The goal of Witch’s Brew is to concoct the most potent potions from the traditional ingredients of wolf’s blood, snake venom, and herb juice. Each player begins with one drop of each, plus two nuggets of gold. More importantly, each player also receives twelve role cards which form the real meat of the game.

Each card represents a specific role: witch, wizard, druid, assistant, fortune teller, alchemist, cutpurse, begging monk, warlock, wolf keeper, snake hunter, and herb collector. Every round each player selects five of these roles. Whoever goes first (usually whoever claimed the most recent role) announces one of his selected cards, and then each player who also selected that role has a decision to make. Every card has a reward associated with being able to assume that role; this ranges from brewing a potion, doing something gold-related, stealing/begging gold/ingredients from other players, casting each round’s randomly-determined spell, or collecting ingredients. The trick is that only one person can get to assume a given role each round; only the final player to announce a role actually receives that honor, and everyone else who tried to claim it gets nothing. However, each card also has a lesser assistant’s bonus (“so be it…”) for which a player can opt if he suspects a later player will try to usurp the role (the starting player of each hand has no such luxury). 

The strategy in Witch’s Brew comes from trying to out-guess and bluff your opponents while simultaneously managing your ingredients in order to brew potions. Do you go for the big reward of the role and risk getting nothing, or do you take the sure thing at the risk of nobody else claiming the role that could have been yours? Potions become more difficult to brew — and thus more valuable — as easier potions of their type are collected, further constraining your decisions. Extra points can be earned for vials, which are obtained either via the Fortune Teller role (at the cost of a gold), via three of the Warlock’s spells (at the cost of a specific ingredient), or when brewing a potion (at the cost of an additional ingredient of your choice) via either reward of the three brewers’ cards. The game ends at the end of the round when the fourth potion cards depicting a raven has been collected.

Witch’s Brew is a quick-playing game for three to five players. There are some basic reading and math skills required (the begging monk role collects 1/4th of each other player’s ingredients, rounded down; the cutpurse is similar but 1/3rd of gold). There is occasionally some confusion as to which role brews which potion, but other than that the artwork on the cards is well-done. My biggest problem with the game has nothing to do with the game at all: Rio Grande Games apparently has an issue when it comes to providing primarily card-driven games with boxes that aren’t twice the size required for the materials (Race for the Galaxy had similar issues). Aside from that, Witch’s Brew has won several awards for designer Andreas Pelikan and would be a great addition to any gamer’s collection.

One of the mass-market games that you can pick up at any random store’s “game aisle” is the classic Mattel/Parker Brothers definition game Balderdash. While Balderdash is a great game that has withstood the test of decades, there are few issues with the emphasis on reading, writing, and even etymology that keep it out of the reach of some potential players. French designer Jean-Louis Roubira has taken the basic Balderdash model and removed all of the reading and literal elements, replacing it with more universal images and imagination in the form of Dixit.  

At the start of the game, every player receives six numbered voting tokens and is dealt six oversized cards, each containing a dream-like image painted by Marie Cardouat. Each round, one player is the “storyteller”, who chooses one of the cards in his hand and puts forth a description of it; this description can be pretty much anything, form one word to one sentence, or even a little music or sound effect. Each other player selects a card from their hand based on that description and puts it face-down in the middle of the table; the Storyteller then collects all of the cards and randomly displays them face-up, using his numbered tokens to distinguish each one. Each other player then secretly votes on which one of the cards belongs to the Storyteller (unlike Balderdash and other games, you cannot vote for your own entry).

Scoring is usually straightforward; each player who correctly identifies the Storyteller’s card earns three points, as does the Storyteller. Additionally, any votes that go to other cards earn that card’s owner a point. However, there are a pair of wrinkles; if everybody or nobody correctly identifies the Storyteller’s card, then everyone but the Storyteller scores two points and the Storyteller gets nothing (in the event of nobody guessing correctly the points for votes are still awarded as normal). This is to ensure that the clue given by the Storyteller is neither too obvious nor too obscure. There is a possibility of inside references and other personal obscurities being used by players who are familiar with each other, but it is a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, especially as the number of players increases (to the maximum of six, although there’s no reason to prevent more from playing as teams).

 At the end of the round, each player draws a new card to replace the one used and the next player around the table becomes the new Storyteller. Play continues in this manner until the deck has been exhausted, at which point the highest score wins. The box itself serves as a scoring track, with rabbit-shaped meeples running around a path of stones surrounding the storage space for the cards; while probably unnecessary (and a much larger box than this game would otherwise require), it helps to add to the whimsical nature of the game and can be somewhat forgiven.

What makes Dixit truly fun, aside from the exceptionally surreal artwork, is the creativity factor. There are countless ways to describe the 80+ images contained in the game, whereas 80ish words only have so many potential (plausible) definitions. Dixit can be enjoyed by anyone with an imagination (recommended for ages 8 and up) with language skills not really being much of an obstacle. 

