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alobearYesterday, Dave and I were in Oxford, so we decided to book a three-hour slot at the lovely board games cafe, Thirsty Meeples. As we were browsing the game library shelves, one of the people who worked there came over to offer some advice. We talked about the types of games we like, what length/complexity of game we were looking for, and he gave us three or four recommendations and offered to teach us one of the games.
But I'd already picked up Spellbook, just because I liked the art style on the box, so we disappointed the poor guy by not choosing any of his recommendations and relegating him back to the snack counter, where he looked very bored for the next few hours...
In Spellbook, you collect little tokens called Materia, which you can use to learn more spells or power up your familiar to gain points. At the start, your actions are very limited - take a specific Materia from the Altar or draw two at random from the Vortex Pouch (I loved the swirly design on this!), and store Materia on your familiar disk.
Once you collect enough Materia of the right colour, you can 'learn' one of the spells on the set of cards laid out in front of you - and that gives you more actions you can do. There are three levels of spells on each card, which require 3, 4 or 5 Materia of the same colour to activate - and the higher level ones are usually more powerful (plus, when you have a high level one, you can also use any of the lower level ones beneath it, though you only get the end-game points for the ones you've specifically 'learned').
So, there's some strategy in deciding whether to get spells as soon as you can, or save up more tokens to get higher level ones later.
You can store a token on your familiar disk every turn, and you get more end-game points, the more tokens you have on there. The game also ends either when one player learns a seventh spell or when one player fills their familiar disk.
The first time we played, it seemed very difficult to actually get enough of the right tokens to learn spells (it's quite dependent on which colours you pull out of the bag, you have a limit of nine tokens you can hold, and there's no way to get rid of them from your pool, except putting one on the familiar each round). So, since I put a token on my familiar every round and Dave didn't, the game ended when I filled my familiar disk and I won by quite a few points.
The game was interesting enough that we wanted to give it another try, though, so we played again, with a different set of spells, and we were more balanced in our approach. We kept even with each other on the familiar disk (and certainly didn't each put a token on there every turn) and we focused more on saving up tokens to get higher level spells. The second spell set was also more interesting than the beginner set, so the game ended up being a lot more involved, it lasted longer, and our scores were more evenly matched (Dave won).
I quite enjoyed Spellbook - especially the second game - and I think it would be even more interesting if you randomise the spells sets so each player gets a different set. It would also be interesting with more players. But it's not a good enough prospect to tempt me to buy a copy and I've never seen it anywhere else, so it seems unlikely I'll get to play it again.
But I'd already picked up Spellbook, just because I liked the art style on the box, so we disappointed the poor guy by not choosing any of his recommendations and relegating him back to the snack counter, where he looked very bored for the next few hours...
In Spellbook, you collect little tokens called Materia, which you can use to learn more spells or power up your familiar to gain points. At the start, your actions are very limited - take a specific Materia from the Altar or draw two at random from the Vortex Pouch (I loved the swirly design on this!), and store Materia on your familiar disk.
Once you collect enough Materia of the right colour, you can 'learn' one of the spells on the set of cards laid out in front of you - and that gives you more actions you can do. There are three levels of spells on each card, which require 3, 4 or 5 Materia of the same colour to activate - and the higher level ones are usually more powerful (plus, when you have a high level one, you can also use any of the lower level ones beneath it, though you only get the end-game points for the ones you've specifically 'learned').
So, there's some strategy in deciding whether to get spells as soon as you can, or save up more tokens to get higher level ones later.
You can store a token on your familiar disk every turn, and you get more end-game points, the more tokens you have on there. The game also ends either when one player learns a seventh spell or when one player fills their familiar disk.
The first time we played, it seemed very difficult to actually get enough of the right tokens to learn spells (it's quite dependent on which colours you pull out of the bag, you have a limit of nine tokens you can hold, and there's no way to get rid of them from your pool, except putting one on the familiar each round). So, since I put a token on my familiar every round and Dave didn't, the game ended when I filled my familiar disk and I won by quite a few points.
The game was interesting enough that we wanted to give it another try, though, so we played again, with a different set of spells, and we were more balanced in our approach. We kept even with each other on the familiar disk (and certainly didn't each put a token on there every turn) and we focused more on saving up tokens to get higher level spells. The second spell set was also more interesting than the beginner set, so the game ended up being a lot more involved, it lasted longer, and our scores were more evenly matched (Dave won).
I quite enjoyed Spellbook - especially the second game - and I think it would be even more interesting if you randomise the spells sets so each player gets a different set. It would also be interesting with more players. But it's not a good enough prospect to tempt me to buy a copy and I've never seen it anywhere else, so it seems unlikely I'll get to play it again.
