How To Play Hocus Pocus Board Game

I really should like this game. I have my 50th anniversary Disneyland hat, my Castaway Cay 5k medal, and my Kungaloosh! pivot right next to my estimator equally I write this recap of our contempo plays. Disney Villainous is even so i of my favorite three thespian games.

Designed by the ability business firm Prospero Hall team? My wife'southward favorite Halloween movie? Great art inspired by the film? Check, bank check, bank check, and Holy Marceline, Batman, I'm in.

Just did Hocus Pocus cast a spell on us? Was information technology potent, strong, strong (so strong!)? Let'due south find out.

Disney's Hocus Pocus Menu Game is a 2020 game from Ravensburger designed by Prospero Hall, with gorgeous fine art from Ann Marcellino (no relation to Walt'south home town, equally far equally I can find.) It is geared for two to six players, sold at Target then information technology is marketed for newcomers to the hobby and veterans alike, and plays in about 30 minutes.

GAMEPLAY:

In Hocus Pocus, players volition work cooperatively to "stun" the Sanderson Sisters, witches who take come to terrorize your town by stealing all of the footling children so that they can live forever. We've snuck into the house where the Sisters have a big cauldron brewing up the potion they demand. Players will drop ingredients (suits) from their paw of cards, and if they can ever go all of the colors or ingredients in the cauldron to match, so that witch is stunned for the next round and cannot cast spells. Stun the Sisters three times earlier the ingredient deck runs out to win.

The ingredient cards are necessary to stun, but they can also assist and injure yous in other means. If a player plays a carte du jour with our quondam friend Binx the cat on them, that'south good, because at present yous tin can play your hand face up during the round. (The balance of the time, players cannot reveal their hands, and are only allowed to inquire 1 generic question during their turn, things like "Does anyone at the table have green cards?") But, if they play whatsoever cards that take a spell book on them, so the witches retaliate by playing a spell — and almost all of them are bad.

PRODUCTION:

If y'all have never seen the 1993 moving-picture show starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy, some of the artwork and jokes in this game volition be lost on you, but I think you volition still capeesh the care that Ravensburger and Prospero Hall put into the product. The box itself has a hinged lid that opens upwardly like the spell book from the motion-picture show.

In that location are ii decks of cards, a larger one with the colors and ingredients, and a smaller one with the spells. The larger one has serviceable art with the ingredients, but the smaller one has outstanding art inspired by the movie, with archetype lines from the characters as fluff text on the cards. The rule volume is relatively brusque, and it is very well done and clear and concise with the instructions.

The game too comes with a fold out large cauldron that looks like a gumbo pot ready for some roux, and a small-scale board to track the stunnings you lot give to each of the Sanderson sisters. It includes a pocket-size time tracker cardboard token for players to move to the early morn sunrise, every bit well as my favorite bit in the box: a absurd little Binx cat meeple that has downright spookily painted optics.

All in all, this is a great product specially for the price. You can regularly find this game hovering effectually $15-20 at Target, and that's a skillful deal for what is in the box. I wish the game'southward card decks were not so plasticy in feel, as they tended in our box to stick a lot until we had at to the lowest degree a half dozen games under our belt, and even and so, they felt a little besides close to a mass market game than I'd similar.

Simply IS IT ANY FUN?

The premise of the game is easy to teach, particularly if your friends accept seen Hocus Pocus, the movie. Information technology's Halloween night, the Sanderson sisters are hell bent on scooping all of the children so they can survive 2020 and meet what'southward on the other side, and it's our job to stun them three times. That should be a compelling theme for newcomers and vets alike, an incantation that should exist easy to cast and powerful in its furnishings.

Only something happened inbetwixt starting the spell and casting it successfully.

I'll acknowledge that at that place's a lot to like. The artwork on the spell cards are playful representations of the three witches with various poses and fluff text that call to mind funny scenes in the picture. The box is cute and looks good on your shelf, looking like the actual spell volume from the motion picture consummate with tentacle.

And drama and tension be in the game. When players practise stun a sister, either but moving closer to the sunrise or winning the game outright, that moment creates high five excitement that is very, very satisfying. The inclusion of the four bonus action tiles, that tin can only exist used once during the game, feels like a lot of assistance early on, until the backs of the tiles cruelly stare up at the players in the third round from use. Each time players have to determine to employ one of the action tiles feels similar an important moment.

And best yet, the game is challenging. It is non a curlicue over. Players volition have to utilize every tile, every lucky draw on a spell, every well timed question that leads to a double move in the cauldron for the win.

So aye, the game is challenging and thematic and well produced, and should be right up my alley for all those reasons and more. But, sadly, this spell misfires for me, spitting out little fizzly roman candle balls rather than cute emanations of light and majesty. Even though I kept playing the game at play counts of two, three and four players (with COVID-19 still around at the time of writing, that's the all-time we could exercise) until I won, information technology was more about wanting to add together a notch in the win column rather than enjoying the experience per se.

That being said, the puzzle of the game chipped away at my initial blasé attitude little by trivial each time we picked up the box. While I don't think a game aimed at a mass market segment, but nonetheless with plenty gameplay to keep hobby gamers interested, should need that long of a head get-go before crossing the finish line, I appreciate the fact that the game has been growing on me later on each play, just at the terminate of each game, win or lose, I felt like I was completing tasks rather than enjoying a game. I wanted to win, but I never felt invested in the game play, a very unusual feeling for me.

And I may exist the curmudgeon here. My wife loved the game, really enjoying the fight that the strongest sister, Winnie, inevitably puts up in the third circular every time we get close to winning. Maybe it's because she loves the motion-picture show more than me? The schoolhouse game grouping enjoyed the game, besides. Maybe it's me? I don't think so — I think for me it is because cooperative, hidden data card games have to really do something special after I played The Crew so many times over the last year. Where The Crew shined in giving players short bursts of satisfying game play every bit y'all run through each play a joke on level, Hocus Pocus has a few rounds where the stun happens quickly, but many more rounds where it takes a lot longer due to the effect of one of Winifred'southward spells or a lack of bachelor cards in player's hands.

So, here it is. Disney'southward Hocus Pocus Card Game is a well produced, streamlined, nigh elegant cooperative game with a swell rulebook and the right play time and difficulty level. If playing cooperative menu games where each histrion has to deduce what the other players are doing and apply those deductive skills to play cards to the cauldron efficiently to win sounds like something bonny to you, take a wait at Hocus Pocus. And yeah, if you like the IP, by all ways give the game a try.

But do not be surprised like I was if you detect that the game itself feels equally satisfying every bit watching but the middle reel of a movie like Hocus Pocus: y'all volition eventually effigy out what is going on, but yous might non be emotionally invested in the outcome.

Until next fourth dimension, laissez les bon temps rouler!

— BJ @boardgamegumbo

Source: https://boardgamegumbo.wordpress.com/2020/11/01/hocus-pocus/

Share this post