A story in which a ghost tries to reveal the circumstances of their own death is the perfect setup for a game with a guiding player.

The best-known examples of this theme are Mysterium and Paranormal Detective.
However, unlike those fully cooperative games, Ghost Letters introduces hidden roles.
Players are roughly divided into two sides — a team of detectives trying to solve the case,
and a criminal group attempting to prevent them from doing so. There is also a blackmailer who plays entirely for themselves. As a result, you must not only interpret the ghost’s clues, but also figure out who among you cannot be trusted.

The gameplay becomes unpredictable and full of psychological tension.

One of the pioneers of the hidden-role genre is Mafia, a timeless classic.

Yet despite its popularity, it has several aspects that modern board games try to avoid.
In Mafia, the moderator only manages the game and rarely gets to play.

In Ghost Letters, the Ghost takes on a similar guiding role —but unlike a traditional moderator, the Ghost has their own objective and a direct impact on how the story unfolds.

Playing as the Ghost is just as exciting and meaningful as playing as a detective.

If you’re killed by the Mafia or voted out early, you’re forced to sit out for the rest of the game. We can all agree it’s not much fun to be knocked out in round one and just watch while everyone else plays.

In Ghost Letters, detectives spend the rounds gathering information—analysing the ghost’s hints and other players’ behaviour. Even if you’re sure someone is the murderer, you can only accuse at the end, and the truth is revealed after the final vote.
Everyone stays involved until the last moment.


Third: Not just psychology—logic too

Mafia relies almost entirely on psychology. We’ve always missed hard facts to build solid deductions on. In Ghost Letters, psychology and logic carry equal weight.

You must base your reasoning on the clues the Ghost lays out, while closely observing others—some will bluff or try to distract you from the real hint.

The use of associations as a gameplay mechanic is well established in many popular party games.
In this sense, Ghost Letters is most similar to Codenames: Pictures, but here the associative logic works on a picture-to-picture rather than word-to-picture level.
Using these visual clue cards, players must construct and interpret multiple possible versions of the events that took place during the investigation.

In Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, each player has four evidence cards and four weapon cards laid out in front of them.
The player who takes on the role of the murderer secretly selects two cards — one piece of evidence and one weapon — and shows them to the Forensic Scientist (the game’s moderator).
In each round, the Forensic Scientist places a random scene tile with six possible options on the table.
For example, the Cause of Death tile might include choices such as Suffocation, Severe Injury, or Blood Loss.
The Forensic Scientist then marks one of these to help the detectives identify the cards chosen by the murderer.
However, with a large number of players, it becomes difficult to keep track of all the cards in play.
With up to twelve players, there can be as many as 88 cards on the table at once — a real case of visual overload.
Important clues from players on the opposite side of the table can easily be overlooked,
while with fewer players, the game can become too straightforward instead.

In our game, we decided to create a single shared clue field, regardless of the number of players — similar to Codenames.

All potential clues are placed in the centre of the table and divided into three categories: Motive, Place, and Means.
Unlike the fixed forensic tiles in Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, players themselves decide at the start of the game how to interpret each clue.
For example, an Acorn might suggest that the murder took place in the forest, and could be placed under Place.
But it could also symbolise obsession or greed (Motive), or even hint at the Means of the crime if someone was poisoned with nuts.
The interpretation depends entirely on the players’ imagination and logic — and these connections will help them remember and link clues later in the game.
The Ghost (the guiding player) uses clue cards from the same deck to give hints, which means there are countless possible combinations.
Having all cards arranged in one central area makes the investigation easier to follow, while the open narrative and flexibility of the clues greatly increase replayability.
At the beginning of the game, the Murderer secretly selects three true clues — one in each category — that the detectives must identify in order to win.

In Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, the interaction between the Forensic Scientist and the other players is rather one-sided.
The scientist is limited to the preset options on the tiles and has no flexibility in choosing or shaping clues — and the players cannot influence these options either.
It’s not uncommon for the choices on the tiles to have little or no connection to the murderer’s actual cards, making a round feel wasted.
Similarly, in Obscurio, the guiding player’s hints are restricted by the random illusion cards they draw.
However, the hidden traitor can influence the selection each round — adding misleading illusion cards to the correct ones, making it even harder for the team to find the right clue.

In Ghost Letters, each player holds five clue cards they can use to test their theories — as if they were questioning the Ghost with their cards.
In every round, players secretly send one card each to the Ghost.
The cards are shuffled so that the Ghost doesn’t know who sent which one.
The Ghost then selects and reveals only the cards that connect to the true clues, placing them as ghost signs on the table.
The remaining cards are placed on a separate “pile of vanished clues”, hidden from everyone.
This mechanic allows every player to directly influence the course of the investigation through their own decisions.
The Ghost is also a fully active player — holding five cards as well and able to add one of their own to the clues each round.
This way, everyone contributes to the investigation, making the game feel dynamic, interactive, and alive every single time.

Since the clues are not tied to any specific player, the murderer can only be identified through their behaviour.
Arresting the murderer is not required for victory — the detectives win if they either

• correctly identify all three true clues, or
• find two true clues and successfully accuse the murderer.

This means the murderer must carefully maintain a balance — hiding the real clues while avoiding suspicion.
To solve the case, the detectives must rely on both logical deduction and keen observation of suspicious behaviour.
After the final round, the players vote on which clues they believe are real and who they think the murderer is (the Ghost does not participate in the vote). Only after the vote does the Ghost reveal the truth — keeping the tension alive until the very end.

Sometimes players feel certain they’ve solved everything, only to realise right before the vote that things are not as simple as they seemed.

It may not directly affect gameplay, but we think it still matters.
How often have you wanted to bring a great game to a gathering with friends — only to find it too big to carry?

The Ghost Letters box has the perfect size (13 × 21 × 5 cm) to hold everything neatly inside,
fitting easily into even the smallest backpack.

Beautifully designed and elegantly packaged, it makes a wonderful gift —
for yourself or for your friends — without breaking the bank.