Potion Explosion
It’s time for the final exams of the Potions class at the Horribilorum Sorcery Academy for Witty Witches and Wizards! The rules are always the same: take an Ingredient marble from the Dispenser and watch the others fall. If you connect marbles of the same color, they explode… and you can take them too! Complete your Potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year Award, being quick won’t be enough: you’ll also need to brew the most valuable Potions!
In Potion Explosion players attempt to create potions by pulling colored marbles from a dispenser and matching them with the needed ingredients for the potions on the table in front of them. While basic turns are simple, clever players will strategically pull colored marbles that both fulfill a needed ingredient and cause matching colored marbles to stack up in a single column, allowing them to collect all the like colored marbles and save them for later turns. Potion Explosion’s simple rules make it easy enough for the whole family to learn, but offers enough depth to keep puzzle game fans coming back for more.
User Reviews (2)
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I love many of the Cool Mini or Not published games…most of mine having the minis. This was the first I picked up from them in the “Or Not” category, which has been growing to the point that they are sort of re-branding themselves as CMON for Board Games that don’t have the minis (I think). Since this acquisition, I have also picked up Looterz. How’s Potion Explosion you ask?
Well, it’s a very fun light family (and gamer), game. If you have played video games like Bejeweled, or Columns, you will understand how the main mechanic works as you pull colored marbles representing your ingredients out of the charming dispenser that you also get to build (just the 1st time as the box was properly designed to hold it after being built). Explosions occur when two ingredients that match roll together after pulling your ingredient from the tray. This can lead to successive explosions and lots of ingredients to build with.
There are a number of interesting potions that can be created, and then consumed when you wish to use them for their special abilities (such as stealing another player’s ingredients from their flask to use yourself). However, make sure when you drink them, you employ an interesting vocal sound or phrase to accompany said quaffing of the potion for that much more fun. Such as shouting, “Down the Hatch!”, or the equally enjoyable, “glug, glug, glug…”…as you then laugh at someone’s inane “slurping” noise as they drink their Potion of Magnetical Attraction.
Earn points from completing those potions, and bonus points from getting three of a kind, or 5 unique potions. Once all the bonus tiles have been doled out by the professor, the highest total wins.
Overall – a very fun game for the entire family, and a great filler game for your more avid gaming groups as it doesn’t take a long time to play, unless you have some AP (Analysis Paralysis) players in your midst, as they carefully consider all possible ingredient pulls, which at 4 players can cause a bit of drag…but if you nicely encourage them to try to plan their moves as they can leading up to their turn, they may still have the ability to go more quickly than expected. That is until the player before them takes the ingredients they were planning on taking for themselves…
Now, excuse me, as I need to get a few more samples of Ogre Mucous, while he’s still snoring away over there…shhhhhh…
I bought the game because it has interesting visual presentation. Yes, all of you would agree with me looking at the game essential component, the marbles and the dispenser. When anyone looking at some players playing it, the first thing that they will see is the huge dispenser thing in the center of the table with marbles on it, yes colorful marbles.
The game is simple, on your turn you pick one marble from one of the slide and it will cause chain reaction(s) which makes the marbles explode (yes they explode because of the same color marbles collide with each other. You also take the exploded marbles. You then will assign those marbles to potion tiles you have matching the colors or if no slot available, place the rest to the pool (up to 3 marbles can be placed here). Once a potion is complete (all the slots are filled with marbles) the potion is finish and you can flip the tile and move it from your brewing area. This potion gives you two things, game points and also the potion effect (if you drink it). There are 8 kind of potions (but only 6 will be used in a game) and each has different effect.
If you managed to collect a set of 3 potions of a kind or 5 different potions, you will get a skill token (worth 4 points). The game ends if the countdown stack runs out (the amount is different based on number of players) or the available potions on the supply is runs out. The funny thing about this is, even if you drink the potion for it’s effect the points are still counted toward your points. So no reason to not get drunk with potions.
It’s a fun light game, all you have to do is pick one marble and see how other marbles explode and get those potion effect combos doing your work. This game is pretty much attract any non-gamer or casual gamer.
I found it quite amusing, the marbles and seeing them roll over on the dispenser, its quite nostalgic by the way.
Unfortunately I found the setup to be a pain in the ***. Before playing you need to sort out the potions first, to determine which potions you take out from the game, and then you need to sort the starting potions to be chosen by players and then shuffle the rest to create 5 different piles. It’s fiddly and takes quite a while.
I also found that the dispenser suffers a lot with the surface of the table. It needs to be played in a very flat surface (I mean not only the table) to be really really works. Because if not, the distribution of the marbles when you return them into the dispenser will favor to one side.
In overall, it’s a fun little game with great looking components. Love to have in my collection.