Quacks of Quedlinburg Review

Quacks of Quedlinburg may be one of the most stressful, most exciting games that I own or have ever played for that matter. There is something that is so satisfying about pulling chips out of your bag and hoping that it does not explode. Each round, you place different ingredient chips of varying powers and amounts on your board. If you go beyond a cumulative amount of 7 on the white cherry bomb chips, your pot blows up and you are then restricted from earning points or money.

Each round, you buy new ingredients to make your bag more powerful. However, the risk of exploding is always there. After one round just to make life more difficult you get to add another cherry bomb into your bag. Just for laughs I'm pretty sure. You can always use your potion to reset your brew if it's not going well but this option is limited to how many rubies you have. There are other mechanics to help mitigate explosions as well.

The Good: The constant internal battle of should I pull another chip or not is done so well in this game. Since every player pulls chips at the same time, you're able to see where your opponents are on their board. This only heightens the struggle but in the best possible way. There are also several "catch up" mechanics with the rat tails and some of the fortune cards but it never feels like it's forced or doesn't belong in the game. I've never played a game where anyone absolutely dominated.

The Okay: There is an almost overwhelming amount of content in this box. Each ingredient minus the pumpkins and cherry bombs has several different powers (not even counting the expansions which add in even more). It is not a huge deal for people who play a lot of games but when you're teaching a new group it's somewhat annoying to always have to run the game for everyone.

The Not So Good: If you do not like luck based games then this is definitely not the game for you. Sure, you can control what goes into your bag but you can't control what comes out.

Final Score: 9/10

I absolutely adore Quacks. It's zero stakes gambling at it's best, unless you're putting money on the game, I don't know your life. I've introduced this to a good friend of mine and it's all he ever wants to play now and I'm happy to oblige. Quacks of Quedlinburg is a great fit in almost any collection. It's approachable to new gamers and intense enough for seasoned vets to the hobby.