A Magical Crush (Potion Explosion)

Greetings, my young appren'tices.  Welcome to the lab, where all our most vile and powerful potions are brewed.  I, Professor Severel Snipes, will be your professor.  I will teach you how to brew fame and fortune, bottle emotions, and even cork up Times aging effect. All you have to do is take a chance, and work hard.  That?  That was just a Potion Explosion, the first of many here.



BACKGROUND:  Potion Explosion is a marble based game for 2-4 players.  It was created by Stefano Castelli, Andrea Crespi, Lorenzo Silva, and Giulia Ghigini in 2015, and published by Horrible Games.  Players gather ingredients to create potions to score points.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, a player may take an ingredient from the Dispenser from rows 1-8.  If 2 or more marbles with matching colors ever during this time, the player gathers all marbles that match, and continue as long as 2 or more marbles collide.  This is called an Explosion.  Then, the player places all the marbles in their hand onto 1 or both of their potions, or onto their Ingredient Pool to save for later.  If neither works, all remaining are put back into the dispenser.  Whenever a potion is finished, it is placed off to the side, and replaced at the end of the players turn.



MARBLES:  Players may also take another marble once during their turn by taking a Little Help Token, which costs the player 2 Victory Points.  Players can also drink any of their potions for a one time effect.  In either case, if 2 or more marbles Explode from either of these events, players do not gather more marbles.

WINNING:  If a player gets collects 3 of the same potions, or 5 different kinds of potions, the player gathers a Skill Token.  Players cannot get a Skill Token if they already have got one for fulfilling that requirement.  When the Skill Token pile runs out, all other players take 1 final turn.  Then, every player counts the Victory Points from all Skill Tokens, collected potions, and all Little Help tokens.

CONCLUSION:  Mechanically, this game is similar to something like Bejeweled or Candy Crush.  The thing is, that's fascinating to see something like that in a board game, a mechanic that seems like it wouldn't be translatable to a real world setting, and yet here it is.  The game is fun, too, if you like match-3 types of games.  The biggest weakness I see with it is that it takes a little bit to get a handle on how the Explosions work.  Once you do, it's fun to see all the ways you can take advantage of it, and can blow your mind.

Gateway Pipeweed (Portal of Heroes)

Once upon a time, in a land of dwarves and elves, where cats could talk, and will o' the wisps danced in the dark, there stood a magician.  Molthar, who cast a spell of darkness, until the Portal of Heroes would open up, and bring those who would stop him.  Do you have the courage to step through the Portal?

BACKGROUND:  Portal of Heroes was designed by Johannes Schmidauer-König
and Dennis Lohausen in 2015, and published by AMIGO.  Players attempt to gather Pearl cards and Character cards to collect points.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, a player takes 3 actions of any combination of the following:  They may remove all 4 face-up numbered Pearl cards and replace them; they may take either of the two face-up Character cards or draw one from the deck, and put it on one of their two Portals right side up, discarding one if they take a third; they may Activate a character; or they may take either a face-up Pearl card or one from their deck into their hand.



CHARACTERS:  Each Character requires a specific combination of Pearl cards to activate it, from a specific number of Numbers, to a pair or straight.  When a Character is activated, that player flips the card upside down, gains the Power Points and other effects now at the top, and puts it off to the side.  Some Character cards grant you Diamonds, or effects that are used before, during, or after your turn  Diamonds are indicated by taking a Character card face-down, and are used to raise a Pearl cards number by 1.

WINNING:  Once any player has gathered 12 or more Power Points, the game comes to an end by first finishing the current round (the player to the right of the starting player ends their turn), and all players get 1 final turn.  The player who has the most Power Points wins, with ties going to the tied players with the most Diamonds.

