I took a longer lunch break today and now have to pay for The Reaper by staying after work. Luckily, I spent my penance playing the Witching Stone demo, which applies the magic of shape-matching to the magic of, well, magic. It’s a pixel art charmer releasing on September 16 that “combines elements of puzzle games, roguelites and deckbuilders” just as you would combine a red circle and two gold triangles to create a bolt of lightning.
The setup: You are an anime sorceress exploring a node-based dungeon map. Some junctions house treasure chests, campsites and retailers. Others cause battles, which are turn-based affairs. Instead of just choosing Firaga from a menu, you have to string together the resources on the grid below the battling characters.
Each spell requires a different mix of shapes, and while you can cast several at once, you can only draw a line through a certain number of squares per turn. Firing a spell also removes those shapes from the grid, causing others to fall from above. So in addition to selecting the optimal sorcery, try to clear out unwanted shapes and set up combinations for your next turn.
If you’ve ever played Capcom’s glorious Puzzle Quest games or Puzzle Fighter series, you’ll find this all very intuitive. Just like in Puzzle Quest, there is a progression system. In this case it involves expanding your spellbook and customizing your spells. For example, the Giant Slayer mod makes your lightning bolt deal more damage, at the expense of always aiming for the strongest opponent. Even based on the 15 minutes I played, it feels like there’s room for some chilling concoctions, and what’s a witch that doesn’t deal in chilling concoctions? A sham, that’s what it is. A shame.
All in all, this was worth hanging around after five hours because… find the demo on Steam. In general, I’m always in favor of sorcery in video games that involves actually collecting spells – it stops them feeling like weapons. If you hate grid puzzles and prefer a real-time incarnation of it all, let me put three squiggly blue diamonds together to create a Hex Of Greater Displacement and lead you towards Magicka.