For many board game enthusiasts, Uwe Rosenberg’s Agricola (published in the US by Z-Man Games) was the top game released in 2008, if not of all time; currently it is the Number One rated game on BoardGameGeek.com. Agricola offers several levels of play that accommodate from one to five players, including a basic Family Game that doesn’t use any additional cards, but the central mechanics remain consistent across all variations.

At its core, Agricola is a worker-placement game that offers an increasing number of options during each of its fourteen rounds of play; those fourteen rounds are divided into six “stages”, with specific subsets of options appearing consistently at some point in a specific stage. Each player begins with a mostly-empty farm board containing a two-room wooden house and a pair of farmers, plus some food in their supply. Everything else must be acquired by using one of your farmers on one of the available actions.

The board contains several base actions that are available from the outset; there are more options for more players. Each round, an additional option is placed on the board. Players place one of their farmers on an unclaimed action, performing it as they do so. These actions include acquiring materials and goods for their supply, using those materials for various improvements (including planting crops), or even adding a new member to a player’s family for additional actions in future rounds. However, additional bodies also have additional mouths. At the end of each stage there is a Harvest, at which point crops are harvested, livestock potentially reproduce, and each member of your family must be fed two food or else you lose three points for each food you are short. This is an incredibly stiff penalty, so the first priority of most skilled players is to establish some sort of “food engine”.

After the final harvest, scores are tallied. Most categories score from one to four points based on how much of that category you possess, and most carry a one-point penalty for not having any. With a set cap on points in each category (not to mention the penalty for neglecting one), it pays to diversify. Additional points are earned for upgrading your house from wood to clay or stone, family members, and other miscellaneous sources; finally, be aware that you are also penalized a point per empty space on your farm board.

Beyond the Family Game, Agricola offers three different decks of cards that include both Minor Improvements and Occupations (some occupations aren’t used with fewer players). The decks are labeled “E”asy, “I”nteractive, and “K”omplex (from the original German) and can be combined for additional play if desired. Each player is dealt seven cards of each type at the start of the game and there is no way to receive more. Minor improvements are typically played as bonuses to other actions; Occupations must be played as their own action and will cost you food to play (except for your first, depending on the action space used) but are often quite powerful.

Agricola offers deep strategy (including a fun but brutal solitaire variant) for those who are able to overcome its two main obstacles. The first is an overwhelming sense of complexity; your first few sessions will consume several hours as you come to grips with the wealth of options at your disposal, especially if you forego the stripped-down Family Game and jump right into one of the decks. Even without the cards there is still a ton of wooden bits moving all over the place. Secondly, the game itself usually retails for $70, which is much more than most European-style board games; all of the various cards and bits don’t come cheap, and the surprising heft of the box on the shelf should reassure you that you are definitely getting your $70’s worth, but the “sticker shock” is still there. Fortunately, you don’t need to actually own the game in order to play it, so try it out first if you can.  

If any game were to be nicknamed “Tetris: the Board Game” (other than the actual Tetris board game… both of them), FITS would be at the front of the line and elbowing competitors like Blokus out of the way.  FITS — which stands for “Fill In The Spaces” — is a Reiner Knizia design and published by Ravensburger, supporting one to four players.

Each player gets a ramp that holds a board and a plastic slide. Each board has a dozen lines of six dots each, with some boards containing additional symbols used for scoring purposes. Along with the ramp comes an assortment of blocks, from three to five blocks in size. A card representing each block is also included, as well as four special “start block” cards.

Play is quick and simple. Each player randomly takes one of the start cards and slides that block on to his ramp. Then a card is turned up and every player places that block; when your start block’s card comes up you simply don’t place a block on that occasion. This repeats until the deck is exhausted, although most players will probably fill up their ramp long before that happens (blocks can be placed above the dots, but may not breach the side walls). Blocks must “drop” straight down, and cannot shift into awkward spaces or rotate after you decide where they’re going; in other words, once you miss the opportunity to fill in a space, you can never correct that mistake. This is unfortunate, as every unfilled space will cost you a point at the end of the round. 

While the point-per-dot penalty applies to all rounds of play, each round has its own unique way to gain points. Round One simply awards you one point for each fully-filled line; this is the warm-up, and it’s more difficult than you might think. Round Two features specific dots that are worth one, two, or three points if they are uncovered at the end of the round; Round Three is similar but also contains five-point penalty dots that you definitely want to cover up ASAP. Finally, Round Four challenges you with five pairs of symbols; each pair of symbols left uncovered is worth three points… and each partially-uncovered pair (that is, every unpaired symbol) is a three-point penalty. Yeah… that’s as evil as it sounds, believe me. Negative scores happen (in each round) and are surprisingly common.

FITS is really a solitaire game at heart; even with multiple players it’s really just several solitaire games comparing scores against each other. The only difference is the start piece of each player and the decisions that must be made as the ramps fill up. That being said, there’s a strange sort of amusement that comes when the next piece is perfect for your ramp but hellish for everyone else’s. This can also be a source of “analysis paralysis,” as players try to minimize the damage they’re about to inflict on themselves, but other than that a single game should be done in about 30 minuets, tops. FITS may never be the main event at game night, but it’s a brain-taxing filler that is more than capable of giving you fits (yeah… I went there).