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For centuries, a magical amulet kept the town’s ghosts trapped inside the old clock tower. Then, of course, someone had to go and break it.
Now the ghosts are roaming freely through the streets, hiding in plain sight. The catch? Nobody can actually see them. The only way to spot them is by taking photographs during the night.
That’s the idea behind Spooky Tower. You’re wandering through town, collecting photographs, uncovering hidden ghosts, gathering clues, and trying to either capture enough spirits or rebuild the shattered amulet before somebody else does.
When I first saw the game, I honestly thought it would lean more heavily into the spooky side of things. Instead, it’s much more playful than scary. Think mischievous ghosts rather than haunted-house nightmares. It feels very much like a family game first, but during our plays there was still enough going on that the adults at the table weren’t simply going through the motions.
So, let’s have a look.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 15 minutes
📝 Designers: Jonathan Favre-Godal & Corentin Lebrat
🎨 Artwork: Apolline Etienne
🏢 Publisher: Repos Production (review copy provided by Asmodee Belgium).
Gameplay Overview
The town is made up of twelve building stacks, numbered from 1 to 12. Around them you’ll find a few extra decks, some ghost pets, amulet fragments, and the clock tower that sits above everything watching over the game.
On your turn, you roll two dice. The result determines which building values you can interact with. You can use either die individually or combine both values together. If the roll isn’t helping much and your reroll token is still available, you can spend it to try again.
After rolling, you choose between taking a card or revealing cards you’ve already collected. Taking a card is simple. You pick a matching building stack and add the top card to your collection. Some cards immediately give a bonus when you take them. Maybe you get your reroll token back, maybe the clock tower advances.
The other option is to reveal cards you’ve already collected. The cards flip over and become photographs. That’s when ghosts appear, clues are discovered, and effects start triggering. Some photographs contain ghosts that are immediately captured. Others provide clues that can later be exchanged for rewards at the park.
If you’ve gathered enough clues, you can visit the park and claim a park card. These cards reward you with additional ghosts, which is important because ghosts are one of the ways to win the game. Meanwhile, the clock tower constantly feeds extra rewards into the game. Depending on where the clock hand lands, you might gain a ghost pet, recover your reroll token, or collect an amulet fragment.
Ghost pets count as ghosts for victory purposes, while amulet fragments are part of the second win condition. The game ends as soon as someone captures five ghosts or collects three amulet fragments.
We never had to stop and explain things again after the first couple of rounds. Once players understood the take-or-reveal decision, the rest fell into place pretty naturally.
Artwork, Components, and Presentation
This is probably the easiest section to write because the game looks great on the table.
The artwork immediately gives off that cozy spooky feeling. Not scary. Not creepy. Just a town full of strange little ghost stories. The buildings are colourful and full of character. Museums, greenhouses, theatres, and other locations all feel like places you’d actually want to visit. Well, maybe not if there are ghosts floating around inside.
The photographs were my favourite part visually. Every time cards get flipped, you reveal another hidden spirit. Some are funny, some are weird, and some just look slightly confused about being photographed. The ghosts look like they’re having a better evening than the players.
The clock tower deserves a mention too. It’s easily the component people notice first when the game hits the table. Sometimes large cardboard constructions feel like they’re there mostly for decoration, but here it actually serves a purpose throughout the game. Not only does it track rewards, it also functions as a dice tower, with players dropping the dice through it every turn. It’s a small detail, but it helps make the tower feel like part of the game rather than something that was added simply to attract attention.
The iconography is also clear and we rarely had to stop to check what something meant, which is always appreciated. Nothing felt out of place. The photographs, ghosts, buildings, amulet fragments, and clock tower all feel like they belong to the same little ghost story.
Our Experience
At our table, Spooky Tower quickly became a game of convincing ourselves to wait just one more turn. The actual turns are straightforward. Roll dice, choose a value, then either take a card or reveal cards. On paper there isn’t much more to it than that. What created most of the discussion wasn’t the turn structure itself, but the constant temptation to hold off revealing cards for a little longer.
