The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Welcome to Replayable, where we go into depth on our favorite tabletop games that keep us coming back again and again. I'm the start player Todd, and today I'm joined by David and Paul. For our 16th episode, we will tell you about our most excellent elixirs while trying not to combust our kettles. Of course, we are the Quacks of Quedlinburg. The game is designed by Wolfgang Warsh and was originally released in 2018 by Schmidt Spiele with artwork by Dennis LaHausen.

Are you two garlic heads ready to share your secrets? No, but I have the cure for all that ails you. Let's go for bust. The Quacks of Quedlinburg combines strategy, luck, and a dash of potion making fun. Players take on the roles of quack doctors competing to create the most potent and valuable potions. Each player has their own cauldron board where they'll brew their potions. The catch is that you'll be drawing ingredients blindly from a bag with the hope that your potion doesn't explode.

The more ingredients you add, the more powerful your potion becomes, but if you push your luck too far, your cauldron will explode. Throughout the game, players can purchase new ingredients with special abilities to improve their chances of brewing successful potions. I remember seeing this game for the first time at BGGCon in Dallas in 2018, and it quickly went on my wish list. And I remember receiving it from my secret Santa that year and introducing you guys to it at game night.

What were your original thoughts when we sat down and played this game way back in, what would that have been? Early 2019? That sounds about right. Yeah, I hated it. I thought it was just shiny Yahtzee. They should put that on the box. I remember being strangely, first of all, you showed up and you're like, I got quacks. And maybe Greg was like, oh, cool. And I'm like, what are you even talking about? What is quacks? I've never even heard of this. It was literally out of nowhere.

So I had missed any sort of buzz or whatever surrounded it. But I remember being strangely a little confused because then we just started drawing out of our bags. And I'm like, well, wait, we just go. We all go at the same time. It was a little chaotic the first time through it. Maybe didn't quite understand what we were doing, but then quickly was able to get on board. Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoy the alchemist theme or in this case, you know, potion making.

And so I was really enamored with it. Yeah, you know, I remember you guys were so excited to get your coin cases for all the cardboard chips. And I'm like, these suck. They make it so it doesn't fit on the board anymore. But then the BGG store came out with the acrylics and now it all plays perfectly. Yeah, there is a thread out there that goes just into incredible detail about what size coin capsules you should get.

And I forget whether it's 21, 22 or 23 millimeters, but whatever it is, there's one where it's super snug and you got to put it in just the right way to get that coin capsule closed. But I tell you, there is something about that sound that coin capsules make when you're turning them that is very distinctive. I agree. I use them for Arkham Horror and something like that. Just reaching into the bag to those coin capsules. Yeah, it definitely improves Arkham Horror.

And I think the sound improves quacks as well. Right. So for the initial play, just like Al, I immediately went out and bought a copy of the game. Maybe not immediately because it was out of print. So I pre-ordered a copy of the game. And when that showed up, introduced it to my family and they took to it right away. And I've since found it to be somewhat of a Swiss Army game where it can come out in just about any situation.

It's super easy to teach gamers, non-gamers, whatever, and everybody can have fun with it because it kind of equalizes between gamers and non-gamers. This doesn't get you that much further than a new player. Yeah, I really liked it. But without those coin capsules, I don't know, that might be necessary. Right.

I would say that being an experienced player is sometimes a drawback because at the end of the day, this is a blind draw and you could be playing the odds as strongly as possible and realize, you know, I only have one garlic left in my bag that could blow up my cauldron. And I have, you know, one in five, so I have an 80% chance of drawing a good token. And then, of course, you draw the one that busts you.

We've seen games where the same player draws the wrong ingredient several times in a row and more than just the cauldron explodes. Their head explodes too. Right. That brings me to maybe it's my biggest take on the game is that I think if you blow up after the fourth round, you cannot win the game unless the other players just play terribly and let you back in. But after turn four. Why not? I mean, you just have to take points.

Yeah. And everybody's bag is better than yours because they were able to purchase. Right. Yeah. They're buying fours and you're not buying anything. So yeah, you're right. You're still in it, Paul, but you're not going to be competitive on the next round. Yeah. But are you in it? The odds aren't making you competitive, but you just said that doesn't matter as much. Fair enough.

You think of after turn four, turn four or after when you reach into your bag, if you think of, oh, I hope I don't explode. If you instead think of it as there is a chip in here that is immediately fail, immediately lose the game and worse immediately lose the game yet still have to play it out. That's the way I think of it. Because if you blow up on one of those turns, you're out of the game. It's like the assassin and code name.

If you draw something that puts you over your seven or whatever it happens to be that round and you blow up, it's you're out of the game. It's a loser. So if you shift your mentality, I completely disagree. I think it makes your odds of winning far worse, but it's not like the, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody blow up late. No, Dave saying it's worse. You've saying it's insta-lose and you're still committed to playing for another half an hour.

Yeah, but it's not insta-lose because you take points. You don't make your bag better to stay in the competition. I mean, maybe you've got a 1% chance of winning, but I think you've lost. I think you're out. I think we're actually talking about how the game makes you feel. I think we're talking about emotionally losing when you blow up later in the game because you feel so disheartened that you don't want to keep going and you basically go on tilt and keep blowing up every turn thereafter.

You start making even worse decisions because you're like, I have to get max value. I mean, that's what we've seen in our plays. I'm not going to name names. No, we are not. Well, because I think the reason is when you blow up, especially late, you know instantly it's your fault and it's nobody's fault but yours. It's not fate's fault. It's not odd's fault. You should not have drawn. There's just no excuse. So then is it push your luck to the extreme in that sense?

Because really it almost like don't stop. This is you just keep drawing. You mean can't stop, right? No, maybe I mean don't stop. The way kids play ink and gold, they just go, go, go. Just keep going. You're right. Can't stop. There is an economy that you can build up. There are synergies between coins, but really it feels like that part is a distant second to the pushing your luck aspect of the game. Like I think Dave brought up a good point. It depends what turn it is.

By the end of the game, you're at the extreme push your luck, especially on the last turn. Right. When you're going toe to toe, you're like, well, I'm behind. So I have to draw no matter what. Right. And on that last turn, we were able to look at each other's boards and we're all drawing at the same time, revealing at the same time. So it's definitely much more deterministic as to whether or not you should continue or whether you can bail out.

Yeah. I mean, to me, wax often feels like an automated game where you build your bag and then you just let a computer program run to see what happens. Like challengers, you're just like, oh well, or you feel it's like watching a TV show. That's exactly what I'm saying, Paul, is that I actually, I almost don't think of it as press your luck because I think the decision that I don't think there's really much of a decision. It's if you are not at risk of blowing up, draw.

There's no choices to be made. I mean, maybe there's some ingredients that give you little choices, but most of them just draw. Well, sure. Well, yeah. The real game is when you're at six or seven garlic on the board. What do you do then? You stop because having a bad turn is a setback. Blowing up is I'm out of the game. I think it's that clear. Huh. And how often do you win, Dave? Well, with whom? With my family? I'm pretty good. We'll just leave that one sit. No, I actually I mean, I do OK.

