“The Witching Hour”: How a Maze Became a Mysterious Puzzle Adventure

Every so often, a game appears in the English-speaking world that people await with particular excitement—and right now, “The Witching Hour”, the latest title from PostCurious, undoubtedly belongs in that category. The company coined the term “Puzzletale” and publishes games that use puzzles to guide players through mystical stories. PostCurious has made a name for itself in the past with titles such as “The Emerald Flame”. The latter even has a permanent place in my first Top 5 puzzle games everyone should play. Another adventure, “The Witching Hour”, is now being funded on Kickstarter, written and designed by Rebecca Channon. It was an honour to be able to ask her a few questions about the project. [DIESEN ARTIKEL AUF DEUTSCH LESEN]

Rebecca discovered Puzzle Games during the pandemic

Rebecca is a writer from the English capital, London—and she has been passionate about games for years. “I was always interested in murder mystery games and stories, as well as board games, but I got into the tabletop puzzle game hobby in particular during COVID times, when I discovered the Puzzle People facebook group. Things very much snowballed from there …” Rebecca and I therefore share the same story, as I also discovered the group during this period.

After playing many games, she wanted to create a puzzle adventure of her own. “I was making a puzzle game for someone and I really wanted it to be set in a maze, as I love mazes!” Her fascination for mazes was influenced by growing up near Hampton Court Palace, a castle in southwest London. It is home to the oldest surviving hedge maze in the UK—and Rebecca took on its challenge several times as a child.

The story of “The Witching Hour” takes players to Old Miring

Independently of her love of mazes, an idea for a spooky story came to her mind. Rebecca was fascinated by the history of witchcraft as well. The two things were brought together. “The spooky storyline occurred to me separately, but I found the two concepts were actually a really good fit when I made the maze sinister!” And so the idea for “The Witching Hour” was born, a game that is now set to expand the PostCurious catalogue.

The story takes players to the small, isolated town of Old Miring, a place filled with dark secrets. Dangerous witches hide here—and twice a century, they summon a sinister maze. Their goal: to lure a child into the maze and steal them away forever. The announcement puts it this way: “The threat of being taken by the maze has always tormented you, but on the eve of your sixteenth birthday, you’re forced to confront those fears and enter the maze—alone.”

However, the gameplay that players will discover goes beyond that of other puzzle games. “The Witching Hour” seems to be like a combination of a puzzle adventure and a board game. “People will be solving puzzles, opening envelopes, reading numbered cards to access the story and uncovering tiles to go through the maze.” Most of the game is expected to take place on cards where players encounter puzzles and parts of the story. But the game also includes many other components—documents as well as objects that must be examined closely during play.

How Rebecca developed “The Witching Hour”

After creating the story and the maze itself, Rebecca gradually developed the puzzles for her game. Each task was intended to fit perfectly into the world of the maze, always serve a particular purpose and, above all, provide a reward when solved. The design process was followed by a phase of playtesting. “The most important process is always testing and revising, many, many times”, Rebecca says. Even if the development of the game sounds simple when summarised so briefly, it was a long process.

Once the game was finished, Rebecca got in touch with PostCurious. “I had admired their games for a long time, and the game I had made seemed to fit their style, so I took a punt and sent them an outline document to see if they’d be interested. They requested a demo copy to play and it all went from there.” The PostCurious experts then took another close look at “The Witching Hour”, contributing their expertise in editing, game development and illustration.

“The Witching Hour” is scheduled for release in August 2027

Players will soon be able to see what became of it—but they will have to wait a while longer. “The Witching Hour” is not expected to be delivered until August 2027. The Kickstarter campaign is currently underway and is scheduled to end on October 29. The funding goal was reached in a short time. The production target was 15,000 dollars, but more than 170,000 dollars has been raised so far. The base game costs 59 dollars and can also be expanded with various other products from the PostCurious range.

To make the wait for “The Witching Hour” a little easier, I naturally asked Rebecca about her favourite games. For her, it is clear what a good puzzle game has to deliver. “For me, it’s a great story and an immersive feel to the game, ideally with choices you can make and a mystery to solve on top of the puzzles.” She particularly loved the humour of “Ruff Bluff”, the originality of “Box One”, the world of “Witchery Spell” and the mythology of “Tale of Ord”. Rebecca also recommends games from the American Deadbolt Mystery Society and the “Chronicles of Crime” series, as they allow players to immerse themselves deeply in other worlds.

A tip for anyone who wants to design a Puzzle Game

And for anyone who now feels inspired to design a puzzle game themselves, Rebecca has one piece of advice above all: just do it! “They are such fun to design and make, why wouldn’t you?” she says. “The best thing to do is make one for a friend to start with so it’s lower pressure, you have an automatic play tester in them and you have an actual deadline!” Otherwise, you can spend forever trying to make it perfect, even though the most important thing is to finish something and put it out into the world of puzzle games.

Speaking of which: what comes after “The Witching Hour”? “I’ve got a few things I’m working on but that’s all I’m saying”, Rebecca says. So it seems the witches of Old Miring are not the only ones with secrets…