Casting Shadows Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Casting Shadows, a family friendly dueling game published by Unstable Games. Casting Shadows features easy to learn rules and cute artwork, but doesn't quite hit the mark.

I’m going to be a little bit vulnerable and make a confession here: I will play any game that includes an axolotl. Those weird and wiggly little water lizards with frilly gills and no thoughts behind their eyes? They’ve captured both my soul and my wallet. First, they sold me on Everdell: Pearlbrook, with its little pink axolotl meeples. Then I pulled the trigger on Casting Shadows by Unstable Games even before glancing at the rulebook. I saw the axolotls and went into a daze.

Were the character art previews that sold me as beautiful in the full game as they seemed? Definitely. Is the pretty axolotl art enough to save a deeply flawed game? Maybe not.

Casting Shadows is an area control game for 2-4 players. Each player selects one of the blindly cute warrior characters, each with its own abilities, and places it on their home tile. I obviously gravitate towards Frill the Regenerator, the axolotl that first caught my eye. The goal is to be the last player standing, casting spells to reduce your opponent’s health to zero.

On their turn, players roll to see which resources they will have at their disposal this round, and get four Action Points to spend how they choose. They may want to travel to another hex tile, reroll for better resources, spend resources to collect spells for their spell book, or cast spells that they’ve already acquired to take down their opponents. Each tile they travel to has special abilities that activate, which must be looked up on a separate rule sheet.

When a player accrues enough of the Shadow Fragment resources, they can transform their character from the adorable Base Form to the more powerful Shadow Form, strengthening their ability to deal damage to their opponents. The last character standing wins the game. There is an additional expansion that allows for