Publisher: CoolMiniOrNot (Horrible Games)
Release Date: September 2016
Price: $49.99
Game Designer(s) Stefano Castelli, Andrea Crespi, Lorenzo Silva
Artist: Giulia Ghigini
Format: Board Game
Number of Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Product #: PTN001
Age Rating: 14+
ICv2 Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
To me, one of the signs of a really captivating game is when a player tries it for the first time, and asks if I know where they can buy it. Not only did he ask, but he actually did rush out and buy it the next day. A second player asked that it be made part of our ongoing game rotation, after just one time playing it. It can be that intriguing a game.
Superficially simple, this is actually a game of pattern recognition, and finding ways to make manipulation of those patterns into other patterns. Thus, an 8-year-old can play it, but a more mature player will probably play it on a different level. A group of kids would enjoy it, but a group of adults would enjoy it, too. They might play it differently, but both groups would enjoy it equally.
The mechanics are simple. You take one or more marbles from a rack, depending on what the rules permit, and whether you have used various special moves to alter your turn. You use the marble or marbles to complete a potion, which needs multiple ingredients, each represented by a marble of one of the four colors.
The potions, in front of you, are flat flask-shaped playing pieces with little holes to keep the marbles from rolling around.
Certain achievements [completing potions whose values form sets] reward you with bonus victory point tokens, and using up all of the "countdown" bonus chits or all of the potion flasks ends the game, and points are scored.
So why is it so fascinating? When you pull, say, a red marble out of the rack, if you cause blue marbles on both sides of the red marble to collide, you get to keep the blue marbles as well. If removing the blue marbles then causes yellow marbles to collide, the yellows are yours. Seeing the patterns that will give you the most ingredients that you can use is a key to victory. You can only store a limited number of marbles that are not in use on a potion, so there is a constant turnover, and that creates constantly changing patterns.
Once you complete a potion, you can later use it for its special powers, which can make a one-time exception to the rules. That allows you to do things in your own favor or to mess up the player coming after you. All from a bunch of marbles on a rack...
The components are gorgeous, although the workbenches seem to be just a hair too big to fit in their apparent place in the box, and one color is purple in the rules, but blue in the marble set, which was confusing for the first few seconds of unpacking. There are even extra marbles, in case you lose a few while figuring out your next move.
--Nick Smith: Librarian Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.
