SpellBook casts you as a wizard gathering Materia and learning spells

Can you complete your grimoire first?

SpellBook Game Overview

On your turn, you move through three phases: Morning, Midday, and Evening.

In the Morning you can take 1 Materia from the central Altar or draw 2 random Materia from the pouch.

Midday lets you either store one Materia on your Familiar track, or pass.

In the Evening you may spend a set of matching-colour Materia to learn a Spell from your grimoire, which grants a permanent ability for the rest of the game.

How to Win

The game ends when a player completes all 7 spells in their grimoire or fully fills their Familiar track.

Your final score adds your learned spells and your familiar progress plus any bonuses, the most points wins.

Main Mechanisms

SpellBook blends set collection and engine-building via the spells’ lasting effects. Every spell you learn changes how you play the game moving forward.

USP

While mechanically it’s not unique, the huge variety of possible spell combinations (apparently more than 2,100) gives a lot of replayability.

Theme

The wizard-and-magic vibe lands well through the Materia tokens, the familiar track, and the spell cards. It feels like you’re building a magical career rather than grinding resources.

Setup

Shuffle the Materia tokens into the pouch, set up the Altar board, give each player a Familiar board and empty pool, deal initial resources (if using starter setup), and you’re ready to draw Materia. Simple.

Components & Artwork

The Materia tokens are colourful, the spell cards are readable and thematic, and the “familiar board + altar + pouch” combo feels tactile and immersive. Components are solid without being overly complex.

Ease of Teaching

It’s easy enough to explain: draw tokens, spend them for spells, track pool limits, repeat. The phases are intuitive and the design is clean. New players may need a round to get a feel for when to rush spells vs hold out.

Similar Games

It doesn’t really make sense but for me, The Quacks of Quedlinburg has the magical theme and the tokens.

SpellBook Review

Positives

The spell variety and combos makes each play feel fresh and personal.

Balancing Materia collection, pool limits and spell costs gives satisfying tactical decisions.

Negatives

Luck in drawing Materia can swing things, sometimes you get colours/spells that don’t work for you.

It could be easy to slip into a pattern of playing the same way every game.

Summary

SpellBook is a charming spell-crafting engine-builder that balances simplicity with variety.

Jesta ThaRogue