Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town

Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town Deep Dive

What the Community Thinks About Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town

Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town is a small box deduction game published in North America by Allplay, which Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews note was formerly known as boardgametables.com. Board Game Dad points out that it first came out in 2018. The reception across channels is warm and a little surprised. Ryan and Bethany call it a surprise hit and say it fills a hole in their collection, Foster the Meeple calls it a possible surprise hit of the year after starting with zero expectations, and Board Game Dad praises how closely the theme fits the puzzle. Several of these impressions come from review copies: Ryan and Bethany say the game was provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review, Foster the Meeple says it was sent for review by Allplay, and Nights Around a Table says the copy used on its stream was requested from the publisher's PR company and sent free of charge.

Core Mechanics That Define Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town

Hidden Movement Where You Are the Hidden One

The twist that every reviewer highlights is that the players do not know where they are. One player acts as the mayor of the ghost town and sets up a hidden 7 by 7 grid behind the box, which doubles as a screen. The mayor places ghosts, pizza places, houses and interior fences, and Nights Around a Table explains that the mayor never says whether a player has bumped into an interior fence or the outer edge of town. Each pizza deliverer has a blank dry erase board. On a turn, a player declares a direction, north, south, east or west, and the mayor moves that player's pawn in secret and reports back.

The report is the heart of the game. Ryan and Bethany describe how the mayor says whether a fence or border sits directly to the north, south, east or west, and then gives a surrounding report on the eight spaces around the pawn: how many ghosts, pizza places and houses are nearby, but not where they are. Board Game Dad describes players jotting down those numbers as hints and slowly inferring locations as more information comes in. The goal is to find a pizza place, pick up a pepperoni, cheese or jalapeno pizza, and then find the house that ordered that type. Foster the Meeple adds that the matching house does not appear until the slice is in hand.

Ghosts, Psychic Cards and the Mayor

Ghosts block movement, but they are also an opportunity. Ryan and Bethany explain that a player who correctly works out where a ghost is can attack it and draw a psychic card. These cards bend the rules: one gives exact locations in the surrounding report, another points to the nearest pizza place, and another allows diagonal movement. Playing a card replaces the turn, since the three actions available are moving, attacking a ghost or playing a card. Ryan and Bethany see this as a smart design choice because it gives players a reason to fight ghosts rather than just treating them as walls. Foster the Meeple sums the cards up as a little card play that breaks the rules a bit.

The mayor is closer to a game master than a competitor. Board Game Dad notes that this is the first game the channel has bought where one player cannot win, and warns that groups who want everyone competing may not like it. Foster the Meeple compares the mayor to a DM. Ryan and Bethany point to a variant that gives the mayor a turn countdown to win against, and Nights Around a Table played with a 20 round limit after which the mayor wins, while stressing that the mayor never makes gameplay decisions and simply reports the state of ghost town.

The Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town Experience

Tension and Silly Chaos

Ryan and Bethany enjoy the small moment of tension each time a pawn moves into an unknown space and the reveal comes: a wall, a ghost, or the news that a pizza place is somewhere close. All deliverers share the same grid, so sharp players can study rival boards and guess where opponents are. Portals add to the confusion. Foster the Meeple describes players innocently wandering into a portal and being spat out somewhere else entirely, and recalls a game in which everyone tried to deliver their slice to each other's houses. Foster the Meeple also tells of two players who were on the same space when one of them fought a ghost, leaving the other baffled when the ghost vanished from their report. Ryan and Bethany note that losing does not sting much because the game is so silly.

The Mayor Seat as Its Own Game

The mayor role draws some of the strongest reactions. Ryan and Bethany let their 10-year-old be the mayor, and the power went straight to her head: she giggled behind the screen because she knew what was around everyone, then immediately asked to play again as mayor. Foster the Meeple's mayor enjoys telling players they have run into a ghost, or that they have found a house but cannot deliver their pizza there. On their top 100 list, Ryan and Bethany add that they love playing as the mayor.

What Makes Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town Stand Out

Theme Built Around the Puzzle

Board Game Dad often complains that games have a theme the mechanics do not support, and singles this game out as the opposite. In that channel's view, the designers started with the game they wanted, one where players must figure out what is around them, and then found a theme to match. Delivering a pizza without knowing where anything is, guided only by a psychic link to the ghost mayor, struck Board Game Dad as brilliant.

Unique Among Hidden Movement Games

Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews ranked the game on their top 100 list, calling it a great family game for October, and say it is not like anything else they own, even other hidden movement games. They also stress how much play is in the box: setup cards for each player count, harder challenge cards, the mayor countdown, and a variant with cat and pig tokens that the mayor announces by meowing or oinking, which can let players line up their maps with each other. Its spooky but not scary tone suited their family at Halloween.

Potential Drawbacks

Everything Depends on the Mayor

Because the mayor holds all of the information, a single mistake can ruin a game. On their top 100 list, Ryan and Bethany say they do not like having their kids play as the mayor because the reports can go wrong right from the start, leaving everyone with the wrong information. They describe the kid mayor turning it into a separate meta game, a game within a game. Board Game Dad's caution also applies: the mayor cannot win the base game, which some groups will not enjoy.

Portals Can Erase Progress

Ryan and Bethany's main criticism is the portals. After spending turns piecing together part of the map, a player who stumbles onto a portal is thrown to a different spot and has to start working out their position again, while opponents keep their information. They concede that the small 7 by 7 grid means players can reorient after a few moves, but it can cost a lot of time. Ryan and Bethany also admit the spatial reasoning of reading other players' boards is not for everyone.

If You Enjoy Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to the Ghost Town

Nights Around a Table previewed the game on a Gen Con 2022 list before playing it, and said it reminded the channel a lot of Treasure Island, another asymmetric one versus many game, though that game is more of a geographic, radial proximity puzzle while this one is grid based and more about logic and deduction. The same video likens the invisible walls to Magic Labyrinth, and the note taking and deduction to Search for Planet X and Alchemists.