Old age comes to us all, I should know because as I fast approach my 40th year on this earth I've started to notice the unfortunate effects of ageing. While I am still in procession of a full head of hair, not one of which is going grey, my mind does appear on occasion to do stupid things and I am pretty sure my memory is not as good as it used to be. For me this effect appears to manifest itself in forgetting the name of an actor but if you're a mighty wizard that has spent their life studying the arcane arts, this forgetfulness can be a spot of bother, especially when you can't remember a particular spell during a magical battle with your peers.
This is the premise for Witless Wizards, a quick push your luck card game where you play an ageing sorcerer locked in battle against other OAP warlocks. You potentially have an arsenal of spells and magic items at your disposal, if only you could remember what they were.
Each turn you draw a card, which contains either a weapon, armour or a magic item. You'll then choose to either place one of these three artefacts onto your character or onto an opponent's. Placing the artifact removes the previous one, so the game is a balancing act between upgrading one of your own slots or downgrading an opponent's.
This decision, on its own, is pretty straightforward. However, once you've made this choice you have to draw another card but this time you have to play the card opposite to the first card you drew. So if you played the first card onto your self you HAVE to play the second card you drew onto an opponent and vice versa. Once you're drawn your second card you fire off an attack of magical energy at an opponent of your choosing hoping to blast them out of the competition.
This push your luck aspect, of trying to get a good card for yourself and a bad card for your opponents, can go horribly wrong, as you think you've gained an awesome weapon only to give you opponent a ridiculously powerful piece of armour. Weirdly a few of my friends really didn't like this aspect of the game, they hated that whatever decision you made on the first card draw dictated your actions on the second draw. To me this IS Witless Wizards and without this decision making you'd be left with a pretty bland magic battling game. The whole concept of the game is that its a gamble, and the fun of the game comes from either that gamble paying off or going wrong to the hilarity of all your opponents.
As you can no doubt tell, Witless Wizards is a very light affair, and you can get through a game in around 15 minutes. Throughout that short timeframe however, things are constantly changing which means that the game can feel very chaotic but also means that there's always something to pay attention to during your turn. Though I will admit that Witless Wizards is a bit too light for my current gaming tastes.
There's not really much else to say about Witless Wizards, as you can see its a cartoony and silly game that is quick, chaotic and can be fun, if not played with those who take their games too serious.
This Kickstarter preview is based on a prototype version of the game played at the UK Games Expo 2018.
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