That's pretty funny. For the record, I like pressing my luck with six on the board and sometimes with seven. I think you have to win against good players. Yeah, right. So then let's talk about your thoughts on strategies then. So for example, first round, I almost feel it is obligatory to bust the cauldron on the first round because then you are usually going to have at least 10 purchasing power. Yes. Yeah, it's tenor bust. Right. So you get to ten, maybe stop. Also consider a ruby.

Although I think the ruby is at nine. So nine and a ruby or ten, depending on what you want to buy in the purchase. I think it's ten. Ten and a ruby? No, I think you want ten or more. And I don't think the ruby is sufficient. No, the hawk moth is usually so important. Yes, right. Yeah, I agree with that. It's tenor bust. The ruby schmoovy. And busting is inconsequential at that point.

And maybe even I think what you're saying, Todd, maybe even a little bit to your favor, because then you're probably going to start with a rat tail. Exactly. A rat tail early on when it doesn't matter, because we've seen in games, even in late rounds, if there are an insane number of rat tails being given. 22. It doesn't matter, right? Because everybody's getting close to the end anyway.

Maybe that early game rat tail might be the difference between having 11 to spend and 12 to spend and maybe 12 is going to get you a blue two or whatever it is. Having an extra dollar early on can get you an early blue chip. So that rat tail could make a difference. That's true. And you're pointing out the crow skulls, Dave, because you usually play with set one. Where they let you peek into your bag. If you're really going into a round, you should think, what do I want to buy?

What do I want to accomplish? Rather than just start blindly drawing and say, I hope this goes well. If you have a goal in mind like this turn, I'd really like to get to 14. That way I can buy whatever or 13 so I can buy a pumpkin and a moth. If that's what your strategy is. And then just shoot for that goal rather than just let's shoot for the moon and see where we end up. Oh no, I blew up. I think having goals each round is a good idea.

So then we played with set number four in our last game, right? And I think crow skulls turned out to be the best ingredient that we could buy in that one as well. It was late round, but the four value on that basically said, if you landed on a Ruby space, when you place that, it gave you four points.

And so we all realized that we should be buying those things and hoping that we get them to line up with Ruby spaces and not they have any control over it, but you know, we draw them and luck into it because it was so much more powerful than anything else we could have had. So that felt like it was the only path to try and catch up to you, but then you were buying them too. So to me, it was like, oh, it's four spaces and the potential for points.

It was easy compared to getting another Ruby or something. Well, I do appreciate you saying that we all realized that because I did not. I was not buying blue and that took my detriment. I think I ended up in a distant third, but when I evaluated them in the beginning, I thought those blues are going to give you early game points, which is going to give everybody else rat tails and then they're just going to pass you later on.

And I can say now I completely misread that the rat tails are not as powerful as I expected them to be. Yeah. You were actually in fourth place, Dave. Oh, thanks for bringing that up. I appreciate that. Yeah. Cause third place realized the blue curl skulls were that important. And so they leapt ahead of you. Yeah, that's right. I was close, maybe near the end, but then you guys just took off or you guys were getting 14, 15 or whatever. An extra eight to 12 points with those curl skulls. Exactly.

And not having curl skulls late in the game, there was no chance. So what are your thoughts about advancing the drop or the drip, whatever you want to call it? How much do you prioritize advancing the drop over like making sure your flask is refilled? It goes back to what Dave was saying before about having a plan.

If you think you're going to be able to buy what you want without advancing it, then it's not important anymore, but at least the first half of the game, I think it's the highest priority. Advancing the drop. Yeah. Early on. Yes. To be able to afford the chips that you want. Yes. Okay. I see what you're saying. Early on advancing that drop is nice because early on that lasts for all game. Exactly. So on an even playing field, I think refreshing your flask is more powerful than a drop.

That flask, I feel like is criminally underused by new players. Right. It's super important after turn four, like you said, because it allows you to keep going risk free. Right. Maybe. Yeah. When you're drawing in jeopardy. Well, Dave, why don't we talk about when you like to use the flask? Well, my decision on whether I use the flask is when I get into jeopardy, meaning I could draw and explode, then I evaluate from there, is this turn good enough?

Can I just stop here and get a good purchase and just call this round? Or am I in a position where I'm going to fall too far behind, I have to press it, then I'll use my flask? Which feels like nine times out of 10, you use your flask and you draw the same chip anyways, then you're right back where you were. Does it matter if it's a one, two or three? It only matters if there's a chip in my bag that can make me explode.

So if it's a, you know, if I pull a two and that puts me up to five and my three is still in the bag, now I'm in jeopardy and I don't like drawing in jeopardy. So I'll throw that two back in. Because I think some people feel like using the flask on a one is a waste. It's not a waste if it gives you five and your three is still in there. So if you're at four, you draw a one and then that's no different to me. Five is five.

And if I can get back to four where I'm not in jeopardy of blowing up, it's worth it. Yeah, I agree with Dave on this one. And there was some concern, I guess, in one of the versions of the rules that didn't show that the flask has a garlic on it, but it can only be used to return garlic to the bag. The rulebook left it out, but the actual component shows garlic. Right. Oh, yeah. I think I understood it. Speaking of rulebooks.

Yeah. The other week we realized that Todd, Dave and Al each have a different version of English quacks with three different rulebooks. Yeah, that was just crazy. The first of which says that you don't start with a ruby and the next two say that you do start with a ruby. Well I think to be clear, it doesn't say you don't start with a ruby, but it doesn't say that you do start with a ruby. So it left it out. It doesn't say you don't. Right. It just left it out.

Yeah. Yeah. So the story is then when we went to play the other night, we got out Todd's copy, which is first edition, and I'm setting it up and I said, everybody starts with a ruby. And then everybody starts laughing at me saying, what are your house rules? What do you mean everybody starts with a ruby? I'm like, fine suckers, I'm going to go look it up. Hand me the rulebook. And it is not in the rulebook. And it really messed with my concept of reality. I thought there's no way I made this up.

And boy, did we give you grief for having your own house rule to make the game that much easier. I know. I've been very vocal about my opinions on house rules and here I was caught. But I was able to show later that in my copy of the game, it says everyone starts with a ruby. Right. And actually in the original German version of the rules, everybody starts with a ruby. It was for whatever reason, it was an omission when North Star Games created the first edition of the English game.

Strange. Which, and I think North Star's response was basically start with a ruby. Don't start with a ruby. It doesn't matter. Have fun. Their same response to are the is the supply limited? Should it scale for players? And it's like, no, just have fun. Don't worry about that kind of stuff. Nice lead in. That's exactly what I was going to ask you about. So theoretically, there's not supposed to be a component limitation, but from a manufacturing perspective, of course there is.

And when we run into really popular ingredients like the blue fours in the first set of ingredients, they sell out. So what are your thoughts about that? Do you like it better that it is a shortage? And do you think you should? And I guess we'll get ahead of ourselves. Maybe you want to talk about it later. If we get to house rules, do we want to posit that there are scaling components for fewer than a full round of players fewer than four without the urb, which is expansion or?

