Thank you to our fab friend Kieran for being a guest this episode! Watch the video on Youtube. Below is a description of our spooky party game, Unfinished Business.
THE ELEVATOR PITCH
Unfinished Business is a ghostly co-operative communication game for 3 – 5 players. With one player acting as a lingering spirit, the others will be corporate mediums, attempting to interpret shadowy messages and determine what final task or experience (Unfinished Business) the deceased needs to complete before they can move on.
THE LOOK
Unfinished Business combines a “ghostly” palette and iconography with a clean, clinical “corporate” graphic style. Colours are grey, deep blue, black and off-white. Images and icons lean on occult themes and symbology, while maintaining a simplistic, readable, chunky illustration style.
The components include:
- The “Spirit Box” – a square lamp with four clear Perspex walls with slots for card inserts.
- A deck of “Business Cards”
- A deck of transparent “Shadow Cards”.
- A Laser Pointer.
The Spirit Box has pale translucent sides which make it mostly opaque but allow enough light for silhouettes to be lit by the lamp inside.
Business cards contain one-word prompts relating to things, people, locations, times or descriptors.
THE AIM
One player is chosen as the “ghost” and must use the Shadow Cards to describe to the “mediums” what their unfinished business is. They may place one Shadow Card per player per turn. “Mediums” must do their best to interpret these messages.
SET UP
Ideally, play in a darkened room, with a torch to help the Ghost player. The Spirit Box is placed in the centre of the table and each Medium player sits facing a separate side. The Spirit Box lamp and laser pointer are switched on.
The Ghost player draws 6 Business cards and chooses 2 – 4 which they will combine into a description of their unfinished business. They then write this down secretly and keep the paper hidden from other players. For example, a player might draw cards saying “child”, “hospital”, “see”, “perform”, “winter”, and “pyramids”. They choose to discard “hospital” and “pyramids”, keep the rest of the cards hidden, and write down “see my kid perform in their nativity play”.
The Ghost player collects all of the Shadow cards and the Laser Pointer in front of them.
TURNS
The game is played in rounds. Each round, the Ghost player must insert one Shadow Card into each side of the Spirit Box which is currently facing a player. When all Shadow Cards have been played, each Medium makes one guess, out loud, as to what the Ghost’s unfinished business is. They may not otherwise communicate with the Ghost or with one another.
The Ghost then uses the laser pointer to indicate the Medium whose guess was closest to the true answer. If none of the Mediums made a close guess, the Ghost may choose to point the laser pointer at an unoccupied side of the Spirit Box (if there is one) instead.
At the end of the round, the Spirit Box is rotated 90° clockwise, exposing a new side to each Medium.
SUMMARY
Rounds continue as above. When a Medium makes a correct guess of the Ghost’s unfinished business, the Ghost switches off the lamp in the Spirit Box and is now able to speak. In this case, all players win.
If any side of the Spirit Box receives its 5th Shadow Card, the final round is triggered. If a correct guess is not made by a Medium this round, the game is over and all players lose.
WHAT MAKES THIS GAME UNIQUE?
Inspired by other ghostly communication games such as Mysterium, Unfinished Business takes a lighter tone, with plenty of room for unusual scenarios arising from the Business Cards. At the same time, it is an atmospheric game which makes use of light and limited communication to induce a spooky feel.
Big Crow Games 