'Le Grand Alchemiste' by Tilsit Games.
Games night......19th September
Kendall has already arrived at Dicken's house, looking over some weighty finance matters concerning new games. After a couple of minutes they are to be found watching Leeds United struggling against some team from a Ukranian mining outpost - and making a poor fist of it at that.
Spiller arrives with Paul and Liz. The living room is suddenly very full and now Malcolm arrives. He is straight from work and looks a trifle over-dressed in blue shirt and tie. Dicken squeezes Paul into the far recesses behind the dining table and everyone else grabs the chair offering least line of resistance to the loo.
The conversation hasn't progressed from football. Kendall, Dicken and Spiller have donned anoraks and are fretting over Spiller's team. Is Solano a midfielder? What about Dyer? Kendall asserts (much to everyone's surprise and Kendall's own amazement) that he costs £4.4 million. Is the Cisse in Spiller's team the Manchester City captain or a renegade midfielder? Has Spiller managed to con Kendall with a 3-4-3 formation? Dicken reaches for the Telegraph and confirms Dyer is worth £4.4 million (!!) and is a midfielder, as is Solano. Cisse turns out to be a Birmingham defender. Has Spiller been drinking already?
Paul, Liz and Malcolm have been very patient. Attention turns to tonight's game - 'Le Grand Alchemiste' produced by Tilsit games - it seems to be an in-house design. This was a Christmas present from Kendall to Dicken. It arrived without a translation of the rules (subsequently supplied) and has been played once before. It gets the nod tonight on the basis that it's a six player game, playable in 90 minutes (according to Tilsit). Dicken explains the rules. Dicken is called to say 'Goodnight' to his daughter. Kendall explains the rules again.
The board looks very nice, being a map of Western Europe, scattered with principle towns and cities of the 15th Century (or there-abouts). Each player has three markers, made of wood (and a spare). One of these has an X on the bottom (good for a few risqué jokes), this being the Alchemiste. The rest are his Assistants (also good for jokes). There is a single black marker (made of wood) which is the 'Grand Inquisitor'. There are plenty of cards, some being 'Knowledge cards' taken when arriving at their respective 'Cities of Knowledge', some being the city where a players' 'Secret Laboratory' is based and the rest being Event cards. A board and counters are used to record where searches have been made for Secret Laboratories. There are three dice.
There aren't too many reviews of this game around, so details as of above are perhaps in order here. Hold your breath and read on to discover something of the mechanics.
The game is a kind of touring around collecting affair, with a bit of skull-duggery thrown in, together with a Cluedo-like search for Secret Laboratories. Movement is by dice-roll, one dice per marker. Throw a '1' and you can't move. Events can be used to help movement, hinder other people, swap things etc. There are only six types of Event (a rare blessing). You may as well use all (3) of your Events each turn as they are re-stocked at the start of your next turn. Opportunity for pinching assistants and swapping cards are the essential inter-active bits in most turns. Once every turn one player gets to move the Grand Inquisitor, affording more opportunities for banging up a player's Alchemiste or searching for the Secret Labs.
Phew! Spiller tells a joke. 'A hydrogen atom comes into a bar and says, "I've lost one of my electrons". The bar man looks quizzical, "Are you sure?" "Yes. I'm positive" (Bum! Bum!)'. Not sure of the physics of this.
Spiller starts. Dicken explains some rules again. Spiller collects a couple of Knowledge cards. He needs all six before he can hope to do an experiment.
Liz has her turn, two cards. Kendall has his turn, collects one card, tries to cross a sea, throws a '1' and loses said card.
Dicken 'Was that the Skagerak?'
Kendall 'No, it's the Heligoland Bite'
- cue for a joke, song, dance routine.
Paul has his turn. "Right, I'm going to get Steve!" Business as usual, then.
Malcolm has his go. Dicken has his go and decides to look for Kendall's laboratory. "Is it in Bordeaux?", "Yes it is". Kendall forfeits some more cards.
This is a complete fluke. Dicken loves it. Kendall reads the rules and discovers Dicken needed to be in Bordeaux to search there. Kendall gets his cards back and everyone has to draw a new Laboratory card.
Paul and Liz have kindly brought along some Doritto look-alikes. They're pretty good, but ought to be eaten before spicy Pringles as the taste is just a little like horse-saddle.
The game moves on. Spiller fumbles around with the Grand Inquisitor, Liz collects more cards. Kendall falls into more seas. Paul apologises profusely and squeezes out to the loo. It's not going too well.
You can enjoy 'Le Grand Alchemiste' at this first stage of the game. It looks nice, it's got some feel and the mechanics do throw up some decision-making. It is rather slow with six, but then it's not been played that often. But then again, is there enough in it to get it played on subsequent occasions?
Liz has collected her six Knowledge cards and is about to do her Experiment - turning base metal into gold, of course!
"Any of those Doritto look-alikes left?" inquires Liz. "Yes, quite a lot. But they are very small ones". Liz shakes out some Doritto-dust.
This is where the theme goes into over-drive and where players start saying, "Shall we finish now?" Liz looks at her Knowledge cards and discovers she has two types of symbol featured between the six. This gives her chance to turn over two Experiment chits (or some such name). Had she had just one type of symbol she could have turned over three chits - hence the motivation to swap cards earlier in the game. Liz's two chits yield 2 and 1 ingot of gold (values range from 3 to 0, the '0' being a little explosion - cute) and Liz translates the Experiment chits into Ingots. She needs 5 Ingots to win. All her Knowledge cards are forfeit and she will need to collect another six cards before getting back in the Lab.
It's now well over an hour since starting the game. Kendall has amassed four cards, Spiller has two. Malcolm and Dicken have yet to play their fourth turns. Liz is tall poppy, meaning it will probably be next week before the game ends. The word 'Talisman' starts to get bandied around, but everyone agrees that was an altogether better game.
Everyone looks tired. The game is abandoned.
If you ever get to play 'Le Grand Alchemiste' consider this suggestion:
Draw Experiment chits equal in number to the strongest 'suit' of symbols on your six Knowledge cards. Forfeit those cards only. Get back in the Lab when your hand is once again filled to six cards.
The winning score might need adjusting, but don't make it too high - it's still not that good a game
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