The quacks of Quedlinburg

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The quacks of Quedlinburg
Game data
author Wolfgang Warsch
graphic Dennis Lohausen
publishing company Schmidt Games
Publishing year 2018
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 45 minutes
Age from 10 years on

Awards

The Quacksalber von Quedlinburg is a board game by the game designer Wolfgang Warsch , which was published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018 . Thematically, this game is about a competition between miracle healers who brew and offer their potions in the Quedlinburg bazaar . The game is called a “bag building game” and accordingly uses a modified deck building mechanism as the central game mechanics, combined with a “push your luck” element (“challenge your luck”).

In July 2018 the game was named Kennerspiel des Jahres 2018, and in June of that year it was also named a “Games Hit with Friends” as part of the Austrian game award “ Spiel der Spiele” .

Style of play

In the game The Quacksalber von Quedlinburg , the players compete against each other as miracle healers and brew potions from the ingredients available to them that they have collected in their ingredient bag, which bring them victory points, rubies and the means to purchase new ingredients. The winner of the game is the player who has the most victory points after the ninth round.

The game material consists of the game instructions and an "almanac of ingredients":

  • four cauldrons or player boards
  • four bags in which the ingredients are collected
  • a central tableau with victory point track and round indicator
  • a flame as a lap indicator
  • four victory point markers in the four player colors
  • 219 ingredient chips in eight types / colors (pumpkin, crow skull, fly agaric, mandrake root, skull butterfly, garden spider, ghost breath, crack pea) with values ​​from 1 to 4
  • a bonus die
  • four bottle plates
  • four 0/50 seal plates
  • 20 rubies
  • 24 fortune telling cards
  • 12 ingredient books
  • eight drops in the four player colors (two per color)
  • four rat stones in the four player colors

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, the central tableau with victory point track and round indicator is placed in the middle of the table. Each player chooses a player color and receives a player board, an ingredient bag, a bottle, a drop, a rat stone and a victory point marker. The flame is placed on the first field of the round indicator, the four 0/50 seal tiles are placed with the "0" side up on the corresponding storage space on the central tableau. Each player places his or her victory point marker on the corresponding seal marker. The fortune telling cards are shuffled and placed in the middle of the table as a face-down draw pile together with the bonus dice and rubies.

The ingredients are sorted by type or color and their values ​​and are also placed in the middle of the table. The orange and black of the ingredient books are laid out openly at the start of the game, with the side selected according to the number of players. A set of five different colors is formed from the remaining books, the remaining books are removed from the game.

Each player now places his cauldron (with the side without the test tubes) in front of him and places the bottle marker with the full side up and the rat stone in the place provided. The drop is placed on the 0 in the center of the bowl. In addition, each player receives a ruby, which he puts in the ruby ​​supply, as well as a white 3, 2 white 2, 4 white 1, an orange 1 and a green 1 chip and uses this to fill his ingredient bag.

Game flow

Actions per round
  • Reveal and resolve fortune telling card
  • Insert rat stones
  • Brew potion
    • Draw chips
    • possibly use actions
    • possibly use a bottle
    • terminate or explode
  • Rating

The game runs over nine rounds, with the progress of the round being marked by the flame on the round indicator. At the beginning of each round a starting player reveals the top fortune telling card and reads it out loud. It is placed face up next to the scoring track and defines the general conditions for the current round. The event described applies to all players, whereby a purple card is carried out before the round and a blue card is valid for the entire round or the scoring. After the fortune telling card is revealed, the rat stones are evaluated from the second round. With the exception of the leader in the scoring, all players may place their rat stone in the cauldron by as many spaces in front of the drop as the number of rat tails between the leader and their own scoring stone on the scoring track.

After the rat stones have been set, all players begin to prepare their potions in parallel. To do this, pull one ingredient chip after the other out of your bag and place it according to the specified value (1 to 4) in front of your drops or rat stone as well as in front of other chips on the strudel in the kettle. After each chip is displayed, the players can decide whether to draw another chip or to stop so that the cauldron does not explode. The different ingredients in the potion have different effects:

  • White snap pea and orange pumpkin chips fill up the potion, but have no concrete effects. Too many snap peas can make the potion explode.
  • Blue, red and yellow chips bring additional actions that are activated after dragging and placing.
  • green, purple and black chips bring actions that become active in the scoring.

An explosion occurs if the total value of the white chips (crackling peas) displayed exceeds 7. After that, the player is not allowed to draw any more chips and is forced to stop, but the last chip is still placed and has an impact on the scoring. The player can, however, use his bottle at any time before an explosion to put the last white chip drawn back into the bag; However, this must not happen if the chip that has been pulled out already leads to an explosion. After all players have decided to stop, or have been stopped by an explosion, the round is scored.

