Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 29/Apr 04:54

Wispwood – Board Game Review

As we are huge fans of fantasy video games, books, and other media, Wispwood immediately caught our attention ever since it was announced. We loved the board game’s overall aesthetic, and the very cute cat designs and colorful wisps convinced us even more that this game would probably be our thing. Thanks to Czech Games Edition, we were able to try out Wispwood. After quite a few play sessions, we are ready to present you with our opinion of this adorable fantasy-themed puzzle game that has quite a few strategic components. Contents 160 Wisp / Tree tiles 25 Unique goal cards 6 Adorable cat tiles 1 Pond center 4 Pond edges 1 Starting player paw 8 Firefly tokens (for solo play) 4 Grid guides 1 Scoring pad 1 Rulebook The contents of Wispwood look very cute and truly fit the game’s theme. The wisp tiles have such cool designs, and there is a lot of variety even within the same wisp types, which shows everything was designed with care. The cat designs are also extremely cute, and all other pieces have matching designs that truly turn the entire package into a beautiful whole. The trees look a bit more simplistic, but we didn’t mind this at all. The components themselves feel very solid and sturdy, which also ensures that the game will last a lot of gaming sessions before wear and tear will start to affect them. The cards are the only item that may look a bit more like standard ‘play cards’, as there was a bigger focus on clarity, so players could properly read the goals for the game. Mechanics Wispwood is all about building a very welcoming forest for your wisps. This means that it’s your goal to choose wisps from the pond to fit in your forest over the course of three rounds. The person who scores the most points by aiming for the goals on the goal cards will become the winner. The offset is very simple here, as in each round you’ll be restricted by a grid size (round 1: 4×4, round 2: 5×5, round 3: 6×6), and each player will have to take turns choosing wisps from the pond together with their corresponding shape. The shapes are always marked next to the chosen wisp tile, and you’ll have to stick with the allowed grid size for the round. Luckily, you can take other actions to fill up the gaps in your forest or to refresh the offering of wisps in your pond. Up to four players can play Wispwood, but there’s also a dedicated solo mode. We found the game to be fairly straightforward after going through the rules once, even though there are quite a few components to keep track of. You’ll have to keep track of your grid size for each round, the position of your cat tile, knowing when to refresh the wisps in the pond, when to take a tree turn (here, you don’t choose a wisp and place up to three tree tiles instead), and so on. Then there’s also some strategy, where you have to aim for which goal cards are most interesting for your forest, and then you’ll also need to pick wisps with the right shape next to them. These shapes are basically the same as tetronimoes, so you’ll be playing a Tetris-like puzzle game to create the forest for your chosen wisps. As mentioned above, Wispwood also has a solo mode. The solo mode still plays fairly similarly to the regular mode for the active player, but it feels a bit more like a race against time. The ‘ghost’ player’s cat will go around the pond via the firefly tokens, which highlight how many wisps the ghost player can see. Then, their cat will move clockwise around the pond, choosing the highest-scoring wisp within that range. The ghost player does not have to place any trees or make shapes; they will simply have to collect wisps to score points. It’s a fun, simple, dedicated solo mode that is easy to set up and a great alternative when you just want to play Wispwood without having to plan a board game night. We personally love it when game designers add single-player options as well, because it helps ensure their game doesn’t end up on a shelf, never to be used. Wispwood also comes with a dedicated scoring app, which does make it easier to figure out the scores or to compare them to the ones you’ve jotted down to make sure no mistakes were made. The app works well, but the tiles are a bit reflective, so if you have bright lights shining on them, it may take a few moments for the app to recognize all the tiles. That being said, the app would be better if you could fill in player numbers, as sometimes we saw other players’ fields from the previous rounds for certain players when checking the current round results. That being said, for the most part, the app is a welcome and convenient tool. Luck or Strategy? While luck is certainly still part of the equation here, Wispwood is a surprisingly strategic game. You can plan several moves ahead, you have the option to flip your cat tile to refresh the wisps in the pond or to fill up gaps for extra points, and you are simply building your board as you choose. You’ll of course need to have some luck with the available wisp tiles around the pond, and hope that they are not swiped away by one of your opponents. But even then, there are still options to plan different moves thanks to the different goal cards you can work on. Properly thinking about your next move(s) is really the way to go here. Conclusion Wispwood was a very fun and accessible board game that we can see becoming an easy go-to game for game nights for both inexperienced and veteran board game players. We loved the general aesthetic, and the general gameplay mechanics were very entertaining too. It proved to be extremely satisfying when successfully scoring points with the goal cards while also building your cute little forest with wisps in it. The building component with the tetrominoes was an interesting and amusing gimmick that put our brains to work. If you’re looking for a game that’s suitable for all types of players to impress with at your next board game night, or if you want to play solo to wind down, we can easily recommend Wispwood.