Truly original games are hard to come by. Dungeon games are a dime a dozen. World conquest games come in so many flavors, it’s hard to keep them straight. Battle simulations, dice games, Euros – sometimes it feels like there are no original ideas left.
And then you break out Wicked Witches Way, from Asmodee US. I concede that I have not played as many games as a lot of people, but I have played thousands, and I have never played anything like Wicked Witches Way.
The first thing that strikes you about Wicked Witches Way is the box. Where general game convention gives us a standard lift-top box, Wicked Witches Way comes in a hinged box with a latch. The box opens into a two-compartment tray with an illustrated flap that covers one side at a time. It’s a beautiful box, too – the art is spectacular, and you may find yourself wanting to make the purchase just because the game will look so cool on the shelf.
The box contains nine wooden dice, but instead of pips or numbers, there are weird symbols on every die. Lightning bolts, eyes, ears, stars, spiders, webs, storm clouds and more – a total of nine black different symbols, either black or orange, show up on the dice.
Then you’ve got cards. Each player has a deck of cards matching the symbols on the dice, and there is also a deck of special cards that let you take extraordinary actions. These extra cards feature elaborate, full-color illustration like you would only expect from a company with standards as high as Asmodee.
Stand-up cardboard figures and a smallish board round out the contents, along with a fully-illustrated rules manual. Everything in the box (including the box) is lovingly illustrated and fun to see.
Pretty pieces, however, do not make a game original. Any more, for a game to stand out based on aesthetics, it would almost have to be ugly. No, what makes Wicked Witches Way original is all about the rules.
Turns work as follows.
1) Someone rolls all the dice into an open tray of the game box. Remember how it has that flap in the middle? Once one of the players thinks he has memorized enough of the dice, he flips the flap and hides the dice.
2) Each player concocts a magic formula by choosing symbols among his or her nine cards, and places those cards face down.
3) The flap is flipped again, and the dice are examined. Some rules are applied to remove some of the dice, and then players compare their formulas to the symbols still showing in the box. These are complex enough to make you read the rules, but are easy to grasp once you play a couple turns.
4) Players move forward on the track according to how many cards match the symbols in the box, with two major exceptions. First, if you have a card showing that isn’t a symbol on a die that’s still legal, your witch falls off her broom and you don’t move. Second, if you can match all the legal dice in one color, you have a perfect formula, and get a bonus.
There are a few more rules. A perfect black formula nets you those special cards; perfect orange gets you a 2-move boost. The player in the lead cannot get the bonus for the perfect formula, because the lead witch is cursed. And just winning the race is not enough to win – players score victory points for coming close, and they can use aerobatics cards to boost their VPs and steal victory from the race’s winner. Usually the first place is the winner, but not always.
The game is not complicated, though it takes some time to explain. It is, however, slightly frenetic. Once the dice are dropped in the box, everyone gets to examine them until one player feels confident enough to flip the flap. During those few seconds (or longer, if your players don’t have sharp memories), silence reigns as everyone stares into the box, trying to burn the images into their minds. There is almost a collective groan when one smarty-pants flips that flap, and then a scramble to find the right cards before you forget what you saw.
Wicked Witches Way oozes cool. The art is magnificent, the packaging is very unique, and the play mechanic reminds me of nothing else I’ve ever played. You can finish a game in 30 minutes, and 10-year-olds can compete against adults. It’s an incredibly fun game, and as far as I can tell, one heck of an original idea.
Style: 5 – This would be 6, but 5 is as high as it goes. The box alone earns 5 for style.
Substance: 4 – Not terribly deep or complex, Wicked Witches Way challenges the players and is just a ton of fun.
|
