Do you want early access to our giveaways? Do you want to read our reviews before your friends?
Join the COOL KIDS by subscribing to EverythingBoardGames.Com’s Email List Today!!
Quick Look: Which Craft?
Designer: William Kuniyuki
Artists: Roman Novikov
Publisher: Go For Broke Games
Year Published: 2023
Time is running out, an evil witch plans to curse your village! The villagers must figure out who is the Witch and capture her before it is too late, but can they figure out which craft is witchcraft?
Which Craft is a unique hidden role card game for 4 to 7 players, lasting from 10 to 30 minutes. Unlike many hidden role games, Which Craft does not have ‘nighttime’ mechanics. Throughout the game you will be able to keep an eye on your opponents, and narrow down the possible suspects. Additionally there is no player elimination!
Players take on the identities of various villagers, the Witch or her mischievous minion the Black Cat. The villagers must collect items related to their Craft so that they can prove themselves innocent and try to figure out who the Witch, while the Witch secretly gathers potions to unleash her curse upon the village!
Review:
Overview:
Which Craft is an easy to learn hidden identity social deduction card game. You play as a Witch, or a Witch’s minion, or a Villager. Either way, your goal is to collect a set of 5 cards for your character. The Villagers are trying to find the Witch and out her. The Witch is trying to stay hidden and then curse the Villagers. The game is fairly quick paced, and like most social deduction games, talking and banter is encouraged. Also like most social deduction games, the more players you have, the harder it is to guess who players are. Even if you are not a fan of social deduction games, I think you will like Which Craft because there are more actions than just social deduction. I think this is going to be one of my go-to games for social gatherings.
The rule book is a quad-fold single sheet of instructions (front and back), but it includes all the information needed to play the game. It describes the Witch and the Witch’s minion (Rat) and their objective. It describes the Villagers and their objective. Instructions are straightforward and concise, but the rule book includes expanded explanation of some rules and conditions.
The setup is quite quick and easy. Choose which characters will be in play (Witch, Villagers, Rat), then shuffle the character cards and deal one to each player. Shuffle the card types for the characters along with action cards and number of Coin cards (wilds). Deal each player a starting card and then put the draw pile in the center of the table. The starting player begins the game.
In Which Craft you play as either the Witch, or Witch’s minion, or a Villager. The Witch wants to curse all the Villagers, or get someone else to take the fall for being a Witch. The Villagers want to discover the Witch before she can curse them. If they can find her they can banish her from the village.
The general mechanic of the game is simply card based actions. Each turn you either draw 2 cards and discard 1 from your hand, then play all action cards, or you swap 1 card with another player. The additional mechanics are hidden identity and social deduction as discussed previously.
Which Craft is played over an indeterminate number of rounds. After the game is set up, players take turns drawing and discarding or trading cards to attempt to gather enough of the cards they need or determine what other players are gathering. On your turn, if you have enough of the cards you need you can reveal your character. Players can also call for a Witch Trial, accusing one of the players of being the Witch. If a majority of people vote yes, the player reveals their character. If they are the Witch, they lose, if they are a Villager, the Villagers lose.
The character cards include an icon of the type of cards that character wants. This makes it easy to identify which cards should be kept and which should not, even for younger players. And the items are dissimilar enough that you can’t really confuse one for another.
The need for a poker face. Some players just aren’t good at hiding their choices or decisions which makes it easier to guess who they are. Players who aren’t good at bluffing may still have fun with the game but may be frustrated by how easily other players guess who they are.
Do you find that you’re missing too many reviews as we drop them? Provide your name and email below and we’ll keep you in the know of what we reviewed that week as well as other hot news!!!!!
Thomas Shepherd- Reviewer
I grew up loving to solve puzzles, play games, and have fun. In my younger years I had fun playing pencil games, enjoyed the creativity of playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, and generally hanging out with others. My favorite thing to do was to make puzzles of all kinds, mazes, word games, picture games, etc.
Sadly my career took me in a different direction, solving computer problems rather than gaming problems.
Gaming came back into my life, though, in a big way about 15 years ago, and I have held onto it since. I still enjoy designing games and have 9 published titles, which I did through my own game publishing company, Toresh Games, prior to the Covid pandemic. Sadly I was not able to sustain the company through the pandemic.
I highly encourage people to play games, make friends, and have fun. As a game enthusiast, I would love to see a return to games as the best social media platform for the masses.
All of Thomas Shepherd’s reviews can be found HERE.