Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Terrifying Techno
Connor Wake and Always Awake Games have knocked it out of the park with the theme. I even love the humor of the studio name, as Connor is always a Wake (at least that’s my dad-joke interpretation). Club Spooky is another title that fits nicely as a spooky season game. I’ve found there aren’t too many titles that capture the Halloween vibe without leaning into horror, so it’s great to see something like this appear.
Club Spooky has players bidding and drafting various ghouls and ghosts at a spooky nightclub to join their clique. Each of these cards has a unique endgame scoring condition and traits that can be counted for conditional scoring. But wait—there’s also a dance floor in this club, and a DJ? Luckily, there’s no cover charge to get in.
Electronic Death Music
Club Spooky plays over three rounds and revolves around bidding on VIPs (named creatures with scoring conditions) and Randos (background clubbers with a single trait). Players sway creatures in the lobby by bidding “talking points” tokens in hopes of convincing them to join their clique. You can outbid others by placing one more token than they previously did, which gives the lower bidder all of their bidding pieces back. If your tokens remain the top bid by the start of your next turn, that creature joins your tableau.
Creatures can get jealous, though. If the two closest to the DJ or dance floor have no bids, they leave and head for the dance floor. Creatures on the dance floor can still be bid on, but doing so requires using all remaining bidding tokens, effectively taking you out of the round.
Cards are scored in typical tableau fashion, with the exception of “picky” creatures. These are evaluated first and have specific requirements that must be met in your clique. If those requirements aren’t met, they leave, which can cause a cascade of other picky creatures departing as well. Scoring conditions might include trait majorities, minimum card types, or even creature names arranged in sequential alphabetical order. The highest total score earns the title of coolest clique in the club.
Spooky Spirits
Club Spooky is a solid time with some interesting bidding mechanics. While it’s tempting to push up bids for juicy cards, doing so might take you out of the running early, leaving you to miss better opportunities later in the round. Losing a bid doesn’t feel terrible since getting your bidding tokens back gives you another chance. That can even be a strategy to scoop up cheaper cards later, but the timer and limited number of cards per round keep things moving.
It’s fun trying to line up cards to maximize scoring conditions, similar to Wingspan or Raising Robots, but you’re always taking a risk that the right card type will show up later—and sometimes it doesn’t. A few players mentioned balance concerns, as some cards felt noticeably stronger than others, leading to moments where players paid more for less value or got a bargain on powerful cards. While there’s some strategy in deciding when and where to bid, it can occasionally feel moot if you end up with cards that don’t synergize or that leave your tableau due to unmet “picky” requirements. Bidding conservatively doesn’t always pay off either, since creatures can move to the dance floor each turn if they aren’t bid on.
That said, this comes from someone who’s played heavier bidding games, including 18xx titles, so it’s probably nitpicking. Club Spooky is meant to be a light-hearted bidding game with tons of charm. The art is absolutely fantastic, and I’m a big fan of the name’s alliteration such name A, name B and name C (insert later). Even the notebook card that holds the bidding tokens adds its own bit of flair, with notes like “always compliment the eyes” or “topics to bring up.”
Overall, it’s a fun little game that families can enjoy—especially around Halloween. Connor Wake is a new designer, and Club Spooky is a great example of creative thinking. I’m excited to see more from him in the future. If you want to go clubbing without overpriced cocktails and still have a ghoulishly good time, check out Club Spooky on Kickstarter now.
