the Quacks!

Exciting, tactile and light hearted! It was by far the best game of 2018/2019 .. it's the Quacks of Quedlinburg!

I have to admit, I wasn't really keen to play this game, I saw it at UK Games Expo 2019 and it looked too complicated and laborious but then, thanks to my gaming group, I had the chance to try it out, and man I loved it!

You take the part of a charlatan trying to mix up concoctions and sell them to poor believers at the famous market of Quedlinburg.

You are equipped with your cauldron, a bag with some basic ingredients and lady fortune looking over your shoulders. Yes, you do need a degree of luck to succeed in this game, so if you are completely against push your luck games, better if you look away, or continue reading as I could possibly change your mind...

The aim of the game is to score the most victory points. Each turn you will blindly take ingredients out of your bag and placing them in your cauldron, always being careful not to make your potion too unstable leading to an unwanted explosion. It's amazing how this little action of picking stuff out of a bag can lead to group hysteria and extreme excitement, screaming out "I've got a blue one I've got a blue one!" or "Noooo! My pot has just exploded!".

You can decide to stop pulling ingredients at any time; obviously, if you take a risk and you are lucky, you will be able to gain more victory points and more money to buy new powerful ingredients but, if your potion explodes you'll face a choice, either taking points or money to spend. This is a really nice touch as it makes players feel that they are still in the race even though their potion exploded.




The game comes with plenty of ingredients that you can combine in different ways, giving plenty of variety and testing your ability to adapt to new strategies on how you build your bag.

Now let's talk about what everyone will tell you: "It has a great catch up mechanism!"; Yeap, if players fall behind on the scoring track they get a little help to catch up on points based on how many rat tails there are between them and the leading player. This absolutely brilliant mechanism makes the Quacks a perfect family game as you always feel you have a chance to pick up pace and catch up with the other players.

The Quacks is also really quick to teach, you can literally explain 4 rules and off you go, no more than 2 minutes explanation, and then you can introduce all the other rules as you go. The iconography on all components is excellent and the scoring board will guide you through the end of round checks removing the need to memorise each step.

Any negative points? mmmmh, maybe the length of each game, especially the first few times you play, it could feel that it is a couple of turns too long, but once you get the hang of it and everyone is comfortable with the rules you can get it done in under 1 hour.

This is a game you must have in your collection and a perfect gateway game to attract more people to the hobby. It's not too heavy, it's exciting and beautiful to look at when it's on the table with its vibrant colours and cartoonish characters, but more importantly it's just pure fun!