Review – Witchery Spell by DarkPark
Website Link – https://www.darkpark.com/en/
Price – $68.21 (currently on sale for $51.42 as of 6/19/2022)
Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own.
The Product:
Witchery Spell by DarkPark Games will have players seeking to help out a coven of young witches. One of their members has recently gone missing and they need the help of a nonwitch to figure out what has happened and to protect the rest of them as well. Players will search through artifacts, uncover an ancient ritual, and race to protect the endangered coven.
As DarkPark Games’ second at-home puzzle game, Witchery Spell hopes to immerse players in an escape room-like experience. The game is advertised for 1-4 players and is built to take between 2-4 hours to complete (As a pair of two, we finished in about 2 ½ hours). An internet connection is required in order to access websites needed to progress through and complete the game.
Depending on your family’s opinions and comfort level with witchcraft and the occult, this game can be seen as appropriate for teenagers and older.
Our Thoughts:
This is DarkPark’s second game, but since we went out of order, this was our third experience with one of their products (check out our archives to see our other reviews). We loved Never House, their most recent game, and enjoyed Conspiracy 19 as a first outing for DarkPark. We went in excited to see what the middle child brought to the table.
DarkPark clearly cares about their theming and immersion elements, and they once again stand out here. This game isn’t just about solving a mystery, but making players feel like they are truly taking part in the story being presented. Witchery Spell provides components and direction that go a long way into maximizing the players’ experience and hoping to create something memorable.
The components are all high quality and immediately set the correct feeling and tone for the game that should carry through until the conclusion of the experience. DarkPark does a wonderful job of selecting components and giving players a lot to interact with and explore.
A pretty package and story are great, but how good are the puzzles? Witchery Spell does a good job of incorporating the puzzles into their narrative. They feel organic and well-threaded into the experience. While we definitely had to put in some thought, few of the puzzles felt overly challenging. For us, the game captured a great feeling of flow as we almost consistently felt like we were figuring something out but never felt like the box was too easy. A few times we really had to think things over, but for the most part, the game felt very doable.
There is a decent variety to the puzzles provided, but to truly master this box, players will have to strongly rely on their observational and deductive skills.
The game’s websites create solid guides and regular enough checkpoints to be sure players know they are on the right track and correctly piecing together clues. The websites are well built for their purposes and are aesthetically pleasing as well.
Overally, we enjoyed Witchery Spell a lot. The narrative and immersion elements are where it truly shines. However, the puzzles do a good job of carrying players through the story and experience, while being fun as well. We’d recommend Witchery Spell to at-home puzzle lovers and anyone who wants to experience a little magic in their life.
* Now that we have played all three of DarkPark’s current offerings, we must say that we appreciate the care and growth that have gone into their products. If we had to put them in order enjoyability, we would place Never House first, followed by Witchery Spell, and then Conspiracy 19. All three games are very enjoyable, but this just proves to us that they keep getting better and we should watch out for whatever comes next.
Official C&C Rating:
Narrative: 4
Puzzles: 4
Overall Fun: 4
Total Averaged Score: 4
Chaos & Confetti 