Encanto House of Charms Board Game: Rules and Instructions

Encanto House of Charms How to Play Quick Links:  |  Objective  |  Assembling the House  |  Setup  | Playing the Game | Cards | Spaces | Placing Charms | End of Game | FAQ | Components |

Objective of Encanto House of Charms

The objective of Encanto House of Charms is to work with the other players to secure the magic in all six rooms before the candle is extinguished.

Assembling the House

Each time you play Encanto House of Charms you will have to assemble the house. Follow these steps to assemble the house.

Setup for Encanto House of Charms

• Turn the dial in Abuela’s room until you can see the pink background candle in the window of the back wall.
• Randomly divide all of the charms between the players.
• Insert each door into a stand. You will place each door next to its corresponding room. You should have the dark side of the door face outward towards the rest of the gameboard.
• Remove four spell cards from the deck (the black and white cards). Shuffle the rest of the cards and place them facedown on the table to form a draw pile.
• Each player chooses a playing pawn and inserts it into a stand.
• Place each of the chosen characters on one of the steps of the staircase. The character placed closest to the bottom floor starts the game. Turn order follows the order that the pawns were placed on the staircase.

Playing Encanto House of Charms

You will begin your turn by drawing the top card from the draw deck.

What you do next depends on what card you drew. You will take the action corresponding to the card that you drew (see the Cards of Encanto House of Charms section below).

Then discard the card you drew to the discard pile. If the draw pile should ever run out of cards, shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile.

You turn will then end. The next player in turn order then takes their turn.

Cards of Encanto House of Charms

Number

When you draw a Number card, you will move your playing pieces a number of spaces equal to the number on the card. While moving you will follow the arrows printed on the board.

If you land on a space that another player is already on, you will move your playing piece to the next empty space.

Stairs don’t count as spaces while moving.

After you have finished moving, you may need to take a special action depending on what space you landed on. See the Spaces of Encanto House of Charms section below for more details.

Spell

If you draw a Spell card it will lower the level of the candle. Turn the dial in Abuela’s window counterclockwise until the next flame is visible. This puts you closer to losing the game.

Enchantment

Enchantment cards raise the flame of the candle. You will turn the dial in Abuela’s window clockwise one space until the next flame is visible.

If you are at the highest flame level (light blue background), do not turn the dial.

Family Power

When you draw a Family Power card you will turn to one of the other players and say something nice to them. You and the other player you chose both get to choose one of your own charms and add it to the corresponding room.

Spaces of Encanto House of Charms

Charm

If you land on a space featuring one of the charms, you will check your charms to see if you have a match.

If you have a charm that matches the space that you landed on, you can play one charm of that type. You will add it to the room that requires that charm.

You will do nothing on your turn if you do not have a matching charm.

Magic of the House

When you land on this space you will move your mover to the tower level of the gameboard.

For moving your playing piece to the tower, all of the players can choose one of their charms and adds it to the corresponding room in the house.

You will stay on the tower level until your next turn. On your next turn you will place your mover anywhere on the staircase and take your turn like normal.

Weather

If you land on the weather space, you immediately move to the next closest space that features the same weather symbol.

Lost Magic

When you land on this space you will choose a charm from one of the rooms in the house. You will take the charm from the room and add it to your group of charms.

Placing Charms in Encanto House of Charms

The ultimate goal of Encanto House of Charms is to place all of the charms in their corresponding rooms in the house. You can look at the door for each room to determine what charms you can add to that room.

You can add charms to a room in three different ways.

• Landing on a space that pictures a charm that you have.
• Drawing a Family Power card.
• You or another player lands on the Magic of the House space.

Whenever you add a charm to a room, turn the dial in Abuela’s room one space clockwise. This will raise the level of the flame.

When you add four matching charms to a room, you will turn the door around to the bright side. This indicates that the room is secure. All of the players should hold hands and say the name of the room together. Once a room is secured, you may not add or remove charms from it for the rest of the game.

End of Encanto House of Charms

Encanto House of Charms can end in one of two ways.

If you secure/turn all six doors to the bright side, you immediately win the game. You should say Encanto out loud. Everyone places their mover on the tower level and you will turn the dial clockwise until you reveal the light blue background.

If at any time the candle goes out (gray background) before all of the rooms are secured, all of the players immediately lose the game.

Encanto House of Charms FAQ

Are we doing something wrong? It feels like it is almost impossible to lose the game?

While playing the game my group had this exact same feeling. For pretty much the entire game the flame stayed on or near the highest level. It never even got close to the lowest level where we would have lost the game. Unless you are extremely unlucky, I don’t think you will even have a chance of losing the game.

I attribute this to the fact that there are many more ways to increase the level of the flame than reduce it. The only way to reduce the level of the flame is to draw a Spell card. You can raise the flame level by drawing a Enchantment card or playing a charm to a room. As you will be playing a lot of charms to the rooms, you will regularly increase the level of the flame.

The only way I could see making it possible to lose the game is to introduce more Spell cards into the game. There are eight Spell cards in the deck, but the official rules say to remove four of the cards for some reason and not add them back into the deck. There are not enough Spell cards in the deck to realistically make it possible to lose the game. Therefore I personally would recommend keeping all or at least most of the Spell cards in the deck unless you want to play the game where there is next to no way that you could lose.

Where do you move once you reach the end of the track?

The rules do not specifically say where you should move once you reach the end of the track. You will move from the staircase to the gameboard following the arrows. Eventually you will reach the first floor. You will then take the stairs up to the second floor. Once you reach the end of the second floor though (by Isabela’s room/pink room), there are no arrows that point to where you should move next.

When we encountered this issue, we decided to handle it by moving to the tower space and then back to the staircase. We thought this made the most sense since there is an arrow pointing to the tower space from the direction of the end of the second floor. This is an unofficial rule though as the instructions don’t specifically mention where you are supposed to move next. Otherwise I could see moving back to the staircase and starting to move around the track another time.

Any Other Questions?

If you have any questions about how to play Encanto House of Charms, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Encanto House of Charms Components

• Backwall
• Tall Side Wall
• Short Side Wall
• Tower Wall
• Tower Floor
• Middle Floor
• Bottom Floor
• Gameboard Base
• Dial
• Plastic Peg and Cap
• Plastic Staicase (2 pieces)
• 24 Charms
• 4 Movers
• 6 Doors
• 10 Plastic Stands
• 65 Action Cards
• Instructions

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Year: 2021 | Publisher: Spin Master

Genres: Children’s, Roll and Move

Ages: 5+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 20-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

Where to Purchase: Amazon, eBay Any purchases made through these links (including other products) help keep Geeky Hobbies running. Thank you for your support.

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