Spooky Tower: family ghost hunting, and a real 2026 favourite

I waited for this game like a kid waits for a parcel. I had discovered it at the Asmodays, I clicked with it right away, and Repos Production sent it over in the wake of that. Except the parcel landed smack in the middle of a Bpost strike, and I spent more than a month chewing my nails. Suffice to say that by the time I opened the box, I was already well and truly won over. The good news is that Spooky Tower delivered on every promise. Since then, I have had my mother, in her sixties, give it a go and love it, and I brought it out at a game night where everyone got swept up in it. Put simply: it is one of my family favourites of 2026.

Publisher: Repos Production (dist. Asmodee) · Designers: Corentin Lebrat & Jonathan Favre-Godal · Art: Apolline Etienne · Year: 2026 · Players: 2 to 4 · Duration: ~15 min · Age: 8+

Ghosts, a tower and a camera

The pitch has that little Saturday-night-movie flavour. For centuries, an amulet kept ghosts imprisoned in the old clock tower. The amulet has shattered, the ghosts have escaped, and now they are overrunning the town. The catch is that they are invisible to the naked eye. The only way to trap them? Photograph them. As night falls, you explore the town camera in hand, snap the ghosts hiding in it, or piece the amulet back together to send them all packing into the tower at once. "Who you gonna call?", a wink I take on gladly, but the comparison stops at the mood: here we are in mischievous "spooky fun", never anxiety-inducing, perfect for playing with kids.

A word on the names, because they do not lie. On art duty, Apolline Etienne, already behind the gorgeous Living Forest, lays down a colourful and readable world. At the controls of the game, Corentin Lebrat (Draftosaurus, Trek 12, Next Station: London) and Jonathan Favre-Godal, two designers who know how to keep things simple and effective. And behind it all, Repos Production, a Belgian publisher, which does not hurt when you run a blog from Belgium.

How you play

Twelve decks of Building cards numbered 1 to 12 spread across the table, and the clock tower sits on the box lid. On your turn, you drop the two dice into the tower, then you choose. Either you take a card whose number matches the value of one die or the sum of both, and you slide it face down in front of you. Or you flip one or more cards you already own, again matching one die or the sum, to reveal what they hide.

And this is where it gets clever, because you are not flipping blind. The backs of the cards tell you what may be lurking behind them: a ghost is hiding somewhere among the five "1" cards, bonuses wait on others. Flipping all your cards of the same number at once is the big play to attempt. Behind them, you flush out ghosts, but also the fuel for your engine: dash to the park with your torches to capture a guaranteed ghost, grab a grimoire and its power, advance the clock hand, or swipe a pet ghost from a neighbour. Small cards feed the big ones, and you gradually build up your engine. Two paths lead to victory: capture your fifth ghost, or gather three amulet fragments via the clock, a rarer and more demanding route.

The whole flavour is in the push-your-luck dilemma. You bide your time to build up a nice hand and go for a big shot, but every turn spent collecting is a turn where an opponent can beat you to it. And nothing is ever settled: the pet ghosts drift from house to house and can, in a single turn, hand the game to whoever was trailing. The interaction is indirect but very real, and a sharp eye keeps track of what the others have taken to work out what is left in the decks.

What hits home

First, the accessibility. The rules explain themselves in two minutes, the turns fly by, and everything is immediately readable. That is exactly what you want from a family game: being able to set up, launch and pull everyone in without a lecture. On that front, Spooky Tower is a model.

Next, the components. It is the point everyone agrees on at every one of my plays. The cardboard clock tower, the cards, the storage trunk: it is beautiful, it is sturdy, and it is packed away neatly in the box. That attention to detail concretely changes the experience, because the first barrier of a board game is often the setup. Here, you open it, everything is in its place, and you play.

Finally, and this is what makes it a favourite rather than just another good game: it appeals broadly, truly. My sixty-something mother took genuine pleasure in it, seasoned players got swept up at a game night, and it obviously holds up with kids from 8. Finding a title that unites people like that, without anyone getting bored or feeling lost, is rare. And under its little-kids'-game looks, it has more under the hood than you would think: reading card backs, building your engine and tracking what the others take asks for a real touch of calculation and memory.

The small catch

Let us stay honest, because that is the house rule. At its core, Spooky Tower remains a dice game, and luck is everywhere. If your rolls sulk, they sulk, and no engine will fully save you from a run of bad throws. Card effects and the reroll token soften the blow, tempo management leaves you some room, but an expert player after real strategic depth will look elsewhere: that is simply not what the game sets out to offer. A small component gripe too, the setup requires sorting and shuffling the twelve decks separately, which drags a little for a game that then wraps up in a quarter of an hour. Nothing dealbreaking, but worth knowing.

Who it is for, and why I do not forget the older kids

I told you recently about three games for keeping the little ones busy over the holidays. Spooky Tower is a sort of logical next step, the one you hand to slightly bigger kids. From age 8, it makes the perfect bridge between the children's game and the family game in the full sense, the one where the parents and even the grandparents play for real and not just to be nice. If you are after a clever gateway to bring the whole household around the table, with no dead time and a theme that speaks to everyone, you have an excellent candidate here.

Verdict

Spooky Tower is a family game I recommend with my eyes closed, and one of my 2026 favourites in that category. Accessible, fast, beautifully produced, clever in its little race and push-your-luck dilemma, it ticks every box of the game you pull out without thinking when guests turn up or when three generations have to be brought together. At around fifteen euros, the fun-to-price ratio is unbeatable for that kind of evening. It took a Bpost strike and a month of waiting for me to finally get my hands on it. In hindsight, it was well worth the wait.