I mean, that's that's interesting. You know, I have no problem with it. I think it's really interesting question, but I like the limited number of ingredients because that's how Dominion is. Right. You know, you start the game with 10 of each card. And I mean, Dominion does not change that setup for number of players. Right. Right. It's 10 cards in each stack. Yeah, I totally agree with that because it self balances.

I mean, if there's a something that's clearly better than everything else, we all snap it up and it's gone. We all get our fair share of it, assuming we all evaluate it the same way. I think it balances. I actually think of it. We what? I mean, because of the luck involved in exploding pots, we don't all get our fair share. Some people. Yeah. Explode it. No, don't get their fair share. I guess that's the game.

But I think of the component count maybe more backwards that I like that it's scarce because in any resource game, I mean, the resources should be scarce and we're competing for scarce resources. And so rather than feeling like in a four or five player game, there aren't enough. I feel like maybe in the two player game, there's too much that you can just do whatever you want for as much as you want. And you don't have to worry about that limitation.

And we've talked about in other games, it's being able to excel within the parameters or within a box is what makes the game fun. So should we come up with a house rule that scales the number of components down? Because let's look at even the biggest scenario, which is you're now playing with third witches, which has a bunch more components in it. Or even I think Alchemist has some extra ones in there. You could end up having even more components in there than what's in the base game.

And now you're playing with two or three people and it's glittering prizes. There's as many components as you need of whatever you need for as long as the game takes. So you're saying Dave's position puts him in the logical conclusion of house ruling a component limitation for fewer players. Yeah, that is what I agree with that. I'm not going to do that because I feel like that needs to be play tested.

But yeah, in fact, the way I've done mine is I've thrown all of the ingredients in from all of the expansions, whether I'm using the expansions or not, which has I think we played out very hard time finding the crow skull fours. Yeah, the other night. We did in a five player game with a strong crow skull for we didn't run out. Yeah, we did. Oh, okay. I believe we bought every one, but it was hard to be 100% sure since they were mixed in with the twos and ones. I dumped them out and searched.

I couldn't find one. I had to settle for it. Well, I should probably get those boxes that you have time because you were you were the last player on that turn that they ran out. I was. Yep. I mean, not that I needed it, but I wanted it. You know, not to not to steal your thunder, Todd, but what about the the start player card? I don't know if that's necessary in the game. The start player card. So you mean the fact that the start player draws a card for the round?

The card that the start player draws every turn. Yeah. Oh, the event deck. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. What do you guys think? I think it's just there to salt the game a little. And even if you're playing with the first set of ingredients, which most people never branch away from it, it seems like those event cards are making it somewhat unique for that play. So I like them. The fact that it follows the start player round, I think you need because there is a component shortage. That's true.

Yeah, that's what it's used for. I think you need a way to say, OK, who is it that gets to buy first? Because in the end, there is a component shortage due to manufacturing. And if you had very true, if you bought multiple sets of the geek up bits, which would be expensive. But if you did it and there was no limit, then it really doesn't matter who the start player is. Yeah. You know, most of the cards seem pretty fair because they give everyone the same option. But many of them are not.

They just reward like whoever ran out of rubies or whoever exploded. And I don't know how I feel about those. They seem to just make the game even more chaotic. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. They range from insignificant to randomly helping one or two players a lot more than the other players. And especially with that one that you mentioned, Todd, one that's like, if you're all out of rubies, you get to get something, I forget what it is, move your drop or something.

But my thinking is if you're all out of rubies, it's because you just spent rubies taking advantage of that. So it's the way to get richer in that case. Yeah, there was quite a bit of that. I felt like they needed to be staged, like maybe have them be phase one, phase two and have them be so that, you know, in the early game, they can be more, you know, magnanimous and help people. But in the late stages, they're going to be targeting the people who are falling behind.

I think the Rattails are great early in the game. I think late game, they start to lose their effectiveness. And then we saw just a crazy edge case the other night, which was because there were so many Rattails being handed out to players that were farther behind, they didn't have as much opportunity for their chips to pay off in their cauldrons because they're reaching 35 and done. I think there was a turn where we all hit 35. Right? Well, all but one. Yeah, I didn't hit it, but that's fine.

Oh, I was thinking somebody blew up. Well, you are the one awarding us with Rattails. So right. Yeah, that's the part you left out, Todd. You're being very modest. Why was I getting 10 Rattails a turn? Because you had lapped somebody on the board. Greg at one point said, I get all the Rattails. Which we counted to be like 22. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that happened. But I think Greg put it best. He called the Rattails a keep up mechanism and not a catch up mechanism.

And I thought that was pretty insightful that it just, it keeps you from really falling behind more so than it helps you catch up. I think they're very necessary in the game. Yes. They are, but I think there needs to be something even slightly different because Paul, in that case that last round, I think you still got seven or eight of them, right? Yes. Which that is one to two blue fours you never got a chance to place or even try to place. Yeah. I mean, I hit 35 pretty quickly that last round.

Right. So it's an interesting catch up mechanism where keep up, however you want to say it. Early on, it feels overpowered. I mean, I remember, you know, we all kind of grit our teeth when if you roll the die because you scored the most up link and you, you roll a point and you cross over that Rattail and everyone behind you is just like cheering because it's like, Hey, we're all going to get an extra point early on. That's that's big. In the first few turns. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So when I say that it's bag building distilled down to its purest essence, I'm thinking of something like early on, right? Where you are drawing stuff from the bag or even the old pillars of the earth, where it is either doing turn order or it's giving you a resource to do something to develop the board. And there's more to the game than just, okay, I've drawn this thing. I agree 100%. But with Quacks of Queddenburg literally is I drew this thing and I put it down and I'm drawn the next thing.

And so there's not a lot of adjunct activity beyond just reaching in and pulling out the next thing and sending it down. So that's what I mean by distilled to its purest essence. It's one of them, but I want to throw puzzle strike onto the podium. Okay. Because that doesn't even have a board. That is just the chips. Yeah, you're right. And there's nothing else in the game. Okay. So there's even a purer essence. Well, there's a purist. Some of the chips have a lot of text on them.

So there is a lot going on in puzzle strike too, but I think it can fight quacks for the crown. That is a great pull. I haven't played puzzle strike in a long time. Do you have a copy? I do not. Yeah, it's been a long time for me as well. Have you ever played Dave? No, I have not.

But I think saying that it's bag building distilled to its pure essence, I think that goes to what Paul was saying earlier is that the part in between purchasing, between building your bag, the actual drawing from the bag, since those decisions are not that great, those decisions are usually pretty obvious. I forget how Paul put it, but those are almost just on autopilot. It's called automation.

A lot of people are talking about challengers being a new wave of automation in board games, but I think quacks has it too. So it's like you program your deck and then see what happens. Is that what you mean? Yes. Yeah. And so in that case, this would be kind of bag building to its pure essence because really that's 95% of the decisions in the game. Okay. By the way, puzzle strike, apparently I own a copy. Of course you do.

