Daniel (@dungeondive) offers an in-depth look at The Ghosts Betwixt: Chapter One — stopping short of a full review, since six missions in he hasn’t seen it all. He opens with a ‘preamble’ from mission two, showing how map and fate tokens generate the house on the fly: one route explodes into an ambush, treasure and story beats in a single turn, while the other might be a slow burn — the journey, he argues, outshining the destination and making the campaign genuinely replayable. The big caveat up front: don’t let the Saturday-morning-cartoon art fool you — this is a complex, crunchy crawl closer to Advanced HeroQuest than a beginner game. He loves the loot’s set-building defence (fractions of a shield that must be combined), the shifting monster weapons that keep repeat enemies fresh, and again that standout index. His negatives are honest: solo it’s a lot to track and the table gets messy; the quick-play guide leans on unexplained abbreviations (family members become ‘FMs’); and the first two missions are punishingly hard with squishy heroes and scarce healing. Overall he’s having a lot of fun — an old-Games-Workshop feel injected with modern design.
Daniel warns the cartoon art hides a punishing, complex game. Have you been burned — or pleasantly surprised — by a game whose look sold it as far lighter or heavier than it actually played?