Abacusspiele has just released a new expansion for Wandering Towers, the game of jumping wizards and towers. In the basic game, you have a number of wizards distributed across towers, and on each turn, players can move towers or wizards, with the ultimate aim of getting their wizards into the keep, a special tower. The fun aspects of the game are that moving a tower can trap other (or your own!) wizards, with the result that people invariably forget where their wizards are within stacks of towers; and each time a wizard lands in the keep, the keep moves around the board, sometimes a considerable difference, which can really mess with people’s plans. Trapping wizards lets you fill your potion flasks, all of which have to be full before you can drop your last wizard into the keep, and you can also use potions to cast spells, helping you reach the keep.
Previous expansions have been very minor, just a few new spells. However, the new expansion, The Magic Tower is rather more extensive, with extra board components and – yes – several new spells, some of which interact with the new modules while others are independent. It’s actually a collection of five mini modules which can be played separately or mix-and-matched as desired, each providing a unique addition to the game:
- Magic Tower – another tower for wizards to land on or get trapped under, but you can’t stack other towers on top of it and landing on it lets you cast a spell without paying potions.
- Elixir Fountain – the need to fill all your potion flasks can result in a lot of tedious tower chasing as you strive to trap enough wizards; two new fountain tiles are placed on the board, and landing in them will let you fill a potion.
- Spiderweb – instead of using the elixir fountains, you can convert both (or just one) into spiderwebs, which act as trampolines such that when you land on them, you immediately ‘bounce’ onward however many steps you took to reach the spiderweb.
- Hag – a hag token moves around the board as a side-effect of player moves; if you encounter it, you have to empty one of your potion flasks; worse, if you encounter her when you have no potion flasks left, she gives you an empty hag potion flask, which you have to fill before you can finish the game by trapping the hag under a tower.
The Raven – similar to the hag token, a raven token also moves as a result of player actions; if you encounter it, you get a feather, and feathers can later be used to play an extra card, cast spells, get a free movement or protect yourself from the hag.
Some of these modules sound quite interesting while others are a bit so-so, but they’re all sufficient to add some novelty to the game. If you want to find out more, the rulebook can be found at https://abacusspiele.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/WT_TheMagicTower_Rules_EN.pdf.
About the Author:
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
