How is WizoCat spelled?
Some write With a Cat, WisoCat, WyzoCat, Wizzocat or Wizo Cat — never mind, all roads lead to the Academy: it really is WizoCat, the game of apprentice wizard cats!
Where does the name WizoCat come from?
From the meeting of wizard and cat, welded together by a linking “o” that sounds like a marvelling exclamation: hooo! It is said, by the way, to be the cry kittens let out as they first cross the doors of the Academy.
From what age can you play?
The box says 10+, but the real answer is more interesting. From 8, the rules go down without trouble — and among children of the same age the games are joyfully chaotic: everyone tries spells for the pleasure of seeing what happens. It is around a mixed table that the gap shows: an adult building a strategy can be thrown by an 8-year-old playing on instinct. From 10, everyone plays the same game — children anticipate, plan, and really compete with the grown-ups.
In short: among children from 8, as a family from 10, and among adults… it becomes formidably tactical.
Is it a simple game or a deep one?
Both, and that is the game's wager. You learn WizoCat in five minutes: four possible actions, two per turn, and one tile you move. An 8-year-old follows without effort, and a first game plays very well on instinct.
What that simplicity hides, nobody needs to see in order to enjoy themselves. You spot three or four tempting moves, you choose, the world deforms, you start again. Those who want to dig find enough to keep them busy for years; the others notice nothing, and play very well.
For those amused by numbers: on the very first turn alone, the board allows more than eight thousand different moves. Don't worry, nobody sees them — and that is not the point.
How many players, and does the game change with the number?
From 2 to 6 apprentices — and the game does not simply stretch: the rulebook provides three modes, depending on the size of the table.
- The Masters' Duel, at 2: each player runs two apprentices and manages two grimoires. A tactical face-off where you play with two heads at once.
- Academy Mode, at 2, 3 or 4: the ideal strategic balance — slow down the top of the class, or race ahead yourself?
- The Great Storm, at 5 or 6: the target drops to 7 points instead of 8, because at six the table moves too fast for long-term planning. Chaos joins in, and so does the laughter — perfect plans do not survive long.
There is also a team variant, for those who want more strategy: allies add their points together, and the table is arranged so that two teammates do not play one right after the other. One board, several ways to play on it.
Does the first player have an advantage?
No, and that is not just an impression: two rules take care of it, and both are in the rulebook.
The first one acts before the very first turn. The first-player token goes to whoever last petted a cat — which is to say, at random. And as soon as a table knows the game well, the rulebook adds a clause: whoever built the starting board cannot begin the game. So nobody can build an Academy tailored to themselves and then take the first move on it.
The second one closes the game: it does not stop dead the moment an apprentice leaves the Academy — the round is played out. Everyone who had not yet played that round still plays, and can leave too. By the end, each player has taken exactly the same number of turns, whatever their seat around the table.
The ranking, for its part, does not look at who left first but at what each player achieved: leaving scores, spells cast score, and ties are broken on prepared scrolls and then on specialisation spells. A perfect tie stays a tie — the mages share the victory. Playing first gives you the lead, not a head start.
Can the other players block you?
Nobody can make you skip your turn, and that is not a promise: it is the rule. Every turn opens with a free tile move, and a tile that covers others can be moved — including the one just dropped on top of you. Turning it is usually enough to reopen your own way through. You can be hindered, slowed down, forced to give up a plan; you cannot be deprived of your turn.
What can be done is to thwart you: carrying off the tile you were aiming at, pushing you away from the resource you were missing, forcing you to recalculate everything. The world deforms under everybody's feet, and there is almost always something left to try — what closes on one side opens on the other.
So what is the worst that can be done to you? A turn without profit: you play, you move your tile, but you gain nothing that turn. Getting there takes more than bad luck: an apprentice without a single resource, tiles that offer nothing even after rotation, and the whole table agreeing at the same moment. Nothing in the rules forbids it, and we will not swear the case does not exist; but it is a mathematician's curiosity, not a way of playing, and it can be anticipated anyway.
And hindering is expensive. You have two actions and one tile move per turn, and what you spend for the sole purpose of hindering a neighbour, you do not spend on yourself. The game does not forbid sabotage, it bills it — and the bill is your own diploma. Anyone who spends the whole game thwarting the others finishes last, without a single rule having had to stop them.
That is a deliberate choice, and it holds for the whole game: the gap between two players widens by small steps, never all at once. A more tactical apprentice will finish ahead, that is the game; but the one following is not left so far behind that there is no game left to play. What makes the difference, in the end, is not hindrance but preparation: anticipating your moves, and casting the right spell at the right moment, from the right place.
Where can you play WizoCat?
Right now, for free, right here: a trial game is waiting for you on this site, with no sign-up. The board game is coming to Gamefound — join the Academy (your e-mail is enough) to hear about it before anyone else and miss none of the surprises reserved for the earliest members.