The Short:
- This game is delightful and oozes character.
- The dexterity-based mechanics make the game immediately intuitive and easy to teach.
- The extra rules stack on like deliciously absurd pancakes, amounting to a surprisingly filling stack of a meal in the form of a possible one-shot RPG.
- 10/10 It's well worth your 5 dollars and time.
Ghost Kart Racers is one of those tabletop games that you start reading and immediately the Diddy Kong Racing lobby theme pops into your head. And by that I mean I've literally never read a tabletop game that has ever instilled that in me until now.
The pseudo-Japanese Horror theme feels like a fresh take on the tried and true genre of kart racing games... And also y'know the whole fact that it's a kart racer you play on tabletop (or, if you're like me, the floor). It even has optional charm rules that add the same kind of chaos that items do in kart racers.
This feels rife for a possible one-shot (yes, it has optional RPG mechanics that are clean and flavorful) or just a good time with your board gaming buddies. Additionally, if you're reading this at 2 a.m. like me and very interested to test out what playing a lap is actually like, you can run "time trials" against yourself trying to get the best possible score on different courses you lay out for yourself.
All in all, if this game has caught your eye, you're probably the target audience and will enjoy its absurdist and playful nature~