The biggest problem with puzzle strike is it's not as good with multi-players. It's best as a heads up game, 1v1. Right. All right. So with that, let's jump into the prompts. Weighting complexity on board game geek scale of one to five, how would you rate the complexity of quacks of Quedlinburg bag building distilled down to its almost purest essence? This is very hard, but I'm going to have to give it a one, the rare one for weight and complexity. Yeah. Dave, what did you put?

Yeah. I debated that. I'm actually going to put it at a two because evaluating the different ingredient sets and trying to see just like I said earlier, not being able to see the power of the blue ingredient that one game, because I thought it was going to power one way, but it turned to go the other way. That's not always obvious right up front, but I mean, in support of what Paul's saying, what I said earlier is I teach this to new players, non-gamers. It's pretty easy for anyone to pick up.

That puts it very much on the low end of the scale. And they can still win too. Yeah. And if we add expansions though, that's when it starts to get up into a three. Yeah. Without expansions. Yes. Right. Just base game. And I agree. I had it down as a two. The base game is definitely a one. Look, it's pushing your luck. Draw chips out of the bag. Don't get more than seven in garlic if you want to keep going or at least score points and be able to buy. And that's, we're done, right? Full teach.

And if that's all there was to it, it would easily be a one. I think the way the ingredients can interact, maybe it's a two to start out. And then once you're familiar with it, it drops down to one something. There's something there. And what we didn't talk about is each set of ingredients.

We don't necessarily have to, but what is fun to do is once you have an appreciation for how the ingredients of the various sets interact, is start mixing your own because you don't have to stick with the provided sets. You can say, I'm going to use yellow from set one and I'm going to use red from set four and put that together if you'd like. So that's part of the fun of the game, I think too. Yeah, I agree with that. I haven't done that very much myself.

My family tends to like to play set one dabble with set two. My family likes games for the familiar rather than the novelty. So they like to have repeated experiences. So I played a ton of set one, which is even the purchasing decisions in set one are pretty much autopilot, always buy blue. And I got so bored of doing that, that's when I just started doing the Mandrake strategy, which is either going to blow everybody else up, but more often you're going to lose the game.

So just to make it more fun where you only buy Mandrakes, nothing else ever. So have you done that in your family still buying blue all the time? Yeah. And I've won with it, but it's very rare. I mean, it's I hear you say that you're going to give it a high score for the next prompt. Yeah. Let's talk about strategy there, Dave. So same scale, one to five. Well, I'm not. I mean, it's almost all strategy, right? But I'm without saying what number I'm going to give it yet.

But it's really not really a value market. We're there. Well, I will. But I'm saying you evaluate the market, you divine your path to victory and then you execute it. So and there is a little bit of tactical maneuvering. We're like, oh, I only got 14, but I really wanted to get to 16. Now what am I going to do because I came up short? So there's a little bit of that, but pretty much it's the beginning of the game. You pick what you want to do and just stick to that path as much as you can.

I don't know. It's a two strategy wise. Maybe it's not that. I mean, you could also go willy nilly and still have a pretty good chance of winning. Right. Right. Yeah. I think especially we started talking about the expansions and how you're encouraged to buy multiple colors. I mean, strategy kind of goes out the window at that point. But what did you have, Paul? I begrudgingly give it a two as well. Yeah, I want to say one, but that wouldn't be honest. Yeah. And I also had it as a two.

I don't think there is a lot of strategy to the game other than deciding when you want to bust or when you want to avoid it. And then, yes, there's understanding how the different ingredients are going to interact. But a lot of times, you know, you'll be looking at it and say, oh, gee, I really want to buy, you know, a moth and I want to buy a two blue, but I'm one dollar short.

So now I got to figure out the next best set of ingredients or just be content to leave a lot of money on the table and try to stick with a single strategy. So I'll give it a two for that reason. So then luck. How much do you think luck plays a factor in this game? And there's a top stop here. Right. It could be in the title of the game. I mean, it's a luck fest. Right. Well, it's a probability fest. You can argue it either way. It is a probability fest. Right.

There's other games where you draw more than one thing at a time or you actually roll dice that I would call probability says this one. I don't know. Well, but you usually know when you're drawing into your bag that two of the chips of the 10 that are left in my bag can blow me up. So I got a 20 percent chance of blowing up. Like it's kind of straight statistics at that point. Yeah, but unless you're playing 48 games, you're not going to see those statistics.

I've only played 46. Sorry, I got it wrong. If you're like me, you're you're hitting the tails of the distribution all the time. Right. So come on. How about some ratings? Yeah. So I'm giving this the mythical five. It's for sure a five. I mean, you do have some control with your flask, right? And some round cards say that you can go to eight. Yeah. But what did Dave just say? You flask and then you draw the exact same chip. Yeah, you're right. It's a five. Absolutely.

And that's part of the fun. This is something I was thinking about. I feel like it's an age old discussion. I also feel like it's probably solved. But in this case, is this game any different if we use cards instead of drawing out of a bag? It quacks quite a bit the deck builder any different from quacks the bag builder. You mean challengers? I haven't played challengers yet. Yeah. So maybe I don't see much difference myself. Interesting.

A shuffled deck of cards is the same as drawing into a bag of chips. Shuffling is far more annoying without the pleasing sounds of a chip. Yeah. Well, you sure tactically, this is way better. More tactically, I mean, but statistically, experientially or whatever, it's the same thing, right? Drawing out of a bag or drawing off of a deck? Sure. I think so. I guess off of the deck, you get into the Candyland aspect of it where once the deck is shuffled in Candyland, the winner is determined.

And so there's no decisions. There's no game. Candyland is an activity and not a game. So I guess once you shuffle your deck, if you're going to do it that way, whether you bust or not or what happens is pre-programmed at that point. Well, but you're reshuffling every round. That's the difference. It's philosophical though. You're saying a deck of cards is pre-programmed and drawing one out of time out of a bag is not, but to me it is. Experientially, it's the same thing. As long as I'm honest.

The result is the same. Right. It's a random sequence of things that happen. In one case, it's already set and the other one, you're discovering it. But either way, the result is going to be the same. As long as you're shuffling the deck after every round so that everything you pulled out is going to be available again, as opposed to drawing to the end of the deck before reshuffle, then I see no difference between the two. Yeah. That actually reminds me.

I hadn't thought of it till now that there is somebody had a home brew Dominion as a bag building game and it's the exact same thing, but they made little wooden disks in a bag. And so when you make your purchases from the market, you just throw a new disk in there and you don't have to shuffle and wear out your cards. And it turned it into quacks. Yeah. I mean, that's a big reason that I actually prefer playing a roll for the Galaxy over race for the Galaxy.

I just get annoyed at shuffling cards, especially if there's like a hundred of them. And I love rolling dice or pulling out acrylic chips. Interesting. Okay. It doesn't bridge the gap for me. I think roll is the inferior game. Rolling dice is more fun. Yes. But I'm talking about the tactileness. Yeah, I agree with that. All right. Save it for that pod. We're not there yet. I'm not going to. I won't be on the roll for the Galaxy pod. Well, getting back to quacks theme.

