Review: Alchemists

As a child I had great fun making “magic potions” out of whatever I could find under the bathroom sink. Invariably the result was a beige gunge, and decidedly un-magical – it’s amazing my mother put up with it. So a game about mixing magic potions appealed to me right away. In Alchemists you play an eccentric alchemist, mixing potions, testing their effects and trying to win academic acclaim by publishing your discoveries.

Designer: Matúš Kotry
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Number of Players: 2-4
Release Date: Available Now

BRB-Score-4

Alchemists is an exciting game, it uses a phone app alongside the game to help manage hidden information and by doing so allows for genuine deduction without requiring an independent player to oversee it. Of course this does mean you need a smartphone, tablet or access to the internet. Czech Games Edition have been pretty thorough about making sure you can access the app easily in some form and seem to have succeeded. It is exciting to see a blend of analogue and digital that makes it possible to play the game in a way you couldn’t without it, rather than just being a gimmick.

Alchemists player board
There is quite a lot going on in a game of Alchemists, but let me explain the core of it: the experimentation and deduction. This has the feel of being based on rigorous (fake) scientific laws. There are eight different magical ingredients each of which has its own unique “Alchemical” composition.

Alchemists Ingredients

The eight ingredients – fern, chicken foot, scorpion, deadly looking mushroom, warty toad, scary looking root, feather, lotus flower

 

Alchemists Alchemicals

The eight possible Alchemicals. Each Alchemical is made of one red, one blue and one green circle, and each circle is large or small and positive or negative.

 

So the scientific bit. When you start a new game the app randomises which ingredient has each alchemical. You then mix potions from two different ingredients and the app tells you the result based on the combination of the two alchemicals, and from that information must deduce which alchemical belongs with each ingredient.

For example you mix:

Alchemists combination

Which is great, you now know of a way to mix that potion and can sell it to adventurers for a bit of extra cash to fund your studies. But more importantly you know a little more about the secrets of fern and frog. To make a potion of speed (a positive green potion) both ingredients must have a positive green circle in their alchemical and so you can eliminate the alchemicals with negative green for both of these ingredients.

Alchemists Alchemicals deduction

Each of these four alchemicals can be eliminated for Fern and Frog.

 

The rule that governs successful potion making is you create a potion when the two ingredients have a single pair of circles matching in colour and symbol, but different sizes, and the type of potion is based on the colour and symbol. So each experiment lets you narrow down the possibilities for each ingredient and as you experiment with new combinations you can eventually reach a single possibility for each ingredient.

Alchemists cauldron board

Overall it reminds me a lot of Sudoku puzzles in that you have to extrapolate the big picture from limited information on the basis of some simple rules. By itself that is an interesting intellectual challenge, but it’s hardly that exciting and given enough time you could test every possibility to easily deduce the alchemical for each in ingredient.

So it is good that the game doesn’t give you the time to know everything for certain. Whilst the core of the game is about experimentation and deduction the actual measure of success is academic renown. You gain academic renown by publishing theories about the true alchemical nature of the ingredients, and the alchemist who publishes first gets the most kudos. You don’t have the luxury of waiting until you know for certain, you’re in a race to publish first and you will have to take a gamble based on informed guesses and blind luck if you want to win. Each time you do you give away some of your secret knowledge helping your competition in their research, unless of course you’re bluffing to mislead them… it is fantastic to see the flurry of activity when you publish and the other players start comparing it to their notes to see if it reveals anything to them or more importantly if they can prove you wrong and discredit you!

Alchemist 2nd board

So far I have only had chance to play once, but I definitely enjoyed it. It played right into my enjoyment of deduction and packaged it up with a fun theme. Alchemists does a lot of new things for a board game, and it is crucial you understand the “science” behind potion making, which can make it tricky to get your head around at the start. The app does wonders in making things easier, and worked incredibly smoothly during play. My one concern with the game is whether the process of deduction might become formulaic after a few games, because you have learnt the best strategy. I don’t think it will, I certainly enjoyed Sudoku puzzles even when I knew some of the strategies for solving them, but it is too soon to tell. Even is the process does become routine I expect to very much enjoy getting to that stage.

Really different to other games out there
It’s exciting to see digital integration that works well
The theme is great
Might become a solved puzzle with time
If you make a mistake it can be hard to come back from it
You need to understand the deduction element to have fun

If you like the idea of competitive Sudoku with an amusing theme, Alchemists would be worth checking out.

The review copy of this title was purchased by the author.
Official Game Site

Tags: , , , , , ,

Leave a Reply

BRB UK 582: A Tale of Two Kongs

Finally we are, here for you. It's the latest show, with the Podcast crew

Tabletop Tuesday

BRB Weekly Events; Tabletop Tuesday   You may have seen...

Big Red Barrelcast 43: RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

On this week's episode, Dave, Kev and PacManPolarBear are joined by Yoshifett to blabber on about Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nintendo, and Gears Of War.

BRB UK 470: 12 Inches of Christmas

Here's your first gift while the team are away, let's take a look at this year's best games

BRB Boom 95: LeBron’s Groin Band-Aid

Don't call it a comeback, it's a new episode of the Boom

Element Gaming Palladium Keyboard

Richard reviews a gaming keyboard with an elegant design and pretty lights - What more could you want?

© Big Red Barrel 2011 - 2024