After their hugely successful Kickstarter run with the first Ghostbusters board game, Cryptozoic will shortly be launching Ghostbusters: The Board Game II, and this ain’t no regular sequel. Rather than just focus on the second film–though Vigo, the Scolari brothers, and the Statue of Liberty will all be factors–this game will incorporate the entire classic Ghostbusters universe, including IDW comics, all the animated shows (yes, even Extreme Ghostbusters), and the Kenner toys (toilet monster Fearsome Flush makes an appearance). Cryptozoic’s Sara Miguel and Mataio Wilson weren’t 100% certain when I asked them if Hi-C’s Ecto-Cooler could be included in fan-requested stretch goals, but they ultimately volunteered “a soft yes,” noting that anything Sony had officially licensed should be fair game. Only the upcoming Paul Feig movie is out-of-bounds, for obvious spoiler reasons.

“Slime worshipping cultists have broken into the firehouse and stolen your experimental equipment,” Wilson told us, “and scattered it all over the city that is now in ruins from the riots caused by the negative mood slime that is bubbling up under the city.” Said slime is represented by “ooze pile” tokens that can be displayed as “open” or “closed.” The players will set the board using one of 12-15 scenario cards (more will be available for download later, and fans can also create their own). You’ll then have a pool of actions – you can move up to two spaces, shoot up to three spaces, remove slime from an adjacent Ghostbuster (slime is what happens when a ghost encounters you, and is more versatile at hurting you this time around), you can help them switch their proton pack to a slime pack – you’ll pick which one to start with, but you can help each other as a team and swap them out. You can change them yourself, but it’s a lot harder.

Player tokens will now feature the team in both their courtroom outfits with proton packs, or signature jumpsuits and slime-blowers, depending on what’s needed for a given mission. And the miniatures, rather than the bright colors of the first game, will be in gray to make details more visible, and feature snap-on bases that can also be used with ghosts to level them up and change the difficulty. You start with three actions and two maneuvers (mini-actions, like getting in and out of Ecto-1, which can move six spaces), but there is a limited number of total actions to keep a time-limit on your mission. Playing just the central scenario should take around an hour, but there are also side quests that can put playtime up to four hours.

Then there’s the spirit world…

Here is where all the ghosts available to your scenario hang out when not manifested in our world. And if it runs out, well, as Egon might say, it would be bad. Wilson elaborates: “If there’s ever a time when there’s no ghosts in the spirit world and we need one, it creates a vacuum and destroys both of our planes of exisistence.”

While the all-new lady Ghostbusters won’t show up, the old-school ones like Kylie and Janine can. Miguel is particularly fond of the latter, saying, “Janine’s just so sassy, and a fellow redhead. I love her; she just doesn’t take any flack from anyone!” They were Kickstarter-exclusive stretch goals on the first game, but she notes that Kickstarter exclusives aren’t necessarily exclusive just to one Kickstarter: they may never be in a sold-in-stores version, but they can appear on Kickstarters for subsequent games.

And as far as those stores in which to sell–with an $85-ish price tag, it’s tough to get retailers like Target interested, but that doesn’t mean Cryptozoic isn’t trying. Neither they nor Sony considers these miniature games to be competition for family board games like Hasbro might sell; they’re a different category aimed at different players.

I thought this die was a nicely nerdy touch. Shockingly so, you might say…

Ghostbusters: The Board Game II launches on Kickstarter April 11th, at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Get ready to come, see, and kick some ass.

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image credits: Nerdist