Eye of rabbit, tongue of newt, dead man’s toe, and … no, no, that can’t be right …

Witchcraft isn’t always easy, but being a successful witch is all about wielding powerful magical ingredients to brew beautiful, bubbling potions! But beware, too many ingredients isn’t always a good thing. Too much power can cause things to explode, and let other witches gain power over you. It’s time to reveal who’s the best witch of the bunch.

What Is It?

A simultaneous action, engine building game with variable player powers. Players will simultaneously select then reveal a recipe card from their hand each round. These cards may get players arcana, which will get them small bonuses throughout the game. They’ll then use any recipes in front of them by filling the input ingredients from their workbench, and taking the matching output ingredients from the supply. Output ingredients will go into each player’s cauldron, and will pass to the player on your right to put into their workbench. If they don’t have enough space, you gain those excess ingredients as points to your witch’s circle. The first player to 5 points wins!

Who Is It For?

  • 2 – 5 Players (I’d say it’s best at 3 – 4)
  • Ages 12+
  • Fans of simultaneous action / quick game play
  • Fans of “spooky” themes

PROS

  • Components – Such cute cauldrons! Overall nice quality for all components
  • Aesthetics – Nice art/graphic design across the player boards/cards
  • Rules – Small rule set / well-written rule book
  • Insert – Lets you keep the cauldrons assembled and keeps them in place
  • Variable player powers help replay value
  • Smooth gameplay; simultaneous nature works well with mechanics
  • You can really feel your engine ramp up as you play and have more recipes that may feed off each other, or just bombard your neighbor with too much of a single color

CONS

  • Very easy to run out of cubes at 5 players; Supply is not limited, but it’s inconvenient to go and find something else to use
  • Reference cards have the arcana track on the back, so you can’t actually reference them, which seemed weird to me. I wish the arcana tracks had been made part of the player boards
  • No reference cards for the arcana effects
  • Luck – Bad card draws can really hurt; see this mostly at 2 players where you have to keep passing the same hands back and forth, with not as much variety

Final Thoughts

I love a good spooky-themed game this time of year, and this one is a hit! The aesthetics are on point with the adorable cauldrons, it really helps you get into the theme, and alongside the art and colorful player boards, it looks nice on the table.

The game does have a few hiccups for me, as I mentioned above, but the overall smooth gameplay and fast-paced nature still lets this one stand out. It’s really entertaining to fill up your cauldrons more and more each round and try to improve your engine!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating: 8/10
Designer – Erik Andersson Sundén
Artists – Luis Francisco, Weberson Santiago
Publisher – Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
MSRP – $39.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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