2 Board Games for the 2024 Spooky Season

Here are 2 board games you MIGHT want to add to your collection this October 2024!

1. Witchcraft! - 25th Century Games (2023)

"Witchcraft! is a fast-playing, card-driven solitaire game where you lead a coven of witches in a fantasy world where magic is real–and so are the monsters.

Building on the hidden / revealed mechanism of Resist! you will decide when to use magic to defeat the challenges you face–revealing yourself to your fellow villagers and being imprisoned for witchcraft. As you complete missions and defeat enemies you will try to prove to the villagers that magic is not evil, and convince a jury that you are protecting the village.

Three jurors will decide your fate and their conviction is strong. Can you persuade them? Or will evil overcome you and the village?"

- Directly from the Publisher


This is a great game for the solo adventurer! It is a solo-only card game with great replayability, BUT I will say that is a very challenging game. I have yet to win this one (non-campaign mode), and do wish there were ways to mitigate some of the brutal randomness. 

If winning is "important" to you, I'd say to probably skip this one. It's a light game in the sense that it's easy to learn, easy to setup, etc. but, not light where winning can come easily. I'd recommend to think of things as a "resource," and to also remember that you should rely on your "family" of withes to make your coven more powerful!

My closest "win" is getting 2 out of 3 jurors... however that is considered a "draw," so not exactly meeting that win condition. But hey, I am up for the challenge and see myself pulling this one out quite a few times this month! I like the addictive feeling of "getting close" to win or knowing I played some witches really well.

This one is definitely staying in my collection!

2. The Night Cage - Smirk & Dagger Games (2021)

"You awake in the dark, your skin cold, your mind blank. You have nothing but your fear, a flickering candle, and a question: How long will your light last?

The Night Cage is a fully cooperative, horror-themed, tile-placement game that traps 1 to 4 lost souls within an otherworldly labyrinth of eternal darkness.

Each prisoner has only a candle to aid them in their escape. But its weak light can only illuminate the passages directly adjacent to them. As players move, new pathways are revealed while old ones disappear, consumed in the darkness forever. 

Every move will require thoughtful consideration and collective strategy to keep your candles burning long enough to find the way out. Tense and dripping with theme, The Night Cage is a challenging puzzle to navigate, which can be made easier or more difficult to adjust to your play group."

- Directly from the Publisher


This is another very challenging game. If you want a puzzle-y horror game, I most DEFINITELY recommend this one. The theme easily draws me and I do get this sense of "horror" since 1 candle can only light up adjacent rooms... and you never know what you'll encounter next. Along with that, I'd say the replayability is very high! It is not a "true" solo board game, in the sense where you have just 1 character, you do have to manage 4 characters to play solo. It might seem a bit confusing at first, but honestly it all flows very well. 

I say the play overall is straight-forward (each character needs to make a choice to either stay or move) and same with the rules. I also rather enjoy the strategy to this game. Each character must find a key to unlock the gate to escape the cage, so tile-placement is a big factor in winning. Since tiles come and go, you never know when you will encounter a WAX EATER, oh noooooo!

There are pros and cons when monsters to attack; when they attack, you do have to discard tiles from your drawing pile, but there's a chance where you may discard monster tiles. But, you do need a lot of luck for that to happen.

Overall, this one is staying in my collection. I definitely see myself pulling this one out a lot for the month of October!

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