❥ Whirling Witchcraft
2 - 5 players
15 - 30 min
Age: 14 +
Weight: 1.88/5
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
As a witch you are busy with powerful magical ingredients, but you can also use so much power that everything explodes in your face. So choose your recipes wisely and try to flood other witches' cauldrons with ingredients to win!
In Whirling Witchcraft, each player gets a player board, cauldron, and a personality card (1 or 2). In your hand you get four recipe cards and in addition you get the number of ingredients listed on the personality cards. You place these on the corresponding spaces on your player board. Each round is played in two phases, the study phase and the brew phase.
Study phase
In this phase, each player plays 1 recipe card from their hand and reveals it. Some recipe cards have icons that can give you special effects such as removing two ingredients from your player board.
Brewing phase
In this phase you will play recipe cards. At the top of the card you place the ingredients from your player board. These are brewed to the ingredients listed below. Place these ingredients in your cauldron and pass them on to the player on your left. This player must put the ingredients on his player board.
You only have limited space for ingredients on your player board. There may be no more space for the ingredients you've been given. The player who gave you his or her cauldron gets the excess received ingredients back and may place them in his or her Witch' Circle. Then you play a new round with the study phase and the brewing phase. The first player to collect 5 ingredients in the Witch's Circle wins the game!
❥ My Thoughts
I really like the artwork and theme of Whirling Witchcraft. It's a game that really surprised me, partly because of the mechanics in the game. The cauldrons are very nicely designed and also fit perfectly back into the box. What I like about the game is that it is a kind of race, you try to collect 5 or more ingredients in the Witch's Circle as quickly as possible. In addition, there is a lot of interaction in the game, you play simultaneously and you pass your cauldron to the player to your left.
You can make combinations on the recipe cards to cross each other and saddle up with ingredients. Nice twist, the goal is to flood your opponent's stock of ingredients to be able to win yourself. I played the game with two players and it lasted about 10 minutes. Because it plays very smoothly, it is fun to play several games in a row. There is of course also a bit of luck in the game with the ingredient cards, if another player always gives you a certain color of ingredients and you don't have a recipe card to get rid of it.. That can sometimes be annoying.
I've really become a fan of Whirling Witchcraft! In short: a smooth game where you have player interaction which is perfect to play with your family. In addition, it is also perfect to play with people who don't play games often or are still unknown in the game world.
Alderac Entertainment Group provided this review copy.