There were several moments where somebody had been collecting cards for a few turns and started debating whether it was finally time to reveal them. The conversation usually went something like this: “One more card.” Then, a turn later: “Okay, definitely one more card.” And somehow another turn would pass before anything got revealed. We’ve all done it. Sometimes waiting paid off beautifully. Other times somebody else suddenly moved closer to victory and forced a change of plans.
One game I was convinced I had built up something fantastic. I’d been collecting cards for several turns and was already imagining the payoff. When I finally flipped everything over, the result was… underwhelming, to put it politely. The ghosts had somewhere else to be that evening. Moments like that usually led to everyone leaning in to see whether the reveal was going to be brilliant or a complete disaster.
What surprised us most was how often players paid attention during each other’s turns. Usually, in lighter games, people tend to drift back to their own plans pretty quickly. Here, whenever someone revealed a stack of photographs, everybody wanted to see what would happen. There was a genuine curiosity about whether ghosts would appear, whether clues would lead to park rewards, or whether a chain of effects would suddenly change the situation.
Interaction itself is fairly limited. You’re mostly focused on your own little ghost hunt, and direct interference is rare. The race aspect keeps everyone involved, but the game never becomes confrontational. Well… except for the occasional ghost pet theft. Apparently even ghost pets need better security in this town.
Our Thoughts
The core ideas are familiar. You’re rolling dice, collecting cards, managing a bit of uncertainty, and trying to reach one of the victory conditions before everyone else. What impressed me more was how neatly those ideas fit together. At no point did we find ourselves asking why something was in the game. The clues, park cards, ghost pets, photographs, and clock tower all have a reason to be there, and together they create a game that feels focused rather than overloaded.
What I liked most is how well the theme and mechanisms connect. Taking photographs to discover hidden ghosts isn’t just artwork wrapped around a game system. It’s directly tied to what you’re doing throughout the game. The same goes for the clock tower. It would have been easy to make it a decorative centrepiece and leave it at that, but instead it actively influences the game. It helps soften poor rolls, hands out useful rewards, and introduces the amulet fragment victory path. More than once, we saw players suddenly realise that someone sitting on two amulet fragments was much closer to winning than they had thought.
The game is mostly tactical rather than strategic. You’re not building an engine or planning six turns ahead. Most of the time you’re adapting to the dice, looking at the cards you’ve collected, and deciding what makes sense right now. For the audience this game is aimed at, that’s the right choice. At the same time, it’s probably the biggest limitation for more experienced gamers. If you enjoy deep planning and having complete control over your options, Spooky Tower may feel a little too dependent on what the game gives you.
The presentation is doing quite a bit of work here, and I don’t mean that as criticism. The colourful buildings, ghost photographs, clock tower, and overall production make the experience feel more memorable than the mechanisms alone probably would. Strip away some of that charm and I suspect the game would feel much more ordinary. The artwork, theme, and reveal system do enough heavy lifting that we never found ourselves dwelling on that during play.
My biggest question mark is replayability. We enjoyed our plays, but I’m less certain how often I’d choose it over other family games once everyone becomes familiar with the card pool. The hidden information, grimoire cards, and different paths to victory certainly help keep games from feeling identical, but I can imagine some groups reaching the point where they feel they’ve seen most of what the game has to offer. Whether that’s after ten plays or thirty will probably depend on the group.
The more I played Spooky Tower, the less I worried about whether it would still be hitting the table ten years from now. What mattered more was that every time we played, people seemed happy to play again. That’s already doing a lot right. It understands its audience, sticks to its strengths, and delivers a light ghost-hunting adventure that is easy to get back to. I can easily see this working with families, younger players, or mixed groups where not everyone spends their weekends learning new rulebooks.
We finished our plays smiling, and more importantly, we never felt like we’d seen enough after just one game.
And honestly, any game that lets me spend half an hour pretending I’m a professional ghost photographer deserves at least a little credit.
📝 We received a review copy of Spooky Tower from Asmodee Belgium.
