Fancy a Witch Hunt? It’s Time to Build a New Salem

August 10, 2014 by deltagamegirl22

It's the 17th century in the prime of the Salem Witch Trials and the people of Salem have had enough! This game puts the gamers into that time of turmoil and conspiracy, and they want a fresh start- a New Salem.

New Salem, by Overworld Games, is a quick and easy card game for 3-8 players that can be played in 30-60 minutes, and it's available on Kickstarter right now. Each player is assigned a secret identity as a Puritan or a Witch and this is your primary motivation for how you will go about drafting your hands to build the New Salem. The Puritans try to incorporate as much "Hope" into their construction and the Witches try to incorporate "Despair." The ultimate goal is to end the game with the most Hope or despair, while shielding your secret identity. You will want to uncover witches to stand trial along the way, and that will not be an easy task.

There are a few really cool things about this game that caught my attention. The first is how quick the primary game play is. This is not one of those card games where each player has to take turns and wait on others to strategize. A turn card designates the action for the round, which will dictate, say, draw 3 play 2, so each player would get 3 cards and decide the first card they would like to play and place it in front of them. Then all players will pass their remaining cards to the player next to them. This keeps the game very quick and dynamic as the best laid plans can be foiled at any moment with the passing of cards.

The next thing I love is the artwork. The characters are very dark and gothic and the building cards are very innovative and can be combined in a variety of manners to create original scenes.