Today we have for you an award-winning, simple game called Quacks of Quedlinburg — or as we like to call it, Quacks!, because it's 2019 and trying to get people to remember a three syllable word is frankly a big ask. That's right, Mark, but behind its questionable title, Quacks shelters a fun concept. In this game players are all medieval chemists trying to brew the most exciting potions. Each player in quacks gets a cauldron with which to brew concoctions, a bag of ingredients that you'll be tossing blindly into your brew, and a neutralizing agent that you can add in a panic if you're worried that this thing is about to explode and if you haven't... already used it. But don't worry, mum! There are no actual explosions, although it might reduce your pride to a smouldering rubble. You see, the game takes place over nine rounds, each of which is a day in a farcical festival about who can make the best potion: each of you competing to be the top quack who can brew the bubbliest, most outrageously over stewed brew of hot stuff. And so each day you will simultaneously add ingredient after ingredient into that day's batch, the number on the ingredient showing how much it bulks up your bowl, and the further you get around this spiralling track, the closer you get to being crowned the Prime Potion Prince, the Queen of Quacks, the Baron von Bubbles! The closer you are to winning the game. This bigger number is how much money you get to spend that day buying more ingredients for your bag like baleful moths or just bits of pumpkin, making your bag ever plumper for the next day, where you will all brew bigger, bolder potions, where more points and more money will be at stake. But! - But! - But! - But!
But! - But! - But! - BUT! The game – I've almost forgotten my line, wait wait!
LAUGHTER The game is in deciding when to STOP adding ingredients. As players all simultaneously reach into their bag to add the day's next ingredient, you can choose to reveal (GASP) Nothing at all. And this is your way of saying you have passed, you are over, your potion for that day is complete. And the reason you might choose to do that is because everyone's bag at the start of a game of Quacks is mostly made up of these white cherry bomb tokens. These are the things that cause your cauldron to foam outrageously, which is very impressive in medieval times. We're talking about the equivalent of having a framed PhD on your wall. Now of course bubbles are little more than an indicator of a truly top-shelf bath. MUSIC: WHEN YOU ARE IN BUBBLE-LAND EVERYBODY WANTS TO SHAKE YOUR HAND But the catch with these cherry bombs is if you ever have a value of 8 or more of them in that day's potion, then it detonates – along with your chances of getting to roll the illustrious prize dice for the day's best potion. But way worse than that is that if you cause your day's potion to explode then you have to decide between either getting the points that win you the game or getting the money that lets you go shopping while everybody else gets both. So you definitely don't want that... But you also don't want to stop drawing ingredients, isn't that right, Mitch? Oh goodness, no! It's so hard to stop dipping into the bag again and again, even though you know it's a terrible idea. And then you get comedically frustrated when you keep pulling out chunks of junk. (Grouchy) I'm sure I put some really good stuff in here, where's all of the really good stuff? Like an embarrassingly boozy Santa Claus has accidentally loaded up his sleigh with bin bags. This craving to keep going is what lights the metaphorical flame beneath your cauldron, bringing the game to a rolling boil. So listen. Listen. Here comes the science. I'll get my chart. So here we have a chart of emotions ranging from pure elation to horror over here and the thing about Quacks of Quedlinburg which makes it constantly exciting is that whenever you're playing, when you pull something from the bag? The game never exists here in this middle zone where everything's just fine. You either pull out a cherry bomb which is – aaAAaaaaRGH! – awful, Awful, or you just pull out another safe ingredient and you're so relieved you just go 'Ohhahh!' and you feel like Billy Matrix dodging bullets - 'woh-woh-woh-woh! Nice!' and the thing is: constantly chasing after this high is what makes the game so exciting. Why not push your luck, pull again, pull again? Keep pulling them out. So many points, Just keeping them out, pull one more out, oh, come on, just one more pull one out, we'll be safe for one more, pull ONE more out! Again again, no, no, no, no, agai – no! No, stop! (BANG) MATT: (SOBS)
QUINNS: (LAUGHING) You look ****ing amazing! And because the game takes place simultaneously there's no sitting around and waiting it's just constant (SNAP, SNAP) gratification whether it's good or bad, and... other players sighs of relief merely make your misfortune cut that inch... deeper. Meanwhile your cries of anguish or your explosions of expletives just heighten how lucky everyone else feels. It's a phenomenon very similar to something we see a lot in English restaurants whereby if you hear somebody smash a plate or glass everybody just sort of quietly cheers. Wa-heyyyyy! Someone else just really screwed up. And it wasn't me! And that rudimentary roller coaster is brilliant, but like the best simple games, Quacks isn't actually simple. For anyone with even the vaguest head for probability Quacks is a fabulous nemesis. You can never look in your bag, but you do know how many of the chips remaining are cherry and roughly how many are left which just means that... THIS happens all the time. Okay, I feel eight chips in my bag, one of which must be the level three cherry bomb that'll blow this thing sky-high. That makes my odds of success seven out of eight. Look at everybody else sweating. What idiots! Open a math book sometime you big idiots. That's impossible.
