"Alchemists" - aka Work

BOARD GAMES MIMIC LIFE 
way too often. At least if you're a scientist. And if you drink potions. Alchemists is basically a medieval version of my career as a research scientist, where I do two things very well: mixing shit together, and being wrong. 

The theme of the game was super strong - we got drawn right into mixing a bunch of bs ingredients and sucking down Rennaissance-ass potions.

Oh did I mention the purpose of the game is to win? It is.

For us, the game was pretty heavy, but the manual was really helpful. Examples of what you learn from each potion gave us a good starting place for figuring out the alchemical formulae of each ingredient. Since we were eager to start doing things, we ignored a couple mechanics, particularly selling potions, undercutting each other on potion selling, or buying equipment. We barely published theories until nearly the last turn when we realized that's one of the few ways you get winnage points. BUT HOLY COW PIES filling out our deduction charts was so satisfying. 

 "goddammit Charles, stop pissing into my potions."

I felt like the equipment was hella strong. Not only do they just give you victory points for owning them, but the special abilities let you get an extra action (of which you have only a few to begin with) or save one of your ingredients when you make a potion. The moral of the story is to buy things all the time.

Concepts we definitely want:

The companion app for this game is mufuggin sweet. Since each of the 8 ingredients have a unique "alchemical trait", playing the game without the app requires an additional non-player dude to serve as a gamemaster. They have the unenviable job of using a deduction chart hidden from all players to determine what type of potion each player brews when they concoct up a concoction. The app makes it so you can play the game with one less friend, and who doesn't like a little spring cleaning anyway?

Aim your phone's camera-hole at a pair of cards, and *SHABLAZZ!!* suddenly your $500 text-sending-machine tells you what kind of potion you made. Each set of formulae and alchemical compositions are attached to a unique room code, so every player can use their own cellular device. HOW. FUCKIN. NEAT.

I'm thinking that a download-worthy app will either simplify the complexity of menial / unfun game tasks or add something to increase the entertainment value of the game by utilizing outside media. Having a written description of in-game characters has served tabletop gamers well for years, but being able to incorporate living, realistic characters who are talking words at you? WELCOME TO THE FUTURE. 

"Betrayal at House on the Hill" - A horror themed "board" game?

HOW CAN THIS BE CALLED A BOARD GAME
when there's not even a board?

what. The concept of building a board with tiles was absolutely mind blowing to me. All my life, "The Board" was the defining characteristic of board games - an immutable world in which your character lives, navigates, eats, and poops. As a long time video gamer, Monopoly and other linear board games felt like the original NES Mario Brothers, a limited one dimensional world where you can go up, down, and forward.

You could imagine how confused I was when I started playing Betrayal. It was Super Mario 64, where we the players could move in any direction we wanted to. We were taken off the rails of the roller coaster, free to fly around. It was a completely open world for these random-ass explorers to chill in a giant, obviously haunted mansion (Why would a small Japanese child be hanging out with old priests and a professor? .... probably best not to answer that.)

Oh, also, it was Mario 64 where the land was different EVERY TIME you booted up the game. Fuckin neat-o.


The concept of a randomly-generated board game was so unique to me. One of my favorite genres of video games is the infamous roguelike (with Rogue Legacy and Crypt of the Necrodancer being two of my absolute favorites.) These games, with their brutal, uncompromising gameplay, do not encourage grinding for levels - they encourage getting better. The kicker: When you die (and you will die), the next playthrough will be a new procedurally generated dungeon. Sure, a handful of elements remain constant everytime you play. But the two most important elements of a game, the win condition (exit of the level) and loss condition (layout of the baddies) are both random.

And lets talk about the second half of the game. Some rooms of the mansion contain an Omen. The player revealing the omen room performs a haunt roll, and for each omen room on the table, the difficulty of the "Haunt roll" increases. When a character fails a haunt roll, someone is declared the betrayer via an arbitrary decision described in the rule book. Then, a random horror themed scenario takes place: A giant two headed worm trying to take over the house, a horde of cannibals running around being assholes, your friends eating all your girl scout cookies when you thought you had a whole nother box but you don't, etc.

Except for these, these suck, you can have them all.

Apparently, this is a board game concept called Tile Laying. The randomness introduced by playing tiles from a stack adds tremendous replay value, but also the possibility for shitty, unplayable situations. There's tons of room for random events to happen - you could, theoretically, fail the haunt roll on the first omen room. Basically, you get lured into a giant haunted house to get mauled by a werewolf immediately after entering the front fuckin door. On the other hand, the random tile placement could lead to unplayable situations. A hideous powerful spider queen trapped in the godforsaken basement with no way back up? GODDAMN TERRIFYING in real life, but boring in real game.

What things would we steal from this game??

Games need to be a combination of strategic skill and random luck. Dice rolls or card drawing add the replayability to keep a game fresh long after you tear off that obnoxious plastic wrap, but excessive random elements negate skill. The challenge we have to address is to develop a way to toe the line between a luck based game and a skill based game. This is where inordinate amounts of playtesting is going to pay off. However, a well designed amount of random elements will give losing players a chance to catch up, and the possibility for winning players to lose. Most importantly, randomness emulates real life.