The 'rules' for the game are actually the set of rules for Ouija.
Greensticks were used to move the tokens all around the board, then removed in post-production.
The shirts/clothing of three main characters corresponds to the color of their game piece.
The instructions to the VHS game briefly shown are actually instructions to the classic seance parlor game, Ouija.
The original title was Beyond The Nightmare. Lucio Fulci's biography "Beyond The Gates" was among the inspirations for the final title the filmmakers ended up using.