Ever wanted to be a potion seller? The excitement of alchemy can be found in Little Alchemists. Developed by Matúš Kotry, Little Alchemists is a simplistic version of their board game Alchemists. This child-friendly game has players mix ingredients to create potions to be sold in the market.
What’s In The Box?
- 1 market board
- 4 screens, each with an ingredient holder
- 33 ingredient tiles (frog, jewel fern, chicken foot – 6 pieces) (scorpion, feather, mandrake – 5 pieces)
- 60 result tokens (20 flying potions, 20 luck potions, 20 fire potions)
- 4 triangular trackers
- 3 customer tiles & 1 closed market tile
- 48 coins in values 1 & 5
- 4 tiny bottles
- 1 sheet of key stickers
- 6 mysterious boxes
How’s It Play?
To set up Little Alchemists, players attach an ingredient holder to their screen. Each player starts with three ingredient tiles, a triangular tracker, two coins, and a tiny bottle. The market is set up with five random ingredient tiles face up and the remaining tiles face down on top of the customer tiles. The side of the playing field has the rest of the coins and result tokens. The Little Alchemists app is set to a new game. The youngest person goes first.
Two ingredients are put in the ingredient holder and the player uses the phone to scan the tiles. The app will say what the two ingredients make and the player will place the respective result token in the tracker. At the end of the turn two more tiles are drawn from the market area and the phone is passed over to the next player. This repeats with each player until the ingredient deck is empty. Once that happens, the first customer card is revealed, and the players can begin selling potions. When a combination of ingredients that make a potion are played, the player sells the potion and takes three coins. At this point, players also are able to buy ingredients from the market. The discarded ingredient tiles are shuffled and the play continues as it did in the first round. This cycles until the market closes and whoever has the most coins wins.
After the game is done, the app requires players to collaborate in inputting the correct combination of ingredients to make each potion. If the answers are correct, the next level is unlocked.
The Verdict
I was apprehensive about downloading an app to play a board game. I don’t like when games require a phone to play, because not everyone has smart phones on hand. Luckily, when the Little Alchemists app is downloaded it runs offline. It makes sense to have an app because it allows the game to be replayable by randomizing the ingredient and potion combinations. Unlocking new levels is a pretty cool and exciting mechanic. I was only able to play level one, but the app stores the information so when I play again I can either play level one or level two. To add to the mystery of new levels, the instruction manual has sections sealed off that have to be unsealed with each unlocked level. Additionally, each new level has a box containing the additional game pieces to be opened.
Little Alchemists is a pretty quick game to play, taking about 20 minutes for two players. Learning to play wasn’t difficult at all. The instructions are already pretty clear, but the app also gives step-by-step instructions with a visual aid.
It’s a well-constructed game with solid pieces and cute imagery. It was fun to build the potion collection and satisfying to pull the tiles needed to make something sellable. The biggest downside of the app mechanic is that if you’re not the person who set up the earlier plays of the game, you can’t jump to a later level. It has to be unlocked in order – which would easily be frustrating for someone wanting to pick it up without the other phone user. However, as the person who set up the game, I’m excited to see what’s in store in the rest of Little Alchemists.
Little Alchemists is available from Czech Games Edition for $49.99.
Images courtesy of Czech Games Edition.
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