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Witchcraft! Deep Dive
What the Community Thinks About Witchcraft!
Coverage of Witchcraft! from Salt & Pepper Games gathers around one shared reference point: Resist, the earlier solitaire game from the same design team of David Thompson, Roger Tankersley, and Trevor Benjamin. Beyond Solitaire framed the whole preview around that lineage, noting the hidden/revealed system carries over directly from Resist while the witch trial setting and jury persuasion track are new. Beyond Solitaire's look came from an early, unpaid preview build rather than a retail copy, and the channel disclosed a personal friendship with one of the designers rather than a sponsorship arrangement.
Where channels diverge is on how the two games stack up. Totally Tabled ranked Witchcraft! slightly ahead of Resist, calling it a little more winnable and forgiving while still praising both. One Stop Co-op Shop went further, preferring the witch theme outright and pointing to more variety in mission types than Resist offered. Board Games UnLocked took the opposite starting point, reviewing the game without ever having played Resist, and still landed on a strongly positive verdict, rating Witchcraft! a nine out of ten and singling out the dual-sided witch art as a highlight. Foster the Meeple's take sits closer to a warning than a complaint: the channel called the game one of the most challenging in a five-game solo collection and noted that other players have found it too punishing, even while keeping it as a personal favorite.
Core Mechanics That Define Witchcraft!
Hidden and Revealed Witch Cards
Every witch card in the coven has two faces, and reviewers consistently described the choice between them as the heart of the game. Totally Tabled explained that the hidden side carries less power or a weaker ability but returns the card to the discard pile for later reshuffling, while the revealed side unlocks a stronger effect at the cost of sending that witch to jail for the rest of the game. Board Games UnLocked framed this as deck deconstruction rather than deck building: players draft a coven at the start, then spend the game whittling that hand down rather than growing it, deciding turn by turn which witches are worth burning for their strongest effect.
Missions, Jurors, and Persuasion
Beyond Solitaire's preview walked through the mission structure in detail: players draw a hand of witch cards, use some of them to scout or manipulate face-down challenge cards before committing to a mission, then commit remaining witches to overcome that mission's power requirement. Success or failure raises or lowers the persuasion of specific jurors, and the game is lost outright if two missions are failed, if the villager losses pile reaches a set threshold, or if a player is forced to draw a curse with none left to give. Board Games UnLocked added that missions are grouped into three acts per juror and that the challenge deck is thematically tied to whichever jurors are in play, so players gather clues about what they are facing before it is revealed.
The Witchcraft! Experience
A Compact Box With a Real Bite
Several channels emphasized how much difficulty and variety Witchcraft! packs into a small footprint. Foster the Meeple counted roughly fifty-six different challenges along with varied jurors and witches, calling the game the meatiest of the small solo boxes in a five-game collection and noting it feels extremely challenging, sometimes to the point that other players have called it too hard. One Stop Co-op Shop echoed the density, describing the tactical play as great and the choices each round as intense despite the tiny package.
Freedom Within a Tight System
Board Games UnLocked highlighted how much control the structure still leaves in the player's hands. Because witches can be played for information before a mission is even chosen, a player can test a mission, discover it is unwinnable with the current hand, and pivot to a different one before committing. That same review noted the game never feels like blind topdecking, since revealing challenges and choosing missions can happen in either order depending on what a player wants to learn first.
What Makes Witchcraft! Stand Out
A Witch Trial Theme With Real Stakes
Reviewers who had also covered Resist consistently pointed to the new theme as an improvement rather than a reskin. Beyond Solitaire called the witch trial theming a really nice implementation and said that, given a choice between the two games, they would personally keep Witchcraft!. One Stop Co-op Shop stated plainly that they liked the theme better than Resist's, and Board Games UnLocked described the framing, where the coven must fight real monsters while still being feared and prosecuted by the villagers it protects, as a cool twist that the rulebook itself treats respectfully.
Dual-Sided Art That Sells the Twist
Board Games UnLocked called out the character art specifically, describing witches who look like ordinary villagers on their hidden side and transform into a distinct, more dramatic art style once revealed as a witch. The review pointed to specific characters, such as a traveling-merchant-looking figure who pulls out a skull-marked shield once revealed, as proof the dual-sided design carries real visual payoff rather than just a mechanical flip.
Potential Drawbacks
Table Hug and a Steep Early Learning Curve
Beyond Solitaire flagged that challenge cards can pile up across missions faster than a player can clear them, describing the resulting spread as a bit of a table hug. The same preview noted the early rounds can be genuinely difficult to parse, since a player does not know in advance how tough a mission's hidden challenges or a juror's conviction threshold will be until cards start flipping.
Punishing Draws Can End a Run Fast
Multiple channels acknowledged the game can turn on a bad hand. Board Games UnLocked pointed out that curses clog a hand and cannot be discarded outright, so a run of poor draws can force a failed mission even when a player has played well, though the same review called this an inherent risk of the card game rather than a design flaw. Foster the Meeple was more direct about the difficulty ceiling, noting that a number of players have found the game too challenging or punishing even as the channel itself enjoys that same edge.
If You Enjoy Witchcraft!
The one comparison every reviewing channel converged on is Resist, the earlier solitaire game from the same design and publishing team. Beyond Solitaire, Totally Tabled, One Stop Co-op Shop, and Foster the Meeple all placed the two side by side, agreeing they share the same hidden/revealed card system while differing on theme, with most preferring Witchcraft!'s witch trial setting and added variety over Resist's original framing.
What Reviewers Are Saying
"I think that of Witchcraft and Resist, Witchcraft is the better game. I think it took an already really wonderful base that was Resist and added things onto it that I personally believe make the game better, make it more enticing, give it some higher stakes, and just kind of enrich something that was already good."
— Beyond Solitaire
"That was real nasty at the end there. But them's the breaks. I won one of them, the easy one, and then I lost horribly on the second one, but it was a very good demonstration of what the game has to offer."
— The Dice Tower
"Theming is really cool. The art is fantastic. I really like the depiction that they did for all the different missions that you go on."
— Board Games UnLocked