So how much do we think the theme has been integrated with this game? Same scale. I want to hear what you have to say. All right. I begrudgingly give it a four just because I feel like a quack pot. Right. Let me see what this ingredient does. Right. Yeah. I mean, I also gave it a four because I felt like I was just throwing random stuff in there.

The idea that you're swirling your cauldron the way that you've got to go around, you know, it kind of feels like you've got the ladle and you're stirring the thing. Am I actually making a potion and trying to sell it to someone? No. But I think they've done a really great job with the artwork and everything in the components on here. Yeah. I mean, it makes me feel even more like an alchemist than the game alchemists, to be honest. Hey, that's one of my favorites. We will do that one someday.

Nice. All right, Dave, you've heard our numbers. I'm going to keep it down at a two. I feel like they could have leaned into it a little more, maybe some flavor on the event cards rather than just straight information. I mean, I agree, the graphic design, the components, that all fits very well with the theme in Whimsical. But as far as gameplay, I mean, it kind of could have been anything. I enjoy the theme, but I don't feel like the theme informs the gameplay or vice versa at all.

They feel completely disconnected to me. But I do hear what you're saying is that it's a fun theme, but I don't feel like it's necessary. OK, that's fair. All right. So favorite player account. What is the best player account this game is played at? You know, I don't think it matters. This is the one game where I don't give an Al's hoot about the player account because the game is the same no matter how many players are playing, at least for me it is. Even the playtime is pretty similar. Right.

I'll go with four or five, since I have to give a number, whatever the max is based on if you have the base game or an expansion. OK. Well, any player count over three, though, you kind of have the seven wonders effect true where you cannot affect the people on the other side of the table. And when it comes specifically to the mods or some cards that say if the player next to you blew up, we drew that card the other night and like Greg did nothing but blow up the whole game.

He got in a tilt situation like Paul said. And you sit next to me, I got to coast in the second place. That's right. And I was on the other side of him and I was in first. And Greg was in that situation where he had to go to the end or bust every time. And so, you know, he was just that's the situation that happened to him. So he happened to bust. It was unstoppable at some point. And I was on the other end next to Todd now who refused to bust. And so I didn't take advantage of that stuff.

Right. So your number, Dave? I'm going to say three, maybe four. But I was happy with five. Four and five is fine. But I'm going to say three is the best player count. But yeah, I think he gave a good justification for that. Yeah. And then you're also farther away from component limitations, right? At three, if you're not scaling them down, then you're probably well, you're going to be less likely to sell out of blue fours because there are more of them to go around.

Dave's just going to pre-scale down his components for three players. Yeah, right. Yeah, I like the limitations. So you're kind of talking me back up to five players, the best count. Because I like the concept of a limitation. What about yours, Todd? Yeah. For me, it's the more the merrier. If it's base game, it's four. If we're playing with your witches in five, I'm fine with the seven wonders effect.

The fun is hearing all the groans and everybody trying to experience pushing their luck, especially because and we'll talk about it here in playing time, it hasn't made a difference. Three, four, five, it all plays the same. So have five of them. So then Lee's favorite player count, and I'll just say on top of that, I would still play the game at two, but there's just less opportunity to earn rat tails. Component shortages don't become a thing. And you know, your moths are not as effective.

You're only going to pick up one if the other person doesn't draw as many. So for me, too, is less interesting, but I would still play the game at two. Yeah, is there a single player version? But yeah, I agree. There are some variants that people have posted kind of homebrew one player versions, but they're not official. Got it. Yeah, I would also say to some of the things are zero sum like the die. Either I get the die roll or my opponent gets it.

There's no third or fourth person who might get it. So either the person whom I'm beating or the person who's beating me to straight across gets the die roll. So and same with some of the cards, the rat tails, some like that. So I don't know. I'd still played it too, though. I don't think anything's lost. So then actual playing time, because boxes can lie. The box here says a game takes 45 minutes, which is interesting because it's not a range. It just says 45 minutes plays two to four in 45.

And that might have been our first clue. So what are your thoughts here? Yeah, I think it's closer to 50, but pretty true. Did you say 50 minutes? Yes. Our play times recently were 75 and 90, pretty much thereabouts. You're talking about with the expansions though, right, Dave? Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. When I play with my family, we're almost we're right at about 45. Wow. OK. As a game group in general, our Monday night game group were a little slow.

And so I wasn't surprised to see 75 to 90. Well, just when you know, just when I want to accuse somebody else like we're really slow because of this person, then I get AP and I'm the one who's making us slow. So you know, we absolutely attribute it to it at some point. So in general, we're a little slow. But yeah, I had forgotten we played with expansions, which do kind of slow things down. Right. I am agreeing with Paul. I think it's been 50 to 60 minutes, generally speaking.

I didn't realize that we were up around 94 games with the expansion. But base game by itself. Yeah, it's 50 to 60 minutes and it's fine. It's good to keep things moving. So it shouldn't be a long drawn out affair. Well, the 90 minutes was us arguing for 25 minutes about what witches does. That's true. All right. So which edition is the best? And I don't know if there's much to talk about here. There really has only been one edition. I don't know. There's rules. My edition is the best. OK, yes.

Well, and on top of that, we did talk about coin capsules or the geek up bits. We've kind of made mention to him. Yeah, let's talk about those. I almost feel that either of those options is essential. I've never played it with the cardboard chips and I really don't want to. Yeah, I feel like they're going to get damaged right away. It loses that, you know, the tactile feel.

But I feel like they're going to start to have some where you're going to be able to feel where you're like three garlic is or something like that. And coin capsules are effective, but a little bit big, you know, to fit on the board. And the geek up bits from the board game geek store are just absolutely perfect. They are.

I have played the library copy of Quacks at Board Game Geek Con with just the cardboard chips and some of them are practically unreadable because they've they've seen such wear. So I absolutely agree, a component update is as close to essential as you can get if you are going to be playing this game with any kind of frequency, which hopefully you are. Now we're on to expansions. What are your thoughts about these two?

So for the listeners, the herb witches are once per game powers that you randomly draw three witches and each player can use the power of each witch once during the course of the game, you get special which pennies to indicate when you've used it. And then there are components for a fifth player. What about the pumpkins, Todd? Oh, yeah. So there are some pumpkins that cost twenty two and are worth six when you pull them as opposed to the original pumpkin, which costs three and only moved one.

There is a new ingredient called the loco weed that can be variable based on whichever recipe you're using for that game. It might be equal to the number of rat tails you were awarded as an example of one of those. And then they have some extra ingredient sets. So that's herb witches. And then the alchemists has a separate board and you gain essence based on the different number of chips that are in your cauldron.

And then there are some other things that go into it, like did your neighbor blow up or did your garlic total equal seven? And you are moving your essence marker along this track.

And then on the subsequent round, based on the power you selected and everybody can choose one of three that are randomly determined at the start of the game, but the power you might be able to spend essence to do something like move your pumpkin to the next Ruby space as opposed to just the one space or I guess the six spaces if you were playing with both of them. So what are your thoughts on the expansions? What about the variant?

