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In an enchanting world of darkness and power, will you be able to vanquish your enemies and prove yourself as the ultimate shadow caster? Casting shadows is a quick 2-6 player strategic elimination game, from the publishers of Unstable Unicorns and Happy Little Dinosaurs. Casting Shadows is the first board game to come from Unstable Games and as a longtime fan of theirs I jumped at the chance to buy it. It very much fits in with their adorable yet aggressive style and is full of magic, mayhem and friendly competition – what more could you ask for (or want) from Unstable Games?
Gameplay
In Casting shadows, you travel across mysterious and magical locations, collecting resources, casting spells, and unlocking your shadow form, all to battle your opponents and be the last caster standing.
Each player turn involves three phases.
Phase 1 – rolling your dice to see which resources you have to spend this turn. These could be gems, orbs or shadow fragments – but beware of these cursed crystals as they can cause damage to your character if you don’t protect yourself by the end of your turn.
Phase 2 – during this phase players get four action points to spend on a range of different actions. These include travelling across hex tiles, casting spells from your spell book, rerolling dice for more desired resources, protecting yourself from curses, refreshing cards, and collecting spells and resources. Some actions like collecting spells also require you to spend resources to complete them.
Phase 3 – at the end of your turn you can choose to absorb any shadow fragments leftover from your resource dice – providing you with much needed shadow energy to enable you to transform your character later in the game.
Players all begin the game in a cute and seemingly cuddly base form, but after collecting enough shadow fragments, you can spend this energy to transform into an almighty shadow warrior – each with their own special abilities and choice of shadow companions to help you defeat your opponents.
The game board is made up of several hex tiles showing different locations throughout the realm, including the ‘home’ tiles of the chosen characters in play. Each location also offers a unique bonus to characters starting their turn on that tile.
Each time you take damage or regain health this is tracked on your player board alongside your shadow energy. When a player’s health falls to zero they are immediately eliminated. The last player standing will be crowned champion and wins the game.
Components
The artwork for this game is the definition of super cute. As you can expect from these creators, the character designs are completely loveable with elements of fun, destruction and magical charm. The hex tiles fit in perfectly with the theme of the game and the difference in colour palette and design on each one make for an interesting board. The only thing with the hex tiles is that the start-of-turn abilities are not printed on the tiles, meaning that you have to flip through the guide quite a lot during the game – or until you’ve memorised them all by heart!
The components in general are strong and sturdy, with wooden meeples, thick character boards, light weight dice and clearly printed cards. Spell cards also have useful diagrams on them to quickly see and understand the affected area of each spell you cast.
Play time
The game takes about 30 – 60 minutes to play. It definitely feels like a quick game but this comes with both pros and cons.
With less players I find that the game can sometimes be over too quickly. Players can become strong pretty fast and when there are only 1 or 2 other players to target on the battlefield, it can feel like you’re constantly getting knocked down with no reprieve, and then you get eliminated without having much of a chance to play or build up your character – obviously not very fun.
However, with a larger group of people to play, the game feels more balanced as players have more characters to choose from, giving others a chance to heal and build up in between attacks. Although, spells and abilities can be quite powerful meaning that large amounts of damage can be done in one go - potentially knocking players out in a few turns. At least the positive side of this means that games finish quickly and eliminated players don’t have long to wait for another game and another chance at victory!y.
Final thoughts
As a quick battle arena type game, Casting Shadows does the job. I had hoped that there would be a little bit more to this game, but generally it’s fun an enjoyable to play.
The rules are simple meaning that it’s a great warmup for game nights with friends, and the competitiveness of the battle mechanics makes for exciting competition – though I would recommend playing with at least 4 players.
As for replayability, I like that there are a range of characters to choose from, each with their own unique powers – I mean who doesn’t love the chance to suss out each character and decide the best one to win the game with? The hex tiles can also change the board each time, so with that and the characters you choose, there is lots of potential for each game to be different. The different character abilities and hex tile bonuses in play mean that one strategy does not work for all and it’s fun to explore the best tactics to use. It’s also nice to be able to choose from a range of different actions and spend your action points in different ways each turn. I just wish that there was a bigger difference in spell cards as sometimes these feel a little bit same
