Wispwood Board Game Review

Stats:
No. of players: 1-4
Amount of time to play: 45-60 min
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: 5 min

Wispwood is a tile laying board game that is easy to teach, accessible to a lot of gamers and looks great. It’s whimsical looks belie the thinky, puzzle board game that it is.

Wispwood Rules Description:

Wispwood is played over three rounds. In the first round you create a 4×4 grid of tiles. In the second it grows to 5×5 and for the last round the goal is 6×6. There are goal cards that give VPs based on the placement of four different wisp and tree tiles.

To begin you fill the pond with eight random wisps, put out five goal cards (one of each type) and take a cat marker. The backs of the tiles show a tree and are considered tree tiles. You take one tree tile and put your cat on it.

On your turn you take one wisp from the pond and add it to your grid. Each wisp space in the pond has two patterns (reminiscent of Tetris) next to it. When you place the wisp in your grid you must use an adjacent pattern. The wisp can be anywhere in the pattern and the rest of it is made up of tree tiles. You can use your cat to take a wisp and use any pattern in the pond. But when you do this you must flip your cat to its inactive side.

You can flip your cat to its active side by taking a tree turn. In addition flipping your cat you may take up to three tree tiles and place them in your grid. This can be helpful for filling in holes.

There is one other use for your cat. At the end of your turn, you don’t refill the wisps. If at the start of your turn there is only one type of wisp in the pond you may discard them and refill it. You can flip your cat to discard the wisps in the pond and refill it.

Once a player completes their grid play continues until the starting player’s turn. Each player gets an equal number of turns and then the round ends. Between rounds you score based on the goal cards and if you completed your grid. Then you may move your cat and remove any tree tiles from your grid. Wisps stay in their spots from round to round, you do not refill the pond and inactive cats stay facedown.

After three rounds of scoring you tally the points and the player with the most wins.

Quick Review of Wispwood:

Wispwood is a great looking, tile-laying game that is more thinky than it might seem on the surface. You need to think about what wisps will score you the most points and where to place them and the trees to not block future placements. It is easy to teach and accessible to a wide range of ages and gamers. You can even play it solo.

Like I said above, the game looks very nice on the table. The whimsical art might be misleading about the game’s depth, but it looks great. It even uses UV reactive ink which makes the game look even better under a black light. The rulebook explains everything well too. There is also a learn to play video from CGE.

Wispwood has lots of meaningful choices like which wisp to take, where to put it and which shape to place it with. Depending on the wisp and state of the game this decision could change. Is the wisp you want next to a shape you can place? Does that shape keep you from filling spots you might want for another wisp? Are you trying to fill your board and want a shape with more trees? Do you draft a wisp another player really needs?

Your cat can grant you flexibility for getting a wisp you want by refreshing the pond or for placing the shape you want by using any shape no matter where the wisp you took was in the pond. It is a nice wrinkle you can use to mitigate the randomness or the pond. And refreshing the cat is not hard. In fact taking a tree turn might even help you score for trees or fill in holes in your grid.

If you are looking for a fun tile-laying board game that looks great, is easy to teach and can be enjoyed by both casual and hard-core gamers, pick Wispwood up.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 3 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6