SpellBook Review

Gather materia and learn new spells. SpellBook has players racing to learn new spells and storing enough materia to feed your familiar. Each turn has 3 phases. During the morning, you can select 1 materia from the board or draw 2 blindly from the bag. Then at midday you can store 1 for your familiar. Finally, at night you can spend what you have to learn a spell. You learn spells by spending a certain amount of a single color. Each spell has different levels that are more powerful and score more points at the end but they are more expensive. After you learn a spell, you unlock new abilities that can be done during the different phases of your turn instead of the aforementioned. Then you draw a materia and add it to the board or refresh depending on the amount. The game ends when a player has learned their 7th spell or if they have fully filled their familiar board. Then score points and the highest score wins.

The Good: With most Phil Walker-Harding games, you can expect a streamlined design and an easy set of rules. The way that the game opens up when you start to learn spells is really well designed. Starting off with a small set of actions and then being able to tune into stronger ones makes a huge difference to the game. Each spell set has 3 different types so there are tons of combinations that you can use in the game instead of playing the same set every time. There's a lot of different strategies that can be used in this game. You can go heavy into spells or try and race to fill your board for big points before anyone else can.

The Okay: It's a bit of a slow burn at the start of the game. Since you only get one or two materia at a time means it may be a while before you learn your first spell. Especially if your strategy calls for filling your familiar board first. Of course, there's spells that can expedite this for you so maybe focus on those as well?

The Not So Good: This only happens one time but man I hate peeling acrylic stickers. There's a lot of chits and they all have one that needs peeled. The grind to actually get the materia you want can be a nuisance. Especially if you're banking for big point spells. Drawing blind is pure luck and picking one (assuming that there is one) can feel like a slog at times.

Final Thoughts: Spell Book was a game that I honestly knew nothing about. I'm always intrigued by a PWH game so that was an immediate draw. I'm happy to say that this did not disappoint. There are plenty of choices and planning ahead throughout the game. While there isn't much player interaction, there is enough mechanically to keep you involved the whole time. This is a game that I would happily play with anyone.

Thanks to Asmodee and Space Cowboys for providing a review copy.