Board game review of Wispwood – Forest of Lights: Grandiose tile-laying in Tetris style

Czech Games Edition is known for releasing great new games year after year, including renowned titles like Codenames, Seti, and The Lost Ruins of Arnak. At Spiel 2025 in Essen, Wispwood was the Czech publisher's new release, distributed in Germany by Heidelbär Games. Find out how well this Tetris-like game with its mystical theme plays in the following review.

A curious cat roams through the forest, drawn by flickering lights of every color dancing through the trees – will-o'-the-wisps from old fairy tales, brimming with charm and mischief, each with its own distinct personality. They must be guided in the right way to make the forest the brightest of all forests.

The story of Wispwood isn't really worth mentioning, but it's a nice addition to make the game more engaging. We essentially build our own will-o'-the-wisp forest, where we have to cleverly place the will-o'-the-wisps according to their individual preferences to generate victory points. Between rounds, the forest changes and grows, while the will-o'-the-wisps remain in place, so their preferences must be constantly redefined. The game ends after the third round, and the player with the most victory points wins.

Round sequence

A round consists of several turns. When it's our turn, we can choose to make a will-o'-the-wisp or a tree move. For a will-o'-the-wisp move, we select one of the available will-o'-the-wisps from the display (pond) and choose one of the two shapes depicted next to it. The chosen shape must then be placed in our forest along with the will-o'-the-wisp and enough tree tiles. The position of the will-o'-the-wisp and the orientation of the tiles are crucial. There are four types of will-o'-the-wisps in total, each presenting us with different tasks that we should complete as successfully as possible each round to generate victory points for the round score.

During our will-o'-the-wisp turn, we can also perform one of two cat actions if our cat is on its active side (as in the image above). These actions help us to place suitable will-o'-the-wisps or shapes for our forest. Specifically, we can use it to refresh the display or choose any shape by taking a will-o'-the-wisp from the display. Afterward, the cat is placed on its inactive side.

If we don't want to take a will-o'-the-wisp, we can also choose a tree move. With a tree move, we take 1-3 tree tiles from the display and place them individually in the forest. This allows us to cleverly complete our forest or, if necessary, optimize it for more victory points. After the tree move, we may return our cat to its active side so that we can use its abilities again in future turns.

Rating

Once a player has completed their forest in the current round, the round ends. All subsequent players then take their turns until everyone has had the same number of turns. Afterward, the victory points generated by each will-o'-the-wisp are tallied. There are four types of will-o'-the-wisps, each presenting different placement challenges. Depending on how we place our tree tiles and will-o'-the-wisps, we generate more or fewer points at the end of a round.

Once all the points have been tallied, all tree tiles are removed from your forest. The will-o'-the-wisps remain in place. In the next round, a larger forest must be built – in the first round, a 4x4 grid is built, in the second round a 5x5 grid, and in the third round a 6x6 grid. The will-o'-the-wisps remaining from previous rounds count towards the next rounds. Therefore, in subsequent rounds, you must ensure that you continue to meet the needs of the will-o'-the-wisps as much as possible.

After the third round, it's over and the person with the most points wins.

Information about Wispwood – Forest of Lights

Conclusion

Wispwood is an easy-to-learn tile-laying game that completely captivated us. We had a lot of fun in every test game, cleverly laying out our forest. The game manages to strike a perfect balance between luck and strategy. Of course, what tiles are currently in play plays a big role, but you can also steer your luck a little in the right direction with the cat actions. Furthermore, carefully considering how to place your will-o'-the-wisps in the forest will ultimately lead to victory.

That's great, because it means both frequent and casual players can enjoy Wispwood. The game can be explained in 5 minutes and has enough depth to keep everyone engaged. What I personally really liked is the fact that Wispwood has a good solo mode. Here, you play against an automated opponent called "The Ghost." This opponent has different difficulty levels, which simply award him more or fewer points. The solo mode stays true to the simplicity of the overall game and is nicely relaxing to play.

And that's the beauty of the game. Wispwood plays smoothly and effortlessly. Our test games seemed to fly by. This is also due to the fact that Wispwood has virtually no downtime. The individual moves are played quickly, and when it's not your turn, you have plenty of time to think about your next move.

The only drawback of the game is the cat tiles. They come with adhesive dots meant to be used to stick the tiles together, creating a kind of "two-layered" tile. Unfortunately, these dots don't hold very well, so the tiles keep coming apart. It's a shame, but manageable.

Ultimately, Wispwood is simply an excellent game that we definitely recommend. It plays great in all configurations, is quick to play, and is also a relaxing game to wind down after a hard day at work.

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