Ohhhh, did you just explode? (ANGUISHED SCREAMING)
(BEEP) I think the most delightful thing about plain Quacks is it's never about whether or not you SHOULD be sensible. You always should make a sensible decision. It's whether or not you even CAN be sensible, because the problem is: you're never allowed to look in your bag for the whole of the game and after a while you kind of can't remember exactly what is in there, and then the basis of how good your bag actually is becomes much more... muddy, and based on how other players perceive how well you're doing. if you keep winning, then everyone else starts to go: "Argh, you've got such great stuff in your bag. It's not fair", and maybe that's not true, but maybe you believe it and it's the fact that this game is all about probabilities and keeping a cool head but in reality it's an emotive roller coaster that carries you away. You're tasked with the job of risk assessment, but you can't even remember what risk looks like.
But between these days where players brew potions and push their luck like scrawny beanpole sweating under a bench press, you have shopping, which is a joy! A while back, we looked at a game called Space Base where you could buy things that you tinker with your slot machine, and we loved it! And that's basically what we've got here!
(WII SHOPPING CHANNEL MUSIC STARTS PLAYING) Would sir prefer perhaps a mushroom that is going to multiply the effects of your pumpkins Or: a moth? Which is gonna give you fabulous prizes, just so long as you have more in your bowl than the players to your left and right. There is some fabulously warm and fuzzy decision-making here, where just adding one chip is going to feel fresh and exciting. But also: Quacks of... Queddington?
MATT: Quedlinburg! Quacks of Quedlindburg isn't going to overwhelm anybody, partially because there's only a few ingredients to buy, partially because you can only buy a couple of chips, but also because you can make the game more complicated, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, as players develop familiarity with it going through one two three four different sets of ingredients. The very first time that Matt and I played Quacks, we played again the very next night. And then I played again the next week! Not just because we knew we could swap out these ingredients and have a completely different return visit to this town, But because we knew that everyone we showed it to would just have a great time. This game is the definition of a safe pair of hands. For all the clever things we can sit and say here about Quacks, honestly, what makes it shine is alchemical. Nice.
You combine two unusual things and it shouldn't work, but it proves to be a potent combination. Like, each turn you only get to add maybe one or two new things into your bag and that shouldn't really be enough of a difference to have you genuinely really excited and rushing in to play the next day at the game, but it is! And when you absolutely spend a fortune for that four-rank mandrake and you think oh it's gonna be so good it's gonna do so – and you put into bag and it doesn't even show up for the entire of the game, that should be frustrating but instead it isn't, simply because it makes your bag seem more... mysterious (DRAMATIC MUSIC) And by day six you're no longer playing just a push your luck game. You're taking part in an archaeological dig in which you pull out things from your own bag that you forgot even put in there the, ah, decision of when to add neutralizer to your bowl often turns out to be kind of inconsequential, and yet doing it feels so portentous purely because of the size of the token they've attached to it. Also the random event deck right loads of games have random events that tweak the game a little bit. Often, it's super boring. In Quacks of Quedlinburg, it works! Why? Don't know. We don't know no idea another, possibly the weirdest thing? The rat's tail system of being able to fill out your potion a bit with some bonus rat bits actually makes it quite exciting to be the player in last place. Bonkers.
