 So I saw people tweeting about this game like I people kept reading pictures of it I had heard about it I had seen the box and then I had seen a news that said it came out on iOS and Android I think Android Like just the other day. I'm think it's five bucks to get the digital version And then I sit down and packs out This is like the first game that hits the table and we played it two times. Yep, and that's enough to fully review it I have 100 percent understanding of the quality of this game All right, so you sit down and you see this game and you go holy shit your first impression if you're is this is the greatest game You've ever seen because it's got this little cardboard like potion machine that you construct and you dump a bag of Marbles in it and they come down like fucking bejeweled only it's in the real world and not a video game Yep, and you like take marbles out and then marbles fall down and you make combos It's like whoa, this is like crazy like that in its own is like the funnest coolest thing It's like better than fucking mousetrap like holy shit This is amazing despite the utter simplicity of the the rest of the game around it That conceit was enough to where I actually had fun playing this game Whereas if it had a less clever conceit I would have quit in the middle of the game and said eh right like you see this mechanism And you're like this gonna be good. Let's do this and then you play okay You play the game and it's sort of a man average game So here's my first observation about the game is that if you because usually someone's gonna teach you the rules, right? What I found is that most people who have played this game because I talked to a bunch of people at PAX who have played the game because Just because they played it before Nobody had the timing questions that we had nobody gave a shit like all the questions because it's such a simple game It's like a family game right that you would you wouldn't even think to ask these kinds of questions such a basic game But we asked those questions and then when we grabbed the rule book They didn't answer it in the rule book nor did they answer it on board game geek So no one on board game geek even asked the questions we were asking so some of the questions we asked I did discover we're answered in the rule book but in obtuse ways, but they were consistent But some of them I don't think we're answered in a consistent way that would satisfy me and you might say but it's a simple game It must not matter it actually would matter a lot it matter a lot because The bejeweled part that like make a combo is 100% of the game like if you are smart and capable of seeing the best possible combo on the turn That's it. That's it That's the only the only skill-based thing in the game is looking at that pile of marbles in the machine and Figuring out the most optimal way to get the most marbles to come out of it in one turn like already like When you put the marbles back on the thing in the middle of your turn Matters a lot and the rules are vague and they say like you can't like you have to do it randomly And you can't direct them, but I could legit like do better at the game by pay holding my marbles in a certain way And dropping them so that the black ones fall into the channel. I just opened Continue my combo. They really need to change the mechanism such that I think it needs a tower on top of the mechanism All it needs is on top of the mechanism instead of dumping the marbles into this flat surface or the bunch of holes at the end It should be in mark you ever use marble madness like a marble race Oh, yeah There was the one piece that was basically a funnel and the marbles would enter into and spin and needs that and then it Would go into the hole in the middle just put one of those on top to feed in that way you put the marbles They spin and spin and spin and they go down one at a time Completely out of any human control into the potion thing. Yep, but the game really just comes down to Like the rest of the rules are ultra ultra simplistic and it feels like the designers And I don't know there's three designers Castelli Crespi and Silva and they've they haven't done games. I particularly know about But I feel like they came up with this cool conceit and then design came with the simplest game that they could attach to it It is literally just you pull Mar you pull a marble off and Then are two marbles. I forget you pull one marble off And then any combos that get made with colors you also pull those off until you don't get any more combos So if there's blue red blue you would take the red marble which you now have now the two blue marbles Hit each other and two marbles of the same color handing each other makes them explode So you would take those two blue marbles and any other adjacent blue marbles vertically only and you take those and then if That results in two marbles of the same color smacking into each other in that empty space You just created you would take those and so on and the most you could take would be an entire vertical column If they just happen to luckily be arranged in such a great way that never happened But you can get a lot of marbles with good arrangements Then you take those marbles and in front of you you got two potions and the potions need Certain colors and certain numbers of marbles to complete so this one needs three red four black and a blue So you put the marbles on the potions to try to complete them And if you complete them you get them and then you take new ones each of the potions is a type that has an Effect they're like cards you can use once yeah, and basically you drink them to do stuff The action on your turn where you pull a marble is the only time you get combos So all the other options will let you take more marbles But movement of marbles will not generate further combos from right So for example is a potion that you can drink to take one marble But nothing explodes when you do that or take two marbles next to each other that are different colors Yeah, stuff like that reuse a potion take as many marbles as you want from the bottom horizontal row But no two of them can be the same color So basically that means get a red a blue a yellow and a black because there's only four marble colors Yeah, you're not gonna use that and see you're getting four out of it blow up all the marbles of one color in one row Mm-hmm, and then you also have a tiny pool of three you can basically keep three extra marbles around Yeah, in case you get like a ton of red and your potions don't need a bunch of red right now you could put three Marbles and store them in the side area like a sidebar and that way when you get a new potion Then you can move those into there, and you won't get you know You're not wasting the marbles so the potions are all worth varying victory points. Basically. They do this They do they all do things they're all equally powered but the more the potions that take more marbles are generally worth a lot more victory points and The game and is actually really weird and fiddly So basically the game ends there's these chivos achievements and the achievements are like get three potions of the same type or get One like five different kinds of potions Mm-hmm