I took a longer lunch break today, and now I have to pay the Reaper by staying after work. Luckily, I spent my penance playing the Witching Stone demo, which applies the magic of shape-matching to the magic of magic. Released on September 16, it's a pixelart charmer that “combines elements of puzzle games, roguelites, and deckbuilders,” much like you'd combine a red circle and two gold triangles to unleash a lightning bolt.
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The story: You play as an anime witch exploring a node-based dungeon map. Some nodes house treasure chests, encampments, and traders. Others trigger battles, which are turn-based. Rather than simply choosing Firaga from a menu, however, you'll need to chain together raw materials on the grid displayed below the warring characters.
Each spell requires a different mix of shapes, and while you can cast multiple at once, you can only draw a line across a certain number of squares per turn. Casting a spell also removes those shapes from the grid, causing other shapes to fall from above. So in addition to selecting the optimal magic, you're trying to eliminate unwanted shapes and set up combinations for your next turn.
If you've played the glorious Puzzle Quest games or Capcom's Puzzle Fighter series, you'll find this all very intuitive. Like Puzzle Quest, there's a progression system. In this case, it's all about expanding your spellbook and tweaking your spells. The Giant Slayer mod, for example, makes your lightning bolt do more damage at the expense of always targeting the strongest opponent. Even based on the 15 minutes I've played, I feel like there's room for some hair-raising concoctions, and what's a witch who doesn't make hair-raising concoctions? A sham, that's what it is. A disgrace.
In short, it was well worth lingering after five minutes – find the demo on Steam. In general, I’m always in favour of video game sorcery that involves the actual assembly of spells – it stops them feeling like guns. If you despise grid puzzles and prefer a real-time embodiment of it all, let me join three wavy blue diamonds to create a Hex Of Greater Displacement and teleport you in the direction of Magicka.