Honestly, I like this game so much that I am currently Incredibly excited about the expansion, Herbal Witches, and more excited about that maybe than I am a lot of upcoming full board games to the point where honestly I'd be tempted almost to ask the designer, Wolfgang Vash, if he wanted to go on to Shut Up and Sit Down dot com in the comments and like maybe just post letting us know what's in that expansion? (DRAMATIC MUSIC) But that would be unprofessional.
I know, that's why I'm not gonna do it. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) Anyway, that's all for today's entirely objective, scientific explanation of why Quocks of Quantum Blurb is one of the best games that we've played in years. Whoah, I, um, ah, I would say definitely one of the best games to come out last year (DUBIOUS) best game to come out in years, though? I just absolutely love it, the colour, the theme, the excitement, for me it's it's already like a favorite. I really like –
the accessibility – Exactly.
Certainly gets the Shut Up and Sit Down Recommends badgeolio.
Easy! We might not completely agree on how good it is, but it's definitely –
We can agree, it's great. It's great! Anyway, don't just take our word for it. We have for you now a very special treat It's a review within a review with top potion expert Wizarding Harry of Wizarding Harry's child Wizarding school Er, for wizarding Harries. Harry, what do you think? (HIGH PITCHED) Oh! Thank you, Matt! I l ike to make potions in my magic school that I like to call... My school. Headmaster Mrs. Magician says that I'm one of the best people who make potions in the school, but sometimes they explode. I wonder if this one will explode because that would be embarrassing Thank you very (POOF) (SPITTING) Thank you very much for watching our video if you've enjoyed this please like and subscribe We've got all sorts of videos on the channel and yet please remember it doesn't matter if you are an adult or a child, only professional idiots to do this. You honestly shouldn't do it. It was a terrible idea. I was really quite worried. So thanks very much. We got some other videos Don't do this. (LAUGHING) Don't do it! Thanks, bye! (LAUGHTER)
I own it and appreciate the push your luck grab bag element. However, it can feel a bit solitaire in its play, thus I realize I value more interaction in the games play. This brings me back to the likes of another Kennerspiel game I’ve played, Broom Service. Same push your luck driven feel but adds a touch more interaction in its card play and can be quite a hoot.
First review to not harp on about the alternate side of the board, which frankly isn’t great.
The normal board has everyone on an even level, but the alternate side is what can really cause a single round to give someone a massive lead; the run of chained bonuses can add up way too much.
Game is 9/10 on the base boards with most of the ingredient sets, 6/10 with the alternate board.
Did I miss this game's North American release or is it not readily available yet? I feel like I kept a reasonably close ear to the ground but it's out of stock everywhere I look.
Update: got a copy from my FLGS!
Played this last week at a party and it was a blast! Felt a bit like a multi-player solitaire but that's not a problem for me.
I found the game to be far too luck based even for a push your luck game. The tension wasn’t there since one person can very easily pull 6-7 points in their first 3 or 4 pulls and be out of the round. Meanwhile another person can be 7 pulls in during the sme round and be in no danger at all of busting. This scenario happens multiple times a game.
A game that does push your luck much better is Incan Gold. Everyone shares the same set of cards so the luck of the card draw is equal among all players. There’s the tension of trying to outguess your opponent as you try to split the gems that are left on the cards amongst the fewest people and the be the only one to leave to grab artifacts. Both are push your luck games but in Quacks thr luck is completely asymmetric and punishing and because of it the game has far less tension.
This game seems like the very definition of output randomness which I would assume most people would dislike or even hate.
It's sort of funny contrasting SU&SD's review to So Very Wrong About Games' mini review this past week.
Quacks does seem very accessible though which looks like the primary thing going for it. Nothing wrong with lighter gateway games.
I do wonder if that segment of the board game market ever saturates though.
The truth is out, Matt is secretly a smurf.
Marie Kondo has edited her philosophy to say "throw out things that don't bring you joyfuldelity".
I tried this at PAXU and it didnt grab me. Its a really well designed game for what it is, and I really appreciated the Rats mechanism, it just didn't make me go "This is really fun." Also I play games usually to make interesting choices and see how those choices work out, and this game isnt great for making those kinds of choices.
I also thought some of the ingredients were unbalanced. There are clearly ones that are undercosted, but I know you can mix up what they each do so it isnt a huge deal.