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In the cooperative game Witches of the Revolution, players lead covens of witches determined to see a fledgling nation achieve freedom from tyranny. They must recruit powerful allies, unleash potent relics, overcome menacing events, and ultimately fulfill four keystone objectives before time runs out. Witches of the Revolution combines history and fantasy, and offers a new take on the popular mechanic of deck-building. But today we’re going to talk about a feature critical for any tabletop game – replayability. A key to any game’s success is replayability. This goes doubly so for cooperative games. But it’s not just about repeating challenges in a different order – better games provide players a new and different experience in an established and familiar framework. The best games also include elegant options to suit the players (and their mood!). Let’s see how Witches of the Revolution accomplishes these tasks.
~ Objectives ~ In Witches of the Revolution, players can only win by completing four overarching Objectives before time runs out. There are four categories of Objectives, and four different Objective cards for each category. These 16 cards provide 256 different combinations. Just as importantly, each category’s set of Objectives vary in difficulty – an experienced (or confident) group could select the most challenging Objectives, while a group with some novice players could combine easier and harder ones. Of course, players can let fate decide, and choose randomly.
~ Events ~ The timer coaxing the players along is the Event deck. It’s comprised of 40 cards – eight types of Events, represented with five cards each. In the box, players will find 80 Event cards from which to choose. Half are marked as ‘Hard’, via a ‘blood splat’ in the lower-right corner. Players electing for a random assortment of Events will find 252 combinations for each of the eight Event types – yielding a staggering 16.2 quintillion Event combinations!
~ Blessings ~ In tough, cooperative games, players appreciate a “breather” or “ray of hope” moment. Blessings are cards seeded into the Recruit Deck. In a normal game, three Blessings are shuffled in – but to further tune difficulty, players can choose between zero and six. While the number of Blessings affects the feeling more than which Blessings show up, the order in which they appear (127 possibilities) affects the gameplay heavily. ~ Difficulty, a Replayability Barometer ~ During gameplay, the Liberty Track invokes certain game effects when it’s closer to ‘Tyranny’. At the end of the game, if the players have won, they receive a score letting them know how well they fared overall. A high score suggests the players weren’t especially tasked by the particular combination of cards and choices... whereas a low score (or loss) might suggest the need for easing the difficulty.
~ Adjusting Difficulty Towards More Replayability ~ Armed with a sense of how well they’ve performed, the players can set their next game to a more appropriate challenge level – be that easier, or harder. Adding or removing Blessing cards is a simple, but powerful way to alter the challenge level of the game. Choosing more or fewer hard Events is a finer proverbial knob to turn; further, selecting specific Events to include or exclude can make the game generally easier or harder, or specifically adjusted for you group’s play style. For example, if the group tends to be cautious about upgrading their covens too quickly, remove Events which restrict the number of Witch cards that can be used to overcome the Event (as starting Witch cards can rarely overcome these). If the group upgrades at a fast pace, consider removing Events which only allow starting Witch cards (called ‘Seekers’) and Relics to be used.
Working up to Objectives, they also range in difficulty – for example, the Enchanting/Channeling objectives “Depose the British Governor” and “Turn the Tide at Assunpink Creek” both require four Enchanting, but the former requires two Channeling while the latter three to complete. While one more Event may not seem like much, it means the Objective completion reward is received sooner, and/or more flexibility on choosing which Events to apply to which Objectives.
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