DroPolter, from Oink Games, is a very strange beast indeed. If you have ever played Ghost Blitz, another uncanny game, well, it’s like that but in reverse. Shouting, sweaty hands and strange faces are all included. Welcome to the How to Play for DroPolter!
The Set-Up
DroPolter is probably one of the easiest games in the world to set-up. Give each player an identical set of five objects, shuffle the deck of cards and place both the bells and the ghost in the centre of the table. I think you could be set up in well under a minute, if you put your mind to it.
The five objects, if you were wondering, are a yellow waffle, a shell, a red transparent cube, a ring and a blue key. All quite small and just tricky enough to make the game slightly aggravating.
The End Goal
In DroPolter, the goal is to either get 5 bells in your hand or have the most bells in your hand if you get to the end of the deck of cards. The trick, however, is keeping those pesky little bells in your sweaty, clammy hands. Which is exponentially harder than you think.
Turns
Each turn in DroPolter is simple: shake the five items in your hand and put your hand in front of you, along with the other players. Then, someone will flip the top card of the deck, which will show a number of items you must drop on the table. As soon as you have dropped the items on the card and only the items on the card, you can grab the ghost. The first to grab the ghost, after completing the card correctly, gains a bell in their hand.
The issue is that if you ever drop an item not on the card, you have to gather all your dropped items up, shake and start again. This by itself is fine, but if you EVER drop a bell, which don’t forget are points, you LOSE IT FOREVER. Harrowing indeed. It gets worse and worse as your hands get more sweaty too. The game descends into madness towards the end.
The more bells you have, the harder it is to drop things, and the risk of dropping multiple things at once increases. You don’t want to drop bells, but they just end up falling out. I think they may actually be sentient and not like to be trapped in people’s hands. I seem to go through a loop of winning a few bells, dropping them all and repeating; it’s simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking.
We have a Winner!
Once you get to the end game condition, congratulate the winner and put the weird concoction that is DroPolter back in the box. There is no game like it, it’s small, hilariously funny and completely bonkers. Oh, and those pesky little bells can do one!