Lap scoring

Rating
  • Bonus dice
  • Chip promotions
  • Take rubies
  • Award victory points
  • Buy chips
  • Spend rubies

After all players have finished their brewing process, the rounds are scored. At the beginning each player determines the value of his potion based on the field on which the last chip used was placed. It does not matter whether this chip caused the boiler to explode. Players who get beyond field 33 receive the bonus shown on the spoon (score 35, 15 victory points). Then the scoring takes place using the scoring banner on the central panel.

All players whose cauldron has exploded are not allowed to take part in the first scoring (bonus dice). In this first step, the player who has reached the highest scoring field in his potion may throw the bonus die and receive a bonus based on the result. In the event of a tie, multiple players can roll the bonus die. Then the actions of the black, green and purple chips are activated and carried out. Then all players whose scoring field shows a ruby ​​in the potion are paid one ruby ​​each. As a fourth scoring step, the victory points are distributed according to the scoring fields.

In the next step of the scoring, all players can buy one or two chips of different colors. You are allowed to spend the value as money, which is indicated on the scoring field of your cauldron, the costs for 1, 2 and 4 chips are indicated in the revealed ingredient books of the respective colors. Unused money expires after the purchase and all newly purchased chips are put into the ingredient bag for the following rounds. In the last step (end of the round) rubies can still be spent. A player with two rubies may either move his drop and thus the starting field in the cauldron one position or refill the bottle if it was used to prevent an explosion.

At the end of the round, each player takes back his rat stone and puts all the chips from the cauldron back into the bag. The deck of fortune telling cards is passed on to the next player, who becomes the new starting player, and the flame is pushed to the next round, which means that further books can be revealed or new snap peas can come into play as indicated.

Last round and end of game

The game ends after nine rounds. In the last round, all players have to pull their ingredients out of the bags in response to a signal from the starting player in order not to gain any advantage from the hesitation. A player who wants to stop pulls his empty hand out of the bag.

At the end of the last round, after scoring, players can buy one more victory point for five money points or two rubies. The player who then has the most victory points wins the game. In the event of a tie, the player who was able to advance the furthest in his cauldron in the last round and thus had the fullest cauldron wins. If there is still a tie, these players win together.

Game variants

Due to the different sets of ingredient books and the possibility of freely combining them, several ways of playing are already given.

On the back of the boiler there is also a display for a variant of the game with test tubes. At the beginning of the game, a second drop is placed on the first test tube. Whenever a player receives a drop through an action, a fortune telling card, a bonus roll or the payment of two rubies, he may choose which drop to advance one space. If he chooses the row of test tubes, he immediately receives the bonus shown on the test tube. All other rules are the same as in the base game.

Expenses and reception

The Quacksalber von Quedlinburg was developed by the Austrian game designer Wolfgang Warsch and is published by Schmidt Spiele . Thorsten Gimmler was responsible for the editorial work, while Dennis Lohausen took care of the illustrations and the cover design . The game was presented at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in January 2018 and was released in March 2018.

In July 2018, Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg was named Kennerspiel des Jahres ( Kennerspiel des Jahres ), where it was nominated alongside Ganz Schön clever (also Schmidt Spiele), also developed by Wolfgang Warsch, and Heaven & Ale by Michael Kiesling and Andreas Schmidt . In June of that year the game was also named a “games hit with friends” as part of the Austrian game award game of games .

The reviewer Tom Felber wrote that you need nerves of steel in the game to always make the same decision: "Take another risk or stop?" Harald Schrapers was "immediately enthusiastic" in the game. “The objection that you are playing for yourself and that everyone is making their own soup is completely irrelevant. Nobody misses the interaction, because it is always exciting. It is enough for us to hear the faint curses of the opponents when they have to put their crackers in the cauldron far too early. "" Warsch proves to be a magical artist who has a good feel for the mixture of mechanisms, praised Wieland Herald the author. Udo Bartsch emphasizes: “Although there is a longer evaluation phase at the end of each round, the players are always busy and, above all, permanently tied up: Unless one is hopelessly behind, the tension never falls off. Please ask your game dealer or shaman about the addictive side effects. "

In 2019, Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg: Die Herbhexen (The Herb Witches) was an expansion to the game that brought additional ingredient books, a new “fool's herb” and the herb witches into play.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Official rules of the game for Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg ; accessed on May 10, 2018.
  2. ↑ Versions of Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg in the BoardGameGeek database; accessed on May 10, 2018.
  3. ↑ Tom Felber: In this game you can cheat as much as you want - and nobody will notice. In: watson. April 15, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Harald Schrapers: The Quacksalber von Quedlinburg. In: games we play. 2018, accessed June 23, 2018 .
  5. ^ Wieland Herold : The Quacksalber of Quedlinburg. In: With 80 games through the year. April 2, 2018, accessed June 23, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Udo Bartsch: Tied up by the kettle. In: spielbox 4/2018, pages 12-14

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