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.