Haunt the House Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Components
  • 80 Scare Cards
  • 24 Ghost Hunter Cards
  • 35 Skull Tokens
  • 5 Ghost Markers
  • 9 Room Tiles
  • 30 Phantom Cards
  • 8 Trophy Tiles
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • On Your Turn
  • Take 2 Actions
    • Draw to Three Scares (only if you have 1 or 0)
    • Play an Invisible (Facedown) Scare
    • Play a Visible (Face Up) Scare
  • Yell BOO!
  • The End of Your Turn
• The End of the Game
  • Scoring
• Phantoms
  • Changes to Setup
  • Changes to Earning Rewards (How to Get Phantoms)
  • How Phantoms Work
  • Changes to Scoring
  • The Attack Symbol
• Haunt the House at a Glance
  • Setup
  • On Your Turn, Take 2 Actions or Call BOO!
  • Game End
  • Scoring

Overview

We are ghosts competing to frighten Ghost Hunters from the rooms of our haunted house. Each player has their own deck of Scares (Bumps, Chills, Creaks, and Moans), and each Ghost Hunter is only frightened out of the house by a specific Scare combination.

On your turn, you'll either play Scare cards on Ghost Hunters (invisibly to hide your plans, or visibly to trigger awesome room powers), or yell BOO and try to send a Ghost Hunter packing! Once one player scares out their fourth Ghost Hunter, the game ends and the highest score wins!

Components

80 Scare Cards

Five 16-card decks. All five decks are identical on the back, but each deck is identifiable by the wallpaper pattern and colour on the front. Each deck consists of 4 Bumps, 4 Chills, 4 Creaks, and 4 Moans.

The five decks are: Pink Moan, Purple Chill, Green Creak, Yellow Bump, Blue Creak.

24 Ghost Hunter Cards

Each card shows the gear that the Ghost Hunter is carrying, sometimes a Skull value (Skulls are points in the game), and each card displays the specific Scare combination that will frighten this Ghost Hunter from the haunted house.

35 Skull Tokens

Each Skull token counts as 1 point. Five of them are 5x tokens that count as 5 points each.

5 Ghost Markers

The Ghost markers remind you of your player colour, and are used in the Full version of the game to mark when you are entitled to a reward.

9 Room Tiles

Each Room has a doorway where Ghost Hunters will arrive, and an explanation of the Room's unique special power.

30 Phantom Cards

Phantoms are ghostly allies that you can gain in the Full version of the game. (They are not used in the Beginner version.)

Each Phantom card has a Special power.

Many Phantoms have positive or negative Skull values that will affect scoring.

8 Trophy Tiles

Each player will get 1 or 2 secret Trophy tiles; these count as gear already in their collections for scoring purposes.

The eight trophies are: Flashlight, Candle, Lantern, Torch, Rope, Key, Map, Crowbar.

Setup

1. Shuffle the Room tiles face down, create a draw pile out of the way, then lay out some Rooms face-up:

   2 players	3 or 4 players	5 players
   3 Rooms	4 Rooms	5 Rooms

   Make sure that you leave enough room above and below each Room for Scare cards to be played so that there will be no confusion about which Room they have been played to.

2. Shuffle the Ghost Hunters deck face down, create a draw deck out of the way, then draw 1 Ghost Hunter for each Room and place it face up in each Room's doorway.

3. Make a stockpile of Skull tokens nearby.

4. Each player chooses a player colour, then takes the Scare deck and Ghost marker in that colour. Each player should shuffle their Scare deck, and draw a starting hand of 3 Scares.

   Keep your hand hidden from other players.

5. Shuffle the Trophy tiles face down. Each player takes 1 red and 1 blue Trophy tile. (In a 5-player game, each player takes only 1 Trophy tile, of whichever colour.) Keep your Trophy tiles secret; you may peek at your own tiles at any time.

6. Pick a start player; the player who can make the scariest ghost sound goes first! (If you can't decide, gather all the Ghost markers and randomly draw one from your hand to choose a start player, then return them all.) Now you're ready to begin!

What about the Phantom deck? Leave them in the box if you want to play the Beginner game. Once you're ready for the Full game, rules on how to introduce the Phantoms can be found in the Phantoms section.

Experienced gamers can skip right to playing with the Phantoms; once you use them, you'll never look back!

Gameplay

Haunt the House is played in turns. When your turn is complete, play passes clockwise.

On Your Turn

On your turn you will either:

TAKE 2 ACTIONS or YELL BOO!

Take 2 Actions

There are three sorts of actions that you might take on your turn. You can take them in any order you want, and you may take the same action twice. The action types are:

• Draw to three Scares
• Play an invisible (facedown) Scare
• Play a visible (face up) Scare

Draw to Three Scares (only if you have 1 or 0)

Only if you have 1 or 0 Scares in your hand, you may use one action to draw Scares from your deck until you hold 3.

Play an Invisible (Facedown) Scare

Play any 1 Scare from your hand facedown to a Room (below it as shown), adding to any other invisible Scares that may have been played there earlier.

