Even with massive RPGs like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age: The Veilguard out in the world, sometimes the games that do the most to wreck your sleep schedule are ones that you can see from start to finish in under an hour. In roguelikes like Slay the Spire, those short runs can quickly add up to dozens of hours as you try to claim victory. But one thing every great roguelike needs is a reason to keep playing once you’ve already mastered the loop. In Witching Stone, that reason is a barrel of unlockable spells and characters so well hidden I still don’t know how to reach most of them after a week of playing.
Earlier this year, the demo for Witching Stone took over my life for a while, despite featuring only two of the launch version’s six characters, and just one of the game’s three maps. In the demo, it was Witching Stone’s excellent puzzle-based combat that captivated me. By matching gems on a board similar to one you’d see in a match-3 game, you can cast spells to damage enemies, heal yourself, and manipulate the game board in some interesting ways. It felt great to play them and it feels even better now, but that’s not entirely why Witching Stone has become my go-to game before bed for the past week.
What’s kept me going are the secrets. And there are so many secrets. As I mentioned, there’s a lot to unlock in Witching Stone. Each character has multiple sets of starting spells, which you earn mostly by completing quests to use other spells or status effects a certain number of times with that character. Most of them are easy to achieve with basic spells you find in shops throughout your run, but each character also has one quest that’s eluding me. To unlock the final set of starting spells, I need to use abilities like Dragon Slave and Feedbacker — things I haven’t seen once on the dozens of runs I’ve completed so far.
Gaining access to every character is even more of a mystery. Just reaching the game’s final zone — Act Three — with the first two characters will unlock the next character in sequence. After that, the requirements get more esoteric. Figuring out how to get the fourth character wasn’t too difficult, but that leaves me with two more characters to unlock. To get the next one, I need to cast all three “forbidden spells” in the game. What’s a forbidden spell, you ask? I have no idea!
There are plenty of spells and ability-boosting badges I haven’t used yet, not to mention modifiers, which you can apply to individual runs to make them easier or harder. I also have to finish a few quests that aren’t tied to characters, and figure out what’s going on with the spells I’m missing. I’m not the type of player who cares about achievements, and I’m generally uninterested in replaying games to see every single thing they’re hiding away.
But with Witching Stone, seeing exactly what I’m missing laid out in front of me — along with the promise of those two extra characters — has me poking at every corner of the game, trying new combinations of spells, characters, and modifiers every run just to crack the case. Also, I said earlier that Act Three is the end of the game, but I’ve heard tell of an unlockable Act Four, which gives me yet another reason to remain obsessed until I can shake loose every last bit of content Witching Stone is still hiding from me.
Of course, secrets alone don’t make a game worth playing. Fortunately, Witching Stone has everything it needs to keep me invested even without them, from its satisfying strategic combat to its ridiculously catchy soundtrack. I would want to keep sacrificing sleep to Witching Stone in any case — its wealth of hidden treasure just elevates my want into a need.