Right. So there's Wolfgang's exchange office, which is a rack of test tubes that you can advance a second drip marker. So the base game has a second drip marker. There's a flip side to the player board where when anytime you can move a drip, you can move along that and you get various awards based on how far down you get. Wolfgang's exchange office is another one of those that you take that second trip, you use that instead.

And anytime you decide to move along it, it gives you some discounted ability to basically gain access to points. So one side at the end of the game, you dump out all your chips, you add them all together, and then you divide by the number you got along that track. So if you're at the start, it's dividing by 15 and you get that many points. If you get to the other end, you divide by two, you could get a lot of points depending on how many things you bought.

And then the flip side of it does something different, but that's a promo. It's harder to find and it's not even included in the mega box. It's just for bragging rights. So I think the expansions, Herbwitches and Alchemists, just they're overpowered. I mean, we were even Herbwitches gives you a space to go beyond 35 and in Alchemists we kept hitting 35, multiple turns, multiple players. It felt ridiculous to me. We're pretty clearly curmudgeonly about expansions in general.

I feel like we have the same discussion every time we bring up expansions on a game is that they tend to make games more solitary, although this is a pretty solitary game to begin with. And so they tend to reduce player interaction. They tend to add things to the game without really adding anything to the game and take away from the essence of the game of what made the game interesting. And I think these kind of suffer from that as well. It's just more stuff going on.

Now the Alchemists, I enjoyed the playing of the Alchemists in the same, like it was fun, but I don't think it improved the game. It was fun in the way we talk about when we play Anno 1800 is at the actual gameplay of Anno 1800 is so fun. You could get lost in it and go, oh wait, I should be focusing on winning the game rather than just kind of having fun building all this stuff. And Alchemists was kind of that way. It was an interesting thing to do.

It just, it made it too high octane, which is a term that I keep using every time we bring up expansions is that what makes a game fun is things like limited resources and competition for those resources and being able to try to excel within the parameters that you've been giving. And then these expansions really just take those limitations off and just go wild. And like Paul said, in the last one we played, we were hitting 35.

Like we pegged it so many times in one play and it kind of takes the fun out of it. You know, a lot of games, engine builders and stuff like that. It's like right when you get your engine up, the game's over and you're like, oh, okay. But that's the game. To really put that in relief, I think winning scores of the base game, at least in our group, if you get to 60 points, you've probably won the game.

But when we play with the expansion, if you're not getting to a hundred, you're doing something wrong. Oh yeah. Right. And it Todd's game is 150. Yeah, I was getting, is that what it was? 150 with Alchemists? No, I think it was 127. Yeah, you didn't get around the board last time. It just feels ridiculous.

But the reason I asked about the promo and brought up the variant board is I think when you're playing the expansions, don't bother moving your drop on your main board because you're going to be flying around and around. So play the variant board or the promo and move your drop across those tracks instead. Interesting. The challenge I had, because I have played with the promo board, is that it slows your economy down.

And so you're saying that the expansions are a high octane enough to compensate for that. I think so. You do need starting capital to get that snowball rolling. And if the initial drip, even if you're only moving it two or three, that's usually enough to get you to an early level four chip of something. Now that you've started that ball rolling and it's, you know, with Alchemists, it's you're earning the essence by having multiple colors. So you can start to do all that.

Or maybe that drip movement is allowing you to buy two different chips. You're adding two colors to your pot and now you have more essence. I feel like you got to get started. And when I've played with the promo and I focused solely on moving that drop, my engine didn't get started the same way. Were you doing herb witches? I was. Okay. Mainly what we talked about are the extra stuff that the expansions bring.

Things that are welcome would be the event cards, having more event cards, because with just the base game after a ton of plays, we were starting to see the same cards over and over again. So just having in those event cards, you know, you're not really diluting the deck. There could be a million in there and they're just for varied experiences. So you could splash in as many as you want. And then also having new ingredient sets. Like that's totally welcome.

More ingredients, more event cards, but extra boards and extra things going on on the side and all that. It's just not that kind of game. I don't think. We talk about the essence of bag building and now all these things are taking away from that and that's what made it so clean. Such a crudgeon, Dave. I am. I've just really, I've spent so much money on expansions and I just feel we're in the minority. And I mean, you go on board game geek and read people's thoughts.

They love these things that just open the game up. So now I can just get the highest score ever possible without anyone getting in my way. People love that kind of stuff. And for me, I think, I don't know, that wasn't that fun. So I like herb witches. It may not be must have, but I love the fifth player. I love the extra components and I love the new ingredient sets. The local weed is fine. I like the new pumpkins and I thought the witches are fine. I mean, they're there once per game.

So it's not terrible. It's just one more thing to kind of use as brinksmanship. Although we did have the one that was you can't bust. And so we all basically just hung onto that one until the last round. So we could push our luck as far as we could and not have to worry about busting because there was that witch power that preserved us. But I liked it. You don't suffer the consequences of busting.

And I appreciate again, you saying we all did that because I used mine early on because I was I got backwards very early on and I had to use it. And alchemists, I thought it was interesting. Dave, you and I both picked the carrot nose character for that one. That particular power was if you draw a pumpkin, you can spend two essence. So it only works in round two and beyond after you had a chance to earn essence to instead of placing the pumpkin, the one space forward on the next Ruby space.

So that could be anywhere from one, which you wouldn't spend essence because the pumpkin is going to do that anyway. So two to four spaces to move. That turned out to be like a really powerful power that I had no idea that was going to be as useful as it was. Oh, was it for you? Was it useful for you? It was ridiculous. Oh, I had a bunch of pumpkins. I just didn't bother to draw them. They were constantly left over. The last ones in my bag. You never bothered to gain any essence either, Dave.

Well, I tried. You know, I bought all the different colors, but I just kept, you know, drawing all my white and then one color and then I had to stop. So it didn't go well for me, but it was my decisions. So my poor decision. But when it comes to expansion, so I'll play with either one of them and I'll like it. Probably won't play with both of them at the same time because it's going to start turning quacks into a longer experience than the incremental enjoyment I'm getting out of it.

If it becomes regularly a 90 minute to two hour game, that's not where quacks needs to be. How else are you supposed to get to a score of a 200 though? Someone's going to have this be their favorite game and they've done it and hats off to them. I'll still rest on 127 and say that that was pretty amazing. Well, those are the people who like, you know, five player, six player Katan with the ships and everything when it's a three hour version of Katan.

Like for me, Katan 45 minutes, get in, get out, let's go play something else. It was great. But three hours of that's not for me. Got it. All right. So the most recognizable comparison, the highest ranking game that reminds you of quacks. What did you have Dave? Well, I'll take the easy one because I actually had a tough time coming up with anything beyond, you know, a few obvious ones.

So I'm going to say Dominion is that it takes that concept of as just the first deck builder I remember playing builds on that concept and made it a little more interesting. So that's the one I choose. All right. That's a good one. And I really liked your story about the person who made their custom bag building version of it. Like that needs to become a product. Yeah. Paul, what'd you have? Well, a game that is very much like quacks in my opinion, but that I slightly prefer is QB toast.

