“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. I (Mike) and my brother Marco had zero – nay – even less than zero expectations from a “cutesy puzzle match 3 roguelike”. But for whatever reason we decided to check it out together “on stream”. Well…
We were dead wrong
Witching Stone was an incredibly fun time for the both of us (we completed the demo). It is an incredibly unique, nuanced, and inspired game that’s obviously made with LOVE from the dev. I can’t explain it, man – but I’ll try.
So… How does it work?
Looking at pictures, you won’t really get it. But once you try it, you’ll get it immediately. You have to create a path to chain together the shapes to “match” your spells. For example if you look at the picture below “TTO” is Spark, and “DD” is Water Shield. If you somehow chain TTODD you’ll do both.
Essentially, the shapes are your “ingredients” for spells,
and you need the right ones in order!
You can only travel a limited amount of times on the board (which can be improved through upgrades) in an attempt to cast your spells.
So.. your “mana” is RNG?
Yes. And while that sounds horrible… it just isn’t. I can’t explain it but it really just isn’t. You have to make the best with what you have, and you can try your best eliminating useless shapes to setup future turns.
It gives you a reason to think, and remain engaged, and feel good about yourself whenver you hit it just right!
Power Ups & Customization
Like all roguelikes Witching Stone has some upgrades to make your run spicier!
Badges are a very very cool way to do this. Basically, any spell can have a couple badges attached to it to modify their behavior. For example:
- Barrage badge makes your spell AoE but also lessens its power.
- Giantslayer adds +1 Damage but ALWAYS targets the highest HP enemy.
- Old Shield simply adds +1 Shielding to the spell.
Each spell can have up to 2 badges, so you can see the potential for shenanigans here. Interestingly many badges have some kind of “downside”, or effect that you need to play around which really adds to the strategy of the game.
Aside from this you do have your basic shrine upgrades (very similar to the STS relics). Like additional “mana” per turn (movements to get shapes), or maximum HP up. Thankfully they aren’t ALL just basic stat upgrades and there are shrine upgrades that kind of affect the gameplay.
Unique Debuffs
While we usually expect the typical bleed or burn debuffs on us (and I’m sure they exist), what was a truly inspired design decision is that the ENEMY DEBUFFS YOUR SHAPES.
Yes, you heard it right. I saw a couple in our run. Enemies causing blocks to be unusable. A burn debuff which deals damage to you if you DO use that shape. Or Freeze one of my shapes (which I need to use up an adjacent shape to unfreeze it)
The boss also debuffed my SPELLS in the run. So every so often two of my spells would have “-2 effectiveness”. Pretty cool right!?
It’s like the developer really leaned into the core mechanic of the game –
and it became much more fun and memorable because of it.
Summary, Outro, Related Info & Links
Really, Witching Stone stole me and my brothers heart. It’s obviously crafted with love and care by the developer. I honestly CANNOT FATHOM how this guy just sat down and had the inspiration for this kind of gameplay system – It’s simple, but deep (the best kind of design).
I was really hesitant when I saw it – and my brother echoes this sentiment as well. But I thank whatever forces told us to push through because even just the demo brought me and my brother 30 minutes of joy. Do yourself a favor and check it out Witching Stone, and I hope our mini review helped you make that jump. As I said at the beginning… Don’t judge a book by its cover. Seriously watch our video linked just below and see how we enjoyed ourselves!
See our Witching Stone Video Review / Let’s Play / First Impression.
Check out all our other Reviews by the BRG Brothers.
Watch our YouTube Playlist: Reviews, First Impressions, Let’s Plays.
