Grab your pad, grab your pencil and let’s deduce some stuff! Spectral, a small yet juicy box of puzzlement, was recently sent to me by Bitewing Games. I had some background on the game beforehand; it had been mentioned on a few podcasts I listen to, and I had seen a YouTube video review. It is certainly a game I thought I would enjoy. Buckle in, let’s do this!
Spectral is a deduction game about finding treasure and avoiding curses. At the end of the game, you are awarded points depending on where your pawns are but more importantly, where the random arrangement of treasure and curses are located. Also, how good are your deduction skills? I have made a few errors here and there, which is always comical. Well, for everyone else anyway.
The Setup
Spectral, which is a randomly generated array or cards, takes no time at all to set up. You need to take each row of cards and randomise both their order and location on the map. This is so that each row contains the same cards but which row they appear in and their order within the row is always random.
That’s most of the setup, the rest is just dishing out workers, pencils and the lovely little pads to all players. Then, you are ready to sleuth! Can you work out where to avoid due to curses and where the most lucrative treasure spots are? Good luck!
A Grid of Deduction
The grid, or a Spectral Manor, as it is presented in the game, is made up of 16 cards. These 16 cards are in 4 rows of 4 and each one will give you a clue as to where a curse or, even better, a treasure, lies.
In the basic game, there are 4 different types of cards, both in treasure and curse varieties. When looking at a card, firstly, it shows whether it’s pointing to a curse or treasure, then it has one of the 4 types of clues on it. Things such as the mirror opposite or 2 cards in a diagonal line from this one, that sort of thing. There are some advanced card options but save them for later plays.
What you are trying to do is look at cards and paint a picture, in your handy little notebook, showing where curses and treasures are located. The issue is that locations can have multiple treasures, multiple curses or even some of each. Where your workers end up and your plucky deduction skills will determine how many points you win or lose.
Worker Placement
In order to look at one of these cards and get some vital clues, you have to place some of your workers…… or treasure hunters in one of the manor’s corridors. This allows you to peek at one of the cards on either side of your treasure hunters.
Once you have looked at your card, you make a few notes in your lovely little notebook and move on. In order to replace someone else’s workers in a corridor, you have to place twice the amount of workers there. This does multiple things, it creates an ever-increasing tension to get to the good spots but also gives the game a sort of fixed timeline, making sure everyone’s knowledge will be limited. It works beautifully.
Notebooks
The notebooks included in this game are beautiful, not only do they give your treasure hunting team a name and look great but they really make the deduction and clue finding as simple as it could be. There’s space to cross off cards, write on spaces and make a note of where each card is pointing to. Without it, the game would be much poorer in execution and nowhere near as much fun. It works as a beautiful companion to your detecting.
Deduction
With Spectral never being a perfect puzzle and with the time constraints, there are always grey areas, especially when you mix in a few wrongly interpreted clues. The fact that each row has all the same cards in, even though the order in both rows and columns is randomized, gives you a bit of leeway when deducing where certain things are. At the very least, when you have been to 3 cards in the same row, you know what the 4th is, they are all listed in your amazing notebook.
It goes further than that though, there is only one curse in each row, each with a differing clue to follow so as the game goes on, you can deduce where possible curses can be and as time runs out, this simple deduction can win or even lose you the game. This is all helped by the notebook, which shows all possible cards and curses and allows you to use your deduction skills more efficiently.
Juicy, Juicy Points and How to Get Them
At the end of the game, which is triggered when someone runs out of workers, or everyone passes, you reveal the puzzle and find out how good your investigative skills are.
One by one you turn the cards over and place tokens on the location they point to. If it’s a curse you remove all the surrounding treasure hunters and if it’s treasure, depending on the split, surrounding treasure hunters will get a share of 12 points.
Don’t forget though, locations can have multiple tokens on them, so you never quite know until the end, how things have panned out. It’s a very intriguing and fun reveal to end the game, especially when some players have made a few errors or things don’t turn out how you think.
Components
The presentation and component quality in this small box is off the charts. The cards are lovely, the treasure hunters are chunky wood and as I said earlier, the notebook is vital in order for this game to function.
On top of that, the artwork and colour palette is so pleasing. It’s like a black and white picture with splashes of bright red, it’s so beautiful. I adored everything about this game’s look and functionality.
Final Thoughts
Spectral is brilliant. It is a game, after an initial explanation, that most people will be able to deal with. If you don’t like deduction, this game probably will not change your mind. However, I feel with it’s quality components and brilliant presentation, it may win a few deduction naysayers over.
I feel Spectral has just the right amount of deduction breadth to give players enough to chew on but leaves enough around the edges blurry, leading to simple misgivings and small errors. Good deduction will normally win but now and again, weird board states and time constraints will create fun and weird end-game resolutions. If you like the genre, I cannot recommend Spectral enough, it’s a treasure-hunting, rip-roaring good time!
