Quacks Of Quedlinburg
“Quacks of what-en-burg?” I hear you say, Quedlinburg? Yes! it is a real place in Germany and now it’s your turn to play a Quack doctor selling all sorts of shonky remedies to make you the best miracle ‘doctor’ in Quedlinburg! Need an ailment for bad breath? Chronic Deja vous? Post coital knees?... Never fear, the doc is here!
At its heart, Quacks is a ‘push your luck’ game that centers around building your bag of goodies (ingredients) and then putting them into your magical pot of quackery.
Your potion pot
Push your luck but do not pull a cherry bomb
Each player starts off with a certain amount of ingredients in their bag and one-by-one blindly pulls these from their bag putting them into their ‘pot’. The more ingredients you pull from your bag, the more points (and money) you will accrue at the end of the round. Points bring you closer to overall victory and money allows you to buy more ingredients to add to your goody bag for the next round.
The Tracker
The risk here though (and what adds the tension) involves the cherry bombs, the more of these you pull out of your bag, the more chance that your pot will ‘explode’ and hamper your chances of victory. Exploding your pot restricts you to only being able to make purchases OR gain Victory Points (not both) at the end of the round, which can really leave a nasty ‘eye of newt’ taste in your mouth.
Each ingredient has its own cool effect and different potency (numerical value) which dictates how far along it sits on your spiralling pot. The more expensive the ingredient the higher it’s value and effect is. These effects are all laid out on the recipe cards placed in front of each ingredient, they are even double-sided with two options for which power you would like them to have – enabling you to mix up your games as you see fit with your favourite (or most suited) powers.
Sometimes you can get a really good combo from pulling a string of good chits from your bag and have an impressive run where you will literally cheer from the awesome feeling of taking the gamble it paying off. The other side of the coin will have you pulling your hair out and wanting to throw your bag out the window because you exploded your pot in the first few pulls by skimming four cherry bombs out of your bag in a row!
But this is what forms the magic of Quacks, you will constantly be asking yourself, “Do I stop here and play it safe with my number of points and money? Or do I push my luck and keep pulling ingredients, hoping for bigger gains?” The hard part seeing others at the table ahead of you with their pot brimming chock-full of ingredients and you won’t be able to stand idly by and watch them win the round (which enables you to roll the bonus die I forgot to add). Sometimes you just have to take one more chit from you bag… sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t – but either way is a fun ride!
The kooky artwork and beautiful design of this game makes it look great on the table, the multi-coloured ingredients, sitting in bowls just waiting to be purchased is like being at your very own mini-market and its always super-fun being able to save up and purchase more and more of those super-powerful goodies to throw in your bag.
If you want a great family/party game this will appeal to a whole range of people, even those new to the hobby. You buy cool ingredients, pull them out of your mystical bag and throw them into your magical pot trying to get further than everyone else… What’s not to like? This also won the 2018 Kennerspiel des Jahres game of the year award and it’s not hard to see why.... Grab your copy now and get set for a ‘bag-full’ of fun!
Players 2 – 4
45 mins
Ages 10+ (younger children can also easily play with a little help from parent ‘teammates’)
P.S The Herb Witches Expansion review coming soon!...
Blog Written by: Tim Everton of Miniature Worlds Workshop www.miniatureworldsworkshop.com.au www.facebook.com/miniatureworldsworkshop/
Check Quacks of Quedlinburg on Board Game Geek
Publishers: North Star Games
Category: Medieval
Mechanisms: Catch the Leader. Deck, Bag, and Pool Building. Dice Rolling. Push Your Luck.