Geistesblitz Junior is great for players from 4 years old, but can be made more challenging for more experienced players (6 and up).
Usually, Gary the Ghost lives in a castle, just as ghosts are supposed to. But when his cousin Scarecrow Steve wants to go on holiday, Gary agrees to fill in for him while he's away.
So now Gary haunts the countryside, scaring the field mice out of the haystacks and the crows out of the fields. And he's also made some new friends - Freddie the Frog, Charlie the Chicken and Peter the Piglet.
Components
- 4 friends
- 55 cards
Setup
Place the four friends in a circle in the middle of the table. Shuffle the cards and place them face down as a deck.
Whoever has most recently fed an anima flips a card face up, making sure that everyone sees it at the same time.
Play: Grab The Friends
The moment a card is flipped face up, everyone must look at the same time to see which friends it shows in the right color. Then each of you tries to grab as many of those friends from the table as fast as you can.
Each card shows one, two or even three friends in the right color.
Example: Freddie the Frog is green and Charlie the Chicken is yellow. Quickly, grab them both!
Gary the Ghost isn't white, he's pink. That's not right, so don't grab him!
Peter the Piglet isn't shown at all, so don't grab him either.
Play: Grabbed Correctly
Did you make no mistakes? Well done! For each friend you grabbed take one reward card - either the card that was just flipped or a card from the top of the deck. Keep all your reward cards in a face-down pile in front of you.
Play: Grabbed A Wrong Friend
Did you grab a friend you shouldn't have? That's bad news! Then you take no reward cards at all, even if you grabbed other friends correctly.
If no one grabbed correctly, shuffle the card that was flipped back into the deck.
End of the Game
When you have used up all the deck the game ends. The player who collected the most reward cards wins.
If tied, all those tied players win.
If there aren't enough cards in the deck at the end of the game to use as reward cards, you simply keep the friends you just grabbed (correctly). Each friend is worth one reward card.
Advanced Rules
The Black Ghost
Gary the Ghost loves playing after a hard day's work, and his favorite game is flying through the chimney and popping out the other side covered in black soot. Great fun, but now he is too dirty to touch!
With more advanced players, follow all the rules above. In addition, when a card showing a black ghost is flipped, nobody can grab any friends, not even friends whose right color is shown.
Everyone who doesn't grab anything gets a reward card.
Penalty Cards
In advanced games, you also lose reward cards when you grab wrong friends.
Did you grab a wrong friend? Or did you grab a friend when the black ghost was on the card?
Big trouble! Not only do you get no reward card, but you also have to give back a reward card for each wrong friend you grabbed (if you can).
Shuffle these penalty cards back into the deck.
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