Month: February 2009

Discovery Bay Games brewed up another magical batch of fun with their game Potions — A Wizard’s Apprentice Game. In Potions, the players are apprentices competing to become a wizard. The first apprentice to complete the potion assignment gets two Class Credit tokens. The first apprentice to collect five Class Credit tokens wins the game.

Potions uses a combination of dice and cards to build these potions. The cards are shuffled and each player is dealt four cards. The remaining cards are placed face down in the center of the players to create a draw pile. Then the dice are rolled to determine what kind of potion you have to brew up. There are three kinds of potions, six ingredients, and three types of applications of the potion. The first dice tells you what kind of potion you are making: Love, Wisdom, or Transforming. The second die is the first ingredient: Eye of Newt, Tooth of Dog, or Toe of Frog. The third die is the second ingredient: Lizard’s Leg, Wool of Bat, or Fenny Snake. The fourth die represents the application of the potion: Drink, Powder, or Ointment.

At the beginning of each hand, the player draws a fifth card from the deck in an attempt to match four cards with the dice. The player must then discard one of their cards so that their hand is back at four cards by the end of their turn. The card is placed face up in a discard pile beside the draw pile. If it is an action card, the action is done on the player of your choice. If the player does not have all four ingredients, their turn ends and the next player draws a card.

The action cards are fun ways to thwart your opponents’ success. Merlin’s Roll allows you to re-roll one Potion Elements die. Change allows to you change any element die to whatever you like. Take allows you to steal a card from another apprentice, forcing them to draw a replacement card from the draw pile and Spilled Cauldron forces a player to lose all of their cards and draw an entire new hand from the draw pile. After each successful hand, the winner collects 2 Class Credit tokens and the dice are rolled again for the next round.

Another twist on the game is the Apprentice Challenge. If you have at least one Potions Class Credit token, you can challenge any other player that you will have more matching ingredients than them in the next hand. If you don’t have more than them at the end of the hand, you lose a Class Credit token. If you do have more than them, you receive a Class Credit token even if you don’t win the round.

One point of confusion in the gameplay is setting down matching ingredients. The instructions say that you can set your matched ingredients face down on the playing surface so you are only holding the unmatched ingredients in your hand. The cards that are set down are still considered to be part of your hand, though, so when another player gets a steal card, these cards would be the obvious targets to take. The instructions don’t specify if they can be taken or if they are safe. We chose before a few games not to lay down cards, so as to randomize success when the steal card is played.

The box has a molded insert that neatly and securely holds all of the game pieces, and is small enough to store on an average bookshelf. The large dice are easy to read and the cards are thick, coated, and seem to be highly durable for many years of fun game play. Perfect for the fantasy lover, Potions is fun and fast-paced. While it doesn’t have a strong educational value, it might help younger players to understand the concept of mixing ingredients to make something new.

The game includes:
52 Playing Cards
4 Potion Elements Dice
20 Potion Class Credit Tokens
1 Potion Class Credit Token Bag
1 Cauldron Shaker Cup

Potions is distributed by Discovery Bay Games, and is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or one of Discovery Bay Games’ many other Retailers.