Pros
- +
A tough challenge
- +
Charming art style
- +
Snappy, clever gameplay
Cons
- -
Perhaps a bit TOO hard
Recommended reading
Hocus Pocus board game review: "A difficult but fun challenge to overcome"
(Image: © Ravensburger)
A tough challenge
Charming art style
Snappy, clever gameplay
Perhaps a bit TOO hard
Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Find out more about our reviews po✅licy.
Players: 2 - 6
Ages: 8+
Difficulty: Hard
Game type: Cooperative
Time to set up: 2 minutes
Time to play: 30 minutes
Average price: $20 / £25
Much like the movie's Sanderson sisters, this Hocus꧒ Pocus board game may feel a little out of place. The film came out back in 1993, after all. However, that hasn't dulled its charm. This is a fun cooperative 𒅌experience with more than enough challenge to keep you entertained, and it will most definitely put a spell on anyone wanting a fast but engaging experience.
Based on the classic movie (now available on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Disney Plus, incidentally), the Hocus Pocus board game challenges you to banish all three Sanderson sisters by dawn. How? By brewing up a potion, naturally. You'll concoct your sp🙈ecial brew on a game board shaped like a cauldron, and you'll need to fill all five slots with ingredients of the same color or type to p♊rogress. Do so to stun one of the three witches and move your victory marker closer to sunrise. Stun a witch three times and you win - dawn arrives and they're defeated.
As is only right, this recipe will call for some suitably disg🌃usting ingredients; we're talking everything from dead man's toe to 'oil of boil' (gross). However, the art-style isn't as nasty. It's cartoon-like and characterful without being overly sweet. In other words, the Hocus Pocus board game is perfect if your vibe is 'spooky yet cute'.
Don't think it's exclusively a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:board game for kids, though. This thing is hard. Much harder than it seems, anyway. We playౠed it a few times in a row in the runup to Ha💟lloween and lost most of those matches.
That's because you can't communicate with your teammates about which ingredient you're going to put down. For the most part, you can't even show them what ingredient cards you have in your hand. Instead, you're allowed to pose one siꦫmple question at the start of your turn - you can ask if someone has a specific color or type of ingredient.
To make things trickier, this question can only be answered with a simple yes or no. That makes forming a game plan about which cards to prioritise tough,🦹 especially when your allies might accidentally undo your h🔴ard work building a set of ingredients by covering your cards with their own.
The result is an experience that deserves to be on everyone's list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best cooperative board games; it forces you to approach things differently and is 🌊much more engaging as a consequence.
You'll also need to be flexible and pivot fast if things go wrong. You see, you'll lose the Hocus Pocus board game if you use up all the ingredients from the deck. Basically, you can't afford to make many mistakes - that will waste your stock of ingredient cards, a🎉nd it's game over if they run out entirely.
As I discovered, losing is all too easy. This is due to the fact that certain ingredients cast a spell when played. Some of these curses remove ingredients from the board💝, while others discard cards from the ingredient deck itself. In otheꦿr words, they're brutal.
The only 🦄reprieve is stunning a witch and stopping them from casting their magic in the first place. Certain sisters have more powerful spells, so taking out specific ones becomes a priority. You've just got to hope the other players cotton on to which sister you're targeting.
The Hocus Pocus board game never feels unfair, though. Rather than blami꧋ng the mechanics, our losses could always be chalked up to our own mista𒊎kes or plain bad luck.
Plus, you do have some tricks of your own. Namely, you have single-use tokens inspired by events from the film (like the 'burning rain of death') that give you a m🅠uch-needed advantage. Equally, certain ingredients activate Binx the cat - secretly a boy from 1693 cursed to wander Salem as a talking moggy - when used. This allows you to play with your hand of ingredient cards face up, or let another player do so. It's not much, but it'll give you the edge you need.
That's what kept us coming back to the Hocus Pocus board game;🧔 it's a difficult but fun challenge to overcome, and the perfect compani🅺on to the movie itself.
I've be🌠en writing🗹 about games in one form or another since 2012, and now manage GamesRadar+'s tabletop gaming and toy coverage. You'll find my grubby paws on everything from board game reviews to the latest Lego news.
