Ever wanted to teach a rotten Victorian businessman about the true meaning of Christmas? Spirits of Christmas is a new Kickstarter board game that caught our eye for its unique and highly specific premise: you’re all Christmas ghosts trying to get Scrooge to mend his ways before time is up. Based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this looks like the ideal festive family game for someone with a love of the classics.
Creator Humble Bard Games has released the rulebook, so we can see exactly how this co-op board game works. Basically, players must work together to complete scenes showing Scrooge’s past, present, and future. This must be done before you run out of shillings, or time is up, and Ebenezer Scrooge is doomed.
The game looks fairly simple, and would probably work well as a family board game (though you might have trouble getting children to engage with the theme – put A Muppet’s Christmas Carol on first). It also comes with a bunch of difficulty levels that can adjust the level of challenge, as well as different modes of play which change up how communication works.
Spirits of Christmas launched on November 26 and has already reached its very humble funding goal of $4,000. Such an unusual creation was never going to have broad appeal, and so Spirits of Christmas probably won’t be appearing on our best board games list any time soon. But we did want to shout it out anyway for its festive concept, and sheer dedication to theme.
This is actually the second attempt by Humble Bard to get this title made. In early 2023, the company launched a failed Kickstarter for Spirits of Christmas which had a much more ambitious goal of $25,000. Designer John Bailey revealed that he has redesigned the game to fit in a much smaller box, allowing for a significantly lower funding goal.
After sifting through so many campaigns that fall foul of Kickstarter bloat, it’s nice to check out a no-nonsense crowdfunder for a change. There are no unnecessary pledge levels: you can buy one copy or ten copies. There’s not an endless pile of stretch goals – no cyber ghost of Christmas Far-Future to unlock. If it raises enough money, you’ll get a how-to-play video, and one of the components will be upgraded slightly – that’s it.
Sadly, the perfect festive board game won’t be home in time for Christmas. The campaign gives an estimated release date of September 2025, so we’ll have to wait till next year. Until then, you can fill everyone’s stockings up with the entries on our guides to the best couples board games and best strategy board games.
Source: Wargamer
