There Was a ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ Card Game?!
Boys and girls of ev’ry age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange? Not a town of Halloween, but a Nightmare Before Christmas card game!
I was going to school during the 2000’s. Ergo, I was surrounded by Invader Zim, Foamy the Squirrel, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Even though I look back on those days with an uncomfortable mix of cringe and nostalgia (cringestalgia), I maintain Nightmare Before Christmas is a great movie and definitely worth a watch today.
With All Hallows Eve approaching, we’re taking a look at the TCG based on the movie, which was released in 2005; a very timely 12 years after the movie came out.
Nightmare Before Christmas Card Game Gameplay
The Nightmare Before Christmas Card Game is a competitive card game with hand management and tableau-building mechanics. The goal of each player is to build the most scariest Halloweentown.
On their turns, players will lay down Locale cards, each having a unique Function.
The functions of Locales can only be activated if they are scary enough. Characters are played at each of your Locales. While they are there, they add their Scare Points to the Locale. If the Locale has enough Scare Points (as listed in the upper left), its Function can be used.
To play a card, players need Pumpkin Points, which are gained mostly through your Locales. In addition to Characters and Locales, players can play Creations and Surprises. Creations stay in play and do fun stuff, while Surprises are one-time effects.
Locales, Characters, and Creations all stay in play and add to a player’s Scare Point total. The game ends after 12 turns (12 days till Christmas!), and whichever player has the scariest Town (the most Scare Points) wins and gets to take over Christmas this year!
Final Thoughts
The Nightmare Before Christmas card game is definitely a pretty simple game compared to games like Magic: The Gathering. But it still is a fully fleshed-out card game with plenty of the gameplay elements you’d expect: booster packs, rare cards, and additional sets.
Unfortunately, the game was nixed after its first expansion set, Christmas Town. There was a planned second expansion, The Real World, but it never made it there.
Considering there are only about 280 cards in total, you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to get a complete set. But tracking these cards down isn’t easy and definitely isn’t getting any cheaper. You can still find a few on Amazon and eBay, but they are disappearing fast.
Still, I might try to grab a booster box to add to my collection. Then omg maybe my crush will let me double Paranoia Survivor with them!! XD I would squee so hard!!!1!!!1!!!!
PENGUIN OF DOOOM! XD
