Games Unplugged Review – Spookshow

Originally Published in Games Unplugged Webzine – December 27th, 2000 Spookshow is one of those games which has a really great concept – ghosts are real and they’re working as spies – which then utterly fails to develop that concept in any appreciable way. Adding to its sin, Spookshow seems eerily aware of its limitations: An oversized, double-spaced font dominates the entire presentation. A number of interesting elements which could have taken this sketchy concept and given its real legs are, instead, presented into a section of two paragraph “wouldn’t it be nifty if we’d developed any of these ideas?” grab bags. In general, I think Spookshow’s overriding problem – of which the pervasive lack of development is merely a symptom – is that it is a sloppy job carried out in a lazy fashion. For example, the game’s system is based around the Bearing mechanic: Each ghostly character is assigned a d6 that represents their mortal nature and a d10 which represents their “ghostly” nature. When…