The Quacks of Quedlinburg

The Quacks of Quedlinburg (2018) is a sequencing game where you are "quack" doctors making medicine brews by adding random ingredients to your pot. In push-your-luck style you have to be careful not to add too much otherwise it explodes. It's a game about the emotional journey of pulling things from a bag, which works well because every piece matters in your master plan to craft the best potion.

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Each round everyone brews their medicine at the same time. You draw Ingredient tokens from your bag and place them on the spiral track on your pot. The higher the value, the further it is placed along the spiral and the more the potion is worth. Each ingredient behaves differently (being able to draw more chips, removing dangerous ingredients), depending on where it is placed and what else is in the pot.

You keep doing this as much as you want, but if you pull three of the white Cherry Bombs from the bag you have to stop as your pot has exploded. Once everyone has decided to stop adding ingredients (or has exploded their brew) you work out who has scored the most. This leads to a range of activities that add new ingredients to your bag, lets you buy chosen ingredients or move your start point forward for the next round.

The result is a game where the theme is matched cleverly by the mechanics. You start with a small bag of Ingredients tokens, but round-by-round can gain a cunning collection of tokens. Things start simple but steadily ramp up with fuller bags and new ingredients unlocked for everyone.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked The Quacks of Quedlinburg 22 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 14 months ago.