Mystic Moon

Gameplay

Mystic Moon is a strategy game with one mission: become the Supreme Witch. By foraging for ingredients in the gardens, bartering with the mysterious Elder Witch, and brewing potions in your bubbling cauldron within your Witch Hut, you can compete against other players to earn star power. When the moon completes its final cycle, whichever witch has the most star power earns the title of Supreme Witch.

Set Up

Start by selecting which witch you’d like to embody: Fern, Eclipse, Vampurr, or Melody. Choose carefully: each witch has a unique talent that can help you at different points throughout the game. Set the Witch Hut that corresponds to your witch in front of you, with room for your potion book and Satchel, used to collect ingredients, nearby. In the center of the play area, set up the garden tiles and the Elder Witch’s Shop.

Stack the garden tiles on top of one another in number order, making sure the sginle light arrow on each tile is aligned with the others. The other 11 arrows are dark colored, and together they denote each of the 12 garden locations. You’ll notice each garden tile has different Glyphs scattered throughout, each of which gives you an advantage in the form of extra star power or extra ingredients. Randomly pull Ingredients from the Ingredient Bag and place one token in front of each garden location.

The Elder Witch’s Shop houses the potion deck: if you want to add a potion to your potion book, you’ll need to purchase it from the Elder Witch’s Shop. Her shop also contains basic and rare ingredients, which are available for bartering. Arrange three of each basic and rare ingredient in the shop, deal two basic ingredients to each player, and toss the rest into the Ingredient Bag. Now, you’re ready to play.

How to Play

Player 1 shall take the Witch’s hat and begin their turn, which consists of four phases:

Enter the Garden

Choose which garden location you’d like to enter, and choose carefully. Wherever you enter, you get to take the Ingredient Token at that entrance as well as the tokens at the entrances adjacent to it. Some entrances align with Glyphs, and if you enter there, you may resolve the corresponding effect, earning extra star power or ingredients.

Visit the Elder Witch’s Shop

Next, visit the Elder Witch’s Shop. Here, you can purchase potion recipe cards using star power and trade for different ingredients. To trade, exchange two of the same ingredients from your Satchel for one ingredient of your choice. You can purchase as many potion recipes or trade for as many ingredients as you like. However, you may never leave the Witch’s shop with more than 10 ingredients in your Satchel.

Return to Your Hut

Back at your hut, if you have the ingredients and the recipes you need, you can begin brewing potions in your Cauldron. Your Cauldron consists of a 3x3 grid, meaning you have spots for nine different ingredients. To brew a potion, arrange ingredients in your Cauldron according to the pattern shown on the corresponding recipe card.

Some potions can be rotated to fit better next to other potions you may be brewing in your Cauldron. Others, however, must be brewed in a specific arrangement. If you’re clever, you may be able to brew several potions at once, or even make the same recipe multiple times, earning extra star power.

Once you brew a potion, you receive the designated amount of star power and have the chance to resolve the effects of each potion you brewed. These effects can be advantages for you or disadvantages for other players, including adding extra ingredients to your Satchel from the Ingredient Bag, or stealing ingredients from other players. After you gain the star power and resolve the effects of your potion, return each ingredient in your cauldron to the Ingredient Bag.

Bloom New Ingredients Around the Garden

Finally, you must bloom new ingredients into the garden. Starting at the entrance you selected back in phase one of your turn, add a new ingredient to every second entrance. Each entrance can have no more than three ingredients. If you would add a fourth token to a location, simply return it to the Ingredient Bag instead. Then, pass the Witch’s Hat to the next player.

After each player has taken one turn, the moon phase shifts. Take the first garden tile off the top of the pile, revealing a new garden arrangement. After all five phases of the moon have passed and each player has taken five turns, the game ends. Whoever has the most star power earns the title of Supreme Witch!

Notes

There are two kinds of special non-ingredient tokens: Poisonous Mushroom Tokens and Frog Tokens. Poisonous Mushrooms can be used for sabotage if you come across them. If you add a Poisonous Mushroom to another player’s Cauldron, when that player goes to receive the star power they earned from brewing a potion, they lose 1 star power for each potion they brewed.

Frog Tokens hide among the ingredients in the garden. Anytime a Frog Token comes into your possession, immediately steal an ingredient from another player and then return the Frog Token to the Ingredient Bag.

History

Tee Turtle was founded by Ramy Badie in 2022. What started out as a t-shirt company based in Baltimore has since grown to include plushies (the Moody Reversible Octopus!), games, and accessories.

In 2017, Unstable Unicorns launched via Kickstarter to great success, which paved the way for Unstable Games, which is Tee Turtle’s dedicated game studio. They’ve designed games like Here to Slay, Twisted Cryptids, Happy Little Dinosaurs, Command of Nature, and Garden Variety, in addition to Mystic Moon.

Mystic Moon launched following a successful crowdfunding campaign in fall 2025, raising more than $1.7M.

Variations

The Curse of the Zodiac Expansion adds a new challenge to the game: each character starts the game cursed by one of the Zodiac signs. As long as you’re cursed, you’ll face a different disadvantage each round. However, once you break the curse, you’ll be blessed with an advantage each round. Two new characters—Galileo and Phantom—also join the mix.

With the Secrets of Alchemy Expansion, you can now learn new tricks that teach you how to convert regular ingredients into new, special materials. Two new characters are also introduced: Dex and Quartz.

You can also take your game to the next level with new accessories, including the Vinyl Figure Blind Box, which brings your favorite characters to life in the form of a vinyl figure, plus a unique holographic card that can be added into your Mystic Moon game.

Adorable plushies of your favorite characters are also available for purchase in the form of Cloudheads!