Most damning is the fact that the games of WITCH OF SALEM that I have played have been some of the most boring, disengaging sessions that I have recently played. I simply wasn’t interested in what happened as the rigidity of the mechanics and the reduction of the cooperative component to a very, very basic trading procedure resulted in a strangely remote and impersonal sort of play. Turning up the monster cards wasn’t exciting or interesting at all, and the tactical situations that were created were more about figuring out what the most efficient way to go about business was than getting in there and kicking Mythos ass.

Without a solid story a Lovecraft themed game does not and can not work. It’s very telling that the investigators have no story whatsoever- they’re simply names on cards with different colors and faces. They don’t even have hitpoints; the only damage they can take is sanity. I could recount several anecdotes of events that happened in games of ARKHAM HORROR that I played five years ago, but I couldn’t really tell you anything about what happened in a game of WITCH OF SALEM that I played three days ago.

Perhaps fans of the novels would get a little more out of the story and who knows, maybe the investigators are beloved characters and the sparse detail is somehow filled in and made meaningful. But if something is truly lost in translation (such as the title, which should have been rendered as WARLOCK OF SALEM), then it sort of makes me question the validity of releasing an English language version of the game. Is there any other goal in mind than to effectively ride the coattails of ARKHAM HORROR’s smash success? Lovecraft-themed games tend to sell well in the US so it’s almost a sure bet that the game will do well in the short term, but I can’t imagine most fans maintaining interested in the very limited and simplistic gameplay for more than a handful of games.

Questions or comments for Michael? Send them along to wabner@gameshark.com .

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