CONCLUSION:  Portal of Heroes is a nice little game that is obviously inspired by more classic card games and trick taking games, and wears that influence on its sleeve.  Mechanically, it has a lot going for it.  It plays smoothly, the turns are never obnoxiously long, and the amount of strategy to go for certain cards always ends up being varied for that reason.  The two biggest issues with this game are complexity and its theme.  First, it doesn't stand out as anything than generic fairy tales.  I've passed this game multiple times on the shelf without realizing it was there because it doesn't pop out that well.  The other is that it's one of those 'tricky to understand, easy to play', which is a shame because that will keep people from playing it without a good teacher there, and even then it might be frustrating.  Still, if you like Hoyle deck card games, or stuff like the Fox and the Forest, then give this a try.  It might take you through a portal of fun.

Better Late Than Never (Timeline Challenge)

They say that real life can direct the plot of a story.  Well, that's a matter of fact with this game.  Now, before you click off, let me sell you on this.  Imagine a game of figuring out dates, don't close yet, but actually has gameplay elements.  This is Timeline Challenge.



BACKGROUND: Timeline Challenge is a board/card game for 2-10 players by Cyril Demaegd and Frédéric Henry, art by Xavier Collette and Jérémie Fleury, and published by Asmodee in 2015.  It is an expanded sequel to Timelines.

GAMEPLAY: Each turn, all players are engaged in a Trial, depending on the space the leading player is on.  Generally, the Historical board (with the dials) is used to guess the the cards dates or orders. Players move spaces according to the Trial.  There are also 2 Challenge lines, which are played immediately once any player crosses that line, but are only played once.  The player in last starts, and continues clockwise. The winner of the Challenge moves ahead 3 spaces, and play continues as normal.



WINNING: The game ends once a player reached the center Finish space.  In the case of a tie, the tied players play one final Sudden Death Challenge.

CONCLUSION:  I want to summarize this game with 'this is Timelines', and to an extent, it is.  It uses the same premise and idea that the original uses.  But, because Timelines was so simple an idea, it became easy to be able to flesh it out and make it more tangible of a game.  Once you understand the Trials, the game becomes just as easy to understand, but with more mechanical depth (but not much) of the first game.  So, if you like the idea of Timelines, but want something that will last a little bit longer, this is the Challenge for you.

On Board, I'm the Captain (Coup)

Royalty.  The good life, the pampered position.  But you never know when some rich duke is gonna want to sign you up for marriage, or if some wanna-be assassin is going to try to take your life.  So, what do you do?  Even in the future, things aren't all that great, and it can be just as easy to Coup as be Coup-ed...

BACKGROUND:  Coup is a hidden role card game created by Rikki Tahta in 2012 and published by Indie Boards & Cards.  Players attempt to gather up coins and take the others influence down.

GAMEPLAY:  Each player starts with a pair of Role cards, kept hidden from the other players.  Each turn, players can take 1 of 7 actions.  Some of these actions are dependent on Coins, such as performing a Coup requires 7, and is required if a player starts with 10+ Coins.  Some actions are determined by the Influence cards, and most of these can also be blocked by other Influence Cards, but no player is technically required to have that Influence card in their hand.

CHALLENGE:  If, at any point, a player takes an action from a Influence card, another player can challenge that they have that card in their hand, or the player that would be affected if it is a single effect, like assassination or stealing Coins.  The challenged player reveals a Influence from their hand.  If they do not have that card, the effect is nulled, and the challenged player discards an Influence card..If they do have that card, the effect applies and the challenging player discards an Influence card, while the challenged player shuffles the revealed card back into the deck and draws a new Influence card.

WINNING:  The player who has the last Influence wins the game.

CONCLUSION:  I can honestly say that Coup is a fine game.  I will give it credit for being one of the few Hidden Role Werewolf-esque games to be drastically different than Werewolf, and causing players to directly fight each other rather than relying on subterfuge and misdirection as strongly as most other games in the genre.  In addition, it also has a thematic component, being in the Resistance universe, but that only goes so far, and it doesn't have much of a connection personally.  If you like the Resistance universe and that helps sell this game for you, great, it's a fine universe, but not one I'm invested in.  That being said, it is nice to have a game like Coup for those that want to play Werewolf of Secret Hitler, but have fewer players.  Coup is meant for that, and it's worth checking out, but it still won't replace some of the other games I've reviewed better (again, see Secret Hitler, The Resistance, or One Night).