Gone Cardboard: Witch of Salem, Coming from Mayfair Games
In August or September 2009, Mayfair Games will release Witch of Salem, a Michael Rieneck design that was released by Kosmos in late 2008 under the title Der Hexer von Salem. While Rieneck is the designer, the name splashed across the top of the box is Wolfgang Hohlbein, a German author of science fiction, fantasy and horror who has written more than 200 books, including six in a series that goes under the umbrella title of Der Hexer von Salem. Here’s the game description from Mayfair:
Step back to early 20th Century New England. Here, the horrible “Great Old Ones” – mysterious inhabitants of a dark, unfathomable void – seek entry into our world. One of their imprisoned overlords gathers them, just as his worldly servants open portals throughout Arkham for the coming onslaught. Only Salem’s master witch, Robert Craven, holds the key to safeguarding mankind. He plans to gather a team of intrepid scholars to find the hidden portals and close them with powerful magic seals. The noble witch’s elite team must battle the threat of madness, duel the dark servants, tackle mystical challenges, and face their ultimate nemesis: an unidentified Great Old One with an unknown and incalculable strength.
In Witch of Salem, you step into the terrifying world of renowned storyteller Wolfgang Hohlbein, a mythos inspired by the tales of H. P. Lovecraft. You play one of the witch’s scholarly allies. Working cooperatively with your cohorts, uncover the secrets of the Necronomicon, combat creeping insanity, defeat the coming Evil, and bar the Great Old Ones from exiting the interdimensional abyss.
Yes, Witch of Salem is another entry in the recent wave of cooperative games. I’ve played once on the easiest level, and the tension felt among all the players was intense. We walked the edge of victory and failure from the midpoint of the game onward, finally crawling toward a win in the final moments before the world was doomed – only to be undone by a gate to another dimension that one player had forgotten to seal! Sorry for wrecking the Earth everyone.
Witch of Salem is for 2-4 players, ages 12 and up with a playing time of 60 minutes and a retail price of $50. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jun 22, 2009 at 09:00 PM in Game News, Game Announcements / 1733
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Yay! I’ve wanted this game since playing for the first time last Spring - think that was the same game you describe, Eric. And no, I wasn’t the player who forgot to seal the gate… pk Posted by Patrick Korner on Jun 22, 2009 at 10:39 PM | #
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The game description makes it sound like a revamp of Arkham Horror - I realize it won’t just be AH all over again, but how does it differ from AH? Because the theme/setting of AH appeals to me, but the implementation bores me. Posted by Eric Franklin on Jun 22, 2009 at 11:31 PM | #
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I agree with Eric above. I like the *idea* of Arkham Horror, but the few times I’ve played it have ended with an unsatisfying feeling (partly because of the length of time the games have taken, even with a few more experienced players in the mix). At this point, I’m not sure that I ever want to play AH ever again. If the playing time of Witch of Salem really is 60-90 minutes (after those first couple of learning games, of course), I would find this much more appealing in that respect. Posted by Russell Martin on Jun 23, 2009 at 06:11 AM | #
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I think my one game of this clocked in at 2 hours, including rules. So the 60-90 minutes on the box is pretty much on the mark. I’ve never played AH, but this game is pure Euro in terms of mechanics. On your turn, you play a location card to move somewhere. When you’re there, you fight a monster (if there is one) and then do something useful. Sometimes that’s picking up an item for later use, sometimes it’s using the items you have to peek at a gate (to verify it’s real and not a dud), etc. Once per round, the first player reveals a new monster who gets added to the board. Some of ‘em have special powers. All of ‘em have a twin in the deck - you don’t want to draw the twin because bad things happen. Once per round, the last player draws a card from a different deck. Sometimes this event is good, sometimes it’s bad. It’s always interesting. Fighting monsters and such is important because leaving too many of them around will drain your sanity. There’s also another progress track that forces you to lose the game if you (collective you) haven’t met certain conditions before it gets to a certain point. And finally there’s the big baddie. You don’t know which one you’re facing at the beginning of the game, but eventually you have to try and defeat it using the same items I mentioned previously. Each baddie has a different item combo needed for defeat, which means there’s a minor deduction element as you try and sort out which baddie you’ll be seeing. I liken this game to Ghost Stories, in that each manages to take some fairly ‘standard’ Euro play mechanics (draw cards, claim tokens, move around to different locations, roll a die) and wrap a very tense, very thematic ruleset/presentation around them. Since what you do each turn is so simple, it almost seems as though you have more time each turn to focus on the thematic bits - which ultimately leads to a more rewarding play experience. Just my opinion, of course. :) pk Posted by Patrick Korner on Jun 23, 2009 at 04:44 PM | #
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