Whirling Witchcraft is one of those rare games where the mechanics felt new! You start by taking a board, a cauldron, and one of the two personality cards you draw. The one you pick will have your starting ingredients on the back, which are colored cubes you take from the supply and place on their matching track of your board. There are nine spaces for Mushrooms, Spiders, and Toads, four spaces for Mandrakes, and three for Hearts of Shadow. That’ll be important later.
Some personality cards have recipes, while others have abilities. You’ll also draw a hand of four recipes from the deck. These will let you convert specific ingredients into others, some of which are a one way reaction, and some of which can go either! The personality card in the picture is the Spider Summoner, whose recipe turns three Mandrakes into five Spiders.
All players will pick and reveal the card they’re playing simultaneously. Players will then use the ingredients they have on their workbench to fulfill as many of their recipes as they want. You keep your recipes between rounds, so the further you are into the game, the more options you’ll have! The spent ingredients are returned to the general supply, while those produced are taken from the supply and set in that player’s cauldron. This is important because they aren’t actually going to keep them! Once all the recipes are done those ingredients will be passed to the right, and the next player over will have to place them on their tracks. If they run out of room, the rest of that color goes back to the player it came from, into their scoring circle! The result is what I call “ingredient homeostasis,” where you’re trying to have enough of an ingredient to use in your recipes, but little enough that your workbench doesn’t overflow.
But there’s more! When the cauldrons of ingredients pass to the right, the rest of your cards pass to the left, so you have to balance playing the recipes that help you most with not giving your opponent the ones most likely to hurt you. Some cards also advance your three Arcana tokens on your Arcana card. When the token lands on or passes an even number, you get to trigger its effect! The Potion arcana lets you add one ingredient of any type from the supply into your cauldron, while the Raven lets you remove two cubes from your workbench and the Book lets you pick a type of ingredient, and take all of that ingredient from the supply instead of your board when filling recipes for the turn.
Altogether, it’s an intricate balancing act, done while your friends are trying to trip you and you’re reciprocating in turn. The first person to accrue five cubes in their scoring circle wins! This game goes quickly, so there should be plenty of time to play again and try another character. Plus the boards are pretty!
