Have you ever seen strange lights flickering in the woods? Imagine a curious cat wandering through the trees, following those dancing lights. In the game Wispwood, those lights are magical wisps. Each wisp has its own personality and charm. Your job is to guide them to make the forest shine as bright as possible.

Welcome to Wispwood. This is a game about building a magical forest. On your turn, you will pick a wisp tile and a shape to place in your own personal grid. This grid is your growing forest. The wisps have desires about where they want to sit, and the trees have preferences too. You will try to meet these needs over three rounds of scoring. Between rounds, the forest changes. Some parts fade away, and others expand. But the wisps you have already placed stay where they are. This shapes what you can do next.

Every time you play, new goal cards change what the wisps want. This means your forest will grow differently every game. Let us look at how to play this magical game.

Setting Up the Forest

First, you need to put the pond board together. Then, shuffle the tree tiles. Place one tree tile on each of the 8 spaces between the shapes on the pond. Every player takes a cat token. You place the cat with the active side showing on top of a tree tile in front of you. This is the starting tile for your forest.

The board gets five goal cards. There is one for trees and one for each of the four types of wisps. Each goal card has a picture at the top showing how you score points. At the bottom, there is a chart telling you how many points you get.

How to Take a Turn

Each round, players take turns. You choose a wisp from the board. Then, you use it to make a shape made of tiles. You choose from two shapes printed on the board. These shapes are right next to the wisp you took. The other tiles in the shape are just face-down tree tiles from the supply.

The wisp must be part of the shape, but it can be in any spot. To be clear, your wisp is placed with the wisp side up. All the other tiles in the shape are just face-down tree tiles.

You add these tiles to your forest. At least one tile must touch a tile you already placed. Your forest cannot be bigger than the limit for the round. In the first round, it is 4 by 4. In the second round, it is 5 by 5. In the third round, it is 6 by 6.

If you draw a witch wisp, you must be able to place it legally to take it. If your cat is on the active side, you can flip it over. This lets you use any shape on the pond board, not just the two next to the wisp you took.

Resetting the Wisps

The next player now takes their turn. First, check if the wisps need to be reset. If there are no wisps left on the board, deal out a new set of 8 wisps. If all the wisps left are the same type, the active player can choose to discard them all. Then, deal out a new set of 8 wisps.

If your cat is on the active side, you can flip it over. This lets you discard all the remaining wisps and draw a new set of 8.

The Tree Turn Option

Alternatively, if you do not want to take a wisp tile, you can take a tree turn. In a tree turn, you take 1 to 3 facedown tree tiles from the supply. Then, you place them anywhere in your forest display. You can do this to fill holes in your grid that you could not fill otherwise.

When you take this action, you are allowed to flip your cat back to its active side. This gives you help for future turns.

Scoring the Round

The round continues until one player has filled in their entire grid. You play to the end of the current round so that all players have the same number of turns. Then, each player scores their grid.

Each player scores for each of the five goal cards. You use the chart on the card to see how many points you get. Additionally, you get a bonus if you were able to fully complete your grid.

Moving to the Next Round

After scoring, players can move their cat. You can move it to any tree tile in your grid. You can also leave it in the same place. Now, all the trees without a cat on them are returned to the supply. They are not revealed, so you do not know what they are.

The wisps stay in their locations. They will stay there for the rest of the game. Their current positions will remain for later rounds. Note that you do not reset your cat if it is inactive. You can only do this by taking a tree turn.

Winning the Game

At the end of three rounds, the player with the highest score wins. If there is a tie, the tie is broken in favor of the player who finished their grid more times.

My Thoughts on Wispwood

I first played Wispwood back in April 2025. I have been waiting to get my own copy ever since. I like games where you arrange tiles to make a puzzle. This game is interesting because you keep your wisps from round to round. They stay in the same relative positions.

You do get to rebuild your grid each round. You must keep the total size within the limits for that round. But you have some choice in which direction you grow. However, the wisps staying in place might make you think twice. You will know that a wisp you place now will be in the same space for the rest of the game.

Deciding which wisp tile to take is not always easy. Sometimes, the wisp and the shape match up perfectly for what you need. But more often, you will face a problem. You might only be able to get the ideal wisp or the ideal shape, but not both. You can always use your cat to improve your options. But then you will be out of help until your next tree turn.

Each game plays out a little differently. This is because you choose new scoring cards for each type of wisp during setup. You have to figure out how to score the most points as you go from round to round.

As you might expect, the game is mostly a solitaire puzzle. There is some indirect interaction with tile choice and the timing of the tile refreshing. For me, this is definitely my style of puzzle game. I have enjoyed it at all player counts, from 1 to 4 players. Sure, you have a little less control over what tile you might get on your next turn at a higher player count. But again, it is really only an indirect sort of influence from the other players at the table.

Thoughts from Other Opinionated Gamers

Nate Beeler: This is a cute little puzzle game that I would like to play again. Everyone I played with at our local convention either agreed or had already played it multiple times. I thought the tree tiles disappearing between rounds was a clever mechanism. I was not sure how to take best advantage of it on my one play. Of note, the art and theme are quite appealing. They probably give the game even more space in my head because of it. All that said, it was not so amazing that I have rushed out to buy a copy. I would happily play if someone set it in front of me, though.

Larry: I have played the prototype for this one time. It was pretty good. The players have to play Tetris-shaped tiles in order to meet their goals. It is shorter and lighter than what I usually expect from Czech Games Edition. Perhaps it is too abstract to really appeal to me. Like Nate, I would be happy to play it again, but it is not something I will be buying. I rate it at the low end of I Like It.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Nate Beeler, Larry, Erik Arneson
• Neutral.
• Not for me…