Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town is More than Just the Greatest Name Ever
I’m nothing if not easily influenced by the charm of great presentation in board games. If the art and the theme speak to me, I’m pretty much won over already. But, let’s be serious, if you throw in an all-time-great name like Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town as a cherry on top, then I’m completely sold - sight unseen.
And that’s exactly how the story went when I ordered Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town on Kickstarter last year. I’m not the slightest bit ashamed to admit that I knew absolutely nothing about what kind of game it was when I ordered it, and nobody should be judging me either, because (I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet) the board game is called Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town!
You might also immediately notice how adorable the art is on the box and the cards. Plus, it features cute little wooden ghosts and pizza tokens. Surely this was a can’t-miss proposition. Admit it! I’ve said nothing about how to play this game and it doesn’t matter, does it?
But, if for some inexplicable reason that’s not enough information for you to decide if you need to own this game, you’ll also be happy to know that it’s proven to be a huge success for our family based on the merits of the gameplay itself. This game has more than earned its title as our Game of the Month for August. Not that it was ever in doubt, because, let’s be honest, if you start out with a title like Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town, it would take quite a monumental disaster to use up all of the good will you’ve already earned.
But, despite the fact that it should be entirely unnecessary, I will still explain the gameplay. One player always plays as town mayor, and they are privy to the complete map of the town, which can actually be different every single time you play. The town map always features a 7x7 grid full of pizzas, houses, ghosts, teleporters, and fences - plus the pizza deliverers themselves of course - but it can all be arranged in limitless combinations.
All of the other players in the game are pizza deliverers. They don’t know where they are going, or even where they start in town, so they use a dry erase marker and reusable game board to draw the path that they walk. It’s also useful for them to take notes about the things they bump into along the way. Luckily, they are psychic pizza deliverers too, so they also get clues from the mayor about their surroundings after every turn.
The goal is to be the first delivery person to find a pizza and then deliver it to the house that ordered it. But the biggest obstacle along the way is of course the ghosts floating around town. You can spend your turn attacking a ghost instead of moving, and for doing so you are rewarded with psychic power cards that can be very important and useful in the game. The first time we played, I thought my wife was about to beat our son by a landslide, but he cleverly played a card that zoomed him all the way across town - and the game was decided by a single move.
In a sense, Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town is kind of like a dungeon crawler with the town mayor acting as the dungeon master. Only they know where everything is on the map while the pizza deliverers are walking around and exploring relatively blind. And, like any good role playing game, the rules point out that the more the mayor hams up their performance the better. Personally, my favorite part is yelling “BOO!” when someone bumps into a ghost.
I’d say that one of the trickiest elements of the game are the teleporters around the board. If a pizza deliverer lands on a teleporter, not only do they teleport to another part of the town, but they have no idea where they are again - almost like starting from scratch. Most likely they will have to start drawing a new map, and only merge their maps together when they get their bearings again.
Oftentimes in our family I play as the dungeon master in games that are organized similarly to this one, and I allow everyone else to play the game. I like doing that, and typically that works really well for us, but this is actually the very first time that our 9-year-old thought that the role of the person overseeing everything looked so fun that he wanted to do it.
The mayor does get a very cool secret map full of the beautiful wooden pieces that come with the game, so I certainly can’t blame him. Plus, even though the game comes with several pre-made city maps, you can also design your own maps from scratch - which I think is actually the creative task that appealed to him and the type of challenge that he really enjoys a lot.
In my opinion, the publishers have overestimated the difficulty of the game, because they’ve placed an age recommendation of 11+ on it. If it were up to me, I’d change it to 9+. Our 9-year-old had no issues whatsoever, and I honestly think he could have handled it as far back as 2 years ago. The spatial awareness required for moving around an empty grid and marking your path along the way is a fun puzzle and a great challenge, but it’s not hard to understand by any means.
Also, make sure to note that the player count is described as 1 gamemaster + 2-4 players. I misread that at first and found myself digging through the rules trying to find a nonexistent variant for 2 players. As the rules are written, you need 3 players to play the game. But, I still think you can play the game 1 on 1 if you want. For example: one player builds the map and one player tries to deliver the pizza in less than 20 turns.
In fact, I think my son and I will end up playing the game quite often that way. It reminds me of a card game that we played a lot - where one person basically sets up a maze complete with traps and the other person tries to beat it. I know that really captured his imagination for a long time and I don’t see why this one will be any different.
I absolutely love board games that have a spooky theme. Our shelf of Halloween board games features some of the most treasured games in our entire collection. And as we quickly approach Halloween this year, I can safely say that Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town is the best new ghosty, spooky-themed family game we’ve played in a while.
Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town was a recent Kickstarter project, but you can still purchase it from publisher BoardGameTables.com on their website.
Have you played Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town yet? Are you as easily influenced by spooky themes and awesome art as I am? Let us know in the comments!
