Nobody knows how they will shed this mortal coil, but in Reap, by Jason Anarchy Games, that’s part of the fun! Players will take on the role of a different Reaper each turn and try to outwit the others in a race to collect souls and help them find their way to the next realm. There is a huge collection of randomly drawn hilarious Harvesters to discover, and no two games will be the same. Designed for 2-4 ghoulish Gatherers, with a 5th player option available, Reap will have you down to duplicate your dire deeds again and again.

Designer Jason Anarchy originally brought the game to Kickstarter in late 2021 and quickly funded it in only two days on the platform. Utilizing the artistic talents of Kelly Bastow and Gaelen Adric Izatt Galloway III, the page really showed off the wonderful design and ambiance of the game. With so many whimsical wonders we knew we had to back the project, and when it finally showed up at our door, we knew we had a winner in our hands.

To get started with the setup, shuffle the Souls Deck and the reaper deck before placing them out in the middle of the play area. Then each player should select a Reaper Meeple, a Spooky Screen, take 3 Skull Tokens, and draw a Reaper that they place behind their screen to keep secret. 9 souls should be drawn and placed into a 3 by 3 grid that all players can reach, and each Reaper places their meeple in at one corner of the grid. It’s quick and simple: nobody’s dying of boredom here!

The front of the box sums it up nicely; keep, sweep, or reap! As a round begins with each Reaper using their skull tokens to set their actions for the round. Once all skulls are set the Spooky Screens go down and play proceeds by resolving each action in the sequence. Starting with the player in possession of the Turn Marker and moving clockwise players will first Reap by moving their meeple up to a number of spaces equal to the tokens they placed on that action. Next, the sweep action is resolved to allow the ghoulish gamers to discard and replace a soul in an adjacent space to their meeple for each token dedicated to this action. Finally keep occurs and players may collect souls from the board according to their position and bonuses of their current Reaper. The rules, of course, go into further detail regarding conflict resolutions, combos, and fine details, and the Kickstarter page has some well-done illustrations to explain it as well. The first player to collect 9 souls will be declared the winner

Reap is right up my alley as a game that is quick to teach with lots of nuances that create engaging gameplay beyond the rulebook. It plays quickly, in less than 30 minutes usually, and has just enough of a bluff mechanic to keep it light and fun. We picked up the deluxe edition, which included some extra goodies such as the 5th player expansion (with a glow-in-the-dark meeple!) and stickers. The additions were appreciated as both a water bottle and a binder quickly came to share the apparition aesthetic of the game. All things said, this game is attractive to anyone looking for a light-hearted game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The theme, take-that mechanics, and bluffing are unintimidating and blend well into what is sure to be a year-round enjoyable game.

All photos of Jason Anarchy Games products were taken and edited by Krista.