each time if you accomplish that you take one of these achievements is worth like four points Once all of the achievements are taken the game ends after everyone gets equal number of turns Mm-hmm, but that that doesn't feel super satisfying. Mm-hmm, and Really the way the game goes is you gotta make two fucking potions every round Are you lose right so that's the number one problem with this game is that you start catch up Yeah, you have two potions in front of you right and it's very snowball-y as soon as you finish potions You now have these powers that make it easier to finish more potions And then you when you finish those you get powers to help you finish more potions But you can never ever no matter what there's no way to finish more than two potions a turn every turn You start with two potions in front of you and the best you can do is to finish both of them You can also only finish one or fail and finish zero of them So the best you can do is two potions a turn no matter what if you don't do two potions a turn and someone else does How do you catch up to them if they because now not only would you have to basically hope that they fail and you succeed in order to Catch up, but they have more completed potions already available to them with powers That will make it easier for them to continue getting to a turn every turn So as soon as you fail to get two potions on a turn and someone else hasn't failed yet You may as well just quit because you can't beat them now and one of the potions is an attack And this is the one of the ambiguous ones where basically it lets you can steal someone else's pool You can steal their side marbles explain what the fuck it means by that it just says steal and we came up with like Four different ways that could go down Effectively different and says you can use a potion at any time on your turn even as soon as you finish it So I finish a potion right and then it's a stealing potion I use it and I steal marbles in someone's pool, but my pool is full am I allowed to do this? Do I have to put the stolen ones into my pool? Can I put them directly onto my other potion that isn't finished yet? Yep I've already done the part of my turn where I'm finishing a potion, right? Am I allowed to finish a potion then put more marbles in the other potion and then finish that one or do I have to put? You know is my turn to strictly take marbles put marbles finish potions Is it that sequence or not? I think and it's not entirely clear the game the potion stuff probably needs to be a little more Complex, but more importantly the game would be an interesting game of skill if It weren't a game where anyone who's smart can literally look at the board and Trivially calculate the best possible combo they could make here's how I think the game should I would have a timer You get 10 seconds to take your turn, right? Here's the first thing that I would do and if you out if you're holding marbles at the end of your turn when the Timer runs out they explode and you lose them here's Without the two experiments that I would do first if I wanted to make this game better Experiment number one is what you just said, right? You want to take exactly the right number of marbles like punished people for having unused marbles? Yep, right the second thing I would do though is fucking two potions a turn, right? There would be some potions just out there and on your turn to make them on your turn You try to you take as many marbles as you can right via comboing and then try to get Finish as many potions as you can over the available potions Here's how to make that better you if you have extra marbles you must put them into the pool potions But if you don't finish one of those potions they make it easier for the next guy at first Yeah, so now suddenly the biggest combo might not be the best right but the point is just a whole bunch of Available potions and on your turn you take as many marbles as you can and try to finish as many potions as you can Oh draft the potions like splendor you could do that to tears of increasing power Drafting the potions is good Also, there's then you have pads like if you're falling behind go for a bigger potion because you make the bigger potions have bigger powers too Right, you could basically make this a lot like splendor or machikara where instead of just take coins as your turn It's you know there's a little game for taking the coins and if you play that game well you can get more coins Yeah, right so that's the first thing I would do to make this game I think the timer is the most easy thing to do just like your turn is X seconds and like 30 is the most I give and just do what you can make your shit And you'd better not be holding any marbles when the timer hits zero Like because then it's not a stare at the board for a minute to figure out the perfect combo. It's uh, shit. What do I do? Uh, I need black up running out of time. Fuck it. Bam. Mm-hmm. That could be a much better game There's a lot of things you could do to make this game better The game is like but the mar the marble part is really cool And you get that when you if you buy the game you have the one time fun of putting together the marble machine Yeah, which is a little fun project But take it 10 minutes like it's a it you know what if you have kids like if you're a family or like great kids Like this is like this is a like a plus game super great kids game compared to like candy land garbage This is like holy shit. So good. Yeah a kid who plays this is gonna be way better at like but you'll type elementary Even middle school. This is like a plus game like holy crap But for adults is like a suit are smart about games it is It is cork. I see this pattern a lot. It is a But for adults like if you're like uh, you know If you're not super hard into games if you just sort of you know regular into games And you have like kids and you gotta play with them Yep, you know, then you would be great for you also compared to candy land for you But it's just it's this almost design pattern of Really solid core conceit everything else is lazy ship it. Yep And this just this fits that perfectly, but I've enjoyed it. I never need to play it again The expansion adds nothing the expansion I can see potion explosion the fifth ingredient Is just a fifth ingredient and apparently it's just a wild card You can just go buy a sack of marbles of a fifth color like buy some white marbles and there you go There's probably new potions and I assume there's got to be some potions that require the wild card. Sure, but uh, yeah Whatever it's okay game That's all I got to say you could buy worse. Yep This has been geek nights with rim and scott special thanks to dj pretzel for the opening music cat lee for web design And brand okay for the logos be sure to visit our website at front row crew dot com for show notes discussion news and more Remember geek nights is not one but four different shows sci-tech mondays gaming tuesdays anime comic wednesdays and indiscriminate thursdays Geek nights is distributed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 license Geek nights is recorded live with no studio and no audience, but unlike those other late shows. It's actually recorded at night