• Your Scare does not have to match any of the Scare types shown on the Ghost Hunter in that Room.
• Playing a Scare that does match can earn you a reward later (when the Scare is revealed during a BOO).

Example: This Ghost Hunter is scared by Bumps and Moans. As a bluff, you play a Creak card invisibly, adding to an unknown Scare that someone else played earlier.

You might play an invisible Scare that doesn't frighten the Ghost Hunter in that room, as a bluff to trick other players... or you might play one that does scare that Ghost Hunter, to bring it closer to being frightened and to earn yourself a reward later (see Yell BOO!, Step 1).

Play a Visible (Face Up) Scare

Play any 1 Scare from your hand face-up to a Room (above it as shown), adding to any other visible Scares that may have been played there earlier.

The Scare must be one that is actually needed to frighten the Room's Ghost Hunter. This means that it must be of a type shown on the Ghost Hunter card that is not already satisfied by visible Scares.

For example, if a Ghost Hunter is frightened by 2 Creaks and 2 Moans, and there are already 2 visible Creaks in its Room, you may not play any face-up Chills or Bumps (because that type is not shown) and you may not play another visible Creak (because Creaks are already satisfied).

When you play a visible Scare, you may immediately trigger the power of that Room.

Example: Since Pink played a Bump there earlier (satisfying this Ghost Hunter's Bump limit), your only option if you want to play visibly here is to play a Chill. Luckily you have one in your hand, and playing it lets you trigger the Room power; this Room power gains you 1 Skull token.

Playing a visible Scare will give your opponents information about how close a Ghost Hunter is to being frightened out... but you get the awesome Room power, so it can totally be worth it!

Yell BOO!

On your turn (instead of taking actions), if you think that among:

• the visible Scares on a Room,
• the invisible Scares on that Room,
• and the Scares in your hand...

...that there are all the Scares needed (or more) to frighten out that Room's Ghost Hunter, you may point at it and yell "BOO!" Resolve the BOO step by step:

1. If there are any invisible Scares, flip them over in place to reveal them. Any revealed Scare that was a bluff (meaning that the Ghost Hunter is not frightened by that Scare type), is discarded immediately into its owner's discard pile.

   If any of the revealed Scares were correct (meaning that the Ghost Hunter is scared by that Scare type, even if that Scare type is already satisfied by face-up Scares), each player who played at least one correct Scare immediately gets a reward: 1 Skull from the supply.

   Each player may only earn a maximum of 1 Skull token here, even if they played more than one correct card invisibly.

2. Between the played visible Scares and the revealed invisible Scares, are there enough Scares to frighten out the Ghost Hunter? If yes, skip to Step 4. If no, proceed with step 3.

3. Do you have the needed Scares in your hand to "finish off" the BOO and frighten the Ghost Hunter out? If yes, play the Scares now and proceed to Step 4. If no, you made a bad BOO; any revealed invisible Scares are discarded to their owners' discard piles (Scares that were played visibly stay in place), and your turn is over.

4. Congratulations, you have frightened out the Ghost Hunter! Collect the Ghost Hunter card and keep it face up on the table in front of you. All Scares in the Room go to their owners' discard piles. Discard the Room to a Room discard pile, and add a new Room from the stack in its place. (Shuffle the Room discard to create a new pile if the pile runs out.) Then add a fresh Ghost Hunter from the deck to the new Room's doorway.

Full BOO Example:

You are Purple. You yell BOO, and point at this Ghost Hunter. We reveal the two invisible (facedown) Scares here. The revealed Yellow Creak isn't needed; it's a bluff so it's discarded. The revealed Green Moan is correct, so the Green player earns 1 Skull from the supply!

There are now 2 Moans on this Ghost Hunter (1 that was played visibly by Yellow, and 1 that was played invisibly by Green and is now revealed). That's not enough to frighten it out yet, so you must check your hand for the 2 Bumps that are still needed...

You do indeed hold the needed 2 Bumps, so you play them now to finish off the Boo! (If you didn't have them, this would be a Bad Boo and your turn would be over.)

You collect the Ghost Hunter card; this Ghost Hunter's Flashlight and Crowbar are now in your collection for scoring!

All of the Scares involved (The two Moans and two Bumps) are discarded to their owners' discard piles. The Room is discarded, then a new Room is put in its place, with a new Ghost Hunter from the deck.

The End of Your Turn

If you took Actions or made a Bad Boo:

1. You may discard any Scares from your hand that you don't want (and keep whichever ones you do want).

2. Then, if you have fewer than 3 Scares in hand, draw Scares from your deck until you hold 3.

   (If your Scare deck ever runs out of cards for any reason, shuffle your discard pile to create a new deck.)

Due to some Room and Phantom powers, it is possible and legal to end your turn with more than 3 Scares in hand.

If you successfully frightened out a Ghost Hunter, you may not discard or draw cards now.