Good pick. Instead of drawing chips out of a bag, you're rolling dice and you can buy new dice to add to what you're rolling. And I prefer it because it is a probability game in my opinion, in that you can actually think about how to get the best probabilities and what path to take in the race that you're running, which is what everybody's trying to do. Finish a race in first place by purchasing all of these dice. Yep. That's a good one. I liked it that one.

For me, the easy pick was Orleans and I realized that was closely rift off of with Altiplano, but I'll stick with Orleans just because I had the same feeling of, okay, I'm reaching into the bag and I really hope I draw this one color. Okay. I got it. Or I didn't, whichever way it works. And then, you know, I'm using that to develop the board. Like I said, there's more to that game, but for me, that would be the closest comparison because it has the same feeling out of the bag building.

Less recognizable comparison. But it's a more distant game that reminds you of Quacks. And for me, this one was hard. Well, I name dropped it earlier. Challengers is my pick for less recognizable game and in my opinion, less likeable game. But basically you're drafting from a very small subset of cards into your deck and then you're just giving it to the gods and seeing what happens as you turn over card by card.

You're basically like playing war and then you get to alter your deck a little bit more and then play war once more. Wow. So to me, it's very much like Quacks because I think of drawing from a bag the same way as turning over the top card of a deck. You mean the Kenner Spiel des Jahres winning game challengers? It is lesser known now, but that might not be true a year from now. Right. It's ranked, I just looked it up, it's ranked 1100 something. So it's still ranked pretty low.

So it qualifies for less recognizable. It's still climbing. What'd you have Dave? You know, I'm down to three. So why don't you go so I don't steal yours and that maybe might help limit mine down. I went with an older Alea game or Alea, however we want to call it, which is Brew. It is more just based on theme because the mechanics of that game are much different. So you have 12 roll cards that you're picking from and each round everyone's going to pick five of them.

And when you choose to play a role, you can say, I am and you, whatever the role is, right? You know, I am, I am the lead witch and I forget what they're called. But if someone has picked that card down the line, they can say, no, no, I am so and so. And then they may get the major power for being that person and you get nothing or they can say, so be it.

And if you go with, so be it, you guarantee yourself the minor power, but someone who goes after you, you know, they can say, no, I am the lead witch. And whoever had claimed the role before is going to lose everything. But anyone who said, so be it. Yeah, I never said I was the lead, which I'm going to get my lesser power. So it's more of a bluffing game. But then you're using your roles to gather ingredients and deliver potions for points. I haven't played it. I'd love to try it. All right.

We'll have a theme night. I have played it. I didn't like it, but I'd play it again. Well, it was a re-implemented as a card game and Alexander Fister helped co-develop the card game version. Oh, cool. But the card game versions inside the top seven 50s. So I can't talk about it. Is that a LIA mid box or is it a big box? It's a mid box. OK. And then it was re-implemented as a broom service was the card game version.

And then they came out with like room service express, which was their extra small or micro size. And then the broom was a 2008 STJ nominee. Yes, it was. Well, you guys did not eliminate anything from my list at all. So I'm just going to lean into the push your luck element of it. And I'm going to say you can go that that's nice. One of the quintessential I mean, that or can't stop those two are the quintessential press your luck games. Right.

I mean, you can gold would be pretty interesting if you got to when you come out, spend that gold on. Yeah, you know, right. What's interesting about both of those, Dave, is is neither one has a catch up mechanism. Right. Just your guts, just your own courage. That's your mechanism. Oh, man, my son. I mean, it is don't stop for him.

He is going to have one play maybe in his life where he wins in round one and then he's automatically losing every other because he just keeps he keeps rolling those dice. I think it's a stage of development is that I don't know where it is. 18 years old, maybe 25 years old. You just you are unable to follow that inner voice that tells you you have to stop here because my kids are the same way. Inking gold. It's like you must turn around and they're like, no, I'm going for it. Oh, man, I died.

But of course you died. Have you not been paying attention? It's an age of reason kind of thing. Just if you're under 25, you can't do it. Right. Right. All right. That's a great choice. So house rules. Do we need to revisit the house rules that you play with Dave, like starting with a ruby and component limitation? Is there anything else you want to add? So by house rule, you mean the thing that's written in my rule book? I guess that rule book is in my house. So I will take your logic.

It's the official rule that I do. I do have a house rule is that it expressly says in the rule book that you cannot look in your bag. But I think it's not that kind of game. It's not a memory game. I'm totally fine with somebody looking in their bag before they decide if they're going to continue through everything back in and mix it up and then go on. Yeah. You just don't look in your bag while you're drawing. No. Well, Todd did so well in our last game.

I had to make sure he understood that rule. You were watching me, you saw me pulling them out. Come on. And you pulled the right one every time. I had insane luck. I definitely have a karmic correction coming my way soon. There's no doubt about it. Wait, do you guys have house rules? I already used Dave's house rule without knowing it was a house rule. So there you go. Which was when I'm trying to decide if I need to stop or continue, I will look in my bag and look at what the odds are.

Yeah. Like once it's in your bag, you're not supposed to look in at all. Like even when you're buying and if you're like, oh, how many blues have I bought? You're not supposed to go. I also empty my entire bag's contents between rounds while I'm making purchases. All right. Well, there you go. We have some house rules. So if this game is being played at game night, then what do you want to play afterwards? So what's the double feature that goes along with it?

I think it's light and jaunty as a game. So I think it pairs well with something a little heavier. You know, you throw anything in there like brass or whatever. I actually, my first instinct was like Ress Arcana, but I thought it's too much theme wise. It's too much. So I would just shift gears entirely and get into like one of our heavier economic games we like to play and use this as a aperitif. I think it's funny you said shift gears because that's what we doubled up with a couple days ago.

We literally did shift gears. Yeah. With heat. So how about you? I said the same thing. I want to wash my mouth out with Aegis steam. After drinking all those potions. Well, I stayed in theme and I doubled down and I went with the board game version of a match three game and that's potion explosion. I played that on a computer. There's a board game version. There is a board game version.

Yeah. Huh. As you are drafting marbles out of this, this series of ramps, you know, you're then creating three, that will come together three or more. And if they do, then you get to take them and you're accumulating this collection of marbles that you're then exchanging for flasks and the flasks have powers, single use powers on them. So you can decide that I'm going to spend this flask now to draw again or to pick one specifically or however the case may be.

It's a fun little game and it's staying on theme with potions and things. Yeah. Maybe staying on theme is a good idea. You mentioned alchemists earlier and that might pair up well is kind of once the juices are flowing. Oh, that actually I would like that a lot. Yeah. There you go. Done. All right. So what feature of this game still stands out to you? Now it's only five years old, so it's relatively recent. What do you like the best about Quacks of Quedlinburg? It's brevity. That's a good one.

Yeah. And the fact that it plays in 45 minutes, no matter the player count, you know what you're getting into. You know when the pain is going to stop. It does not wear out its welcome. That's for sure. It feels just right. Right. I had push your luck plus bag building. That's a combination that just isn't seen enough for me. And when I was looking for the comparison games, it was hard to find ones that did both of those things. Yeah. I have the same.

