Potion Explosion

Don't lose your marbles

If juggling little balls to create impressive effects is your bag, then this may be the game for you. This is definitely a family game that will appeal to children and the young at heart alike.

Potion Explosion has table presence. The marble dispenser not only looks good, but sounds good too when the balls explode off each other. Just be careful, marbles have the habit of going everywhere: onto the floor, under the furniture and usually into the hardest to reach places.

Potion flasks

Box art

Potion flask for 8 points

Components

Potion Explosion includes marbles in a range of colours representing potion ingredients, a sturdy cardboard potion dispenser and potion vial tiles. There are eight kinds of potion tiles in total and they have holes to host marbles of the required colours. In addition, the box includes 15 skill tokens; these are worth 4 points each and also help indicate the end of the game. The final component are the ‘little help’ tokens. These allow a player to take an extra marble during a turn, but be careful: at the end of the game each token you have used loses you two points.

Ingredients dispenser

Workbench with ingredients added

Gameplay

At the start of the game, each player has two potion tiles to work with. On their turn, players choose a marble from the dispenser. Removing a marble causes other marbles to collide; or react with each other. If the marbles (ingredients) that react with other are the same colour, then the player may take all of them. Marbles are then placed either in a player’s workbench slots or directly onto the potion tiles in front of the player to mix them. Bear in mind that a player can never have ingredients in hand at the end of a turn, so taking handfuls of marbles is not always as useful as it may at first seem. Once a potion has been mixed, it is placed to one side and the player chooses a new one from the supply. A completed potion can then be used. Why else has the alchemist created it? Each of the eight potion types offers a different one-off bonus. Used wisely, these bonuses can change the course of a game.

Each potion requires a different number and combination of ingredients. The more complicated the potion the more points it is worth when completed. The challenge for the player is to decide whether to collect more ‘cheaper’ potions or fewer more complicated and hence more valuable ones. This choice adds tension to the game as players have to keep an eye on each other so as not to lose sight of their strategies. This is all the more important as a player’s strategy can hasten or delay the end of the game.

Skill tokens, 4 points at game end

Professor's help tokens, -2 points at game end

Typically, a game ends when all the skill tokens have been claimed. There are 4, 5 or 6 tokens in a game, depending on the player count: 2, 3 or 4, respectively. To claim a skill token, a player either has to complete three potions of the same type or five potions of different types. The game can also end if there are no potion tiles available in the common supply at the end of a player’s turn. However, I have never found myself in this situation.

Impressions

Potion Explosion is a fun, colourful, gateway game. It appeals to the senses: touch, sight and sound. A typical game lasts less than an hour, including set up and clearing away.

The components are reassuringly chunky and sit well in your hand. Who doesn’t like juggling marbles in their hand, listening to them clink and squeak as they rub up against each other? Once assembled, everything fits well in the box which is always a plus. The only small drawback is that if you pick up the dispenser when it is full of marbles, it does feel somewhat wobbly. But there should be no need to do this.

The rulebook is clearly laid out and full of humour and charm. The ingredient names including ogre mucus and fairy dandruff are sure to appeal to young and old players. The rules even explain how the ingredients were sourced. For example, to collect dragon smoke: poke its nose until it gets really, really angry. Collect the smoke with a flask. Run before he incinerates you.

For me, this game is a big thumbs up.