Spectral Review – A Deduction Gem
Deduction games tend to go one of two ways for me; they either make me feel incredibly smart or wonder how I manage to tie my shoes in the morning. Spectral, a 2-5 player game from designer Ryan Courtney, artist Kwanchai Moriya and publisher Bitewing Games, manages to bring out both feelings, often in the same play.
At the outset, teaching Spectral is very front-loaded because even the slightest misunderstanding will spell doom for a player. Thematically, players are treasure hunters searching the hallways of the titular Spectral Mansion for priceless gems hidden inside rooms, trying to avoid any which have been cursed by the ghostly forces at work while keeping rival hunters in the dark as to their whereabouts. The Mansion is comprised of 16 cards arranged in a 4×4 pattern, randomly placed in rows from four sets of four base cards labelled A, B, C and D. There are – you guessed it – four types of rooms available, each card set containing one of each room. The layout of the cards and the rigid rules around their effects ensure the deduction logic of Spectral remains airtight, provided each player understands exactly how the rules function – mistaking any card for another can spell disaster at the end of the game. This ensures that while the first play or two of Spectral might crawl initially, especially if you have new players rotating in and out, future plays will be far smoother as players become familiar with the rules and the real metagame fun of Spectral can begin.
To deduce what each card contains, players place down explorer figures in the hallway spaces formed between the room cards and can peek at any single card adjacent to their figures. Spectral continues as players either place explorers to peek or pass. After peeking at a room card, players will note down their findings on one of the five included player pads, which is another element of the rules that needs particular attention – ensuring your information is accurate AND you’ve recorded it in a consistent way is crucial to success in Spectral, my first game ending in disaster when I didn’t keep uniform notes. Once all players have passed successively or a player has exhausted their explorer supply, Spectral ends and final scores are tallied. Explorer figures come in a range of values and block the space they inhabit for others – to get rid of competing explorers you must place down twice their value; if a player has one of their four value explorer tokens down, another player must then outlay explorers with a total value of eight to go to this location.
This math doesn’t always math when considering that lone gems are worth 12 points at the end of the game, while explorers still in a players’ reserve will be worth between 1 to 4 points depending on player count. Most diabolically, gems are split between all players surrounding their room regardless of the number of figures they’ve placed on a side, so a single hunter figure adjacent to a room will get the same gem share as four on another side. Being tricked into going all-in on a dud room by another player stings, twice as badly if it turns out the room the gem is in is in fact cursed. A cursed room removes all figures adjacent to it, all the way back to the box. Some rooms can be awash with multiple gems, meaning that an especially greedy player with early info might try and rush endgame for this sweet loot, perhaps throwing others off the scent with some big placements elsewhere in the mansion.
As a group becomes more experienced, Spectral can really kick into high gear thanks to 12 Advanced room cards which spice things up even further; just when you think you have the game solved, it throws some real curveballs at you. These three sets of four cards will replace a set from the base game and have a pronounced impact on the way end game card effects can cascade, with any mistakes or miscalculations on the part of the player magnified. Spectral really is a game that rewards repeated play, the bluffing elements and mind games rarely showing themselves in early games and may leave players who get it to the table just a handful of times scratching their heads at how procedural it all feels. The included player pads are good for 70 plays though, so clearly Bitewing anticipate the game to be a keeper. Spectral functions differently at its different counts; a two-player game is far more cat and mouse than a five-player game, and it’s somewhat easier to obfuscate or engage in above the table play when there are more people to cajole or convince.
As with every Bitewing production, the components are of a high quality, the included pads, pencils, cards and figures feeling robust, enhanced as they are by the art of Kwanchai Moriya and the graphic design of Brigette Indelicato. The restrained palette and ominous door art focuses on monochrome with bursts of red and orange for gems and card iconography, each player’s treasure hunter pieces also a unique shape to assist colourblind players. My one concern is players planning to get Spectral to the table numerous times will want to sleeve their Room cards – as with any deduction game, social or otherwise, marked cards will have a negative effect on gameplay, even if players aren’t trying to pay attention to nicks, scratched and other marks the cards might collect from being shuffled each game and then handled as players try to get a good look without revealing the card to other players. Fortunately, several quality sleeve brands produce this size to keep the cards in pristine condition and the deduction aspects intact.
Part of publisher Bitewing’s Deep Clean series, Spectral certainly lives up to this name, with relatively straightforward gameplay that provides increasing depth the more it hits the table. The hardest part for some will be the initial rules hurdle and ensuring they understand precisely how each card functions – it’s advisable running through a practice round or two just to let new players wrap their heads around it. The work is worth it however for a competitive deduction game that sometimes lets you play the other players as much as you do the game.
Spectral was reviewed using a copy kindly provided by publisher Bitewing Games. It can be purchased from Amazon AU which will help support Player2 via our affiliate link.