If you like deck building or bag building or even just engine building in general, this fits perfectly, of course. Yep. If the feature of the game disappoints, you like the least about it. For me, it's just the extreme swings of luck that seem to happen every time I play. Right. If we're playing four or five player games, someone's going to have it in their favor. And sometimes it's me, but still it's like.

Well, if that swingy luck is so consistent, is it still, I mean, it's just something to count on in the game. It's just who's going to get it, I guess. Right. I agree. The thing I don't like about the game that I would put here that you might find frustrating if you don't like this in games is I feel that most often early on, the end rankings are pretty set.

Like, if somebody jumps out ahead by turn four without all the crazy expansion stuff and the point salad that it becomes, but in the base game generally, when somebody starts to pull ahead, even with the rat tails, it's really hard to catch up. And you can very early on just realize that great, I got third place, let's finish the game and I will be in third place. Like, it's all set by the middle of the game. I don't see much jockeying around.

Occasionally there might be a battle for second place, but there's not a lot of jockeying around after turns three and four. Yeah. I've seen it happen where two of us are competing for first place and because you've got to keep drawing, because the other person keeps drawing, somebody busts. Right. And someone who was going to be in third place suddenly finishes in second. True. So there is that that has happened, but it's not common.

So I agree with you, Dave. Usually you can tell what the finishing order is going to be. Although it's been a while since I've checked, but your example, that's outside of the rules, right? Like if you and I are neck and neck while we're drawing our bag, we're not supposed to be looking. There's a logical pressure though, you know you're neck and neck with somebody and that makes you want to push a little further. I think there's some side glancing going on. I think people are aware.

The last round, it's open information. You are looking at each other's cauldron. I know that you are on spot 22 and I'm on spot 24. Right. Right. But every round before that, I think you're not supposed to pay attention. That's true. But what I'm talking about is in that final round, when you are drawing at the same time and holding your hand out there, did you go, did you not, that whole thing, I have seen two people go after each other because I can't stop if Paul doesn't stop.

Right. And so I push myself and I bust. And suddenly you who were going to be in third place because I now have to choose points or buy and I'm going to choose points. But now there's potentially six or seven points that I didn't get to buy because I busted and you were able to stop and take second place. Right. So that's the 18xx rule, right? First place or last place or die trying basically. Exactly. Did this game replace a previous one for you? And if so, what was it? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. It replaces Dominion for me. Paul and I got out Dominion and played a couple of two player games, I don't know, a couple months ago. And that was the first time I'd played Dominion in 10 years or more. So it's a very similar feel to Dominion, but I never play that game anymore. And I play Quacks quite a bit. Right. For me, it was Can't Stop and I really enjoy Can't Stop and I'll play it again, you know, if someone wants to.

But for my family and I, at least when we're looking for one of these push your luck games, we're playing Can't Stop or playing Diamant slash Ink and Gold. So we're playing Quacks or Ink and Gold. Oh, because you can knock out three or four games that can't stop at the time it takes to play Quacks. That's what I was thinking. That's a 15, 20 minute game, right? It can be, especially if your son never stops. Has this game since been replaced? And if so, by what?

And I'll just go ahead and say, nope, not yet. Not for me anyway. Yeah, for me, it's Cubitos. Although we're still as a family trying to get the playtime of Cubitos down under an hour. But once it is, I think it'll have taken the spot. Interesting. Okay. It hasn't for me. It's still the only game we go to when we're looking for that type of experience right now. Right. Okay. So soundtrack, what music would you want to listen to while playing this game or what music would be appropriate?

Do you think? Because again, we usually forget about this. Yeah, I want something zany and silly like Dr. Demento or Weird Al Yankovic, especially Dare to be Stupid. Right. Okay. I took it in another direction here. I'm thinking every time we go to start from the bag, we turn on Time by Pink Floyd, which is kind of the clocks and then the long drawn out like dun dun dun.

So I want, you know, and then if you go, if you're able to go long enough, then you get to the like explosive, you know, kind of lyrical part of it. So I'm going to go Time. So not the gongs and then the cash registers, but the... Although that would work. I'm up for that.

Let's just put on Dark Side of the Moon and especially because it has that like, I forget the name of the song with the word that kind of crying into death or I forget what it's called, but that fits perfectly with some of these games that I've had. So I've talked about this site in the past, Melodice. They have a playlist for this game and it had a YouTube track called The Alchemist's Lab by Manic Pixel. That's excellent.

But straying away from Melodice, I know I want something that sounds medieval, dark and yet humorous. And so I found the Trying To soundtrack on Spotify and there was a track by Ari Pulkinon and there's a track on there called The Lost Court of Mushroom Caves and another one called Goblins. And both of them were like just that right style. It definitely sounded a little ominous, but also had a humorous side to it. And that's what I think of when I think of quacks. Awesome.

So rating on the scale now of one to ten, how would you rate Quacks of Quedlinburg? Dave, why don't you start? Yeah, I rate it a seven. I mean, it's a game that comes off the shelf quite a bit in my family and then having a chance to play it with you guys, you know, a little more serious gaming time. It fit very well in there as well. I'm always up for a game of quacks, so I'm going to put it at a seven. All right. I'll go ahead and jump in and say I had it as an eight because I love the theme.

I love the blend of mechanics. You know, again, push your luck back building. It's a great combination. And the only thing that's holding it back from a higher score is that we should be able to get it down not just a 45 minutes, but even less. Right. This should be a fast game. And if we could do that, then I would bump it up. Well, that has to do with where we've been adding elements, changing the ingredient set. So you kind of have to relearn parts of it as you get into that.

But if we played enough where we knew the ingredient sets, I think we could crank this out pretty quickly. True. And Paul, I'm surrounded by people who really like this game, so that boosts my rating of it to a five. I could really take it or leave it. I don't have strong feelings about it either way. But like Dave said, it usually does not overstay its welcome. That's fair. Well, I appreciate you being willing to play it. So then is it replayable?

And if so, how soon would you want to revisit it? I guess the next time somebody asks me to play, which I'm happy if it's years away. Wow. So I said it was replayable. And I mean, I can play this game probably every other week, especially if it's a brief game. For me, it is replayable. Dave? Yeah. Well, obviously it's replayable for me. I was actually surprised to see that I have 46 logged plays of the game. But that's over Christmas when we first got it.

My family, we would play three, four games a day, a few days in a row. But it has that feel of no matter how your game went, you're like, I wonder if I could have done better. And it's almost like when you're trying to accomplish something and you pull up short and you don't know where that limit is, how far you could have gotten. But let's play again. Let's go one more time. I feel like I can. And then that game's busts and you're like, dang it, one more time, let's do it.

So it has that like, I want to try again right now. Right. Excellent. So with that, our cauldron has finally exploded for our next episode. We're all aboard as we embark on another train themed journey. Thank you guys. Really enjoyed the conversation and the opportunity to revisit this game. Yeah, pleasure. Yeah. Thanks guys. Thank you for listening to Replayable. Support for our podcast comes from listeners like you.

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