls it, Haunting.

Hauntingly cute

Why the slightly bigger box for a card game, you might be wondering. Because it’s stuffed full of the cutest little wooden ghosts! Oh my goodness, these things are adorable. Each round of Ghost Lift ends when a player manages to get rid of all of their cards. Then, all other players take a little numbered wooden ghost for each different value left in their hand. This part is important. It doesn’t matter how many cards you have, just how many values.

wooden ghost tokens from Ghost Lift — These little ghosts are beyond adorable.

You could end the round with three 2s and four 7s in your hand, and despite holding six cards, you only have to collect two ghosties – 2 and 7. They start on their white side, and if you’re haunted by the same ghost later in the game, they get flipped to their slightly-spookier-but-no-less-cute green side. The end of the game is triggered when someone either gets haunted by the same ghost three times, or when they have three or more ghosts flipped to their green side.

This is where the only downer in the game came for me, but it’s a minor one. When a player loses, then all of the other players share the win. I can’t put my finger on why, but it feels a little anticlimactic. You spend the whole game doing your best, but ultimately you only have to do as well as the second-worst player at the table, and you share in the win. That said, it’s a nicer experience for families playing together.

Final thoughts

Ghost Lift is great. I was always likely to think that, because I love shedding and ladder-climbing games, and I’m a sucker for Sai Beppu’s artwork. It’s my first foray into Onegear’s designs, but it won’t be my last.

It’s nice to have a game that plays from two to six players, too. I’ve played it at three, four, and six players, and had a great time each time. It feels lovingly made, but the choice of font for the numbering on the cards is poor. 3 and 5 look really similar, and I’m not sure how it snuck through playtesting, but it’s not a deal breaker for me.

The hardest part about Ghost Lift might be finding somewhere to buy it. I lucked out, and Engames brought it to the UK Games Expo last month, where I bought it for £20. I’m not sure I’d spend much more than that, but you might not have much of a choice. Ghost lift is a banger.