Mysterious, dark, serious wizards lurk in the village, casting their deep arcane...Is that wizard bear carrying a pig under his arm?

On the Hexed Isle there stands a tower. Only the noblest of heroes are worthy to unlock the mysteries of the tower and save the island from encroaching madness.  Unfortunately, the strongest wizards around are a lava bro, a baby dragon, and a sand witch...We're all doomed.

Mystery Wizard is an asymmetrical capture the flag strategy game. Players can choose from 12 unique characters, each with their own special abilities and, quite frankly, adorable backstories. The objective is to gather mysteries from the magical tower in the center of your land and bring them back to your village to solve them.

Players place their villages on the edge of the hex board and must walk to the tower to gather a mystery, then bring it back to their village to solve it and return it. The first player to complete this action twice is the winner!

Despite the objective sounding simplistic, because all players are trying to reach the mysteries at the same time, firing spells and setting traps. As such, Mystery Wizards is all about outmanoeuvring your opponents and developing strategy among the chaos.

Each character can take two actions on their turn. These include moving one space, using their 'talent' which is an active ability, using their passive ability or one of their ritual spells.  At the start of the game, energy for the ritual spells is exhausted but can be charged through spaces on the board.

There are an array of spaces on the board which perform a variety of actions, including region spaces which have quests that can be completed to receive special rewards (such as spells) or collect items.

The art and narrative design for this game is just adorable. I mean, one of your characters is a bear called Guy who is best friends with a pig called Christopher.

There's also a Dragon. It's called Dragon, and it looks like a dog dressed up as a fairy for Halloween.

What I'm not-so-subtly highlighting is that this game is delightfully quirky. If you like your wizards serious and dark, this probably isn't the game for you. But if like me you find oddity endearing, this will be a game you want to add to the collection.

Mystery Wizards is currently available for pre-order through GMT Games now. So get your wizarding robes on, put that pig under your arm, dress up your dog and order it today!

Do you prefer quicky or serious game design?  Tell us in the comments!