Game Trade Magazine - GTM #169 - The Witches, A Discworld Game

GTM #169 - The Witches, A Discworld Game

Reviewed by Jane Trudeau-Smith & Philip Smith

Hi! It's Jane and Phil here, again, from The Table for Two Show. This month we are reviewing The Witches, which is based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld book series. If you have read any of the 40 books, you may recognize some characters in this game. We review games from the two-player perspective and The Witches is a nice fit, since it is for one to four players. Here, we are using five criteria to rate the game, scoring 1 to 5 (5 being the best), like we do on our show.

Is the game easy to learn? We gave this game a 4! The rulebook is 12 pages; however, on the first page it says, “Please do not be daunted by the number of pages in this rule book. This game itself is not too complicated, but there are a number of situations that may occur where rules need to be clearly expressed.” The game is easy to learn, even though you may need to refer to the rulebook to clarify some situations. We learned how to play in less than 10 minutes, which is great when you have a busy life and just want to get playing!

How is the manufacturing of the game? Let's just say “It’s a Mayfair Game.” The board is beautiful, the pieces are sturdy, even the rulebook and box are high quality. We gave The Witches a 5!

Did we enjoy this game? More than we thought we would… We gave it a 4! You play a witch in training. The goal is to collect the most points by solving “Problems” while moving your witch around the board. It felt like The Witches was geared toward younger folks – no longer our “age group” – but we were curious. It surprised us… We loved it!

To begin, each player chooses one of four witches, which of course are all women. Likewise, Phil had to choose a female character he would play (awkward! ha ha). Each witch possesses a special ability that can be used at any time during the game, but only once. For your witch, you have a pawn on the board, and a corresponding display card where you track your problems solved, and points received. On the board are different locations where “problem tiles” are placed – there are “Easy” problems and “Hard” problems. Each player starts his or her witch on a location without a problem tile. The rules suggest solving Easy problems first, to gain power to solve the Hard ones later. We both followed that strategy. Each player starts with a hand of three playing cards, with the rest in a draw pile. The cards give you special benefits and powers to solve problems as you move around the board. Game play is quite easy:

On a players turn they draw a card from the draw pile to place another problem tile in a location – each card includes a location. If a problem already exists in that location, it gets a “crisis counter” instead, which increases the difficulty rating to solve it.
A witch may be moved one or two “connections” (paths) to different locations. If you land on a problem tile, you try to solve it by beating its difficulty rating. You first roll two dice. If you meet or exceed the rating, you have solved the problem. If not, you may play Magic or Headology Cards from your hand to increase your die roll, and then roll 2 more dice to continue trying to succeed. If you will think you will fail after rolling only the first two dice, you may “run away.” You have to be cautious about using Magic Cards – playing them earns you Cackle Counters, which eventually lead to Black Aliss counters, which take points away from you at the end of the game. If you succeed, you keep the problem tile and gain points. If you fail, you have to retreat and take a Cackle Counter. Hard problems can cause you additional harm: This is where you’ll refer to the rulebook for “what happens if…” scenarios. As you solve problems, you earn benefits like extra points toward solving future problems, and the ability to hold more cards in your hand.
You may then repeat the above action – for a total of two move actions
Last, you draw up to your hand limit
Game ends one of three ways:
- When all problem tiles have been placed – whomever has the most points wins
- If all crisis counters have been placed on the board – NO ONE WINS!
- There are three or more elves tiles (specific problems) on the board at the end of a players turn – NO ONE WINS!

In our case, Phil won this game, but we had a great time trying to make sure we did not both lose while trying to beat each other!

How was the length of play? It took us under 90 minutes to play, including learning how to play. That is a great time for us with our busy schedules, so we gave the timing a 5!

Lastly, would we play this game again? The answer is YES! Even though Phil had to play a female witch, we both really enjoyed this game and recommend it. We gave that a 5!

From the Table for Two Show, we give The Witches 23/25! This is almost a perfect score. Go out and get a copy to try! Look for more reviews in GTM to come and watch our show at www.tablefortwoshow.com!