Either way, your turn ends.

The End of the Game

The game end is triggered when one player frightens out their fourth Ghost Hunter (fifth in a 2-player game). Continuing clockwise from that player, each other player gets one last opportunity to yell BOO (and resolve it as normal) or pass. Then the game ends.

Scoring

Each player scores:

Skull tokens. 1 point each.

Skulls on Ghost Hunters. These are worth the value printed on the card.

Gear Collections. Reveal your Trophy tiles. Each piece of gear in your collection (counting symbols on your Ghost Hunter cards plus the symbols on your Trophy tiles) is worth points equal to the number of that gear type you've collected. So, for example:

• If you have 1 Flashlight, it is worth 1 point.
• If you have 2 Candles, each Candle is worth 2 points. (Total 4 points)
• If you have 3 Maps, each Map is worth 3 points (total 9 points)
• ...and so on.

Example: At end game, you have 4 Flashlights (16 points), 2 Ropes (4 points) 1 Torch (1 point), 1 Key (1 point), and 1 Map (1 point). You also have 2 Skull points on your Ghost Hunters (2 points), and another 3 Skull tokens (3 Points). Your final score is 16+4+1+1+1+2+3... 28 points!

The highest score wins the game! In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker is in turn order starting with the player who triggered the end of the game.

Phantoms

Once you are comfortable with gameplay, add in the Phantom cards and play in Full mode to make the game even more spooky and challenging!

Changes to Setup

Shuffle the Phantoms deck face down and keep near the Skull supply.

Changes to Earning Rewards (How to Get Phantoms)

When any correct invisible cards are revealed during a BOO — instead of simply taking a Skull token — each player who had played at least one correct card face down places their Ghost marker on the Phantoms deck.

After the BOO is fully resolved, each player with their Ghost marker on the Phantoms deck (in turn order starting with the active player) takes their Ghost marker back and either:

A) Takes 1 Skull token as in the Beginner game, or

B) Draws 2 Phantoms from the deck, peeks at both, keeps one, and returns the other to the bottom of the deck.

How Phantoms Work

Each Phantom card has a unique ability that tells you what it will do when played.

• Unless the card says otherwise, a Phantom may only be played on an Action turn (before, between, or after your Actions), not on a BOO turn; maximum 1 Phantom per turn.
• A Phantom does not cost any Actions to play (unless the card itself says otherwise).
• Phantom cards do not count towards your hand limit. You can hold any number of Phantoms in addition to your usual hand of Scares.

When you play a Phantom, reveal it, place it face up on the table in front of you, and resolve its text fully.

Changes to Scoring

Some Phantoms have Skull values (or negative Skull values) on them. Unless the card says otherwise, you only earn (or lose) these points at the end of the game for Phantoms that you have played; unplayed Phantoms that are still in your hand do not score.

The Attack Symbol

Some Phantoms (and Rooms) feature the Attack symbol. These are direct-confrontation effects that you may want to remove from the game if you don't like that sort of thing.

Note that the Vanishing Phantom can protect you from any sort of Attack, so you do have some protection against Attacks if you choose to play with them.

Haunt the House at a Glance

The entire game explained in one simple page.

Setup

Shuffle Ghost Hunters and Rooms. Lay out (3/4/4/5) Rooms for (2/3/4/5) players; one Ghost Hunter in each doorway. Make Skull supply (and shuffled Phantom deck if playing Full version). Each player gets shuffled Scares deck, Ghost marker, and 2 Trophy tiles (1 tile if 5 players).

Each player draws a hand of 3 Scares. Pick starting player; play goes clockwise.

On Your Turn, Take 2 Actions or Call BOO!

Take 2 Actions (any order, repeatable)

• Fill hand to 3 Scares (only if you hold 0 or 1).
• Play any Scare invisibly (face down) below a Room.
• Play a needed Scare visibly (face up) above a Room; trigger the Room power.

May also play at most 1 Phantom; does not cost an Action.

Call BOO

1. Reveal invisible Scares if any. Discard bluffs if any. Any correct reveals? Award those players 1 Skull or 1 Phantom (Draw 2, peek at both, keep 1).
2. Play Scares from hand if needed and able, to finish off BOO.

• Fail? Bad Boo; discard all revealed invisible Scares from Room. Visible Scares stay.
• Succeed? Claim Ghost Hunter, discard all Scares from Room, refresh Room and Ghost Hunter.

Turn End

• Action turn or Bad Boo? Discard any Scares you want, then fill hand to 3 Scares. End turn.
• Successful Boo? End turn.

Game End

When a player claims their 4th Ghost Hunter (5th in 2-player game), other players get one last BOO chance in turn order, then game ends.

Scoring

Earn points for Skulls, Skull value of Ghost Hunters, Skull value (plus or minus) of played Phantoms, and gear symbols on Ghost Hunters and Trophy tiles. Gear is worth 1/4/9/16/25/36 for owning 1/2/3/4/5/6 of that type. Highest score wins!