Fuzzy Mage Fight is a game published by Shadow Squirrel Games. The premise of this game is for players to take on the role of a Fuzzy Mage to collect enough magic to win. Along they way they will have to defend against attacks and prevent other players from collecting eight magic cards as the first player to do so is declared the winner.

This post is broken into the following 3 sections, feel free to jump directly to one:

  1. General summary - consisting of information about overall enjoyment, theme, replayability, and upgrades
  2. Complexity - consisting of information about the rulebook, setup, player turns, and overall learning curve
  3. Player turns - consisting of game type, game flow, rule you are likely to miss, and favorite aspect

General Summary

Number of players we had: 3
Our play time (not including setup): 1 hour 10 minutes

Overall enjoyment

Overall our group enjoyed playing this game for several reasons. The artwork is well thought out and fun. Additionally, players can go from near winning to furthest from it with a well-activated trap card. Fuzzy Mage Fight is a game that is easy to learn and play, yet challenging to win because there are many unknown elements that slow your progress. This is also a game that plays differently based on your player group - moderately competitive versus slightly competitive, etc.

The one thing I would say we found slightly frustrating is the font style and size used in the rulebook. There is a faint watermark on each page that adds to the difficulty reading the font. If it were slightly bigger or less stylized I think it would be fine. Having said that, the rulebook is available on their website and anyone could print it in a bigger format if this was really a stumbling block.

Theme

Fuzzy Mage Fight is a card game that fits in a very small box. The artwork on the cards is very detailed, especially for the jumbo sized Fuzzy Mage characters, which were doubled with the add-ons I purchased. The other cards: traps, spells, minions, magic and potions are also very detailed and well thought out.

Example of some of the really detailed cards though this image does not do the colors justice.

Replayability

This game has a decent replayability factor for several reasons, including how both strategy and luck play an equal part in this game. Additionally, players can play face down cards which can include traps and magic, so when you attack another player you never quite know what the fallout will be. Also, the rulebook setup recommendation is to use half of the spells, potions and traps, making each game unique.

Upgrades

When backing this game I upgraded to a level which included all unlocked stretch goals, several add-ons and four matching neoprene mats. With these upgrades, we have more than double the Fuzzy Mage characters to choose from as well as allies to add to the mix. Since we have a slick tabletop, the neoprene mats were a must have! The mats are decorated to match the game and make it much easier to keep those cards played into your battlefield in place.

The many Fuzzy Mage character cards we have to choose from.
The neoprene mats have a spot for the Fuzzy Mage card on the left as well as spots for the 6 cards players can play into their battlefield. There are faint lines denoting this, which is perfect because they do not distract from the image on the mats.

Complexity

Rulebook

The rulebook is well organized and easy to follow. There are images and examples given to explain how play and scoring work. There are two things I feel are also important to mention:

  1. The rulebook can be slightly challenging to read with the watermark background and stylized font, but you can also download the instructions from their website to print it with a bigger font.
  2. In rule two of the setup, it says to shuffle and deal cards to players before mentioning the number of potions, spells and traps to shuffle into the deck. I think this would be more efficient if the sentences were swapped so players realize how many cards of each type to include before dealing cards.

Setup

Fuzzy Mage Fight is a simple game to set up and can be done in 5-10 minutes. The one thing worth mentioning is it is much faster to set up a new game if you separate the card types once you finish a game. Since not all of the potions, spells and traps are used each game, it is much faster to randomly select them to add to a new game if they are separated.

The box for this card game is quite small and has only one divider. I inserted dividers between the types of cards and labeled them to make setting up a new game even faster.

Turns

Turns go quickly and players need to pay attention at all times because any player can initiate an attack by using one of their actions on their turn. As a result, it is very important not to use all of your magic when initiating attacks as it can leave you without a way to defend your minions or fuzzy mage. Magic is used for attacking and defending, making it very valuable.

Overall learning curve

The learning curve for this game is low. There are several actions players can take on their turn, but they are the same for everyone. What can be slightly more complex are the unique fuzzy mage abilities as well as the effects of the potion, spell and trap cards.

Player Turns

Play type

Fuzzy Mage Fight is a symmetrical card game that introduces a decent amount of surprises. While each player is working to have eight magic cards in their hand so they can win the game, they must balance this with using them to build up their defense against another player attacking them as well as attacking other players to force them to spend their magic cards.

Game flow

The tempo of this game is quick, but it can take some time for a winner to emerge. The more players attack one another, the longer it takes to build your hand up to eight magic cards. As the number of cards in a player's hand builds, other players will often attack to make sure they are not accumulating mostly magic cards. However, each time a player attacks it costs them magic cards so it can be challenging to accumulate them!

Because any player can attack on their turn, or be attacked during another player's turn, all players are paying attention at all times and we like that there is really no down time between turns. It is also important to watch what cards are being played and how many cards players have in their hand. If you initiate an attack and the other player cannot defend, you lose all your magic cards so sometimes less is better.

Typical example of a player's Fuzzy Mage, some minions and hidden traps or magic cards.

Rule you are likely to miss/forget

Even though this is a simple game to learn, and perhaps because of that, we found ourselves forgetting a few of the rules. These include:

  1. Attending to the Garbel card at the end of a player's turn. If you have the Garbel card, be sure you roll the dice at the end of your turn to see if you have to discard a card or can pass him on to the next player. Forgetting this can greatly change the game. Also, if you cannot seem to roll a five or six to pass the Garbel, use your actions strategically so you do not have any cards to discard so you can pass him anyway!
  2. Remembering to utilize the special abilities provided by our fuzzy mage cards. It can be easy to focus on spells and potions and forget to take advantage of these abilities.

Favorite aspect

Our favorite aspect of this game is that there is a decent amount of strategy combined with some luck and a great deal of unpredictability. This truly is anyone's game to win and this type of game can be perfect for certain groups of players. Also, we really do love the artwork!

Overall Fuzzy Mage Fight takes up a very small space on your shelf while packing a substantial amount of replayability and play time. The artwork is fantastic and this game can be taught quickly while being appropriate for any group of players. We have never played with more than four players, but I suspect playing with six players would be great fun albeit slightly chaotic!