Quacks of Quedlinburg Deserves Its “Board Game of the Year” Win | Hacker News Reader

Quacks of Quedlinburg Deserves Its “Board Game of the Year” Win

arstechnica.com

22 pointsTomte3 comments

I've enjoyed my games of Quacks but I grew fed up with it quickly. RNG plays a huge role in this game, it is a push your luck gambling game first. If you play enough you will play a round where the first three chips drawn from a bag of twenty are white and add up to 8. You've lost the round and probably the game.

RNG overshadows the strategy of ingredients you buy. I can't tell if the ingredients I bought worked well together or I just got lucky. Some ingredients are strictly overpowered and others are strictly worse. The blue birds in set 1 that allow you to look at 1/2/4 tiles from your bag and choose to play 1 is incredible and you should _always_ buy it.

The catch up mechanic is interesting but favors experienced players. First, if you go bust and create a potion with more than 7 cherry bombs you must pick between getting money to buy ingredients or getting points (instead of both). At the beginning of each round players with fewer points than the lead player will get a boost to their potion. Experienced players will bust during the first 1-3 rounds in order to get more money to buy ingredients, and get a boost to their potion the next round because of the catch up mechanic.

It's a fun game and it has been getting a lot of play time because it is fast, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last.

Along the same lines in theme with crafting potions for sale, you may find Alchemists [1] enjoyable as it's a game of deduction however you can still press-your-luck once you've reduced possible solutions into a tolerable risk. This allows for very methodical play to be rewarded but still allows those who are willing to gamble for leg up which can be a fun dynamic to balance.

One recommendation if you do play is to download the companion app. The game in essence requires a third-party player to validate potions with hidden solutions for the other palyers. The app takes care of role so everyone involved can be playing the game.

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161970/alchemists

I can recommend Incan Gold as a good, simple, fast push your luck game. The sort of thing that fits nicely as a quick diversion on a non-gaming evening or as a filler or opener on a game night.

The article's description of Quacks had me going back to check the headline to make sure the author's position is that it's very good—looks like your experience squares with how I was reading it.

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